Tag: meal plans

It’s a Whole New Year!

What I love best about New Year’s Day is that everyone sees the potential for a fresh start. My resolution for 2018? To help as many people as possible understand that we have that potential every single day.  No matter what’s happened before, we can be better from here on in.

Yesterday I began posting January Meal plans, which I’ll continue for you here. I hope they’ll help inspire you to be your best, healthiest self this year.

Breakfast Lunch Dinner
Sunday January 7th Granola with 1/2 banana EatingWell Tomato Basil Zoodle Salad Jamie Oliver Sicilian Spaghetti Alla Norma
Monday January 8th Beet and Kale Smoothie Cooking Light Roasted Sweet Potato and Orange Salad Cooking Light Turkey & Swiss Sloppy Joes
Tuesday January 9th Granola with 1/2 banana Homemade Turkey Soup with 1 whole grain bread and 5ml butter Jamie Oliver Hungover Noodles
Wednesday January 10th Banana Kale Smoothie Apple Kale Salad Jamie Oliver Smokin’ Chicken Chowder (substituting leftover turkey)
Thursday January 11th Apple Nut Oatmeal Homemade Turkey Soup with 1 whole grain bread and 5ml butter EatingWell Savory Carrot and Tarragon Tart
Friday January 12th Carrot Cake Smoothie Cooking Light Fall Vegetable and Lentil Salad Jamie Oliver Carbonara of Smoked Mackerel

Before you go, here are some tools that help me keep track of meals, make grocery lists, and remind myself to stay fit and drink water:

Paprika Recipe App, good for either Kindle, iOS, or Android. It lets me download recipes, organize them as I like, share them, and create grocery lists for my meal plans.

My Fitness Pal – I love this for figuring out the nutritional content of recipes, and seeing whether I’m missing key nutrients.

And I’m rarely without my trusty FitBit, so I can keep track of steps. I also have UnderArmour’s UA Record, so I can log exercise that isn’t walking.

What are your favourite tools for healthy living?

Happy 2018!

 

Planning for Success! Meal Plans for January

 If you’re like many people, you may be planning to improve your diet in 2018. One of the most effective ways to make sure we are eating healthily at our house, is to make a meal plan. It works for three reasons:

It lets us see the big picture and identify patterns (such as eating too many bad fats, or dividing dishes into extra large portions instead of making less).  We get to think about seasonality and what’s available in stores, which some meal plans miss, especially if they are formulated in warm weather climates where salad greens and other vegetables are readily available year-round. It also lets us be mindful of what we have on hand, so we can use it and not waste it.

I’ve decided to share my January meal plan with you, so you can adapt it with some of your own favourites. Many of the food items are from websites, so I’ve put the links in also. Enjoy! Stay tuned for additional weeks…

January 1st

Breakfast – Banana Kale Smoothie

Lunch – Apple Kale Salad

Dinner – EatingWell Vegetarian Spinach Enchiladas

January 2nd

Breakfast – Apple Nut Oatmeal

Lunch – Homemade Turkey Soup with 1 slice bread and 5ml butter

Dinner – Eating Well Baked Tofu Stir Fry with Cabbage and Shiitakes

January 3rd

Breakfast – Carrot Cake Smoothie

Lunch – EatingWell Vegetarian Taco Salad

Dinner – Eating Well Spaghetti Squash Lasagna with Broccolini

January 4th

Breakfast – Apple Nut Oatmeal

Lunch – Homemade Turkey Soup with 1 slice bread and 5ml butter

Dinner – Eating Well Curried Pork Chops with Roasted Apples and Leeks

January 5th

Breakfast – Beet Kale Smoothie

Lunch – EatingWell Stetson Chopped Salad

Dinner – EatingWell Kale and Gruyere Panini

January 6th

Breakfast – Poached Egg Avocado Toast

Lunch – Homemade Turkey Soup with 1 slice bread and 5ml butter

Dinner – Men’s Health Salmon Hobo Packets

 

January 7th

Breakfast – Granola with Banana

Lunch – EatingWell Tomato Basil Zoodle Salad 

Dinner – Jamie Oliver Sicilian Spaghetti Alla Norma

My smoothies follow a recipe something like this, for two:

Two beets, or a carrot, or a handful of kale

5ml cinnamon or grated ginger

60ml nuts or seeds

A banana or 250ml of berries or for carrot cake smoothie, pineapple

750ml unsweetened low-sodium non GMO soy milk (try Natur-A, they are all Canadian and the best plant milk I have tried).

Stay tuned for additional weeks, and please share widely. Thanks to all of you who have visited my site, and wishing you a healthy, happy 2018.

Start Fresh! It’s a Whole New Year

Welcome to a whole new year! Of course every day is an opportunity for a fresh start and to revisit resolutions, but January 1 often sees folks making commitments to their health and wellness. I’ve talked about meal planning before, even including some tips and tools. The dark side of start-of-year diets and eating commitments is that they can be expensive, and involve a lot of foods you don’t necessarily know how to use up. Being in favour of a zero waste policy, I won’t tell you to throw out anything in your cupboard, but please don’t re-buy what you’re committed not to eat.

Ourselves we always have leftover holiday foods, and even in regular weeks there are meal plan days that didn’t happen, stuff that came in packages too large for the plan, things that looked intriguing but got forgotten in the cupboard. Once a month, or so, it’s worth taking stock of what you already hav, so you can figure out how to use it up as part of your plan, adjusting portions and how it’s used to account for your food goals. Cheesy lunch? Plan on a low fat dinner. Three kinds of lentils? Dal, curry or soup come to mind. We always have enough staples to stand up to a couple of weeks of emergency rations.


With that said, plan males shopping faster and more cost effective. This week’s purchases: carrots, peppers, celery, onions and a couple of sausages. The dinner plan looks like this – we will make according to what needs using the most:

Jamie Oliver Pie – the original has salmon but we will sub in some leftover turkey, as well as cabbage and carrot and onions for the leaks and courgettes

Veggie chili with mushrooms

Pumpkin chickpea curry with apples, raisins, and brown rice

Homemade mac and cheese with salad

Buffalo drumsticks with carrot sticks and blue cheese mashed potatoes

Split pea soup with homemade bread

Sausage with winter slaw

Wishing you a healthy and happy 2017 with enough – exactly what you need, no more, no less!

Get Your Veggies with All-Season Salads

There’s a tendency, perhaps precipitated by cooking magazines, to move off of salads this time of year, and focus on warmer fare, like soups or stews. I know that this seems logical, but there are so many great veggies available now, that it seems a shame to only eat them cooked. Sure, local lettuce may be less available. What I’m suggesting is that if you have the privilege of accessing fresh fruit and veg in your local market, please do take advantage.

What I am not saying is that everyone is as fortunate as we are in Toronto. A head of hydroponic Canadian lettuce is out of reach for many families. Heck, there are some places (not in far-off lands, but here in our own country), where fresh produce of any sort is just not in the store, or it costs so much that you can’t possibly afford se it to feed your family. This is a travesty. Please speak out about this.

And while we are on the subject of hunger, if you do have enough, do support your local food bank or soup kitchen. You would be amazed how far they can make a dollar go. I learned from one of them that they can get wholesale prices, making better use of their money, although I’m a big advocate of having your kids choose foods from the store, so they learn about sharing and healthy choices). When our kids were small, we started emptying our coins into a jar at the end of the day. Once a month, we would use this money to buy food bank food. We still give regularly, even though the kids are grown.

If you have all these ingredients, make a great salad. If you don’t, I’m not giving a recipe. Try using whatever veg you can get. If you have frozen veg, give them a quick refresh under cold water rather than cooking. Or if you have “winter veg” (beets, carrots, turnips, cabbage), shred them. Use leftovers. They’re all good. Here is what I did today:

Chopped some hydroponic butter head lettuce onto a plate.

Diced celery and yellow pepper (both “ugly vegetables”  ). Use whatever veg you have, truly. Serve in a bowl if necessary, and use a spoon instead of a fork.

Drizzled with this dressing:

2t/10ml Dijon – it emulsifies, thickens, adds flavour

1T/15ml vinegar

2t/10ml canola oil (it’s Canadian!)

Next add some protein. I had cheddar. You might have hard-boiled egg, tofu,  beans, nuts, seitan, or leftover pork chop. No matter. Protein builds muscle and helps your blood pressure stay regulated. Not too much! A couple of ounces. It’s lunch!

Here’s what it looked like, when it was done. Enjoy. Use stuff up. Appreciate what you have, and give someone else a hand.

Have an awesome day!

Crunch Fall Salad