Tuna with Peach Salsa, Eggplant over Couscous

Cook time: 15 min, prep time 20 min

3-4 entree servings

Ingredients:

1 pound sushi grade tuna

1 large eggplant

1- 1 ½ cups of whole wheat couscous

Lemon pepper

Olive Oil

Balsamic Vinegar

Peanut Oil

Italian Seasoning (salt free)

Sea Salt

Peach or Mango Salsa

Red Wine 

Directions

Prepare the marinate for the tuna, take 4 table spoons of olive oil, 2 table spoons of balsamic vinegar and add the lemon pepper. Add the tuna, the longer the better, 15 min minimum.

Cut the eggplant in ½”by 1” pieces, gently cook/fry in a frying pan, add the Italian seasoning and some sea salt. Brown the eggplant, be careful that you don’t overcook it. It start falling apart. The eggplant will take the longest from all three main ingredients, depending on how rare you like your tuna.

Heat up 1 ¼ cup of water in the microwave (2 min) and add the couscous and some sea salt. Stir the couscous when initially adding it to the water; let sit for 5 min.

Add the peanut oil to a frying pan, turn on high. Be careful the smoke point of peanut oil is lower than some other oils. Add the marinated tuna and cook to your liking.

Serve on a large plate, pour some Peach or Mango Salsa over the eggplant/couscous.

Ready is a wonderful, easy, relatively quick and healthy dinner. We had a glass of Amos Malbec with it, it turned out really well J!

Weekend Breakfast: Fluffy German pancakes with Almonds and Raisins

We generally use the weekend breakfast to spent a relaxed morning together to catch up from the week and all the things that have been going on. Many of you probably have busy mornings and don't get to spend enough time with your loved ones. Even if you are single it can be a good and relaxing thing to sit down read a newspaper and spend a little more time than normal. 
A special breakfast is in order for that :)!!
Today it is a healthier and fluffy version of German pancakes. 

Ingredients:
250 g of flour (two cups) We used 3/4 of a cup whole wheat and 1 1/4 cups spelt flour
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups (375 ml) of milk 
10-15 chopped almonds (you can easily chop them yourself). Almonds have many heath benefits such as regulating cholesterol and blood pressure among many others. Search the web!!
2 tbs raisins
1 tsp honey
1/2 tsp backing powder
1 pinch of sea salt
2 tbs oil (olive, or sunflower oil. Do not use vegetable oil, it is usually lower quality oil and doesn't contain the essential fatty acids, due to the manufacturing process and ingredients).


Topping:
1 apple or any other fruit
1-3 tbs of your favorite berry jam


Directions:
Add flour and the other dry ingredients to the mixing bowl, add the eggs and slowly start mixing. Slowly pour the milk in the mixing bowl and mix until you have a smooth dough.


Cooking directions:
Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Make pancakes from one ladle at the time and cook them from both sides.


Serving ideas.
Take a couple of table spoons of the chopped up apples and pour some of your favorite jam over it


Bon Appetit!!


Have a great weekend!


Sincerely - Love To Eat Right

Eat that big breakfast!!

How does our body work? Well we are simply a machine, we like to get our fuel and grease in the morning. Like a well oiled machine, we run much better then!! There has been some interesting research to show how a big breakfast on the heavy side can influence our metabolism and have a positive effect for the rest of the day.


Lose Weight by Eating Earlier (Source: Triathlon Competitor)

Carb loading: How it works!

Endurance athletes talk about carb loading all the time :); everybody has a different approach prior to race day. Carb loading prior to race day can be up to a weeklong routine, or just a few days. I will talk about race prep carb loading in a different blog.

One of the things only few people think about is that carb loading needs to occur all the time, it is one of the most important elements of recovery and continuous training efforts. Carb loading simply means that you are replenishing your sugar depots in your muscles and your liver. Those are the main sources that can store glycogen, there is also some stored in your blood, but those sugars are maintained continuously by calorie intake and insulin production. The energy stored in those depots is recalled, when working out, not only on race day.

What kind of carbs/sugars can be stored in your muscles/liver?

There are essentially 2 types of carbohydrates, simple and complex. Simple carbohydrates are small molecules, such as sugar (glucose), fructose (sugar in fruit and fruit juices). lactose (sugar in milk), galactose (monosaccharides) and two sugars bonded together. Simple sugars are easily digestible and are perfect for quick energy replacement during workouts and races. Excess simple sugars are easily converted into fat.

Complex sugars or starch are simple sugars bonded together in a long chain. They are not as easily digestible, but are the source of glucose stored in our muscles and liver. The fact that complex carbs take longer to be digested leads to the effect that they are not as easily converted into body fat.

It is recommended to keep the intake of simple sugars as low as 10% of you daily carbohydrate intake.

How much energy can be stored in muscles and the liver?

Muscles are the main storage of glycogen, one can store anywhere from 200-500 grams of glycogen, which translates into 800-2000 calories. Some athletes have shown storage of up to 2700 calories stored in muscle. Long term training will result in greater storage depots in muscles as well as the amount of muscle mass of course. However, greater muscle mass will also means that your body burns more calories at any given time.

The liver can store 60-120 grams of glycogen, which equals 250–500 calories. 

Your body generally uses mostly liver glycogen over night, which means that a good breakfast with supplements can easily replenish liver glycogen. I will write about that subject separately as well.

Image source: http://www.all-creatures.org/recipes/images/i-pasta-penne-rigate.jpg

Carbohydrate foods:

Simple Sugars:

 - Table Sugar

 - Cakes, pastry, biscuits

 - Fruit (the calorie content of fruit is generally low and fruits contain fiber, which slows down the digestive, which    reduces the amount of excess calories stored in form of body fat)

 - Juices

 - Soda

 - Jam

 - Chocolate/Candy

Complex Sugars:

(Food in it’s most natural form i.e. whole wheat (whole wheat) etc)

 - Bran

 - Cornmeal

 - Oatmeal

 - Whole wheat pasta, regular pasta

 - Brown/white Rice

 - Potatoes

 - Wholemeal breads

 - Wholegrain cereals

 - Legumes: Peas, Beans Lentils

What have we learned?

Reduce the simple sugars in your daily diet. Carbohydrates are fuel for your body, if carbohydrate stores are low exercise will seem like a real effort! Not only on race day!!

Note: This post was previously published on April 9th 2010, I felt the topic was important enough to report :)

A little bit of healthy Asia

Today's dinner, is a very flavorful, relatively quick and easy recipe. It combines turkey or chicken with a creamy coconut curry sauce and your choice of grain!
Ingredients:
1 lbs (400-500g) chicken or turkey
1 jar/can bamboo shoots
1 can of kidney beans
1 can reduced fat coconut milk
1 medium onion
2 tsp corn starch
Spices:
2 tsp curry powder
sea salt to taste
chili powder to taste (1/4 of a tsp)
1/2 a tsp paprika
black pepper to taste
Carbs of your liking (brown rice, Quinoa,....) We had wheat berries.

Directions:
Start preparing your carbs, as they can take a little longer than the rest of the dish.
Now let's get started.

-Place a large skillet over medium-high heat and add a bit of olive oil.
-Peel and chop the onion.

-Add the onions to the skillet and gently brown them, add the black pepper to the onions. (The liquid of the onions brings out more of the pepper flavors).
-Cut the chicken/turkey in small cubes ~1"
-Add the chicken and brown it until it is mostly done.

-Now add the other spices. The curry powder should cover about 80% of the surface of the chicken and color it nicely. Take 1/4 of the coconut milk and keep it in a separate container (needs to be mixed with the corn starch later).
-Turn down the heat and add the beans (drains the liquid in the bean can and add water and drain it as well) and coconut milk, let it boil at low heat for ~5 min. The chicken/turkey should be cooked all the way now. Have a taste and see if you need to add any additional spices.
-Mix the starch with the coconut milk you put on the side until there are no junks left.
-Add the starch/milk mix to the dish and bring to a quick boil. Then remove skillet from heat and allow to stand for 5 minutes.The sauce should thicken nicely.


Ready is your quick and healthy dish!


Enjoy!

Black Bean Taquitos

Black Bean Taquitos

This is a healthy version of Mexican taquitos, a dish that consist of corn tortillas that are filled with shredded beef or chicken and then fried.

Here is what you need for the recipe:

1 can of refried black beans ( I like the ones that have lime added. You can use any type of refried beans)

1 package of corn tortillas

Olive oil (optional)

I usually put my tortillas in a warm oven or in the microwave just to warm them. I also warm the beans before making the taquitos- this can also be done in the microwave.

Warm a skillet/frying pan over medium heat. You can add some olive oil if you want, but it's not necessary.

Take one corn tortilla and place some of the refried beans near the outer edge on one side of the tortilla and then roll the tortilla up slowly and place in the heated pan, seam side down so that the tortilla doesn't come un-rolled. Once that side has cooked for a few minutes then flip the taquito over to evenly cook on other sides.

Repeat for as many taquitos as you want to make. I find it easier to make several at a time and then line them up in the pan together to help keep any of them from coming undone. These could probably be cooked in the oven also, I haven't tried it yet though.

Serve with your favorite salsa or guacamole.