What's for Dinner? 1-25-12

 New Year's Soup is what's for Dinner. I adapted this from Terry Walter's book "Clean Start".

Here's What you'll need:

1 Medium Onion
4 Cloves of Garlic
1 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 Carrots
2 Parsnips
1 bunch collard greens (i had a really big bunch so I used only half of it)
3 cups cooked black-eyed peas
2 tbsp fresh oregano
4 cups chicken broth
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Salt and Pepper to taste

 Chop up your onion, carrots, and parsnips. Then put the onions in some EVOO and saute; I did mine in the same sauce pan that I would put the soup in.

 After a few minutes, put your garlic through the garlic press and saute it all together for a few minutes. Add the carrots and celery; continue cooking until all veggies are a bit soft.

 While those are softening up, chop up your collard greens and add them to the pot. Continue cooking until the greens wilt. Then add your broth, oregano, and black-eyed peas.

Bring it back to a boil; turn it down and simmer for 20-25 minutes. Add the apple cider vinegar and season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and serve.


EDIT:
Someone facebooked me this morning to let me know that instead of "add the apple cider vinegar..." I had typed "ass". Oops. I thought it was a great typo, so I just had to tell you all about it.

The verdict? Brad liked it; I wasn't in love. The parsnips were not my favorite. If I make it again, I think I will leave out the parsnips and do potatoes instead.

What's For Dinner? 1-11-12

Here is another variation on my Lasagna recipe. I made a vegetarian Lasagna that we really liked, but I must not have put it up on the blog. That recipe is on Jen Loves Kev's blog. So I guess this recipe below is a combination of lots of different recipes, but it is on the healthier side. What you'll need:

9 Whole Wheat Lasagna Noodles
1.5 jars Marnara Sauce
1.5 cups diced and peeled Butternut Squash
.5 lb ground turkey
1 15 oz carton fat free ricotta cheese
1 egg
3 cups (ish. Honestly I just eye balled it) Baby spinach
Fat free shredded Mozzarella cheese
garlic
Oregano
Salt Pepper



This lasagna was for Brad because it contained meat. Normally he happily (or at least with out complaining) eats whatever vegetarian meal I put in front of him. We're not vegetarians, but for our health (and wallet!) I tend to not cook a lot of meat. 

Anyway, start by browning the ground turkey and boiling the noodles.  Cook the noodles until they're just about done, but still a little crunchy. While those are cooking put your squash in the microwave. Cook it until it can be mashed up; mash it up. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Add some marinara sauce to the mashed up squash. I like to call this "squash sauce". Strictly speaking, the squash isn't totally necessary, but it is a great way to ramp up the nutritional value without compromising taste. 

Then mix up your ricotta. Add the egg, some oregano, salt and pepper and mix it all up. By now your ground turkey and noodles should be done; drain your noodles.

Spread some marinara sauce in the bottom of a 9 by 9 baking pan. Add three noodles; I trim them to fit. Spread some of the ricotta on the noodles. 

In a pan, combine some olive oil and one clove of garlic with the baby spinach. Cook until wilted (about three minutes). Add the wilted spinach on top of the ricotta. Spread some Squash sauce on the spinach. Put three more lasagna noodles on top of the spinach. Then some ricotta. Then the rest of the squash sauce. Then your ground Turkey. Then some plain marinara. 

I ran out of Lasagna noodles, so I used some rotini on top of the ground turkey and topped it off with some plain Marinara. Bake in the oven, un covered, for about a half hour. Take it out and sprinkle with desired amount of mozzarella cheese. Continue baking until cheese is melted and sauce is bubble (about 15 more minutes).

What's for Thanksgiving? 11/17/11

GOOD NEWS! I got a turkey breast! yay! Well, actually, I ordered it. I will pick it up on Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. I ordered it from a Butcher who sells all natural turkey. So that is going to be awesome. Except I've never cooked a fresh turkey breast. I'm assuming it won't be much different than cooking a thawed frozen one.

On to the recipe for today. Liz's Famous Broccoli (i've been cooking it this way since long before it went up on pinterest).

Not my picture. Came from pinterest. :)

What you'll need:
-Fresh broccoli florets (I will probably use two bunches for Turkey Day. chop them off the bunches. Wash and allow ample time to dry before cooking)
-Half of a lemon
-Olive Oil
-3 cloves of Garlic, chopped
-Salt
-Pepper

Preheat oven to 400 (or if you're like me, just put it in the oven with whatever else you're cooking and adjust cooking time. Lower the temp the longer the cooking time!).  In a large bowl with a lit, place the broccoli, 3-4 tbsp olive oil (or less if it will cover the broccoli), garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. Put lid on top and shake it all up. Place on foil-lined cookie sheet (it helps crisp the broccoli up) and put in oven until the broccoli is crispy and just starting to brown (about 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees). Remove from oven and place in serving dish, squeeze the juice of 1/2 of a lemon over and mix to distribute throughout the dish. Serve hot.

What's for Thanksgiving?

Like many Foodies out there, over the course of this week I am going to share with you some of the recipes I will be using for my Thanksgiving Feast this year. I've found some cleaned up recipes to make so they still fit in with how we eat (mostly. But it's the holidays, we can break the plan. :) )

The recipes I share are mostly just going to be sides because, well, I figure everyone has the way they do their turkey. If it's not broken, don't fix it! That said, I'm on a quest to find a Turkey breast that will be suitable for Brad and I to consume. We don't like dark meat, plus a whole Turkey seems like a lot of food for two people! I'm having a very hard time finding a turkey breast that isn't injected with saline and other crap. I will succeed, though. But I might have to break down and buy a very small turkey and just find someone to take the dark meat off of our hands.

Anyway, so today I am going to tell you (because I don't have any pictures of my own) how I am going to do our potatoes this year. I call them: Not Your Momma's Mashed Potatoes. I adapted them from Terry Walter's Clean Start cook book. I adjusted the proportions a little because in my test run they weren't quite to our liking. Potatoes have gotten a bad rep recently, but they're really not bad for you. They are a starch, but unless you kill them with tons of fat or naughty add-ons (bacon), they're actually a good thing to consume!

Full Disclosure: Not my photo. :)

Not Your Momma's Mashed Potatoes:

-2 medium baking potatoes
- 1 large parsnip (or 2 medium ones or 3 extremely small ones. :) )
-Olive Oil
-skim milk

Peel and cut up the potatoes and parsnip into small pieces. Place in a pot and bring to a boil. Turn down and simmer until the potatoes and parsnips are mashable. Drain the water off and put the potatoes and parsnips into a bowl (or kitchen aid mixer bowl so you don't have to had mash them). Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tbsp  skim milk. Mash up! If you don't like the consistency, add milk a little bit at a time until desired consistency is achieved.Trust me on the tablespoon at a time thing, I have consumed lots of runny mashed potatoes because I am impatient and didn't measure! SO RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO JUST DUMP THE MILK IN!

This is for two people, and we'll have a little left over. I just really don't like left over potatoes because they get all weird, but if you want more or are feeding more people, simply maintain the ratio of potatoes to parsnips. The parsnips have a sweet taste to them, and last time I made them I used two parsnips (but they were gigantic) and was not happy with how they tasted. Ideally, you shouldn't really be able to tell that the parsnip is in there, but it will still up the nutritional value of mashed potatoes. We don't eat gravy, so that's not a worry for us... but if you must do the gravy thing, please do it sparingly!

And because I had no idea what a parsnip looked like prior to my googling, here is what you're looking for in the grocery store:

not my photo either. :) But don't they look like giant white carrots?

What's for Breakfast? 11/1/11

Look at that date. 11/1/11. Two things: 1.) How is it already November?! 2.) That's a lot of 1's. Just wait until the 11th!

I thought I would do a feature on what I normally eat for breakfast: Oatmeal! This oatmeal, however, has a special fall twist that I just can't get enough of lately: PUMPKIN! I love pumpkin. Normally at this time in the fall, I gorge myself on sweet pumpkin bread, pumpkin roll, and many other sweet pumpkin treats. Those treats, however, are not part of the Clean Eating plan, but I have found ways to incorporate pumpkin anyway. I must confess, that while I have cut a lot of processed sugars, I have not cut all sugar. Instead of using white sugar, I've been either using organic sugar, raw sugar, or honey in it's place. So I am still enjoying a cleaned up pumpkin bread. ;)


Onto how to make this. I need simplicity in the morning. I'm in a hurry and have a pretty rigid routine. I eat Oatmeal and scrambled egg whites for breakfast, so to make it quick I microwave both. That's why the oatmeal looks a little sloppy... I just microwaved it until it was done.

What you'll need:
1/2 cup old fashioned oats (less processed than those packets of oatmeal. Plus, it just tastes better. Once you go old fashioned, you'll never go back to instant. Blech).
1 scant cup of water (to make up for the fact that pumpkin has a lot of moisture in it. Plus I like my oatmeal a little drier)
2 spoonfuls of Organic Pumpkin Puree (or one giant spoonful. Eyeball it. Also, NOT pumpkin pie filling. I used Trader Joe's brand and it was delicious. If you don't get organic, look for brands that have just pumpkin and maybe some water in it. No added sugars!)
2 tbsp ground flax seed
Pumpkin pie spice to taste

Combine all the ingredients into the bowl. Mix. Microwave for 2-3 minutes, or until done.
Eat with your egg whites and you're good to go!

What's for Dinner? Thai Inspired Stir Fry!

Another eat clean recipe! This was adapted from Tosca's book, but I changed it up enough to call it my own rendition. Here's what you'll need:

-Cooked Brown Rice (I think I have about a cup and a half there)
-Chopped onion (I used too much onion in this one according to my husband. I would say probably a half cup or less of chopped onion)
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-3 small to medium chiles
-Cooked chicken cubes (I used four tenderloins)
-Soy sauce
-Fish sauce
-Basil

The great thing about stir frys, is that you can basically put whatever you want in them. Want some more greens in this? Throw in some broccoli or peas. Be creative!

 Put some olive oil in a stir fry pan and saute the onions, garlic, and chiles until onions are a bit translucent.

 Add your chicken and stir it around a bit for a couple minutes.

 Add 1 tbsp fish sauce, 2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce, basil, and rice. Stir fry for a couple minutes so it's all mixed up and heated through. The basil is however much your heart desires (but probably at least 2 tsp).

Serve and enjoy! :)

What's for Dinner? 5/2/11

Freezer Spaghetti is what is for dinner! I didn't want any of you to be disillusioned about my cooking habits. Sometimes I just don't feel like cooking dinner. Yesterday night was one of those nights. So I made freezer spaghetti. I can hear you asking right now, "what on earth is freezer spaghetti?" Well... it's spaghetti made almost entirely from my freezer.

This is some already cooked ground turkey that I used last week. I only used half of what I had, so I froze the rest for future use. I'm glad I did!

 This is some frozen spaghetti sauce that I had saved from when I made some tortellini. Again, I had extra so I froze it. I did have to add a little bit from another jar I had on hand, but that's ok.

And lastly the pasta that always hangs out in my cupboard. What can I say? we're pasta people around here. So basically all I did for dinner was defrost the meat and the sauce, toss it together, and boil some pasta. Minimal effort. Viola!

I also got some new kitchen gadgets this weekend!

A new oven thermometer because my old one (a really cheap one) broke. It cracked and then ceased to work. Since my oven burns horrifically unevenly and about 50 degrees hotter than the set temperature, I need an operating one on hand. So I spent a little more money on this one.

I also got...

a box grater! The grater I had was rusting. And I had to make some zucchini bread for a BBQ I was going to. I figured rust isn't that great for you. It's one thing to ingest it myself; its another to let strangers and children ingest it. So I just bought a new (more functional) grater. It's Food Network; one of my favorite kitchen brands out there.

What's for Dinner? 4/25/11

 Ok, so I don't actually recommend eating just bread for dinner, but it's good to eat none the less. As some of you may know, I don't actually buy bread anymore. I make it myself; but I have a bread maker, so it's not so difficult. Here's what I normally do to make it. It's heavily adapted from the pastor's wife of the church I grew up in. She makes wonderful bread, so here are my little tweaks. Enjoy:

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
4 tbsp milk
4tbsp oil
4 tbsp sugar
1 and 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast
1 cup white flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp vital wheat gluten

  It's important that you put in the ingredients in the bread pan in the order the manufacturer suggests. Mine says to put the liquids in first, so that's what I do. Start with some warm water.

 Add the 4 table spoons  milk.

 And the 4 table spoons oil.

 And the 4 tablespoons sugar (noticing a pattern here?)

 Now for the yeast. Add 1 and 1/2 teaspoons to the pan. It's important that you keep the salt and the yeast from touching each other in this process. So I always put the yeast in as the first dry ingredient and then put the salt in as the last ingredient.

 The yeast will start to spread out and look like it's melting. That's good; it's how it works correctly. But this is why it's important to use warm water to make sure the yeast rises properly.

 You can use any combination of whole wheat and all purpose flour. Use one cup all purpose to keep the bread light enough to make sandwiches out of. If I use all whole wheat, it's extremely dense bread and not so good for using it for sandwiches and such.

 If you notice, I don't use full cups of the whole wheat. Whole Wheat flour sucks up the moisture. Honestly, this is kind of a guessing game as to how much you should reduce. A good rule of thumb is to reduce by a quarter cup, but sometimes the dough is too dry anyway. If it is too dry add a couple tablespoons of water during while the machine is kneading the dough. Sometimes I have to add flour because the dough is too wet. A lot of it depends on how dry or humid it is outside.

 Now add your 1 teaspoon of salt.

 and lastly, the vital wheat gluten. Bake it on the whole wheat setting if you are using more than 50% whole wheat flour. My particular machine kneads and bakes it for 3:40 minutes.

Finished!! :)

What's for Dinner? 4/18/11

Sorry there was no style file this week... My Grandparents came to visit me, and I spent most of friday at Colonial Williamsburg with them, so I didn't get a chance to do a shoot. Oh well, I'll make it up  next week! :) '

Lasagna is what's for dinner. I promise it's very yummy! Here is a "healthier" version that I make.

What you'll need:

Whole Wheat lasagna noodles
Extra lean ground beef, or ground turkey
1 egg
Italian type spices that strike your fancy
Fat Free Ricotta Cheese
Reduced fat Mozzarella Cheese
Spaghetti Sauce

First the prep work:
Boil the lasagna noodles according to package instructions. I think I cooked ten noodles. Also, brown the beef (or turkey). While you have all that going, crack the egg in a small bowl and add the ricotta. Mix it all together.

 In the ricotta mixture, add your spices. I used thyme, onion powder, garlic, parsley, and black pepper. The key is to keep adding and mixing until you can smell it.

 This is the sauce I used. I wasn't sure if I was going to need one or two jars, so I got two, just in case. I only ended up using one. In the bottom of a casserole dish (mine is 9 by 9) pour some sauce in. Use just enough to cover the bottom.

 On top of that, lay three of the noodles in the bottom of them.

 Spread some of the ricotta mixture on top of the noodles.

 Put half of the meat on the ricotta and top with some sauce.

 Top the sauce with cheese. Reapeat these layers as you see fit. (I think on top of the cheese I did noodles, ricotta, meat, sauce, noodles, ricotta, sauce, top with cheese)

Mine was a total of three complete layers, I believe. I topped it with mozzarella cheese and covered it with foil and baked it the next day for dinner. To bake it, I keep it covered and bake it for about two hours on 375.

Enjoy!

What's for Dinner? 4/11/11

 Tortellini with Fresh Veggies are what's for dinner. I adapted the recipe from Eat Better America. What you'll need:
Tortellini (This time I used Trader Joe's spinach tortellini, but you could use cheese tortellini too)
1 Tomato
1 Zucchini
Bell pepper (about a half cup)
1 tbsp olive oil
Spices of the Italian Variety (I used garlic, onion powder, thyme, basil, and oregano. And a bit of Kosher salt too)

First, you need to cook the tortellini according to package directions.

While the Tortellini are cooking, chop up the tomato and the Zucchini.

 When the tortellini are done, drain the pasta. In the pan you cooked the tortellini in, put 1 tbsp of olive oil. I put the peppers in first because mine were frozen. I let them cook a bit until they were thawed for a bit. \

 Then add the zucchini and tomatoes. If your peppers are fresh, just throw it all in together at the same time.

 Spice up your veggies to your taste. Then mix it all up.

 Cover veggies and cook until the veggies are tender.

 As they cook it'll get a bit soupy. That's ok.

 Rinse the tortellini to get them to separate and put them in a slightly bigger pan. Pour the veggies (complete with the liquid) over the tortellini and mix them all together.

Top with some cheese and serve with poor man's garlic toast (which is literally some bread that is toasted spread with butter that has some garlic and a slight bit of salt added in too). I put some mozzarella cheese on the top of mine. Enjoy!!