Spinach, Mushroom, and Goetta Scramble

I've been so busy lately with school starting again, continuing working at my internship, and trying to maintain a social life in the midst of all of that. This of course has greatly limited by free time that I'm on the computer, so I'm kind of behind on my meals. I have a queue going on now. Who knows if I'll ever get caught up.

This dish was at the request of another of my MFP friends, who requested I make a dinner omelet. Unfortunately for me, my cholesterol is high. And unfortunately for me, eggs are jam packed with cholesterol. I opted for this dish to use an egg substitute, as to not have a cholesterol overdose only a week before I'm supposed to go in and get my blood checked again for both my cholesterol and vitamin D levels.

Oh, and then I failed when making the omelet and it became a scramble instead.

Now, for people who aren't from the Cincinnati, Ohio area - I'm not either. But that wasn't my point. My point is, if you aren't from Cincinnati, you probably don't know what goetta is. There's only two things I can say about this:

1. You are utterly deprived and when I go to Ohio in October for a wedding I need to make sure to bring enough home for myself to keep in my freezer for a nice day, and

2. For the sake of this recipe you can replace the goetta with breakfast sausage, bacon, ground beef, or really any protein choice of your desire.

Spinach, Mushroom, and Goetta Scramble

Ingredients

1/2 cup sliced fresh mushrooms

1 pinch black pepper

1 pinch dried thyme

1/2 cup fresh spinach, chopped

4 oz goetta

1/2 cup egg substitute

3 tbsp Mozzarella cheese

ground paprika

Directions

1. In a skillet over medium heat, add cooking spray. Season the mushrooms and goetta with pepper and thyme, and then cook until the goetta is cooked all the way through and crispy on the outsides and the mushrooms are tender.

2. Add spinach and cook for 30 seconds. Remove the mixture to a small dish and set aside.

3. Respray the skillet with cooking spray. Add the egg substitute and allow to get firm. Scramble the eggs and mix in the spinach mixture.

4. Sprinkle with paprika.

* serves 1

CALORIES: 536 calories

CHOLESTEROL: 69 milligrams
FAT: 29 grams

Sweet Potato Tacos

I promise, this is my last sweet potato/spinach combo in the near future.

Once again, I was unsure about this combination (sweet potatoes and SALSA?!) But it really ended up being delicious. For being a meat-free meal it was more filling than had I made a wrap with ham on it and some vegetables.

The sweet taste of the sweet potato was not overpowering, which could have been weird given the nature of this meal. The salsa and sweet potato at first thought made me squeamish, but when I put it in my mouth I realized there was no reason to worry.

Sweet Potato Tacos

Ingredients

1 small sweet potato, peeled and cubed

1/2 cup kidney beans

1 tortilla

small handful of spinach

salt and pepper, to taste

1 tbsp Brummel&Brown yogurt spread

Directions

1. In a small pot boil the sweet potato. When soft mash with salt, pepper, and Brummel&Brown. Mix in the beans.

2. In a skillet heat up the tortilla.

3. Place a handful of spinach on the tortilla and top with the sweet potato.

* garnish with salsa and sour cream if you desire (I suggest it!!), though I did not include those in the calorie calculations

* serves 1

CALORIES: 356 calories
CHOLESTEROL: 0 milligrams
FAT: 10 grams
SODIUM: 942 milligrams

Sweet Potato Smoothie

I wasn't lying when I said that sweet potatoes and spinach have been a huge part of my diet as of late. I think there's still a sweet potato sitting in there waiting for me to use it. I know for sure that there's a bag of spinach in there too. I could probably do a week of sweet potato/spinach recipes and not get sick of it.

I said recently that I used to make smoothies for breakfast almost everyday. I need to get back into that again, especially since school starts for me on Monday. It's an easy breakfast that sustains me until lunchtime.

This absolutely was not a normal smoothie for me. Despite my current love of sweet potatoes, I have never used a sweet potato in a smoothie. And I have used spinach in my smoothies before, but in the past I was also using strawberries or something equally colorful, so my smoothies have never come out this interesting color of green that the sweet potato/spinach smoothie created.

Despite the bizarre pigment, it was absolutely delicious and I ended up making it two days in a row.

You can thank my MFP friends for this recipe being here. I was asked to make a smoothie, and a smoothie I did make!

Sweet Potato Smoothie

Ingredients

1 cup almond milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tbsp honey

1/2 cup peeled, cubed, and boiled (until soft) sweet potato

1/2 banana

handful spinach

ice cubes

Directions

1. Place all ingredients in the blender. BLEND!

* serves about 1 and a half

CALORIES: 150 calories
CHOLESTEROL: 0 milligrams
FAT: 3 grams
SODIUM: 153 milligrams

Mustard Crusted Tilapia, Potato Salad, and Grilled Asparagus Salad

I told you yesterday, I really love spinach lately. I'm all about it. Typically I don't make such involved dinners, because I work all day and I'm tired all night and frankly, who has the time?

When you look at this dish you probably think it's involved and time consuming, because hey, it's three freaking parts! But you know what? This was actually one of the quickest meals I've made. It was also one of the lowest calorie dishes. Take a guess. How many calories do you think this entire meal has in it?

Well, if you guessed 358 calories you were right. Yes, that's right. This entire meal, the potato salad (WITH MAYO - but obviously this depends on WHAT mayo you use!), the spinach salad, and the fish has less calories than most one-piece meals I make.

To save time I boiled the potatoes and put them in the refrigerator as soon as I got home from work. Then I changed my clothes, sat on the couch, and watched some TV for a half hour. Then I made the rest of the meal in less than a half hour.

Also, my normal potato salad recipe usually has both hard boiled egg and celery in it. This version is missing both of those ingredients because I was out of celery and if I included the egg, my cholesterol would have been too high for the day. So here is my simplified (perhaps too simple?) potato salad.

Mustard Crusted Tilapia

Ingredients

2 tilapia fillets

1 tsp mustard

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp shredded Parmesan

enough bread crumbs to create a crust

Directions

1. Preheat oven the 375 degrees. Spray a baking dish with cooking spray.

2. Combine the mustard, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, garlic powder, oregano, and Parmesan in a small dish. Smear the tilapia fillets with the mustard combination.

3. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove and sprinkle with the bread crumbs. Bake for 5 more minutes.

* serves 2

CALORIES: 107 calories
CHOLESTEROL: 58 milligrams
FAT: 1 grams
SODIUM: 147 milligrams

Potato Salad

Ingredients

1/2 lb red potatoes, diced

1 1/2 oz sweet pickles, cubed

1/4 tsp mustard

1 1/2 tbsp mayonnaise

1/8 tsp sugar

salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add potatoes and cook for 15 minutes. Drain and pour into a big bowl. Place in the refrigerator until cold.

2. Stir the pickles, mustard, mayonnaise, sugar, salt, and pepper in with the potatoes.

* serves 2

CALORIES: 140 calories
CHOLESTEROL: 3 milligrams
FAT: 3 grams
SODIUM: 181 milligrams

Grilled Asparagus Salad

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp lemon juice

6 asparagus spears, cut into inch-long pieces

3 cups fresh spinach leaves

1 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Combine lemon juice and olive oil on a plate. Roll the asparagus around in the liquid.

2. Grill the asparagus for 5 minutes, coating with the lemon and oil mixture.

3. In a large bowl combine the spinach, Parmesan cheese, the remaining lemon and olive oil, and the asparagus. Toss to combine.

* serves 3

CALORIES: 111 calories
CHOLESTEROL: 1 milligrams
FAT: 10 grams
SODIUM: 54 milligrams

Grilled Mozzarella "BST"

Rather than the beloved BLT sandwiches that are filled with bacon, lettuce, and tomato this sandwich features my favorite green: spinach.

When I was a little girl I hated spinach. I think part of this had to do with the fact that I really just loved potatoes and bread and would have preferred to eat starches over vegetables and secondly my mom used to buy this gross frozen spinach puree that I think looks like baby food. My brother was the lover of this spinach that made me want to hurl.

As I grew up I understood this as I just hated spinach period. Even when my mom would make dishes that involved fresh spinach, I was so repulsed at what I thought spinach was that I wouldn't even try it. It wasn't until I started cooking that I realized spinach was a lot more than some over processed frozen dish in the grocery store's freezer section.

In terms of my greens, I really don't like lettuce. I find it boring, flavorless, and I would just much rather eat something else. It also doesn't hurt that spinach is full of healthy ingredients to keep a girl strong and healthy (that girl being me of course).

Obviously this delicious sandwich will be submitted to Kahakai Kitchen's SOUPER (and sandwich and salad...) Sundays.

Grilled Mozzarella "BST"

Ingredients

6 slices bacon

1 clove garlic, minced

1 1/2 cups baby spinach

salt and pepper, to taste

1 dutch crunch roll, sliced and cut in half (to create 2 smaller rolls)

4 oz mozzarella

1/2 tomato, sliced

1/2 tbsp olive oil

Directions

1. Cook the bacon over medium heat until crisp (or cook in the microwave according to the directions on the package.) Set aside on paper towels to drain.

2. Keeping the oil from the bacon still in the pan, cook the garlic for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the spinach and cook until wilted. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Arrange the spinach on the two bottom pieces of the roll. Top with bacon, mozzarella, and tomato.

4. Heat the oil in a skillet. Cook the sandwiches until golden brown on each side.

* serves 2

CALORIES: 402 calories
CHOLESTEROL: 38 milligrams
FAT: 22 grams
SODIUM: 611milligrams

Turkey Mini-Meatloaves w/Roasted Root Veggies

Now that we have the welcome out of the way and now that I'm taking a break from studying for my Criminal Law test, I can post my first homecooked meal! I actually cook to relieve stress, so high impact times in my life are just generally going to produce more entries, because I get such a satisfaction from standing in the kitchen, mixing, baking, stirring, and sauteing. I also love sitting down with whatever I made and indulging in it. But above all, I love to share my food (which is why my boyfriend is so great). Even though I lack capacity to create my own recipes and follow most recipes exactly the to tee, cooking is like an art. There was one day and I accidentally dropped my cooked cauliflower on the floor and I just fell down and cried, because that was my labor, my work, it's my creation.

Anyway, I guess in each of these posts you'll get to know me a little more. I don't really want to do a "HEY MY NAME IS ELIZABETH" kind of entry, because it's weird to me and I just would rather not. But anyway, I got this cookbook last year when I decided I needed to lose weight. I just found low-calorie foods to be so bland. But after some careful review I got the best cookbook ever. I really recommend it as it's one of the cookbooks I've used more than twice. Maybe if this all works out and I get lots of followers I'll host a giveaway with this cookbook, since it is my favorite and all. Because really, if I have giveaways I'm only going to give you the best of the best.

But I am getting so ahead of myself.

Turkey Mini-Meatloaves with Roasted Root Veggies

For the Meatloaf:
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
1/2 cup 1% milk
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
5-oz bag baby spinach leaves
1 1/2 lbs ground turkey
2 tbsp grated Parmesan
1/4 cup egg substitute
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg

For the Glaze:
3 tbsp ketchup
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp Tapatio

For the Veggies:
3 medium carrots, cut into chunks
2 New Potatoes, chunked
6 stalks asparagus, chopped
1 1/2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. Put the breadcrumbs and milk in a bowl and let sit.

3. In a skillet with the olive oil, cook the onions over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until golden and soft. Add the spinach and stir until wilted. Transfer to a bowl with the breadcrumbs. Add the turkey, cheese, egg substitute, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Combine the mixture using your hands.

4. Pack 1 cup of the mixture into a 1-cup measuring cup. Invert the cup onto a rimmed baking sheet. Repeat with remaining mixture. Bake for 40 minutes, until golden.

5. On a baking sheet toss all the vegetables with the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Add to the oven and cook for 30 minutes.

6. While the meatloaves are cooking, making the glaze by mixing the ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and hot sauce in a small bowl. When the meatloaves are complete, brush over the top.

* the veggies serve 2, the meatloaf serves 6

Nutrition: Meatloaf
CALORIES: 203 calories
CARBS: 12 grams
PROTEIN: 27 grams
SODIUM: 515 milligrams

Nutrition: Root Veggies
CALORIES: 112 calories
CARBS: 19 grams
PROTEIN: 3 grams
SODIUM: 45 milligrams