Thursday, March 02, 2006

Healthy ways to start the week!

I want to start our week in a healthy way. For me, it means cooking in a healthy way. So, I used the aluminium foil trick on Monday night again to prepare Tilapia. In this way, I can use less oil and less sodium.

It was simple. First, I marinated the fillet with some salt and pepper, and grated some ginger to put on top of the fish. Then, I drizzled some sesame oil in the foil envelope, together with some freshly squeezed lemon juice. To make the dish "chinese style", I finished it off by chopping some green onions to add to the envelope. (Just like what we have in chinese steam fish) Finally, the fillets were inserted into the foil envelopes and sealed well. Baked for 20-25 min in 400F oven. Of course you can add other herbs like parsley, and cilantro, but they are too pungent to my liking, so I left them out.

I forgot to take a picture of it because we were very hungry that night. It tasted like steam fish, I think. But I will add some soy sauce next time. It came out a bit too bland...

For the next day breakfast, I prepared some carrot muffins, using my newly-acquired muffin pan!


Here goes the recipe:

Carrot Muffins

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour ( I used 1 cup whole wheat flour + 1 cup all purpose)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups sugar (I used 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar)
1/4 pound carrots
1/2 cup pecans (substituted with walnuts)
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup sweetened flaked coconut (omitted)
3 large eggs
1 cup corn oil (I used half cup of oil + half cup of sour cream)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 Granny Smith apple

Preheat oven to 350°F. and oil eighteen 1/2-cup muffin cups.
Into a large bowl sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt and whisk in sugar. Coarsely shred enough carrots to measure 2 cups and chop pecans. Add shredded carrots and pecans to flour mixture with raisins and coconut and toss well.

In a bowl whisk together eggs, oil, and vanilla. Peel and core apple and coarsely shred. Stir shredded apple into egg mixture and add to flour mixture, stirring until batter is just combined well. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling them three fourths full, and bake in middle of oven until puffed and a tester comes out clean, 15 to 20 minutes.

Cool muffins in cups on racks 5 minutes before turning out onto racks to cool completely. Muffins keep in an airtight container at room temperature 5 days.

Note: I made some modification to the recipe to make it REALLY healthy for us. I am sure the original recipe would have tasted nicer, having more sugar added to it. But for me, I wanted to make them the healthy way. By the way, OCT finished 13 muffins in just two days.

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