Recipes of the Week: Fish Tacos and More

From Robynn Floyd (Brandon’s bet­ter half)

What’s for din­ner tonight?

Well, let’s see… there is so much to con­sider after all. There are four chil­dren in the fam­ily, two of whom are eat­ing any­thing that does not move faster than they do. There is a nurs­ing mom, and a new­born ben­e­fit­ing from her nutri­ent intake. Then there is that whole thing about eat­ing 9ish fruits and veg­eta­bles per day, and the his­tory of can­cer in the fam­ily. A boot camp trainer who also eats like a teenager and is lactose-intolerant… I can’t spend all day in the kitchen, oh, and it’s meant to be tasty…

How about this: Fish tacos, avo­cado and grape­fruit salad, and roasted sweet pota­toes. Here’s the plan:

FISH TACOS

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 pounds of tilapia – bone­less, skinless
• 2T olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 1 lime, zest and juice
• Jalapeño pep­per
• Hot sauce
• Spinach tor­tillas
• Head of red cabbage
• ½ cup sour cream (lac­tose free if need be)
• 1 cup cilantro
• 1 small white onion, chopped

PREPARATION

1. Heat olive oil in sauté pan. Add chopped jalapeño. Sauté for about two min­utes and remove. Add sea­soned tilapia to pan. Let brown and flip.
2. Mean­while, in small bowl com­bine sour cream, lime zest, and a few dashes of Tabasco sauce. Mix in cab­bage. Sea­son with salt and pep­per. Heat tor­tillas in foil in oven. Divide fish evenly among tor­tillas; top with cab­bage, cilantro, and finely chopped onion. Serve with lime wedges.

AVOCADO & GRAPEFRUIT SALAD

Remove grape­fruit sec­tions from 2–3 grape­fruit (depend­ing on size), squeeze remain­ing juice into the bowl, cut avo­cado into roughly the same size pieces as the grape­fruit. Dice ¼ of a red onion. Driz­zle some olive oil over the mix­ture and add salt and pep­per. Top with those cute lit­tle green pump­kin seeds.

ROASTED SWEET POTATOES

Peel sweet pota­toes and cut into wedges. For the five of us who cur­rently eat food, I make four large pota­toes. Driz­zle with olive oil and dust with salt, pep­per and paprika to taste. Place on roast­ing pan and throw them into pre­heated 400 degree F oven. They should take approx­i­mately 30 minutes.

Done! I fed the fam­ily fish (good for them) and they had expo­sure to at least six dif­fer­ent fruits and veg­gies (more if you count onions and jalapeno pep­pers, and the spinach in the tor­tillas). There was bulk to fill them (pota­toes) and I didn’t give Bran­don a stom­achache with milk. It was quick. Oh, and it was pretty tasty!

Eat This, Not That: Increase Your Metabolism

Here’s #2 of six research-backed quick cures just wait­ing for you in the fresh pro­duce bins and super­mar­ket shelves.

When You Want to Increase Your Metabolism…

Drink This:
Green Tea

Cat­e­chins, the pow­er­ful antiox­i­dants found in green tea, are known to stoke your metab­o­lism, mak­ing it burn hot­ter and torch more calo­ries. A study by Japan­ese researchers found that par­tic­i­pants who con­sumed 690 mil­ligrams of cat­e­chins from green tea daily had sig­nif­i­cantly lower body-mass indexes and smaller waist mea­sure­ments than tea-totalers (i.e., they avoid the stuff).

Not That!
Noth­ing

Skip­ping meals lets your body’s calorie-burning fur­nace go cold. Spread out snacks through­out the day. Try a cup of yogurt with fresh fruit or almonds between break­fast and lunch, and a hard-boiled egg or hum­mus with veg­eta­bles in the afternoon.

Recipe of the Week: Chunky Chicken Soup

For gen­er­a­tions, chicken soup has been a rem­edy of choice for moth­ers with sick chil­dren. The lean pro­tein and nutrient-rich veg­eta­bles help boost your strength to fight off a cold. But this power com­bi­na­tion of veg­eta­bles, whole grains and health-enhancing herbs can be enjoyed any time. Our recipe calls for buck­wheat, a whole grain that’s a good source of fiber and mag­ne­sium. It’s also gluten-free and is not a mem­ber of the wheat fam­ily so it is appro­pri­ate for those with celiac disease.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tsp. canola oil
• 1/3 cup whole buckwheat
• 1 cup water
• 1 large car­rot, cut into 1/2-inch rounds
• 1 large cel­ery rib, cut cross­wise into 1/2-inch slices
• 3/4 cup frozen pearl onions, or fresh chopped onion
• 4 cups fat-free, reduced-sodium chicken broth, divided*
• 2 cups roasted chicken breast, in bite-size pieces
• Salt and ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

*To reduce sodium con­tent to 80 mg per serv­ing, use low-sodium chicken broth.

PREPARATION

1. Heat oil to medium-high heat in medium-size saucepan. Add buck­wheat, stir­ring con­stantly, until grains are fra­grant, about 2 min­utes. Off heat, pour in water, tak­ing care, as liq­uid will spat­ter. Return pan to stove, reduce heat to sim­mer, and cook, cov­ered, until buck­wheat is al dente, about 15 min­utes. Set cov­ered pan aside.
2. Place car­rots, cel­ery and onions in large saucepan. Add 1/2 cup broth, cover and sim­mer over medium-high heat until veg­eta­bles are crisp-tender, 10 min­utes. Add remain­ing broth, chicken and cooked buck­wheat. Add salt and pep­per to taste.
3. When soup is hot, divide among four wide, shal­low bowls. Gar­nish each bowl with 1 table­spoon pars­ley, and serve.

Note: If desired, in place of roasted chicken, gen­tly sim­mer a 3/4-pound skin­less and bone­less chicken breast in broth in large saucepan. When it is white in the cen­ter, about l5 min­utes, set chicken breast aside. When chicken is cool enough to han­dle, shred into bite-size pieces. Clean out pot and pro­ceed, cook­ing veg­eta­bles and com­plet­ing soup as above.

NUTRITIONAL INFO
Makes 4 servings

Per serv­ing: 210 calo­ries, 5 g total fat (1 g sat­u­rated fat), 15 g car­bo­hy­drate, 25 g pro­tein, 3 g dietary fiber, 530 mg sodium.

How to Burn Your Holiday Belly

It’s no secret our hol­i­day tra­di­tions cause weight gain. The Amer­i­can Heart Asso­ci­a­tion reports most peo­ple gain five to 10 pounds between Thanks­giv­ing and New Year. Overindul­gence in alco­hol, desserts and tra­di­tional hol­i­day treats along with spend­ing more time eat­ing and less time exer­cis­ing may leave you with a lit­tle extra bulge in your belly.

If you are guilty of overeat­ing dur­ing the hol­i­days, here are some tips to get you back on track and burn off your hol­i­day belly.

1. Drink 80 oz. of water daily.

Drink­ing 80 oz. of water or more is one of the most impor­tant things you can do on a daily basis. It’s as nat­ural as you can get. There are no added calo­ries, or cho­les­terol, and none of those unhealthy addi­tives you find in other drinks.

Another ben­e­fit of drink­ing water is that it helps remove tox­ins from your body. It helps trans­port food from one part of your body’s diges­tive track all the way to the very end. Fur­ther­more, dehy­dra­tion can affect your metab­o­lism which can delay weight loss. Drink up.

2. Replace cof­fee with green tea.

Green tea can help boost your metab­o­lism and burn fat more quickly. It also con­tains caf­feine and antiox­i­dants. Green tea helps reg­u­late glu­cose, fight heart dis­ease, pre­vent can­cer, and reduce inflammation.

Another way green tea is good for burn­ing belly fat is because it is a nat­ural diuretic that helps reduce water weight from the body. This makes you look less bloated and helps clean out your sys­tem each time you drink.

3. Eat lots of fruits and veggies.

Fruits and veg­eta­bles are weight loss all-stars. Not only are they low in calo­ries and high in fiber, they con­tains antiox­i­dants that boost your health. It’s impor­tant to eat a wide vari­ety of col­or­ful fruits and veg­eta­bles every day to reap opti­mum health benefits.

4. Choose bet­ter carbohydrates.

Get rid of white sugar and processed car­bo­hy­drates and choose instead to eat whole grains. Good sources include: steel oats, brown rice, whole grains, yams, sweet pota­toes and legumes.

Eat car­bo­hy­drates after an intense work­out when your body is most recep­tive and will con­vert them to energy. Also include pro­tein and fats in your daily meals.

5. Stay active.

It can help you imme­di­ately feel bet­ter. Car­dio exer­cise can include brisk walk­ing, run­ning, bik­ing, danc­ing, or cross-country ski­ing. Doing car­dio four to five times a week with com­bi­na­tion of weight train­ing two to three times a week is a great way to burn body fat.

If you are not see­ing results, increase the inten­sity of your car­dio exer­cise. But give your­self time to see results. The key is to stay active.

We all overindulge from time to time but get­ting back on track is one of the best ways to deal with the stress and anx­i­ety that comes from overeating.

Start now. With each healthy choice you make, remem­ber your com­mit­ment to stay healthy and fit year-round while quickly burn­ing off your hol­i­day belly.

Source: Active​.com

Guide to Sensible Serving Sizes

This much	is the same as
	3 ounces 1 serv­ing of meat, chicken, turkey, or fish
	1 cup 1 serv­ing of: – cooked veg­eta­bles – sal­ads – casseroles or stews, such as chili with beans – milk
	½ cup 1 serv­ing of: – fruit or fruit juice – starchy veg­eta­bles, such as pota­toes or corn – pinto beans and other dried beans – rice or noo­dles – cereal
	1 ounce 1 serv­ing of: – snack food – cheese (1 slice)
	1 table­spoon 1 serv­ing of: – salad dress­ing – cream cheese
	1 tea­spoon 1 serv­ing of: – mar­garine or but­ter – oil – mayonnaise

National Dia­betes Infor­ma­tion Clear­ing­house (NDIC)