Healthy Archives - Pinch of Yum

Veggie Alfredo Lasagna

May 20, 2013

Veggie Alfredo Lasagna

I… I can’t speak.

This creamy comfort food veggie Alfredo lasagna is heaven to me. And I will elaborate on that, I promise, but I can’t move on without talking about what makes this whole thing work: the garlic-butter-Parmesan-flavored, 50-calories-per-serving sauce. Made with love from cauliflower.

You’re like, yeahhhh, you told me about that already. Yes I did. And I’m back for more.

This sauce controls me. I make it, like, a lot, and I’m contstantly dreaming up new combinations that mostly involve carbs and cheese. And of course vegetables, because this sauce is made from veggies! That’s what I love about you, sneaky cauliflower. A few readers commented on the creamy cauliflower sauce post that they had used it to make lasagna, and I just about fell off my chair with happiness. Soooo I stole your genius idea and made lasagna. I owe this one to you.

Just for a little walk down memory lane, here’s where we’ve seen this veggie sauce make reappearances:

alfredo Creamy Cauliflower Garlic Rice

Healthy Chicken Alfredo Pizza (with a really yummy whole wheat crust)

Healthy Fettuccine Alfredo

and now this lasagna.

Like I said, carbs and cheese.

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posted in: Lightened Up, Pasta, Vegetarian 42 Comments

Chopped Apple Quinoa Salad

May 15, 2013

Chopped Apple Quinoa Salad

So here’s the deal: this salad is the current love of my life, and our oven and stove are broken.

Like, leaking gas into our house whenever it turns on and I’m not allowed to bake anything at the risk of exploding the building. And as I might have mentioned 100 times this year, we also don’t have a microwave, so I’m at this point in my life where I’m being forced to eat something cold, and considering that we also don’t have a freezer for ice cream (this is turning into a perfect sob story of life abroad) I am being forced to eat a cold salad.

With that darn quinoa, AGAIN, because it’s already cooked and there’s a bunch left over in the fridge. How annoying/awesome.

The last cold salad I had was so delicious: a Chopped Thai Chicken Salad. And it was chopped. Hey, guess what my favorite kind of salad is? CHOPPED.

This salad comes in with equally high marks from both me and Bjork. It’s sososo good that I’ve made it at least four times in the last, er, two days. Something healthy that we both like? Heck yes.

Chopped Apple Quinoa Salad

I didn’t even plan on posting it, actually, because it’s so simple and I’ve posted so many quinoa recipes lately that I thought it might be overkill. Because actually, it IS overkill. Buuuut then the oven broke so I had to. Ha-ha to you, Alfredo veggie lasagna. Salad wins today.

500 quinoa recipes later, quinoa is totally growing on me, but the star of this salad isn’t really the quinoa. It’s the perfectly juicy, crisp, colorful produce like sweet pink apples, fresh greens like spinach and arugula and parsley, and earthy-delicious carrots.

Chopped Apple Quinoa Salad

And here’s the kicker. The “dressing” for this salad is store-bought apple chutney. Not joking. I found some Stonewall Kitchen apple chutney at our little neighborhood grocery store here in the Philippines (?!) and it was in my cart before I even knew what had happened. And as if that isn’t enough, then I noticed that there was not just one but TWO varieties of apple chutney on the shelf. Sooo you can’t find raspberry jam, but you can definitely find apple chutney. What in the world.

Southwestern Quinoa and Black Bean Casserole

May 13, 2013

Quinoa Black Bean Casserole

And to think that I used to not even like quinoa. What’s happening to me, you guys?

So this Mexican-type casserole is life changingly amazing, but first, let’s catch up. Mother’s Day just happened.

Did you have an awesome one? I was far far away from my mom and family, but something really sweet happened: our young married neighbors invited us out to lunch with them to celebrate Mother’s Day with their sweet 6 month old baby girl, Maggy. Even though he won’t hold her, or any baby for that matter (working on that one), Bjork says she’s the cutest baby he’s ever seen in his entire life. And he has good taste in babies. She is seriously adorable.

Mother's Day

The cheeks. Ohhhh the baby cheeks. We were thrilled that they invited us and a little nervous since this last year, we’ve spent most of our time socializing with kids under 10 years old. But they are so friendly, we had a great time, and I was honestly so touched that they showed such hospitality to us.

ingredients

Now for a flavor explosion. Do you see all that goodness in the slightly bent skillet? That’s onion, garlic, and JALAPEÑO. Truth: I had to capitalize that because I don’t know how to make a tilde on the n using lower case letters. But it works because that spicy green guy adds capital D-ELICIOUS flavor, right along with that fragrant garlic (♥) and sweet onion.

And then those peppers that look like they’re roasted? That’s more of a 5 minute trick that I do sometimes when I don’t want to sweat to my death in our hot apartment. They just get fake-out blistered a tiny bit by leaving them in the hot, dry skillet without stirring. Not fancy, but still totally pretty and yummy.

Light Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps

May 8, 2013

Light Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Lettuce wraps, you sneaky things you.

You make me want to wrap vegetables in the leaves of more vegetables and top it all with more vegetables. Just kidding – meant to say PEANUT SAUCE but we’ll get there later.

First things first: the vegetables wrapped in vegetables, for the love of vegetablesss.

I’m not going to lie to you and pretend that it didn’t take kind of a long time to chop up all these green, yellow, red, and orange beauties. My perception might be a little skewed considering my 2-second attention span and low tolerance for cooking related work. Cause, I want you to like my recipes, but I just don’t like cooking that involves work. Yeah? Totally makes sense.

Light Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps

In truth, you will thank yourself over and over again for all the chopping. In fact, TWELVE times over because you’ll get at least 12 deliciously fresh, crispity, crunchity, rock-your-face-off-flavor-y lettuce rolls outta the deal.

Can you just imagine it in your mouth right now? It’s soy sauce salty, lime juice tangy, and bell pepper crunchy all in one amazing veggie boat. IT’S SO GOOD.

Creamy Squash Curry Quinoa

May 6, 2013

This was the year I fell in love with squash.

Squash Curry Quinoa

From the first day of this blog I’ve been a squash liker, but for some weirdos (ahem) it takes moving to the Philippines to become a full on squash l-o-v-e-r.

If we’re being honest, I’m actually more of a second photo creamy squash sauce lover, but it’s all the same anyways. Squash. Vegetable. Healthy.

Squash Curry Quinoa

Since we’ve moved to the Philippines I’ve posted more about squash than any other vegetable, hands down, unless you count lentils as a vegetable.

We’ve had squash soup, squash pasta with turkey and spinach, walnut-squash macaroni and cheese, squash lentil curry, 30 minute squash coconut curry, thai basil coconut lentils (with squash), and so on and so on and so on.

Colorful, versatile, healthy, widely available in the Philippines, and delicately, sweetly flavored? Yeah, this is the year for squash.

But this right here is not really my thing: QUINOA.

Avocado Cucumber Grapefruit Salad

May 3, 2013

avocado salad

Oh my. This is fresh and pretty.

How can a salad with soft pinks and light greens and the most cooling, refreshing flavors not make you feel like the most beautiful thing alive?

Apparently avocados, cucumbers, grapefruit (or gorgeously pink pomelo for us here in Asia), smoked almonds, fresh chives and mint, and a honey vinaigrette can make it happen with just one bite. Magic, for sure.

Just to be clear, this is not an I’m-really-hungry dinner salad. I do love those salads (currently reminiscing about the Chopped Thai Chicken Salad) but this is not one of them.

avocado salad

No, this is a refreshing salad for Mother’s Day, brunches, tea parties, and hot hot hot summer days. Speaking of Mother’s Day, I can’t believe I’m ahead of schedule and posting a holiday recipe suggestion. This is weird. Usually I find out a week later that it was something like Cinco de Mayo and I should have been making guacamole and taquitos and salsa verde all week. Err, hey. That’s now.

Good thing I have a million avocados sitting in my kitchen right now because there’s still time for guacamole before the clock strikes May 5, right?

Another good thing: paying $1.25 for 7 gorgeous avocados. I have gone for many months without them because they haven’t been in season, but now that they’re back in season, they’re REALLY back in season. Thank you, Philippines.

Monggo Beans (or Mung Bean Soup)

May 1, 2013

Monggo Soup with Malunggay

Whoa! There it is, in all it’s shockingly green wonderfulness.

If I just saw that picture and post title on someone else’s blog, I would think two things:

It’s veryvery green.
Monggo, Mung, Malunggay? Way too scary.

If this is any comfort to how you might be feeling, Bjork was watching me take pictures of this green mess and he said with a crinkled nose, “What is that again?” So no, you’re not the only one wondering what this craziness is all about. PS. He might not want me to tell you this, but he ate it and totally loved it. Psh, boys.

Today I’m gonna get all y’all excited about some delicious green international food. Yeah? Let’s do it.

Starting with the monggos.

Monggo Soup with Malunggay

Monggos are the same thing as mung beans. They are widely used in Asian countries and they cook almost exactly like lentils. LENTILS! My favorite! And something you can almost for surely buy wherever you live. Whether you use lentils or monggo (mung) beans, you’ll pretty much turn into a walking picture of health. These little guys are your friend.

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posted in: Gluten Free, Superfoods, Vegan, Vegetarian 43 Comments

Crockpot Pork Adobo with Black Beans

April 24, 2013

Crockpot Pork Adobo with Black Beans

I’m seriously salivating as I get ready to write about the soy sauce + vinegar + garlic + brown sugar flavors in this thing. Welcome to Pork Adobo.

For the Filipino newbies, Pork Adobo is a traditional Filipino dish with pork marinated and cooked in a soy sauce/vinegar sauce until it’s super tender and completely saturated with flavor. The whole thing is usually scooped over a plateful of hot steaming white rice and if you’re me, you add an extra scoop so the rice gets really saucy. I crave that saucy rice.

In the name of full disclosure, I don’t think Pork Adobo traditionally has, uhh, beans. But mine has beans because I saw the aunties making a similar dish (humba) with black beans at one of the houses at the orphanage and couldn’t get the idea out of my head. Stuck. On food. On BEANS. Typical.

And traditional pork adobo isn’t made in the crockpot, either. I think I might be the only person in the one mile radius around our apartment who owns a crockpot. What a weird contraption anyways. Usually Filipinos cook this in a big ol’ regular pot, just boiling or simmering for a while it instead of crock-ing it all day long. Either way works.

I love the crockpot and I love black beans, so this is Lindsay’s version of Pork Adobo.

Crockpot Pork Adobo with Black Beans

This is the gateway recipe that started me driving the black bean train into the wild blue yonder, forever and ever amen. Because since this recipe, I cannot stop thinking about black bean recipes. Part of it is my compulsion to get rid of leftover ingredients (there’s a half bag of dry black beans sitting in the fake fridge right now and it’s making me crazy) and part of it is my complete and utter devotion to this gorgeous little bean. Healthy Mexican Sweet Potato Skins are haunting my dreams in the most chipotle black bean wonderful way right now.

Chopped Thai Chicken Salad

April 22, 2013

Chopped Thai Chicken Salad

A salad. Say what? Yes, a salad.

This is like the 2nd salad I’ve made in the last year. The Philippines is out to get me in the salad department. Conventional wisdom says: it’s hot, make a salad. But reality says, where are the bags of pre-washed baby spinach? and what is this mysterious green thing called again, and how do you peel it? and where is my salad spinner when I need it? and how can I get the fan to blow on ME without blowing my lettuce everywhere? and we’re out of bleach again? Yep. Sound the alarms. I hate it as much as you do, but we eat bleached raw vegetables. We stopped bleaching for a while, I got sick from, uh, something, and we went back to following the bleaching orders.

Papaya Mango Smoothie

April 10, 2013

papaya smoothie-4

It’s official: I’m hooked on papayas.

Papaya smoothies, papaya in curry, papaya covered with brown sugar and lime, Thai green papaya salad (alright, so far that one just exists in my head)… but all around, sweet and savory and everything else, I am just adoring everything about this tropical fruit.

Did you know that papayas have these big seeds in them? Er, actually, they’re little. But there’s a lot of them. They are squishy and they taste bitter and spicy and they go straight to the garbage. Gar-bage. I said it.

But actually, every time I cut into one of these gorgeous fruits and before I scoop those seeds into my reject bowl, I just stand in awe for a minute and try to think of yet another angle for photographing how beautiful that sweet, juicy coral-pink-yellow fruit is against the texture of the squishy black seeds.

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posted in: Everyday, Healthy, Sweet Things 58 Comments

Sauteed Garlic and Tomato Lentil Salad

April 1, 2013

lentil salad-4

Hey. Lentils. I love them.

I think we’ve talked about that.

But I really do love them because they’re a really pretty brown color (ahem, NOT). They are so versatile and healthy and cheap and texturally amazing. I’ll cut myself off before you start to feel like this just a repeat of all of my lentil posts that I’ve ever done.

Healthy Chicken Alfredo Pizza

March 22, 2013

Hiya.

chicken alfredo pizza-4

If it weren’t for this whole wheat crust, creamy cauliflower sauce, and chicken cheese combo topping, this would be the longest Friday ever.

It’s a regular school day, but just to be dramatic for a moment, there is no air conditioning at school. Translation: I will sweat through my shirt by 7:30 am.

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posted in: Healthy, Meat and Chicken 46 Comments

Easy Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

March 20, 2013

pizza crust-2

First and foremost, I don’t have a rolling pin.

Secondly, this pizza that I keep talking about? It needs a crust.

And a sauce, but we already talked about that.

I found this crust recipe in a magazine. One of the things I ask our visitors to bring is magazines. There are plenty here in the Philippines, but sometimes you just need to read up on your American celeb gossip and browse through Real Simple recipes. Know what I mean? Last night we sat out on the patio and I flipped through People and quizzed Bjork with questions like how old is Josh Duhamel. The answer to which is 40. ?!?!?

So knowing my love for food, my mom brought me at least one hundred food magazines. I had never even heard of some of them, but I have indeed looked through all of them and made a chart paper list that is as tall as me with recipe ideas listed out on it. So I’m pretty much set with recipe ideas, like, forever.

Creamy Cauliflower Sauce

March 18, 2013

Cauliflower Sauce-3

This. Sauce. I make it all the time. I use it in tons of recipes. I spoon-feed it to myself straight out of the blender.

So it’s only appropriate that I dedicate an entire post to my all-time favorite, super adaptable, absolutely totally delicious creamy cauliflower sauce. The garlic, butter, creamy cauliflower cooked to perfection all pureed up in that blender (or food processor, because you have a well stocked kitchen unlike me even though I blog about food, say what?) is just life changing.

I honestly have a hard time NOT putting it in every recipe that I make. If something seems to be lacking, this sauce just magically pops into my mind. Bing! Like, hey! maybe a little cauliflower sauce will help this recipe be amazing! Which is a great idea until things start to get out of control as is often the case in my brain, and somehow I find myself wondering if cauliflower sauce would be good in pumpkin bread. Gross. No, it wouldn’t. But maybe…

Too much, Lindsay. Too much.

30-Minute Squash Coconut Curry

March 12, 2013

Squash Curry-2

There is no way to make this recipe sound as seriously delicious as it is.

And yes, I know. I made curry again. It’s becoming a problem. Like, I haven’t made anything in recent memory that wasn’t some unusual use of cauliflower or a vegetarian curry. I think I might have even combined my two loves not that long ago. Helppp. Leave me some inspiration in the comments or something. My blog is dying a slow and happy curry death.

If I could only ever make one meal at home for the rest of forever, I would choose curry – vegetarian, extra saucy, with cilantro all over it. Oh wait, is that what this is? Ok. Yeah.