Healthy Recipes for 2013 - Alberta Eats

Did you resolve to loose weight? Eat healthier? Get fit? I've given up on making resolutions, but I do want to live healthier. I tend to hibernate in the winter and not get enough exercise, so I'm working on building a little more activity into my day - parking further away from the door, walking to the mailbox rather than picking it up in the car at the end of a day of errands, and maybe even spending a few minutes on the treadmill while watching television.

Healthy eating is not always as easy. My fall-back recipes are comfort foods and meals that involve mashed potatoes and gravy! Salads and greens are great in the summer, but don't seem as interesting when the weather turns cold and snow covers the grass.

So, I went looking for some healthy choices to spice up my menu in the coming weeks. Fitness magazine has some great ideas for snacks and lunch. This one looks yummy:

Hummus and Roasted Veggie Pizza

Ingredients
1 soft tortilla shell
Handful of your favorite veggies (try spinach, tomatoes, and zucchini)
Hummus
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
Salt and pepper, to taste
Crumbled goat cheese
Directions
1. Roast veggies for about 20 minutes at 350°F with the olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper.
2. Top your favorite type of tortilla with hummus (store-bought or homemade), add the roasted veggies and some goat cheese, then bake for 10 minutes at 350°F.
3. Slice and enjoy!
From Fitness Magazine

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Snacks are my biggest temptation. I try to keep my cupboards free from candy, chocolate bars and chips, but I like my sweets and salty snacks. BBC Goodfood has a great list of healthy snacks and this no-bake Sunshine Bar looks like a good choice for those mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack cravings.

Sunshine Bars

• 100g dried ready-to-eat tropical medley or other mixed dried fruits
• 100g porridge oats
• 50g puffed rice cereal , such as Rice Krispies
• 85g desiccated coconut
• 50g blanched hazelnuts or shelled peanuts or other nuts
• 50g sunflower, sesame or pumpkin seeds
• 100g light muscovado sugar
• 125ml golden syrup
• 100g butter , chopped up

1. Chop the tropical medley into pieces using kitchen scissors. Tip the oats, cereal, coconut and fruit into a large bowl and mix well, using a wooden spoon or clean hands. Put the hazelnuts and sunflower, sesame or pumpkin seeds in a frying pan with no oil and, over a moderate heat, stir until they are lightly toasted. Leave to cool a little then tip into the bowl and mix.
2. Put the sugar, syrup and butter in a small pan and heat gently, stirring with a wooden spoon until melted, then simmer for 2 minutes until slightly thicker and syrupy.
3. Quickly stir the syrup into the dry mix, stirring until it all starts to bind and there are no dry patches.
4. Quickly tip into a 20cm square tin and press down with the back of a spoon to even out the surface. Leave to cool and set - about 2 hours. Cut the mixture into 6 one way and 3 the other to make 18 bars. Store in a tin, or wrapped tightly in foil for up to a week. 
   
    

   Preparation and cooking times

   Prep 25 mins
   Plus 2 hours setting time
    

PER SERVING

190 kcalories, protein 2g, carbohydrate 22g, fat 11 g, saturated fat 6g, fibre 2g, sugar 11g, salt 0.26 g

 From BBC Good Food

--Ann (Magpie Quilts)

Ann quilts, cooks and spends hours online just SE of Calgary. She blogs at www.magpiequilts.com and sells her quilts on Etsy at www.etsy.com/shop/MagpieQuilts.