Category: Veggie Challenge (Page 4 of 6)

Healthy Eating, Shopping and Meal Prep with Health Coach Beth Kazcmar

Healthy Eating, Shopping and Meal Prep with Health Coach Beth Kaczmar

September 10, 2019 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Episode 41 Healthy Eating, Shopping and Meal Prep

In episode 41, Jill and Chris talk with Health Coach Beth Kaczmar about healthy eating, grocery shopping and meal prep ideas.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from University of Akron in Nutrition and Dietetics, is certified in health coaching through Precision Nutrition and currently works as a health coach at a medical practice.

She likes to help people to see what they can eat, instead of focusing on what they are told they can’t eat.

She said she likes to help them with variety, make it about recipes. “We tweak recipes, so they are not feeling deprived. For instance, substituting, normal flour for an almond flour and then adjust the liquids in the recipe.”

Some of the discussion points:

Tips on shopping the grocery stores – Produce. Fish. Organic. Locally grown. Nutrition label.
Food prep ideas for the week.
TasteMyTable instagram page of her original recipes for eating the rainbow. https://www.instagram.com/tastemytable/
How she squeezes exercise into her busy week: swimming, elliptical, and weights
Fueling for working out and training for endurance events.

Find her on:
@TasteMyTable
RevitalizeMed.com

Beth’s Red Cabbage Recipe from TasteMyTable:
Sweet and Spicy Cabbage on the go!

I love this recipe because all I do is chop all my ingredients, pop them in a zip lock bag, including the dressing, and when I’m ready to eat, just give a little shake and I have my salad to go

It’s packed with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and it’s high in fiber and low in calories

I hope you enjoy! 1/4 head of purple cabbage, shredded, 1 slice white onion, diced, 1 small whole carrot, diced, 1 T goji berries, 1 T raisins, 1 T Apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp olive oil, 1/2 tsp hot sauce, 1 tsp honey, sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.

Throw all ingredients into a zip lock bag, give a shake and enjoy!

These are a Few of my Favorite Veggies

September 7, 2019 / Chris Brown / 1 Comment

I love vegetables, especially my favorite veggies. I have found that if I don’t have a bunch of product in the refrigerator, I feel like we don’t have food. Most of them I cook, but many just eat raw.

“Eat your vegetables” is something that kids hear from adults, but many times, even as adults, we find it hard to eat enough vegetables.

During 2019, we’ve been doing the #VeggieChallenge here in Becoming Elli by coming up with new recipes or trying new vegetables each week. While it’s a marvelous goal, I’m finding that my vegetable list continues to include the tried and true choices.

Here’s what I find that I buy and eat most often. I guess you would call these My Favorite Veggies:

Artichokes – I usually buy in a jar, but love to make these with Parmesan cheese the way my sister showed me.
Asparagus – My other sister makes asparagus for holidays and I’ll fix it like that with cheese, but usually just roasted in the oven.
Avocados – It’s been hard to find ripe ones lately, I love eating these with my egg whites in the morning.
Bib lettuce – delish in a salad or to hold hummus
Beets – in our garden. LOVE these roasted
Broccoli – I usually steam broccoli but also like it raw or roasted
Brussels sprouts – roasted is my favorite
Cauliflower – raw, riced, baked and boiled/mashed – I love C-flower!
Celery- chopped and mixed with tuna
Cucumber – with vinegar and tomatoes
Green cabbage – a little olive oil and baked on a cookie tray
Iceberg lettuce – rarely buy except I eat from a salad bar
Kale – growing this in our garden out back
Mushrooms – love these sauteed with eggs
Olives – black, green and Greek especially
Onions – white, and yellow. Not so much the purple
Peppers – green yes. But love the yellow, red and orange minis
Pumpkin – especially the canned plain pumpkin to bulk up a soup
Radishes – shaved in a salad. Whole when roasted
Red cabbage – shredded in a salad
Red Lettuce – placed under another salad as garnish
Sauerkraut – Love sauerkraut. I cook it in the crock pot low and slow.
Spinach – two bags of washed spinach each week. Wilted and eaten with my eggs
Sweet Potato – baked is favorite, but sweet potato fries are a treat
Swiss Chard – growing in my garden. Great wilted and sauteed with garbanzo beans.
Tomatoes – mostly little grape tomatoes but this time of year big Beefsteak or Early Girl or Roma tomatoes are great!
Zucchini – now is the time, right? Who else makes zucchini bread?

What am I missing that you wouldn’t go without? I’ve shared my favorite veggies, so now, what is your favorite way to fix them or eat them? Let me know by sending an email to Chris@becomingelli.com or calling 330-970-6662.

Corn on the Cob: Veggie Challenge

September 5, 2019 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

Corn on the cob is not a unique vegetable nor is it an unusual way of preparing corn. So, technically, it probably doesn’t count as an entry for the Becoming Elli Veggie Challenge.

I’ve been making it frequently over the past few weeks. Yes, I know that most corn is GMO and is high in carbs or sugar. It is usually not on the list of acceptable foods in most weight loss diets. However, it’s August in Ohio and it’s sweet corn season.

Some of my favorite childhood memories are of eating sweet corn in the late summer. I can remember my mother stopping at one of the local farm stands to buy corn for our dinner and how we all ate it with great enjoyment. We slathered butter and salt on it and devoured it. My father would eat several ears at a meal. There was a certain ritual about eating corn.

When I visited my relatives on their dairy farm in northwestern Pennsylvania, we would go out into the garden and pick ears of corn for dinner. Then we’d stand by the barn to husk the corn and throw the outer leaves into the heifer pens. Those cows loved the corn leaves.

Since this is the Becoming Elli community, most of you will remember that we didn’t get produce out of season very often when we were children. So, corn came into season and lasted for a month or two and then no more fresh corn for the year.

Now, I can buy corn on the cob almost year-round though I don’t think it’s the same thing. I don’t often buy it out of season. But, in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, corn is in season in August and lots of produce stands pop up and sell it. Also, there are farms that specialize in corn and they sell a lot of it in the summer.

You can cook corn on the cob in any number of ways. You can grill it, throw it in the embers of a camp fire, and microwave it in the leaves. I cooked it a couple times this summer in the Instant Pot but decided that I preferred the old-fashioned way of boiling a big pot of water and throwing the corn in for three to five minutes. My mother instilled in me a horror of overcooked corn so I’m careful not to boil it for too long.

There’s a lot of talk about emotional eating. I know that usually means we eat when we’re angry or sad or happy and that it’s considered to be an unhealthy habit. But for me, corn is emotional eating in that it reminds me of family and summer and happy times. A favorite memory is my familysitting at our picnic table enjoying our corn and Velvet, our Cocker Spaniel, sitting under the table, hoping some food would fall. I both miss those days and am grateful to have had them.

I have a friend who eagerly buys Silver Princess corn whenever she finds it. It reminds her of buying corn while on vacation with her family. You don’t find much of that variation in Ohio so she’s always happy when it shows up in our local farmer’s market. So, I know I’m not the only person who associates sweet corn with family and summer and love.

Do you have regular, everyday foods that evoke that sense of nostalgia for you? I’d love to hear about them. Leave a message here or on the Becoming Elli Facebook page or email me at Jill@becomingelli.com.

Getting Veggies during My Big Bike Ride

August 5, 2019 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

I posted on Saturday about the fundraising bike ride that I was participating in over this past weekend. Even though I was not preparing any of my own food for the two days of the event, I was still on the lookout for getting my vegetables! Can’t really call this a full #veggiechallenge success, but here are a couple of veggies that I ate during the weekend.

The dinner on Saturday was a great veggie success at the Ashland College cafeteria! There we had an all-you-can-eat salad bar filled with many wonderful chopped vegetables and also a cooked-to-order vegetable bar. Many many other choices too, but I had the salad bar for my first plate. Then I opted for a big plate of steamed veggies mixed with olive oil (spinach, mushrooms, onions, broccoli, snap peas, shredded carrots and maybe cauliflower.) Delicious! Topped that off with dessert from their dairy bar/cookie area.

I was so tired after riding the first day, I completely forgot to take a photo until I finished. Oh well, you’ll have to just imagine.

This photo was my lunch on Sunday. I had a double serving of chicken salad with pecans, some salsa med/mild, bean salad with a heavy dressing of some sort, and a double serving of grapes. Throughout the ride, there were PBJ sandwiches, bananas, pickles and lots of junk food on the ride at each rest stop approximately 8-10 miles apart.

After I fully recover from all the riding and excitement, I’ll do a ride recap. Fun times and tired legs!

Getting Back into the Groove

July 27, 2019 / Chris Brown / 2 Comments

I’m struggling with getting back into the groove of my usual routines and good habits. My planned consistency has taken a back seat to summer social activities.

It’s funny. I looked forward to summer so much so that I could be outside, running, riding and building my physical levels. Looking back over this year (since summer is more than half over now) between the family vacation, reunions, birthdays, a long wedding weekend, kayak trips and camp-outs, my summer has had more social activity and less physical activity than the last eight or nine summers have had.

A regular schedule and a set routine helps ensure I plan my meals, shop for healthy produce regularly, and consistently get solid exercise.

Don’t get me wrong, I love connecting and reconnecting with family, friends and loved ones! But my consistent pattern of working toward my consistency goals has definitely suffered.

I haven’t done as many long bike rides this summer and my big fundraising ride is next weekend. Excuses like “it’s too wet” or it’s too hot” are actually somewhat legitimate. Temperatures and weather events have been epic this summer. Because of social events, even my indoor yoga routine has been inconsistent.

Getting Back into the Groove
I am in the cue for an audio book from the library that always helps me get back on track: The Power of Habit.

I am reminding myself of my word of the year: resilient.

And re-reminding myself to get back into the sync of things with a focus on weight loss maintenance by staying consistent… staying with the #VeggieChallenge in 2019, and continuing to overcome the fear and jitters of new challenges.

Sometimes getting back in the groove feels like being in a rut. In this case, I don’t think so. Getting consistent exercise, sticking with good eating habits and pushing myself a little out of my comfort zone on a regular basis – that’s the kind of life schedule that keeps me feeling strong and fit, both physically and mentally.

How do you stay strong and fit both physically and mentally? Do you find power in routine or are you more of a spontaneous person? Leave a message in the comments below or a voice mail on 330-970-6662. Be sure to reference this article. Thanks!

Adding Vegetables to Breakfast

July 25, 2019 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

So now I’m adding vegetables to breakfast? Really? Why?

Recently, I attended a talk by a local doctor and a health coach. They said most of us need to increase the amount of vegetables we’re eating and said we should get nine to ten servings of vegetables per day.

The only way I can see to do that is by adding vegetables to breakfast.

My typical lunch is a big bowl of salad with a lot of different vegetables on it. I usually start with a bowl of greens, preferably a mix of some kind of lettuce and spinach and then I might add some kale or micro greens in there too. Lunch easily gives me three to four servings of vegetables.

Dinner is when I’m most likely to have some meat or fish. I try to fill my plate with an assortment of vegetables, some raw and some cooked. I might have another salad and roast a variety of vegetables such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and sweet potatoes. So, I can again get three to four servings at this meal.

This leaves me a bit shy of the nine servings of vegetables.

So, I am working on adding vegetables to breakfast. There’s a variety of ways to do that. Sometimes I just reheat leftover roasted vegetables from the night before and maybe top them with a fried egg. This is a delicious meal.

I use my blender at times to make a breakfast smoothie and try to include a few vegetables and fruit in that. Here’s a recipe I posted on my current version of a good smoothie. This smoothie is an easy way to get several servings of fruits and vegetables.

Another easy way to add vegetables is to make scrambled eggs with vegetables. Use whatever vegetables you have on hand, saute them, and scramble them with egg. A great way to start the day.

How do you get all of the servings of vegetables you want to be eating? Is it difficult or a breeze? Let me know how you manage it or what you struggle with.

Scrambled Eggs with Vegetables Recipe for Veggie Challenge

July 24, 2019 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

Scrambled eggs with vegetables is just about the easiest breakfast imaginable. The only thing easier would be omitting the vegetables and just having scrambled eggs but then that wouldn’t work for the veggie challenge, would it?

I often order a vegetable omelet when I breakfast at a restaurant but I struggle to make omelets as good. This dish is similar but easier. There’s something about starting with day with this dish that just makes me feel like I’m off to a good start.

Scrambled Eggs with Vegetables

Assemble the vegetables that you have on hand and chop them into small pieces. Try to make them as close to the same size as possible. In this photo, I used onion, bell pepper, broccoli, and sugar snap peas.

Break two or three eggs into a bowl and whisk until the yolks and whites are blended.

Melt some butter or oil in a small frying pan over medium heat.

Add the vegetables and saute until tender.

Add the whisked eggs and gently fold the eggs as they cook. When the eggs are done to your liking, transfer to a plate.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Enoy your breakfast of scrambled eggs with vegetables.

Notes

If you eat dairy, cheese is a great addition to this dish. You can use cheddar, swiss, or pepper jack cheese. Again, whatever you have on hand is fine.

Greens would be a good addition to this dish. If you have kale or spinach or some other type of greens, consider adding some to the vegetables. Spinach cooks more quickly than most vegetables so you should add it after the other vegetables have started to become tender.

You can also top this dish with some salsa if you have it. That’s an easy way to add even more vegetables to the dish.

Breakfast Smoothie Recipe Veggie Challenge

July 24, 2019 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

I’ve been making a breakfast smoothie frequently for the past few months. I seem to go in cycles on smoothies. At times, they’re great and I enjoy having them. They satisfy me until lunch time and I have control over what I eat.

Because I add the frozen berries and the pomegranate juice, this smoothie is not green. It can turn a pinkish color, though sometimes it’s not an appetizing color. If that happens, serve it in a mug.

Here’s the recipe of what I’ve been doing lately. You can easily switch out the vegetables and fruit. Just use what you have on hand.

Breakfast Smoothie Ingredients

2 handfuls kale

1 chunk cucumber, skin removed unless organic

1 carrot

1/2 avocado, peeled and seeded

2 to 3 handfuls frozen berries

1/4 cup pomegranate juice

1 cup almond milk

1 serving Orgain Organic Protein Powder, Vanilla Bean flavor

Throw all of the ingredients into a strong blender and blend. Follow your blender’s directions for the best order to put the ingredients.

This makes one generous serving or two moderate servings.

Notes

You can use whatever vegetables you have on hand though be careful if you use a vegetable with a strong flavor. For example, I find the taste of celery to be too distinctive to use in a smoothie.
If you don’t have any avocado, use some other source of fat. That might be a tablespoon of coconut oil or almond butter. Having the fat in the smoothie helps this feel like a complete meal.
You don’t have to use any juice in this. Besides the pomegranate juice, I love adding cranberry to the smoothie. I buy Just Cranberry. It’s made solely of cranberries. No other juices or sweeteners. It’s quite tart.
Adding some green or herbal tea, preferably room temperature or chilled, works well as a liquid.
I don’t add banana to this because the vanilla protein powder makes this sweet enough. If I wasn’t using the powder, I’d consider adding a banana for sweetness.
The frozen berries work well in the smoothie because they keep the drink cold. Of course, you can use fresh berries. Also, sometimes I use only blueberries or raspberries or strawberries. What you have on hand is the best choice.

Veggie Salad at Lake Erie – #VeggieChallenge

July 21, 2019 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

We enjoyed a veggie salad at Lake Erie. This time I cheated a little.

Once again I made my famous fresh chopped vegetable salad with olive oil, lemon juice and cider vinegar dressing. It was the perfect salad for staying cool up at Lake Erie. My sister in law made a cucumber salad was really delicious too. Always great to get your vegetables when you’re enjoying the breezes at the beach!

Salad at Lake Erie

Time was of the essence when I was getting ready, so I decided to “cheat” a little by starting with several vegetables all ready to go ahead of time.

My local grocery store sells a type of broccoli slaw in a bag that contains a chopped blend of vegetables. They called it “Rainbow Blend”.
Broccoli
Carrots
Red Cabbage
Kohlrabi
Cauliflower

Grabbing that bag and using it as the base saved me some time, although I chopped all of the rainbow blend much finer so it would have a better consistency in my salad.

To those vegetables I chopped and added:

onion
celery
red pepper
yellow pepper
orange pepper
cucumber

I opened and drained a can of garbanzo beans also known as chick peas to add some protein. I also added about a cup of cooked quinoa for more protein.

Tossed together with salt and pepper.

Delicious and super healthy!

Cucumber Tomato Quinoa Salad – Veggie Challenge

July 15, 2019 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Cucumber Tomato Quinoa Salad is great when you’re in the mood for a summer salad and perfect for the #VeggieChallenge!

Directions:
Cook one cup of quinoa in one and a half cups of boiling water.
Stir quinoa frequently until water is absorbed. Take off heat and cover for 15 minutes. Fluff.
Peel and remove seeds from the cucumber.

Chop Veggies:
Tomato
Cucumber
Carrots
Sweet Peppers (red, yellow, orange)
Green Pepper
Squash
Celery
Onion
Cauliflower

Toss together.

Add Dressing:
Lemon juice
Olive Oil
Apple Cider Vinegar

Chopping lots of raw vegetables takes a few minutes, but they add lots of flavor and fiber.