Product Review: Hodgson Mill Whole Wheat Lasagna Noodles (with Recipe)

My husband's birthday was on Tuesday, and his request for a birthday dinner was for lasagna. We had spied the whole wheat lasagna noodles in the grocery store a few weeks ago, and this was a good excuse to try them out. :)

Found in the pasta aisle of Publix.

Unfortunately, because this is a different type of pasta, you end up paying a little more for it. At Publix, the Hodgson Mill whole wheat lasagna noodles are about $2.50 a box, with 8 oz in one box. The noodles are also slightly smaller than regular pasta noodles, so I went ahead & bought two boxes. I ended up using all of one box and only two noodles out of the second box. (Still have enough left over to make a smaller lasagna later!)

One of the things I like about these noodles is that it comes with a "quick" recipe on the side of the box, that allows you to place the noodles in the dish without cooking them first, and provided that the noodles are completely covered in sauce, they will cook as the dish bakes. It only adds about 15 minutes to your baking time, but the time and trouble saved in cooking the noodles first was worth it, in my opinion.

I basically took the concept behind the recipe on the box, but added my own touch to it. First, I lined the bottom of the dish (glass Pyrex) with sauce.

I used Bertolli's Marinara sauce, which has a great red wine flavor.

Lay down some noodles on the bottom of the pan, and cover these in a little bit of sauce, too. I went ahead & just mixed the whole jar of sauce in with my cooked meat, after coating the bottom of the dish. I used ground turkey, but any ground meat can be used.

Now it is time to start adding in the tasty layers. I put down a layer of the meat mixture, followed by the dairy stuff: sour cream, ricotta cheese, cottage cheese, and a six-cheese blend of shredded cheese.

My assembly line.

Once your sauce, meat and cheese has been added, place some more noodles on top. I ended up using three layers of noodles (bottom, middle, and top) to make this lasagna. When I got to the top, I added some extra sauce (opened another jar of the marinara) to be sure the top noodles were covered enough to cook.

Into the oven it goes - it was pretty heavy!

Bake the lasagna for about 45 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees. You may need to use a little more or less time, depending on your oven, but basically you'll want to bake the lasagna until the cheese on top is starting to brown.

Let it stand for about 15 minutes after removing.

And there you have it! A relatively quick, easy-to-make lasagna ready for a birthday dinner. :)

I recommend serving something green with it....

After refrigerating overnight, the lasagna became "solid" enough that it was easier to cut & remove slices from the dish; I ended up freezing about half of the lasagna for later use.

All in all, I really enjoyed the lasagna, the noodles were great - I couldn't tell any difference between these noodles and "normal" lasagna noodles, other than perhaps I felt fuller more quickly. Despite their being about twice the price of noodles made with enriched flour, I felt that the value of having lasagna again (!!) was well worth it, especially since I was able to make a lot all at once & freeze portions so the lasagna will last a good while.

I would like to note that I am not claiming this is a very "healthy" lasagna, however, I would like to point out that there are certain options that can make it a better choice. First of all, make sure your ingredients are good. Of course, the noodles being whole grain makes that part a no-brainer. The simpler the ingredients, the better; I actually spent a good bit of time comparing sour cream, ricotta cheese, and cottage cheese to be sure that I found the healthiest option on the shelf. Notice that the tubs don't make mention of being "light" or "fat-free" - I chose the original options rather than the low-fat or light options because of the additives in them. When you compare the nutrition facts on the label - particularly saturated fat and cholesterol - the lighter versions might be slightly lower but the number of additives in the ingredients list (and the types of additives, in some cases) tend to make me lean toward the "whole" version of the product. Similarly, don't feel pressured to choose store brand options for the sake of thriftiness; sometimes store brands have additives listed that you may want to avoid, like carrageenan, which was found in Publix's sour cream but not in the Daisy brand. Sometimes it's worth the extra calories or the extra fifty cents in order to avoid certain ingredients. :)

Restaurant Review: Chick-Fil-A

Last night, my husband and I had some errands to run, and our main stop was in the same parking lot as a Chick-Fil-A. Being that I had recently researched online - and didn't find anything on the main web site (that's changed now and ingredients are easy to find), but found an ingredients list elsewhere - and discovered that, while their breaded chicken had enriched flour in the breading (of course) and the wheat bun for the chargrilled sandwich also contained enriched flour, supposedly their chicken salad sandwich was on whole wheat bread.

Can it be true?

I ordered the chicken salad sandwich, then saw the little folded-up brochures containing nutrition information and ingredient lists, so I picked it up and read through it, only to discover that despite the appearance of whole wheat bread, their chicken salad sandwich was most certainly NOT on whole grain bread. It was a "multi-grain" bread, but unfortunately, these days, "multi-grain" means it might have two or three types of grains (or what I like to call "bird food" as it can sometimes have seeds or nuts, too) mixed into the enriched flour. It gives the illusion of being healthy, while it is not actually.

The damage already being done - that is to say, the order placed, the payment made and the food already arrived - I decided to just go ahead & eat my mistake. Unfortunately, the Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwich also contains a higher amount of high fructose corn syrup than I would like - it's in the mayonnaise and pickle relish in the salad, and it's in the bread itself. High fructose corn syrup, coupled with the enriched flour - both things that my body is not used to any more - really did a number on my poor stomach last night.

It honestly saddens me that Chick-Fil-A claims to have "nutritious choices" while most of their menu items are anything but. Not only is there no option for those of us wanting to avoid enriched flour - excepting the cost-prohibitive salads, who wants to pay so much for a salad when you can get a combo meal for about the same price? - but then you also have to deal with other additives to the salads. Croutons are easy to pick out, but the sunflower kernels they have include high fructose corn syrup.

Another down side to Chick-Fil-A's food is that most of their chicken contains another questionable ingredient: MSG. It's in the seasoning. (Ingredients in Chick-Fil-A seasoning: Salt, monosodium glutamate, sugar, spices, and paprika. Sounds like a winning combination?)

All in all, I'm afraid to say that I will just not be eating at Chick-Fil-A very much any more. If I do, perhaps I'll get a chargrilled sandwich, minus the bun, and put it on a side salad. Or something. It pains me that something so simple as "whole wheat bread" isn't even available on something that has the image of being whole wheat.

Something Fishy Going On

I never used to like fish when I was growing up. I grew up in the heart of the big city in Michigan, and we didn't really get fresh fish. My mom made it for dinner a few times - fish of the frozen variety, unfortunately - and it just wasn't very good. Whatever the type of fish she made was, it always just tasted "fishy" and so I never came to appreciate the variety in flavors between types of fish.

When I moved with my husband to Florida, he encouraged me to try some fish. The only fish I really liked the flavor of, based on my experiences, was tuna; tuna doesn't really taste "fishy" to me; it has its own distinct flavor. So at a seafood restaurant, instead of ordering a burger or chicken fingers (which is what I used to do as a kid) I ordered the tuna steak. Wow, that didn't taste like any tuna I'd ever had!

Since then, I've tried all manner of fish and seafood. I'm still not terribly big on eating clams or oysters (not even fried!) nor do I care much for shrimp - although with shrimp it's not the flavor, but the bad things it does to my stomach. I am a sucker for lobster, though; I only ever eat it on special occasions since it tends to be so pricey.

Here in northeast Florida, though, we get a lot of fresh fish. There's a large variety of seafood restaurants that serve the local catches, in addition to "the usual" tuna, salmon or catfish. One of my favorite new things to do, though, is to get fresh fish from our farmer's market; the lady that sells fresh and frozen fish has fantastic prices ($10 gets you two good-sized tuna steaks, or fresh mahi mahi) and the fish is full of flavor.

A few weeks ago I got some tuna steaks, and discovered just how easy it is to broil fish!

Seasoned with salt & pepper, and coated in olive oil. Delicious!

I was pleasantly surprised at how easy and how quick it was to make the fish. It took all of ten minutes to broil the steaks (five minutes on each side, five hundred degrees in the broiler) and it was juicy, well-cooked, and soooo good.

Last week, I got some of the fresh mahi mahi from the market. I got three fair-sized pieces; two were a little on the small side, and perfect for lunch.

Mahi mahi, brown rice, and broccoli.

Since there was still a large piece of fish left, I decided I would use it in a pasta dish (oh how I love that pasta...) with a lemon cream sauce. I diced up some tomatoes, cooked some whole grain penne pasta, cut up the large piece of mahi mahi, combined it with the lemon cream sauce, and topped it with Parmesan cheese, to get this delicious dish:

What a great use for leftover fish!

Since I had no heavy cream on hand for the sauce recipe, and we don't keep cow's milk in our fridge, I made my own "cream" by combining 2/3 cup of vanilla almond milk with 5 tablespoons of butter. It actually worked really well for this recipe. One thing I also liked about the lemon cream sauce on top of this dish was the fact that the acidity of the tomato really brought out the lemon flavor in the sauce; it was a perfect combination!

Fish can be a very healthy option when added to a diet; it's supposed to be able to help prevent (or at least lower the risk of) heart disease, but it also helps to increase metabolism. Coupled with a dark vegetable of some sort, you get a really good boost to the metabolism - part of the reason why sushi is a good, healthy choice as well.

Just be mindful, if consuming fish on a regular basis, of the mercury content - and other potential toxins - in the type of fish. For example, tuna tends to have a higher mercury level; shark and swordfish are considered to be so high that they should be eaten only very rarely. The types and amounts of toxins (as well as nutrients) in a fish will vary depending on where the fish is caught (or if it is farmed) and what it tends to eat. It is generally stated, though, that the health benefits of eating fish on a regular basis still outweigh the risks.

Restaurant Review: Chipotle; More Weekend Thoughts

First off, I want to start tonight's blog entry with a restaurant review!

Last Thursday, my husband and I drove to Jacksonville to support a friend at her college class gallery opening. Since Jacksonville has all sorts of stores and restaurants we don't have near us, we like to make a trip of it and run as many errands as possible. So before heading on to the gallery, we decided to get dinner at Chipotle.

For those of you that are not familiar with it, Chipotle is to burritos what Subway is to sandwiches, only Chipotle's ingredients tend to be fresher. You pretty much go down the counter, requesting different items on your burrito or tacos, and they assemble it for you. Chipotle has a great selection of vegetarian items, even to the point of claiming that their cheese and sour cream are made in such a way that it is acceptable for a vegetarian to eat.

I've resigned myself to the fact that, at many restaurants, I may have to disassemble my food in order to skip the enriched flour. At Steak & Shake a few weeks ago, for example, I ate my burger - including lettuce & tomato - without the bun. This doesn't bother me, as the bread pretty much tends to be filler anyway. But one of the great things about Chipotle is, they offer another choice (not just burritos or tacos): The burrito bowl.

You can get more veggies this way!

The burrito bowl is the same price as ordering a burrito, and the worker at the Chipotle we went to was happy to add extra lettuce to my bowl. All this, for about six dollars!

Friday, I had an opportunity to meet some old coworkers of mine, from the company I worked with before starting my own business. It was good to catch up with the girls, but their choice of a restaurant for lunch wasn't very good considering my dietary changes: Cici's Pizza. I did eat a lot of salad at Cici's, and only indulged in two small slices of pizza. I suppose my weekend started early, oops.

Then, on Saturday, my husband and I spent the better part of the day walking around downtown Saint Augustine, exploring the Castillo de San Marcos (it was free admission, thanks to National Park Week!) and then walking to our favorite weekend spot, Borrillo's pizza, about half a mile away. I had my "usual" single slice (fills the plate!) of pizza, but I found that within a short time (just an hour or so) I was feeling low on energy again! Since I don't seem to lose energy during the week, I think it's safe to say that the spike in energy (and then sudden drop) was due to consuming the enriched flour in the pizza crust. It seems that I don't get this spike-and-then-drop when I avoid enriched flour (ie, eating the burger without the bun) but I also don't get the drop if I consume whole grain flour instead of enriched, either.

Of course, having less whole grains in your diet for a day leads to, ah, other problems too. One would think this would be easily remedied by eating something with more fiber later on in the day (I love Kellogg's FiberPlus bars, great flavor!) but it seems that something in the enriched flour just stops me up, and no amount of extra fiber later in the day gets me back on track.

I'm starting to get to a good point in my diet modification, one where I am able to not rely on a cheat day for a sampling of enriched flour. After four weeks, I no longer crave enriched flour as I once did, so taking a nibble here or there will not be a problem for me. Having "cheat" days on the weekends gave me something to look forward to in the event that I was having horrible cravings - this was how I overcame my soda addiction - and now I can go for weeks without drinking a soda, then have one on a weekday (instead of a previously-assigned weekend cheat day) and be back to "normal" the next day without a problem. I can definitely see myself skipping out on enriched flour choices on the weekends, because my body is just unhappy with the energy it receives from this less-than-nourishing food.

More On Whole Grain Pastas

I got lucky, and caught Mueller's whole grain spaghetti on BOGO at our local Publix this week. I also had a coupon, even more incentive. ;)

We'd made some spaghetti on Tuesday night for dinner, and had two more servings left over in the fridge. Yesterday morning was my weekly trip to our local farmer's market (where I get all of my fruits & veggies!) and so I picked up some fresh basil, and made some pesto to go with the pasta for our lunch yesterday.

Needless to say, it turned out pretty tasty!

The pesto was actually quite simple to make; you will need a food processor or hand chopper (we have a hand mixer with a chopper attachment). The recipe is as follows:
2 Cups fresh basil
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
Salt & Pepper to taste
Pulse basil in the food processor. Add each additional ingredient, pulsing after adding.

I personally used only salt in my pesto, because I'm not a huge fan of pepper. The olive oil I used was of an "extra light" variety, as this type of olive oil is very good in dressings & such.

I put some fresh chopped tomatoes on the spaghetti, topped it with the pesto, and then sprinkled a little mozzarella cheese on top.

One thing I've come to really enjoy about whole grain pasta is that it really fills you up and keeps you going. My husband and I ate our lunch at noon; we weren't hungry again until about 8:30 that night.

It seems that each time I go back to the grocery store and really look for things, I find more variety that I'm "allowed" to eat. This time, meandering the grocery store with my husband, we found whole durum wheat flour lasagna noodles; and while they were pretty expensive compared to the basic enriched flour variety (I believe one box of the whole grain was about $4, so about twice the price of "plain" pasta) my experience with how filling whole grain pasta is makes me think that the cost is easily worth it.

My husband is starting to regret my decision to nix enriched flour, though; as we passed the freezer section of the grocery store, the Tombstone pizzas were on sale, and he lamented the fact that we were not going to be buying any. While Tombstone pizzas are quick & easy when kept on hand, the fact that they are in my freezer means I will EAT them. (This is the same reason why I rarely buy ice cream! If it's there... it will be eaten.) I'm hoping in the long run, though, that these dietary changes will help him become healthier too.

On a final note, on Tuesday we also watched Food, Inc. which is a documentary on food and its origins within the United States. It's really an eye-opening story about where our food comes from, and the conditions it is grown in. I highly recommend it -- especially if you haven't been shopping at your local farmer's market. You'll probably start!

Comparison: Whole Grain Pastas

Last September, in an effort to lose some weight and at a suggestion from my doctor, I decided I was going to attempt the "Atkins" diet, in which one starts off at no more than 20 carbs (not including fiber) per day, and then gradually adds "healthy" carbs back in. I didn't want to try this diet change approach, but my grandpa on my mother's side (from whom I have inherited my body type) had relatively good success with the Atkins approach so I figured I would give it a try.

Within a couple of days, I found myself having terrible cravings for all manner of items I wasn't "allowed" to have. In addition to this, I was very irritable and moody, lethargic, and had sprouted a horrible headache. It was plain to me that the Atkins approach might not have been the best idea for me to attempt; even more so since I had just started my costume business and Halloween was approaching, so it was a very busy time for me.

I basically quit the Atkins diet after a little less than a week; I needed my ability to focus and I needed my energy. I didn't have time to wait out the lethargy (which, I've been told, gets better as your body adjusts) because I had so much work to do, and only a month or so in which to do it. I learned a lot from my researching, though, and I vowed to attempt a "backwards-Atkins" style diet change. I would start removing simple carbs from my diet - using brown rice instead of white, for example, or only buying healthy cereals, not the sugary stuff - and that's kind of what's led me to the eradication of enriched flour from my diet today.

One of the items I really lamented "losing" in my Atkins attempt was pasta. Pasta is one of my staples at home; if I don't feel like making anything complex for dinner, I will make some spaghetti, or mac-n-cheese, or cook some chicken breasts, cut up some tomatoes, bake it with some rotini, and some cheese on top. I serve my stews and soups over pasta to make it more filling. Pasta is such a versatile food, so I didn't want to cut it out of my diet when I ditched the enriched flour.

About a year or so ago, my husband and I had tried Ronzoni's "Healthy Harvest" spaghetti, and weren't exactly fans. We figured some time would be needed for pasta manufacturers to get it right and release some of the good stuff. In all honesty, the Healthy Harvest had too much of a gritty texture, and too much of a "brown" flavor, that was not able to be covered up by pasta sauce.

Good For You, but Not Tasty.

I'm sure that this pasta would have been usable in certain culinary situations, but I just never came up with one, and so we didn't even finish the box, we just got rid of it. It sat around in our pantry not being used, because we just didn't care for the flavor. Come to find out, upon inspecting the ingredients list, this pasta has flax seed meal added to its ingredients, which likely gave it the unfavorable flavor. Keeping the ingredients simpler is better, when it comes to pasta; the added fiber and omega 3's are probably nice, but if I'm looking for that I'll get it in my cereal in the morning, thanks.

I was hesitant, then, to try any whole grain pastas after choosing to eliminate enriched flour from my diet. As my diet was starting the day after returning from a trip to Atlanta - the location of our nearest Trader Joe's, unfortunately - I checked their pastas and found both spaghetti and rotini whose only ingredient was "Organic Whole Durum Wheat Flour." Perfect!! This pasta - both spaghetti and rotini - was actually quite delicious, and lasted a lot longer than pastas normally do, because of the whole grains being so filling in comparison.

Great, so now I've found a pasta I love, and one that fits my requirements, but it's a six-hour drive to get the stuff. Now what do I do?

I inspected the shelves of Publix, my local grocery store, and found there are actually a few whole grain options for pastas available. One of them was Mueller's pasta, a brand I know I already liked, and their ingredients list read the same as Trader Joe's: nothing but whole durum wheat flour. Fantastic!

This one was pretty tasty!

Actually, the flavor of this pasta is pretty darn close to the taste of "regular" pasta made with enriched flour. The only difference in this, as well as the Trader Joe's pasta, is that the texture is ever-so-slightly "grittier" than usual, but this is very easily ignored, especially if the pasta is cooked properly.

Okay, so I've solved the problem of the pastas that I love so much.... all except one. What to do about Mac-n-Cheese?

Annie's Homegrown to the rescue!

Our grocery store also carries "Annie's Homegrown" organic foods, among which are several pasta varieties. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any of the whole grain pastas at Publix, but I did find the White Cheddar shells at my local Target. We gave it a try last night, and it wasn't too bad! You make it a little differently from the Kraft stuff (mix the cheese sauce separate from the pasta, and then you pour it in) but it wasn't too bad, and the price was pretty reasonable too. Again, the flavor was just fine as the whole grain flour was the only ingredient used in the pasta, and by now, after having converted to whole grain pastas, I don't even notice the slightly rougher texture of the flour used.

One benefit to eating whole grain pastas instead of the usual stuff made with enriched flour is that you are getting a good bit more fiber in your diet. The manufacturers don't have to add fiber or other ingredients to bring up the fiber content; you get a good bit of that directly from the whole wheat.

Weekend Observation

I've been doing really good at this "only whole grains" thing - and I will start off with some exciting news: In the past three weeks, I've managed to lose approximately 5 pounds.

I say "approximately" because my weight can fluctuate a LOT from day to day, so checking my weight is not a good indicator of actual weight lost. However, my scale has now been hovering right around 216 pounds - which is ten pounds lighter than when I started my attempt to lose weight at the beginning of this year, and five pounds lighter than my weigh-in three weeks ago before cutting out enriched flour.

I think that this is pretty solid evidence that getting rid of enriched flour was a good idea for me.

I may have mentioned already that one of the things I noticed is that, when substituting whole grains where normally there was enriched flour, the increased fiber seems to also increase metabolism. So it really came as no surprise to find that my body just was not functioning in the "new" normal way, after having had no whole grains, and increased sugar, for a period of about 30 hours or so.

It all started Friday afternoon with a trip to Taco Bell with my husband for lunch. I like Taco Bell with my new diet change; I can still eat quite a bit of what's on the menu by simply removing the covering. So I ordered two crunchy tacos - one of them supreme for some tomatoes & sour cream - and proceeded to take the filling out (passed the shells to my husband, so don't worry, they didn't go to waste) and make a messy little taco salad. :) I drank water with my meal, but my husband had a giant cup of Mountain Dew, which he proceeded to refill and bring home with him. He left it behind as he left for work, and of course I just had to drink it. And, of course, I was up rather late Friday night.

Saturday morning was the usual: cereal for breakfast, and then preparing for a picnic with friends in the afternoon. Before we left the house, I had a granola bar, then we got to the picnic relatively late in the day, around 2pm. I actually did pretty good at the picnic itself; the only enriched flour I had was a spoonful of pasta, and a few different sweet things later in the afternoon. I ate my burger without the bun, and had some excellent fresh cole slaw, potato salad, etc. Most of what I filled up on was not flour-based at all. I did, however, drink another Mountain Dew. Despite having a fair bit of water throughout the day, it's never a good idea for my body to have Mountain Dew two days in a row, as it completely counteracts any metabolism I've managed to put into place. Didn't eat anything for dinner, as we had been nibbling on things at the picnic later in the evening, too.

This morning, for my second "cheat meal" for the weekend was a bacon-egg-cheese bagel from McDonald's for breakfast. I haven't had one of these in months, so it was a nice little treat. This afternoon, however, I was really feeling the effects of so much sugar and so little grain/complex carb over the weekend; I started to get sluggish shortly after noon, and by 4:30 pm we still hadn't eaten any lunch, but I also didn't feel like moving at all. I eventually got up to go scare up some food, but my brain and my motor skills just were not functioning the way they normally do. I ate a banana, for a quick spike of some kind of carbs, and my husband and I heated up (home made) chicken soup for an early dinner.

The feeling I got this afternoon was similar to the feeling that made me quit attempting the "Atkins" low-carb diet. It was as if my brain simply hadn't had enough fuel. It wasn't a matter of not having ANY carbs over the weekend - I did have plenty of sugar, but I also had vegetables, potato (in the form of potato salad and potato chips at the picnic yesterday, and hash browns this morning) and simple carbs in the form of breads and pastas, but I didn't have complex carbohydrates at all since the granola bar I had before leaving for the picnic yesterday. It's interesting to see how my body handled a lack of these complex carbohydrates.

I think more than anything, my "cheat days" are important to me because they continue to teach me exactly how enriched flour is processed by my body, and the consequences that arise due to consuming it. The more I learn about how my body is adapting to these dietary changes, the better; I find it interesting, too, that in the span of just three weeks, my body has latched on to the nutrition in whole grains & complex carbohydrates, and is now, after a fashion, demanding them.

I apologize if this entry seems to be a little dis-jointed or not concise/clear; like I mentioned, I've definitely felt a difference in how my brain has been functioning, and I fear it will take a little bit of time before it gets back to 'normal.' (Whatever that may be!)