In the book To Buy or Not to Buy Organic, Burke provides a list of 15 foods that “are the least likely to contain pesticide residue even if they are not organically grown.” Here they are:
View the Dirty Dozen
I am reading To Buy or Not to Buy Organic by Cindy Burke right now. It is an excellent book. Burke lists 12 items to eat only if they are organic. Here they are:
I bought organic strawberries for the first time yesterday and they were WONDERFUL. They tasted so sweet and full of flavor. Ryan and I sat down and ate the whole carten so they are on my list again. AND….they were the same price as the regular strawberries at Target.
The book also lists 15 foods you don’t need to buy organic. Look for that information tomorrow. They are called The Clean Fifteen in the book.
My friend Sarah told me about a deal going on at Target today. It was buy 5 boxes of Kellogs cereal (which some were already on sale) and get a $5 gift card. Also, I had a coupon for $1 off 3 boxes of General Mills cereal. Note-all of this sugary cereal is for my husband. I eat healthy Kashi and Fiber One Cereal.
On the Kellogs Cereal, each box averaged out to be $1.32. The General Mills cereal averaged $2.81 per box. With both of my deals (Kellogs and GMs), I averaged $1.88 per box for 8 boxes of cereal. Sarah is a much better couponer and she averaged $.40 per box on her Kellog cereal. Go Sarah! Check her blog out to look at her deals.
Ryan and I have been eating at Asahi in Tulsa for two years. This new sushi place, Wasabi, opened across from Asahi on the other side of 71st. I got Ryan to take me there two weekends ago. When we walked in the wait staff looked familiar. Then we sat down and got our menus?wait?.. the menu items looked familiar as well. In fact, most of the menu items where the same as the ones at Asahi (but, the menu was way nicer)! We called over our waiter and asked what was going on. He had another lady come over to talk with us. This lady, in particular, had served us many times before at Ashai. She told us that the original owner of Asahi had sold the business six years ago to get more experience working at larger sushi restaurants. Then he decided to come back to Tulsa and start another sushi eatery. The atmosphere is great, every table gets Edamame before the meal (which I love), the place is super clean, the items we ordered were extremely fresh, the staff is more friendly at Wasabi than they are at Asahi, and my husband and I will keep going back. You should try it for yourself!
This is the actual Sushi Bar.
This was my meal. The unagi was amazing.
This was Ryan’s meal….well after he was almost done eating. It was a ton of food, plus they gave us a free roll and a free appetizer.
The outside looks nice.
I found another video podcast that is really good. It is called Budget Health Nut. The theme is healthy, five star flavor on a budget. I have tried two of Joe Dias’ recipes: the eggplant dish and the omelet. They turned out really well. There are several more recipes I would like to try. The only negative to the podcast is that recipes are not provided (that I could find). Check it out!
No matter where you look these days, you will read about staying healthy. What does your body need to stay young, live longer, and live better? Pretty much every reliable source agrees that one must eat a wide variety of healthy foods, drink water, and exercise.
I have always done a fairly good job on the exercise part of the equation and have made it a goal to eat healthier. Some of the ways I have gone about doing that is adding large servings of vegetables to every meal. If I brown hamburger, I throw in 1 cup of diced green pepper to brown with the meat. Diced peppers, in fact, have become my best friend. You can dice them and add them to about anything. I have added them to enchiladas, meatloaf, hamburger dishes, and wraps. They are fairly inexpensive and are a good green vegetable. In the May 08 addition of Fitness Magazine, it recommends eating one and a half cups of peppers (any color) per day or similar high-fiber vegetables such as raw spinach or broccoli (page 70). So, now I am using more green peppers in my cooking than ever.
Another way to add vegetables is to shred them and add them. Feel free to add them to ANYTHING!! I had some extra zucchini lying around so I shredder one large one very fine and patted it dry with a paper towel (it is pretty moist) and put it all over a pizza I was making. My husband didn”??t even notice it! I asked him if he even noticed any zucchini on it, and he said no!
When striving to achieve goals, we all have ups and downs. I have definitely had ruts since January, when I contrived to start cooking healthier, but I believe I am getting better at coming up with healthy ideas to incorporate into my cooking. Each small change makes a difference!!
What do you do to eat more vegetables, eat healthier overall, and live healthier???
Check out The Tulsa Food Blog. I am a contributor to the blog and have been on a role lately. The theme: “Tulsa restaurants casually reviewed by normal everyday people who live to eat.” I don’t like to think that I “live to eat” but I do like to get out and try new places. If you have gotten in an eating-out-rut check out Tulsa Food Blog to find some new places to try!!
Below is an article that I wrote for the Tulsa Food Blog:
Before moving to Tulsa, I never dreamed I would consider Sushi one of my favorite foods. In college my friends took me to In the Raw which is another sushi restaurant in Tulsa. I liked it, but it wasn’t anything to write home about. A friend suggested that my husband and I try Asahi. He told us to definitely try the Spider Roll.
Asahi is located in a very low rent strip shopping mall behind Toys-R-Us on 71st and Memorial. We were not impressed upon arriving and a bit hesitant to try it. It was very clean when we got inside so we felt more comfortable. We ordered Spider Rolls and they were excellent. As we started eating there more, we started ordering different rolls. We haven’t had anything that we thought was not good.
My favorite rolls include the Spider Roll (of course), the Asahi Roll #2, the Spicy Salmon Roll, and my all-time favorite is the Unagi Roll. It is a very spicy roll with a lot of sauce on the top. It is one of my favorite things to eat.
If you have never eaten Sushi before, I would suggest ordering at least two rolls. One roll just doesn’t fill me up. If you are a real sushi fiend, one of the great things about Asahi is they have half-price rolls. If you order more than three rolls (on an order) there is a part of the menu with half price rolls. Most of them are about $3 half price.
Asahi’s owners are a cute couple who are almost always at the restaurant overseeing things. Several times our waiter/waitress has brought us free rolls or other free goodies. The service is good unless they are very busy. Then you can expect up to a 40 min wait on your food, which is worth it. The quality of the rolls could be more consistent, but I have never had anything that didn’t taste good.
Asahi is my favorite place in Tulsa to eat. It is a restaurant you can’t miss!!
I made bread for the first time this week. It looked like an easy recipe and I had all the ingredients on hand, so I did it! My dough was really runny. I had to add a lot of flour but it raised nicely and the bread was amazing. It had a great texture and taste. Ryan said it was the best cinnamon bread he had ever had. He was amazed it turned out so well. He was very concerned when he saw how runny the dough was at first. He made me call his Nana. With Nana telling me how to fix it over speaker phone, Ryan looking over my shoulder, and me doing what Nana was telling me, it was quiet the experience. I ended up making a pan of cinnamon rolls and a loaf of cinnamon bread out of it.
Here is the recipe: Feather Roll by Edna Gaugler (Ryan’s Papa’s Sister)
Combine 1 tsp yeast, sugar and milk. Beat with mixer until well blended and let stand 20 minutes. Add rest of ingredients. Beat with stand mixer. Knead in more flour until dough is sticky. Let rise in warm place. Punch down and make rolls of second rising. Good for cinnamon rolls and cinnamon bread. Note: I let them raise after I shaped them as well.
This is the recipe I used for the frosting on the cinnamon rolls. It was SOO good. It tasted just like the Rhodes Rolls frosting.
In the April addition of Family Circle there were several good lean beef recipes. I tried this one last night and it was wonderful. The following recipe is not the exact same as in the magazine. It is modified to my tastes. 
I will definitely be making this again! Serves 6 – Prep: 15 mins – Cook: 23 mins
If you make this, let me know what you think! Here is the original recipe.
After I got married, I started cooking and accumulating recipes. Some of the recipes were from my mom, some were cut out of magazines, some were my grandma’s, some were from the internet, and some were from cookbooks I had received. After using the various recipes for close to a year, I knew which ones I liked and which ones I used frequently. All I needed was a way to organize my favorites! I found this recipe organizer on the internet. It is basically a glorified three ring binder, but it is well worth the time and money. Since it is just a three ring binder, I can print off recipes or make copies of recipes, punch them with a three-hole-punch, and file them under the appropriate tab. Each tab is also a folder for random recipes that you cut out or find that are awaiting a permanent location. If you are interested, click here for purchase information.
