Meal of the moment

Every so often I try a new dish hoping it will become one of my Weeknight Wonders (a meal with ingredients that are always on hand, which takes less than 20 minutes to prepare and provides leftovers for lunch the next day). As of this week there is a new dish in my Weeknight Wonder repertoire.

Its hero ingredient is a bag of frozen vegies. Much has been written about how they are just as healthy, if not healthier, than fresh vegies because they are frozen fresh. Good news.

The bad news is I sometimes find them unpleasant to eat - it's difficult not to overcook them and can taste frostbitten even if they've only been in my freezer for a week. Despite this I tend to always have a bag of frozen veg on hand (especially peas which I seem to put in everything) for those just in case moments.

But I'm pleased to report that Birds Eye Country Harvest Spring Greens are better than your average bag of frozen veg.

They don't have that icy, frozen taste, they present well and are a mix of green vegies I happen to like a lot. Consequently they form part of my current meal of the moment – a vegie and pesto pasta which I make it with:

Rigatoni (or any pasta you like)
Store-bought pesto
Some good quality goat's cheese
Pine nuts (toasted)
Spring greens mix

The pine nuts add crunch and toasty flavour, the cheese provides creaminess and a tart kick to the dish, while the pasta and pesto do their always-amazing thing. Coating the veg in pesto-y, cheese goodness does a lot to increase their appeal and adding them means you eat less pasta. The addition of some lean protein (grilled chicken breast = perfect fit) would also be awesome.

The result? A dish which....
Takes approximately 15 minutes to prepare
Is filling and satisfying
Includes a couple of serves of vegies
And tastes damn good

This is one of my Weeknight Wonders - what are yours?

Ryan Reynolds: Healthy Eating Hero

Inspired by my good friends at The Unibrain, I dug out the May 2009 issue of Men's Health featuring His Royal Hotness Ryan Reynolds on the cover.

Ignoring the short (and inexplicable) period of time I confused him with Jason Lee, I've always been a fan of RR. I've followed him since his Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place days, and I even stuck with him through the unfortunate dark period I like to call Alanis Morrisette.

To be fair, I'm no way near The Unibrain's #1 Fan status but he is (as of now when I thought of it) Diet Another Day's first-ever Healthy Eating Hero. Let me share these choice moments from his Men's Health interview:

• 'I attribute my results mostly to good nutrition.'
• Ryan doesn't have a personal chef, so he cooks meals in advance. For instance, for breakfast he'll make a large supply of steel-cut oatmeal and freeze it.
  
• 'If you hate your workout you're not going to do it.'
  
• 'Never do any of that carve-starve crap'
• Reyonlds is a big believe in the motivational value that having a training partner can bring.
  
• Ryan ran the New York City marathon last year in order to raise money for Michael J Fox's foundation for Parkinson's disease, a condition his own father suffers from.

Bless. It seems we are so on a shared wavelength he could practically author this blog. We should listen to him. He's fit and his abs are as steel cut as his oats. Exhibit A:

Did I also mention he's not American but Canadian and he and a mate once did a 2-week trip up the east coast of Australia, from Sydney to Brisbane (via the Blue Mountains and Byron Bay), on a motorcycle.

Yep, me and him and The Unibrain = definitely could be friends.

At left: BONUS RR Men's Health cover.

http://www.ew.com/ew
www.theunibrain.blogspot.com

This picture has roughly seven serves of vegies

It's also badly shot, blurry and not really publishable quality. But in the interests of getting dinner on the table I had to move fast.

I took it because I was pretty proud of myself. I was both the purchaser and chop-master of these health-giving vegetables – I felt like the Rainbow Bright of home cooking.

I then turned these vegies into a tasty and comforting lasagne and proved to myself and the world (who have no doubt been desperate for my verdict on this issue) that vegetables can taste good.

Assuming the lasagne puts out about five pieces, that's a serve and a half of vegetables per piece – plate it up with a side salad and you're up to two and a half. (Vegies that is, not men because then that wouldn't be an enjoyable meal but rather a very unfunny sitcom.)

Health authorities say we should eat '2 &5' every day, the thought of which makes people think they need to abandon the dishes they love for rabbit food.

Well, unless you know a rabbit with thumbs and a pyrex lasagne dish, I would say my vegetable dish was nothing like what a bunny would eat – and a serve of it for dinner, plus leftovers for lunch the next day, is a vegetable high five right there.

(If you're interested the vegies are sweet potato, red capsicum, mushrooms, leek, zucchini and basil. I turn them into lasagne with a store-bought passata, low-fat ricotta and lasagne sheets. It's easy and pretty low-fat as the ricotta makes it creamy and not dry without having to be a cheese fest.)