I'm still working on putting up a food friend fliter. I've tried it twice, only to have lj kick back an "error" message...so in the meantime, I'm keeping food entries public.
Sausages + sugar snap peas
1 (3 ounce) chicken apple sausage (if you're using breakfast-sized sausages, I'd go with 2)
1 lb sugar snap peas
salt and pepper to taste
I always keep a pack of both sugar snap peas, and precooked chicken apple sausages around. When I get home late--and starving--and I'm not in the mood to wait longer then 10 minutes for food, I toss these ingrediants into a pan with some salt--and dinner is on the table in less time then it takes to microwave a frozen meal. I chop up the sausages (cut once length-wise, then sliced into half-moon rounds) while the pan is heating, let the sausage brown while I de-vein the sugar snap peas (snip off the ends with my fingers, and pull off the tough fiberous part that runs lengthways on the peas). When the sausage is golden (maybe 2-3 minutes?), I toss in the peas and let them cook on high until they turn a bright green color. You don't want them overcooked--they should stay crispy. I pull the mine off the stove as soon as the color changes (maybe 4 minutes? my stove is a bit wierd, so the cooking times might be off). Sprinkle on salt and pepper. This makes 2-4 side dish servings, but I'm usually hungry enough to wolf it down in one session.
I use Gerhard's
smoked chicken apple sausage, avaliable at TJ's (of course)...but I've made this successfully in the past with other brands. I also use a nonstick pan, and omit greasing the pan--since the sausage will release sufficent fat for the peas. The entire serving will have roughly 300 calories, so if you're using this for a full meal, I'd toss in some bread or soup on the side.
And if you're not in a sausage mood, try this recipe with just the peas. I grease the pan with a bit of lemon-flavored olive oil (1-2 tsp)...and take it from there. (To make lemon olive oil, scrub and peel the outside of 1/2 a lemon--make sure that you get only the yellow part. dry it off well and drop it in olive oil, then wait for a few weeks for the flavor to infuse. Same idea as flavored vodka--just different uses).
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I'm always on the hunt for healthy, portable foods...something that can slip easily into a purse and requires no refridgeration. Especially now that I have long shifts with 10-minute breaks, I need to eat on the run. I always have fruit with me...but I look for other alternatives as well. In the past, I've tried Vitalicious muffin tops (tastes a bit dry, though the chocolate versions are decent), rising dough chocolate chip cookies (Jumba Juice stocks them as well--they're delicious, though very different from most cookies). Recently, I stumbled across two favorites that replaced everything else in the "portable foods" compartment
Gnu foods fiber and flavor barsAside from the somewhat gimmicky name, I really like these bars. They contain a whopping 12 grams of fiber and a respectable 4 grams of protein--but they taste much better than what the nurtitional information would suggest. I tried both the orange+cranberry and chocolate brownie flavors (oatmeal raison is supposed to be their best one, but I'm not a fan of anything with oatmeal and raisions that isn't actually a cookie). The chocolate brownie was edible--I just perfer my chocolate to be full-fat and really dark, so this doesn't quite cut it. The orange cranberry, on the other hand, was just plain delicious. The texture is similiar to Clif bars (a bit more moist, I think)...so if you love Clif bars, you'll probably like this as well. For a rather small bar (roughly the same size, and lighter then a Balance bar), these are surprisingly filling. One bar and an apple kept me going for all 8 hours of my shift (I forgot to bring a lunch that day).
Trader Joe's Fiberful bars
These are dried fruit bars (think fruit leather/fruit-by-the-foot) with extra fiber--6 grams per bar (roughly 60 calories each). Though they taste a bit chewier than your average fruit leather, you don't taste the fiber at all (a good thing in my book--I hate the cardboard texture of high fiber foods, namely fiber one cereal). Both the apricot and berries flavors are delicious, and taste like their namesake. $49 cents each at Trader Joe's (exclusive to them)...I bought a 38-count box of the berry flavor. Between this and the box of gnu bars, I should be fine on snacking foods for a few months.
Cashew-Macademia nut butter
I purchased mine from TJ's, though I've seen them in natural food stores and "gourmet" type stores quite frequently. Understand: I'm one of maybe 6 people in American who doesn't like peanut butter (I love it in sauces, hate it on a sandwich). However, I purchased some organic sprouted wheat (WHAT is that, anyway?) bread the other day, and though it was good...it was just begging for some type of strong, nutty spread. The C-M butter was just perfect. The macademia taste comes through a lot more strongly then the cashew flavor...which is just fine with me. I paired it with pumpkin butter (didya think i'd use Smuckers on this?) and sliced bananas for a "sandwich" :P at $4.50 per jar, it's pricy...but a little bit goes a long way and I don't regret the indulgence.
Frozen Grapes
I think I've mentioned this before, but it's worth bringing up again: frozen grapes make for a delicious sweet treat. This sunday was the last week for my favorite grapeseller at the farmer's market (yes, I've been here a month and the venders at the local farmer's market already know me by name)...so I bought way too many grapes, and popped what I can't eat in the course of a week in the freezer. If you're trying this, just make sure that they stay frozen--grapes are yucky when defrosted. The sweetness intensifies...it tastes almost like mini popsicles.
Icewine
Speaking of frozen grapes...I'm a total wine wimp. I like my wines to be complex, but very sweet--my favorite thus far is a Samos dessert wine from Greece. I was flipping through magazines a few weeks ago, and stumbled across a review on icewines in one of the food/gourmet magazines. The idea is intriguing: a true icewine is picked and pressed at -8 degrees Celsius...resulting in a densely sweet, sharp wine. Unfortunately, since production is so difficult and the areas where they are grown is rather limited (mostly the Alps region of Germany and Canada), the wine is pricy. The "cheapie" (Jackson-Triggs 2004) that I was eyeing went for $20 per 187 ml...or roughly $80 for your usual 750 ml bottle. Yeah...just a weee bit out of my range. At TJ's today, I ran across a Sawmill Creek 2002 icewine, which received rather high markings on
Tasting.com . It's the same price as the Jackson-Triggs, but is twice as larger. I originally purchased this for the party...but I had a sip today. then another...let's just say that it won't make it to the party, though I might buy another bottle the day of. I definitely recommend this...especially if you like sweet wines.
Sharon's SorbetAnother TJ favorite: I love all three varieties that I've tried (mango, passionfruit, lemon--in that order). The mango is heavenly...unfortunately, none of the TJ's in my area seem to stock it (if you find it in the bay area, let me know!). It's incredibly tangey and sweet...and tastes strongly of the fruit in question. *grins* And for you dieters out there, there's less calories in the entire pint-sized container of the sorbet than in one serving of Ben and Jerry's (though I'd be hard-pressed to pick between the two).