Quick Solutions to Healthy Meal Dilemmas

My spinach pasta dish with onions, carrots, tomatoes, celery

Sometimes you’re really on a roll with healthy living and you come across some issues.

Here are three dilemmas that recently could have stood in the way of a healthy meal, but I conquered with creativity!

1. You’re at  your favorite grocery store, but you have several other errands to run, maybe even a meeting and you won’t be home for several hours. You forgot your cooler, it’s a warm day, so it’s not a good idea to buy something fresh. What do you do?

Seaweed is the answer! Go right to the Asian section and buy packaged nori, which is filled with plenty of nutrients and very tasty. Try to get “dried” instead of “toasted” because it has more nutrients. Seaweed, alone, makes a great salad. Yum!

Also whenever the greens at the grocery store look a little limp or shabby, I’ll go straight for the packaged seaweed.

2. You ran out of your favorite salad dressing or vinegar.

For an amazing salad dressing that doesn’t require vinegar, take an avocado and blend with a banana. It will be a guacamole consistency and it’s fantastic on greens or sprouts! It’s sweet and filling. You may even want to add a clove of garlic to give it a little kick. I’ve been doing this for years.

3. It’s Friday night. Or any night that you don’t feel like cooking and you don’t feel like running to the store.

We always keep a box of pasta in the house. There are healthier versions of pasta  like spinach or rice pasta; or Dreamfields (a “right-carb” pasta). Stir-fry some vegetables, throw in with the pasta — and you have a quick, easy meal.

Bon appetite!