Go-To Ingredients

For something different, let’s talk about healthy recipes.

Do you have an ingredient that you rely on? For me, it’s veggie broth. The canned kind, because I’m lazy like that. If you’re not concerned with sodium content, it’s a healthy and flavorful substitute for water. I happen to prefer Swansons, and I promise I’m not getting any kick-backs from the company!

I use it in all sorts of dishes…when sautéing veggies, as a base for soups (particularly minestrone and split pea), whenever I cook rice, and for black beans (simmer a bag of black beans in 4-5 cans of broth for about 1 ½ hours, add some garlic salt, and pretend you’re eating either refried beans or black bean soup).

How about you? Do you have a secret, healthy ingredient that you can’t live without?

Chicken Green Bean Casserole

CHICKEN GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE

1 cup chopped fresh green beans, ends trimmed
12.5-oz. can chicken breast, drained
10.75-oz. can 98% fat-free cream of mushroom soup
1⁄2 cup fat-free milk
Nonstick cooking spray

Coat a large skillet with nonstick cooking spray and place over medium heat. Add green beans and cook, stirring occasionally, until beans soften. Stir in chicken, soup and milk, and heat through.

From Muscle and Fitness Magazine


*** I normal serve this over brown rice, but you can definitely eat alone. This is also awesome.

Turkey Chili

TURKEY CHILI

1⁄2 lb. lean ground turkey breast (93% lean)
14.5-oz. can diced tomatoes
1⁄2 cup tomato paste
1⁄2 cup water
1 cup kidney beans, drained and rinsed
Nonstick cooking spray

Coat the bottom of a stockpot with nonstick cooking spray. Add turkey and brown over medium-high heat, stirring frequently to break into small pieces. When fully cooked, drain fat, stir in remaining ingredients and heat through.


From Muscle and Fitness Magazine


*** I also add chili powder to kick up the spice, and I served over half of a baked potato with nothing else on the potato. This is really yummy.

Filling Foods: Quick and Easy Soup

Hello everyone,

My name is Vivienne and you will usually find me over at Serendipidy. I was over the moon when Trish asked me to contribute to this fabulous blog supporting the 100 mile challenge. Now I know that this is mainly about fitness, but personally, I find healthy eating tends to go hand in hand with keeping fit, so I thought I would share some of the wonderful low fat and non fat recipes I like to use to help me keep my weight down.

The one thing I have learnt in the past year since getting into shape is that I need to eat food that will keep me full and that won't make me hungry again in an hour. So I have started to make a lot of my own soups as they always keep me full. I tend to eat them on a lunch time and they normally stave off hunger until tea time. I tend to make them in bulk and keep them in the fridge, so if I do get hungry, I can pop a cupful into the microwave and have a quick filling snack.

One of my favourite recipes is Spicy Tomato Soup,which I am going to share with you today.

Spicy Tomato Soup

Now I am girl who likes to really hot up her food. I would put Tabasco on everything if I was allowed. So this recipe is a little spicy, but you can tone it down by adding less chillies.

Ingredients

2 Red Chillies
2 x 400g cans of chopped tomatoes (400g = 1 cup)
2 tablespoons of sweetener
salt and pepper
1 and 1/2 pints of vegetable stock
4 tablespoons of passata ( sieved tomatoes)
A few drops of Tabasco
A dash of lime

1) Halve and deseed the chillies, then place in a food processor or a blender with all the other ingredients and blend it until it is smooth.

2) Transfer mixture to a saucepan and gently heat through. I normally leave it for about 10 minutes to simmer. That is it. Nice and simple soup. I would say it takes about five minutes to put together and before you know you have a non fat soup ready to drink.

Apparently if you add 4 tablespoons of vodka to it, you will have a Bloody Mary Soup, but I have never tried that.

I hope you enjoy trying the recipe. As the weeks go on, I will try and get some pictures up of the finished dishes, so you can see what they will look like. Good luck with your walking.