healthy dinner – In Good Taste

Asian-Style Capellini with Ginger and Vegetables

Maris Callahan — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 22:34:43 +0000

I miss summer. I miss summer for all of the reasons I like summer, but I also feel like a saner person during the summer. From June through September this year, I did a great job at eating healthy, working out almost every day and doing all of the things you’re supposed to do when you have about 60 pounds to lose. Then, like clockwork, October rolled around and I completely lost my momentum. I’ve maintained a 20 pound weight loss (only 44 more to go!) but for whatever reason, the changing seasons completely zaps any motivation that I have to get to the gym regularly, cook more at home instead of resorting to ordering food delivery every other night and eating foods that make me feel good instead of foods that make me say “why did I eat that?” That is why the world needs more healthy, hearty pasta dishes. This capellini pasta recipe is an adaptation of a recipe from a Weight Watchers cookbook and is one of three that I shared this morning on a CBS Chicago segment about healthy swaps to make in your favorite pasta dishes. There are a lot of ingredients I love in the […]

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Crock Pot Salsa Chicken Tacos

Maris Callahan — Sun, 13 May 2018 17:00:55 +0000

Taco night is the best. It’s one of my very favorite dinner party themes because there are so many ways to do it. And unlike pizza night, which involves a level of dough precision that I have never quite been able to master, taco night is relatively foolproof. Last weekend, Brad and I managed to squeeze two taco nights into one weekend. We also ordered takeout empanadas twice, but that’s beside the point. Friday night, our friends Alison and Kyle had us over for dinner to see their brand new apartment. On the menu was fresh guacamole, grilled steak tacos, spicy pork tacos and all of the taco fixings you could imagine. Even though they offered to send us home with leftovers and we politely declined as all good guests usually do. On Saturday, I deeply regretted that decision. So it only made sense to do what any rational human would do: double down on taco night. After a brief taco hiatus on Saturday night, we made tacos on Sunday night with our neighbors, Amanda and Tim. One of the other very best things about taco night is that it can be as nutritious as you choose to make it. […]

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Healthy Dinner Recipes to Make in January

Maris Callahan — Sat, 06 Jan 2018 21:14:44 +0000

January is a very bittersweet month for me. On one hand, I was born in January, which is a nice excuse for a little bit of festivity and celebration in an otherwise bleak calendar page. On the other hand, the joy of the holiday season is long forgotten, the weather in the Midwest tests our will to live on a daily basis and everyone starts dieting. I’m all for eating your greens, but January resolutions frequently make dinner parties and girls’ wine and cheese nights significantly less fun than they were in December where you could strap on the Christmas cookie feedbag and feel no regrets. If you’re thinking about jumping on the post-Christmas cleanse bandwagon this year, these recipes are healthy, colorful and simple to throw together during the coldest, bleakest days in the middle of what, at times, may seem like a never-ending winter. These recipes are all Whole30 approved — so your diet resolutions are safe with me. Creamy Bacon Garlic Spaghetti Squash Time consuming as it can be to make spaghetti squash, it would be really nice to come home and have this bacon garlic spaghetti squash casserole ready to go in your refrigerator. Cauliflower Fried […]

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Garlicky Black Pepper Salmon with Teriyaki Rice Noodles

Maris Callahan — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 18:00:33 +0000

Garlicky Black Pepper Salmon is served on top of a bed of rice noodles in a homemade Teriyaki sauce for the perfect quick weeknight dinner. When Brad and I moved in together I knew that a lot of things would change after nine years of living alone. No more leaving bras on the kitchen table, no more hitting snooze seven times in the morning and it’s only a matter of time before I’ll need to retire my pink, floral throw pillows. I also knew that cohabitation would be a great excuse to step up my dinner game. Now, I’ve long said that there is no reason someone should subsist on fast food simply because they live alone or are cooking for one, and I firmly believe in that. Even so, there are some real benefits to cooking for more than one person: there’s someone to eat your leftovers, you can try new recipes and get another person’s honest feedback, and also, it’s really nice to have a live in dinner buddy who happens to be your significant other. Neither Brad nor I are necessarily what you’d call picky eaters, but I’m very particular about quality seafood and he prefers shellfish over white […]

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Zucchini Pasta (Zoodles) with Avocado-Walnut Pesto

Maris Callahan — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 00:54:14 +0000

I know people have been all about the zucchini pasta, or zoodles, for a really really long time but I only caught on this past summer. As much as I love pasta of all shapes and sizes, I am also mindful of the fact that I travel frequently and it would be sort of expensive to have to buy a second seat every time I fly. To balance my love of bread, pasta, cheese and chocolate, I occasionally take breaks and eat low carb, which means a lot of lean protein, vegetables and subbing zoodles into recipes that would ordinarily call for pasta. You can make spiralized noodles with just about any vegetable — cucumber, sweet potato, summer squash, carrots and even pumpkin. They’ve long since been a trick of restaurant chefs and they’re a great way to add more veggies into your meal routines. These zoodles are dressed with a rich and savory avocado-walnut pesto, a combination born from my favorite avocado pasta recipe along with the fact that I had about a quarter bag of chopped walnuts that I wanted to use. I dropped half of my avocado into the sink when I was pitting it, so my sauce […]

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