Low Calorie Cooking

We had a great Asian inspired meal the other day of teriyaki salmon with a side of snow peas and steamed pears.  Each item in the meal is relatively easy to make, but pulling it all together does take a little bit of planning. The meal ended up being quite filling and so healthy with salmon loaded with healthy fatty acids,  and the cool crisp snow pea salad and steamed pears adding to our fruit and veggie intake.

Photo@ Kimberley K. Eggleston, licensed to About.com, Inc

I thought this black bean dip really came together well!  I served it to my kids with some baked tortilla chips for a really healthy snack, and they gobbled it up. I plan on making this more often at our house.

A couple of warmer days have put me in the mood for smoothies! I put together this simple smoothie of strawberries, bananas, oranges, and yogurt, and was really impressed with how delicious it was! At this year, all of these fruits are pretty easy to come by, so it is pretty simple to make.

Sweet and sour chicken and egg rolls, made at home? Yes, just a few simple steps makes making sweet and sour chicken easy at home. We like to serve it up with steamed brown rice, and baked egg rolls to round off the meal.

Sometimes the weekend just calls for ordering out. For us, that usually means calling up a pizza delivery store.  Are there ways to keeps the calorie count down when eating pizza? sure there are. I am just carefull about what types of crust and toppings I order on my pizza, savings several grams of fat, and thus several calories.

Chicken may just be America's favorite meal. Here's a few of my favorite ways to prepare it!

Who doesn't love a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie? These low calorie chocolate oat cookies literally take 15 minutes to mix up. Put them in the oven, and ten minutes after that you can enjoy one perfectly warm with a glass of milk!

You might be pleasantly surprised at how simple and delicious tofu can be when you use it in this recipe for tofu with peanut sauce.  It only takes a few steps to prepare, and the recipe serves double duty as the peanut sauce can be made alone to serve with spring rolls or as a dressing for an asian salad.

I like to make my own version of enchilada sauce to pour over these tasty healthy enchiladas.  A nice winter squash would work in place of the summer squash at this time of year.

I simply used frozen berries when I made a batch of this berry crumble. I served it with a bit of vanilla ice cream, and it was a great hit with everyone.  The great thing is that by eating this lovely berry crumble, you are giving yourself berries, oats, and walnuts which are all winners when it comes to nutrition.