Blueberries for Dinner

So maybe there is something to breakfast setting you up for a good day of eating ahead?  Tonight I had a hunkering for blueberries for dinner.  Maybe it is the warm weather but they just sounded so yummy?  But I still needed something that would fill me up - and a big bowl of berries while tempting would not be enough on its own.  

The answer: Blueberry Chicken Salad.  I luvs me some chicken salad with fruit, usually I add apples and grapes, but tonight there would be blueberries.  And I must say that it tasted so very good, which is great because I always make extra so I can have some the next day.  Chicken salad is one of those things that tastes best after it has had time to come together, so if it is good now I can't wait until lunch tomorrow!

Blueberry Chicken Salad

serves 4 with some leftovers

1 pouch of Trader Joe's frozen Brown Rice

1/2 c TexMex mix of wild and red rice

3/4 c organic chicken stock, plus some for poaching chicken

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into small cubes

3 green onions, chopped fine

two big squeezes of lime juice

1 c nonfat plain yogurt (no sugar added)

handful of chopped walnuts

handful of dried cranberries

1 cup blueberries

Microwave brown rice pouch as directed on package.  If you wish to use regular brown rice, prepare 1/2 cup dried as you usually prepare it.  In small saucepan, bring TexMex rice and chicken stock to a boil.  Stir once, cover and reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes.  Remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes.  While rice is cooking, to a small fry pan add enough chicken stock to cover the bottom.  Poach chicken pieces over medium high heat until cooked through.  Let cool.  Mix chicken and rice together in a bowl.  Add green onions, lime juice, yogurt and stir gently to coat.  Add walnuts, dried cranberries, and blueberries just before serving.

Enjoy!

The color of crap food

I like BBC America -it is smart and funny and I am impressed by the programming.  Yesterday I found myself caught up in a "You Are What You Eat" marathon.It is your typical intervention show where they confront a person with the absolute CRAP they eat, put them on a new diet and exercise program, and see the results at the end of eight weeks.  Unlike any show that might air in the US, this one does not mince words at all - if someone looks like a big tub of lard they say it, if they have a fat ass you can bet they say that too.  Can you imagine anything like that happening here?  I don't think so!

Anyway, in every episode they trot out a table full of the foods that this person ate all last week, and all they drank too.  How disgusting!  You know what overwhelms me each and every time?  The color of it all - it is always a shade of beige or brown.  Chips and fries and burger buns and doughnuts, all blah looking.  Many times there is not a fresh veg or fruit to be found.  Then they trot out a table full of the foods that they will be eating for the next week - it looks like a technicolor explosion!  You know something?  Every time I go to the fridge to get something to eat, I think about those two tables and I consider which table my weekly meals would resemble.  More often than not it makes me rethink what I am going to eat for lunch or for dinner.  It reminds me to grab a couple of tomatoes or carrots, add a little contrast to the protein that I seem to have no trouble eating.  It even made me hull all the strawberries and cut up the watermelon in my fridge.

So tonight my dinner consisted of Chinese Five-Spice chicken (homemade) with sweet potato and onion with diced courgettes.  I couldn't help myself, I had to see the green on the plate!  And now I also have frozen watermelon in my freezer just waiting to be added to my strawberries for a delish fruit smoothie.  It is quite unlike me.  I rather like it.  No matter how much I protest I am actually enjoying eating healthier.

Darn you BBC America!

Too Darn Hot

Much of the reason I left LA and moved to the coast (besides the horrific smog) was that this particular area rarely is warmer than 90*F.  Hot and I do not mix.  So you can imagine my excitement over the last three days of 105*+ temperatures.  Three days - no air conditioner.  Setting all that aside, I noticed that there have been some interesting things happening to my appetite - mainly that I don't have one, which for a girl like me is astounding.  All I want is to have cool beverages, cool fruit, and cool dinners.  For most people that would mean salad.

For me, that means tomatoes.

I know, tomatoes are not yet fully in season.  But these meaty Romas are just calling out, "Eat me with some mozzarella and basil and balsamic vinegar!"  So that is what I will do.  Any other urge to turn on an oven will have to wait until the temperature drops back below 80*.

Monday Mornings

Monday.

It is the day for new diets, new exercise programs - and today - new blogs.  Ok, so the diet and the exercise programs are restarts of the old programs I had been following rather than a whole new regiment, but challenges nonetheless.  Here I will be focusing on my food journey, discovering the joy in cooking and a return to baking as I did while at my grandmother's knee, from scratch and with love.  A journey into the "Amysing".