Wednesday, June 30, 2010 at 07:10 AM
Wow, what a week we’re having. Things are super-chaotic. Thankfully, Rachel Rodek, MS, RD, LDN, CSSD and NuVal’s Manager of Nutrition Communications, whipped up this delicious Chia Bread in her kitchen before she ran off to get married. Congratulations to Rachel and thank you for blogging for me!
The Newlyweds: Fernando and Rachel
Chia seeds are the new rage in and out of the Blog world. I’ve been resisting this Chia Movement for some time now, but was recently at the Bob’s Red Mill Factory in Portland, OR – and there they were. Beckoning. So I decided to give them a try.
The first time I tried them was in “Overnight Oats.” You know; the kind of oatmeal you put in water or milk and leave ‘overnight’ in the fridge for a cool, refreshing oatmeal breakfast in the morning. But the seeds have soluble fiber that soaked up a lot of water… creating bloated, slimy, larva-like beads floating in my oatmeal.
It was unpleasant, to say the least. *Grimace*
The Chia sat in my cupboard for a while longer until I decided to give them another shot. But this time I soaked up their sliminess in bread. The quickest bread I’ve ever made, actually. And quite delicious indeed!
Nutrition Tid Bits:
- One ounce (about 3 Tablespoons) of dry Chia seeds contains: 137 Calories, 9 grams of fat (most of which is health-benefiting unsaturated), 11 grams of fiber (about ¾ insoluble and ¼ soluble), 4 grams of protein, 18% of your Recommended Daily Intake of Calcium
- Chia seeds contain a good amount of Alphalinoleic Acid (ALA), the plant form of omega-3 fatty acids. One dry ounce serving has about 4900mg ALA – which is a bit “more” than what you can get from a serving of salmon.
- Note: The omega-3 fatty acids found in Salmon are EPA and DHA, which is extremely bioavailable (the body can absorb it very well). ALA, on the other hand, has to be converted several times in the body to be useful. Therefore you need more ALA than EPA/DHA to have the same benefits.
Did you Know: Chia seeds are the same ones that are used in Chia Pets. As in, the fun ceramic animals that grow hair. Yes, it is a little gross. Just don’t think about it…
Seeded Chia Quick Bread
Adapted from a recipe from The Chia Company
Ingredients:
- 2 cups white flour (NuVal score: 77)
- 1 cup whole wheat flour (NuVal Score: 91)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 1/3 cup Chia seeds (Not scored yet …)
- ¾ cup chopped walnuts (Score: 81)
- 14 oz Lowfat buttermilk (Score: 40)
Directions:
Heat oven to 400F. Grease a 3.5″ by 9″ bread pan.
Combine flours, baking soda, sugar, salt, Chia seeds, and walnuts
Mix well, then add buttermilk and stir to create a soft dough. It will be sticky.
Press dough into bread pan.
Bake for 35 minutes. Yes, you read that right, only 35 minutes. You can close your mouth now. I was just as amazed.
And yes, I took it out at exactly 35 minutes… perfectly cooked!
I must say – I was very hesitant to follow this recipe. It looked so… bland (I mean, come on, only 1 tsp sugar?!).
But I was pleasantly surprised at its savory taste and moist, spongy texture – even though the crust of the bread was pretty darn hard.
Very good with jelly or peanut butter – or both!
Enjoy!
Winner of Trade-Up Tuesday Giveaway
Congratulations to Commenter #11 (and #12) Sarah E! Smart Sarah took advantage of the Second Comment Offer yesterday and she has won herself some granola! Sarah, please send me your mailing address at abetterbagofgroceries@gmail.com. Thanks to all who entered!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Marvelous Meals
Tags: Seeded Chia Quick Bread
Tuesday, June 29, 2010 at 06:59 AM
Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday! Every Tuesday, I blog about a Trade-Up I’ve made since learning about NuVal and I give away something for free. Today’s Topic: Granola!
I’ve never been a huge granola eater because I’ve always been wary of the amount of fat and calories that some granolas can contain. As a long-time Weight-Watcher, granola just was never Point-worthy to me. However, a small amount of granola mixed in to one of my favorite Greek yogurts makes a great snack, so I’ve been sampling some these days.
Granola scores really run the gamut. In Today’s Giveaway, I’ve included the Rock Star of all Granolas (Bear Naked Fit) and a Kashi Granola also (because soooooo many A Better Bag of Groceries readers love Kashi). Check out how their NuVal scores compare:
- Bear Naked Fit: NuVal score of 91
- Kashi Mountain Medley: NuVal score of 31
Wow! Big difference! Whoever wins this Giveaway will have to taste-test both of them and let me know how they compare.
To Enter
One lucky winner will win both the Bear Naked and the Kashi granola. All you need to do is leave a comment below telling me how you like to eat your granola. You can enter twice by telling me the NuVal score for anything in your second message. For example, if you like to mix your granola into your non-fat plain Chobani Greek yogurt, the NuVal score is 94. You can find lots of examples of NuVal scores on this blog, on www.tradingupdowntown.com and on www.nuval.com. I will choose one winner at 7 am EST tomorrow. Good Luck!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Granola
Tags: Bear Naked, Granola, Kashi
Monday, June 28, 2010 at 07:10 AM
For my 40th birthday, my husband took me on a mini-getaway to Cape Cod. We enjoyed some of the things that we used to do before we became a family of four – like bike-riding at a pace faster than a slow snail. The Cape Cod Rail Trail runs for 22 miles through the towns of Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, Orleans, Eastham and Wellfleet. After a morning of biking, we stopped at The Local Flavor Lunch and Bagel Shop after noticing the sign announcing that it was voted Best Sandwich Shop on the Cape by Cape Cod Life Magazine. It was well worth the stop!
I ordered a sandwich called “The Hippie”: hummus, Swiss cheese, avocado, baby spinach, roasted red peppers,
tomato & onion on your choice of bread, all for $6.39. No onions for me, thanks and put it on a wrap. Delicious!
Since coming home, I have been recreating The Hippie in my own kitchen.
I use a Wrap-Itz tortilla, which scores a 32 on the NuVal scale.
I add roasted Cedar’s Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, Nuval score of 61, the highest of all hummuses we’ve scored.
Then I add:
- A slice or two of Boar’s Head sliced cheddar (we haven’t scored the items in the Service Deli department yet, but we will!)
- Roasted Red Peppers (NuVal score of 7 for Pastene)
- Sliced Avocado (NuVal score of 89)
Then, I top it off with whatever is in my salad bowl in the refrigerator – usually the following:
- Romaine lettuce (NuVal score of 100)
- Red leaf lettuce (NuVal score of 100)
- Cucumbers (NuVal score of 93)
- Tomato (NuVal score of 96)
Now all I need is a Tie Dyed T-shirt and some bell bottoms and I will really be a Hippie. Peace, Man!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Lunch
Tags: avocado, avocados, Hippie Sandwich, hummus
Friday, June 25, 2010 at 06:54 AM
Welcome to Cart Confessions, a regular feature here on A Better Bag of Groceries where I like to show you that I am only human and that yes, at times some items with low NuVal scores land in my cart.
Today’s Cart Confession really takes the cake – literally. The scores don’t get much lower than this!
Here’s the story…
My son has an amazing birthday. He is born on the 4th of July. It is such a great day to celebrate. I remember that after he was born at the hospital in Boston, my husband pulled my hospital bed over to the window so that we could watch the fireworks together – the three of us. Fast forward to seven years later and my son loves that his birthday falls on such a fun holiday. We head to the nation’s oldest 4th of July parade in Bristol, RI, come back and swim at our community pool and watch the Boston Pops at night on TV. My son even gets to stay up late. What my son doesn’t love is that because he has a summer birthday, he misses out on celebrating his actual birthday in his classroom. However, the awesome teachers at our school have all sorts of ways to handle the summer birthdays: some summer birthday kids celebrate their half-birthdays, others just pick a day (my son’s best friend chose St. Patrick’s Day), or wait ’til the end. That’s what we do – we wait until the bitter end. That meant that this week, in addition to packing up our entire house in preparation for our move, I had to make birthday cupcakes.
Now, the Healthy Mommy Blogger in me could have found a healthy recipe somewhere. But you know, The Move. I also could have just bought ready-made cupcakes. However, for two reasons, I decided to go with a store-bought mix.
- My son really wanted me to make the exact same cupcakes that I made last year – with the blue and red sprinkles and the little American flags
- The Pillsbury Mix was so cheap at Target. The cupcake mix was about $1, the frosting another $1 and the red and blue sprinkles were in the Dollar Aisle for $1 each.
So, how does the cake mix score on the NuVal scale? Do you really want to know?
- Pillsbury Moist Supreme Classic Yellow Cake Mix: 3
- Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Frosting: 1
I guess it’s a good thing we don’t eat this every day!
Before I show you my less-than-stellar photo of how these cupcakes turned out, let me explain the logistics of getting these cheap, yet special cupcakes to my son’s classroom:
The cupcakes were all set to go, I frosted and decorated them the night before and they were resting on the kitchen table. Come morning, I was teaching my 5:30 am Boot Camp at the gym and when I returned, I found that my husband had placed all of the cupcakes in the cupcake carriers (you know, the ones that I had not yet packed for The Move). That was very nice, but he had removed all of the American flags because the tops of the carriers would not fit. I had not yet taken the photo for the blog, so I thought to myself, “That’s OK. I’ll bring them into the classroom, re-insert the flags, and take a picture then.” No problem. I drove my son to school, we headed inside his classroom with the cupcakes and he helped me to put all the flags back in, just as all the children were filing into the room. I whipped out my camera to get the shot I needed for The Blog, when I saw the dreaded message, “Change the battery pack.” Oh no! So, I whipped out my Blackberry instead and got this shot. Whew!
Happy Early Birthday to my Yankee Doodle Dandy!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Cart Confessions
Tags: cupcakes
Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 07:11 AM
Welcome to Cooking With Catherine Katz, a regular feature here on A Better Bag of Groceries. You all know the story about the famous blogger, Julie Powell, who cooked her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Well, I think I will stick with cooking my way through Dr. David Katz’s The Flavor-Full Diet, thank you very much. Julie Powell will tell you that she gained weight during her year-long cooking experiment, with all that butter and lard. If I stick with Dr. Katz’s Cookbook, that is unlikely to happen!
The recipes in the Flavor Full Diet are a collaboration between Dr. Katz and his talented wife, Catherine.
Catherine in Paris, Spring 2010
I have been having so much fun trying out the recipes in this book. Everything has been delicious and oh-so-nutritious.
With our upcoming move (next week! Gah!), I decided to try Catherine’s Lemon Poppy Soft Wheat Muffins. Since we will be defrosting the refrigerator and packing up the kitchen a couple of days prior to the move, I decided to strategize and plan some shelf-stable meals so that we don’t get caught in the Fast Food Trap. What do you think is a healthier breakfast? A muffin from Dunkin’ Donuts or one of Catherine’s Lemon Poppy Muffins with a banana on the side. Hmmmmm. So, my daughter and I whipped up a batch of these muffins from scratch and put them in the freezer. The plan is to take them out at defrosting time.
Ingredients:
Preparation:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Grate the lemon peel.
- Place the yogurt, lemon peel, eggs, sugar, dry milk, poppy seeds, and oil in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until creamy.
- Add the flour and baking powder and beat on low speed, adding the milk slowly until well blended.
- Place 12 foil baking cups on a baking sheet or line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners. (I love how kids can work on their fine motor skills while lining muffin pans!)
- Spoon in the batter, filling each cup 2/3 full.
- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden.
Per muffin: 120 calories, 5 g fat (<1 g sat fat), 4 g protein, 16 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 31 mg cholesterol, 70 mg sodium
It is interesting that both Julia Child and Catherine Katz both spent time living in France. Their recipes sure have a different nutritional composition. Yet, they both are delicious.
Thanks to Catherine for this idea to keep us eating healthfully during a chaotic time for our family!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Cooking with Catherine Katz
Tags: lemon poppy soft wheat muffins
