Top 5 healthy foods in my kitchen

You have to love the articles featuring “what this dietitian eats in a day” and “foods that health experts eat every single day”. I won’t lie to you – I have normal things in my kitchen like ketchup and ranch dressing. But I thought I would share 5 healthy foods that I almost always have in my kitchen.

1. Almond Milk

I always keep at least a couple half gallons of almond milk in the house. We use almond milk in cereal, smoothies, and poured over frozen blueberries (like a healthy cream slushie).

I have always preferred the tasted of plant-based milk over traditional milk. Recently though I have found that too much dairy milk upsets my stomach, giving me even more reason to opt for almond milk.

Plant based milks often don’t have the same amount of protein as dairy milk. To compensate, I usually add peanut butter or PBfit to my cereal.

2. Apples

A week in the life of a dietitian {January}

Many of the positions I’ve previously held offered at least a shred of predictability, but not my current one. That’s why I decided I would share a week in the life instead of the more typical day in the life.

Although my days are unpredictable, I have managed to reign in some of the chaos. If I take the time to lay out my main goals for the day and make a to-do list, the day goes much smoother. Between the time I get to work and the time I leave, I am faced with what seems like 100 decisions and (perceived) crises. If I don’t have a layout for the day I will spend all my hours putting out fires.

A to-do list doesn’t get rid of all the unknowns, but it does help me come back to my high priority items instead of just reacting to situations all day.

A week in the life of a food service dietitian:

Sunday, January 20th.

Normally I have the weekends off, but this time I was a diet aide for 8 hours. Between vacations and sick employees, our coverage options ran out, so I ran in. It was a busy, chaotic day spent doing dishes, collecting menus, prepping cafeteria food for the week, and delivering meals. As much as I don’t like work encroaching on my days off, I was glad to get more comfortable with the roles of our weekend diet aides. I also managed to clean up my office a bit, which helps keep me sane.

Monday, January 21st.

This time it was a dishwasher we were missing, so we all tag teamed it and did without a dishwasher. Between myself and the clinical RD (who was filling in for a diet aide) we got most of it taken care of, and everyone else pitched in where they could.

I also had an evening catering on Monday. I needed some ingredients from the store, but I had to wait until after work because I didn’t have a car with me. A story for another time. After getting the car in working order I did my shopping and headed back to work for another hour to take care of the catering.

Tuesday, January 22nd.

Tuesday is the day our freight truck comes in, so I am busy for a good 2-4 hours checking in freight and putting it away. I don’t have someone on the schedule to help me with freight right now, but the dishwasher (thank goodness we had one Tuesday) helped me all he could.

Tuesday was also the day of our monthly director meeting, which takes a big bite out of the morning. Depending on what else I have going on in the day, I usually really enjoy the meeting. It’s a great chance to catch up with other departments and refocus on the bigger picture of the hospital. Of course some days I have so much going on that it takes everything I have not to squirm through the whole meeting. This was one of those days.

Wednesday, January 23rd.

I was also asked to help decorate a table for a banquet the following weekend, so on Wednesday I got busy assembling the centerpiece. It turned out lovely.

We are in the process of implementing room service (which is majorly stressing me out), so on Wednesday I had a meeting with our Clinical RD and someone from the room service software company.

I also finally took down my Christmas decorations!

Thursday, January 24th.

Since I worked on Sunday, I made Thursday a short day. My primary goal was just to go through inventory and order food for the next week.

Friday, January 25th.

Friday was a day to wrap up loose ends and also (thankfully) get home a bit early. I added some items to the food order, put together gift bags for the banquet, and helped out in the dish room.

We have a guy that comes out and services our soda machine twice each week, and this time he managed to cut himself on the machine pretty badly. So I added incident report to my list. Thankfully it was nothing a bandage couldn’t fix.

I was planning to end my Friday at about 11:00 AM, but then I was invited to attend an auxiliary potluck with some other leaders. We had a really good time chatting with the ladies hosting the potluck.

I love that my job offers so much variety. Part of what I get to do involves catering events, planning parties, and ordering decorations for banquets. These things feed my soul, and really make me feel like I am in the right job.

Of course I have the less-favorite parts of my job, but I try not to focus on those things. Every job comes with unfavorable components; I am lucky that I have a job that comes with really good parts too.

Food service directors and RDs, I would LOVE to hear about your week in the life!

Happy national bean day!

Today is national bean day!

Forgive me for what may seem like undue excitement about beans. As a frugal vegetarian, I happen to love those little dicots.

Lately I’ve been craving big bowls of beans, platters of refried beans, and salads heaped with beans. Give me all the beans!

But, as much as I enjoy the many forms of legumes, they aren’t exactly a readily available food item.

Sure, you can buy them just about anywhere for a price that makes your budget smile. But then you have to cook them until they transform into creamy, starchy nuggets.

Back in the day I cooked mountains of beans in the slow cooker and then froze them in quart bags. It was an all-day affair, and though I enjoyed feeling like Laura Ingalls Wilder, it was not my favorite way to spend Sunday.

Then came the Instant Pot. I was a little slow to jump on the Instant Pot bandwagon, mostly because I didn’t know what it was. Kevin and I bought one for our 4 year anniversary, and bean cooking got drastically easier.

What once took 6-12 hours now took 1 hour. I no longer had to plan days ahead to eat beans.

There was one last roadblock to my bean cooking game though. I could pack about 4 cups of cooked beans into a quart freezer bag, but once that bag of beans was frozen, I had a solid bean block on my hands.

Of course I didn’t think ahead enough to thaw the beans before I needed them, so it was quite the feat to extract the frozen bean brick from the bag. I try to save bags (I’m not the only one; Stephanie does it too) so it bothered me that I was destroying perfectly good freezer bags.

Then I remembered the concept of flash freezing.

Now, I use my InstantPot to cook up a whole mess of beans. It takes even less time now that we live at a lower elevation than we did in Colorado.

After the beans are cooked and cooled, I spread them out in a thin layer on a parchment-lined jelly roll pan and freeze them. You could also line the pan with one of these so that it’s reusable. They don’t take long to freeze, though if we’re honest here I will tell you I usually forget about them for a few days.

After they have frozen on the pan, I break them up and put them in a gallon freezer bag. Now they are loose like frozen peas, so you can use just what you need when you need to. It’s wonderful, and it makes it a lot easier to actually eat those protein-packed, fiber-filled delights.

A couple of notes on cooking beans in the Instant Pot.

First of all, I don’t bother soaking beans before cooking. The Instant Pot can cook beans so quickly that soaking really isn’t necessary.

Second, salt the cooking water. You don’t have to go crazy here, just use a teaspoon or so. Beans cooked in salt water end up needing less total salt than beans cooked in plain water. When cooking beans on the stovetop or in a slow cooker, I never salted the water because the beans would remain crunchy even after hours and hours of cooking. I’ve never had that problem in the Instant Pot.

At this point you may be wondering why I don’t just buy canned beans. They’re cheap too, right?

Well, yes, especially if you compare them pound for pound with another protein source (like beef). But after reading this post I realized that canned beans are kind of expensive for what they are. I also find it harder to keep ~10 cans of each type of bean around for all my recipes.

Whether you cook your own beans, eat them out of the can, or only enjoy them at restaurants, I hope you make sure to enjoy some beans on national bean day!

2018 Year in Review

This time last year Kevin and I were ready for a big change in our lives, and 2018 did not disappoint.

The year started off with me working at an oil company in Colorado and ended with me working at a hospital in Oregon. We moved twice, bought our first home, and made lots of new friends in the cutest little town you could imagine.

Looking back over the year, these are some of our accomplishments in 2018 that especially stand out.

Pumped my own gasoline

Kevin spoils me, and up until January of 2018 I had pumped my own gas exactly twice in my lifetime. The oil company job involved a long commute, so it behooved me to learn the fine art of pumping one’s own gas. I was filling my tank twice each week, so I gained proficiency quickly.

I find it quite ironic that after this personal victory we moved to a state with full-service gas stations.

Purchased our first home

Thanks to a bump in salary, we were able to purchase a home shortly after moving to Oregon. The home buying process was quite the crazy adventure, but our awesome realtor made it a lot easier.

Started a new job

I love my job. At least, most days I do. There has been a lot to learn being a director, but I couldn’t have asked for a better educational experience. The hospital I work for invests heartily in their leadership team, and I am fortunate to be working here.

Paid off our car

Aside from food, finance is a big passion of mine. Getting rid of debt makes me incredibly happy. I look forward to ditching a good chunk of student loans in 2019.

As far as 2019, we have a number of things we are excited to accomplish:

Raise chickens

Kevin and I have both wanted chickens since we were kids, and the house we bought even came with a coop! It’s not in great shape, so we are planning to replace it. But at least there is a designated place for chickees!

Foster kittens

I can’t adopt every cat in the world (though some might argue I try) so this is my plan for helping out in the community. The humane society here has limited space, so foster homes are greatly needed. We are very excited about having more little fluff muffins around!

Gardening/landscaping

Our house has some raspberry bushes that I can’t wait to add to. I’m planning for more raspberries and some blackberries too. We’d also like a vegetable garden if we can figure out a good place to put it. And I’m really hoping to grow some flowers that the deer won’t eat!

House plants

My love of cats and love of plants are not what you would call complementary. One of my cats especially loves to eat plants, so I’m hoping to start filling our home with hanging planters. Right now we have no living plants and I feel the void.

Home projects

Our home needs a new roof in the next year or so, so we are hoping to get that done over the summer. We would also like to do some painting around the house.

Strength training

I started using free weights this year and I really love it. One of my birthday treats this year was the MSS guide from Madeline Moves ( find it here ). I needed something to give me structure as well as more ideas. In 2019 I want to devote a little more time and energy to this practice.

Build cozy fires

Our home is heated primarily by a wood burning stove, and while I can keep a fire going, I am less skilled at getting one started. This time next year I’m hoping I can boast of my fire building skills.

What are your top five plans for the new year?