Tuesday, November 10, 2015

My Favorite Healthy Eating Recipes

I'm six weeks into "clean eating" as they say, or simply cutting processed foods from my diet, and I'm feeling good about it. Consuming something other than Doritos definitely requires planning (and will-power, honestly!), but it's worth it. I physically feel better than I have in a long time.

I've been doing the 21 Day Fix program and with that, began keeping a food journal of my daily meals and snacks. It's helped me stay on top of prepping, cooking and eating healthy foods. Unfortunately, the 21 Day Fix program doesn't come with a huge list of recipes, so I've had to rely on the support of other team members in my particular 21 Day Fix group and/or find my own clean-eating recipes online. I thought I'd share some of my favorites here:

Egg Muffin Cups*
I don't love eggs, but I'm seriously obsessed with these. I pour eggs, meat and sautéed vegetables into a muffin tin and bake them in the oven for quick, ready-to-eat breakfasts all week. It takes 30 seconds to re-heat an egg muffin cup or two in the microwave while I'm also getting the kids fed, dressed and out the door for the day. I've tried various combinations of ingredients (ham, turkey, peppers, spinach, mushrooms, cheese), but ham with bell peppers is my favorite.

*I got the original recipe from my Beachbody coach and I can't seem to find anything similar on the Internet to link to, so I think I'll write up the recipe and share it here ... if for no other reason that to Pin the recipe to my Pinterest board and subsequently delete it out of my iPhone Notes.

Creamy Chicken Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing
This recipe is from Autumn Calabrase's Fixate cookbook, and it's really tasty. It's even better after being refrigerated for 24 hours. I serve my chicken salad on fresh romaine lettuce - delish!

Slow-Cooker Steak Fajitas
What's not to love? An easy, healthy dinner recipe that's not chicken. Because, let's be honest, chicken is definitely the go-to protein choice around here. Sometimes, I sense Andi's non-verbal sigh when I announce it's chicken (again!) for dinner. He loves this steak fajitas recipe, and so do I.

Try a dab of plain Greek yogurt on top of the fajitas in place of sour cream. I seriously can't tell the difference!

Lemony Chicken Stir-Fry with Asparagus
If you like lemons, this recipe is for you! Aden and I both love it. (Turns out, Andi isn't a big fan of lemon flavor ... so I guess we'll add this recipe to the "daddy's traveling for work" rotation. And, Tory won't eat anything that "has green things in it." That's a topic for another day...). This chicken stir-fry comes together super quickly and tastes light and fresh.

By the way, I skip the last step calling for cornstarch because it doesn't seem to make a difference in thickening the sauce (at least for me).

Ginger Beef, Mushroom and Kale Stir-Fry
I'm on a stir-fry kick, can you tell? It's a fast and simple method of cooking that's big on flavor and includes lots of veggies. I don't know how I lived without making stir-fry recipes before?!

So, kale. I'm not a fan, but I decided to give this recipe a try because the superfood gets so much hype. And, guess what? This particular stir fry recipe was all sorts of amazing. Andi and I both loved it (and now I just need to find a few more recipes to use up that giant bag of kale...).

Slow-Cooker Boeuf Bourgignon*
Hole-lee-cow. This recipe was freaking amazing. I made it a few weekends ago when friends were visiting us at the cabin, and it's safe to say we all licked our bowls clean. This recipe is seriously delicious and so easy. Aren't Crock-Pots the best?

*I didn't have any bone broth on hand, of course, so I subbed beef broth and the recipe turned out just as perfect. Oddly enough, reading this recipe was the third time I'd heard mention of bone broth in context that week, so maybe that's my sign to boil up a big ol' pot of bones for later use.

I did use tapioca starch as the recipe suggests, which I found at our cabin's small-town grocery store with the specialty pantry items (near the gluten-free flour, etc.). The tapioca starch thickened up the stew in a snap, so it was definitely worth the investment. Maybe I'll use it next time to thicken the sauce in the Lemony Chicken Stir-Fry recipe above in place of cornstarch ...

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Two pre-packaged products* I can't seem to live without these days:

Justin's Nut Butter Almond Butter, Classic, 16 Ounce



I spread a .tsp of almond butter on half a whole-wheat English muffin every morning and it's such a treat.

That's it Super Sampler, Pack of 12, (2 Apple+Blueberry, 2 Apple+Strawberry, 2 Apple+Pineapple, 2 Apple+Pear, 2 Apple+Cherry, 2 Apple Banana)



These bars are great for when I'm on-the-go. They're equivalent to one piece of fruit and made of only fruit and nothing else.

*Amazon affiliated links

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for planning my meals for next week!

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  2. You sold me on the slow cooker boeuf bourgignon!

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  3. Well, I just pinned some new recipes. I swear by this recipe: http://iowagirleats.com/2012/08/26/tuscan-kale-white-bean-soup/ if you want to try something else with kale. We add shredded chicken and extra beans to make it a little heartier.

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  4. Oooh, you're doing 21 Day Fix! Are you liking it?? I'm planning to get back into the exercise program. I'm not sure I will tackle the nutrition part, at least not completely, as I learned it provided me too much stress. These recipes sounds delicious - will have to give them a try!

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    Replies
    1. LOVE 21 Day Fix. I'm on round 2, week 3 of it and think I'll keep on going.

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