Experiments in Healthy Eating

What with heart disease a regular occurrence in my family and a recent blood test that said my cholesterol could be lower, I've decided to start devoting more energy to healthy eating. I've got a new-to-me bread maker and so far I've made two batches of bread.

The first (stage left) is a whole wheat flaxseed loaf. Yep. It's suspiciously only 2 inches tall. When I saw this development, I was none too thrilled; however, it was shockingly good. I'm not sure how it turned out so well, but it wasn't too moist or too dense just a bit short. Amazing. The other batch of bread was a less healthy cinnamon raisin bread which looked and tasted as good as promised. So good there are no pictures (no I didn't eat it all..I shared almost all of it.)

Next on my health crusade...I've heard about the healthy possibilities of black beans so today I looked for a recipe for black bean burgers and found a highly rated one on All Recipes. In the past I probably would have been a nasty old naysayer about this type of veggie cuisine, but I've been proven wrong by Bocca Burgers and these honestly turned out deee-licious. Seriously. I did make a few changes. I used red bell peppers instead of green because I don't really like and did not have green. I put beans and veggies (none of which I measured) into the food processor, but made sure it didn't turn into a paste. I added ground chipotle in lieu of hot sauce which I also don't have. It had a bit of a kick but not too much. I used my flaxseed bread for the bread crumbs to boot! Then I grilled it on my little grill pan, cut it in half and sandwiched it between the last two pieces of my bread. A little fresh tomato, a little ketchup--that's lycopene folks. Yum!

Meanwhile, I was also making whole wheat hamburger buns which are still in the oven and hopefully will turn out good enough for the remaining 3 black bean patties I threw in the refrigerator. Now I just have to keep up this energy. I tell you. The appliances are making this healthy cooking stuff easier.

Up soon (but maybe not too soon because a single girl can only eat the same thing so many times before she becomes uninspired): Cooking 101's Ultimate Veggie Burger