Chicken with Gingered Brown Rice

I made this chicken with gingered brown rice for dinner last night. While my husband didn't like it as much as the tomato soup from Monday, he thought it was pretty good. I REALLY enjoyed the rice. It was my first time using crystallized ginger and I thought it added a nice flavor. Be aware that this is a sweeter meal due to the orange marmalade and ginger. I got this recipe from the Betty Crocker Whole Grains cookbook. I would make it again, but perhaps just cut the chicken into smaller pieces.

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked long-grain brown rice
2 1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons orange juice (I used a little more than that)
1 small onion, finely choppen (1/4 cup)
3 tablespoons finely chopped crystallized ginger
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
3/4 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
3 tablespoons orange marmalade (use a low-sugar version)
1 tablespoon canola oil (I used olive oil)

1. Cook brown rice in water as directed on package

2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 8-inch square (2 quart) glass baking dish with cooking spray. In 2-quart saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon orange juice to boiling over medium heat. Cook onion in orange juice 1 to 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until crisp-tender. Stil in cooked rice, ginger, parsley, thyme and remaining 1 tablespoon orange juice.

3. Spoon rice mixture into baking dish. Place chicken breasts on rice mixture. In small bowl, mix marmalade and oil; brush over chicken.

4. Cover baking dish with foil; bake 25 minutes. Remove cover; bake 10 to 15 minutes longer or until juice of chicken is clear when center of thickest part is cut (170 degrees).

Question: In which recipes do you use ginger? I have some left over now and don't want to waste it if possible. Leave a comment if you have any ideas!

PS- I'm posting this recipe on the Kitchen Stewardship blog as a part of her October Fest Carnival of Super Foods. Check it out!

Fresh Tomato Soup

Last night when I asked Ryan if he had any requests for dinner this week, he said he wanted grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Normally, we use Campbell's tomato soup made with milk instead of water. I admit, I do really like that version of the soup. However, I wanted to try making a tomato soup on my own. I found this recipe for Fresh Tomato Soup in the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book.

Ryan rated this soup at a 7-8 out of 10...his only complaint was that it wasn't exactly like the Campbell's. I LOVED it! I'd definitely make this again. I did alter the recipe a bit, which I will indicate in red.

Fresh Tomato Soup

Ingredients:
3 medium tomatoes, peeled and quartered (I used 5 tomatoes)
1 1/2 cups water (I used Swanson low-sodium organic chicken broth)
1/2 cup chopped onion (1 medium)
1/2 cup chopped celery (1 stalk)
1/2 of a 6-ounce can tomato paste
2 tablespoons snipped fresh cilantro
2 teaspoons instant chicken bouillon granules (Swanson broth)
1 teaspoon sugar
few dashes bottled hot pepper sauce

1. In a large saucepan combine tomato, broth, onion, celery, tomato paste, cilantro, sugar and hot pepper sauce. Bring to boiling, reduce heat. Simmer, covered, about 20 minutes or until celery and onion are tender. Remove from heat; cool for 10 minutes.

2. Place half of tomato mixture in a blender or food processor (I used the Magic Bullet). Cover and blend or process until smooth. Repeat wiht the remaining mixture. Return all to the saucepan; heat through. If desired, garnish with additional cilantro.

Experience Life Magazine: Skimming the Truth

I know, I haven't blogged in a REALLY long time. Sorry! And this post is a little different from what I usually write. I just read this really interesting article in Experience Life magazine (which is put out by Lifetime Fitness). It's about dairy products and they refute the common assumption that skim milk and low or non-fat dairy is better for you. I had not heard this before, so let me know what you think!

Experience Life Magazine: Skimming the Truth

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About Me

Welcome to Mom Living Healthy. I'm Greta. For several years, I've been very interested in all things related to health and nutrition. I loved my college nutrition class, and I've always been fitness-minded. Being a mom has only increased my passion for living a healthy life. I may not be perfect (I do LOVE chocolate and ice cream!), but I enjoy learning ways to live a healthy life and to make healthy living fun and easy for my family. The Mom Living Healthy blog is something I've been wanting to create for quite some time. My goal is to create a space for people who are interested in healthy living and parenthood to share ideas and things we have learned with each other. I will write about topics including nutrition, recipes, fitness, recreation and time management. I am by no means a nutrition expert, so any information I share is from my own personal research. You should certainly do your own research when it comes to making healthy decisions for your own family. I love to learn, so if you have any suggestions or facts about these topics, please feel free to share. Here are a few fun facts about me. I have been married for 4 years and have an 18-month old son. I have a Bachelor's Degree and majored in German. I was in the Army National Guard for 8 years and went on two deployments, one to Bosnia and the other to Iraq. I worked as a medic in Iraq, treating American soldiers, Iraqi civilians and also enemy combatants. I love running (although I haven't been doing as much of it since my son was born) and the farthest I've run to date is 20 miles.

And the Favorite Toy Award Goes To...

For a 6 month old, Nolan sure does have a TON of toys! Most of the time, I have a hard time corralling them and keeping them organized. Some of his toys he won't look at for more than 10 seconds and others he just loves. His absolute favorite toy is the Very Hungry Caterpillar developmental toy.

This toy is guaranteed to keep his chubby little fingers busy during car trips, in restaurants, on long walks, when mom is busy making his banana cereal and just about every other occasion you can think of. It crinkles, has bright colors, has antennae and a green tail for chewing and has a squeaky strawberry. I heard from someone that a good work of art continues to move your focus from one area of the painting to the next, eliciting new thoughts and keeping the viewer interested. Although I bet you don't usually think of squeaky toys as art, this toy sure keeps Nolan interested with new things to look at and play with at every turn. Toy art! Plus, I love that this is the Eric Carle caterpillar. We've been reading this book to Nolan just about every day, and it's nice to have a connection from his book to his toy, even if he doesn't notice the connection himself.

My only complaint is that this toy is supposed to clip onto car seat handles by a plastic hook. Well, Nolan ripped that thing off in the first few days. So, maybe they could have sewn that hook on a little better. Nolan doesn't seem to mind though. He'd much rather hold his caterpillar buddy...how else is he supposed to chew and taste every inch it?!

More On Cloth Diapering

I love Joey-Bunz!

We were having leaking issues with some of our cloth diapers, and rather than ditch those diapers, I wanted to see if an additional insert would help. We were using just one microfiber insert in the diaper and Nolan would leak through after about an hour. I'm not sure if it's just because the insert's ability to absorb was limited or if Nolan is a really heavy wetter. Either way, we were getting a little frustrated about this. I did some research, again with the help of the Diaper Jungle forum, and heard all good things about the Joey-Bunz inserts. They are hemp/cotton jersey inserts made by Baby Kicks. After using the medium size Joey-Bunz now for about two weeks, the verdict is in. They are great! I still use the microfiber insert that came with the diaper, but layer it with the Joey-Bunz. We can now go at least three hours, some times longer, without any leaking. I also love that they are so trim. They add hardly any bulk to my diapers. Next I'd like to try layering two Joey-Bunz to see if this is even more effective.

Joey-Bunz Cloth Diaper Insert

Why I Love Cloth Diapering

We've been using cloth diapers on my son since he was about three weeks old, and so far we've had a great experience with them. We have about half of our diapers from Diapers by Deb. Her diapers are so cute and you can get them personalized in so many ways! Our other diapers are Bum Genius, which are great for overnight. We also use cloth wipes and a natural wipe solution. We love it! My son hasn't had any diaper rash since we started him on cloth. I like that his skin isn't coming into contact with harmful chemicals that do who knows what to him. I love that we throw away so little as a result of diapering. Finally, we will save so much money by using reusable diapers instead of disposables. This weekend I found this great article, entitled "3 Great Reasons to Choose Cloth Diapers," through Simple Mom's blog. This is just a great summary of the three main reasons to choose cloth diapers over disposables. I find it to be very convincing.

Of all the other families we know personally, only one other uses cloth diapers. I definitely feel like I'm in the minority in my circle of family and friends. I've had so many people ask me questions about cloth diapering...how it works, whether I have to dunk poopy diapers in the toilet, how expensive they are and so on. While I don't have a lot of fellow cloth diapering mom's to talk to in person, I do get to communicate with several other women who cloth diaper their children online though on the Diaper Jungle forum. Just the other morning, my husband pointed out that they were doing a big feature on cloth diapering in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, our local paper. To check out the article, click here. What a surprise to see this! Apparently cloth diapering is really getting popular.

Do you cloth diaper your children? Do you think that cloth diapering will continue to grow in popularity?