Healthy veggie cooking!

Good morning!  Well, it's a Wednesday, cold and possibly rainy soon.  But, better than Monday or Tuesday!  I have realized that this blog is basically just a diary that will allow me to talk about my day, but that is okay because I won't have to worry about anyone reading it.  It is just a way for me to look back and see what I was doing in the past.  :)

I already keep up with the foods I eat on Fitday.com.  I have been doing that for about 4 or 5 years now.  It keeps up with the foods you enter each day and generates all kinds of reports based on what you eat.  I can go back 3 years ago and see what I ate on February 23rd of that year.  Pretty cool.  I have seen times where certain vitamins were lacking in my diet and adjusted it accordingly.  The worst time was about a year ago when I went on a strict diet/exercise routine.  I lost weight but really was too thin and my diet was lacking, especially in iron.  I did not know at the time, but it eventually led to my hair thinning, which has finally started to catch back up in growth.  I know now to watch my iron because I was borderline anemic, not good. 

Speaking of food, here is a picture of what I would eat if I were wanting to lose a few pounds.  There are a few veggies that you can eat an abundance of if you love to eat like I do.  I need big quantities of food with little calories to feel satiated.   A few of these are brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, butternut squash, green beans and asparagus.  I purchase these quite often and frozen seem to be just as good as fresh, with a much longer storage time and less money.  I treat them all very similar when cooking them.  I sometimes roast them, which gives them a wonderful flavor, but generally, I am in a hurry because I am always hungry, so I use the stove top and a skillet.  I use cooking spray to avoid the extra calories that oils add.   I mix a cube or two of chicken bullion with a cup of hot water and let it dissolve, this is easier than keeping chicken broth around because you can keep it in the cabinet and use as little or as much as you need.  Just spray the skillet with cooking spray, add the veggies and the broth mixture and cook on high heat, tossing often.  Add water if necessary to keep the veggies moist until they appear to be done.   I then let the water cook out and spray the veggies with a little more cooking spray and give them a good sprinkling of Cavendar's Greek Seasoning.  This seasoning is wonderful on veggies and meats of any kind.  Continue cooking to get out some of the moisture and possibly brown them a little.  This last step has to be monitored closely or they will burn, but if you can cook them on a pretty high heat, they will brown, which seems to add flavor.  This entire process may take some getting used to and is hard to describe, but I think I covered the basics of how I do it.  The more you cook each vegetable, the more you will learn about how much broth you will need and how long they will need to cook. 

Well, that was a long descriptive process, hopefully I will get better at describing how I cook.  I am not good at writing my recipes down or explaining them, since I experiment so much, there is hardly ever an actual recipe.  :) 

Until next time...eat it all.  :)