The alternate title for this post was “the obnoxiously healthy dinner” because it’s fun to make fun of your food blogger alter-ego once in a while, though I hope I never come off as obnoxious!

For whatever reason, I get a little prickly about the term “healthy” when applying it to something I’m eating. If anything, I prefer to focus on how nutrient-dense or balanced or colorful a particular dish is—I think “healthy” is a word people can get hung up on really easily without considering the specifics of what it means. To further simplify, saying, “Look how healthy this is” makes me feel like a dick.

Anyway, I try to spend one afternoon a week cooking and prepping a bunch of stuff for the rest of the week so putting meals together later is easier. Sometimes this works out well, sometimes not.

While I was out in NJ this past weekend, my mom sent me home with some leftover stuffed peppers, rice and beans with cabbage, and a few other things. When Chris got home from work Monday (he didn’t have off Columbus Day), he assembled plates of leftovers (rice & cabbage dish + half a pepper), spruced up with the veggies I’d made on my day off.

“This is, like, the healthiest dinner ever,” he said, laughing.

I do have to admit, it definitely got points for being packed with vegetables and legumes with some carbs thrown in to balance it out. I found it funny there were 3 types of cruciferous vegetables: cabbage, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower. A little leftover kabocha squash made its way onto the plate too. It may not have been the most gorgeous meal ever, but it was delicious and satisfying.

What do you think about the word “healthy?”