Red Beans and Rice (with a twist)

The other night we had gumbo (I'll share that recipe soon!).  As a result we had left over Andouille Sausage (GF, organic and preservative free) and brown rice (organic).  So, last night I decided I would try to make a super healthy version of Red Beans and Rice.  

Did you notice that green stuff in the bowl?  Yep, that is my twist.  I had a couple of small organic zucchini that needed to be cooked.  They were about to go bad so I thought I'd add them to the pot along with the rest of the ingredients.

I loved it!  Especially because the zucchini adds color to the otherwise bland dish.  Plus, I just plain love zucchini!  It is one of those vegetables that I always try to keep in my fridge at all times!   

What You Need:

• 1 package of smoked andouille sausage (cut up)
• 1 - 1 1/2 cups of brown organic rice (cooked)
• 1 can of organic red kidney beans (drained)
• 1 large or 2 small organic zucchini (ends cut off, chopped up the way you prefer)
•  1 cup Organic Vegetable or Organic Chicken Broth 
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1/2 - 1 T Cajun Seasoning (GF) Add slowly because it can get too hot!

How It's Made:

• Add cut-up sausage, zucchini, cooked rice, drained beans and stock of your choice to a pot 
• Cook until zucchini becomes tender to your level of preference
• Add seasonings to taste

And there you have it folks!  The easiest Red Beans and Rice that I've ever made.  I don't like spicy foods so I was really careful with how much Cajun seasoning I added.  Take your time adding the seasoning and be sure to taste often.  You can always add more, but it sure is hard to remove if you over do it!

This dish was a win for my boys!  They requested the leftovers for their lunches this morning.  I am so glad I finally made something they really loved!

Happy Eats,

Christin

'Breaded' Eggplant and Avocado Caprese Stacks (plus a bonus recipe)

  I do hope you all enjoyed the recipe from my weekend contributor, Zanne!  She is fantastic and has so many ideas for her future posts.  I can't wait!!!

Well, now on to my Eggplant and Avocado Caprese Stack.  Before I get around to sharing the recipe, let me first explain how it came to be.  

Last week I was in my local grocery store.  I saw these beautiful organic eggplants and just had to buy one.  I didn't know what I was going to do with my new beautiful eggplant, so I started thinking.  I racked my brain trying to remember Pinterest recipes that I had recently Pinned.  Low and behold, I remembered one!  It was an Eggplant Caprese Stack.  I thought it sounded delicious so I grabbed an organic tomato then I walked over to the dairy section and grabbed some fresh mozzarella.  I had no idea if I needed anything else, so I left with just that.  

Once I was home I started really thinking about the recipe.  I decided to look it up on my Pinterest board.  The 'breading' was nothing more than flax seed and raw almonds ground up together in a very fine sand consistency.  Thanks God I just bought a Vitamix!  And thank God I keep a well stocked pantry, I had flax and raw almonds already;)

I also had an avocado that was about to go bad.  I decided avocado would be a nice addition to the stack.  let me tell you, this meal was AMAZING!!!

Now on to the recipe!

What You Need:

• 1 organic eggplant
• 1 large tomato
• 1 ball of fresh mozzarella
• 1 organic avocado
• Basil (I used dry basil, but you can use fresh)
• Balsamic Vinegar 
• 1 cup raw almonds
• 1/4 cup ground flax seed
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 T water
• olive oil

How It's Made:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees
• Peel and slice eggplant into thin slices (about 1/4 inch thick)
• Mix together egg and water into shallow bowl
• Add flax and almonds to a food processor or blender and blend until sand like consistency
• Put nut/flax mixture into a separate shallow bowl
• Grease two cookie sheets with olive oil
• Dip each eggplant slice into egg mixture and then into nut mixture.  Be sure to coat both sides.
• Place eggplant side by side on baking sheet
• Drizzle more olive oil on top of eggplant slices
• Bake about 8 minutes, then remove from oven and flip eggplant slices over.  Return to oven for another 8 minutes or until eggplants are tender all the way through.
• Once removed from oven, place eggplant slices on a paper towel to drain oil
• Cut tomato into hearty slices (salt and pepper the tomato slices for more flavor)
• Cut avocado in to thin slices (how you would slice an apple, but thinner)
• Cut mozzarella into thin or thick slices (whatever you prefer)
• Your last step is to stack each item.  Do it however you want, but I did mine like this"
• Eggplant on the bottom
• Then a tomato slice
• Another eggplant slice
• Then three slices of avocado
• Another eggplant slice
• Then topped with mozzarella, sprinkled with basil and drizzled with balsamic

There you have it.  I did have left over eggplant (all the pieces I didn't cut straight or were too small).  I decided that I would make a super simple eggplant parm with my left over eggplant and mozz. 

I got a small baking dish.  Place eggplant on the bottom, spooned organic marinara over the top and added some cheese.  I repeated the layers one more time, sprinkled with a little basil and Viola!  Kid friendly, easy-peasy eggplant parm!

There you have it.  two eggplant recipes that are easy to make, gluten-free, organic, and just about every other dietary term you can think of (not dairy or nut free though!).  I hope you try it and enjoy it!

Happy Eats,

Christin

GF Pasta with Vegan Roasted Garlic "Cream" Sauce (One Pot Meal!)

I forgot that I wasn't going to blog on the weekends (so my amazing eggplant stack recipe will have to wait until Monday, sorry!).  Why, you may ask?  Well, because I have something super duper special for all of you on the weekends.  A guest contributor!  We will call the weekends from here on out, 'Weekends With Zanne'.

My friend Zanne, lives in Los Angeles (awesome right?!).  Here is a little bit about her.

Living in Los Angeles makes it easy to become obsessed with eating a plant based diet. With the high cost of living the hubby and I had to cut cost somewhere but did not want to cut out our enjoyment of food. So we decided to make a concerted effort to pack our lunches and eat in as much as possible. Instead of pre-made meals we make pretty much everything from scratch which allows us to make modifications and cut out "garbage" from our diets. Our budget is roughly $80 per weeks for 21 meals. 

This is a rich, one pot meal full of veggies. If you don't have the ones I listed below get creative with whatever you may have in your fridge! Thinking pea shoots and carrots may make the cut next round! 

What You Need:

• 6 cloves garlic (roughly chopped) 
• Half sweet onion
• 1/2 lbs sliced crimini mushrooms-well rinsed and sliced
• 1 small head broccoli 
• 1 cup chopped spinach
• 1 cup arugula 
• 1 lbs brown rice pasta 
• 4 cups plain rice milk
• 1.5 cups white wine
• Spices to taste (I used a French spice blend, sea salt and pepper)
• 1/2 c vegan butter-regular if you don't keep strict diet (we make our own vegan butter...it's worth it!)

How It's Made:

• In large pot place onion, 4 cloves of garlic, chopped broccoli stem and mushrooms with 2 tablespoons oil of choice (we are obsessed with grape seed in this household!) Let them sweat it out and brown
• When browned, add 1/3 of the white wine, allow to cook down and repeat until wine has evaporated. 
• Add rice milk, broccoli head and pasta. 
• Stir. 
• Top of with butter and cover for 10 minutes. 
• Season to taste. 
• Add spinach, arugula and remaining garlic. 
• At this point if needed add a touch more milk. 

It doesn't look sexy, but it is AMAZING!  And it's a one pot meal!

Zanne

Cumin Chicken Salad

Pretty much every luncheon type place serves chicken salad.  It is a favorite amongst ladies who meet up for lunch during the day while their kids are off to school.  Why?  I'm not really sure.  It could be because chicken salad is hard to mess up.  Or because it isn't messy to eat like a sandwich.  Or perhaps it is because it has the word 'salad' in it and that automatically makes it healthy, right?

Whatever the reason, chicken salad is a great lunch time meal and yesterday that is exactly what I made for lunch.

I invited my friend over for lunch yesterday.  This is going to sound bad, but since moving here in August, this was the first guest we have had in our house for a meal.  I decided I wanted to make my cumin chicken salad, cucumber and hummus crudites, some sort of fruit and some sort of pasta.

The pasta was store bought pasta you find in the refrigerator section.  I was amazed to find a gluten free option!  I coked the pasta according to the packages instructions.  I topped each pasta with a spoonful of organic marinara and sprinkled the whole dish with basil.

The cucumber and hummus crudites were just as easy.  I peeled and sliced and organic cucumber and added a dollop of hummus to the top of each one.

For my fruit, I just mixed some organic blueberries and organic raspberries together in a bowl and served.

Okay, now on to the cumin chicken salad:)

What You Need:

• One large skinless, boneless chicken breast
• 1/2 cup organic mayo
• 2 small stalks of celery washed and chopped
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 1/4 red onion, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic peeled and finely chopped
• 1 T cumin divided
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder

How It's Made:

• Preheat oven to 375
• Place chicken breast on a cooking sheet and sprinkle salt, pepper, 1/2 T cumin and garlic powder on top of the breast
• Cook chicken for 25-30 minutes or until cooked through (no pink remaining)
• In the meantime, mix togther mayo, celery, green onion, red onion, garlic, 1/2 T cumin and a little salt and pepper into a bowl
• Once chicken is finished cooking place it into a food processor and pulse until chopped to your preferred consistency then add chicken to the may mixture
• Add more mayo if you wish, salt and pepper to taste.  Add more cumin if you want as well.

I served our chicken salad on top of a piece of butter lettuce.  You could serve it on top of any lettuce, spinach or as is.  The choice is up to you!

Happy Eats,

Christin

Gluten Free Asian Lettuce Wraps

I don't know about y'all, but when this whole 'gluten free' thing first started making an appearance I thought the whole movement was ridiculous, a fad and a way for retailers to milk money from consumers (GF foods AREN'T cheap!).

However, since we have started the GF lifestyle (about 95% of the time, a girl still needs her occasional hamburger), I have noticed that I feel so much better, My skin is clearer, my hair doesn't get as greasy as fast ad my digestion is normal!

I also thought that GF meant TF, taste-free.  That is so NOT the case!  Food explodes with flavor in your mouth when you are finally tasting real food!  You are mindful of what your eating, you put time into making it and that alone makes it taste so much better.  You know you are eating something healthy and whole, free of preservatives and chemicals.  It's truly amazing!

Something else that is amazing, I have turned in to a really good cook.  I used to take the easy route.  I would buy and prepare boxed or frozen meals for my family.  I thought I was cooking healthy, but nothing was organic and everything had processed ingredients.  No more.  Because I have changed the way we eat, I have so much more energy!  I used to be too tired to really cook anything.  Now I cook every night, make two school lunches every night, clean my kitchen every night and finally relax in front of the TV when I am done.  I used to literally sit in front of the TV all day long, eating whatever I could find in my pantry (we never had and chips, cookies, junk).  I was grumpy, impatient, tired.  Now I am mindful, energetic, patient and joyful.  

I have a Virgin shake for breakfast and lunch.  I may have a snack of organic cucumber or GF crackers with hummus, an apple, an orange or a slice of preservative/antibiotic free chicken.  

Last night I made Asian lettuce wraps.  They were absolutely delicious!!!  

What You Need:

• 1 pound ground turkey (I used organic free range turkey)
• 1 cup pre-shredded organic carrots (or shred your own)
• 1 cup chopped organic mushrooms
• 2-3 cloves of chopped garlic (we are garlic lovers in this house!0
• 2 green onions, chopped* PLEASE SEE NOTE!
• 1 T grated organic ginger** PLEASE SEE NOTE!
• 1 tsp cornstarch (optional, if you want a thicker sauce)
• 1 head of organic lettuce ( I used butter lettuce)

Sauce Mixture:

• 5 T coconut aminos (to replace soy sauce)
• 2 T rice vinegar
• 2 1/2 T coconut sugar
• 1 tsp sesame oil

How It's Made:

• Cook turkey in saucepan until it is almost browned
• Pour out extra liquid if any
• Add in carrots, mushrooms, garlic, green onions and ginger
• Add in sauce mixture
• Mix well and simmer together for about 5 minutes
• Add in cornstarch (optional)
• Continue to simmer another 5 minutes, or until veggies are softened
• Remove from heat and let sit 5 minutes
• Place a spoonful of mixture on top of individual lettuce leaves

If you want a dipping sauce with your wraps here is a simple recipe:

• 1 1/2 T coconut aminos
• 1 T rice vinegar
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 1/8 tsp sesame oil
• 1 T coconut sugar
• 1/2 garlic clove, pressed and chopped

*Note: Don't waste your money buying green onions all the time.  Next time you buy green onions put them in a glass of water and set them in a window.  Green onions will continue to grow.  When the stems start getting too long, simply cut them off low (leave about half and inch), chop them up and freeze them.  The onions will start growing back where you cut them off at.  You will have an endless supply of fresh green onions!

**Note: Keep ginger in a zip-lock bag in the freezer.  It will keep F-O-R-E-V-E-R!

Happy Eats,

Christin

Triple C: Curry Coconut Cod

I am lucky enough to live in an area with an abundant organic food supply.  Colorado Springs has been my favorite duty station so far and honestly, I never want to leave!  We have fresh organic milk delivered to our house every Friday and we have a box of organic produce delivered every other week.  

Last week I received kale (lacinato kale to be exact) in my box.  I am fairly new to eating kale so I don't know of many ways to cook it.  I also had some cod in my fridge that needed to be cooked so I figured that there must be some sort of kale/cod recipe combination somewhere out there.  I did what every good housewife does, I went on Pinterest:)

Low and behold, I found a recipe and it was right up my alley!

I had actually been craving Indian food so when I found this recipe, I knew I had to make it!

What You Need:

• 1 pound of ocean caught cod, thawed and cut into bite sized chunks
• 1-2 small organic sweet potatoes, once cut into bite sized pieces and the other blended in a food processor
• 1 bunch of organic kale (any variety), washed, stems removed and cut into bite sized pieces
• 2 small stalks of organic celery, sliced
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 T curry powder (any variety you like)
• 1/8 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 T olive oil
• 1 14 ounce can coconut milk
• 1 can organic diced tomatoes
• 1 T grated organic ginger
• Salt and pepper to taste (I use sea salt)

How It's Made: 

• Combined ingredients celery through cinnamon in a food processor
• Pulse into a rough paste
• Heat olive oil in a large skillet and add celery/spice mixture
• Sautee until celery softens, about 1-2 minutes
• In the same food processor, combine coconut milk, tomatoes, blended sweet potato and ginger
• Blend until smooth
• Add mixture to the skillet and mix well with the celery/spice mixture
• Add cut up sweet potato and cod
• Bring to a low boil, then reduce to low and simmer for 20 minutes
• Add kale and continue simmering until the kale is wilted 
• Season with salt and pepper, feel free to add more spices until you reach the taste you desire!

This dish would be great served over with organic rice or with naan bread (if you aren't gluten free).  We ate ours as is and it was wonderful!  

Happy Eats,

Christin

BBQ Turkey Meatballs

My boys finally started back to school today and along with all the healthy changes at home, we are also changing the way the boys eat at school.  Since August, the boys have been buying hot lunch from the school cafeteria.  The only reason for this is that I was lazy and didn't feel like making their meals.  Plus, they really liked hot lunch.  

I have come up with several different food options for them that I think they will love.  Today I sent them to school with bbq turkey meatballs, some cheese, carrots, organic fruit leather, and gluten free crackers.  For snack they are having organic, non GMO potato chips and water.  

Here is a before shot of the meatballs;

And after:

The boys each got 5 meatballs in their lunch.  My husband ate the rest.  I honestly didn't put much thought into how I was going to make these meatballs.  I knew I wanted them to have a bbq flavor, but I didn't want to pour sauce over the top of them in case the boys' lunch boxes leaked (they use bento boxes).  So I decided to add the bbq sauce to the meatball mixture.

What You Need:

• 1 pound of lean organic ground turkey meat (use pork if you want)
• 1/2 cup of gluten free bbq sauce (I use Sweet Baby Rays)
• crumbs from half of a slice of bread (*see note about how to make your own bread crumbs)
• 3/4 - 1 tablespoon of parsley
• salt and pepper to taste

How It's Made:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees
• Mix all ingredients together well
• Form into small balls (about ping pong ball size)
• Place on baking sheet
• Cook for 25-30 minutes.  Be sure you don't overcook or the meatballs will dry out!

*NOTE:

To make your own bread crumbs simply take any slice of bread (I use Rudi's Gluten Free bread and keep it frozen) and place it into your food processor or blender (I use a Vitamix, but any processor or blender will do).  Pulse a few times and you should have your own homemade bread crumbs.  Use half for this recipe.  Store the rest in a Ziplock bag and refrigerate. Who knew it was that simple?!

You can also add seasonings to your breadcrumbs of you wish!

These meatballs are perfect for school lunches or an at home meal.  I would pour more bbq sauce over them if we were eating them at home.  

Happy Eats,

Christin