Veggie Tales

"Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie." ~Jim Davis

I'm just going to say it. I'm not a good vegetable eater. At all. Which is ironic because growing up, my mom was convinced that any problem in life could be cured by doing three things: (1) driving slower; (2) drinking more water; and (3) eating more veggies. We're talking everything from a headache to a broken heart to a bad ankle.

Recently, I've been trying to get more veggies in my diet every day. So...I thought I'd share a few of my tricks and recipes with you all. If you have any tricks or great recipes, I'd love to have them...so PLEASE share!

You Put What In That Smoothie?

Spinach leaves. I know what you're thinking. I already thought it too. But after reading about this on several blogs, I knew I had to give it a shot! So I bought some baby spinach leaves at the store, cut the stems off, and threw them into my smoothie on Monday morning. I was pretty nervous, particularly when the spinach turned my normally bright pink smoothie a really ugly brown color. Verdict: You cannot taste it AT ALL. And it completly blends up, so you are not getting any sort of hunk of leaf in you mouth.

Why is this such a good thing? It doesn't taste like a veggie and I love smoothies--win win! Plus, spinach apparently gives you every benefit known to man!

Casserole to the Rescue!

I don't know if this is a country thing or a working mom thing or a southern thing or what, but I'm here to tell you guys, I love a good casserole! I was super excited to see a recipe recently for a chicken zucchini casserole. I apparently really liked it because unbeknownst to me, I printed it out from two different websites.

Anyway, I made it on Monday night and it was awesome. SO good! And I love the amount of zucchini and carrot in the dish. It would be super easy to dice up some other veggies and include as well.

I made just a few modifications. I used low fat sour cream and margarine. I also used rotisserie chicken meat instead of cooking up my own chicken breasts. Oh, and left out the onion--I don't care for them at all. Lastly, because I'm a total New Mexican, I added green chile to it and it was awesome! I'd highly recommend this recipe!

It's What's For Dinner

Just so we're clear....this cattle girl had beef for dinner last night. Didn't want you guys to think I was going all chicken on you! (Get it? Chicken? Ha!) Anyway, I found a great recipe for honey bar-b-que meatloaf. The flavor is really, really good. Highly recommend it!

One thing I did differently was that instead of making one big loaf, I made them in a cupcake pan. I learned this trick from my favorite food magazine, Food and Family. It cooks quicker and it's easy to pack leftovers for lunch.

How many of you are thinking....what does this have to do with veggies? Well, I also made a great summer squash bake recipe that I got on the shelf at Sunflower...sorry, no link. If you want it, email me to go along with the meatloaf. BUT....I also want to point out the great nutritional value of beef!

Now, I have to tell you, this was a disaster right from the start. I'm a terrible cook. I seriously keep flour in my house not for cooking, but in case there is a greese fire. No lie. Don't tell Mr. Right. First off, I meant to put some ground up spinach leaves in the meatloaf and realized that only after I started it baking. Oops. Then turns out that I accidentially got the recpies mixed up and put crushed crackers in the meatloaf. I didn' thave any more for the squash. So I just used the breadcrums that were supposed to be in the meatloaf. And then I had fits trying to "wisk together" the butter and flour--I finally busted out a spoon. In my book, wisks are used for kool-aid only...thank you very much. (Maybe we need to add ability to cook to the qualifications list?) So I'd like to try this recipe again without all the screw ups...but I added some cheese to the top and green chile to the mix and it turned out edible.

Twist on Ramen

I am excited about my recipe for tomorrow night, an Asian Chicken Noodle Salad. I'm using the rest of the rotisserie chicken from the chicken zucchini casserole to whip this baby up tomorrow. I plan on putting the salad into a whole wheat wrap. It sounds really good, right? I'll let ya know how it goes!