MyPlate For The Heart

Maggie Moon, MS, RD, is one of our advisors and she publishes a blog here: http://www.maggiemoon.com/

We saw a creative article that she published in Today’s Dietitian, where she asks what is in  your refrigerator. So, we decided to ask her the same thing and she published it in her blog and gave us permission to put it here, too.

Back in June, a feature article I wrote for Today’s Dietitian had it’s cover singing, Complex Times Call for Simple Foods.

Do I heed my own call? While my husband and I are (very gratefully) doing alright, this recession still pokes at us like the rain we’ve had this July (no fair and yet, no surprise).  Because I have the best husband ever, when it rains, we splash. You’ll find us just outside our brownstone apartment, playing with sticks, giggling (me), and enjoying the water.

Actually, it’s raining again tonight. But anyway. Getting back to it.. enjoying simple, affordable, delicious and healthy foods, like a rainy-day-turned-waterpark, is the hopeful response to a sort of crummy situation. So yes, not only did I write about embracing simple foods, I do it. Let’s take a look at some recent eats:

The strawberries speak for themselves: tasty goodness made affordable by the season. Same with the vitamin-packed blueberries (little bombs of juicy flavor).

The salad is one of my favorite new dishes to prepare. I make a big bowl (it takes about 10 minutes), and we eat it for a couple days (on its own, or with crackers). I simply mix together a handful of ingredients that happen to be affordable, nutritious, filling, and fresh.

So cheap & easy, you might call it ‘fast food’ (no? not where your mind went when I said cheap and easy?):

OK. So, go get a big bowl. Add coarsely chopped sweet summer onions. Squeeze the juice from a handful of limes. Use your hands, play with your food, and rip apart a chicken from a grocery store rotisseried bird (I like to use just the white meat for this salad… dark meat can be reserved for soup or something).

You washed your hands before and in-between foods, right? Thought so, good! Now, add about a pound of drained coleslaw from your grocer’s deli (about $1.99/lb), and make sure it’s looking crisp and lively — no goopy coleslaw allowed. If you happen to have fresh herbs on hand, give them a sloppy chop and add them to the mix. Enjoy right away or cover, refrigerate, and enjoy for days (the lime means it just keeps getting better and better).

There’s no reason to settle. Be healthy, eat well, and enjoy it. And don’t forget to tune in to my sermons.