An Easy Side or Salad

It always great to try new recipes to build a library of healthful recipes, but you need a small number of quick and easy options to round out a meal. One of our favorites revolves around two ingredients - cucumbers and tomatoes.

The simplest variation is equal parts diced cucumbers and tomatoes with an olive oil and balsalmic vinegar dressing. From there you can add a can of salmon, tuna or chicken to make a full lunchtime meal.

Adding a few grapes to the basic cucumber and tomato combo is an easy way to sweeten it up a bit. Be sure to slice the grapes in half to release some of the flavor and to make it easier to spear the grapes with your fork. We often use a pre-made dressing with this, usually a greek dressing that we buy at Fred Meyer. Or make your own Greek dressing, as follows:

3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper

Enjoy this great snack, lunch or dinner side salad!

Gilad

A big key to staying lean is having a regular exercise program. You don't have to exercise for hours a day to stay lean and fit. You'll find that just half an hour a day for a few days a week is enough to increase your muscle mass, which will help you to burn more fat. Last year I used routines from Cyclo-CORE to get in shape and lower my body fat percentage. While I will likely go back to those routines when cycling season starts up next year, I've decided to go with a Bodies in Motion program by Gilad, who has a daily program on FitTV.

I actually followed his show on weekends for a while last year before getting on the Cyclo-CORE program. I enjoyed it, but wouldn't always remember that the show was on, so it was a bit hit or miss. So this time I've invested in his Quick Fit program. It has a 12 week plan for increasing your overall fitness and a very minimalist (read: not too complicated) eating plan to help you get lean and fit. There's lots of exercise routines, so things should stay fresh through the entire program. One of primary benefits that I am looking for is to get rid of my hunched over, sit-at-the-desk-all-day posture. My posture improved a lot using Cyclo-CORE last year, but I'm betting that this will do the trick in the next 12 weeks.

If you have satellite TV and get FitTV, I highly recommend that you find a workout routine that interests you. There is a ton of stuff there to entertain and motivate you, you just need to tune in once in a while. On DirecTV its on Channel 261.

Easy Weeknight Dinners

These aren't the best meals if you're looking to stay lean and fit, but they're fairly good for you if you don't go overboard on portion sizes. But they're quick and easy to fix when you don't have a lot of time, and they make great leftovers so they'll save you even more time later on. I wouldn't advise these as a frequent addition to your diet, but once or twice a week probably won't hurt. Of course in the summer when you're really active portion size won't be as big of a concern.

We've tried a lot of new recipes over the past several weeks, and these are three that stand out as being tasty, easy to make, and pretty healthly choices:

Easy Layered Meatloaf: Meatloaf and veggies in one easy casserole.

Easy Bake Strata: A simple egg-based casserole. We plan on doubling the recipe next time and baking it in a 9"x13" casserole. We may also add some chopped broccoli as well.

Ham and Spinach Bake: This is probably the healthiest recipe of the bunch. We were pretty excited about it because of the interesting mix of spices. It makes it pretty unique compared to our usual eclectic menu mix. Substituting parmesan for the mozzarella can drop the calories a bit if you want to make it healthier.

Enjoy!

Healthy Cooking

I recently did something that I rarely do anymore - browsed the magazine rack at the local store. I came across a copy of Taste of Home's Healthy Cooking magazine. It was chock full of interesting recipes, so I thought I'd give it a try. It turned out to be a great purchase. We've tried a few of the recipes this past week and everyone was a keeper!

I went looking to see if they have a website, which of course they do. The healthy section of the website has a ton of interesting recipes, though those that have been published are only available to magazine subscribers. The site allows you to request a free copy of their magazine and get access to their archive of published recipes (I tried this a number of times with no success, but perhaps I was having a bad day).

As we cycle through our new found recipes, I'll experiment with making a few changes to suit our tastes and will share any successes that we have in future blog posts. For now, go explore the website. The Italian Cabbage Casserole and Autumn Whipped Vegetables were great!