Trying to Be Healthy/Oriental Chicken & Cabbage Salad

I don't think I'm an unhealthy person. In fact, I'm not. I've always been fairly healthy. But I married a man who is always wanting to "try to be healthier" so I guess that's been on my mind lately. We even bought some pedometers a little while ago to see how much walking we did in  a day. Did you know that to be considered "active" you should be taking 10,000 steps a day? I only met this goal once in the few weeks we were tracking ourselves, and I was tired at the end of that day! Guess I'd better "step it up" huh? :)

Yes, it's clipped to my pajamas. At the end of  this day I only had 7587 steps...and that was pretty good for me!

Going healthy seems to be an emerging theme in the food world. On the Food Network now they always have the one person on the Next Food Network Star or similar competitions who is the "healthy food promoter" contestant. I don't think any of these people have won yet, but someday soon they probably will. Which is good! It certainly wouldn't hurt America to eat healthier and feel healthier.

Summer seems to be the easiest time for healthy living for me. Fresh produce helps out a lot. Good weather and excuses to exercise (going on hikes, picnics, parks, walks, bike rides, swimming, etc) present themselves more often than in the winter. Last night my husband persuaded me to go on a walk. He brought along his frisbee (one of his favorite things) and we passed it back and forth a bit. And it was just a little thing, and we only walked a mile, and we only walked, which isn't very fancy or hard core, but it made me feel the tiniest bit healthier. 

I looked back over my recipes about a month ago to judge how healthy my recipes have been. I'm going to try to do better to put up delicious AND healthy recipes in the future. 

I guess I'll start out kind of cliche and go with a salad. This salad has sugar in it, but other than that it's pretty healthy. Good enough for MY blog at least! I recently made this salad for the closing social my group of school counseling program friends had. It's easy and impressive. When my mom first started making it, everyone would ask her for the recipe and it became a tradition for her to bring it to all the family and church gatherings. I think it's time to bring it back!

I didn't remember to take a picture of my salad, but this is basically how it looks. Good, huh?

Oriental Chicken & Cabbage Salad

2 cups diced or shredded chicken 

4 cups shredded cabbage

1 package Raman Noodles (or 2 if you're feeling crunchy :) )

4 green onions

Optional: 1/2 cup slivered almonds or water chestnuts

Chop everything up and add to a bowl. If you're taking this dish to an event, don't add the dressing until just before you get there. You don't want the Ramon Noodles to get soggy or the cabbage to get wilted from the dressing.

Dressing:

2 T. sesame seeds

1/4 cup vinegar

1/4 cup salad oil

2 T. sugar

1/2 t. salt

Season packet from noodles

Whisk or shake or stir it all together and pour on the salad just before serving. The dressing is my favorite part!

See, it's easy!

Husband's Reaction: He doesn't remember, but I made a simpler version of this salad for him while we were dating. He didn't like it then. I think it was just cabbage, dressing, and noodles, so that's understandable. But when I made it a few weeks ago he told me it was really good. He especially liked the chicken, which is no surprise. . . my husband thinks adding chicken to most dishes is the best thing to do!

Lemon Chicken with Hollandaise Sauce

What can I say? It's a Monday. Finals are coming. And finding a job is not the funnest activity. End of story. But when life gives you lemons, what do you do? Make lemon chicken with hollandaise sauce, of course!!! 

Lemon Chicken with Hollandaise Sauce

No real recipe for this one.  Buy a hollandaise sauce mix at the grocery store and make it that way. . . sooo much easier than making it from scratch, and better too (in my mind).  Put a little lemon juice in the sauce to brighten it up.  Bake or grill some chicken, and pour the sauce on top. If you're on a fancy date or something, throw a lemon slice on top. Done! This idea was stolen from working at a wedding reception center for 7 years or so. We got to try the meals we served at wedding luncheons, and this one was always my favorite. 

Brushetta Appetizer

I've been sick all week with strep throat, and I'm bored out of my mind. So, I started looking through the many, many pictures of food I have not yet put up on this blog, and these are the ones that happened to catch my eye. 

I actually made these on Sunday for my husband, but these pictures are probably from the summertime, when we had fresh tomatoes in our garden. 

I don't even know where this recipe comes from. (I mean, orignially, Italy probably? but I don't know exactly how it got to me). My mom made them for us a few times when I lived at home, and I think she told me how. No matter how these tasty little bites came to be in my recipe repertoire, my husband and I LOVE them, and I wanted to share.

First thing you need to do is get some kind of little bread slices to put your toppings on. We have always been able to find day old bread that is already sliced up at our neighborhood Smiths store. You could also buy a baguette or other similar-shaped bread, or make your own if you're feeling tricky! The most important things are to use appetizer-sized pieces and bread that isn't too soft; you want it a little crunchy.

Next, dice up some tomatoes, shred some mozzarella cheese, and find your Italian Seasoning or dried Basil in the spice cupboard (either or both will do).

Brush your bread with a little olive oil and lay them on a metal baking sheet, layer the tomato dices and then cheese on top, and sprinkle with Italian Seasoning or Basil. Broil in the oven for about 5 minutes, or until the cheese starts to brown.

Voila! Now you're ready to impress all your friends with your Italian appetizers.

Husband's Reaction: He tasted something like this at a wedding reception we went to once, and I thought, "Hey, I can make that!" So I did. And now he will love me forever! He seriously could probably eat these every day, but I like to keep them special and only make them once in a while.

Midterms

Midterms are ruining my style in the kitchen. I do not have time to cook or do the dishes it requires (remember that we do NOT have a dishwasher). I'm relying on easy, fast meals this week. Tonight we had pasta! Tomorrow I'm thinking BLTs with carrot sticks! And the day after that (the day of my very hard, very big test) I think we will go for grilled cheese! (Maybe my husband will even make it for me in his special "grilled cheese maker" (see below for a picture).

I am not a huge fan of this handy machine, just because it seems to make the crust on my grilled cheese so hard. I like the old fashioned way of making them in a pan. But if my husband is willing to cook, I'm not complaining. And if I'm really lucky he'll make me his specialty: pizza sandwiches! (hint, add pizza sauce to a grilled cheese, use the little sandwich maker, and you're good to go)

Crock Pot Salsa Chicken from Erica

Salsa Chicken from Erica's blog, Messerly Moments.

This girl's blog is so much fun to keep up on. She posts way more than recipes, inspires me to try to keep up on my blog better, and seems to always be having a party of one kind or another. Her blog inspired me to try this Salsa Chicken recipe a while ago, and I finally got around to it yesterday. So easy and yummy. Try it.

3 frozen chicken breasts
1 can drained diced tomatoes, corn, and black beans
1/2 diced onion
any seasonings you like (I used salt, pepper, taco seasoning, crushed red pepper flakes, red pepper flakes, and chili powder)

Cook in crock pot on low for 8 hours, sprinkle cheese over top and serve with sour cream and tortilla chips!

Of course, I didn't follow the recipe exactly (do I ever?) and added some green onion and lots of spices. I served mine with rice and no sour cream (cuz we were out). I also used thawed chicken thighs and cooked mine on high for 3 hours and then low for one hour. It worked!

The next day I made a salad out of the leftover salsa mixture (the chicken was sadly all gone), rice, lettuce, and tortilla chip crumbs. It was a nice little lunch and a good way to use up the leftovers!

Husband's Reaction: He started dancing in his chair! How embarrassing, sweetie. :)

Valentine's Day Report

I have some pictures taken on Valentine's Day. They're not exciting enough to frame or display anywhere really, so I thought I'd use them here. So, here is a little casual photo report on a fun day of celebration that was desperately needed!

First of all....last Valentine's Day is a day not to be mentioned...we'll just say it didn't turn out so great. Probably my fault. I'll take the blame. But! Forget that, because this year was awesome! Danny was so sweet to listen to all my little wants and suggestions. He doesn't have much time, but he made sure to make the day special for me (we celebrated on Saturday, because our Tuesdays are jam packed). So, we went at  night after slaving away all day on homework.

He opened the car door for me and these two things were sitting on my seat:

 Look at how smug he is for being sneaky.

 We went to dinner here:

 Good dinner...we ate just the right amount....but we didn't leave a tip...we forgot that was going to be an issue. Oops. Sorry waitress lady who only cleared our plates! I don't know if you deserved a tip anyway! (Danny says she did).

 Then we went ice skating, which was fun for me and painful for Danny. :)
And when we got back to the car, he reached behind my seat and pulled out this!

 Yep, he is DOUBLE sneaky!

 The valentine said something and then he wrote "if I could buy you a dress it would look like this"---cuz I always tell him to buy me clothes. I'm cool like that.

We got matching bracelets from the ice skating place. Cute!

And we ended the night with a double feature of these two movies....kind of lame, but we had fun.

 The END!!

Valentine's Sugar Cookies

Here they are! The cookies I promised. This recipe came from a blog called All Things Thrifty. A lot of people I know have been making sugar cookies this Valentine's Day. I guess those soft, heart-shaped, frosting-covered cookies are a good way to say "I love you," even if only to yourself. :)

Remember how I said something like, "stay tuned to check out how creative I can be with no cookie cutters or sprinkles?" You will see two little heart cookies in these pictures. I made those with a drinking glass to cut out a circle and then I used a butterknife to make a heart. I lost interest after making two. So my husband got round cookies, no sprinkles, conversation hearts, and overly pink frosting. He's so lucky!

Ingredients:
3 sticks of salted butter softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
5 cups of all purpose flour


Directions:

*Cream the softened butter and sugar together until it is nice, smooth, and fluffy.

*Next, add the eggs one at a time to the butter mixture.

*Add the vanilla. 

*Gradually add the flour and baking powder. Make sure that all the flour is mixed into the dough.

*Chill dough for 1-2 hours to stiffen up the dough. (very important step)

*When your dough has been chilled for the alloted time, preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

*On a clean counter top, generously sprinkle powdered sugar (yep...not flour) onto the counter and begin rolling the dough with a rolling pin. Make sure to add some powdered sugar to your rolling pin and to the top of the dough to prevent it from sticking. (Keep adding a little powdered sugar as needed throughout this process).


*Use cookie cutters to cut out your desired shapes and set them on an ungreased cookie sheet (mine stuck, so I greased it on later batches). Make sure there is at least 1 inch or so in between each cookie.

*Bake at 400 degrees for 6-8 minutes depending on the size of your cookies. They won't look done, but they are. Do not overcook.

My thoughts: This recipe calls for the cookies to be rolled out in powdered sugar. I tried it both ways: powdered sugar and flour. I don't think it really matters. Flour helps the dough to not stick so badly, and you could skip the chilling step more easily if you use flour. The sugar makes the cookies sweeter, but if you are adding frosting on top they are overly-sweet anyway. I say just use flour, especially if little children are involved...that sugar is sticky!

Husband's Reaction:

He is tired and doing homework. His reaction was to keep asking when the cookies would be done and then to eat one in 3 bites. The heart on his cookie said, "my boy." <3