Every New Year, I create my personal list of accomplishments to shoot for. It’s no different for me in the kitchen except that I don’t really like to cook all that much. I don’t like the clean-up and I don’t like trying to navigate the market finding the best prices on various products. (That issue on shopping only got better when I learned that I could use it as a shopping skill-set to put notches on my “shopping” belt on how much money I could save on the most stuff in the basket! 2013 was an interesting year for that- but I didn’t always cook smart things. I didn’t always buy the best products. Sometimes I bought the wrong things- junk or not ripe or too ripe or something I just messed up with the recipe (*like trying to fudge it.)
So this year is a transitional point- a pivot point if you will. It’s not so much about cooking as it is about eating-and making sure that what I eat is good for me. I have become a fan of kale, protein drinks, and more vegetables than I knew how to cook (turnips, parsnips and beets anyone?) Because of a movement towards less meat and smaller portions – except for veggies, I have found that processed food doesn’t taste nearly as good as I once would have thought. (An exception would be thick-cut bacon smoked over maple wood. Heaven!) I don’t like the taste of white bread or pre-packaged ready to bake biscuits either. I don’t eat a lot of dessert. That said, it doesn’t mean I don’t buy dessert for those living in the house. A family member adores ice cream- so I buy ice cream. I don’t buy the flavors I like. I do buy occasional pints of decadent flavors that I savor. I have moved to going green and more organic. Eating specialty cereals and grains and lots of other things.
2013 was the year of the cast iron skillet, juicer, new blender and a Keurig bought Holiday 2012. Because I have all these new tools and new foods I do like to eat, I have invested in better salt, spices and other implements.
Now that I have all these things, I have been trying out new stuff all during 2013 and tweaking recipes in 2014. I have made more more promise — to cut back on sugar. I don’t need to eat foods with added sugar. I choose not to eat them. I will be cutting those products out. When Foodie’s Damaris Palmer asked for contributors to build a special recipe collection for this post, I thought why not? There are a lot of creative people on Foodie, some who are far better cooks than I am. (Fewer though in the cocktail arena though!) I thought it was the perfect opportunity to create a collection that reflects these personal changes I am choosing to make.
Hence the latest collection: Tasty + Healthy + Weight Conscious Recipes. The collection was targeted between 12-16 recipes. If you know me even a little bit, you might snicker at that number. When I am on a “mission” or a hunt for something, there is no stone left unturned until I feel like I have done my due diligence. This was the case when hunting down recipes for this assignment. I have 36 recipes in all kinds of categories from 65 calorie pancake (with only 3-4 ingredients!), drinks, entrees, snacks, desserts, appetizers, sips and more.
Note that I can’t guarantee that all these recipes will live up to a low-calorie version. Some of them won’t- but I can bet you that they will be so tasty and satisfying that you will be sated more easily because that recipes has the blend of ingredients to give you an amazing mouth feel and an indulgent experience. There are times when one has to choose between a lot of drugstore chocolates and a couple of pieces of chocolate that has you swooning. I am of the swooning arena. Eat it, enjoy it, indulge in the effort you just expended to make it. And you will eat less food because you listened to your soul. You will treat food – and your body- differently.
Hit the arrows at the top and bottom to scroll through the recipe options!
Hope you enjoyed this sharing opportunity. Hopefully you had a chance to check out the range of recipes I chose.
If you find one that inspires you to hit the kitchen, please share it.
If you have tweaked that recipe, please share that too.
If you find or know of other recipes that I MUST try, please post a comment
In other words, comment, tweet, facebook and pin this and let me know!
It’s a sharing moment. It’s also a sponsored post and Foodie is going to pay me for blathering on here. Actually they would probably prefer I shut up and just don’t “talk/write” so much and let you dig into the recipes. I have always been one who gets a thrill out of sharing- but then there are times when I do not share “secret” recipes that I have discovered until I have made them entirely my own.
Now I need to get in the kitchen and put together something for a group of BFF’s who are coming over!
Stevie Wilson,
LA-Story.com
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