happykatie eats

200 calories

I'm not calorie-obsessed, but this post on 'What Does 200 Calories Look Like?' makes me re-evaluate my portion sizes.  Interesting stuff with great visuals!

Lentil magic - taco style

Ren lentil magic tacos
Originally uploaded by happykatie.

We are in LOVE with these red lentil tacos (find a version of the recipe here).  Adam uses his killer New Mexico chili powder to spice it up and we serve it on his homemade tortillas.

Leftovers are great the next day served with lettuce, fresh veggies, guac and salsa for a Mexican salad.  Yum.

Another Hungry Girl

I'm so in like with the Hungry Girl newsletter and site and not just because I am also a hungry girl...  Lisa writes amazing advice columns about healthy alternatives to the guilt-inspiring dishes and snacks we all so love to devour, answers fellow food lovers questions and even posts yummy recipes on occasion.

While she claims to only cut out dry carbs from her diet, I dig the fact that a lot of her foodie advice is veggie (and often vegan)-friendly.   It's always nice to read about a girl who thinks about food more than I do :)

Are you TEAsing me?

Oolong green tea
Originally uploaded by AraiGordai.

A health review (conducted by the Tea Council, so take this as you will) has recently found that drinking green tea may actually be better for you than drinking water.  Their reasoning - Water is essentially replacing fluid. Tea replaces fluids and contains antioxidants so its got two things going for it.

Antioxidants are wonderful wonderful things!  Some things that green tea is good for:

•     Losing weight
•     Preventing cancer
•     Healthy teeth
•     Prolonged meditation / concentration
•     Heart disease prevention
•     Rheumatoid arthritis prevention and symptom relief

Kitchen myths debunked - I am now removing my freezer's baking soda box

We've all heard various kichen myths over the years, regardless of how much time you choose to spend en la cocina. 

Screaming lobsters, cooking thickening agents, aluminum foil and Alzheimers - sometimes I just take these things for granted as kitchen factuals (yes I know that's not a noun).... but this Kitchen Myth page may change your mind.

Particularly mind-blowing -- baking soda does not work very well to absorb odors!!  EEK!!??!!  Mad props to Arm & Hammer's marketing division, ya' really got us all on that one.... (found via NotMartha)

If you are feeling disillusioned about your life, now that you know the sad baking soda truth, take heart by reading this great page full of what baking soda really CAN do for you and your home (with the stinky fridge).

Food geeks dig CHOW online

I'm excited about the CHOW beta site launch (register here), as I'm always hungry (literally) for good new foodie and recipe sites to stalk on Bloglines. 

CHOW used to be a print rag, but suspended publishing to start their media rich site with podcasts, videos, reviews, rating/comment features and pretty good articles.  It also helps that they've got international chat boards that people actually use which are pretty interesting to me as I now have 3 new Houston-area burger places that I must try.

Clicking and cooking totally go together -- I am most grateful to the Internet powers that be for allowing me to jump online at any given moment to check out recipes, ingredient replacements and pretty food pictures (aka:  food porn).  Huzzah!

How green is your diet?

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has an interesting diet survey to see how much greeness your eating habits hold.  They look at Health, Environment and Animal Welfare components of your eating habits - so obviously, if you're a hamburger-loving, cheese craver like me your score will be lousy compared to your favorite vegan hippie.

Speaking of score -- I'm 'Good' with 24 points...  but that doesn't hold for every week and certainly could be a million times better.  How did your weekly face-stuffing score?    

You can learn more about Eating Green here.  I like the fact that the study realizes that they can't convert everyone to strict vegetarianism, but instead they:

“...suggest means of both obtaining healthier animal products and improving how animals are raised,” Jacobson writes. “Nutrition- and environment-based food and farm policies could improve diets directly and indirectly.”

The awesome Mighty Foods pointed me to this neat stuff.

Jamba Juice secret flavors revealed

  Oh how divine, Mighty Foods has given a collective heads up to all Jamba Juice junkies out there on some 'official' off-menu Jamba Juice creations (supposedly rolled out to all locations now):

- Strawberry Shortcake
- White Gummy Bear
- PB+J
- Pink Star (one that tastes just like Starbursts)
- Fruity Pebbles
- Push-up Pops
- Skittles
- Red Gummy Bear
- Chocolate Gummy Bear
- Blue Gummy Bear?
- Raspberry Dreamin'
- Pineapple Dreamin'
- Bluetopia
- Sourpatch Kid
- Now and Later
- Apple Pie?
- Push Pop
- Strawberry Shortcake

I am and always have been addicted to the Orange Dream Machine (high in folic acid and completely orange creamsicle-like), but we've also been enjoying their new vegan-friendly all-fruit smoothies as well.  Addiction....

New additions to the cookbook familia

We were exceedingly proud of ourselves late last week - we managed to go an entire week without eating out.  This meant a far healthier (tastier) and more cost effective week of dining (and breakfasting, lunching and snacking) which is exactly what we need.

Of course, to celebrate I had a massive craving to dish out cash for a good taco - so we went out to grab some TexMex goodness at Chipotle...  but we'll just blame that on the hormones.  Right?  Right.  (good for you for not arguing with a pregnant lady)

Interesting thing to note - Chipotle is currently running a donation program with their guacamole to help support the sustainable agriculture cause with the Land Institute organization.  Cool stuff.

Anyway, we've invested in a couple of new cookbooks (yay used books on Amazon!) to help us along the right track towards cheap and nutritious eating (veggie style of course):

1. Cook 1.0 - by Heidi Swanson (of the amazing 101 Cookbooks site)
   Great variations on basic recipes that I look forward to trying out.  I was expecting something a little fancier from Heidi, but these will give us some great dishes to embellish on.  This book has completely delivered on the breathtaking photography I was expecting.  Gawwwwww....
   
2. How It All Vegan - by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard
   We haven't cooked from it yet, but I'm less excited than I expected when it came in the mail.  I think it's organized terribly and haven't really been wow-ed by any recipes I've seen so far.  Time (and our bellies) will tell and I'm certainly going to give it every chance it needs to help us expand out menu.

How old is your ketchup?

We go through things pretty quickly in our kitchen - food is our friend, especially Hippie Adam with the Never Ending Stomach Who Magically Remains Skinny-Skinny's friend.

Regardless of the fact that so few items in our pantry make it beyond a couple of weeks, I was still interested in Real Simple magazine's Surprising Expiration Dates article - giving a brief outline of what to throw out when in your fridge and cleaning supply cabinet.

Unexpected expiration dates:

Peanut butter, processed (Jif)

Unopened: 2 years
Opened: 6 months; refrigerate after 3 months

Frozen vegetables

Unopened: 18 to 24 months
Opened: 1 month

Soy sauce, bottled

Unopened: 2 years
Opened: 3 months (After this time, color or flavor may be affected, but product is still generally safe to consume)