Experimental Foodie

Back to work. Back to getting up early. Back to getting germs from kids and getting sick.

Perfect.

Today I spent the day at home ill, so not a lot of cooking went on. Unless you consider making dry toast cooking.

I got to catch up on a few of my shows which finally returned to new episodes after the hiatus over Christmas break. The Biggest Loser is back for another season and rumour is it's Jillian Michael's final season on the show. All my fav comedies were back: Cougar Town, Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, Mike and Molly. Yup...I watch em all. Plus my dramas...Grey's Anatomy....and that's all the tv shows I'm disclosing that I view. I can feel the judgement already.

This week I experimented with a few breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes.

For breakfast, I usually have toast and yogourt/fruit/granola. I keep hearing that oatmeal is filling and delicious but I have always had an aversion to it. I decided to give it another try. I bought triple berry oatmeal because it sounded ok...so I made some and added some fresh berries to it in the hopes that it would enhance the taste from pablem-like to sweet-and-delicious.

It tasted like mush with delicious fruit. Not only that, but I was hungry by about 10am.

Another dish I experimented with was a spinach salad as I had an abundance of spinach in the fridge that needed using. I made a Warm Spinach Feta and Whole Grain Rice Salad adapted from grouprecipes.com.

The salad turned out to be delicious but fairly strong-tasting. I had it as a meal, but next time I would eat it as a side instead of the full meal. It was definately better than the alternative meal served at my house that night.

My arteries hurt just looking at all the deep fried goodness.

The last dish I made this week was Balsamic Turkey Stir Fry with whole grain brown rice. I adapted the recipe from Jessica Seinfeld's Double Delicious cookbook. Her recipe was for Balsamic Chicken Ciabatta, but I didn't have any chicken or ciabattas. So I improvised.

First, heat up a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and 3 cloves of minced garlic.

Cut your chicken or turkey into cubes and salt and pepper them.

Place wax paper on the counter and sprinkle one cup of whole wheat flour onto it. Take your turkey cubes and toss them in the flour until all of the pieces are coated.

Throw them into the oil and garlic and let them cook until they are browned on the outside.

Add 6 tablespoons of brownsugar, 1/2cups balsamic vinegar, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 cup low-fat reduced-sodium chicken broth.

Bring everything to a boil, then cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked.

At this point, the recipe calls for broccoli puree; however, because I decided to make a stir fry instead of a sandwhich I cut up broccoli and carrots and added them to the skillet.

Add the end result to a bed of whole grain rice.

This was the best dish I made in a while. I liked it so much I made it into a bagel sandwich the next day.



After all my foodie experimenting I had to treat myself.

After all the good (and mediocre) food I had this week, it all culminated into getting the flu today.

I am trying not to equate my new road to health with getting the flu...perhaps I need more deep fried wings in my diet.


ADELLE