Friday, July 30, 2010 at 06:58 AM
Have you noticed that all of the watermelons at the grocery store are round these day? Gone are the wide oval melons of yesteryear. You know, like the kind that Jennifer Gray struggled with in that famous Dirty Dancing scene where utters her first words to Patrick Swayze, “I carried a watermelon.” No more. Today’s melons are like oversized basketballs. A little less cumbersome, but still tricky to slice.
I could eat an entire watermelon all by myself. I love them and my kids do too. So, we buy one every single week. This one was only $2.77 at Roche Bros! I feel great giving my kids so much watermelon since it gets a 94 on the NuVal scale. Good stuff!
Thanks to a little article I saw in the Boston Globe magazine, I found a new way to slice these new round melons, safely and efficiently.
First you slice off each end.
See how nicely you can then stand your watermelon up? So stable!
Next you just quarter and slice:
We keep some slices on the rind and cut some into cubes as well. Just looking at these pictures makes my mouth water!
So now, I need to grab me a slice of watermelon (or maybe the entire thing) and sit down for a screening of Dirty Dancing (a second-half-of-summer tradition).
Happy Weekend everyone!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: watermelon
Tags: watermelon
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 06:55 AM
One of the benefits of working for NuValis that I get to work with several Registered Dietitians. Chief among them is Annette Maggi, MS, RD, LD, FADA. Annette lives in super-friendly Minnesota with her husband, Dan, and her 11-year-old son, Jack. As part of her job as Senior Director of Nutrition for NuVal, she shares her views on nutrition in her blog, Nutrition Outlook. She was so kind as to share one of her favorite tricks recipes for getting more veggies into Jack with all of you A Better Bag of Groceries readers today. So without further ado, I bring you Annette!
As a dietitian and a mom, I’m always looking for ways to get more vegetables into my son’s eating habits. He’ll eat a variety of fruits and will eat them willingly, but vegetables tend to be a harder sell. So I was intrigued when I ran across a recipe for “Zucchini-Ribbon Lasagna” in a recent issue of Martha Stewart Magazine. While billed as a gluten free recipe (which it is), it definitely presented a way to get in an extra serving of vegetables at dinner.
Here’s the Recipe
For the Sauce
1 can (28 ounce) whole peeled plum tomatoes, with juice (NuVal score of 50 for Tuttorosso Plum Tomatoes – see note below)
2 tbsp. olive oil (NuVal score of 11)
1 small onion, finely chopped (NuVal score of 93)
¼ tsp. red pepper flakes
12-oz. ground turkey (NuVal score of 33 for 93% lean)
2 tbsp chopped fresh oregano
2 tsp. sea salt
For the Lasagna
2 medium zucchini, trimmed (NuVal score of 99)
1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese (NuVal score of 25 for Sargento – see Note below)
¼ tsp. olive oil (NuVal score of 11)
Freshly ground pepper
Working for NuVal, I couldn’t help but trade up a few of the ingredients, which were:
- Instead of olive oil, which has a NuVal score of 11, I traded up to canola oil, which has a NuVal Score of 24.
- Instead of Tuttorosso Plum Tomatoes (NuVal score of 50), I traded up to Rienzi Whole Italian Plum Tomatoes, with a NuVal score of 82.
- Instead of Sargento Part Skim Ricotta Cheese (NuVal score of 25), I traded up to Sargento Fat Free Ricotta (NuVal score of 30).
Directions:
- Make the sauce. Pulse tomatoes with juice in a food processor until finely chopped. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook onion and red-pepper flakes, stirring occasionally, until onion is tender, about 8 minutes. Add turkey; cook, breaking up large pieces, until browned, 3-4 minutes. Add tomatoes; bring to a boil. Reduced heat; simmer until thick, about 20 minutes. Stir in oregano and salt. Let cool.
- Make the lasagna. Preheat oven to 375. Slice zucchini lengthwise into thin strips using a mandolin or a sharp knife.
Place 5-6 zucchini slices, overlapping slightly, in the bottom of an 8-inch square baking dish. Top with 1 cup sauce. Dot with ¼ cup ricotta cheese. Repeat twice with zucchini, remaining sauce, and ½ cup ricotta, alternating direction of zucchini; brush with oil. Dot with remaining ¼ cup ricotta. Season with pepper. 
Bake uncovered until lasagna bubbles and top browns, 50-60 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes.
So how successful was the dish in getting more vegetables into Jack? While he did pick out some of the zucchini, he ate well over half of it, so in my book, definitely a success. Because zucchini tends to have a mild flavor, I think it worked well in this recipe where many of the ingredients have a lot of flavor. I also thought it was a good choice for Jack because lasagna is a food he’s familiar with and likes!
Melissa’s Note:
We made this at our house this past weekend, using zucchini that we bought at our local Farmer’s Market.. We served it to our kids with a few leftover ravioli on the side, figuring they would not be too into the Zucchini Lasagna. Well, guess what? They LOVED the Zucchini Lasagna. They ate it before their beloved ravioli and even asked for seconds. This recipe is a keeper!
Speaking of Registered Dietitians….
Christina, a graduate student in nutrition from Simmons College in Boston has been interning at NuVal this summer. Today, she has a great guest blog post over at Prevention RD. Check it out!
Question of the Day
What is your favorite zucchini recipe?
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Dinner Recipes, Guest Bloggers, Zucchini
Tags: Gluten Free, Martha Stewart, Registered Dietitians, Zucchini Ribbon Lasagna
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 07:12 AM
Kale chips are all the rage these days. Healthy living bloggers everywhere are waxing on about this tasty little treat. Like my friend Robin Abrahams always says, “Add some olive oil and salt to anything, roast it in a hot oven and it will be incredibly delicious.” Or something like that! In any case, that is pretty much all it takes to make yourself some kale chips. Warning: they are addictive!!
I got my idea to make these while catching up on the G section of The Boston Globe from last week.
I love the Wednesday Food G section!
Here is the recipe.
Kale, by the way, scores an Incredible 99 on the NuVal scale.
The toughest part about this recipe is cleaning the kale. I like to shusshhhh my greens. That is my technical term for filling up my clean dish basin with cold water, letting my greens sit in the cold bath and then gently shaking them to get the dirt or sand out. I then drain the water, fill the basin up again and shussssshhh again. I had to do it three times with this dirty kale!
Next, I patted the kale dry with paper towls and stemmed it. I ended up with two piles.
The Boston Globe recipe suggests that you pour one Tablespoon of oil onto a baking sheet and spread it with a pastry brush and then lay each kale leaf onto that sheet and then turn the leaves over.
I have to admit, I blew through that one tablespoon of olive oil in a heartbeat and added some more. That was not such a great idea because some of the leaves got a little bit wilty in the end. But the leaves that had just the right amount of oil and salt were just perfect!! I loved them. My kids were not willing to try my new “chips”. They were also a little too healthy for my husband. More for me! I can see why everyone has been talking/blogging/writing about Kale Chips! Yum-meee!
Question of the Day
Have you tried Kale Chips yet? If not, do you think you would be into them?
Yesterday’s Winner
Congratulations to Commenter #28, Amy! You have won yesterday’s Trade-Up Tuesday Giveaway – two boxes of Annie’s Whole Wheat Macaroni and Cheese. Please send me an email at abetterbagofgroceries@gmail.com with your mailing address so that I can send it out to you. Thank you to everyone who entered!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Incredible Vegetables
Tags: Incredible Vegetables, kale, Kale Chips
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 06:55 AM
Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday – my favorite day here on A Better Bag of Groceries! Every Tuesday I blog about a Trade-Up I’ve made since learning about NuVal and I give away something for free. It’s a lot of fun!
Today’s Trade-Up was a last-minute idea – quick and easy. One thing that I’ve learned from motherhood is that life throws you curveballs and all the planning in the world cannot guarantee sanity. So it was this weekend when we found ourselves without Internet service – for four long days!!! While my husband tried to work the problem out with Verizon customer service representatives “somewhere in Asia” (they refused to say where), I found myself unable to blog (aaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhh!!!) and unable to connect to the WiFi in my home, my neighbor’s home, or even the WiFi at our Pool Club. I had this great Trade-Up Tuesday post all planned, with a recipe and pictures, but no way to write it.
And so, I took a deep breath, scrapped the complicated recipe post, and did what any experience mother would do……I opted for macaroni and cheese. I hightailed it to Stop & Shop, roamed the aisles desperate for a new Trade Up Tuesday post, when I saw it on the shelf. Yes! I can give away macaroni and cheese!! Suddenly, my whole outlook on life changed. Woo hoo! And, I remembered that I just discovered last week that Annie’s Whole Wheat Shells and White Cheddar scores even higher than the mac & cheese I’ve been giving my kids for the past year. That’s right, the Annie’s Whole Wheat Shells and White Cheddar scores a 21. Now the key is that you have to buy the WHOLE WHEAT Annie’s. Not the regular kind.
Check out these scores:
Annie’s HomeGrown Cheddar Cheese Regular Macaroni and Cheese: 5
Annie’s HomeGrown White Cheddar Shell Macaroni and Cheese: 5
Annie’s HomeGrown Whole Wheat Shell Macaroni and Cheese: 21
See what I mean? You have to buy the Whole Wheat kind. My kids usually get Kraft Whole Grain Elbow Macaroni and Cheese, which scores an 18. But last week, they did agree to putting some of Annie’s in the basket instead.
So, with this whole new quick and easy plan, I zipped over to Borders. Can I just say that I Heart Borders?? I really do. I took this lovely photo right outside the cafe door:
found a seat inside at a cool and quiet table near a power source and was soon, blissfully connected!
My Border's Office
I whipped out this quick and easy Trade-Up Tuesday blog post for all of you. Disaster averted! You didn’t arrive here today to see yesterday’s post still sitting here. Whew!
Can I just say that I loved blogging from Border’s? The smell of the coffee, no one yelling “Mom!!”, good people watching. This might become a regular thing!
Now, full disclosure here, my kids haven’t actually tried this Annie’s Whole Wheat Mac & Cheese yet. (Hey! There’s only so much a Mommy Blogger can do in a day!) No, they were happily (I hope) munching on one of my homemade dinner recipes with my husband while I blogged from Borders. But we will. And the winner of today’s giveaway can give us a review as well!
Today’s Giveway
Leave a comment below telling me the dinner or food you turn to when all plans get turned upside down (hint: it’s OK to say takeout!) You can enter twice if you know (0r can find) the NuVal score for that food. I will randomly choose a winner at 7 AM EDT on Wednesday (I hope – let’s see if we can get this Internet problem figured out!) or a little later if we are still not connected. Good Luck!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Macaroni and Cheese, Trade-Up Tuesday
Tags: Macaroni and Cheese, Trade-Up Tuesday
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 07:06 AM
Stop. The. Presses. Do I have a Cart Confession for you! It’s almost embarrassing.
At NuVal, we are scoring just about every product that you can find in a grocery store. To date, we’ve scored over 70,000 products. It’s a huge job and it takes time. So, that means that there are still products out there that we have in our queue, but we haven’t scored yet. Honest Kids Goodness Grapeness was one of those products. Until now.
A litle history here. I have been giving my kids these watery juice drinks for about a year now. My mom introduced me to them. She found them at a Very Well-Known “Healthy” and High Priced Supermarket Where You Just Might Spend Your Whole Paycheck. And, gosh, they looked so healthy. Consider this:
- She found them at that Über-Healthy Grocery Store, where everything is healthy, right?
- It says “Low Sugar” right on the front of the package.
- It says “100% Daily Vitamin C” right there on front the package.
- It says “Organic” right there on the front of the package.
- It says “No high fructose corn syrup” right there on the front of the package.
So even though we had not scored them yet at NuVal, I thought they they would get a pretty good score once we did score them. I mean, I was really confident about it. I have been putting these in my shopping cart every week for the past year (they do carry them at the not-so-hoity-toity supermarkets too). My kids love them so much and they call them, “Thank Goodness Grapeness.” Awwww. How cute.
So imagine my shock when, while reviewing some NuVal scores for shelf-stable juices last week, I discovered that we recently scored this product. And that Honest Kids Goodness Grapeness scores a 3. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggghhhhh! I think that the scoring team could hear me screaming all the way down on the first floor of the NuVal offices.
I checked in with Rachel Rodek, MS, RD, LDN, CSSD and Manager of Nutrition Communications at NuVal, to find out Why, Oh WHY, my beloved Thank Goodness Grapeness only scored a 3. The reason is that these juice boxes (bags, really) have more sugar than grape juice. The ingredient list reads water, sugar, grape juice concentrate. Sugar is before grape juice in the ingredient list. Sigh!! Who knew? So, we’re back to Minute Maid Fruit Falls, which score a much better 41 on the NuVal scale.
And this is why God (well, Dr. Katz and his team of scientific experts, really) created NuVal!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Cart Confessions
Tags: Cart Confessions, Goodness Grapeness, Honest Kids
