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!

Healthy Homemade Cornbread

Healthy Cornbread from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/excellent-and-healthy-cornbread/detail.aspx

Ingredients

• 1 cup unbleached flour
• 1 cup cornmeal (If you are going to make homemade cornbread, you have to buy this. I had been planning on making some of this stuff for a while, so I bought it. BONUS: You can put it on the bottom of pizza to make it like the real kind. HA! ---sorry, it's late)
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup plain nonfat yogurt (Yeah, who has this in their fridge? I sure didn't. I substituted sour cream. Worked out perfectly!)
• 2 eggs, beaten

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease an 8x8 inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour, cornmeal, sugar, soda and salt. Stir in yogurt and eggs. Do not over mix, stir only until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until center of the bread springs back when gently pressed.

This was a really good recipe. I could tell it was a little healthier than normal cornbread (less sugar), but it tasted good anyway. . . of course, I drenched mine in butter and honey because I have no will power, but that's just me. 


My husband really liked it. I could tell because he kept eating it every time I brought it out as a side dish for chili, soups, and pasta. We made so much I was afraid we would never finish it, but he kept on eating it every time. Usually when I bring out leftovers he ignores them if he has the chance. 


So, ladies and gentlemen, this one's a keeper.

Husband Approved!

Oven Roasted Asparagus

Roasted Asparagus

Ingredients:
Asparagus
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Wash and thoroughly dry as many asparagus spears as you would like. Cut two inches off the woody end.

Arrange the asparagus on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Put baking sheeting to a 400-425 degree oven for 5 minutes.

Serve with your favorite meal. Enjoy!

P.S. Thanks, Mom, for telling me what to do over the phone. :)

Husband's Reaction: "This is just like a treat to me! When it's cooked this way." So, we had some the next day too.

Easy White Rolls (From High School Foods Class)

Roll Recipe (From High School Foods Class)

1 Tb yeast

4 Tb sugar (use 1 Tb in one bowl and 3 in another)

¼ cup warm water

½ cup butter

4 cups flour (+ extra to roll out dough) I usually end up adding another cup or so...add enough so it's doesn't stick to your fingers and is easy to roll out. If making with a mixer, add flour until the mixer cleans the side of the bowl.

1 tsp salt

3 eggs

1 cup warm milk

Use four different bowls to prepare ingredients.

In Bowl #1-Add 1 Tb yeast + 1 Tb sugar + ¼ cup warm water (proofing).

Bowl #2-Cut ½ cup butter into 4 cups flour (do in biggest bowl).
      *TIP: "Cutting in" is a technique used to put tiny chunks of butter or other fat       into dry ingredients. This works best when the butter is at room temperature. A       pastry cutter is my favorite way to do this, but two butter knives can be used if         you don't have one. Simply cut across the butter, running the knives against each     other like you are sharpening them. You are trying to cut the butter into tiny             pieces to create pockets of air and make your rolls fluffy. The end result should        be a corn-mealy texture with no big pieces of butter left in the bowl.

Bowl #3-Add 1 tsp salt to 3 well-beaten eggs.

Bowl #4-Add 3 Tb sugar to 1 cup warm milk

Combine wet w/ dry ingredients. Here is where you add the extra flour (usually about a cup or more...don't worry if it seems like you're adding a lot!), to make the dough not stick to your fingers and easy to roll out.

Cover.

Let rise 1-6 hours (I ALWAYS get impatient and let it rise like 15 minutes...but DON'T WORRY! It works out with this recipe.) The more you let it rise, the lighter and less dense your rolls will be. I don't let mine rise much, and they are denser than some other rolls, but still good. 

Shape. My favorite way to shape these rolls is into crescents, like so:

1-Roll HALF of your dough into a large circle. You can use the other half to make another batch of rolls, some breadsticks, cinnamon rolls, or you may save the dough for a few days in the fridge, wrapped in plastic, and make scones or some other good thing later.

2-Use a pizza cutter to make 12 wedges. Try to keep the wedges as even as possible...I'm really bad at that. The best way to do this is to cut the circle in four sections. Then divide each of those sections into three wedges. 

It should look like this when you've got all the wedges cut out.

3- Now brush each piece with melted butter, vegetable oil, or olive oil. This step is not completely necessary, but I always do it. I love using the little brush to paint my rolls. It makes me feel creative. :) Brushing with butter also makes the rolls just a little bit flakier.

4-Roll up each of the wedges, starting with the wide side and rolling toward the narrow point. Place on a baking sheet with the point tucked underneath. When all the rolls are on the baking sheet, brush with butter or oil again.

Let rise 1-6 hours (again). HAHAHAHAHAHA or just pop them in the oven like I do.

Bake at 350 degrees.

Dinner rolls=13-15 minutes or until as brown as you like.

Cinnamon rolls=probably about 20 minutes. I haven't made these since high school.

 Here's the finished product! I let these rolls rise for 30-45 min at the first rising stage...and this is how they turned out! Perfectly wonderful! My husband has liked these rolls since I made them for him when we were first dating...although probably still not as much as his mom's. I try. :)