Tuesday, June 19, 2012

easy meals i'm digging right now

Since I have been in a cooking funk for a while, I have developed some easy go-to meals - some that are quite healthy, some that are more like "not terrible for you."  Current favorites include:
  • sweet potato + spinach + black beans + salsa + sometimes cheese and/or sour cream/greek yogurt
  • baked potato + broccoli + greek yogurt + cheese + sometimes turkey bacon
  • black bean burger patty + rice + veggies, usually with garlic and/or white wine vinegar and/or dijon mustard
  • frozen pizza (not so healthy, i love having a pizza stone!)
  • mac & cheese( from the box) with kielbasa (don't judge my unhealthy eating habits; it makes a GREAT dinner after spin class, since Scott knows how to cook it and I'm always starving when I get home at 7pm sweaty and exhausted)
Last week I was craving sweet potatoes, so I decided to have the sweet potato, spinach, black bean combo for lunch.  This recipe was inspired by a link I found on Pintrest.  Since I often only loosely follow recipes, what I do is slightly different.  Anyway, here's a mini how-to for you guys.  First, I microwave a sweet potato for ten minutes.  I poke holes in it with a fork and then wrap it in a paper towel to cook.
Obviously you can bake the sweet potato too, just depends on what you find easiest.  While it's cooking, I add chopped spinach and black beans to a pan.  I usually spray the pain with cooking spray or put on a small dollop of extra virgin olive oil.
Depending on my mood, sometimes I add salsa, cilantro, and hot sauce... sometimes I add garlic, Ranch dressing, and Pamesean cheese to make a creamier mix.... basically, whatever flavors you think sound good, go ahead and put in there.
After the potato is done, I cut it up into bite sized chunks, although you could just cut it length-wise if you wanted.  Sometimes I also put shredded cheese on the potato right after it's done cooking - the cheese melts right on.  Yum!
Last step - top the potato with the spinach/black bean mix.  I'm sure you could do this with any vegetable you wanted, and for that matter a different type of bean/protein... really, the possibilities are endless.
Not the most attractive food, but delicious I promise!  This is usually filling enough for me to eat as a meal (depending on what exactly goes into it, it is anywhere from 300-450 calories), but sometimes if I'm not totally full I'll have some fruit or something small along with it.  Topping with plain Greek yogurt is definitely a great way to add even more protein and make this a heartier meal.

Who else has a delicious sweet potato recipe they like?  What are you favorite quick/easy meals lately?

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