Sunday, July 25, 2010

Recipe – Summer Squash Side Dish

market squash 2
My recent trip to the Farmer’s Market yielded some beautiful squash.  I bought yellow summer squash, zucchini, and Mediterranean squash.  I wanted to share one of my favorite easy, low calorie summer side dishes. You can also add some fresh mushrooms for additional flavor.


As always, I am a “dump” cook so these amounts are an estimate.  Have fun with it.

Summer Squash Side Dish


Ingredients
3 – 4 average size of any type of squash or a mixture of types, sliced into about 1/8 to 1/4 inch round slices
1/2 cup diced red onion
Non-stick cooking spray
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon Beau Monde seasoning
A “shake” of Cajun seasoning such as Tony Chachere’s or Emeril’s


Instructions
Spray cooking spray in a large size skillet and heat over medium high heat.  Add the diced red onion and saute until soft.  Add the sliced squash and spray with more cooking spray.  Add seasonings and stir well.   Cook over medium high heat stirring frequently until the squash is soft and cooked through.


This dish will give you 2 large servings and each serving is about 50 calories.  It is a great side dish for fish, chicken, or beef.


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Sunday, July 11, 2010

Market Fresh Blackberries

Sweet
Yesterday’s trip to the farmer’s market yielded a lot of photos and some amazing produce.  I got these blackberries while there and I do believe they are the largest blackberries I have ever seen and they are so sweet.  The one I am holding is not even the largest!  They were a great healthy breakfast this morning.

I also got some beautiful tomatoes that I will be using for a caprese salad later today.  For those that aren’t sure – a caprese salad consists of sliced tomatoes, sliced fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and balsamic vinegar.  All you do is take a slice of tomato, lay it on the plate, lay on a slice of mozzarella, add the fresh basil and drizzle with balsamic vinegar.  So good.

I got some fresh corn, some beautiful green onions, and a few different types of squash.  One type of squash was interesting to me – Mediterranean squash.  It looks like a zucchini but is a much lighter green color.  In looking for recipes on Google, it appears you use it like any other summer squash like zucchini or yellow squash.

What kind of things do you gravitate to at your farmers market?
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Friday, July 9, 2010

Okay, That’s Enough

_MG_8038 005After a week of careful planning and thoughtful choices, I let a little crazy creep in.  I spent the long weekend at my daughter’s in Atlanta and it felt like we did nothing but eat and eat and eat.  The food we ate was pretty healthy . . . it was the sweet stuff that was crazy.

I almost never eat sweets.  I eat a lot of fruit but I don’t really like candy and could do without cakes or pies or sweet stuff in general, though I do love good chocolate.  But during that long weekend, I went on a sugar binge – pies, ice cream, chocolate, just piles and piles of sugar.  When I returned home on Monday evening, I continued to indulge in the sweet stuff, things I never eat.  On Tuesday, same thing.  And Wednesday too.  I ate really healthy during the day but at some point daily, I ate sweets.

Every day, I struggled in the afternoon.  I was worn out.  Every evening, I went to bed early and every morning, I had a hard time getting out of bed.  I assumed I must be coming down with something.  My body just didn’t feel right.  I was sluggish and had a hard time keeping my eyes open every day around 2pm, even though I was sleeping at least 9 hours each night.  On Thursday afternoon, I really didn’t feel well and went home around 3pm, crawled in the bed and slept for an hour.  I went to yoga later, came home and got in the bed at 9:45pm and slept until 8am this morning!!!

I was catching up on my blog reading this morning and went to one of my favorite healthy living blogs Loser For Life.  Today’s post was all about her struggles with fighting off the sugar urge on vacation and after she returned home.  She talked about being tired.  A light bulb went on.  I was experiencing the sugar rush and the sugar crash.  And I had kept on feeding it.  My body was reacting to the sugar.  Stupid sugar!

So bear with me over the next few days as I detox and get that stuff out of my system.  Stupid sugar!
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