Ice Queen said:
I am afraid that now I live on my own I don't eat in a very healthy manner.
I think when I was living alone is when I ate the healthiest! But then again I was a graduate student at the time working on my master's degree. I had plenty of time to cook and while I consumed my ration of beer and bar food, I also took the time to cook and eat good food. I think cooking gave me something to occupy some free time and also occupied my mind too.
But I guess it might be because I grew up in a house where my mom cooked so I was always very comfortable in the kitchen. I think nothing of roasting a goose or a duck. Just as easy as roasting a chicken, but tastes a lot better!
When my in-laws were alive, they were also fairly sick, so my wife would take off several weeks (4 to 5) each summer and visit her parents. After a while cooking the in microwave got boring, so I would often make things like seared salmon with penne, panchetta and asparagas as a nice hot salad. Its simple but elegant and contains a nice balance of the food groups.
Ice Queen said:
Bob, are you allowed fruit...
Yes, in fact I am eating lots more fruit than I ever did before. I'm also planning on trying a receipe that makes banana-blueberry muffins but contains no flour or oil. I'll post it if it tastes good, if it doesn't then you all may hear
John . . . if you like asparagas, try it on the grill. I had it grilled at a restaurant that way and tried it at home. Its so simple. To my tastes, all you need is fresh spears, a drizzle of olive oil which you then use to mix over the asparagas, and then some good salt. Not finely ground table salt, but a nice kosher coarse grind salt or a flaked grey salt (
any large grind salt that stands up to the grill works well).
If you like spicy food, you can do a "sweet-hot" asparagas too. Basically find a nice pepper flavored oil (
check the Chinese food section or gourmet food section) and substituted it for regular olive oil. You can also use something like a dusting of red pepper flakes but I find it does not work as well as spiced oils. For the 'sweet' part of the receipe, substitute some sugar for the salt, just to your taste, you don't need a lot (unless you like it). You can alter the amount of spice and sweetness very easily so experiment to your tastes.