Simple, Healthy, Well Rounded Meals
 

I don't think there's a thread like this already:

I really like to cook, but I'm not very knowledgeable of what different foods go well together. I also do not have a ton of money to spend, but would like to eat healthier, more balanced meals.

I'd like to create a space for us to share these kind of recipes. Tonight, I found a recipe on foodnetwork.com.

I dredged tilapia in chili powder, garlic powder, and salt. I then cooked it in olive oil. When the fish was done, I cooked asparagus in the same pan adding salt and lemon juice. It was a nice, simple, tasty meal!

Share your recipies!!

Steamed veggies are easy and go with almost anything. Helpful if you've got other simple dishes and still need to get that vegetable requirement out of the way.

My favorite quick, easy, cheap, healthful meal is brown rice and steamed veggies in the rice cooker. My rice cooker has a steamer basket, so I put on some brown rice, add a small pack of frozen veggies to the steamer, flip the switch, and VOILA! My rice cooker is a cheapie 12-cup from Target, but it works well.

One can Campbell's Healthy Requests cream of chicken, one can Health Requests cream of mushroom, one can water. Brown about a pound of chicken breasts in PAM in a nonstick skillet and add to 13x9" pan with above. Add 1 cup white rice and 1 package frozen mixed vegetables. Top with about a half cup of 2% cheese. Bake at 350-375 for about 30 minutes.

Serves 3 with plenty of leftovers.

Spinach is cheap, chock full of healthiness, easy to cook, and goes with just about anything. As long as your meals have fat, protien, and carbs, the right kind of fat, protien, and carbs, you are eating healthy.

I will do this often with boneless pork chops as well. I often will just bake the meat in the pan with the soup and water and skip the browning. I don't use the cheese though, and I generally serve the veggies separately. Sometimes I serve with rice, others with baked potatoes the sauce is wonderful over a baked potato. Unfortunately, canned soups (even healthy choice) still pack a lot of sodium.

Another healthy way to cook chicken is to take your 13" X 9" pan, place some fresh vegetables in the bottom. Sweet potatoes, white/red potatoes, squash, carrots, celery.. whatever you like best, drizzle a little bit of olive oil over this. Place the boneless/skinless chicken breasts on top. Season as you would any baked chicken, garlic, parsley, whatever. Bake accordingly, delicious.

Campbell's Healthy Requests are 98% fat free and 40-45% lower sodium. I'm sensitive to sodium and they are quite tolerable. The cream of * soups are around 460mg per half cup of condensed soup.

Fat free isn't really a good thing. Generally things that are fat free compensate with carbohydrates (and they're not always good carbs).

Honestly, the simple meals are going to be the healthy meals so long as you start with fruits and/or veggies and/or lean meat. I'll just toss out two at random: chicken and apricots

Dice an apricot, add a bit of salt and pepper. Cover a chicken breast with the apricot stuff and bake until it's done. Sweet and savory means you'll probably like it (I adore apricots with chicken). And it's nice and healthy. You've got lean meat for fat and protein, and you've got carbohydrates from the fruit (along with vitamins A and C, calcium, and iron).

There are a million combinations, really. Lean beef and broccoli, salmon and green beans, pork and mango; and it doesn't even need to have meat. Just take your daily multivitamin and make sure you're going easy on sweets and other processed/preserved foods.