Linguine Pasta in Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

When you are looking for a fuss-free, stress-free dinner recipe that will put your appetite at ease after a long and tiring day at work, more often than not, a simple Pasta creation comes to your rescue. The versatility of Pasta makes it easy to create interesting variations, both in texture, taste and presentation, without enrolling in any culinary schools! Like this bowl of linguine tossed in roasted red pepper sauce, drenched in olive oil, parsley, and topped with cherry tomatoes and Parmesan cheese. Serve it with some french bread or salad and you can sit back, enjoy the food and relax in some engaging conversation with your family, just how Dinner is meant to be!

Ingredients
Photo & recipe courtesy of Fine Cooking

1 medium clove garlic
12-oz. jar roasted red peppers, drained and cut into 1/4-inch pieces (about 1 cup)
1 cup small grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
4-1/2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbs. black olives, rinsed and chopped
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup coarse fresh breadcrumbs, preferably whole wheat
12 oz. dried linguine or spaghetti
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese + more for serving

Method
Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil over high heat.

Meanwhile, coarsely chop the garlic. Sprinkle it with 1/2 tsp. salt and using the flat side of a chef's knife mash it to a paste.

In a large bowl, stir the garlic paste, roasted peppers, tomatoes, parsley, 3 Tbs. of the oil, the olives, and the pepper flakes.

Heat the remaining 1-1/2 Tbs. oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Add the breadcrumbs and toast, stirring frequently, until the smaller crumbs are golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a plate and sprinkle with salt.

Cook the linguine in the boiling water according to package directions until al dente. Reserve about 1/4 cup of the pasta water and drain the pasta in a colander. Add the hot pasta to the red pepper mixture, toss to combine, and add just enough of the reserved pasta water to moisten the pasta dish. Add the cheese, toss well, and season to taste with salt.

Finally, add the breadcrumbs and additional cheese, if you like. Serve the Linguine with some Homemade Garlic Bread for a lovely and filling meal.


When you have more time on hand, you can add some chopped and pre-cooked vegetables to the sauce, like carrots, peas, chickpeas, maybe some broccoli and/or avocado. Non-vegetarians can take it one step higher by adding chicken or sauteed shrimp, if you like. Be creative and add ingredients that will enhance the flavor as well as the nutrition aspect of the recipe!

Related Recipes
Cheese Ravioli in Tomato Cream Sauce
Spinach and Onion Cheese Souffle
Pasta with Cilantro Pesto Sauce

Inspiration of the Day - 1/7/11

We are what we eat...

From birth, food has been the reason why we are able to grow and function.  Without food we cannot survive.  It's a basic fact of life.  What we ingest and digest becomes apart of us...assimilated into our systems.  So that being said, how important is eating the right things, especially when you are trying to live a healthy and fit lifestyle?  I'd say very important. 

Eating healthy is about 80% of the puzzle when it comes to piecing your fitness goals.  You can exercise and train as much and as hard as you want, but without the proper diet and nutrition you are wasting your efforts.  Not even including what we eat directly effects how we perform.  You should be eating every 2 1/2 to 3 hours everyday.  That comes out to 5-6 meal a day, portioned out to meet your daily caloric intake needs.  And on top of that they need to be the right foods.  For instance:  chicken, fish, lean red meat, spinach, broccoli, onions, garlic, apples, bananas and other fruits and vegetables...not including dietary supplements to help give you your fitness edge.  

So remember these two things...to:  1) Eat the right foods and 2) Eat often... and 80% of your goal is accomplished.  

Bon Appetit!  

-LK 

Inspiration of the Day - 1/6/2011

 Stop and smell the roses...

A lot of times we may hear that saying or read it somewhere, but quickly we dismiss it, and it's in one ear and out the other without much thought.  Well...stop and think about this saying for a moment.  Who knows who came up with it.  It remains anonymous after all these years.  But it's meaning, I think, has always been something people have missed for centuries.  

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.... People think pleasing God is all God care about.  But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.  ~Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982

And after reading this line from the movie "The Color Purple", I think it pretty much sums up the meaning of the saying, "Stop and smell the roses".  God put so much beauty in this world for us to enjoy.  We pass by so many wonders and marvels everyday without second thought.  And a rose doesn't have to be a rose...it can be the architecture of a building downtown, the sun shining through the clouds midday, a sunset...every sunset is different...there are no two alike, the taste of a ripe peach or apple and their vibrant colors, your life's accomplishments and everything you have achieved.  I recommend that you take time to take in the beauty around you that you live in everyday.  It's the simple things that count.

Health is not just a physical thing, but also a thing of the mind and of the spirit.  Take care of all three.

-LK 

Inspiration of the Day - 1/5/11

This is the first post of the year and I wanted  to keep it short, simple and to the point.  So many times we make things more complicated then they should be.  Life in general, goals that we set, plans to go places or do things...  We make things difficult on ourselves by over thinking or making excuses about who, what, why, when or where something didn't get done.

Want to reach the top? One of the greatest secrets in the world: If you want to be considered great at something, do a little more than what is asked of you, because most everyone else is content to just get by... You have what you need, and you know how you need to apply yourself to make it happen.  --Anon

So lets get it done in 2011.

 -LK

Is Your Free Will Holding You Back?

  Over the holiday's, I began reading a book called, Never Let Go by Dan John.  By all accounts, Dan John is a legendary and well respected strength coach for high school, college, and Olympic athletes.  In addition to that, he is also a stellar author.  Never Let Go is a fantastic book that gives Dan's personal philosophy on lifting, living and learning in a very easy, matter-of-fact way that I think anyone can connect with.  In the first chapter, Dan explains why your free will may be holding you back from your fitness goals as well as personal goals.  I thought I'd share these thoughts with you, as well as adding some of my own.

  If you're like me and went through catholic schooling for the majority of your life, then you without a doubt understand the concept of "free will."  However, Dan does not turn this topic into a religious discussion.  He mentions that one of the things people talked about during his days doing work with prison ministry is how buff the inmates are. And what is (hopefully) the main difference between you and a prison inmate?  Free will.

  That's right, free will.  And for me, this is what I took away from that statement:

          What do I do when I have no other choice?

  It's easy to put things off when you know you DON'T HAVE to do them.  But it's amazing to see the motivation I have when I'm up against the wall and have no other choice.  How many rags to riches stories have you heard that you think to yourself, "Man, how on earth did that person start something from absolutely nothing?"  My simple opinion, because they had to.  If they wanted to change their situations, they had no other choice . 

  But how can you relate this to workin' out and eating right? 

  My question to you is, "How long will you wait until you have no other choice but to start taking your health seriously?"  Does your free will run out when you are diagnosed with diabetes?  Or does it run out when your blood pressure is 160 over 90 (if you don't know if that's bad or not, your free will has run out)?  Or does it only run out when you can't see your feet anymore?

  Here's a thought.  Why wait until there is no other choice?  Let's take responsibility now while we're still reasonably healthy  and never let ourselves get to the point where we lose our free will.  And while we're at it, let's have some fun and spend some time doing something for ourselves for a change.  Man, that's some free will I can get with......

Happy New Year!

    First off, I'd like to wish everyone a very happy New Year.  For many people, the start of a new year is a time to have a fresh start, set new goals, and reflect on the events of the past year.  Here at Plexus Fitness in downtown Wilmington, DE, we are using the start of 2011 in a similar fashion.  We are very excited about the growth of our club over the past year and we anxious to give more to all of our customer's and clients in 2011.

   With that being said, we have added some additional resources that will enable us to provide you with fitness tips, nutritional information, and thought provoking and motivational pieces that YOU requested through your responses in our questionnaires and from what you have told us directly.  We will be making weekly updates to our Facebook page and YouTube channel, tweets from our new Twitter page and weekly additions to this new blog! 
  
   These new additions will keep US directly connected with YOU!  So please add us as a friend, become a follower, and tweet us as we head into the new year!  We hope grow in serving Delaware by helping those who want to commit to a healthy lifestyle.

Triage - Healthcare App for Smartphones!

These days, everyone carries a smartphone with them, irrespective of age and sex. Some carry it just to impress friends, while most of the others actually use it as a mini device. If you are a firm believer of technology, you would know that by introducing Apps in the mobile world, Apple has indeed transported all of us to a new age - as they say, there is an APP for everything, so how can you miss on one of the most important Apps in your life. Managing your health has never been easier, thanks to iTriage, the latest health-care app available on all smartphones, including iPhone and Android devices.

iTriage is a medical reference application for Smartphones, that was created by Healthagen. iTriage is currently available on the iPhone and iPod Touch, Android, and Palm app. The application lets you search and browse hundreds of symptoms, diseases, and procedures and provides useful descriptions of the conditions, treatments, and medical tests, the app also offers support links to your insurer’s advice line.

In addition, iTriage can use the iPhone’s GPS to help you find nearby pharmacies, hospitals, and other treatment centers. In some states it gives ER wait times so you can choose which one to go to!

Managing Healthcare with your Fingertips
iTriage—the first healthcare information software product introduced by Healthagen, LLC is the brainchild of two emergency room physicians. After seeing a growing need for patients to have more actionable healthcare information in their hands, Dr. Peter Hudson and Dr.Wayne Guerra introduced iTriage to give healthcare consumers crucial information in acute care settings. The key information highlights include:

* Information on more than 300 symptoms, 1000 diseases and 350 medical procedure
* A nationwide directory of hospitals, urgent cares, retail clinics, pharmacies and physicians
* Turn-by-turn facility directions from GPS, IP address or zip code locations
* Nurse advice lines
* Detailed quality reports from HealthGrades on hospitals and physicians
* Help negotiating medical bills through an iTriage partnership with one of the most respected claims adjudication organizations
* Emergency Room Wait Times for hospitals in select parts of the country

And these are just a few. Pretty neat, huh! But the best part it is a FREE APP. This leaves no reason for you not to have this app on your phone. If you don't believe me, or would like to test it for yourself, go ahead and search for iTraiage from your Smartphone's app store, download it for free, and start monitoring your health in the best possible way.

Note: This post is sponsored by the Mom Bloggers Club member program.