Day 17: It's Not Easy Being Green

Kermit the Frog said it best - and it's true for most. When you're trying to make healthier choices, eating your daily recommended 4+ servings of veggies is tough. When making healthy eating in general a priority, eating veggies is usually the first thing to go from the healthy-things line-up. Usually because you make the same one or two variations on salads, and you can only eat so many salads before you can't stand the sight of another one. 

In case you need new ideas to mix things up, here's a few...

101 Summer-Friendly Salads from LaurenConrad.com

But in case you don't want a traditional salad, here's a few other ideas, and I'll keep more coming in future posts. These are just a few I've used lately. I find pre-portioning things out in advance makes it easier to just grab & go! Convenience is king!!

Green beans or sliced cucumbers. Pre-portion out veggies in a bag to put in your purse and snack on, on the go. 



I am the Green Bean Wolverine! And with a matching mustache' I look oh so, how you say... so debonair!

Pre-portion out a lettuce/spinach mix so it's easier to grab a  salad base, then  put the toppings in a separate container, grab dressing, and go! You don't have to make salad your main meal, but eat one with lunch and dinner. My favorite is spinach base, sliced strawberries, a little gorgonzola cheese (or blue cheese), a few chopped pecans or walnuts, maybe a  few slices of fresh pear, and some light vinaigrette dressing. Yum!!

OR

Put sliced strawberries, blueberries, and pineapple with or without baked chicken on a salad with honey mustard poppy seed dressing. Great for summer and SUPER yum!!

I bought this large tub of salad greens for around $3 that made 6 full-sized salads. Portion them out into containers, then, place a dry paper towel on top, to help them keep longer. 

Neat trick!

 If you've grown herbs this summer, enjoy them all winter long! Pulverize them into paste with a little olive oil, then freeze them into frozen herb cubes that you can throw into dishes to add flavor, or toss on onto hot, baked spaghetti squash or whole-wheat pasta, for home-made pesto! 

Frozen Herb Cubes Pick off all your basil leaves, and put them into a blender, or food processor, and add a few TBS of EVOO, then begin to pulverize. As you go, you may need to add more oil, that's ok. Once you have a thick paste, using a teaspoon, or a small scoop (I use this one for making cookies, it's 1 TBS), spoon them into ice cube trays. Once full, you may want to add more oil to the cube tray to top it off and make removing them from the trays easier. Place into the freezer, once frozen, remove from trays and put into a plastic bag, mark and store.

This is awesome, especially if you LOVE basil and hate to see it go to waste!!

Shout out to Terri Swick, who gave me a big BAG full of gorgeous basil! Thanks Terri!




Tip of the Day - My Favorite!
Make your own customized veggie tray. I like green beans, cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, sweet peppers, whatever you like. Serve with regular or black-bean hummus, or guacamole instead of ranch. Store-bought ranch = no bueno!

OR if you must have ranch - make your own

Home-made Ranch
Use LITE buttermilk, LITE sour cream and LITE mayo. It is STILL really good. OR use greek yogurt, though it will taste a little differently. It didn't taste at all like the lite version in the stores. So much yummy ranch flavor!

Ingredients:
Black Pepper ¼ C
Parsley Flakes 1 1/2 C
Garlic Salt ½ C
Kosher Salt 2 Tbsp
Granulated Garlic ¼ C
Granulated Onion 3/4 C
Dill Weed 2 Tbsp

1. Combine all ingredients, store in an airtight container. Makes about 3 ½ cups of dry mix
2. To Make Dressing, whisk together 2 Tbsp of mix with 2 Cups each of mayonnaise and buttermilk 1 ½ Cups sour cream, & 1 tsp Lemon Juice. Refrigerate for 2 hours. Makes 1 ¾ Quarts

From Pinterest

Here's my favorite no-mayo cole-slaw. I eat it plain or on a sandwich,: on toasted bread with sliced tomatoes. It's super yummy.

No-mayo Cole-slaw
Using a bag of shredded cabbage, add about a dozen sliced calamata olives, some shredded carrots, half a sliced cucumber, and half a cup of vinegar. I use 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/4 cup white wine vinegar, and sometimes I use about 1/4 cup of brine from the olive jar. Then I add 1 TBS oregano and 1/4 TBS freshly ground black pepper. Mix it all together and refrigerate.

This is so good I'd eat it three times a day if it wasn't weird to eat cole-slaw for breakfast! Ha HAA! See? Sneaky vegetables!

Speaking of food... how'd I do today?




Exercise
I ran around my lake, late, in the early-evening dusk, near sunset. I only walked up the hills, and ran the rest of the way!


Food
Breakfast: Cinnamon oatmeal and a banana
Snack: a small apple
Lunch: Tomato and cole-slaw sandwich and 2 HBE's
Dinner: Cheat meal - spiral mac n' cheese and green beans
Post-workout snack: Chocolate protein FUEL shake :)


Thanks again for reading all! Keep the comments coming!