Last year I was asked to bring in a fun Valentine’s Day snack to my kids’ school Valentines’ Day parties. I wanted to do something fun but actually provide the kids what I’d consider a nutritious snack. Here’s what we came up with.
Tag Archives | healthy
Healthy, No-Sugar Beef and Broccoli
When my husband and I got married, we’d eat out about once a month. Now before you think we were well-off (because we were dead broke), let me explain what I mean by “eat out.” Once a month we’d make the 1/2 mile walk to the local Smith’s grocery store. Inside the Smith’s was a Chinese restaurant that charged $4.95 for a plate of food. So for less than $10, we had our date night. These days, knowing what I know, I doubt we’d hit up that particular restaurant, but I still remember it fondly. I always got the same thing: chicken chow mein, orange chicken and beef and broccoli. Today I was randomly craving that beef and broccoli. Side note: I didn’t have one craving when I was pregnant, but when I’m not pregnant, I crave random things all the time. The point is, I wanted to eat beef and broccoli and not feel horrible after. So I decided to come up with my own recipe. Here’s how it went down.
I started with a flank steak sliced super thin. Then I marinated this in a delicious, no-sugar, no-soy sauce for about 45 minutes (because that’s how long it took me to get my daughter, get home and start cooking).
Then I cooked my broccoli. This was simple as it was just avocado oil, broccoli, and pepper. How long you cook this is going to depend on your taste buds. I happen to like my broccoli very well cooked. I love when it has some black char on it. Cook it how you like it. How long you cook the broccoli won’t make any difference to whether or not the dish turns out.
Move the broccoli to a bowl and add the meat, marinade and all. This is another thing to cook to your liking. I like my meat rare, so I only cooked it for around 3 minutes or so. If you like it more done, cook it for around 5 minutes.
While the meat cooks, make the delicious sauce. The thickener in the sauce is arrowroot powder. It acts a lot like corn starch.
Add the broccoli back in and once it’s warm, toss the sauce. You’ll only have to cook it for a minute or so to finish the dish.
I ate this plain because I was starving and it smelled amazing, but this would also be delicious over rice.
Would Sugar by any Other Name Taste as Sweet? Or Be Healthy?
Sugar comes by so many different names. But which ones are healthy and which should you avoid?
15 Minute Smoky BBQ Stir Fry
My favorite lunch is a salad. Not a wussy salad with veggies only and dressing on the side. I’m talking a salad loaded with veggies but also avocado and a nice , filling protein. YUM! But this week in Denver, we got snow. Cold, wet snow. So when it came time for lunch yesterday, I wanted something warm that didn’t take a ton of time or dishes. I decided on a stir fry.
As I’ve mentioned before, I love a to make stir frys. It’s a great way to mix together a ton of leftovers and have a great, filling meal. Yesterday my leftover addition was ribs. The day before I made ribs by covering rib meat in Diane Sanfilippo’s Smoky Spice blend (click here for recipe), topping them with my N0-Sugar BBQ Sauce (click here for recipe) and cooked them in my slow cooker on low for 8 hours. They were AMAZING!
So for my stir fly, I stripped some meat off the bones, mixed it with some veggies, a little more smoky spice blend and some coconut aminos. It was so warm and delicous! Plus with all those veggies it was loaded with great nutrients. I’ve listed the veggies I used but feel free to customize this how you like. You really can’t mess it up!
10 Simple Recipes to Improve Your Health
We’re constantly told we need to eat healthy foods but do you wonder why. I don’t know about you, but I’m a person who is much more willing to do something if I know the reason behind it. Not only am I about to tell you why you should eat certain foods, but give you […]
Guilt-Free No-Coffee Pumpkin Spice Latte
I don’t drink coffee. But when fall hits, I become a Starbucks junkie. My favorite: White hot chocolate with pumpkin. It’s like a warm cup of fall in your mouth. But… it’s also a warm cup of processed sugar and artificial flavoring.
So today when it was cold and I wanted to swing by a Starbucks for my fix, I realized I didn’t need their bad ingredients. I could make a delicious, warm pumpkin drink that didn’t make me feel like I had made a horrible choice like wearing shoulder pads.
This is the perfect drink for a cold day. Plus you have some options to make it even more guilt-free.
This calls for canned coconut milk. Coconut milk is full of healthy fats and gives this a creamy texture. But if you want to cut the fat and calories (which fat really is good for you, but if you’re getting your fat elsewhere, this may be a good option), use unsweetened vanilla almond milk instead.
This also calls for maple syrup which not only makes it sweet but gives it a warmth that goes perfectly with the pumpkin and spices. If you want to cut out the sugar completely, use stevia. My favorite is English Toffee Sweet Drops (click here for link).
I’m not going to lie, the full-fat, maple-syrup sweetened version is better. You just can’t fake that amazing flavor. But the almond-milk, stevia-sweetened version is also delicious and worth drinking.
Plus, this is a great way to use extra pumpkin. It makes me so sad when I use half a can of pumpkin and go back to use the other half later only to find it has patches of mold. It’s downright heartbreaking.
Healthy Remake: Gluten-Free Pumpkin Soup with Apple Relish
A few weeks ago I was more stressed than usual. I decided the thing that would decrease my stress would be to organize my pantry. I know this doesn’t make a ton of sense, but you people like me (Type A and slightly OCD) understand how a well-organized pantry can lower stress.
In my organization, I stacked 13 cans of pumpkin puree. Thirteen!! That’s when I knew I had a problem. But since it is fall, I decided to put that pumpkin to good use and not just for pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin pancakes… I really want some pumpkin right now.
I immediately thought of this amazing pumpkin soup I had a few weeks ago. My friend had a pumpkin party (best idea ever, right?) and made this amazing pumpkin soup from Rachael Ray (click here for original recipe). But I was sad when I saw the recipe and realized it included flour and diary. The soup is actually pretty healthy in its original version but if you are like me and swell up in your joints and gut if you eat gluten or dairy, you’ll appreciate my dilemma.
I decided to make the soup but change the ingredients and adjust them to still get the same creamy consistency without the flour. I also wanted to up the protein with some chicken. I’m pleased to report I was very successful. My whole family loved this soup.
The best part is that it comes together in one pan. Start by sauteing the vegetables in the butter.
The bulk of this soup comes from three cans. How easy is that?! Just a can of chicken stock, a can of pumpkin and a can of coconut milk.
Then it gets some great flavor from the nutmeg and bay leaves.
After this simmers together, just add some cooked chicken pieces. We use thighs because we like them better than breasts, but any chicken will work great.
As far as the relish goes, I left it completely the same as the original recipe but replaced the Craisins with raisins. It’s close to impossible to find dried cranberries without added sugar, so I opted for the raisins. The flavor was still amazing. I also left out the chili as I knew that would not impress my 5-year-old.
Now I have 12 cans left of pumpkin in my pantry. Guess I’ll have to try one of these (click here for a link to some great pumpkin recipes).
The Easiest Meatballs You’ll Ever Make
You know what makes me crazy? (I promise it won’t be a long tirade this time) Meatballs. By the name we should be able to infer it’s just a delicious ball of meat. Sadly this is not the case. Next time you go to the store, check the back on a bag of meatballs. All meatballs are made with bread crumbs but often also have soy, sugar and even corn syrup. Why must we defile a beautiful ball of meat this way?
Because meatballs are an important part of life, I came up with my own recipe with, wait for it… MEAT! Aside with the meat and an egg to bind it together, the only other ingredients in these meatballs are Italian spices and seasonings to make said meat taste amazing. The best part is, these meatballs are SOOO easy to make. Way easier than a meatball full of strange ingredients.
At first I chopped my onion and garlic with a knife. I realized they weren’t chopped finely enough but decided I was way too lazy to try to chop them smaller. I threw them in my mini food processor and they were finely diced in about five seconds. That moment changed my life. I decided to never use a knife to chop onions again. I feel a freedom I haven’t felt since the day I graduated from college.
See that cute, little hand. That’s my 5-year-old daughter. She loves to help me cook.
The key to a tender, juicy meatball is to mix everything but the meat together first. I learned this tip on the Food Network. Thanks celebrity chefs. After I mixed the onion, garlic and seasonings together with a fork, I added in the meat.
Another key to a great meatball is to use your hands to mix it together once you add the meat. No it’s not your most glamorous moment, but you can’t mix everything properly with a spoon. You need to use your hands.
I like to bake my meatballs rather than fry them because it’s a lot less work. Once you bake them you have two options. At this point, you can stick them in a freezer bag and have delicious, Italian meatballs for another day. Or, you can simmer them in my sugar-free marinara sauce (click here for recipe).
When I make them for my family, they eat them over a whole grain pasta. I eat mine over a bed of spinach. I love the slight wilting the heat gives the spinach, which makes it warm but still slightly crunchy.
The Best Pumpkin Dish You’ll Make This Fall
Excited doesn’t really cover how I feel about this recipe. I made it on a Sunday and literally dreamed about it the night before. Yes, I am that big of a loser and yes, it did live up to my dream.
I used to make a pumpkin dump cake that made my heart happy. It was creamy and warm on the bottom with a crunchy, sweet top. I LOVED it! The problem was, it was loaded with both white and brown sugar and was topped with a cake mix…. which you had to add even more sugar to. I thought about cheating and just making the darn thing (Yes, it would have been worth it), but before I sold my soul I decided to try to make a healthier version.
I’m SO glad I did. The pumpkin layer is warm, creamy, sweet and bursting with fall flavors. The topping contrasts nicely with the creamy base and the flavors work perfectly together. This is a perfect dessert for a cold night. Though since this dessert is so good I almost cried, I’ll probably make it for my birthday… in April.
So if you believe all men (and women) are entitled to the pursuit of happiness, make this… now. No really. Go do it.
A few tips first (sorry for the false alarm. Hopefully you aren’t running to grab your slow cooker).
Make sure you grease your slow cooker. If you don’t, instead of talking about how much you love me, you’ll be cursing me to the depths of Hades. Grease that sucker!
Yes, this has a lot of ingredients, but it truly is a dump cake. Two bowls and a slow cooker. That’s it. You don’t even have to beat the pumpkin layer in stages. I really did just throw everything in a bowl and beat it.
Make sure you distribute the topping evenly when you sprinkle it over the pumpkin. This is basically going to cook up like a cake layer, so you want it as even as you can get it. Though since it is a dump cake, you really can’t ruin it. This just makes it better.
The same goes for the butter. This provides a lot of the liquid for the cake layer, so you’ll want it even. But again, you can’t ruin this. The moisture from the pumpkin and the steaming affect of the slow cooker will get any spots you miss.
As far as the pecans go, they are totally optional. If you hate pecans or they kill you if you eat them, you should leave them out. I love the flavor of pecans with pumpkin and fall spices so I left them in. You can even substitute them with another nut if you like. Not peanuts though. I like peanuts as much as the next squirrel, but that just sounds wrong.
Lastly, this is a dish that is amazing on its own, but is even better topped with something cold and creamy. While ice cream would be amazing, we decided to go with something a little healthier and use coconut cream. Don’t worry. If you can hold a hand mixer, you can make coconut cream. Click here for instructions from The Pioneer Woman. We sweeten ours with honey.
Okay. Now you are armed with what you need so go and make it. Now. It’s not a false alarm this time…
One Pan Autumn Chicken and Veggie Dinner
I recently got a new set of knives. I didn’t exactly need them, but they were at Costco and they came in different colors. They were so pretty I couldn’t resist. I’m kind of like a fish drawn to shiny things. I brought my lovely knives home and unpacked them (which was quite an accomplishment since the package was pretty much welded together) and selected which knife to use based on color. The massacre began when I was slicing an onion. My new, very sharp knife slipped and I cut my pointer and middle finger. Luckily we have a rather extensive collection of Star Wars band-aids, so I wrapped up my hands and went back to making dinner. The next cut was to my knuckle. I’m still not totally sure how that one happened, but there it was. Another R2D2 bandaid and I was set to go.
A few days later I was making something with coconut milk and cut my other knuckle on the can. It’s been so bad lately that my 8-year-old who is as oblivious to what’s going on around him as any 8-year-old said, “Mom. Why do you keep cutting your hands? Maybe you shouldn’t use knives anymore.” Seriously! Am I the only one who is a total spaz in the kitchen? Am I the only one who goes through more band-aids than their children?
To make my story relevant, I have a recipe for you that requires a lot of chopping. One thing it doesn’t require though is a lot of is dishes. I wanted a complete meat and veggie meal that could be made with one pan. Done!
Not only does this dish come together in one pan, but it’s a savory dish that has all the delicious flavors of fall.
To make things easier, chop all your veggies and add them to a large plastic bag with the oil, salt and pepper. Then shake it up to coat the veggies.
Here’s where the fall flavors come in. We get to make a fabulous spice blend that has slightly sweet flavors like cinnamon and orange, and warm flavors like paprika and cumin.
Using the same bag you tossed the veggies in, toss some chicken thighs with the seasoning mix. Remember that commercial back in the 80’s/90’s with the little girl who helped make the chicken? “It’s shake and bake and I helped.” Funny. I don’t remember freshman science, but I remember that commercial. That’s basically what we’re going to do here.
So if the veggies and chicken covered in delicious flavors isn’t enough, we up the flavor with the ingredient that improves anything: Bacon! I ended up using 8 slices of bacon to wrap all 6 thighs but use however many you need/want based on the size of thighs you have.
The chicken goes on the same pan as the veggies and it all goes in the oven together.
I like to eat mine over spinach, but my husband thinks that’s a terrible idea. You choose.
However you eat it, be careful cutting those veggies.