When In Doubt, Cook it Out

Two foods that I enjoy that go bad quickly are spinach and fish. It can become discouraging because they aren’t cheap foods either.

So, if you remember the tips from the Dietitian, JoAnn Daehler-Miller, from the University of Iowa Student Health and Wellness, she said a good way to make those foods last longer is to cook them.

I found two recipes that are not only easy to make, but have a lot of ingredients in them that I already have in my apartment. I didn’t see a point in going out and buying a bunch of ingredients for an extravagant meal for just myself.

Recipe 1: MaMa’s Supper Club Tilapia Parmesan

Servings: 4

Ingredients:
2 lbs tilapia fillets     (orange roughy, cod or red snapper can be substituted)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
4 tablespoons butter, room temperature
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
3 tablespoons finely chopped green onions
1/4 teaspoon seasoning salt (I like Old Bay seasoning here)
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
black pepper
1 dash hot pepper sauce

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In buttered 13-by-9-inch baking dish or jellyroll pan, lay fillets in single layer.
Do not stack fillets.
Brush top with juice.
In bowl combine cheese, butter, mayonnaise, onions and seasonings.
Mix well with fork.
Bake fish in preheated oven 10 to 20 minutes or until fish just starts to flake.
Spread with cheese mixture and bake until golden brown, about 5 minutes.
Baking time will depend on the thickness of the fish you use.
Watch fish closely so that it does not overcook.
Makes 4 servings.
Note: This fish can also be made in a broiler.
Broil 3 to 4 minutes or until almost done.
Add cheese and broil another 2 to 3 minutes or until browned.

Thank you Mama’s Supper Club in Wisconsin.

 

For this dish, you can take or leave the lemon juice and the hot sauce. I personally like them both so I used them. This recipe was easy to make and I enjoyed it.

This meal only cost me $6 because like I said, almost all the ingredients I already had in my apartment. The fish I bought was from HyVee.

 

Recipe 2: Egg Muffins

Makes 12 muffins (2 eggs each)
Ingredients:
1 carton of egg whites or 24 egg whites.
Options:
Baby spinach
chopped onion
chopped red pepper
chopped jalapeno
chopped ham or canadian bacon
chopped mushrooms
Sriracha sauce
shredded cheese

Directions: 
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-Choose ingredients you prefer to use and maybe mix it up, so you have something different every day. chop if necessary.
-Spray pan
-Add chopped ingredients to each cup
-Add 1/3 cup liquid egg whites or 2 egg whites per cup
-Bake for 30 minutes.
-Immediately remove and let cool on a rack. Once cool, place 2 in a ziplock bag with no air to keep them all week in the fridge. In the morning, remove from bag and heat in microwave for 1 minute.

 

My favorite thing about this dish is that you can put in it whatever you like. The only major ingredient that is required are the eggs/egg whites. For mine I just used whole eggs because they are cheaper than the egg whites. For a carton of eggs at HyVee it is $1.69.

So for my egg muffins I chopped up yellow and orange sweet peppers and one tomato (plus the spinach of course). I didn’t have a chance to buy sausage or bacon for it but next time I am definitely going to add it. Again, you can take or leave the hot sauce. I liked it personally because it added a little extra kick of flavor to the muffin.

It is so easy to make and lasts the whole week for breakfast. This meal only cost me $10 and that was because the spinach was a bit pricey.

Part 1: A Better Understanding of What Main Food Groups are Important in a Healthy Lifestyle

Dietitian, JoAnn Daehler-Miller, with the Student Health and Wellness Center at the University of Iowa explains what are the necessary food groups individuals should be eating and how much of those foods an individual should have in order to have a healthy diet.

*When she is discussing how a “plate” is very helpful, she is referring to the government issued program called “My Plate”

Here is what your “My Plate” would look like.

Necessary Protein: are Protein Shakes Beneficial?

This week I needed to go grocery shopping and decided to bring my roommate along with me. We stopped into HyVee and went straight for the Health Market section and I considered buying protein powder because I had heard I could use it in smoothies as a meal supplement. I had also heard that it was a good way to help fight hunger throughout the day and would help keep me from eating too much.

That’s when my roommate said, “you know that isn’t actually true right?” This then lead me to do some research because I, in fact, didn’t know that.

Turns out, my roommate was right. Protein shakes (which is where protein powder is usually used) aren’t beneficial if you don’t use them correctly. According to the article, “A Practical Guide to Protein Shakes,” most people think the same things that I thought and are ingesting these shakes without knowing all the facts about them.

Protein shakes are usually mixed with fruit and therefore, they have a ton of calories. On average, an individual should be consuming 45 to 60 grams of protein a day and if you are eating a well-rounded diet, then you don’t need the extra protein or the extra calories.

Most individuals like myself believed that protein shakes were a good meal substitute. WRONG. Our bodies should be taking in less calories than we are burning off so if you eat two to three protein shakes a day and follow that up with sitting on the couch all day, you are making no progress.

These shakes are also stigmatized as being a supplement when actually the two are completely different. A supplement has the necessary nutrients your body needs whereas like it was stated before, the shakes are high in calories.

Moral of the story is, I saved money by not buying the $20 protein powder and instead bought frozen chicken breasts for $7.19 that will give me all of my necessary protein to keep my diet balanced.