Recipes for healthy eating

[JOhn]

Ok guys & gals I need a little help with some recipes. As a few of you know I had a serious heart attack a few years back with one of the major contributing factors being High cholesterol. In an effort to stick around a few extra years I've been trying to eat a lot better and have been doing so/so at it. Problem is I'm a single dad raising 3 kids who are hard to please, food wise.

13 y/o daughter loves her steaks and desserts
10 y/o son will pretty much eat anything that doesn't bite him first.
5 y/o son is very picky eater, but loves his fruits and PB&J sandwiches.

I also have a very limited budget, as mom don't pay support, so I need stuff that pretty inexpensive and is good as leftovers or recipes that can be sized for 1-4 people. I prefer simple recipes to make, but I am an excellent cook so not afraid of tough complicated cooking. But really the expense is my biggest concerns, along with stuff that the kids will like.

I tend to make a lot of Chicken, and try to cut back on the fried foods & red meat, but frankly I've run out of ideas. We also eat a lot of Rice and such.

So please trow me some good recipes with some variety & help me out here. Lots of rep & gratitude for good stuff.

[runnercyclist]

www.cookinglight.com

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by runnercyclist

www.cookinglight.com

This, seriously. The website is awesome, and we've had a subscription for years. Really great magazine.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by NewPhin

This, seriously. The website is awesome, and we've had a subscription for years. Really great magazine.

I love. One issue I cooked just about everything in it....all of it was AWESOME!

[rambleonthruthefog]

veggies my 11 yr old will eat.

acorn squash halved and baked for around an hour hour 15 cut side down for 30-40 min. put in baking dish with 1/4 inch of water. turn over and fill with butter and brown suger, drizzle with maple syrup, change oven tobroil and take out when browned a little.

easy peas and carrots
cut carrots pretty fine along and a shallot(orsome onion. or two cook in a little butter till shallots turn opaque, then add a little water and cook till carrots are to prefered softness. dump some frozen peas in and cook till warm

squash and broccoli
steam both. stir in bowl with some olive oil minced garlic and italian seasoning.

glazed carrots
boil carrots till prefered softness. drain and add brown sugar butter and honey.

steamed carrots broccoli or cauliflower

corn on the cob in the microwave
put corn in baking dish add water, sugar and butter to baking dish, cook 5min or so till corn is ready

baked sweet potato. add cinnamon butter and brownsuger as topping

black eyed peas with chopped garlic onion jalepeno and bell peppers. boiled for 45min to hour.

i've got a great italianveggie stew for the crockpot if your interested. its easy, and damn good.

not sure thats all healthy, but there are veggies invloved

[CosmicPal]

Create an RSS feed with your favorite cooking sites such as Cookinglight.com as suggested. There's a load of cooking sites, allrecipes.com is one of my favorites.

Anyways, with the RSS feeds, you can usually customize them to the recipes you want and with the feeds set, you will then be fed recipes in your RSS reader of choice. I set mine to receive 'em daily.

[runnercyclist]

Originally Posted by CosmicPal

Create an RSS feed with your favorite cooking sites such as Cookinglight.com as suggested. There's a load of cooking sites, allrecipes.com is one of my favorites.

Anyways, with the RSS feeds, you can usually customize them to the recipes you want and with the feeds set, you will then be fed recipes in your RSS reader of choice. I set mine to receive 'em daily.

allrecipes.com is the bomb. I love the feature where you can put in the ingredients you have and it spits out recipes.

[JOhn]

Originally Posted by CosmicPal

Create an RSS feed with your favorite cooking sites such as Cookinglight.com as suggested. There's a load of cooking sites, allrecipes.com is one of my favorites.

Anyways, with the RSS feeds, you can usually customize them to the recipes you want and with the feeds set, you will then be fed recipes in your RSS reader of choice. I set mine to receive 'em daily.

Thanks man, I appreciate that. I'll look into doing this.

[Mr. Flopnuts]

To take care of everyone's taste for steak I'd suggest going to strictly sirloin. You put a good rub on that and cook it right, you won't ever have a complaint in the house.

As far as I know it's the leanest steak out there. I make a damn fine London Broil too. It's all in the seasoning. I use a fair amount of flavored salts, but depending on the rest of your diet for the day it's still manageable.

[blaise]

I don't have the recipe available right now, but I can post it later or you can just find one- I make a turkey meatloaf that's pretty healthy, not very expensive and my kids will generally eat it, especially if you put ketchup on it. I substitute plain oatmeal for breadcrumbs, use egg white instead of the whole egg. You could also use a low fat % ground beef if you don't like turkey.
Below is a dish I make that my kids will eat. You can tweak the ingredients to budget or taste, or health level. For instance, you could leave out the spinach if you don't want to pay for a whole bag of spinach leaves, use low sodium broth, and you could substitute ground turkey for beef if you want to stay away from red meat. The orzo is good because it can act as a sort of substitute for rice. It's inexpensive and helps make the dish go further.
1 lb ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves
2 14 1/2 oz cans diced tomatoes (the ones with basil,oregano & garlic)
1 14 1/2 oz can beef broth
1 6 oz can tomato paste
3/4 cup uncooked orzo
1 tsp Italian seasoning
2 cups fresh spinach

Cook beef, onion & garlic in soup pot until meat isn't pink, drain
Stir in tomatoes, broth, tomato paste, orzo and Italian seasoning. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes until orzo is tender. Add spinach, cook for a minute or two until spinach wilts.

[Goodys]

http://thehealthyskeptic.org/

[Bi_polar]

Honestly JOhn,

My diet consists of, Chicken breast (baked, sauteed in olive oil, or foreman grill) Broc, Asparagus, bananas, ensure, Water and EAS Dark Chocolate Low carb drinks.

I've serious gotten my six pack almost ENTIRELY back (in only a month) - of course, (that's all combined w/ running 4 mis. daily and 100 crunches and 100 reverse leg-lifts.)

Fridays, I cheat and DON'T work out and eat whatever I want, all day.

[runnercyclist]

Originally Posted by Bi_polar

Honestly JOhn,

My diet consists of, Chicken breast (baked, sauteed in olive oil, or foreman grill) Broc, Asparagus, bananas, ensure, Water and EAS Dark Chocolate Low carb drinks.

I've serious gotten my six pack almost ENTIRELY back (in only a month) - of course, (that's all combined w/ running 4 mis. daily and 100 crunches and 100 reverse leg-lifts.)

Fridays, I cheat and DON'T work out and eat whatever I want, all day.

Well, good on you, but...you certainly don't need to go to this extreme to be fit and healthy.

Consistantly elevating your heart rate through exercise (your choice of which) 4 times a week for 40 minutes each and eating fewer calories than you burn will do the trick.

[chiefzilla1501]

Maybe a big piece is just substitution.

I feel like being able to teach them to enjoy whole grains instead of complex carbs (e.g. whole grain Cheerios instead of regular. I bought these Kashii whole grain honey puffs and they were just as good as "Smacks". Whole wheat bagels or bread) Replacing a lot of the fatty meats with turkey--in certain cases, it tastes almost as good as beef or pork or ham. It might up your grocery bill just slightly, but it helps you to cook a lot of the same things they enjoyed, have it taste fairly close to the real thing, but at a much better health value.

[Bi_polar]

& yes, I DO realize it's much more difficult w/ kids.