Recipes and food!

Well, its clear that everyone loves tomatoes and olives. I had 4 people email me or request Sara's yummy tomato & olive salad recipe (pictured below). She posted it in the comments section, but in case people don't visit there, I will post it here too. Thanks Sara!

Italian Tomato and Olive Salad

Sliced ripe tomatoes (garden variety or store bought 'on the vine' is best)
1 small jar of capers
Olives (I used olive bar style kalamata pitted black olives and garlic/red pepper green olives)
Olive Oil
Balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper
Tomato and basil feta cheese (crumbled)
Curly leaf parsely
Fresh basil

Slice tomatoes and arrange on a plate. Rough chop the olives and mix with feta and chopped parsely and olive oil and capers. Sprinkle mixture over tomatoes and top with salt and pepper and basil. Can also add green onions and garlic to taste. Reduce balsamic vinegar for 20 minutes or until syrupy, cool and pour over salad. Just sprinkle with balsamic vinegar if you don't want to do this step.

And here is the awesome recipe for a cilantro cream spread that she also served. It was great on my hamburger, but you could also pair it with pitas/chips/brushetta... you name it.

Cilantro Cream Spread

1 block of 1/3 fat cream cheese
3-4 TBSP of light sour cream
Juice of 2 limes
2 garlic cloves
1 bunch of cilantro
green onions
salt and pepper
red pepper flakes or jalopenos (optional)

Soften cream cheese and mix with sour cream. Mix lime juice (I scoop out some of the pulp too), garlic cloves, cilantro, and green onions in food processor. Once lime/cilantro mixture is chopped well, add to cream cheese mixture. Add salt and pepper and red pepper or jalopeno if desired. Best when refrigerated for a few hours, then served. Can also be mixed with spinach and more sour cream to make a nice dip. Original recipe also called for one small can of tomatilla salsa and cumin.

YUM!

I've started going to a holistic health lady to help get me back on track after all these babies and nursing and so on. She is really great and has opened my eyes about my eating habits. I always thought that we ate really healthy since we eat lots of fruits and vegetables and lean meats... but I have learned lots of ways to improve our diets. First, just by getting real and keeping track of what I was really eating (instead of what I thought I was eating). EYE OPENING! Starting with how much cheese I was eating. I knew I loved it, but I was just kind of throwing it into anything and everything thinking "yeah, that's healthy and has some protein".... oh, cheese how I'll miss you. The other thing was how little greens we were really getting into our meals. Greens are soooooo healthy and are really easy to cook with and incorporate into your diet. I thought we did a pretty good job since everyone in our family likes salads and spinach and even some swiss chard. But again, once I really paid attention by food journaling I realized that we don't get as many greens as I thought. We have been working to add dark leafy greens into our meals at least once everyday. And, here is one way that we do it (without having to bust out a single saute pan)....

Spinach & blueberry smoothie

(You can make this lots of different ways, but here is an example that we made this morning)

1/4 c old-fashioned oatmeal

1 container (about a cup) Greek style plain yogurt

1/2 c soy milk

1/2 c OJ

1/2 banana

3/4 c blueberries

2 big handfuls of spinach (see all that yummy spinach in there)

Blend, blend, blend. And then you get this tasty purple smoothie that the kids LOVE!

It has lots of protein, fiber, and phytonutrients from the spinach and blueberries. It is super fast, which we need around here. The kids and I split this one and even Dave likes them.

Try it out! Let me know what you think. :-)