Sick of eating cereal and Ramen for lunch and dinner? Want to spend less money eating out and finally start cooking for yourself? Put down that frozen pizza, because HC’s Health Editor, Sammie Levin, is here to share her daily eats so you can get ideas for healthy, satisfying meals that are easy enough for any time-strapped collegiette to make. After you read Collegiette Eats, your taste buds, wallet and waistline will thank you.
Breakfast
Who knew that making your own healthy jam was as easy as four ingredients and one minute of prep work? I didn’t, until I found this recipe for Strawberry Chia Seed Jam on the blog Eating Bird Food. This jam is sugar-free and is made with chia seeds, which are full of omega 3’s and other healthy nutrients that you can read about here. You can buy chia seeds at health foods stores or markets like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Your regular local supermarket may carry them too!
All you do to make the jam is mash 1 cup of strawberries in a jar with a fork. Stir in 1 tablespoon of water and 1 tablespoon of chia seeds, and add in some stevia or splenda to taste. Then you just cover the jar and leave it in the fridge to set for about an hour. It tastes really fresh and naturally sweet. You can spread it on toast or stir it into yogurt or oatmeal, like I did.
With my batch of strawberry chia seed jam, I made PB&J oats for breakfast yesterday. I mixed ¼ cup oats with ½ cup almond milk and microwaved it for 2 minutes. Then I added a few chopped strawberries and microwaved for another 30 seconds so that the berries got warm and mixed well into the oats. I topped it with a spoonful of peanut butter and a spoonful of the jam. Nothing tops banana and peanut butter in my book, but PB&J is a close second.
Lunch
For lunch yesterday, I made a breakfast-y salad: kale, tomato, ¼ of an avocado, mozzarella, one piece of turkey bacon and a fried egg, with some salt and pepper sprinkled on top. To make the kale softer and less bitter, I poured a little bit of olive oil on it, massaged it into the leaves and left it in the fridge for 15-20 minutes to let it soak in. Adding a fried egg to a salad might sound weird, but it’s delicious—runny yolk makes a delicious dressing. The different textures and flavors in this salad complemented each other well. Pretty sure it’s impossible to make a bad meal when you use breakfast foods.
Dinner
I made a random, impromptu meal for dinner. I’ll call it an Indian-spiced grain bowl. I roasted chickpeas, a cup of chopped cauliflower and a delicata squash and mixed all of it together with quinoa and a spoonful of Maya Kaimal’s Madras Curry Sauce. The final product was not photogenic enough to show (I blame the colors of the food), but it actually tasted really good and filled me up. This meal did take a bit longer to prepare than others because of all the roasting, but if you have some time to spend at home, it’s not too much hands-on time, especially if you make the quinoa in advance.
Roasted chickpeas are one of the best snacks. You can put whatever kind of spice you want on them, and they get crunchy in the oven, almost like a wasabi pea. I spiced these ones with curry and a little bit of cayenne pepper to match the flavor of the curry sauce. You can make a batch and then put them in little baggies for easy library snacking.
To roast the chickpeas:
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Coat a can of chickpeas in ½ tablespoon – 1 tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle with curry power, salt, pepper and a little bit of cayenne pepper (or whatever spices you want).
- Spread out on baking sheet and bake for 30-40 minutes, until crunchy.
To roast the cauliflower:
Same as the chickpeas, but bake for only 15-20 minutes.
To roast the squash:
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Cut the squash in half lengthwise.
- Scoop out seeds.
- Brush insides with olive oil; season with salt and pepper.
- Place on baking sheet cut-side down and bake for 30-35 minutes, until tender.
Delicata squash is also a hidden gem. It’s rich and sweet and super easy to prepare, unlike spaghetti squash and butternut squash, which can take more work. You don’t have to peel it; just cut and bake. You can make it as a side dish, or add it into a bowl of grains like I did or a salad. Since the squash, cauliflower and chickpeas all needed to be baked at 400 degrees, I baked them all at once and then just managed their different baking times.
That’s enough Martha Stewart-ing for one day. I hope your Sunday is filled with good eats and less homework than I have to do right now.