Moved! New blog address.

I've moved the blog to a new spot! Easier name, broader topic. More of my life is balancing teaching with living a healthy life - thus the new blog name, Teach Run Eat!

Find / follow it here:  teachruneat.blogspot.com

Sprouted lentils to add to everything

Lately I have been sprouting my own lentils, a trick I learned from one of my favorite blogs. It's a really easy way to add a little protein, crunch, and flavor to a salad or sandwich. It only takes about five minutes to set up, and has the added bonus of looking pretty in a mason jar on your counter! Here's how to do it:

Find a large jar (a quart Mason jar will work) and fill it with 1/3 cup lentils and 2 cups water. Make sure to use a large enough jar because the lentils will expand like crazy. Instead of the round lid, cover it with a piece of cheesecloth or fabric, so the lentils can breathe a little.

Let soak for 24 hours. Strain off the water, lay the jar on its side (so the lentils can spread out), and wait another 12 hours. At this point the lentils will start to sprout and you can eat them! They'll continue to grow, though, so if you want to wait to eat them, be sure to rinse them off every 12 hours or so. Pretty soon they'll fill up the whole jar!

You can basically add sprouted lentils to any dish where you'd like some extra crunch, like wraps, salads, sandwiches, or stir fries. Here are some recipes that I want to try!

"Growing your own food is like printing your own money"

Although spring has been elusive here in Wisconsin (it's mid-April and 37 degrees out with snow in the forecast), there are some signs of hope - the farmers market has finally opened! I spontaneously bought some seedlings from a farmer to plant outside in my little earth box (earth boxes by the way are awesome transportable garden beds good for people who live in apartments or have limited space). Here they are!

two types of lettuce, plus two Swiss chard

I've been meaning to get back into planting my own food for a year now, but all I've had the time and energy to do was sprout my own lentils. But now that spring is here, I can't wait to plant stuff. I was partially motivated by this TED Talk, by Ron Finley, who helps plant gardens in South Central LA. He says that where he lives (and I would argue lots of places in the U.S.), "drive thrus are killing more people than drive bys," so planting gardens is his effort towards combating obesity and food insecurity. So inspirational. My favorite quote is, of course, "Growing your own food is like printing your own money."

Creamy Avocado Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes

Continuing on my avocado kick, I finally decided to try one of the many avocado-infused recipes I've pinned on Pinterest. This one adapted from Flourishing Foodie turned out to be delicious. I added garbanzo beans for a little protein, and used one of those hand blenders to mash up the avocados and garlic. The sauce is deliciously creamy but also good for you...Enjoy!

Creamy Avocado Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes

• 6 large tomatoes, sliced into quarters
• 4 T olive oil
• 16 oz pasta, any type [I used spirals]
• 3 ripe avocados
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 2 t salt
• 2 T lemon juice
• black pepper to taste
• 1 can garbanzo beans

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Place sliced tomatoes on baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 50 minutes. Cook the pasta until al dente, strain, and pour into a large bowl.

Use a hand blender or food processor to combine the avocados, garlic cloves, salt, and lemon juice. Stir the sauce into the pasta, then add the tomatoes, beans, and pepper to taste. That's it!

Recipe of the Week: Tortellini with Lemon & Brussels Sprouts

This recipe was fast and easy and gave me leftovers for several days. I suppose you could make your own tortellini, but it's so much easier to just buy it premade! This recipe is adapted from Everyday Food magazine, a little tiny magazine that costs only $10 to subscribe to. I recommend it.

Tortellini with Lemon & Brussels Sprouts

• 1 pound brussels sprouts, with ends cut off, quartered
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 1 pound cheese tortellini [I bought the packaged kind from Trader Joes, but you could also buy frozen]
• zest and juice from 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix brussels sprouts in large bowl with 3 teaspoons olive oil and salt. Spread on a cookie sheet or pan and bake in oven for 30-40 minutes, until they're slightly browned and crispy on the outside. 

While those are roasting, heat 1 teaspoon olive oil on stovetop and saute onion until translucent, about 8 minutes. Cook tortellini according to package directions. Toss tortellini with onion and brussels sprouts, then add lemon zest and juice. Top with Parmesan cheese!

Recipe of the Week: Wheat Berries with Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Toasted Walnuts & Butternut Squash

It's been a long time since I posted! I got a new teaching job, which has taken up all of my time, but I keep coming across delicious recipes that I want to share. So I decided I had to at least start up with the Recipes of the Week again. This one comes from a new cookbook I got for my birthday (thanks Erin!).   I love new cookbooks, and this one has an entire chapter on my favorite type of meal: Grains + Veggies for One-Dish Dinners. That's basically all I eat lately. So this recipe is a good one. I modified it a bit from the cookbook, including adding butternut squash and doubling the amount of cranberries. 

Wheat Berries with Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Toasted Walnuts & Butternut Squash 

• 3/4 cup wheat berries (winter or hard red) 
• salt
• 1 lb brussels sprouts, quartered lengthwise
• 1 medium butternut squash, peeled and cut into one-inch cubes
• olive oil
• 2 T orange juice
• 1 T balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 t finely grated lemon zest [I used lemon juice and it was just fine]
• 2 T cold butter, cut into 8 pieces
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup toasted walnuts [just chop them up and put them in the oven on broil for 2-3 minutes]
• 3 T chopped fresh parsley

In a large sauce pot, combine the wheat berries, a pinch of salt, and enough water to cover the berries with an extra two inches over the top of them. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a rapid simmer (or low boil) and cook, partially covered, until the wheat berries are tender. For me it took 60 minutes. It could take as short as 50 or as long as 90 minutes. Just taste them from time to time, until they are nicely chewy.

Preheat the oven to 475. Toss the brussels sprouts and butternut squash with olive oil and a pinch of salt. Spread them out on a 13x9 pan or baking dish. Roast in the over until brown and tender, for 18 minutes.

Combine the orange juice, balsamic vinegar, maple syrup, and lemon zest or juice in a small pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring, for 15 seconds. Then take the pan off the burner and mix in the butter, two chunks at a time. Whisk the mixture until the butter melts, then add the next chunks. 

Combine all you've done in a bowl, add the cranberries and walnuts, and parsley on top! I also added more salt. So good, and filling too!

Inspiration for the weekend: Quiche, mental health, and amazing Olympians

one of the images posted on I.A.M.

I'm staying with my family this weekend, and my mom is making a quiche for dinner. I haven't had a quiche since I lived with one of my college roommates, who would make a version of this delicious potato-crust quiche!

This badass college student fought his insurance company, via Twitter, to pay for his cancer treatments, and he won.

I came across this project called Internal Acceptance Movement (I.A.M.), put together by a 20-year-old who struggled (and still struggles) with an eating disorder. She posts inspirational quotes, images, and stories for people who are struggling with their body image, depression, or other mental unhappiness.

The U.S. Women's Gymnastic Team member McKayla Maroney causes a judge's jaw to drop. You go girl.

Whose responsibility is it to pay our exorbitant medical bills?

I don't know enough about the Affordable Care Act to swear by it. I'm not sure if it is without a doubt the best possible plan that anyone could have come up with. I'm sure there are lots of flaws (although they weren't put there purposely by President Obama). Despite its imperfections, though, I believe that it's better than nothing. We had to do something. From my own personal experience, the health insurance world is a nightmare to navigate. I have had multiple bills in the hundreds of dollars that weren't covered for some obscure reason, or because my employer didn't offer health insurance and therefore I was paying out of pocket. And my bills were just for routine medical or dental checkups. I have been very fortunate not to have any debilitating illnesses or major accidents. If I had, I know that I would be in enormous debt right now, either to credit card companies or to my family. Neither of which is a desirable option.

But it's accounts like this one that really get me upset about the health care system. In this moving article, a college professor ends up tens of thousands of dollars in debt because her partner comes down with advanced-stage Lyme disease. Her health insurance hasn't kicked in yet, so they have to pay out of pocket for several weeks, and no one is able to diagnose her properly. The partner is in extreme pain and misery, and all she can do is watch helplessly. Eventually, thousands of dollars later, they get an accurate diagnosis, and it turns out to be a diagnosis that isn't covered by health insurance! They end up having to start a website to plead for help from their friends and family. Fortunately, they raise a lot of money, and are able to pay their bills.

But it's just ridiculous that people need to go to such lengths as designing a website to beg for help to pay simple medical bills. Imagine if they had been a family with less know-how, who didn't have such a network of support that helped them navigate web design and mounting bills. Imagine being an English language learner, who is trying to understand stacks of paperwork that involve "deductibles," "claims," and other confusing requirements. Imagine being a single mother who can't pay her child's medical bills because her employer either can't or won't insure her. There are endless scenarios where people's lives are ruined, temporarily or permanently, because of our unsupportive, confusing health care system.

While I don't think the Affordable Health Care Act is perfect, I do think it's a good start. We had to start somewhere, so stories like this don't go on. As this article said, "It is not our community's responsibility to pay our exorbitant medical bills, to prevent our lives from being annihilated by the cost of illness. It is our government's responsibility."

Image source: NYTimes

Inspiration for the weekend

Why food waste matters, and how to prevent it in your kitchen.

Zucchini fritters recipe. Add some feta and they're so delicious!

Apparently, other countries are catching up to the U.S. when it comes to obesity and sedentary lifestyles. This tool call "Where are you on the global fat scale?" compares your BMI to people across the world. Pretty interesting.

It's finally tomato season! Here's a summer side salad recipe that I found in a random cookbook I was looking through at the store:

• 1 cups fresh pineapple chunks
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 T red wine vinegar
• 2 T fresh mint, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup scallions, finely chopped
• 1 t salt (or more if desired)
• pinch black pepper

Stir and enjoy! 

Recipe of the week: Lemon Grain Salad with Asparagus, Almonds & Goat Cheese

So there is a slight theme to all of my meals lately. Take one type of grain, add multiple types of vegetables, olive oil, lemon juice, and cheese. Stir, and enjoy. I just don't feel like cooking complicated meals when it's been this hot. So here is another good one I found while browsing recipes in one of those stands at the co-op near my house. While the asparagus is out of season now, you could replace it with something else (sauteed zucchini maybe?).

Lemon Grain Salad with Asparagus, Almonds & Goat Cheese

• 16 oz. grain (the original recipe called for farro, but I didn't know what farro was, so I used pearl couscous - you could also use orzo or another small pasta or grain)
• 1 lb asparagus, ends snapped off and sliced into 2 in. pieces
• 1/4 c olive oil
• 1 cup almonds, sliced and toasted
• 4 oz. goat cheese, crumbled
• 2 lemons, juiced and zested (aka grated)
• 1 T neutral oil (like grapeseed, walnut, or Canola)
• salt and pepper to taste

Cook the grain according to directions. Drain well, place in a large bowl, and set aside.

In a large pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the asparagus in a single layer, and cook until crisp-tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and add to the bowl of grains.

Add the almonds, goat cheese, and lemon zest to the grain and asparagus. In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice with the rest of the olive oil and the neutral oil. Add salt and pepper to taste (I was generous with them both). Pour over the grain salad and toss.

Recipe adapted from The Kitchn

Photo source

Inspiration for the weekend

Here are some things I came across this week that stuck with me...

How to simplify your life a bit.

More and more farms are being built on rooftops.

Reuse Tuesdays: Ideas for projects from recycle materials.

The meal I make basically once a week.

Why knowing the names of plants is less important than making time to play in the forest...

Reading helps us grow.

Why killing time isn't a sin

The author of Zen Habits, one of the blogs I read about simple living, has a pretty awesome policy that anyone can share or reprint his blog entries if they so choose. He calls it an "uncopyrighted" policy. So when I saw his post this morning about killing time, I decided to repost it since it really resonated with me. I realized that I am definitely the type of person that views killing time as a bad thing. I'm always thinking about how I can be more productive. If I'm watching a movie, I'll try to answer emails at the same time. If I'm in the car, I'll try to listen to podcasts so I can learn more. If I have an unexpected day off work, I think about all the things I can complete that day. Those tendencies aren't necessarily bad, but they can border on unhealthy when I realize that I can't relax when I have down time. Thus, as part of my quest to live a healthier life, I'm going to think more about making time to just relax. It's one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself.

Why Killing Time Isn't a Sin

Post written by Leo Babauta.

I recently read a travel tip from someone who reminds himself that “killing time is a sin”, and so makes the most use of every bit of downtime, even on an airplane: “read a good book, learn a new language with Rosetta Stone, write to my friends around the world who haven’t heard from me in too long”.

I have no objections to reading books, learning languages, or writing to friends. It’s the idea that downtime must be put to efficient use that I disagree with. While I used to agree with it completely, these days I take a completely different approach.

Life is for living, not productivity.

Make the Most of Every Minute

There is a tendency among productive people to try to make the best use of every single minute, from the minute they awake. I know because not too long ago I was one of these folks.

Got time on the train or plane? If you’re not doing work, maybe you can be enriching yourself by learning something.

Got time before a meeting starts? Organize your to-do list, send off some emails, write some notes on a project you’re working on.

Driving? Why not make some phone calls or tell Siri to add a bunch of stuff to your calendar? Why not listen to a self-help audiobook?

Watching TV with the family? You can also be answering emails, doing situps, stretching.

Having lunch with a friend? Maybe you can talk business to make it a productive meeting.

This is the mindset that we’re supposed to have. Every minute counts, because time’s a-wasting. The clock is ticking. The sands of the hourglass are spilling.

I used to feel this way, but now I see things a bit differently.

Is This What Life Is To Be?

It might seem smart and productive to not let a single minute go to waste (they’re precious, after all), but let’s take a step back to look at the big picture.

Is this what our lives are to be? A non-stop stream of productive tasks? A life-long work day? A computer program optimized for productivity and efficiency? A cog in a machine?

What about joy? What about the sensory pleasure of lying in the grass with the sun shining on our closed eyes? What about the beauty of a nap while on the train? How about reading a novel for the sheer exhilaration of it, not to better yourself? What about spending time with someone for the love of being with someone, of making a genuine human connection that is unencumbered by productive purpose, unburdened by goals.

What about freedom? Freedom from being tied to a job, from having to improve yourself every single minute, from the dreariness of neverending work?

An Alternative

Killing time isn’t a sin — it’s a misnomer. We’ve framed the question entirely wrong. It’s not a matter of “killing” time, but of enjoying it.

If we ask ourselves instead, “How can I best enjoy this moment?”, then the entire proposition is reframed.

Now we might spend this moment working if that work brings us joy. But we might also spend it relaxing, doing nothing, feeling the breeze on the nape of our neck, losing ourselves in conversation with a cherished friend, snuggling under the covers with a lover.

This is life. A life of joy, of wonderfulness.

Image credit

Breakfast solution: overnight oatmeal

I eat oatmeal every morning. It's become a habit for me, because it's cheap, easy to make, and healthy. I don't have to think about breakfast in the morning, and it keeps me full until lunch. Making it from scratch every morning takes a bit of time (about fifteen minutes, after boiling the water and waiting for the oats to be done, plus mixing together toppings). What's worse, though, is that it's so HOT. With the weather the way it is this summer, I hate making boiling hot oatmeal and sweating (in my non air-conditioned house) while eating it on a hot day. Well, I finally found a solution! I am so pumped about this one. As I told my friend who showed me how to do it, I think it'll change my life. Or at least my morning breakfast routine.

Overnight Oatmeal

The night before, put 1/3 cup yogurt, 1/3 cup water, and 1/3 oats in a jar. Mix together, and let it sit overnight. In the morning, pull out the jar and voila! Your oatmeal is made. The oats will absorb the liquid overnight, becoming soft and ready to eat. Then add any toppings combinations you'd like - fresh fruit, flax seed, nuts, raisins. It's so good, and so easy. No cooking necessary, and if you use a mason jar, you can screw the top on and throw it in your bag to eat at work. Hooray!

This idea came from the blog Kath Eats Real Food. The author is apparently even more obsessed with oatmeal than I am. She has endless toppings ideas, and also notes that you can use any type of liquid in the overnight oats recipe - water, milk, yogurt, whatever. Here are a few of her overnight oats ideas: Tribute to Oatmeal.

Image credit

Recipe of the week: Israeli couscous and chickpea salad

Now that it's getting hot, I'm pretty much eating only simple, grain-vegetable-and-bean recipes. Here's one I'm obsessed with lately, from the NYTimes Well blog. I make a double batch of it and then eat it for lunch for the rest of the week!

Israeli Couscous and Chickpea Salad

• 1 cup Israeli couscous (also called pearl couscous)
• 2 T olive oil
• 1/2 cup cilantro, finely chopped
• 2 T chives, chopped
• 3 oz. feta, crumbled
• 2 T pine nuts, lightly toasted
• 1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 2 T lemon juice
• 1 t ground cumin
• salt to taste
• 1/4 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 t chili powder

Heat one tablespoon olive oil over medium-heat. Pour in the couscous and stir until the couscous begins to brown and smell toasty, usually four to five minutes. Add two cups of water and salt, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes, or until couscous is soft but not mushy.

Put the couscous in a big bowl and add the cilantro, chives, feta, pine nuts, chickpeas, and red pepper. Stir. Mix together lemon juice, cumin, a little salt, yogurt, and chili powder. Pour the sauce on top of the couscous mixture. Enjoy!

Image source

Nourish: Food curriculum for upper elementary and middle school teachers

A friend of mine showed me a new food curriculum called Nourish. It looks fantastic. It's geared towards upper elementary and middle schoolers, so I won't be able to use it this fall (I'm teaching kindergarten). But it has some really great ideas for teaching about where food comes from, eating in season, food advertising, and other important food literacy concepts. It also has a bunch of graphics called Food Tools that are perfect for teaching about food systems. Here's one graphic I love and might actually print out to put in my classroom...

The curriculum also has a half-hour video that goes with it. Seems pretty awesome!

Being active in nature makes kids healthier

By now you've probably figured out how much I love infographics. But this one is the best I've seen in a while! It's called Children and Nature: Being active in nature makes kids healthier. As a teacher who works at an environmental education center (for one more week!), the facts in here are great. I printed a copy and laminated it, to put up in my new classroom!

The two most stunning facts:

• Kids spend more than 7 hours a day with various electronic media.
• Children have lost 50% of unstructured outdoor activity over recent decades. 

But fortunately:

• Children living within 2/3 mile of a park with a playground can be 5 times more likely to have a healthy weight.
• Children who spend more time outdoors are less likely to be overweight by 27-41%.

The link to the printable pdf is here.

From Scratch: Homemade pizza

Until a few years ago, I didn't make any food from scratch. The most complex meal I made was adding cooked broccoli to macaroni and cheese made from a box. But eventually, I learned skills for making meals from scratch, gradually adding more and more whole foods into my diet, and eliminating most processed foods. Processed foods are pretty ubiquitous though, and it takes a lot of time and effort to eliminate them. (I don't think I'll ever have time to eliminate them completely...but it's a noble goal.) I've decided to start a little series on the blog called From Scratch. Each month I'll choose a food that I often buy premade, and attempt to make it from scratch!

This first recipe comes from a close friend of mine, who recently taught me to make pizza from scratch. It takes more time than frozen pizza, but the result is so much more delicious. Below is a recipe for homemade pizza crust and sauce. I also included some good topping combinations to put on top of your from-scratch pizza!

From Scratch Pizza Crust

Note: The key to perfect homemade pizza is a really hot oven (500+ degrees) and a nice big pizza stone. This recipe also calls for a pizza peel, which is the large wooden flat thing that chefs in fancy kitchens use to slide the pizza in the oven. Having one of these makes it easier, but it's not essential to make pizza crust. This dough recipe is adapted from Simply Recipes, but you can really use any dough recipe you like.

•  1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
• 3 1/2 cups bread flour (or all-purpose flour if necessary)
• 2 T olive oil
• 2 t salt
• 1 t sugar

Put warm water in large bowl. Sprinkle yeast on top and let sit for five minutes while it dissolves. If yeast isn't dissolved after five minutes, give it a stir. Add flour, olive oil, salt, and sugar. Stir to mix, then knead until it turns into a dough ball. Coat a large bowl lightly with olive oil. Place dough ball in bowl, and roll it around so it gets coated with olive oil. Put plastic wrap over bowl, and let rise in fridge overnight. This helps improve the flavor. If you don't have enough time, let it sit for at least 90 minutes.

When you are ready to make the pizza, take the dough out about fifteen minutes before and let sit on the counter at room temperature. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Shape dough into a ball, coat lightly with flour, and let rise on floured counter. Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough into a flat, thin circle. (The thickness of the crust is up to you. Make it as thick or thin as you like!) If it doesn't stretch well, let it sit for a while longer.

Sprinkle a generous amount of cornmeal on the pizza peel. Then fold the pizza dough and place on the peel. Add the toppings on the pizza, and slide the entire pizza off the peel onto a pizza stone. Cook until the crust looks browned and the cheese is sufficiently melted, somewhere around ten minutes.

Dustin's From Scratch Pizza Sauce

•  1 12 oz. jar whole tomatoes, drained
• 2 large cloves garlic, diced
• 2 generous tablespoons tomato paste
• a few pinches of salt, pepper, and oregano (or more to taste)
• 1 teaspoon dried basil, or 2 teaspoons fresh basil, chopped
• Lots of black pepper
• Tiny pinch of brown sugar

Add one tablespoon olive oil on medium-high heat. Saute garlic until fragrant. Add tomatoes and cook until soft. Add tomato paste and taste to make sure it tastes thick and tomato-y. If not, add more tomato paste. Then sprinkle on salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and pepper. Add a tiny pinch of brown sugar and stir. Let sit until ready to spread on pizza.

Good pizza topping combinations

• Portobello mushrooms, spinach, goat cheese (with pizza sauce as a base)
• Roasted eggplant, spinach, feta, sun-dried tomatoes, plum tomatoes, caramelized onions, shredded mozzarella (with pesto as a base)
• Tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella (with olive oil as a base)
• Onions, mushrooms, sliced tomatoes, shredded mozzarella (with pizza sauce as a base)
• Artichoke hearts, garlic, spinach, red onion, black or kalamata olives, feta (with olive oil as a base)

Eating healthy takes organization

I came to a realization the other day, while talking to a friend about eating good food cooked from scratch, and the realization was this: eating healthy takes a lot of organization. It really does. It takes a lot of effort, planning, and time. There are a million reasons why it's hard for people to eat healthy, but I think this is a big one. Thus, I have thought more about how I organize the way I eat. I'm certainly not a perfect eater, but these are some of the steps I try to take each week in order to make sure my diet stays healthy:

1. Make a grocery list. 

This one is huge. I used to go to the grocery store and just sort of buy whatever was on sale or looked appetizing at the time. Then when I got home, I would have no idea how to combine the ingredients to something tasty, so I would end up eating frozen pizza or the same three dishes every week (macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and chicken pot pies). Looking up recipes ahead of time, and writing down all the ingredients I'll need, really changed all that, because now I have everything required to make better meals. Also, I keep my list on the fridge and add things to it whenever stock things start to run low (aka when we only have one jar of oats left, I write it on the list right away).

2. Store recipes somewhere so it's easy to pick out good ones.
I like to find recipes online and store them on my Pinterest. I also print the best ones out and put them in a binder that I can flip through when I'm making a list. Other people put sticky notes in their cookbooks on the pages with good recipes. Then look through these recipes when deciding what you'll want to eat that week. I usually pick out four recipes at the beginning of the week, and write the ingredients on the list.

3. Only buy what's on the list.
The other benefit of a list is that you can save money if you only buy what's on the list. That way, you'll only buy the food you need, and none of it will go bad in the fridge when it doesn't get used. Food waste is a huge money waste. A friend of mine sent me this article on how to prevent food waste. It talks about how to "tie your meals together" in order to prevent food waste. (For example, if the store only sells ground beef in one-pound packages, find two recipes that use a half-pound of ground beef.)

4. Make time for cooking. If you aren't going to have time, make sure you have leftovers or a premade meal ready.
I love cooking from scratch, but it does take a lot of time. I usually budget an hour to make the food and some more time to eat it and clean up, as well. Sometimes the recipes aren't that complex, but I still make sure I can set aside an hour to make the food. There are some nights, though (usually Tuesday nights for me) that I can't cook because I have too much else going on. Those are nights when I try to find a reasonably healthy "instant" meal to eat. Here are some awesome ideas for ten-minute meals. I also eat pasta with pesto and cherry tomatoes at least twice a month.

5. Throw away (or compost) food that is old.
Then your fridge or cabinet won't overwhelm you. You'll be able to see what you have, and what you need to buy at the store.

I'm sure there are many more ideas that help make eating healthy easier. If you have any ideas, leave them in the comments!

Recipe of the week: Red lentil dal

This isn't a low-fat meal, but it's delicious, pretty healthy, and cheap to make. I like to eat it with naan or over rice. Basmati rice is perfect and cooks in only 15 minutes! If you keep your cabinet stocked with these ingredients, this is a good meal to make when you've run out of ideas or don't have a lot of time.

Red Lentil Dal

• 2 T butter
• 1 T black mustard seeds
• 3 T ginger, chopped very finely
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
•  2 cups red lentils
• 1 can coconut milk
• water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
• hot chiles, diced (optional)

Melt butter in pan and add black mustard seeds. When mustard seeds begin to pop, add chopped ginger and garlic. Saute until fragrant (only a few minutes). Add lentils, stir and cook until translucent (usually about two minutes). Add coconut milk, then add two or three cans of water (fill up the empty can of coconut milk with water). Add the salt and turmeric. Cook until soft. It usually takes around 20 minutes but could be longer. Stir and taste the lentils periodically to see if they are soft. If the mixture starts to stick to the bottom of the pan, add small amounts of water. Top with cilantro and chiles (optional), and enjoy!

Image credit: Cheryl's Nourishing Spoonfuls

Quote of the moment

We don't need a law against McDonald's or a law against slaughterhouse abuse -- we ask for too much salvation by legislation. All we need to do is empower individuals with the right philosophy and the right information to opt out en masse.
- Joel Salatin (farmer, author, Polyface Farms)

 Source: Earth Eats