Category Archives: Healthy Eating

Recipe Swap Friday–Confetti Kale

Posted on by Erin

Thanks for joining us for Recipe Swap Friday! I hope you’re enjoying all these veggie recipes as much as I am. Thanks to all of you who are linking up and sharing your yummy dishes o’ veg.

If this is your first time joining us, we’re swapping veggie recipes to kick off the new year. You can link up to your favorite veggie recipe below, either on your blog or in your Plan to Eat account. If linking up to your Plan to Eat account, just cut and paste the url from the recipe in your recipe book.

Here’s what I brought this week:

This was a great substitute for plain old salad, especially in the middle of winter. And it was super-easy to make.

The folks around our dinner table were just about split on their preference of it–half liked it, half did not. The Pickle spent 15 minutes separating out the peppers and corn (which he liked) from the kale (which he did not like) and then eating them independently. If you’re not a fan of kale then you could substitute a less bitter green. Try spinach, collards, or chard.

A note on the cooking time, I didn’t cook this nearly as long as the instructions say to. Feel free to adjust the cooking time to your preferences.

Plan to Eat users, click on the recipe title to import the recipe into your account.

Confetti Kale

Source: Simply in Season, Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert

Ingredients

  • 6 cups organic kale, chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 3⁄4 cup organic frozen corn, thawed
  • 1⁄2 cup organic red bell pepper, chopped
  • 1⁄4 cup water
  • 1⁄2 tsp salt
  • 1⁄4 tsp pepper

Method

  1. In a large frying pan, saute kale and garlic in 2 Tbs of olive oil over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 10 minutes.
  2. Mix in remaining ingredients and cook for 10 minutes. Serve immediately.


Share Your Yummy Veggie Recipe

Rules for Sharing:

This is a sharing post. So…please share.

The rules for sharing are simple: If you take a taste (link from this post to your blog) you should share a taste (link from your blog back to this post).

If you’re linking to a recipe in your Plan to Eat account, you don’t need to bother with “sharing a taste”. Just copy and paste the web address for your recipe from your Plan to Eat account.

How to Get Your Dish Onto the Goodie Table:

I really want this to be easy and accessible to everyone, so leave me a comment if you have trouble. I’ll do my best to help you out. It’s a little bit harder than just setting a bowl of veg on the table, but I promise it’s pretty easy. Just click on the link below that says “Click to view/add link” and follow the directions from there.

Recipe Swap Friday–Roasted Squash with Lemon and Nutmeg

Posted on by Erin

We here at the Plan to Eat blog had so much fun with our Christmas Cookie Exchange that we’ve decided to keep the party going. Every Friday will be another opportunity to share a link to recipes from your own blog or Plan to Eat recipe book. We’re calling it Recipe Swap Friday and our theme will change periodically, depending on my whim and your suggestions (so if you have suggestions, let us know!)

The goal? More yummy recipes for everyone!

You don’t have to have a blog to share a recipe. You can link to a recipe in your Plan to Eat recipe book by cutting and pasting the url from the recipe page. Don’t be intimidated. It’s so easy, I promise. Leave me questions in the comments section if you have any problems and I’ll talk you through.

Shall we get started?

I’m guessing that lots of you have made New Year’s Resolutions regarding what you eat and/or what you serve to your loved ones at the dinner table. I spent some time trying to define what it meant to eat healthy, and then I gave up. It’s so individual. For example, I need lots of good fat in my diet, because my chronic illness makes it hard for me to keep weight on. But seriously, how many of you made a New Year’s resolution to gain weight?? And the typical things that are considered “healthy” like whole grains and raw fruits and veggies are truly not good for me.

After much thought, I think I arrived at a healthy eating resolution that pretty much everyone would be able to agree on: more veg.

So I’m declaring our current theme for Recipe Swap Friday to be…..veggie recipes.

I tried out this squash recipe on my family last week and it was a big hit with even the pickiest eater at our table (who shall remain anonymous). The original recipe called for acorn squash. I used kabocha squash because I had one left from a friend’s fall garden. You could use just about any winter squash variety you have available.

I also swapped out the butter for coconut oil to make it dairy-free. If you don’t have diet restrictions, just change it back to butter.

Plan to Eat users, click on the recipe title to import the recipe into your account.

Roasted Squash with Lemon and Nutmeg

Source: Everyday Food magazine (adapted)

Ingredients

  • 1 winter squash, seeded and cut into 1-2″ wedges
  • 2 Tbs coconut oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 tsp lemon zest
  • 1⁄2 tsp ground nutmeg

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 425.
  2. Arrange squash wedges on a rimmed baking sheet in a single layer. Dot with coconut oil (or butter).
  3. Roast until squash is tender and golden, about 30 minutes, flipping squash every 10 minutes or so. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with lemon zest and nutmeg. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Share Your Yummy Veggie Recipe

Rules for Sharing:

This is a sharing post. So…please share.

The rules for sharing are simple: If you take a taste (link from this post to your blog) you should share a taste (link from your blog back to this post).

If you’re linking to a recipe in your Plan to Eat account, you don’t need to bother with “sharing a taste”. Just copy and paste the web address for your recipe from your Plan to Eat account.

How to Get Your Dish Onto the Goodie Table:

I really want this to be easy and accessible to everyone, so leave me a comment if you have trouble. I’ll do my best to help you out. It’s a little bit harder than just setting a bowl of veg on the table, but I promise it’s pretty easy. Just click on the link below that says “Click to view/add link” and follow the directions from there.

Healthy Snacks for the Road

Posted on by Amy @ Progressive Pioneer

Over the holidays we did a lot of traveling and I found myself worrying about my kids surviving on party food alone.  To minimize the effects of days on end of parties and treats, I tried to make sure we had plenty of healthy snacks that we could grab and take with us.  At least if we were eating on the road, I could make sure it was healthy.  Here are some snacks that I found my kids loved and I felt good about giving them.  I’d love to hear what your tried-and-true healthy snacks are!

Soaked nuts (We soak these overnight to start the sprouting process and up the nutrient content.  Then we drain them and let them dry.  They’re also tastier this way, I think, and easier for little teeth to chomp on.)

Seaweed (Full of great micronutrients!)

Honey sticks (These are more of a treat, so I only get them out occasionally or when I really need my kids on their best behavior:)

Unsweetened (or at least non-sugar) cereal (We don’t eat cereal, but every once in awhile it makes a great snack.  Our kids aren’t used to sugary cereal, so even puffed wheat or unsweetened Cheerios seem exciting to them!)

Spirulina chips (my three year old loves these and they’re super healthy!)

Freeze-fried fruits and veggies (These are awesome because the kids are nuts about them and I don’t have to worry about mess.  We went to a choir performance at a local cathedral for Christmas and I kept a little baggie in my purse and administered them throughout the performance.  The kids were angelic!)

Dried fruit and non-messy fresh fruit

Nut butter packets


Drinkable snacks (in spill-proof containers!!): homemade yogurt, green smoothies, pureed soup, almond milk smoothies, etc.

Especially with young kids, who can be so unreliable about what and when they eat, I find that if I know their snacks are nutrient dense and healthy, I worry less if we’re not sitting down to the table for three square meals.  What are your favorite healthy snacks?

My Must-Have Road Food For Staying Well

Posted on by Shannon @ Nourishing Days

One of the most difficult times to try to plan meals and keep healthy eating on track is when you are traveling. In the case of our family, we are currently moving across country and stopping to visit a few family members along the way. It isn’t exactly conducive to our usual rhythms in the kitchen and at the table.

Fortunately, we were able to pack a bit of food for the road. I don’t really plan full meals around this food, but rather use it to keep us afloat. Sometimes entire meals result from these specifically chosen foods, but more often than not they supplement some less than stellar quick grab food.

For this reason I think of them as supplements and completely necessary. So in my road food cooler you will find foods full of protein, healthy fats, enzymes and probiotics – things not usually found when you eat out at randomly chosen places.

My road foods of choice include:

Kombucha. Buy it from the health food store or make a large batch yourself before your trip using a starter culture.

Raw Cheese & Cultured Dairy. Finding good milk on the road is hard enough without trying to make something from it. These two items provide all of the protein, fat, enzymes, and probiotics in one tasty food.

Fresh Fruit. Berries and apples are our fruits of choice to keep sugar in check. Spread with nut butter or added to some good yogurt, these make excellent additions to meals and snacks.

Minimally Processed Meats. Trying to find pre-cooked lunch meats that aren’t really full of salt, preservatives, and other weird stuff is a bit of a budget challenge, but worth the money for the good quality protein.

Probiotics. These are my go-to supplement for an everyday boost or in cases of illness. As I type my son and I are on the final mend from some sort of food poisoning or stomach bug. I credit probiotics with a much, much shorter bout of illness than I would have expected.

So those are my must-have foods for the road.

What do you pack to eat and stay well on the road?

Healthy Snacks for the Whole Family

Posted on by Mandi @ Life...Your Way

summertime snackPhoto by Ava Lowery

I don’t know about you, but as summer wears on, I’m finding us stuck in a summertime snack rut. I’ll admit that I like easy snacks, but I’ve been looking for healthier alternatives, since most of what you’ll find on the grocery store shelves either has high fructose corn syrup or artificial food dyes, and the organic varieties that are available tend to be so expensive.

So to make it easier for us to make our grocery list and prepare things ahead of time, I’ve made a cheat sheet for myself with snack ideas, divided by effort and preparation required:

Easy Peasy

  • Grapes or frozen grapes, known as popsicle grapes here
  • Whole apples
  • Apples or bananas with peanut butter or sunflower nut butter
  • Cheese and crackers
  • Fruit salad in an ice cream cone
  • Pretzels with peanut butter or cheese
    *you can build lots of fun shapes with cheese cubes and pretzel cubes!

Make Ahead

What are your favorite summertime snacks?