Category: Recipes

What We Ate Last Week & What’s On The Menu This Week

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, Health and wellness, mediterannean, Nutrition, Recipes1 Comment

Remember how a few weeks ago I said that most of the time my meal plans go awry for some reason or another? This last week was the perfect example. Monday and Tuesday went great, when I made farotto and a salad (risotto made with farro) and Tuscan bean soup with bruschetta, respectively. Wednesday things went off the rails when I found out the rest of my family had things going on and would not be joining me for dinner. So, I kept the scallops in the freezer and ordered myself Crisp & Green for takeout. I love C&G salads, but I’m a little irritated that probably 50% of the time something is wrong with my order. Still, they are really yummy and healthy so I keep getting them. Thursday, we had Eat for Equity as planned, and Friday my husband got us reservations at Martina, one of my favorite places to eat and have a cocktail. We had scallops, pasta, and Brussels sprout salad, with a delicious banana caramel crepe for dessert. Our plans Saturday were foiled because our paddle party was cancelled due to weather, so we punted and had more Eat for Equity. We tried watching Jurassic World Dominion but it was just meh so we switched to our daughter’s high school’s championship hockey game, which was super fun to watch, and they won state! Sunday I heated up the lasagne from Eat for Equity and we had that and a salad while watching the Oscars. My daughter put together this fun snack tray below. Yes, there’s candy and cookies there! And microwave popcorn. These are all ok (we practice moderation). I lost the Oscar’s ballot competition by a mile.

Oscar’s Snack Tray
Bruschetta with fresh tomatoes and garlic
Farrotto, made with farro, asparagus, peas and parmesan
Romaine with strawberries and goat cheese with a vinaigrette
Tuscan white bean soup with kale

Moving on to this week’s plan!

MONDAY: The scallop recipe from last week’s post, along with some leftover roasted vegetables from Eat For Equity.

TUESDAY: Sicilian chickpea and escarole soup with whole grain bread dipped in olive oil.

WEDNESDAY: We have a retirement party to attend, so we will be out (on a school night!)

THURSDAY: Eat for Equity

FRIDAY: Corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. I’ve been told this is not an actual traditional St. Patrick’s meal, but I love corned beef and cabbage and eat it once a year, at most, on this day.

SATURDAY: Eat for Equity

SUNDAY: French onion soup casserole. My daughter and I are big fans of French onion soup, and this just looks cozy and delicious and I love the addition of white beans. Sadly, winter is far from over here, so this recipe just spoke to me, and it came highly recommended.

I hope you have a delicious and restful week! I will need some extra zzz’s thanks to Daylight Savings Time.

What I Cooked Last Week/What I Plan To Cook This Week

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, health, Health and wellness, high cholesterol, mediterannean, Nutrition, Recipes1 Comment

I have been really enjoying having my meal plan set each week, as well as having the time and energy to actually adhere to it. That wasn’t alway the case, so if it’s not in the cards for you these days to stick to a meal plan, don’t worry. I’m in a season of life where it’s possible and also fun for me to cook a lot. We’ve gone through seasons where we were doing a lot of “fending” for ourselves, or scraping together whatever, or picking up dinner on the way home. The best way to ensure you hate cooking is to hold yourself to some arbitrary standard that doesn’t fit in with your current life.

So, if you’ll remember from last week’s post, I planned to make roast cod with chermoula and broccolini on Monday, peanut and veggie soup from the freezer on Tuesday, pasta with zucchini and tomatoes with a salad with Marcona almonds and manchego cheese on Wednesday, Eat for Equity on Thursday and Saturday (we got hot pot! Some beef and some vegan with tofu), over to friends on Friday and Crappy Dinner Party on Sunday. How did it go? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday went according to plan. When I went to make the pasta on Wednesday, I realized I didn’t have enough fresh tomatoes, so I broke out a jar of Rao’s (seriously, it really is the best tasting jarred pasta you can get, and it’s available at Costco) and did a little riffing. It turned out delicious. Make sure to check out the post from last week if you want recipes. So, what didn’t go according to plan? By Saturday we had eaten most of the Eat for Equity food, our daughter was out, and we had hosted friends for cocktails and bites (olives, cheese and crackers, veggies and hummus) so we didn’t need a full dinner. I had a bowl of Trader Joe’s O’s cereal. Sunday, our Crappy Dinner Party was postponed so we pivoted and ordered from one of our favorite places, Edina Grill. We got two Thai chicken and brown rice bowls (so delicious) and a chopped Italian salad. Here are some photos from dinners last week.

Cod with chermoula, white beans with herbed oil, and broccolini.
Vegan Hot Pot from Eat for Equity, topped with kimchi.
Whole wheat spaghetti with zucchini and pine nuts.

On to this week’s plan. All recipes are from America’s Test Kitchen Complete Mediterranean Cookbook, but I have found the same or very similar recipe links elsewhere. As you can see, my pattern is to make dinner Mon/Tues/Wednesday and then the rest of the week is sort of loosey goosey. We are so lucky to have Eat for Equity to fill in some gaps, and I keep stuff in the freezer and pantry that we can make meals out of.

MONDAY – Farrotto with pancetta, asparagus and peas, and an arugula and pear salad with goat cheese

TUESDAY – Tuscan bean soup with bruschetta

WEDNESDAY – Seared scallops with orange lime dressing and skillet-roasted cauliflower with capers and pine nuts

THURSDAY – Eat for Equity

FRIDAY – Either more Eat for Equity, or go out

SATURDAY – Pizza and paddle (click here if you’re wondering what paddle tennis is. We play it in the winter here in Minnesota).

SUNDAY – TBD, not sure if we are doing Crappy Dinner Party. It’s the Oscars so maybe we will do something fun around that.

I hope you all have a great week ahead and feed yourselves well, whatever that means to you.

What I Cooked Last Week/What I Plan To Cook This Week

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, Health and wellness, Nutrition, Recipes2 Comments

I got a lot of interest in my meal planning post last week. And it makes sense. There are some weeks when I sit down to plan the menu for the week and I think “What do I even cook?” My mind just goes completely blank. It’s nice to see what other people are doing with their cooking lives and get new ideas.

First things first: how closely did my actual cooking life last week resemble the plan? I give myself an 9/10. The only change was that on Wednesday I made homemade chicken noodle soup out of the leftover roast chicken because my kiddo wasn’t feeling well. (FYI, if your celery is looking anemic and bendy, throw it in some soup instead of tossing it in the garbage or compost). So I punted on the coconut curry until Thursday, which punted the Eat For Equity meal until Friday. Which means on Friday instead of going out or ordering in, we assembled the most amazing shrimp po’ boys topped with coleslaw made with miso dressing and collards with raisins. We were supposed to go out with friends Saturday but that stupid cold that’s going around foiled our plans, so while our daughter was out, we ate Po’ Boy leftovers and watched the Yellowstone prequel 1923. This time we also ate braised butter beans along with it, also from Eat For Equity. And tonight, we are going out, an usual plan for us for Sunday evening. Anyway, maybe I should give myself an 11/10 for cooking an additional meal this week. Here are some photos of the things we ate. As I keep saying, I’m not a professional blogger who curates amazing photos. I’m a real person who doesn’t have the patience to stage a photo, so you’ll see real-life depictions of what food actually looks like.

Coconut Curry Lentils
Oven roasted garlic
Burst tomato pasta with basil and parmesan

This week, I plan on making the following (they are all from the America’s Test Kitchen The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook so I’ll provide similar recipe links. OR you can buy the book or pay to have access to the recipes online):

MONDAY: Roast cod with chermoula (a sauce made with cilantro and other delicious things), and broccolini with garlic and red pepper flakes.

TUESDAY: I’m chaperoning my daughter’s Model United Nations conference and then playing paddle (if you don’t know, definitely watch the video link. It’s such a fun winter sport!) Tuesday late afternoon, so I’ll be pulling out a peanut stew with winter vegetables from the freezer that I ordered from Eat for Equity. The recipe is from Bryant Terry’s Afro Vegan Cookbook. I plan on serving it with toasted sourdough.

WEDNESDAY: Pasta with zucchini and tomatoes and pine nuts, served with a green salad with Marcona almonds and manchego cheese.

THURSDAY: Eat For Equity

FRIDAY: Out

SATURDAY: Eat For Equity

SUNDAY: Crappy Dinner Party (if you don’t know about this yet, read about it here). It’s our turn to host, and I’m thinking maybe my husband can smoke something in our smoker, TBD).

I also plan on making a chopped salad with chickpeas along the way for lunch. Something like this but with my leftover goat cheese instead of feta. As usual, I will also probably eat avocado toast with an easy salad once or twice. Here’s a photo of what my lunches look like most days.

I hope you all have a delicious and healthy week ahead.

What I Plan To Cook This Week

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, Health and wellness, high cholesterol, Nutrition, Recipes2 Comments

This will be interesting, because many (most?) times my menu plan and what I end up cooking are vastly different. Either I realize not everyone will be home for dinner, or we have so much leftover food it doesn’t make sense to make a new meal, or I get a headache and don’t feel like cooking, or whatever other life stuff pops up. But having a menu plan is good! It helps to make sure I’m buying only the food I need, and keeps me focused on cooking healthy meals vs. falling into the takeout trap.

Here’s what the menu plan looks like for this week. I hope to circle back at the end of the week and report back on what actually happened! Either way, I hope this gives you some inspiration.

MONDAY – Burst cherry tomato pasta with a simple arugula salad (literally lemon juice or rice vinegar and a drizzle of olive oil, sprinkled with s+p) and sourdough bread toasted and dipped in olive oil. If I’m really feeling myself, I’ll roast a head of garlic until it’s soft and spreadable and serve that with the sourdough.

TUESDAY – Roast whole chicken (I buy it cut into pieces), herb new potatoes (I buy the container that you just microwave) and roasted cauliflower with pine nuts and capers. This recipe is from a cookbook and I can’t find it online, but if you google it, similar recipes will pop up. Easy enough to leave out the capers and pine nuts and just roast some cauliflower with the herbs and spices you like.

WEDNESDAY – Lentil crockpot curry served over brown rice. We have, by all accounts, a massive snowstorm coming from Tuesday through Thursday of this week. I imagine school might be cancelled, but even if not, we have appointments on Wednesday so I want to be able to put this in the crock pot and forget about it all day. If we are home we can enjoy the aroma, and if not, we will come home to a delicious and warming meal.

THURSDAY – We order meals every week from a local organization called Eat For Equity. We get two main dishes, two sides, two salads/soup/bread, and one dessert. It’s an amazing organization and the food is so yummy. I always say, it’s the food I would make if I had just a little more energy to make my dinners really special. They deliver every Thursday to our house. We usually eat E4E for dinner Thursday, and then throughout the weekend either as another dinner or as our lunches. We are so lucky to have this option! As a backup (because we are expecting 1-2 feet of snow overnight Wednesday and into Thursday), I am also planning to make a Greek white bean soup from a Mediterranean cookbook I have. Here’s a comparable recipe.

FRIDAY – We usually eat out or order in on Fridays. Sometimes we have an Eat for Equity meal, which I suspect will be the case this week because we have dinner out both Saturday and Sunday.

SATURDAY – We are going out with friends Saturday for dinner! For lunch, we will probably eat some of our E4E meals and if I feel motivated, I will make a salad of some sort.

SUNDAY – We will be going to a pasta dinner out. I’m excited because we get to pick our type of pasta plus all the add-ins. I’m not just saying this, but I love a pasta with tons of veggies in it, so I expect this will be really yummy.

If you’re wondering what I do for lunch during the week, mostly I eat leftovers, avocado toast, or Dr. Praeger’s California Veggie burger with raw sauerkraut. Once a week, I generally treat myself to a salad from Crisp & Green.

Please comment below with what you are cooking this week, if you’d like. I always like trying new recipes.

Easiest Weeknight Pesto Pasta

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, family, health, Nutrition, Recipes1 Comment
Easy pesto pasta

Do you practice Meatless Mondays? We generally do, which means the dinners I prepare for my family on Mondays are vegetarian. I can easily get in a rut because there’s only so much time and bandwidth I have to dedicate to dinners on a busy Monday night.

Enter pesto pasta. I’m not even talking about homemade pesto (although in the summer when I’m swimming in basil, I certainly will make a homemade pesto!) I’m talking about a good quality jarred pesto sauce, a simple noodle, and a few other things to help create a little more excitement. Pasta is exciting!

Here’s what you do, and it’s so easy it’s ridiculous. 1. Boil any type of pasta you have. I am partial to Banza noodles, which are made from garbanzo beans so they are naturally gluten free but also high in protein and fiber. They also have 25% fewer carbs for people who are counting. 2.When there are about two minutes left in cooking time, add in about a cup of frozen peas to the water. 3. Drain everything and throw into a large bowl. 4. Add as much pesto as you’d like, and sprinkle in as much shredded or grated parmesan that looks good to you. 5. Grate some fresh pepper and salt over the top and you have yourself a pasta that’s a *tiny* bit fancier than spaghetti and marinara sauce. If you have any cherry tomatoes, you can slice them in half and sprinkle them in there. Throw some fresh shredded basil on the top if you have it, but don’t worry if you don’t.

Reader, I make this dish on the regular, and my family likes it. It feels hearty and healthy but is also so easy it’s ridiculous.

A friend once told me she felt overwhelmed by all the nutrition advice out there, so she didn’t even bother making dinner anymore, opting for takeout because she felt like she just couldn’t win. This penne pasta is the thing for anyone who feels that way. Or for people like me who have a nutrition certificate and *still* feel overwhelmed sometimes. Feeding your family shouldn’t be full of strife and confusion. A jar of sauce and a noodle is infinitely better than drive-through food. It doesn’t have to be rocket science.

You might also like:

One Pot Parmesan Pasta

Chicken Apple Sausage and Sage Pasta

Cocktails: The Pamplemousse

On By Cultivate WellnessIn cocktails, Recipes4 Comments
Photo by Food Photographer | Jennifer Pallian on Unsplash

It’s been a minute since I featured a cocktail recipe. I’m still trying new ones, though, so here today is one that I had recently I thought you all should know about.

But back up a second. You’ve heard me talk about our Crappy Dinner Parties, right? This past Sunday, one of our gang suggested having waffles. How fun is that?! So we divvied up the responsibilities while still trying to keep it crappy-adjacent. We had two waffle irons going, and on the side we had homemade whipped cream, berries, bacon, sausage and fruit salad. Nothing fancy (but as a side note: it was the most excited I’ve seen all of our kids get about CDP)

What *was* a little fancy was the cocktail the hosts Catherine and Mark made. I think we should be allowed to have a not-so-crappy Crappy Dinner once or twice a year, don’t you? Mark and Catherine thought it would be fun to have a brunch cocktail to accompany our brunch for dinner and it was delicious! And to think of it, Mark kept it crappy by spilling a bunch on the floor.

Featuring fresh grapefruit and lemon juices, it was the perfect cocktail to accompany our Crappy Brunch Party. Here it is!

INGREDIENTS:

1 ounce gin (preferably dry)

1/2 ounce St-Germain elderflower liqueur

1 ounce fresh grapefruit juice

1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice (I sometimes buy it pre-squeezed in bottles at Whole Foods)

1 large basil leaf or a sprig of thyme, for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS:

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add all of the ingredients except the garnish and shake well. Pour through a fine strainer over an ice sphere or straight up and garnish with the basil leaf or thyme sprig.

Cheers!

Spooky Sips: Weekend Cocktails, Halloween Edition

On By Cultivate WellnessIn cocktails, entertaining, holiday, RecipesLeave a comment

weekend-cocktails

If you have read my blog you know how much I love a good fun cocktail. If you’re new to my blog, you might be thinking “But she’s a Nutrition and Wellness Consultant! How can she also promote drinking cocktails?”. Good question! My approach to wellness is to follow the 80/20 rule. That means 80% of the things I eat and drink promote health. The other 20% is devoted to pure enjoyment. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy the things that fall in the 80%. For instance, I can’t tell you how much I love to bite into a caramelized balsamic glazed Brussels sprout. But the things in the 20%, such as cocktails and the occasional handful of peanut M&Ms fall solely into the treat category.

So, occasionally I will post a cocktail recipe for the weekend. I get a lot of enjoyment out of trying new cocktails. We frequent some restaurants nearby that have a strong cocktail game. It’s always a highlight for me to try them. For instance, the last time I went to one of my favorites, Lake & Irving in Uptown, Minneapolis, I tried something called “I Didn’t Say Banana” which featured house rum blend, coconut water, banana, lime, and Peychaud’s bitters. Delicious!

I’m not capable of making such a fantastic concoction so at home I tend to stick to my old favorites like the Aviation or a simple G+T. However, I think I could easily swing this Monster Mash Margarita. I love blood orange juice and I love a margarita, so I feel like I can’t really lose here.  Since I have most of the ingredients it will be easy to whip up.

For more ideas, try this list of 34 easy fun Halloween inspired cocktails.

I hope you have a Happy Halloween!

close up photo of halloween decors
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

Make Each Day Of The Week Unique (plus a new carnitas recipe!)

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, eating, family, Kids, Recipes2 Comments

I wrote a post in July about my new dinner plan, which is to “make each day of the week unique”. You can read about it here. I’m excited to be implementing it now that the school year has started and things have gotten pretty busy with sports practices\matches, theater set design, and orchestra rehearsals for my daughter, and meetings for me and my husband. More than ever, I need focus when it comes to meal planning. The premise is to assign each day of the week a theme (Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday, etc) so that it’s easier to plan the week’s recipes.

When I was poring over recipes yesterday morning trying to figure out what to make this week, it was so much easier to decide using my new system. I’m telling you, I am really on to something here!

Here is this week’s dinner plan. Thursdays are kind of a catch-all day. We usually have a good amount of leftovers in the fridge, and sometimes we will just fend for ourselves. On Friday, without exception, we go out or order in. The kitchen is always closed. This tradition has been going on since my 13 year old was a baby and I look forward to it every week. On Sundays we get together with our close friends and neighbors for our Crappy Dinner Party which I cannot recommend highly enough. Dinner Plan

Next week for “Taco Tuesday” I have promised my family I would make these Pork Carnitas. I made them for a friend on Saturday in my Instant Pot and they were so good (and very easy)!

Here’s to a great fall ahead!

You might also like:

Crappy Dinner Party (It’s A Good Thing!)

Chicken Apple Sausage and Sage Pasta!

Nourishing Lentil, Ham and Potato Soup

Easy Dinner Plan

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, Kids, Recipes1 Comment

cookbook

Most every Sunday I sit down with a mixture of cookbooks, magazines, recipe files and swirling thoughts to try to map out the next week’s dinner menus. I collect cookbooks and recipes the way some people collect baseball cards or coins. I love recipes, I can’t get enough of them, but there are SO. MANY. And when it comes time to figure out weeknight meals I do feel sometimes as though I need a little guidance.

I read a tip somewhere recently to make each day of the week a unique *type* of cuisine to help guide things along. Taco Tuesday is a popular night, but can you really eat tacos every week without someone in your family complaining that they are getting sick of them by month six (I mean, in my family the answer is no, but I realize we don’t represent all families)? So instead of tacos, you could designate Tuesdays for Mexican food night. Rather than it just serving tacos, you could also incorporate an easy pozole , burritos, chilaquiles, make your own Chipotle bowls, etc.

This tip was kind of a big deal for me, and I laid out a plan for our week that I think will work nicely. Every so often, maybe quarterly, I can mix things up a bit so that I have a chance to use all my recipes that I love so much.  This plan will work well during the school year, when we are on a little bit more of a regular schedule.

Here’s my weekly plan:

Monday: Meatless Monday (usually a pasta or another grain)

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday (or any Mexican inspired dish like chilaquiles, burritos, or this Easy Posole)

Wednesday: Fish (salmon, poke bowls, shrimp kebabs, etc)

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: KITCHEN IS CLOSED, OUT TO EAT

Saturday: John grills or smokes meat

Sunday: Comforting soup or a roast, or any other more complicated, time consuming dish that sounds good

I am really excited about this new approach to planning meals, and I think it’s going to work well for us.

Do you use a system like this? How does it work for you? What are you ideas for days of the week? Please leave a comment below!

You might also like:

NEW RECIPE! Chicken & White Bean Chili

Salmon with Clementine Cucumber Salsa

Giant Scallions

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, eating, Gardening, health, Health and wellness, Nutrition, Recipes, summerLeave a comment

This summer I am in a CSA share with my good friend Shawn. In case you didn’t know, CSA is short for Community Supported Agriculture. You buy a seasonal “share” from a local farm and each week you receive a box of produce (or cheese or whatever that farm specializes in). If you want to learn more and find a farm near you, click here. Anyway, we both have families of three so our boxes get split up very evenly and it’s a nice way to try new fruits and veggies. For instance, in yesterday’s box there were a smattering of gooseberries, which I had never tried. That was fun.

Also in yesterday’s box were the most gigantic scallions (also known as green onions) I have ever seen. One of these scallions probably equals four or five store-bought scallions. I got very excited because I adore green onions in any format. In fact, when I was a child, my grandma used to serve them raw on her veggie plate at her annual backyard BBQ and I would gladly gobble them up. I pity the fool who smelled my breath after that.

scallions
Giant scallions from the CSA

Onions are a powerful source of antioxidants and are part of the Allium family (along with garlic). They are rich in anti-cancer compounds called phenols and flavanoids. They are also rich in alliinase which is believed to be heart protective. They are anti-inflammatory and overall a very healthy food to add to your regular diet.

I got a little overwhelmed with the size and quantity of the scallions yesterday so I asked on my Cultivate Wellness Facebook page for cooking ideas and got some great ones. I thought that I would compile and share some of them here so you, too, can be empowered in your scallion cooking journey.

How about Tessa’s idea to make some Afghan Dumplings with Lamb Kofta and Yogurt Sauce?

Maria says “My favorite way to cook green onions is in a cast iron skillet with olive oil, salt and lemon pepper! I do it on a medium/high ( depending on your stove) you want the onions to break down and get a little char! It’s about a 10 min cooking time.”

Lara suggested adding them to a batch of cold Potato Leek Soup (I can get on board with that! Plus we got potatoes in our box this week, too).

Allison wrote that she was using her CSA scallions to make a Minty Orzo Salad with Grilled Beef. That recipe isn’t available online but here’s one that looks ah-mazing.

Sally used her giant scallions to make Crab Cakes. I do love a crab cake.

Molly likes to make Smitten Kitchen’s Spicy Green Onion Slaw recipe, which looks absolutely delicious. I love a slaw in any form.

How fun that so many people participate in a CSA?! At least a couple of the readers who chimed in with ideas got their giant scallions this week too. I love that.

If you have a favorite scallion/green onion recipe, please leave it in the comments! Happy cooking!

You might also like:

BBQ Chicken, Spanish Style

One Pot Garlic Parmesan Pasta