Take advantage of the summer fruit!

With all that great fruit out right now here are two ways to incorporate it into your meals:

1) Strawberry and Avocado Panzanella

This is basically my panzanella recipe which I seriously make every day for lunch, but I’ve been swapping strawberries for the tomatoes since strawberries have been in season and it’s REALLY good!

Here’s what I do so you don’t have to go looking for the recipe on my previous post:

Mix all of the following in a large bowl and then serve.

For one serving size:

1T chopped red onion
1 slice whole wheat bread*, toasted and cut into bite-sized pieces
1 roasted red pepper or poquillo pepper (from a jar), chopped
1T sun-dried tomatoes (jar with oil), chopped
½ ripe avocado
3 mozzarella balls (the little small balls), quartered
1 glove of garlic, chopped
Chopped fresh strawberries (I usually use about 5-6 depending on the size)
3-4 basil leaves, chopped (I LOVE basil!)
1-2T balsamic vinegar
1T extra virgin olive oil (use good quality since you’re not cooking with it)
Salt and pepper to season

It’s really good and I just keep all the above ingredients on hand so I can have it for lunch whenever I want. It’s very filling and healthy!

*Oh, one thing I learned from my friend, Cecelia, who loves to freeze EVERYTHING, is to put your bread in the freezer and then pop it in the microwave for 15 seconds to defrost it and then pop it in the toaster and you’ll never notice it was frozen. (Why I didn’t ever know to do this before, I’m not sure – guess it’s because my parents never did this so I didn’t see this process growing up.) This is great for when you buy whole wheat bread that hasn’t been processed b/c it tends to go moldy REALLY fast.

2) Watermelon Tomato Salad

My mom found this recipe in Southern Living a couple of years ago and we tried it and it was REALLY good. Here’s a link to the recipe online. It’s a great way to put some of that watermelon to use.

Hope these two recipes inspire you to put more fruit into your meals this summer. If you have any other great recipes, I’d love to hear them.

Food Rules

Yes, in my opinion food does RULE! I love food. In fact I think about food ALL THE TIME!
The "Food Rules" I'm talking about today, though, is the title of Micheal Pollan's book. I ended up purchasing it last week because I had been eyeing it for months. The reason I hadn't bought it before is because you can basically read it and get all the information you need right in the bookstore, but I decided I wanted to have it as a reference book at home and it really wasn't too expensive. Anyways, I've wanted to write about it for two reasons: 1) I've been taking on some bad eating habits lately and I need to head back towards the lifestyle of eating like I used to do which focuses around the ideas in this book and 2) I want to share the ideas in this book in case you hadn't heard of them because they seriously changed my life for better.

Some quick background info about me and food for those of you who don't know me: I used to be a HUGE "dieter" and my weight has fluctuated up and down ever since I started dieting in high school up until about a year and half ago when I adopted the ideas in this book. Throughout those 10-15 years I would jump from the "no carb" diet, to Weight Watchers, to even a diet I named myself called the "WWGD Diet" which stands for "What Would Giada Do?" and is named after Giada de Laurentiis from Food Network. Anyways, what I FINALLY came to realize about a year and a half ago is that dieting sucks and I was sick of consuming all my free time worrying about how many calories, fat grams, sugar, etc. I was consuming (and yes, I was seriously OBSESSED!). At this point in my life I decided I was going to eat what I wanted, as long as it was natural, meaning no preservatives, and I was not allowed to think or even look at calories anymore. Well, that was probably the best decision I've ever made because once I did that I began to relax about the foods I ate but was surprisingly still able to ENJOY what I was eating. On top of that, I lost the last five pounds I had been wanting to lose without even trying and had a healthy pregnancy where I only gained 20 pounds and lost all of them seriously within one week of having my daughter. Yes, that REALLY surprised me! So... if you're like the way I used to be and are jumping from diet to diet or always thinking you need to lose 5 more pounds, you might want to check this book out. It seriously could change your life when it comes to food and make you a happier, healthier person without a lot of sacrifice.

So here's a quick summary of what this book is about. Michael Pollan is the guy who wrote "Omnivore's Delemma" and it all about not eating processed foods and eating foods that are organic and natural. This means you can eat REAL cheese, REAL butter, REAL chocolate chip cookies (if you make them yourself, of course). No more Lean Cuisines, "spray butter" and baked chips. You can eat anything you want as long as it comes from the ground and if it's not, then as long as it doesn't have more than 5 ingredients listed on the product and you can pronounce and recognize it as a "real" food. Yep, it's that simple!

In his book he divides his "rules" into three parts: What should I eat?, What kind of food should I eat? and How should I eat?.
I highly suggest you check this book out the next time you see it at the bookstore. Like I stated above, you technically can read it within 10 minutes so you don't even need to buy it, but it's nice to have as a reference.

I'm going to leave you with a few of my favorite rules, which may intrigue you to read more:

*Eat only foods that will eventually rot.

*Don't ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap.

*Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

*Have a glass of wine with dinner. (YES!!!!!)

The two hardest rules for me?

*Eat slowly

*Always leave something on your plate

The most important rule in my opinion?

*Break the rules once in while (This one is HUGE! That means, yes, you can still have french fries every once in a while or have more than one glass of wine every once in a while, and even Dairy Queen once in a while. Just make sure it's not more than once in a while. He says in this book that some people choose to have treats on days that start with the letter "S" which I think is a great idea. Having what you consider as "treats" two days a week instead of seven makes a huge difference!)

Hope this has intrigued some of you to check out this book. I highly recommend it.

Happy Eating (because eating IS one of the best things in the world)!

A good summer wine

I found this wine at Trader Joe's last month and have found myself buying it each time I go as my preferred choice of white. I think it's great for the summer. I love white wine in the summer and red in the winter. This one is even made from organic grapes and it's less than $5. I'm not good as describing wine, but if I gave it a shot I'd say it's light and fruity.

Why didn't anyone tell me?!

EMILY GIFFIN HAS A NEW BOOK OUT!!!

Emery and I were browsing around Barnes and Noble with my mocha frappucino light -b/c that's what we like to do when we are bored- and I was noticing that Jen Lancaster has a new book out (who I personally can't stand). I thought, "When is Emily Giffin gonna come out with another book?" Then as I exited the elevator upstairs I saw her name on top of a book like all of her others, although this time the book cover was purple. I thought, "What?! Purple? None of the covers of her books are purple. This must be new!" I then read the title and realized it WAS new. Why didn't anyone tell me?!

Okay, so I've never been a big reader, but I can't get enough of her books. They are really easy to read and extremely entertaining. (FYI - I"m sure all of you Emily Giffin fans know this, but they are currently making a movie out of "Something Borrowed, Something Blue" starring Kate Hudson and Gennifer Godwin.) So, yes, this is probably the only author that I've read all the books of and have LOVED every one. The Barnes and Noble store patrons definitely saw me jump up and down and give it a hug when I found it.

Once I get off this computer to feed Emery and put her down for a nap I'm gonna pause on the other book I'm reading (which surprisingly I'm almost done with and decided I'm not going to abandon) and start this one. If it's like her other ones, I'll probably have it done by Monday. So...note to book swappers who read my blog: Make sure you're there next week at Monica's pool if you want a chance at getting it! For the rest of you, I'll let you all know how it goes. I really hope I"m not disappointed.

If you have no willpower, like me

I really lack willpower when it comes to consuming food. Last weekend I made my favorite dark chocolate chip cookies (recipe in blog - look for it - so good and semi-healthy) and I ended up eating probably 15 cookies within 24 hours. Today I made them again because I wanted to take some to a friend who just had a baby and came to the realization that I could probably freeze the dough for half of the cookies and save them for another time. I decided to scoop out the portions and freeze them on a cookie sheet.

Then I placed them in a tupperware container so now I can just take out one or two cookies, bake them, and not be tempted to eat a whole slew of them.

Now I'm wondering how I could do this with cake... I seriously had to throw out half of a cake the other month b/c I knew if I didn't I'd eat the whole entire thing by myself. (And yes, I'm not even pregnant anymore.) Could I make mini-cakes to freeze? Not so sure about that one...

Why didn't I try this earlier?

I'm not big into frozen foods b/c I like things fresh and I love to cook, but lately I've been pretty tired and sometimes it's hard to cook with a crying baby. Point being, I was browsing through Trader Joe's frozen section yesterday and stumbled upon their microwaveable brown rice. The brown rice I usually cook I really like, but it takes 45 minutes so I decided I was going to try this to save time and because I couldn't deal with 45 minutes of brown rice cookin' last night. I have to say I pretty much have fallen in love with this product. It tastes like it's been steamed and reminded me of PF Chang's brown rice, which I really like. I don't know if I'm ever gonna deal with cooking brown rice for 45 minutes ever again unless I have to or want to spend 45 minutes waiting for my rice to cook. Oh, the other awesome thing about it is that it's a perfect portion size for two people and if it's just me, I can save half for dinner the next night when it'll most likely be just me again. If you haven't tried this yet and you have a Trader Joe's in your town, you have to try this. I think it'll become a new staple on your grocery list each week. Enjoy!