Start Eating Better Today AND a Giveaway!

This post is inspired by a dear college friend who made my day with an email and a plea — to point her to places that inspire me in my healthy eating journey.

More on that in a moment, but first…

I finally uploaded my Stella stats from the half marathon this weekend! And, I have to say — I’m done beating up on myself. No, I’m not the fastest runner out there…I never thought I was! No, I didn’t reach my 10:00/mile average…but I did maintain that for much of the race, in unexpectedly freezing conditions!

And, thanks to all of your lovely comments on my recap post, I’ve decided it’s time to embrace the awesome. And realize that just by starting the race, I was a winner.

Dork alert…

So, back to the email. My friend (who will remain anonymous unless she wants to peek out in comments, hint hint) wrote this:

I’m wondering if you have a spot where you get your recipes.  Your blog has inspired me to start thinking more naturally, and I’m trying to come up with recipes that are healthy for my husband and I that don’t use a lot of processed ingredients.

Swoon. You had me at inspired.

I know I’m luckier than many — I grew up eating “health food,” although I just knew it as food.

(Reminds me of the magnet my friends Jackie and Jim got me for Christmas)

So for me, giving up junk food, processed food and most crap, mostly meant going back to what Mom and Dad fed me in the first place!

Having said that, I rely on three sources, in this order:

• Cookbooks
  • My favorites are Veganomicon, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (thanks, Andy!), the Eat Clean Diet Cookbook and good ol’ Joy of Cooking.
• Online Recipe Databases
  • I like Recipezaar, A Veggie Venture, VegWeb, Cooking Light and FoodNetwork.com, in particular.
• Other Blogs
  • I subscribe to more than 100 blogs (bless you, Google Reader!) so I bookmark posts that include recipes I’d like to try. I also use Google Blog search if I’m looking for something specific (i.e. tomato soup, lasagna, bread, etc.)

Now, are you ready for my three-part plan for successful healthy cooking and eating?

1. A stocked pantry. I am almost never without staples like:

**Brown Rice, Quinoa, Millet, Bulgur, Rolled Oats: I buy these in bulk and use them in almost every meal. I typically don’t eat many potatoes or other simple starches, although I don’t make a lot of rules (because they’re too easy to break!)

**Stock: I normally keep chicken and vegetable stock in the pantry, and use it to cook grains, meats, etc. It’s also very easy to use if I want to make a kitchen sink soup, which is basically stock heated up with any vegetables I have on hand!

**Vegetables: I am a veggie freak, so I buy whatever looks good at the store, and work it into my meals through the week. I also stock up on organic frozen green beans, broccoli and more, which I buy in bulk at Costco.

2. Meal Planning. I take an hour or so on Friday night, after work, and plan our menus for the week. I used to plan lunches and dinner, but that got to be too time consuming, so now I just make extras of dinner, and bring that or a big salad for lunch. I typically serve a lean protein (meat, beans, etc.), a vegetable, and a grain. If I am serving beans, I double up on the veggies and ditch the grain. The hour that I spend doing this gets me more than that back during the week, because I come home and get started right away, rather than poring through books, Web sites, etc., trying to figure out what to make.

3. Substitutions, substitutions, substitutions. I am very lucky to have a husband who will eat just about anything I put in front of him.

I have made changes to recipes that have resulted in culinary disaster. I’ve also made some pretty impressive dishes. Through trial and error, I have learned when to replace oil with applesauce, and when to stick with the oil; when to use whole wheat flour and when all-purpose is the only choice. I’ve tried foods I couldn’t pronounce, and remade old favorites.

I’m not sure if this helps you, old friend, but I know my readers will have even better ideas for you…

So, leave me a comment and let me know where you find your healthy recipes! I’ll make it worth your while:

• Anyone who leaves a comment will be entered into a chance to win a Bondi Band, the rockin’ hairband that’s sweeping the nation (right, Ashley?)
  
• You can leave as many comments as you want, and get up to three chances to win.
  
• Giveaway ends Friday, January 15th at 5pmET.

They’re wicked cool — in fact, here’s a picture of me enjoying a Bondi at a 5K last year. Enter now!

Tagged as: Food, Giveaway, Recipes, Running, Silly Tater Tot