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Speedy Healthy Filling Breaky

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If you're anything like me, you often skip breakfast in the morning because your life takes over, although you know you shouldn't. If I do have breakfast, I usually have a simple bowl of cereal with skim milk, that'll often fill me up....for the next hour or so.

I stumbled upon an article this morning that gives a few good breakfast recipes for the on-the-go crowd. But first, they provide us with facts about the importance of having breakfast (source):

It keeps you slim: Breakfast eaters are less likely to be overweight than breakfast skippers, and successful dieters are also more likely to be breakfast eaters.

It keeps you healthy: Eating breakfast may reduce your risk of serious illnesses like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer, and it strengthens your immune system so you're more resistant to common ailments like colds and the flu.

It keeps you sharp: Memory and concentration get a boost from breakfast. A study on children found that kids who eat breakfast score higher on tests and are less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and hyperactivity. It should help you at the office, too.

The Perfect Meal

You say you eat breakfast? Good boy. Even so, it's likely you're doing it wrong. "Most men make the mistake of eating too little in the morning, and then get so hungry they go overboard and eat a giant meal later in the day," says Evelyn Tribole, M.S., R.D., a nutritionist in Irvine, California, and author of Stealth Health.

A typical breakfast is just a couple of hundred calories, mostly in the form of simple carbohydrates that spike blood-sugar levels and leave the body starving for energy a couple of hours later.

Even a classic fiber-rich breakfast -- say a cup of raisin bran with blueberries and skim milk -- provides less than 300 calories and only about 10 grams of protein. An ideal breakfast needs to be much larger -- between 500 and 600 calories. And it needs to be packed with vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, including at least 20 grams of protein and at least 5 grams of fiber. That will give your body a high-quality, long-lasting, steady supply of energy to help you through the morning.


Here you'll find 7 breakfast recipes that you can make under 5 minutes!

Have parents: will host dinner

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24 hours to show time: what have I gotten myself into!??!

For the first time since I moved in with M, I'm having my parents for dinner. I mean serving them dinner. Well, the first time that won't include a grocery store-bought crudité platter and a frozen coconut cream pie (but dayam was that a success!). I'm still making my big decisions, but have reduced my options to several recipes with similar ingredients, largely featuring lemons, bell peppers, conchiglie (shell pasta), spinach, parmesan and olive oil. I am desperately seeking an appropriate while-I-make-dinner-appetizer, and am hoping Metro will help me out there. Bread sticks? Simple, classy, lazy. Sigh. It's my mom's birthday and I want to do good because man does she set a good table. See above. It's on, mama.

M's getting creamy lemon angel-hair pasta out of all this indecision, despite having a hockey tournament smack in the middle of dinner. That recipe to come soon if it's a success...I have my suspicious about lemon pasta but this is the second time I've seen it since CK posted the chicken recipe. We shall see.

Wish me luck!
-A




Roasty Toasty Asparagus

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I know what boys like, and it's certainly not long and green and it certainly doesn't make your pee smell funny. As far as they know anyways. In what looks like a life-long quest to make M get any vitamins at all, I'm learning to cook up vegetables (or sometimes not even cook! God forbid) in a way that makes them almost unrecognizable as part of the dreaded food group. Obviously, going veg meant that we were going to have the 'eat-your-vegetables' convo A-LOT. Since I started roasting though, I swear sometimes he doesn't know what hit him. Asparagus is a good place to start roasting because it's so versatile, and despite being a bit tricky to get 100% the way you want it, it makes for a pretty good side dish no matter how wet or charred it turns out. Believe me, I've tested the extremes of both of those categories only to determine that asparagus is always ALWAYS salvageable.

Preheat your oven to 450.

For the easiest roasting, just toss as much frozen chopped-in-half asparagus (arctic gardens for the win) as you like in a tablespoon- to two- of your favorite olive oil (for a really exciting evening, try a flavored one like basil or hot chilis). If you have the luxury of fresh asparagus, you might want to blanche it first, for easier (read, faster) roasting. Alternately, if you want'em really 'done', steam your asparagus over boiling water (using your steamer thingy), or cop out and boil it in a frying pan filled with 1-2 inches of water (flipping with tongs) for about 2 minutes; this will surely result in softer asparagus post-roasting, but that's certainly not always a bad thing. But be forewarned, boiling your vegetables (not to mention some of our other quick-fix vegetable habits) tends to rid them of their most nutritional qualities, so you if you've got the time, do steam them, for your own good . If you're a lemon person, toss in a squeeze to your own taste. Otherwise, minced garlic might make a nice addition. To top it off, I like a serious dose of fresh ground pepper on just about everything except ice cream. Personally, my favorite seasoning is a sea-salt/lemon-zest/dried chillies blend that I sprinkle VERY lightly over the whole shabang. Delicious, but watch that sodium boys and girls. It'll getcha.

To save your pan/cookie sheet from permanent charring, line it with foil, and spread your lightly seasoned asparagus on the pan or baking dish. Generally, try to keep them from touching each other too much (this is science that maximizes deliciousness). Roast at 450 abouts on the middle rack for 15 minutes or so. After this, I generally move my dish up to the top and broil the asparagus for another 10-15 minutes or so. That being said, times will entirely depend upon your oven and preferences, so the first time you do this, I recommend you watch with bated breath through the oven window and get a tan.

Asparagus cools down WAY too fast so you basically have to eat/serve this right away, though when I miss my window for serving it hot, it makes a fantastic addition to roasted baby potatoes and white beans in olive oil as a non-creamy pasta salad that offers up not only a veg, but a LEGUME! wild.

Now just make sure he doesn't pee in the shower. Enjoy!
-A

Delish Discoveries has got a New Name!

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As part of this blog's updates, Delicious Discoveries has a new name, a new addy AND a new look! Please give a warm welcome to Stute Kitchen!

Make sure to take the new url down because delishd.blogspot.com no longer exists and will redirect you to an error page. So if you don't want to miss the recipes that we try to create and cook in our kitchen, make sure to jock down http://stutekitchen.blogspot.com/ in your recipe book and come back regularly! :)

Don't forget, you can send us your recipes and we'll make sure to review them and add them to our blog!

Toodles!

-ck

Welcome!

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My friends and I have all recently found a new passion for cooking. We love to share recipes (either found online, passed on to us, shared by others, or made-up in our own kitchen!), tips and restaurant reviews but could never find a place that would allow us to do just that. This is the reason why this blog was created and we would like to share those recipes with you! If you have any comments/suggestions or recipes you'd like to share with us to be posted on our blog, let us know and we'll add it in!


Enjoy!

P.S. Please keep in mind that this blog is still under construction. We just couldn't wait to share food with you!

Earl's Warm Potato Salad

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As my boyfriend and I were travelling in the Rockies last week, we came across Earls Restaurant, which seems to be a very popular chain restaurant across Canada (we unfortunately don't have it in Ottawa nor anywhere in Quebec, which is why I had never heard of it). Regardless, our very delicious baby back ribs came with a side of vegetables and probably the most amazing potato salad I've ever had (or at least, something very close to that).

So I searched online, and found ALOT of different recipes, but this one looks like it's the closest to the real deal. Although I had it with some bits of bacon, removing them from the recipe makes a great appetizer for a vegetarian meal! Probably NOT the healthiest choice, but I definitely recommend either cooking it yourself or trying it at Earls.

Ingredients:
- 4 cups cooked potatoes
- 1/2 cup chopped celery
- 2 hard cooked eggs, chopped
- 1/4 cup green onions, sliced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
- 1 cup Miracle Whip
- 1 teaspoon prepared mustard
- 1/4 teaspoon celery seed
- 1 teaspoon horseradish
- dash of green tabasco or red pepper (optional)
- 1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Preparation:
1. Simmer potatoes until fork tender. Remove skins, and cut into cubes.
2. In a bowl, combine celery, eggs, potatoes, onions, vinegar and seasonings. Toss lightly to combine.
3. In a separate small bowl, mix mustard, and Miracle Whip. Stir into potatoes and serve warm.

Variation: Add cooked and crumbled bacon bits to the salad dressing.

The restaurant's website offers the following nutritional information for their warm potato salad. For 217g:

Calories 431.00
Protein (g) 9.00
Carbohydrates (g) 29.00
Fibre (g) 2.50
Fat (g) 31.00
Saturated fat (g) 7.90
Trans fat (g) 0.70
Cholesterol (mg) 40.00
Sodium (mg) 523.00

Barely Vegetarian Chili

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Granted everyone's got their own favorite chili recipe, and no doubt the meat eaters in the crowd are already looking at each other skeptically. But trust me, my carnivorous boyfriend couldn't tell the difference, and neither will you (or yours!) :)

Though I always favour Yves veggie ground rounds for meatless options, I've heard other meatless grounds or crumbles work just as well. Yves makes a great Mexican spiced ground that is perfect in this chili, though I like the Italian spiced one just as well.

You'll need a giant stove top pot, a serious cutting board, and a wooden spoon for stirring. Chili can stain these puppies in my experience, so plastic or a crappy wooden one is likely a good option. Throw in any other veggies you love in chili (or have on hand) - think zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes, and let me know if you come up with anything even more creative!

Chop: 1 red and 1 green bell pepper
1 onion (I love the sweet ones, though anything but red will do here)
3 celery stalks
1-2 large carrots depending on your love of carrots
Mince: 1 large or 2 regular cloves or garlic

Sautée all of the above on medium heat in 1.5-2 tbsp olive or canola oil until softening (I find this takes about 7-10 minutes).
If you like your chili much spicier (which I often do), dice a jalapeno into the pot at this stage, and pray you got your proportions right.

Add: 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1-2 can(s) diced tomatoes (I like 'em spiced meself)
1 package of meatless crumbles of your choice

Stir.
Season: 1 generous tbsp chili powder
1 generous tsp dried rosemary
1-2 generous tsp cumin (LOVE cumin)
a few dashes of pepper flakes (very optional, depending on jalapeno status)

Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, and let simmer uncovered for 20-25 minutes. I commonly toss in a half container of my favorite tomato pasta sauce if the mess is looking too chunky/not tomatoey enough for my liking.

In my experience, chili is almost always better after sitting in its own juicy goodness for a few hours, and is ALWAYS better on day 2, if you can wait that long :)

Serve hot, topped with sour cream, plain yogurt, chives, grated cheddar, or whatever else you like! Enjoy!!