Terre Pruitt's Blog

In the realm of health, wellness, fitness, and the like, or whatever inspires me.

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Posts Tagged ‘Cheese’

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Layered Salad

Posted by terrepruitt on May 5, 2011

Since I have a few posts about salads, I have a few comments about salad. When my blogger sister mentioned in her comment her favorite salad is a layered salad I asked her to send me the recipe. So she did. I invite anyone to send me salad recipes. I am not necessarily requesting any certain TYPE of salad because we all have different nutritional needs, different likes, and different dislikes. Here is The Water Witch’s Daughter’s favorite salad:

Seven Layer Salad

It is generally topped with a dressing to marinade for about four hours before serving, and then it is topped with crumbled bacon. The typical dressing is one cup of Miracle Whip mixed with a half cup of sour cream and a quarter cup of sugar.

These are the ingredients pictured:

one to two bunches of romaine lettuce, chopped
one yellow pepper, chopped one cucumber, peeled and diced
about two cups carrots, chopped
one container of grape tomatoes, cut in half
one package of thawed frozen peas
one cup of shredded mild cheddar cheese

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Looks like she started with the lettuce, then put the peppers, then carrots, cucumbers, peas, tomatoes, then topped it with the cheese. I guess you can layer it anyway you would like, she didn’t say.

She did say that she did not marinate this one she just used ranch dressing. So it seems like there are dressing options. As with any salads, you can make them with whatever you want, and you can layer them, but I am thinking that the peas and the cheese combine to make a specific type of texture and flavor.

I am not a fan of Miracle Whip, more accurately I don’t like it. The ranch dressing is more my style, but on my salads I tend to just use olive oil and vinegar. But for this I would think a light creamy dressing would be good. With the ingredients state above, what dressing would YOU use? Do you have a favorite? Or can you suggest one that might be less calories? What would really blend well with this salad yet at the same time make it pop? Please share because I am curious as to what to use.

Thank you to my friend SuziCate for sharing her favorite salad! Thanks for the picture too!

Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Anti-Inflammation Diet

Posted by terrepruitt on April 23, 2011

You know that the body being in a constant state of inflammation is not good, right?  Research and studies are relating this state of being to many diseases.  You know there are foods that have an anti-inflammatory effect on the body.  Do you know that there are foods that cause an inflammatory response in the body?

It is thought that foods that cause an allergic reaction are related to inflammation.  Since inflammation is an immune response.  One of the food groups to be avoided when on a nutrition plan to reduce inflammation in the body is dairy.  Dairy is a big allergy culprit so milk, cheese, and yogurt would not be included in this type of diet.  Although I love dairy this seems like one of the easiest things to avoid.

Another allergy food is peanuts.  This food is definitely not on the list of “can eat” if following an anti-inflammatory eating plan.  This food seems like it might be a little bit more difficult to avoid.  I would imagine if it is just being avoided with the idea to reduce inflammation it would not be so imperative to avoid things that are made in plants with peanuts as one has to do if they are highly allergic.

This diet also excludes caffeine and alcohol.  Strict adherence would entail no fried foods, no processed foods, and no corn.  I think the really difficult allergen to avoid is gluten.  It seems to be in so many things.  Things I wouldn’t have even thought of.  Since so many people are participating in gluten-free diets I have since learned a few of the things, but still.  It is in so many things it seems difficult to avoid.  Just like the items on my list*.  It is difficult to avoid them.   I keep wondering what there is so eat on a diet like this.

This diet is thought to help so many health issues.  Again from what I have seen it is thought that a constant state of inflammation is bad for the body.  It is thought that this state is a state in which diseases can infiltrate the body and its systems.  So if there are health issues I can see following this if it help relieve some of the symptoms of a particular disease.  But this type of diet is also used as a detox and to see if any of these foods cause a reaction in the body.  The plan is to not eat these foods for about two weeks then introduce them back into the diet and to check the reactions of the body.

I want to try this detox/elimination diet to see if there are some food that I should definitely cut out of my diet.  I can live without all of this for two weeks, but the gluten.  It is in so many things.  Well, I am going to research it further.  I am sure I will be posting more about this in the future, but I wanted to see what you think.

I know some of you follow gluten-free diets?  So if you follow a gluten-free diet, why?  And what do you notice, what differences in your body?  And what do you eat instead of bread?  Are they any of you that follow an anti-inflammation diet?  Please share.

*Currently my list of ingredients to avoid:  High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) or Corn sugar, partially hydrogenated oils, and Canola Oil

Posted in Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments »

Asparagus Not Roasted

Posted by terrepruitt on December 3, 2009

Yup, AGAIN with the asparagus, but this time it is NOT roasted.  You see, my hubby gets just as tired of me cooking roasted asparagus just as you probably get tired of me blogging about it.  Well, we recently went to Coscto (is that a Bay Area thing?  There are a few just in San Jose.) and bought a few bags of asparagus.  I could eat just roast it and eat it that way, but I like to make food that my hubby will enjoy too, so I decided to try cooking it another way.

Trying to come up with something new is a little exercise in creativity. It is funny how it works out when I am just throwing stuff together and when I am just trying something out to be different it turns out that my husband LOVES it.  I never know how it is going to work out.

I put some garlic infused olive oil in a pan with some onions then cooked the ground turkey.  I decided to be totally daring and so I used some balsamic vinegar (hubby is not a fan, but Ithought I would try it).  Then I added the asparagus and I also used some smoky garlic sea salt a friend of ours brought us from Hawaii.

I cooked it all up and served it over rice.  Now, I have to honest, I really liked it, but my hubby LOVED it and it COULD be because I plated his rice, then I took two slices of Havarti and put it over the rice, THEN I put the turkey asparagus combination over that.  So the cheese melted in between thehot rice and the hot turkey.  I had a taste, his tasted pretty much like cheese.  And anything is better with Havarti because it is like butter.  I didn’t have the cheese and I felt it was great and not overpowered by cheese.

I used a package of turkey (I guess it is a pound or a little over) and probably a one and a half pounds of asparagus.

So . . . how else can I cook asparagus?

Posted in Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Serving Size Reminder

Posted by terrepruitt on July 14, 2009

As you might agree our portion sizes contribute to the obesity epidemic in America.
In restaurants a meal is usually more than one serving of each item.  I know that we recently went to Morton’s in downtown San Jose and my steak worked out to be probably about a serving and three quarters.

If we started eating the proper serving sizes I am convinced our obesity rates would go down.

In case you are familiar or you want a reminder:

                      1 gram = about a paper clip or a dime
4 g is a tsp (4 paper clips or 4 dimes)

One serving of:       Is about:
Meat  a deck of playing cards
Cheese  the equivalent of four dices
Salad greens  the size of a softball
Baked potato  the size of a computer mouse
Fruit  the size of a tennis ball
Bread  the size of an audio cassette
(but do people know what THAT is?)

Also remember to check the serving size on the package.  If you fill a bowl with cereal, just because that is one “bowl” doesn’t mean that is one “serving”.  The bowl could hold more than one serving.  Do you have a favorite food that you tend to eat more of than the serving size?  C’mon you can tell me, what is it?

From Cal Dining

Posted in Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments »

Cheese

Posted by terrepruitt on April 14, 2009

I love cheese!  I have often said that if I had to give up cheese life would not be worth living.  I love cheese so much that I recently caught myself in a lie about cheese.  I had convinced myself that cheese was in the protein category and I was allowing myself a lot more cheese than I should have had it been in the correct category.  The correct category is fat.  Cheese is primarily fat, which for me means, I can’t eat it at every meal as I would like.  I need to restrict my fat intake—especially saturated fat.

Anyway, today I had a sandwich and I think the primary reason I wanted a sandwich was so that I could have cheese.  But I also didn’t want to have as much fat as a slice or two of cheese would have been.  So I happily took my yummy chunk of Havarti to the grater.  I grated a little bit on half of the slice of bread and voila!  Cheese taste and creaminess without ALL the fat and calories a whole slice would have added.

Grated cheese on sandwich

Grated cheese on sandwich

I am sure you remember the grater for a lot of your favorite recipes that call for cheese, but don’t forget you can use it to put the cheese in your sandwich and not end up with a big slice.  Yum!

Share with me what your favorite cheese is?  How do you eat it?

Posted in Food | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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