Variations on a Sandwich

Healthy, delicious sandwich

I am down to the wire, wondering what to blog about.  I applied to my husband, asking him what I should write.  He said I should leave it off for tomorrow, but I am adamant about blogging every day for this year.  He suggested I write about sandwiches.  Oh, there's a subject I haven't written about.

Here goes a lovely description about my version of a delicious sandwich.  I love adding healthy ingredients.   One can add any condiment of choice.  Any meat and vegetables can be included, too.  Enjoy the pictures.

Simple ingredients for a healthy sandwich

Easy ingredients:

Bread, 

Turkey breast slices,

Cheese slice,

Spinach,

Tomatoes, 

Mayonnaise

SaraLee bread with no high fructose corn syrup

My choice of condiment--mayonnaise

Sandwich assembled my way

A sandwich can be assembled in any way, as long as the ingredients end up in between the two slices of bread.  Of course, one bread can be used for a younger child.  Mustard can be used instead of mayonnaise.  Spinach and tomatoes can be left out.  In place of turkey breast slices, bologna or ham can be eaten.

 

 

Well, thanks for reading about my easy sandwich variations.  I hope this informs you all of quick sandwiches which can be thrown together.

 

What about you, my readers? Do you like sandwiches? Do you like cheese, tomatoes, and spinach in your sandwiches?  

 

Combining these simple ingredients into a sandwich is wonderful.  I encourage you to get creative with quick meals.  You can use chicken or tuna salad as a meat ingredient.  Sandwiches should include ingredients from the recommended food groups, too.

May God bless you with His peace and wisdom, my beloveds.

This has been an entry for Saturday Spreads. I hope you enjoyed it!

How's My Vegetable Garden?

This is our garden as of yesterday--2011.

On Saturday, April 16th, we had planted this garden.  We had planted tomato and bell pepper plants.  What you now see above is the cucumber plants that are creeping out of the square garden.  We had planted the cucumbers as seeds on April 24th.  Cilantro did not fare well inside so I need to try a different method of planting that.

Vegetable gardening is something we've been doing for a few years already, for our health.  If you want to know how we did it this last time, you can view the entries by clicking the above highlighted blog entries.  Some of the plants were bought and some we had planted from seeds and transplanted.  I can't claim to be an expert as my cilantro seeds bear out this truth.  I can say that I am not a quitter and will continue to do new experiments and projects, as far as gardening goes.

Garden planted on April 16th.

Cucumber seeds planted on April 24th.

Cucumber plant grown from seed--date April 30th.

I thought I would update you all on how our garden is doing, since our garden is for our health.  Yes, it's thriving, thanks to my hubby.  He's the one who's been watering the plants everyday.  We live in Texas and are experiencing a drought.  Our city, San Antonio, is currently at stage 2 water restrictions.  

Pretty soon, we could be experiencing 

stage 3 water restrictions.  

I'm gonna show you what that means to our plants:

My shadow encircles a light green tomato.

A green bell pepper is hiding.

This is a closeup of one unripe tomato.

Crunchy leaves manage to still hide our growing tomatoes.

A visible tomato is at the bottom of picture.

Well, you can see that our garden is coming along nicely.  Yes, it is hot in Texas.  We are fortunate to have a long growing season.  With the daily watering, my hubby has kept our garden alive.  I do think we need to add mulch because it might get hotter in the summer months.

San Antonio has experienced 100 degree weather already.  How much hotter is it gonna be in the official summer months is anybody's guess.  I want our garden prepared.  I'll update you all again.  I might even try some other experiments for cilantro, as I did some research about that.

Incidentally, we ate two bell peppers, from our garden, in our cheese enchiladas yesterday.  They smelled and tasted wonderful.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this many-pictured blog entry. I enjoyed compiling it for y'all.

What about you, my readers?  Are you gardening?  What are you growing?  How's the weather where you live?  Is the weather helping or hindering your gardening?  I hope you will consider growing something at least as an experiment for your children.  It's a lot of fun.

I pray God grants you all His wisdom and peace.

This has been part of the Medical Mondays series.
  

You can view the related blog entries at:

Gardening Vegetables and Fruit

Planting Cucumber and Cilantro Seeds

 

Spinach and Pasta Balsamic Vinegar Salad

Some ingredients for spinach and pasta salad.

I wanted to jazz up the spinach salad with pasta.  I bought some Colavita balsamic vinegar and more baby spinach.  Many times, I have seen Lidia Matticchio Bastianich on PBS, with Colavita as one of her sponsors.  I came home with a bottle of the balsamic vinegar and researched online for a good recipe.  I already had the pasta; all I had to do was add a few touches.

I've heard that balsamic vinegar has many benefits.  Among them is that it suppresses your appetite and lowers your cholesterol.  It also acts as an anti-viral and antibacterial agent.  Who wouldn't want to receive health benefits by simply ingesting something?  I wanted to take advantage of these positive points to improve my health.

I used Wacky Mac spirals for my pasta salad.

Water boiled before adding the pasta.

Then, I stirred the pasta into the water.

The pasta became swollen ten minutes later.

I had the strainer ready to drain the pasta.

Hubby helped out.

Hubby poured out the pasta into another bowl.

Pasta was ready for other ingredients.

Mild cheddar cheese was a nice addition, as well as the lemon juice.

Here is a picture of the pasta with cheese cubes on the side.

I added cut up tomatoes.  I tore the baby spinach leaves into smaller bits.  I added about a teaspoon of the balsamic vinegar, a teaspoon of olive oil, a few dashes of lemon and some salt.  I left the cheese out because I knew my children would not want it in the pasta.  I loved the colors; they seemed so inviting.  

Croutons added a crunch.

Buttery garlic croutons added a good taste to my pasta.  I added a little bit more lemon juice to my plate.  The result was a wonderful symphony of taste.  All of the participating flavors conspired to create a delicious pasta salad.  I wonder if I will be able to duplicate it in the future.

All of the wonderful ingredients worked together.

This truly was a wonderful pasta salad.  The spirals were already packed with various vitamins and minerals.  I simply added tomatoes, spinach, olive oil, lemon juice, and balsamic vinegar.  I also added buttery garlic croutons and cubed mild cheddar cheese.  The ingredients did come together to create a delicious pasta salad, which surprised me.

My husband ate the spinach pasta salad with balsamic vinegar.

About an hour later after eating the salad, I still feel sated.  I feel the acid in my tummy.  It is not an unpleasant feeling.  Perhaps, and I hope it is true, the balsamic vinegar is benefiting my body.  I pray that I will keep using this pleasant ingredient--balsamic vinegar--in my diet.

Well, I hope you liked this version of a salad, 

which included balsamic vinegar. 

Thanks for reading this blog entry.  In the future, I hope to make a Greek Salad.  Stay tuned!

 

How about you, my readers?  Have you made a pasta salad lately?  Why or why not?  I encourage you to add balsamic vinegar; it's said that it's a better ingredient than any mayonnaise-based dressing.

This has been an entry for Saturday Spreads.

Spinach Tossed Salad

Spinach tossed salad can be delicious!

Today, I made myself a spinach tossed salad.  It was so delicious.  I want to share with you how I put it together.  It wasn't totally healthy, but I was craving it.  Of course, you can add and/or remove ingredients.

Here are the ingredients I used for my salad.

The salad was easy and fast to make.  I just gathered the ingedients I desired.  I would have like a boiled egg, but I was too lazy to make some.  Anyway, the picture above shows the ingredients of spinach, pre-cut tomatoes, cucmber, Italian dressing, and croutons.  As I said, you can add other things like cubed cheese, cubed meats, and crumbs of bacon, if you'd like.

The salad in the container is tossed best upside-down.

I assembled the salad.  First, I put in the desired amount of spinach leaves.  I added the pre-cut tomatoes, cucumbers, and croutons.  Then, I poured some of the dressing and two small pinches of salt.  The next part was fun because I cover the salad and turn the container upside down and shook.  (This is so funny to me because I'm listening to a song with the words, "Shake, shake, shake...")  

There are some considerations when making a salad.

Keep a mini-compost bin.

When peeling a cucumber, don't throw the scraps in the trash.  Have a container handy.  You can put those peelings in the container.  Later you can throw them in the compost bin.  You can make some healthy soil for a garden and reduce trash for the landfill.

Use a gallon size baggie to keep spinach fresh.

Something used to discourage me from buying spinach.  I would buy the spinach.  Then, it would take me a few days to eat it.  Sometimes, my family would only consume half of the bag.  Now, I put the bag inside a baggie to keep the spinach fresher for a longer time.

Well, I hope you liked my spin on salad making, using spinach. 

How about you, my readers?  Have you made a salad lately?  Why or why not?  I encourage you to add spinach; it's touted as a better ingredient than plain iceberg lettuce.

This has been an entry for Saturday Spreads.

Eating Colorful, Healthy Foods

Colorful foods help you want to eat healthy.

It's been said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.  I say that the way to feed my loving husband is through providing visually appealing foods.  Adding rich tomato sauce--a red color--into rice is good for a man's prostate.  It appears delightful even though I add real garlic (helpful for the immune system) and other good spices.  My husband gobbles up the food with his eyes before he even puts a spoonful of it into his mouth.

Today, I want to discuss the importance of a balanced meal.  What is a balanced meal?  Well, you need to have your carbohydrates (or starches), protein, and veggies.  Here, I have chicken soft tacos with beans and rice.  I'm not going into detail about how to throw it together.  

I just want you to look at the colors.  Isn't it beautiful?  If you are a visual person, then you are enjoying looking at that plate full of colors.  I learned a while back that to get someone to eat your food, you should use different colors to have a good food presentation.  Here, you can see the yellow, orange, brown, green, and red calling to you to eat it.  

I bet you're drooling!

You can also see that the plate is colorful.  I thought it added a nice touch to the dinner that was on it.  Notice that the plate is not big, either.  I did that on purpose.  We need to eat smaller portions, and a small plate helps you do that.  

Did you know that you should only eat the amount of meat or cooked grain that fits in the meaty part of your hand? Yes, your palm.  That means that your meat slice should be lean, not thick, and be the size of your hand, minus your fingers.  If your dinner time calls for only one or two meat portions, check it against your palm.  That will give you a good indication of how much protein or starches you should eat in one meal.  

Of course, if you are eating small meals throughout the day, as some doctors and fitness books recommend, then you would probably only eat one portion of protein.  Just make sure to  match up a protein with a good carbohydrate, especially if you are diabetic.  In this case, I matched each meat to a corn tortilla, which is better than the white flour tortillas.

Beans have both carbohydrates and proteins so it can really stand alone, but I'm a Mexican American and used to eating a meat entree with some kind of pasta (like rice, shells, elbows, or vermicelli) and beans on the side. 

Adding the roughage of spinach helps the food push through your body, and the tomatoes are good for you, too.  Tomatoes are good for your eyes.  My eye-sight began to improve when we grew tomatoes in our garden and ate them.  The avocados provide the fat that is good for your body.  I even sprinkled a little lemon (which has vitamin C) juice on the avocado.

I've come a long way from my earlier days of cooking.  That was about 15 years ago.  I am not perfect, but I have striven to provide delicious, wonderful-looking meals.  I have tried to balance them out with a good drink and a fruit on the side.  I don't always get to make my meals totally healthy, but I am hopeful to get  there some day.  For now, adding good veggies, like spinach and tomatoes, is a step in the right direction.

How about you, my readers?  Do you prepare your foods for all of the senses?  Do you try to make it taste and smell delicious?  I encourage you to include the different colors of the palette.  It just might make it more fun to eat a healthy meal.

God bless you with His peace, my beloveds.

This has been an entry for Saturday Spreads.  I went link-crazy, but I hope you like it.

Disclaimer: The viewpoints that I discussed here are just my opinions.  Please consult your physician before altering anything relating to your health.  I am only suggesting here to take charge of your health.  Don't just leave your health in the hands of your doctors; become your own advocate.  You know best how your body is doing.