Healthy Valentine Meal Ideas
Let's face it. For many of us, Valentine's Day isn't so much about love as chocolate.
Maybe love of chocolate. That's why making a special effort to plan a healthy meal on Valentine's Day is important – it will help balance out our indulgence – have a little fun but stay healthy and avoid the sugar blues. Especially the ones that come in the form of children bouncing off the ceiling.
A HEALTHY VALENTINE'S DAY MEAL ISN'T THAT HARD.
It is not too hard to sneak in a few healthy additions to the meal that your loved ones won’t mind at all. Whether it is a romantic dinner for two, family dinner, or a couples’ dinner party, employ some savvy to come up with a leaner meal.
Start off with a healthy snack that everyone can eat while dinner is baking. Instead of cookies and candies, put out a tray of veggies and fruit. The vegetables can be jazzed up with a vegetable cream cheese or Ranch dressing. For the fruit, use flavored fruit dip. Yogurt flavors like strawberry, peach, or blueberry work well also as a dip.
Get rid of the hot wings for appetizers and opt instead for chicken chunks breaded with Shake-n-Bake or regular breadcrumbs. This is a favourite for kids even if it's not Valentine's Day.
Serve them with hot pepper sauce or regular hot sauce and your metabolism will rev up from the heat. Of course if you are serving these to children, they may want something a little tamer.
CREATIVE CROUTONS
Toss a salad to go with dinner. Instead of store bought croutons on the top, use cubed pieces of wheat bread. Wash them with a little butter, olive oil or virgin coconut oil and pop them into the oven to bake. They still add crunch to the salad with less fat than regular croutons.
Even better would be to sprinkle the salad with shelled sunflower seeds to add crunch. Sometimes you can grind seeds and they will go relatively unnoticed, especially if you include them in the dressing. Pumpkin seeds (with no shells) are good for this. So are sesame seeds. You can play around to see what your family will tolerate – and even like!
SOUP IT UP
Soups are a great way to hide lots of vegetables for those who don’t take a shine to them. for Valentine’s Day, serve a simple soup like potato, vegetable, chicken noodle, or tomato. What soup you serve will depend on the meal. The point is that soup helps to fill you up without eating a lot of itl. If your soup is healthy enough, it can be the meal along with the salad and maybe a nice whole wheat bun.
GOING FOR THE MAIN COURSE
When creating a meal with health in mind, it's a good idea to stick with recipes that use lean cuts of beef, pork, or chicken. Seafood can also be used. Or you can go another step forward and go vegetarian.
Opt for lower fat ingredients in your recipes. If the main course recipe calls for heavy cream, substitute with half and half or light cream. Avoid using too much salt. If possible, substitute butter with virgin olive oil or virgin coconut oil – both are nutritious and a positive addition to our diets.
Fresh herbs are a fantastic way to add flavor to the meal. And don't forget the fresh veggies. Frozen are also good. I'm often amazed at how many more vegetables my family eats when I merely provide them. I eat more of them too!All in all, the trick is to fill those tummies with good stuff so the chocolate and candies don't look so inviting.
Don't forget that Valentine's Day is a good day to skip dessert and break out the chocolates.
Divine.
