Great Grains!

I am not, in any way, what anybody would ever consider anything even close to a healthy eater. Got that?

I like to eat what I like to eat, and that includes a lot of stuff that you’re not suppose to enjoy like fried stuff, and junk food, and loads of melted cheese, and sweet stuff late at night, and … (etc. etc.). It’s not that I don’t like healthy food like fruit, and grilled skinless chicken breast, and salad, but if I had a choice between a bacon cheeseburger with french fries or a walnut chicken salad with a fat-free dressing, well.. let’s just say that I’d gladly leave the salad for you, my friend.

However, I would like to share with you one healthy choice meal which I have come to discover across the ocean from the USA… and it’s good!

I live  in Italy, the pasta capital of the world where pasta costs next to nothing and makes for a quick and easy “no-brainer” meal. Pasta is cheap and easy to make so spaghetti and ziti can often be found on the plates of hungry Italians. Since both my boyfriend and I work, we don’t always have a lot of time to prepare an elegant meal (which stinks, because cooking is one of my hobbies). Pasta was always an easy solution because you just open your fridge and mix whatever you find inside with it. Got some meat and tomatoes? Hearty ragu’ sauce! Veggies and ricotta cheese? A light and satisfying veggie sauce! Nothing but olive oil, hot pepper, and garlic? Simple, but still great! However, “they say” that eating carbs at night is not the best thing in the world, so I was looking for a less bad-carby option.

Then I discovered the wonders of the 5 cereali, as they are called in Italian. These consist of durum wheat, barley, spelt, oat, and rye. I know that eating something called “spelt” sounds horrifically boring, but it’s really good! They cost about the same as pasta, you can mix n’ match these 5 grains however you want, they come out perfectly “al dente”, and you just use them to substitute the pasta in any dish. It’s probably the only healthy thing that I’ve ever tried that I like just as much if not more than it’s less-healthy counterpart.

Plus, if you eat 5 cereali for dinner, you can feel better about going back for seconds of dessert!

Bon appetito!

My friends Barley and Spelt