Spotlight: Vegetables, or, Oh how I love CostCo!

Yes, we did have a fecal done on Chyna (which came back negative). We are isolating Maya tonight to make sure she isn’t the culprit – if she is then in she goes as well. We are fortunate to have a great vet, who is pretty thorough. Thanks for asking! All in all, the dogs do seem to be settling in. Chyna is going to be the alpha I’m pretty sure – she likes to “herd” Maya by nipping at her back. :-O Maya is still a puppy and a total love hound spaz. She thinks everyone should let her sit in their lap.

But back to what I wanted to write about. Last week I relied heavily on protein shakes. It helped get my portions back down so it was helpful, but my vegetable and fruit intake was a bit low. I have swung to the other end of the pendulum this week. Behold, the menu for the week:

B: protein shake (scoop protein, ½ cup orange juice), oatmeal with blueberries
S: ½ cup Fiber 1, ½ cup cottage cheese hummus (recipe to follow) with a bell pepper to dip, a kiwi
L: veggie burger on sprouted grain bread, spinach salad with homemade lowfat dressing
S: grilled chicken and grapes (to be replaced with kiwi when the grapes run out)

I have a big tub of organic baby spinach, a bag of butter lettuce, and 2 pounds of fresh asparagus. I bought a big bag of 6 lovely bell peppers in yellow, orange, and red, a bag of lemons, and a container of blueberries for me & the boy. Mine are going in my oatmeal. I think CostCo has the very best produce of any “grocery.” The farmer’s market is good for a lot of stuff, but C has some items that I just can’t get at the farmer’s market. Corn on the cob is starting to look good as well. My family loves it. I can hardly wait for tomatoes – I have a baked tomato recipe that is yummy. Hurray for veggies! Hurray for a place that has yummy ones at reasonable process!

I got this idea from a recipe I saw. While I wasn’t terribly impressed by the actual recipe, I was intrigued by the idea of adding cottage cheese to hummus. A nice way to boost the protein so that hummus & veggies can be a stand alone snack, but will it taste like cottage cheese? Nope! You can do this with any hummus recipe. And I have recipes for curried hummus, Italian hummus, pepper hummus…. You get the idea.

Cottage cheese hummus that I made this week

¾ cup cottage cheese
1 can garbanzos, well rinsed
Juice of 1 lemon
A spoonful of minced garlic
A dash of salt
1 bell pepper
1 jalepeno
1 roasted pepper
Black pepper
Cumin to taste

Put it all in the food processor until smooth. You can mix everything else up then slowly add the cottage cheese if you are concerned that it will overwhelm your recipe.

Or:

Using your favorite hummus recipe, add about ½ - ¾ cup cottage cheese per can of garbanzos. You may need to boost the seasonings to keep it flavorful.