SO in honor of all the vegetarians/vegans out there, I sometimes decide to observe what is commonly referred to as Meatless Monday! Today's Eggplant Tofu Ragout (pronounced rag-goo) recipe goes along with that idea and is completely meatless; although, it's packed full of delicious veggies and a healthy source of plant protein!
I'm not a vegetarian; I love eating meats too much. BUT I can definitely appreciate vegetarian and vegan dishes because they tend to err on the healthier side of the culinary spectrum. It can't hurt to mention that I've never met a dedicated vegetarian/vegan that was overweight or riddled with health problems, so they must be doing something right!
SO in honor of all the vegetarians/vegans out there, I sometimes decide to observe what is commonly referred to as Meatless Monday! Today's Eggplant Tofu Ragout (pronounced rag-goo) recipe goes along with that idea and is completely meatless; although, it's packed full of delicious veggies and a healthy source of plant protein!
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Turkey bacon sweet potato hash for brekkie! Growing up, I seriously didn't know what hash was really made of. My mom only ever used canned corned beef hash, so I always thought it was some mushy mixture of meat-esque stuff and some cubed white stuff (though, it never occurred to me the little white things were potatoes...I was so naive). On top of that, she only ever used it for dinner (hash and eggs and rice); I didn't know it was a breakfast food, and I didn't really wake up for breakfast ever anyway. I didn't find out until late into high school when I was dating a guy whose favorite meal was breakfast that hash was actually supposed be for breakfast and was a diced mixture of potatoes, meat and spices. Whoa, the revelation! (If you don't believe me, Wikipedia backs me up here). Now that I'm cooking for myself, I've realized how much I love breakfast food (hash included)! And since I've discovered yams/orange sweet potatoes, I've fallen in love with them! So this obviously evolved into a sweet potato hash...the healthier version that's missing the fatty unhealthy meats, the less nutritious russet potatoes, and the excessive amounts of oil that people cook it all up in. Doesn't everything look happy together? I hate letting veggies rot in the fridge when I've paid perfectly good money for them. I'm always determined to use them and not freeze them because 1) some veggies are just not quite the same after being frozen, like onions, and 2) because if I eat it, that means I'm filling myself up with something healthy rather than something more "convenient" and from a can or a restaurant. That being said, every so often...about one every two weeks or so, I end up making some sort of dinner where I just throw all the veggies that have been there the longest together into some sort of meal. This week, I ended up with the meal in the picture on the right~~~chicken breasts with "sauteed" veggies! I put the "sauteed" in quotes because normally sauteing involves using a lot of oil to help cook your veggies. Going down the healthier path of cooking means using oil to cook = bad! On the other hand, some oils are better than others and actually have health benefits, and using those healthier oils in small controlled amounts won't kill you. "Everything in moderation!" and so I used some coconut oil, but only a one teaspoon, which is WAY less than the normal 2 tablespoons of other unhealthier oils that lots of recipes call for. Italian supplì I'm pretty sure everyone knows what a meatball is....the round balls of meat that get served with spaghetti? Yah, that thing. But it's a lot harder to find someone that knows what supplì are. Long story short, supplì are Italian snacks that are breaded and fried rice balls (normally using risotto) with mozzarella in the middle (similar to arancini or arancine, if you know what those are). SO I'm at my boyfriend's apartment one night and realize how lacking the fridge/pantry is of ingredients...again. You'd think he'd learn by now? Anyway, I scrounge for something low-carb to make and end up with ground turkey breast (click here to find out why I get ground breast meat, specifically), cheese, panko (Japanese bread crumbs), and stuff from the spice rack, and I ended up turning out this random recipe for what I think would be the result if a meatball and a supplì got together and had a baby. In essence, it's a turkey meatball with cheese in the middle that's been breaded in panko and baked instead of fried....with a little tomato sauce on the side. I love a good burger just as much as the next person, but they're definitely not the healthiest things you could be eating. When I feel like having one, I like to use ground turkey breast (read my other post to find out why turkey breast, not just turkey). Oddly enough, though, I normally buy the Foster Farms ground turkey breast which has 20oz. (=1lb and 4oz), so I normally end up with a random 4oz. of turkey left over that I need to use somehow. That's where these little beauties kick in! Tofu-turkey patties! I have a bunch of friends who would shudder at the thought of a tofu burger of any kind (>_>), but it doesn't taste bad at all! Not only does it not taste bad, but it's really easy, quick, and simple to make as well! Don't knock it til you've tried it! Anywho, the recipe for the patties are below, but be creative and do whatever you want with them when you're done. I've eaten them like a burger, in a pita pocket, broken it down for other recipes, or just plain by itself with a side of salad; you're only limited to what you come up with, right? I posted a recipe a little while ago for my 7-Ingredient Turkeyloaf that I randomly threw together one day. This turkeyloaf is WAY better. I don't quite remember how I originally found this recipe, but I eventually pinned it on Pinterest. French Onion Meatloaf is what the original recipe was for, but I obviously had to healthify that a whole bunch:
I don't always enjoy leftovers, especially when they don't taste as good as when you first made/ate it. A little time in the microwave to warm these up, though, and it was just as good as the first time! This was a great meal that fed me leftovers for a week! Let's not all end up with a belly like this guy... Obviously, the post's title is just a joke, I don't love beef that much. A lot of people out there would love nothing more than to just heat up a grill, slap a few steaks on, and sit back with a beer...I'm not one of those people, hahaha. I should clarify that I actually like beef and the way it tastes and having a steak every once in a while sounds like an awesome idea. When I was a kid, my mom pretty much only ever bought beef or pork for our dinners, no white meats and no fish (I wouldn't even have eaten the fish at the time). If we had chicken or turkey, it was only the Oscar Mayer sandwich slices, something that someone else gave us, or something I ordered from a restaurant. Now that I'm cooking for myself and eating a lot healthier, I definitely do not eat red meats that often. When I do make the conscious decision to eat beef, I don't like when it's super fatty/marbled, and I only eat it maybe four times a year or less now (and only that often because my boyfriend enjoys having some every so often to break up all the white meats and fish). Because of the rarity of my eating it, the meal tends to be a nicer dinner to sort of celebrate the occasion of eating red meat, hahaha. It's almost like meatloaf is that school lunch or that dinner your mom makes that people just don't really ever want to eat. Even when I was in school, when they tried to feed us meatloaf as the entree for the day, I opted to eat a sandwich instead, hahaha. Now that I'm older, I realize that meatloaf isn't that bad tasting, but it's definitely not always that healthy either. Most meatloaves are made with ground beef and bread or croutons, and then it's topped with a ketchup based glaze or some similar concoction that may or may not include honey, BBQ sauce, sugar, etc. I disapprove, on many fronts. Ground beef: not the best choice. Bread and croutons need some analyzing. Ketchup is a no-no, and so are most of the things they put in those glazes.
My boyfriend's fridge is always a weird mish-mash of random goods and barely any vegetables. That being said, I normally have to find creative ways to make dinner something healthy and palatable. This is where the idea for turkey meatloaf (a.k.a. turkeyloaf) came from. I figured, as far as I knew, you could pretty much throw anything into a meatloaf, call it a meal, and still have it come out tasting alright, hahaha. And so my 7-Ingredient Turkeyloaf was born. I know that food aficionados would tell me that fresh fish is always better than frozen, but come on! Seriously? Fresh, not previously frozen fish are expensive, I definitely don't eat it everyday, and even if I did, I'm not about to make a trip to the grocery store every few days to buy more. SO....my freezer always has frozen fish stored away, and why not? Fish have been found to be a great source of omega-3 fatty acids. It's a good kind of fatty acid our bodies can't produce on it's own, so we need to ingest it from a marine or plant source. Granted, not all fish are raised equal. Different fish have different levels of omega-3 in them, but you always want to pick a fish that is wild caught and NOT FARMED RAISED (if you can)!! Farmed fish, aside from sometimes deplorable living/growth conditions, can be raised using food sources that aren't healthy for us humans. Some farms feed their fish pellets made of other smaller fish and plants that have been collected from polluted waters, meaning that those contaminants can end up in the fish that you eat. In addition to that, since one sick fish could endanger a large group in an enclosed space, fish farmers like to administer antibiotics. That's just more unnatural chemicals added to your diet if you're not careful. Sure there are other pros and cons in the wild vs. farmed fish debate, but if you can, spend the little extra that wild fish will cost you. I think it's worth the price, especially if you aren't eating it ALL the time. I hate carbohydrates because they're the source of "The Pouch" that most women, myself included, have. But it's more the scientific understanding of what carbs do to your body and the resulting flabbiness that I hate....BUT THEY TASTE SO FREAKING GOOD. Gah (T_T) They taste so good and it's so hard for me to say no, especially when sandwiches are involved. Sandwiches are such good vessels for throwing a whole bunch of random stuff together and shoving it into your mouth, hahaha. Every once in a while though, I find gourmet-ish ideas for sandwiches, and I obviously can't help myself. For example, when I stumbled onto a pin for this spinach, avocado, and goat cheese panini, I seriously HAD TO make it! If only as an excuse to bust out the panini press I have. I mostly stuck to the recipe, including making my own pesto, but I didn't make their recipe for pesto because 1) it was too involved, and 2) I wasn't about to go out and buy gross anchovy paste, ick. |
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