Gastronomic goodness

Things are going well here in healthy land!  Bill and I are still sticking to our pledge to eating and living a more healthy lifestyle. I know I had said in my last blog post that I would share a few recipes and I keep my promises, so here are a few.  I might just stick one at the end on every update since putting a bunch together seems like a lot of reading.  And then I feel guilty about saying anything since the recipes and picture make this blog post look a mile long. 

The big thing I learned this week is people think cottage cheese is a healthy food- and it is in moderation, as you can see it is one of the ingredients in the pancakes. Did you ever read the label of cottage cheese? It had tons of sodium please be aware if you decide to have a dish of it ! tip*when I went to the grocery store different brands had more or less sodium content as much as 100mg. per serving, so check to see.....

These pancakes by the way are awesome...

No Flour No Sugar Pancakes

Ingredients
1/2 cup dry oatmeal [not instant]
1/2 cup fat free cottage cheese
4 egg whites
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1tsp. vanilla
1 packet of stevia  or 2 packets of sweetener of your choice.
Have a small amount of low fat or skim milk handy for thinning the batter if necessary.


You will also need
A blender to blend this mixture.
Pam spray for cooking.
Jam or Jelly that is sugar free to spread atop.


Directions
Blend all the dry ingredients together in one bowl, then blend all the wet ingredients in another. When this is done add them to your blender and blend. I've found that many factors like the oats you use, cottage cheese and the size of your eggs might determine the thickness of your pancake batter. I've always had to add a bit of milk to make it the consistency of real pancake mix.


Spray a twelve in pan with Pam and cook your pancakes three at a time. This recipe yields nine pancakes.  We like to top our pancakes with a tsp of sugar-free jam.

Here's a nice little carrot salad that's good to have with dinner. We just had this the other night with a grilled turkey burger and some fresh steamed green beans....yum!

CARROT SALAD

Ingredients
8 fresh carrots washed unpeeled {organic if you can}
1 tbsp of stevia
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
2 fresh lemons or the equivalent of 1/2 c. lemon juice

Directions
Grate carrots either with a box grater of with the Cuisinart grater, then add all the other ingredients toss and chill. This is a great little salad to add raisins, sun-flour or pumpkin seeds, chives, cranberry raisins. { I like to take my micro-plane grater and put the lemon peel in this salad for extra flavor }I like to serve this in a lettuce cup.

This is a fabulous quick little soup, its filled with healthy vegetables and easy to make. If you don't want to use chicken stock, use veggie stock. If you want a bit of meat add some chicken then again if you don't do meat, add some tofu! Then enjoy!

White Bean Soup with Greens

Ingredients
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 large onion chopped
1 c. tomatoes in bite sized pieces
1/2 c. celery
1/2 c. carrot
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
2 tsp. of Italian seasoning or 1 tbsp of fresh basil and oregano 
pepper to taste
28 oz. of chicken stock or veggie stock [low sodium]
2 cans of cannellini beans, rinsed
2 cups of greens of your choice, escarole, spinach,  beet greens arugula

Directions 
Heat oil in a large dutch oven or pot on medium heat. Add onion celery, carrot and garlic. Cook for a few minutes until softened then add tomatoes. Then add herbs and continue to stir until the onions look translucent. When that occurs, add stock and brink to a simmer  and cook for 20 minutes or until veggies are tender. At this point add the beans and greens  and cook for an additional 15 minutes. Add pepper to taste. 


This soup tastes yummy especially if you sprinkle it with  Parmesan, Romano or Asiago cheese... if that's your taste or you want to add this to an Italian meal.

I hope you try these recipes, if you do, let me know..