Healthy Vegetable Sushi Snacks

Great recipe: fun and healthy snacks for all the family - from eHow



Ingredients

8 inch tortillas
hummus
carrots
zucchini
string cheese sticks
1 cup uncooked brown rice

Step-by-step instructions with photos >>

Black Tuesday: Black Bread Sandwich Ideas

What makes a sandwich both healthy and delicious? Here are a few tips for making your sandwich good for your diet menu and yummy.



First, make sure you use a proper bread. As a big fan of Russian Black Bread, I would recommend trying to make a sandwich with this kind of bread. However, using any whole-grain bread is also OK.

Second, choose your favorite vegetables for a filling. Think of fresh, thinly sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, crunchy carrots and onions - what can be healthier?

Next, you should pick low-fat products for the nutritious part of your sandwich. Nonfat cheese, eggs and mushrooms could be good for vegetarians; chicken, turkey and low-fat beef - for meat eaters; tuna, salmon and sardines - for fish lovers. Avocado works well in sandwiches too, although it's high in fat, so try to avoid eating avocado snacks too often.

Finally, don't forget about the dressing. Olive oil works well with all veggies, pesto sauce is usually combined with tomatoes and some types of cheese, low fat mayonnaise could be used for an egg salad sandwich and lemon juice, of course - it's a must when it comes to a fish sandwich.

The variety of healthy sandwiches is really huge, you just need to find your favorite and put it in your lunch box! Healthy diet IS fun, isn't it?

Read Also:

Add Color To Your Diet: BLACK Tuesday
Top 5 Reasons Why Green Vegetables Are Good For You
Green Monday - Easy & Healthy Avocado Recipe
Free Organic Vegetable Gardening At Home

Green Monday - Broccoli Gratin

As promised, here's The Best Broccoli Recipe ever! And I mean it cause I tried plenty of them.

This one is my favourite, it's both delicious and healthy.

The great thing about this recipe is that it's kind of universal as you can easily replace some ingredient with other if you want to make your gratin more dietetic or just don't have some specific ingredient ready at hand.

And of course it's easy to make. I don't like sophisticated recipes that much :)

Let's start with the basics.

Ingredients:

750 g broccoli (cut in florets)
500 g soft white cheese/sour cream
2 onions (thinly sliced)
3 eggs
3 tbs flour
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (grated)
3 tbs butter
salt
pepper

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 180-200°C (350-400°F).
Step 2: Cook the broccoli in salted water. You can use these tips on cooking broccoli. Then drain well and arrange in a lightly buttered baking pan.
Step 3: In a small frying pan, saute the onions in 2 tablespoons of butter until fragrant.
Step 4: In a separate bowl, combine the white cheese/sour cream, the eggs, the flour and stir until smooth.
Step 5: Pour the cheese sauce into the baking pan (over the broccoli) and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese. Bake until the top is golden.

Now here are some of the finer points:

1. How to turn this recipe into more dietetic?
Just choose the low fat white cheese. It works perfectly for this gratin! You may also decide to get rid of that Parmesan topping because of the extra fat. That's ok with me too, but keep in mind that these really few additional calories worth the fine taste.

2. How to diversify the Broccoli Gratin?
Now this is the fun part as you may play with this recipe to your heart's content.
What I usually do:
- Use different kinds of white cheese (feta cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, sour cream) and mix them all together.
- Add some other veggies to broccoli. A marrow, a pumpkin and a potato are the best matches. Boil other vegetables together with broccoli (step 2). Don't forget that to some veggies it takes more time to get cooked than to the others.
- Mushrooms! Champignons, portobello, porcino - whatever you like - dramatically upgrade this recipe. Cut mushrooms in slices and mix with the onions (Step 3). Add some butter or water, if necessary.

3. How to make this Gratin more spicy?
That's very easy: add some garlic (1-2 minced cloves) to the onions and fry them together (see Step 3). If that's not spicy enough for you, add a hot pepper :)

4. Is this recipe good for kids?
Yes, it is. Though you'd better not make the Gratin too spicy and try to use natural, healthy products.

That's all, nothing complicated but really delicious and healthy dish.

Read Also:

How To Cook Broccoli Properly
Best Green Vegetables for Your Fun & Healthy Diet
Free Organic Vegetable Gardening At Home