For the past few days, I have kind of been on an eating “vacation.” I had a friend visiting who was on vacation and it was easier to eat out than to cook; it was more fun to eat burgers and pizza than it was to watch my diet. But my friend left yesterday and although I will miss her, my diet is much improved now that I am cooking again. Today has been a pretty healthy day! I had Greek yogurt and blueberries for breakfast; a turkey wrap for lunch; and mussels for dinner. I am pretty proud of myself 🙂
Onto the healthy recipes!
Chipotle Turkey Wrap
Adapted from a recipe by College Girl Cooking
Ingredients:
- 1 wrap
- 1 wedge Laughing Cow Light Queso Fresco & Chipotle spreadable cheese
- 4 pieces turkey
- 1 handful green-leaf lettuce
- 1 small handful matchstick carrots
- ½ tbsp fresh cilantro
- 1 tsp hot sauce
- Optional: drizzle of olive oil vinaigrette
Directions:
1) Heat wrap in microwave for 15-30 seconds.
2) Spread Laughing Cow cheese on warmed wrap.
Add hot sauce on top of cheese.
3) Lay 4 pieces of turkey on wrap, overlapping; leave about ½” space between end of turkey and edge of wrap
4) Top with cilantro,
lettuce,
carrots, and drizzle with olive oil vinaigrette.
5) Fold the wrap like a burrito: start by rolling the edge closest to you over the filling (make sure this is tight!)
Fold in the right side
and then the left.
Cut in half and serve.
Notes/Review: I saw this recipe on College Girl Cooking (via Foodgawker) and I was attracted to it for a few reasons. The simplicity of it was, of course, very appealing but I was especially excited about trying it because I love the Laughing Cow spreadable cheeses. While my favorite is the original light cheese, I also liked the sundried tomato and I have been eying the queso fresco flavor. I’m also tired of salads for lunch so a salad wrap sounded tasty. And guess what? It was! I added the extra ingredients (hot sauce, cilantro, carrots) because I had them in the fridge and I wanted to add a little more spunk to the wrap. We chose Hot! Ocean Deck Rasta Sauce because it is smoky and garlicky and peppery. It went well with the chipotle cheese and the rest of the wrap. Avocado would have been an awesome addition (I might try that tomorrow!); red/green pepper or cucumber would also be nice. You really can customize the ingredients to your taste preferences; I recommend keeping the turkey/cheese/cilantro/hot sauce to keep the tasty flavor intact. Overall it was a really healthy lunch and very tasty! 4 stars
For dinner, The Boyfriend and I have been wanting to make mussels for a few days so we finally bought them and cooked them in a curry and lime broth.
Mussels with Coconut Curry Lime Sauce
Adapted from a recipe at Verses from my Kitchen
Serves 4
Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 shallots, finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, chopped
- 3 tbsp green curry paste
- 1 can (14 ounce) coconut milk
- 1 cup beer
- 1 tbsp white vinegar
- Juice of one lime
- ½ Serrano pepper, seeds removed and finely chopped
- 1 tsp ginger, grated
- 2 pounds mussels, washed/scrubbed/debearded
- Small handful chopped cilantro
Directions:
1) Melt the butter in a large wok over medium heat; add in the shallots and garlic and cook for one minute.
2) Add in the curry paste and the thickened top half of the coconut milk and stir for another minute.
3) Pour in the rest of the coconut milk along with the beer, vinegar, lime juice, green chili and ginger. Bring to simmer over medium-low heat for 10 minutes.
4) Add the mussels and increase heat until a low boil starts. Cover the pot and boil softly for about 8 minutes, or until all the mussels have opened up.
5) Place mussels in bowls and pour sauce over top. Sprinkle with fresh cilantro.
Notes on the mussels: Since The Boyfriend and I usually keep beer in the house, we swapped the wine in the recipe for the beer that we already have. I recommend using a lighter-colored beer; we just used an inexpensive beer from our local grocery store. The flavor of the beer is very apparent in the recipe so make sure you pick a beer that you enjoy. The original recipe did not specify a type of curry paste or a type of pepper; we hit up our local Asian food store to buy the curry paste. Please don’t buy name-brand, mainstream curry paste: the flavor is always weak, diluted, and not even close to authentic. The brand we normally buy is MAESRI; they sell a variety of types of curry paste and we’ve been able to find them in several Asian supercenters. We picked green curry because the ingredients sounded the closest to the flavors in this recipe; we bought the Serrano pepper for the same reason.
Mussels review: We gave this recipe a solid 4 stars. The broth was tasty and nicely accented by the cilantro; the spice level was appropriate; and the mussels themselves were soft and tender. We are going to freeze all of the leftover broth and make shrimp curry with it in a few weeks. Yum!
Curried Grilled Squash
Ingredients:
- 1 large zucchini
- 1 large yellow squash
Sauce:
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp + 1 tsp Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
- 1 tsp Badia curry powder
- 1 tsp Spanish paprika
- ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Optional: ½ tsp dark brown sugar
- 1 tsp lemon juice
1) Whisk all of the sauce ingredients (except lemon juice) together in a bowl until combined; set aside.
2) Wash zucchini and squash; halve both vegetables and slice into thin (1/8”) pieces.
3) Using a pastry brush and liberally brush both sides of every slice of squash and zucchini.
4) Grill veggies about 4 minutes per side.
5) Add lemon juice to veggies and serve.
Notes: If you are like me and don’t have a pastry brush, you can use your hands to spread the sauce on the veggies; it’s a little messy but it gets the job done. We did not put any brown sugar in the sauce and it was still tasty; I just thought that a little sweetness would have been given the sauce some nice depth.
Review: The squash was solidly good but not terribly exciting; for that reason, I gave it 3 stars (out of 5). I enjoyed the squash (and The Boyfriend ate it, which is great because he isn’t a squash fan) but I have made other squash recipes that I like better (remember Cannibalistic Squash? Now that is a “Wow!” squash recipe).
The Boyfriend and I shared a side salad and some tasted and buttered sourdough bread, in addition to the mussels and squash. Overall, we both gave the meal a solid 4 stars; I was quite happy with the balance of flavors and textures that this meal presented.
Ok so end-of-blog question time: what’s your favorite indulgent, so-bad-it’s-bad food?