A Sparktacular Lunch!

Some of my favorite cooking occurs when I don't have a recipe, but I just take what is on hand and hope for inspiration. Today, I had some zucchini, summer squash, and red bell peppers that I wanted to use.



I also decided to use some garlic, onion, turmeric, black mustard seed, oregano, feta and a little onion.



Many ingredients I just measure by eye, but as a result of tracking my food on SparkPeople, there are some calorie dense foods - such as olive oil - that I measure precisely. Here I am starting out with exactly 1 teaspoon of oil for the entire dish.



I sauteed a couple cloves of garlic in the oil and then added a tablespoon of whole black mustard seeds (not shown), half a diced onion, and some turmeric and oregano.



Once I had heated the garlic, onion and the spices, I decided to add a handful of mushrooms (cut into quarters) because I found them among the other veggies. As I said: no recipe.



Then I added a couple diced zucchini, a couple diced summer squash, two red bell peppers diced and a couple tablespoons of water to prevent sticking. I sauteed the whole thing until my wife called from the other room, "Wow, something smells good."



I found some assorted Sicilian-style olives in the fridge and decided to throw them in because why not? I let it cook for another minute just to heat the olives a little bit.



I placed each portion on a plate and just before serving, I crumbled feta on top. The serving in the picture is one cup of the veggies, 1 ounce of feta and the whole thing - according to my SparkPeople nutrition calculator - is only 177 calories. That's a good thing because I liked it well enough that I went back for seconds. In fact we had it again for dinner along with some quinoa.

That's two days in a row that I tracked every bite and brought it in within my calorie range.

Bon appetit!