Healthy Dinners

Healthy Dinners

I’m going to focus on two dinner ideas which can be fixed in a multitude of ways. The secret to healthy and delicious dinners really are fresh ingredients, especially vegetables.

Growing up I hated vegetables. They were something to be gagged down each night with my dinner. Now the only vegetables I ate growing up were canned, except for an occasional serving of corn on the cob. Even then, the poor ear was boiled into oblivion, and required plenty of butter and salt and pepper to compensate for the mushy texture. 

It wasn’t until I started steaming my corn in the microwave that I realized that corn actually has a sweet taste and a crispy texture, and only requires a hint of butter to make it delicious. 

My mother would never believe that the same girl who used to pick all the green peas out of her chicken pot pie would love vegetables so much today. The secret is all in how they are prepared. Literally you can roast any vegetable, and the flavor will be so enhanced you’ll be begging for more. 

Sautéing veggies in a little broth for a stir fry or to add to scrambled eggs is also another healthy and delicious way to serve vegetables. 

The first method I’m introducing is the Build-A- Bowl method. If you’ve ever eaten at Chipotle’s you are probably familiar with their burrito bowl. Rather than wrap everything up in a tortilla, the same ingredients are served in a bowl. 

About a year ago I came across the book, Build-A-Bowl by Nicki Sizemore. I highly recommend this book because it includes seventy-seven different bowl ideas. Her basic concept is to include the following ingredients in each bowl:

A whole grain

More than one veggie

A protein (which can be a plant-based protein like chick peas)

A sauce ( my favorite is non-fat plain Greek yogurt with lime)

Something crunchy like nuts or seeds if you like

One of my favorite bowls is the Mediterranean Bowl. I include quinoa, roasted chick peas, tomatoes, cucumber, crumbled feta, kalamata olives and my yogurt and lime mixture. 

Now if you don’t like quinoa then substitute a grain you do like, perhaps some kind of rice. The Seeds of Change brand has plenty of grain combinations, and they only require 90 seconds in the microwave. 

One of my favorite Tex Mex bowls is actually made with polenta as the grain, with black beans which have been drained and heated up just a tad, add tomatoes, and avocados and some salsa, and you have a yummy, healthy meal. You won’t even miss the cheese on this one. 

The second type of meal I’m including today are sheet pan meals. Now sometimes I take the things I’ve made on the sheet pan, and serve it as part of a bowl, but this is not required. I chop up things like sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, red onions, and different colored peppers and roast them on a tray at 400 degrees for 20-3O minutes. I add oil I’ve oil and salt and pepper to the veggies before I roast them. 

If I am using pork or beef smoked sausage I cut it up, and add it to the tray, and cook everything together. If I’m using turkey smoked sausage I sauté it separately on the stovetop, because it doesn’t have as much fat, and can get dried out in the oven. I prefer the turkey kielbasa, and have found it to be quite tasty as well as lower in points. 

I usually cook some rice in my rice cooker to serve with the tray meal. I love my rice cooker which was an unopened wedding present that I found at a garage sale many years ago for just a couple of dollars. I’m pretty sure you can use your Instant Pot to cook rice easily as well.

Other tray meal choices could be broccoli, roasted chick peas, cauliflower, butternut squash, and apples. Just like with the bowl idea you can mix and match whatever sounds good or whatever you happen to have on hand. 

Of course Pinterest can be your best friend here with a plethora of choices available at your finger tips. Healthy cooking doesn’t have to be complicated or time consuming. If you have a method or two up your sleeve then with just a few heathy ingredients you can pull together a healthy, satisfying meal.