Friday, July 31, 2015

Summer Eats

Over the summer, I love to take this chance and adventure to try out new meals at home, since I have the time!

I've been talking to my friend YP about our favorite ways to eat healthy recently, and I wanted to share!




  • Stock up on healthy food at home. My favorites include:
    • Hummus | So delicious and filling (I toast tortillas and eat them with hummus!), or carrot sticks and celery sticks
    • Black beans | I love adding this on the side of a meal, eating these in tortillas / quesadillas, or just eating a variation of black bean salsa!)
    • Avocado | Toast, salads, pasta, tacos, homemade guacamole (toast tortillas instead of using tortilla chips)
    • Lemon | My favorite way to drink water, add a squirt of lemon and let it sit for an hour (the taste is amazing), or making homemade lemonade for a sweet treat (taste test it and add as little sugar as possible!)
    • Peaches | I love just slicing a peach and eating it as a refreshing, tasty snack!
    • Greek yogurt | If you can get hooked onto Greek yogurt, you will be addicted! It's the perfection addition to smoothies, a delicious and filling breakfast or on top of some cereal!
    • Spinach & Baby Greens mix | I love getting the packed containers of spinach and baby greens (my personal favorite combination) and making salads with them! It's much cheaper and healthier than buying salads from restaurants.
  • Have salad ingredients ready. At all times. As I was saying, I love having a mixed container of spinach and baby greens at my house for anytime salads. I love having a variety of ingredients to choose from and make different combinations of salads.
    • Cherry tomatoes | Slice these in half and add them to any salad. Always a winner for me (and adds lots of color!).
    • Fresh mozzarella | In addition to making a caprese salad (or sandwich or panini or anything caprese really), I love adding fresh mozzarella to salads of all kinds!
    • Parmesan | I love grating some parm onto my salads!
    • Mandarin oranges | Confession: I use canned mandarin oranges from Trader Joe's for my salads. But literally it transforms the salad's taste. I'm in love.
    • Croutons | Okay, I really love carbs. This is my one chance for bread in a salad!
    • Olive oil & balsamic vinegar | I'm not huge on dressing (at least when I'm making a salad at my house, I usually add too much), so I resort to using olive oil and balsamic. It's a great combination!
    • Squirt of lime juice | For an extra fresh taste, I will add a squirt of lime juice to salads without cheese.
  • I promise I don't eat salads and peaches everyday... Some of my other favorite meals include:
    • Zoodles | We made these in summer camp and I am hooked! Zoodles = zucchini noodles. As a huge carb/pasta fan, that is most definitely my weakness. I think I'm willing to make the switch to zoodles at home though (if only you could make zoodles in the shape of elbows so I could make mac and cheese with such!). I'm bout to buy a machine that can make zoodles. Stay tuned.
    • Peanut butter & banana toast | I'm a huge fan of peanut butter. I love toasting a piece of whole grain bread, slathering on some peanut butter and slicing some bananas on top. It makes for a delicious breakfast or a filling snack to last me throughout the afternoon.
    • Vegetable soup | We also made vegetable soup in summer camp and it was seriously the best thing I've ever had. We used vegetable broth, sauteed some tomatoes, garlic, onion and added some zucchini, squash and corn. Delicious!
    • Cauliflower mac & cheese | Okay, I'm not sure how healthy this is (compared to the other things on this list), but it is much healthier than normal mac and cheese (and even better, if I do say so myself! You can't even taste the cauliflower! No really.)
What are your favorite meals? I'm always looking for new ideas! 

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