Brown Rice Chicken Teriyaki Stir Fry

Again we came to the predicament where we had veggies and chicken in the fridge that we needed to hurry up and eat, so we created this tasty dish!

I cooked three chicken breasts on the stove in some vegetable oil and seasoned it with some seasoning salt. We cut the broccoli and squash and stuck them on the stove with veggie oil, and a little later we dumped the chicken and rice in to heat it all up and mix the flavors in. We had leftover brown rice in the fridge, so we just used that.

Brown rice is actually really good! Andrew and I decided that we prefer brown rice over white rice because it has a great texture and it tastes good. We found a cheap bag of it at the grocery store and thought we'd give it a try. And brown rice is 100% whole grain, so this dish is wonderfully suited for the Harvard food pyramid!



We added just a tiny bit of teriyaki sauce, salt, and pepper the first time, but when we had it for leftovers we decided the teriyaki sauce was enough flavor and ditched the salt and pepper.

We will definitely make brown rice stir fry again and try out some different vegetables and protein options! Let me know if you come up with any tasty combinations!

Why "Flexitarian"?

Flexitarian is basically what it sounds like. Flexible vegetarian. The base of the diet is exercise, whole grains and vegetable oils, vegetables and fruits, nuts and legumes, and then the upper categories have some poultry/fish...and if you get really far up the pyramid, you hit pork and beef, etc.

It's also flexible because you don't have to take anything out of your diet like one of those no-carb diets, and if you are offered food from the top categories like eating at someone's house you don't have to turn it down. No need for the phrase "sorry, I'm a flexitarian."

So have I ever wanted to be a vegetarian? Personally, no. I love meat too much. However, I am totally fine with eating less meat. I grew up in Texas where barbecue is very delicious and very popular. You go to those restaurants and order tons of meat and maybe some coleslaw, corn, or potato salad. Yum! Even though I totally love that, I also really enjoy just having bits of chicken in my salad, or a couple pieces of turkey bacon instead of half of the container.

If you eat tons of meat, especially meat that isn't poultry or fish, it might be a bit of a transition for you to cut down on the meat. But it's totally worth it for your health (and your budget)! It helps you eat more of the foods in the base of the pyramid. And excess protein doesn't make you big and bulky, because your body only takes what it needs and excretes the rest.

Did you know that research has found that healthy eating reduces risk for cancer and cardiovascular disease?

"When the people who consumed the most fruits and vegetables were compared to those who ate the least, they had half the cancer risk. The studies showed that fruits and vegetables stopped cancers at almost every stage of cancer growth, and the primary protective action is believed to be from phytochemicals. Another review of this research concluded that if Americans would consume five servings of fruits and/or vegetables each day, the prevalance of cancer could be cut in half. 

"Eating foods as close as possible to their natural form is the best way to protect against many of the most common forms of cancer. If you think about it, having phytochemicals concentrated in the skin [of fruits and vegetables] makes sense. Any bacteria, virus, or other plant threat has to first penetrate the skin before the plant can be harmed. The skin on simple fruits and vegetables is far more complex than we might think. 

"It appears that fruits and vegetables are able to provide some protection against cardiovascular disease. If you compare the new cases of cardiovascular disease among people who eat 10 servings or more per day of fruits and vegetables with the cases among those who eat less than 2 servings, you find that those who eat a lot of fruits and vegetables have 20-30% lower risk. Findings on strokes showed that for every serving of fruits or vegetables eaten per day, women get a 3% reduction in stroke risk and men get a 5% reduction in stroke risk.

"Even high blood pressure has been successfully lowered with a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, suggesting that if you have high blood pressure, the first thing to do is to start eating more fruits and vegetables." 

- Steven G. Aldana, PH.D. The Culprit & The Cure

Isn't that so amazing! I'll stop quoting research for now, but seriously the facts are there. 

My New Pasta Creation

Yum is all I can say. Not everything in the meal is shown in the picture on the left.

We had quite a bunch of vegetables sitting in our refrigerator and I knew they needed to be eaten soon, so I decided to cut them all up and throw them in with some chicken to make a yummy pasta dish. I debated for a while whether or not to throw in some canned tomatoes, but I'm SO glad I did because they add a lot of flavor.

I'm sure using other vegetables would be delicious as well, like mushrooms and onions and such. I just used what we had in the fridge, which happened to be what was cheap at the grocery store last week. This meal would also taste good with ground turkey, and different seasonings. It's delicious, flexible, and great for the food pyramid!

Lindsey's Flexitarian Chicken Veggie Pasta:

• 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast 
• 1 head broccoli cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 green bell peppers cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 squash and 1 zucchini cut in half from top to bottom and then slice into several pieces about 1/4 of an inch wide
• 2 cans of diced tomatoes (drained slightly)
• whole wheat egg noodles
• seasoning salt
• pepper
• Italian seasoning

1. Put enough vegetable oil in the bottom of a frying pan to coat the whole bottom. I did this step first so I wouldn't have to clean my hands in between cutting the chicken and moving it to the pan. 

2. Cut up the chicken breast into many tiny pieces (that way you don't need tons of chicken but you still get several bites of it in your dish!) and put them in the pan. 

3. Start a pot of water boiling for the pasta. Once boiling, add the noodles. They don't take long to cook at all, so keep your eye on them! 

4. Cut up all of the vegetables into bite-sized pieces and add them to the pan as you go. I added the bell peppers first, then the broccoli, then the zucchini and squash. 

5. Add the spices you would like, throw in the two cans of tomatoes and turn the heat down. Cover with a lid so it all warms up. 

6. Once the pasta is drained, throw some on your plate and cover it with the chicken veggie mix. Enjoy! 

Salads Galore!

There are a plethora of combinations you can throw together to make delicious salads with, which I love. Who doesn't like variety? Here are some salads that we have tried and enjoyed:

Tip: we prepare all of our ingredients ahead of time and keep them in separate containers in the fridge, except for tomatoes - they go bad too quickly. As long as you wash and dry your lettuce when you cut it up, it will stay good in the refrigerator in a container for about 1 and 1/2 to 2 weeks.

Chicken salad with chickpeas, diced tomatoes, cucumber slices, sunflower seeds, shredded carrots, small chunks of cheese that we cubed, and canned pineapple chunks. We have topped it with light Caesar dressing and light balsamic vinaigrette as well as a blue cheese yogurt dressing and all of them taste good. I like to think of this combination as a sort of Hawaiian haystack salad. When we ran out of pineapple chunks, I also enjoyed using a pear that I cut up. We don't always use all of the toppings above either. For instance, today we had it with chicken, chickpeas, shredded colby jack cheese, and I added canned sliced peaches to mine. We had it with light Caesar dressing and it was so tasty!

Taco salad (using either chicken or ground turkey for the meat), diced tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, cheese, and beans (pinto, black, kidney, or a mix of all three). Avocado/guacamole tastes amazing with this as well! We used to make this salad before we started this diet, so we would always crush some tortilla chips on top. Sadly I haven't found any whole grain tortilla chips, so we haven't done this for a while. If you want to use up your top of the pyramid category to eat tortilla chips though, then go for it!

Another delicious kind of salad is one with tons of fruits and almonds or pecans. Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, pears, mangoes, peaches, you name it! And with feta cheese...yum! But we can't afford that, so we use colby jack because it's cheap and tastes good. Also, cheese isn't a necessary for salads if you don't want to use up one of your dairy servings for the day.

Seriously there are so many ways to make delicious salads that adhere to this food plan! Try adding a fish for your meat to mix things up!

Omelettes

We love omelettes! We like inventing new kinds to eat as well! Okay, so to be honest we don't make omelettes like you picture them to be, with the egg wrapped around the meat, cheese, and veggies. We make them more like a stir-fry, which takes less time and is just as delicious!

Throw some kind of vegetable oil in the bottom of your skillet so your eggs don't stick! A general omelette that we like to make includes eggs, cheese, diced tomatoes, sliced up turkey lunch meat, and slices of a golden delicious apple.

I have seriously been blessed with an amazing husband. Andrew is so kind and usually makes breakfast for us. It really helps because I'm usually feeding our little baby Joseph, and even when I'm not it's still a super kind gesture. Anyway, one morning he surprised me by throwing in the golden delicious apple and I was less than excited to try it out. Now every time we make omelettes, I grab a golden delicious from the fridge because I love it so much!

Another good combination is instead of the golden delicious, adding spinach! It is really delicious. My neighbor Macy said that she usually just throws in whatever vegetables are in her fridge when she makes omelettes, including squash and zucchini. I know bell peppers and green onions are also common in omelettes. If you're feeling ambitious, you could even cook up some turkey bacon and cut it up for your meat, but I think the turkey lunch meat is delicious and simple. And what college student/busy mom doesn't like simple?

When we make our favorite omelette, we throw in vegetable oil, put some eggs in (usually about 6 eggs which makes 3 for each person) and let them cook for a little while. Then we add the tomatoes and lunch meat, and then the golden delicious apples, cook for a little longer, top with cheese and dish it onto the plates. The apples don't get very cooked that way, but it's good. We recently tried cooking the apples a little longer and that tastes great as well!

If you try this out, let me know what you think!

Turkey Egg Muffins

Lunch meat is great in so many ways, and I really enjoy it in this recipe! It makes it simple to make and tasty to eat. Just grab some sliced turkey meat (circular is the best shape for this recipe), and place it in the bottom of a muffin tin (if you want smaller portions, a mini muffin pan works great). Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a separate bowl, crack some eggs and whisk. Add some cut up vegetables (tomatoes, green onions, bell peppers, asparagus, green beans, spinach, whatever floats your boat!) and some spices if you would like (salt and pepper are always good).

Then pour the egg-veggie batter into the muffin pan lined with turkey meats. Throw it in the oven, and out come easy breakfast/snack protein muffins! Try cooking them for about 15-20 minutes if you are using a normal muffin pan. If you're using a mini muffin pan try 8-12 minutes.

Turkey Bacon and Eggs

I love the classic bacon and eggs breakfast, but didn't like how fatty I felt after eating tons of bacon (because sometimes I lose self control when there is steaming bacon in front of me). The first time I had turkey bacon after eating regular bacon it was kind of strange, but from the second time on it became a treat that my husband Andrew and I looked forward to!

We make this meal about three times a week, if not more! We cook up 2 eggs for each of us (we like ours over easy) and 2 or 3 pieces of turkey bacon per person. We enjoy eating it with frozen mixed vegetables that have been cooked on the stove in a bit of vegetable oil. We then put salt and pepper over everything, eat it up, and then we grab a piece of whole grain bread. We like to put applesauce on our bread, or sometimes peanut butter, and I sometimes enjoy eating it with sliced peaches on top (both fresh and canned).

We like this meal because it has protein, vegetables, whole grain, and either fruit or nuts. It is seriously so good!

Oh, another tip for the turkey bacon: we don't like to cook it to the point that it becomes crispy. For some reason it has a funny taste when it is crispy. We like it pretty floppy, but definitely not raw!

Let me know what you think if you try this out! Also if you try it in a different way, and how that went for you.

Spicing up Oatmeal

Yesterday for breakfast my husband and I decided to have oatmeal, which we haven't done for a while. I had seen a recipe on Pinterest a few weeks ago where you take an apple, cut it into little pieces, and cook it on the stove top in apple juice. I decided to try it out, and I actually loved it and I'm totally doing it again! We each had different types of oatmeal with our apples, and they were both delicious.

I have tons of apple juice concentrate, so I used that to boil the apple slices in. I cut up each apple into eighths and then sliced the eighths into small chunks so they would cook fast and would spread throughout the oatmeal better.

We each had a 1/2 cup of oatmeal with one apple. I added the juice that I used to boil the apples in with the oatmeal to make it sweeter.

My husband added some cinnamon and nutmeg in his and boy was that yummy! He let me taste it. I added some peanut butter in mine and I liked it. I eat apples and peanut butter all of the time, so I thought I would give it a try in oatmeal form.

In the past we have also had bananas and peanut butter in our oatmeal and that's always good too. It's just nice to have some variety to oatmeal because we get bored of bananas and peanut butter. Another delicious way to have oatmeal is with peaches and a splash of cream!

If you're wanting to enjoy a little treat from the top of the pyramid, there are also some good options such as the classic brown sugar with pecans and raisins, strawberries with chocolate, and peaches and cream using whipped cream.

Oatmeal types:

• Apple, cinnamon, and nutmeg
• Apple and peanut butter
• Banana and peanut butter
• Peaches and cream 
• Brown sugar with pecans and raisins
• Strawberries and chocolate

Have any of you found any successful oatmeal recipes that fit in the Harvard food pyramid diet?

Whole Wheat German Pancakes

One of my husband's favorite breakfast foods is German pancakes, and I really wanted to make some this weekend without breaking our new food lifestyle. I pulled up Pinterest and searched for whole wheat German pancakes and I found this recipe. It looked great, but we did make a few changes to it in order for it to better fit the diet. 

We didn't make the syrup to go on it, and we didn't use butter. We used vegetable oil! It actually turned out pretty good. I am eager to make it again, and my husband liked it too, but he wasn't sure how excited other people would be to try it out. Here are some pictures

As you can see, it didn't poof up like normal German pancakes do, but it did have the same kind of light, chewy texture. It really did look quite funny inside the pan because the oil didn't blend in to the pancake like butter does, but I mean we enjoyed it still!

We grabbed some canned peaches to make it sweet, and just writing about it is making my mouth water. I do want to try this recipe again, but this time I might try making it with butter (I mean...it IS in the top category of the food chart...so it's still okay to eat occasionally!)

If you try this recipe, let me know how it goes! I'm curious to know if anyone enjoys it as much as we did using the oil method.

Whole Wheat German Pancakes (Harvard Pyramid Style)

2 Tablespoons oil (olive, canola, vegetable)

1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour

1/2 cup Milk

3 Eggs

Pinch of salt

• Preheat Oven to 450 degrees
• Coat the bottom of your pan with the oil
• Mix all ingredients in a bowl
• Pour the batter evenly around the whole pan
• Bake for 15-18 minutes

If you choose to use butter instead of oil, put two Tablespoons of butter into your pan and melt it in the oven before pouring your batter in the pan.

What is There to Eat?

At first when my husband and I decided we wanted to try this Harvard food pyramid lifestyle, I asked "so what will we eat?" It turns out there are tons of options, including familiar foods enjoyed by many Americans.

Here is a list of what we have come up with so far, but our list is not exhaustive.

Breakfast:
- oatmeal
- omelettes
- turkey bacon and eggs
- french toast with fruit on top instead of syrup
- smoothies
- whole wheat German pancakes garnished with fruit
- whole grain banana muffins
- yogurt and fruit
- some type of whole grain cereal, like wheat squares (the off-brand of Chex)
- turkey egg muffins

Lunch/Dinner:
- salads
- chicken fajitas with whole wheat tortillas
- lunch meat sandwiches using turkey meat
- pollack/salmon patties with veggies
- spaghetti using whole wheat noodles and ground turkey for the sauce
- stuffed bell peppers using ground turkey and either quinoa or wild rice
- taco soup using chicken or ground turkey
- quesadillas using whole wheat tortillas and not too much cheese

Snack:
- veggies and ranch dressing
- homemade popcorn cooked in vegetable oil, sprinkled with salt (I'm pretty excited that popcorn is actually a whole grain!)
- any fruit or vegetable
- whole wheat bread with peanut butter or applesauce
- hard boiled eggs

And there are many more to come! I'm just getting started discovering what all can be done with this pyramid!

The Harvard Food Pyramid

This is what the flexitarian diet all boils down to. There are so many food pyramids out there, but this one is by far my favorite, because it was created based on non-biased research! Many food-producing companies out there have paid researchers to conduct studies that show their product to be good, so the old food pyramids have some bias due to those studies.

Harvard examined tons of studies done on diet and health, and this beauty came from it. Also, it's a diet that anyone can easily follow. My husband and I are poor college students, and we can afford this diet. Also, it's not a diet that takes a ton of preparation and time, such as a diet I did a few weeks ago that consisted of me eating 5 meals a day, each being about 375 calories. I seriously spent all day deciding what I could eat that would fill me up and stay within the calorie limit. That was not a lifestyle I could keep up with for the rest of my life. After all, isn't a diet just the way you eat over time? The word "diet" in our day tends to have the connotation of an intense eating and exercise plan that lasts for a short period of time to help people lose weight. But just like we need to brush our teeth every day to maintain dental health, we need to exercise and eat well every day of our lives so that we can be healthy!

Anyway, I'll step off of my soap box and just let you check out the chart that has helped me so much! If you would like more knowledge about this chart, check out the book The Culprit and The Cure. 

My husband and I actually printed this picture out twice (one for each of us) and we put it on our fridge. Each day we keep track of what we eat by putting small magnet pieces in the space of the foods we consume. For instance, if I had a piece of bread with peanut butter on it, I would put a magnet in the whole grain box, and a magnet in the nuts and legumes box. Then when we get hungry, we can check to see what foods we still need to get more of for the day. We just cut up an advertisement magnet we got, so the magnets were free.



For exercise and weight control, we do 30 minutes of exercise 6 days a week (yoga, zumba, weight lifting, planks and jumping jacks, or whatever you enjoy that gets your muscles and heart going!) and we make sure to get at least 10,000 steps every single day. I like going on an hour-long walk every day with my friends who also have little ones. We place a magnet in the bottom box for 30 minutes of exercise done, and then when we reach 10,000 steps for the day we add another magnet in that box.