Recipe for Greek Chicken with Tzatziki-Win a Trip to Greece!

I hope that photo makes your mouth water...mine is and it is only 8 am here as I'm typing this!  Of course, if you are still stuffed from Thanksgiving and really can't think about food, just save this and check it out later! 


If you look up at the top of the page, you'll see the statement about what my blog is all about:  "Celebrating the delights of good healthy food and special treats! Sharing recipes, information and experiences."  That pretty much sums up my and Mr. ELEB's philosophy on good living and living a healthy life.  Everything in moderation.  Most of the time we eat healthy.  He runs, I bike.  We moved to Maui so we could enjoy the outdoors every day of the year.


And, part of good living is enjoying a splurge now and then...like this weekend that we enjoyed at the Kapalua Food and Wine Festival or this chocolate torte.  But most of the time, we try to stick to the healthier side of life.


Today's recipe fits in the "good healthy food" category and, always a bonus, it tastes fantastic!  

Recipe for Pesto Yogurt Sauce

Here's an easy and versatile recipe.  I use it as a dip, a sauce, or a dressing.  I usually make it with my homemade pesto but store bought works well too.

Ingredients:

1 ½ TBSP pesto

½ cup plain non-fat Greek yogurt

1 TBSP fresh lime or lemon juice

Salt (optional)

Method:

Mix all ingredients together and taste for salt, add if needed (depends on pesto).  Refrigerate.

What do you make with pesto?  Stay tuned, tomorrow I'm making a veggie salad using this as the dressing.

Printable Recipe

Recipe for Spice-Crusted Salmon with Ginger-Cilantro Yogurt Sauce

Do you need to get back on a healthy meal plan after Thanksgiving?  This is the recipe to help you get started.  I had a beautiful piece of salmon for our fish night and had marked this recipe from Bon Appétit.  It’s a great work night recipe or any other night when you want to get dinner on the table in 30 minutes.  I’ve made only a very few changes from the original.

2 servings, each approximately 325 calories, 14 grams fat, 3.5 grams carbs, 45 grams protein

Recipe for Cucumber Raita Sauce

This is a super easy recipe: Cucumber Raita Sauce.  Excellent as a cooling accompaniment to spicy Indian or other food.  Great dip for various tidbits.  Most recently, I served this alongside veggie fritters (recipe to follow soon!)

Recipe for Sweet Potato Frips and Pesto Dipping Sauce

What’s a frip you ask?  Sorta between a fry and a chip.  Sweet potatoes slices are great done in the oven, but often they steam more than brown and although they taste good, they don’t give that satisfying crispy fry or chip sensation.

I’ve found rubbing each piece of sweet potato with oil and spreading them out with lots of room on baking trays helps.  Cooking them until they are browning but not burned around the edges, gives you a crunch as you bite into them.  No, they aren’t like real fries or chips but pretty good none-the-less.  

Tasty Tenderloin of Pork with Naan and Tangy Sauce

Recently, I made a version of Alton Brown’s Pork Wellington, a fairly easy and very tasty meal.  Our normal way to eat pork tenderloin however, is grilled with various marinades and/or rubs.  This is the first time I’ve actually written the recipe down, I usually wing it!  You can marinade for an hour or all day.  For a new twist, I served the pork on grilled store bought naan with a tangy sauce (I’m looking for a recipe to make naan at home). 

I hope you’ll try this!  I’ll be sharing more marinades and grilling ideas with you soon.  Would love to hear your favorites for the grill.

Simple Goodness in a Glass

Most of my friends, like me, try to eat healthy at least most of the time so when I have guests for dinner, I often turn to fruit to end the meal.  We can almost always get local strawberries so I definitely gravitate to those.  Beautiful clamshells full of fat, juicy blueberries get my attention at the warehouse store.  This week, my local grocery store had a great special on raspberries, and they weren’t already moldy and mushy so I grabbed them!  (Don’t you hate it when your berries go south as soon as you get them home?)

Here is a super simple, very versatile dessert.  Approximately 95 calories, 23 grams carbs, .7 grams fat, 4 grams protein as depicted

Ingredients:

1 cup of raspberries, (or any berry or berry mixture)

2 TBSP non-fat, plain Greek yogurt

Drizzle of Agave nectar (or natural honey)

Sprinkle of cinnamon

Find a pretty glass or bowl and add the fruit.  Top with yogurt, Agave and cinnamon. 

A sprig of mint from the garden would have made a nice garnish!

You could also layer the ingredients and top with ice cream instead of yogurt.  Some crunchy granola would also go well, in layers or sprinkled on top.  A drizzle of melted dark chocolate would be very nice!  See, I told you-simple and versatile.  Enjoy!  Please tell me about any simple, healthy desserts you share with guests.

Blueberry Almond Shake

Aloha!  A real challenge for me on the South Beach diet is to get in enough fruit and dairy servings.  To address this I've been whipping up some yummy shakes almost every day using various fruits and dairy products, a common tactic many South Beachers use.

My "go to" shake is with banana, almond butter, yogurt, and soy milk (and a squeeze of sugar-free chocolate syrup on occasion!).  Another favorite is strawberries, cinnamon, soy milk and ice.  A friend on the South Beach message boards uses frozen peaches in her shakes.

Today, I made a shake, chock full of antioxidant powerhouse blueberries,