Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The Grill

We just bought our first "grown-up grill" and I'm not sure how we survived without it. 

You can literally grill anything!

**All of your meat sources you can cook on the grill, just make sure you marinade in a sauce that you made, or is free of sugar and other fillers.

**Grilled veggies:  Get some kebab skewers, and layer chopped veggies (and maybe a pineapple) on the skewer, and go to town.  You can also slice sweet potatoes and grill them as well! 

As it is currently summertime, I highly reccomend grilling just about every dinner you have.  It is so easy on a sunday to grill your chicken, beef, and pork all in one shot, and that will have you prepared with meals all week. 

Lunch

To be totally honest, lunch is the hardest meal for me.  Maybe it's because I don't have a microwave, or I'm just lazy, but I struggle to eat a fulfilling lunch most days.

Here are some ideas we use to get us through lunch:

**Eat your leftovers from dinner!  Food is usually better the second day, but it takes a bit of planning ahead to get your dinner from last night into a container.  When you are putting away dinner at the end of the night, divide up the leftovers into separate containers, and put into the fridge.  That will allow you to just grab one and go the next morning.


**Bell Pepper Sandwiches.  Cut a bell pepper in half (rinse it, as well).  Inside of the pepper put a layer of avocado, a layer of spinach, and top with some high quality deli meat.

**Turkey Wraps:  On a slice of deli turkey spread, avocado, and baked sweet potato.  Roll like a fruit roll-up, and enjoy.

**Salad:  The possibilities are endless, just make sure you have protein and veggies, and you are set!

African Stew

At our holiday party, Patty brought the most delicious soup!  She told me it was called vegan, African stew.  As I throughly enjoy the consumption of animal protein, I decided to put a different spin on it!  We will usually have this for dinner one night, and then will take it for lunch until we run out.

Ingredients:


  • 2 tablespoons coconut oil
  • 1 tablespoon curry powder
  • 2 medium onions
  • 2 carrots
  • 4 celery ribs
  • 2 teaspoons garlic, minced
  • 2 lbs large sweet potatoes (about 2 large ones)
  • At least 4 cups Chicken broth
  • 1 (28 ounce) can whole tomatoes
  • 1 teaspoon salt, divided
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
  • 1/2 cup almond butter
  • 3 tablespoons almonds roasted
  • 1 Can  coconut milk
  •  4 Chicken Breasts (chopped into bitesize pieces)


  • Heat 2 tablespoons of coconut oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add curry powder and cook, stirring constantly for 1 minute. Add onions, carrots and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Stir in sweet potatoes, chicken, chicken broth and tomatoes, and bring soup to a boil. Simmer, covered, 20 to 30 minutes.


    Season with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, almonds, cayenne, almond butter, and coconut milk to the soup, stirring to combine. Bring mixture to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes.


    This recipe was modified from : http://www.food.com/recipe/vegan-african-sweet-potato-stew-298084#ixzz1wwSl1wL6

    Hard-boiled Eggs...in the OVEN?

    I saw a link the other day that was talking about hard boiling eggs in the oven.  I am a VERY lazy cooker, and like things as simple as possible, so I decided to check it out. 

    Once I saw how easy it was, I turned my oven on immediately.  Having hard boiled eggs around is a necessity as they are a fast, healthy, portable, protein.

    Here is the recipe I followed:

    Position the oven racks in the center of the oven.

    Place the eggs on the racks.

    Place a baking sheet pan in the bottom of the oven (just in case an egg breaks).

    Set the oven to 325F, and bake for 30 minutes.

    When the eggs are done, fill a large bowl with ice water and move the eggs into the bowl.

    Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/hard-cooked-eggs-in-the-oven-baked-eggs-61856#ixzz1wwRKUmG9

    I did a dozen eggs, and we ate them all week!

    Breakfast Part II

    I still think that breakfast is the best meal of the day.  I have a couple of new favorite breakfasts that have taken me away from the simple "omelet."

    A few easy ideas:

    *Scrambled eggs with half a sweet potato.  I mix it all together when the eggs are done cooking, and throw on half on avocado.  It is easy, and delicious.

    *Over Easy eggs with whatever meat you ate the night before, and a side of roasted veggies from the night before.

    *My favorite lately has been: Scrambled eggs, with spinach, roasted veggies, salsa, avocado. 


    Get creative with your breakfast, and make sure to eat within an hour of waking up!

    Stuffed Peppers

    I had a bunch of leftover peppers the other day and decided to try and make meatloaf stuffed peppers. 

    I used my recipe for meatloaf http://glenwoodspringscf.blogspot.com/2011/04/ma-meatloaf.html
    but instead of forming a "loaf" I used peppers.

    I used 6 peppers, and halved them.

    On a cookie sheet, or baking dish arrange your pepper shells.  Fill the shells with your meatloaf mix.  On the top of each pepper meatloaf spoon on some tomato sauce, and season with pepper, and onion.  I baked them for an hour and 20-30 minutes.

    They are good hot or cold, and are super portable.  We usually take them for lunch.  I think that red peppers make the best shell, but Thad seems to not care what color he eats!

    Tuesday, October 25, 2011

    Smoothies!

    I love smoothies!  Once you get rid of all the crap most people put into smoothies, they can actually be nutritious!

    Ingredients:
    Coconut Water
    1 Banana
    Any fruit of your choosing!

    We usually use frozen pineapple, peaches, strawberries, and some blueberries, but the options are endless.  If you don't have coconut water, you can use applesauce to give it the consistency of a smoothie.