What's on your plate?

[lylysa]

Hello there, ladies and gents!

Keeping in line with all the fun and interactive threads asking about your most recent halls, items you have your eyes on, what you're currently wearing, what's your hair routine, and more, I've decide to branch out and ask:

"What's on your plate?"

The beauty world doesn't just stop at skin care and cosmetics, it also goes hand in hand with your overall health and well-being, so with that, I'm curious to see what we're all chowing down and snacking on be it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, or inbetween!

For those with apps that help count calories or to those who just want to keep a log, here's a place to share, possibly find and share some recipes, and even tips on maintaining a balanced diet.

Don't just share food items, but even drinks! I'm a huge fan of tea and at least have a cup of green tea a day (anti-oxidants) and drink plenty of water.

For lunch today, I had:

-Brown rice

-Steamed egg

-Steamed red snapper with green onion, sesame oil, and black pepper

-Gai lan (it's a type of Chinese vegetable/greens)

Now, tell me, Beauty Talk world, what do you have? 😄

[lylysa]

COOKIE!!!! 

[Anonymous]

C is for cookie! I am over 30 and I still sing this song.

[lylysa]

The only difference with and that gif is that I eat MUCH MORE than just ONE cookie.

[DiVWA]

A most creative loophole.... those look decadent. Did you save one for me?

[EvangelineDamon]

My dad's lucky that he got his share! ha ha

They are really really good.

This picture really does not do them justice, they are the perfect chewy consistency with an almost crunchy, crumbly outer layer. And there's peanut chunks in them.

Ooo, and the chocolate, it is dark and yes, decadent is the perfect word to describe it.

So good.

I wonder how much they weigh, next time we get them, I'll put 'em on the scale..

[DiVWA]

And how much did you weigh after eating them? 😉

[lylysa]

Dark chocolate is my favorite!!!!

[DiVWA]

Dinner tonight was homemade vegetable soup. It contained roasted celery root, onion, carrot, garlic and beef soup bones, combined into a broth containing black beans, slivered savoy cabbage, sliced celery and some quinoa-rice pasta.

[lylysa]

I don't need a spoon, I'll just take that bowl as is!

[EvangelineDamon]

Guess who's coming to dinner!

This looks so good..

[DiVWA]

My dinner consisted of meatloaf, green beans (drizzled with some roasted hazelnut oil), and some banana.

Now the meatloaf, this was my first time making this so I pretty much followed the recipe, although I did make a few changes. (I rarely faithfully follow a recipe unless it's for a dessert item.) This is the most nutritious and yet yummy meatloaf I've made yet. It has shredded beets in it--yes, beets. I used the deepest purple ones I could find (they are the healthiest of all the beet types). Other ingredients include ground beef, some chopped fresh mushrooms, and a little bit of bacon.

I don't really like beets at all -- that weird taste is something I haven't been able to get used to--so was a bit skeptical that the meatloaf would taste good. But get this, no beet taste. It's a very rich red-purplish hued meatloaf, which would taste great anytime but is also something that could be served as part of a themed dinner for Valentine's Day or Halloween or Christmas (the latter with some greens on the side). What a great way to get beets into your diet!

[EvangelineDamon]

[lylysa]

I'm not a fan of the taste of beets either so it's good that you mentioned how there's no awkward taste to this with its incorporation. Love all the color of your meals!

[jozkid]

OK, you are like the most creative home chef I've run across in a long time!

[DiVWA]

Thanks Jozkid. About the only thing I'm good at, housework wise, is cooking. I try to keep it whole so there's little processed food.

[DiVWA]

Tonight we had a one-bowl meal. Duck legs and rutabaga on a bed of thinly sliced Swiss chard greens, with a apple-cider seasoned sauce. Recipe in spoiler tag.

Spoiler

This is not a formal recipe requiring measuring. Two duck legs and a rutabaga were put in a slow cooker for about 8 hours on low, with the legs placed on top of the roughly cut rutabaga. A handful of some dried Bing cherries and some orange peel strips were thrown on top of the legs. A sauce was poured on top; this sauce consisted of some unfiltered apple cider, some sugar-free orange marmalade, some Asian red chili garlic sauce and some Tamari sauce.

To assemble: put raw sliced chard on the bottom of one side of the bowl. Garnish with some fresh orange slices. Place the cooked leg on top of the greens. Spoon the cooked rutabaga on the other side of the bowl. Spoon some sauce over all of it, making sure some of the sauce gets on the leg. (The warm sauce will run underneath the leg and wilt the chard.)

If you want to substitute chicken leg for duck leg, you will need to oil the skin of the leg because chicken legs aren't as fatty as duck legs (so can easily dry out in a slow cooker); you may need to cut the cooking time down a couple hours too.

[lylysa]

That's just a BEAUTIFULLY plated dish! And I'm sure it was delicious too!

[EvangelineDamon]

Wow, DiVWA...just WOW.

[jozkid]

This looks positively gourmet!

[DiVWA]

Today was a cold salad. I added some toasted and cubed Trader Joe's Brown Rice Bread for croutons (even though I very rarely eat croutons--maybe like once every two years). Other ingredients listed in spoiler below.

Spoiler

Chopped treviso radicchio, sliced celery, sliced carrots, avocado chunks, sliced hard boiled egg, grape tomatoes. Small amount of roasted pistachio oil drizzled over the vegetables (because fat helps us digest nutrients in greens such as radicchio). Thick drops of a dressing drizzled on top of everything but the eggs, consisting of tahini mixed with coconut vinegar.

[EvangelineDamon]

Where do you get your roasted pistachio oil?

It looks so delicious, DiVWA.

I need to start incorporating more salads into our meals here.