Junk Free July WEEK: IV

Week 4, was an interesting week.  We had some issues w/Rusty in the middle of the night, one night.  Of course it was the night before Kal’s early morning surgery (Jeff didn’t ask off work so I had to deal w/everything) My mother is a saint though, so I was able to leave Talynn and Rusty w/her for the first half of the day.  I have been exhausted ever since.  So I didn’t get alot of exercise in the second half of the week but I still managed to lose 3 lbs! Woohoo!  I took pictures of myself before I started my Junk Free July, and then halfway through, and I will take more pictures of how I look after.  I will be posting these next week, so stay tuned!  I’m only posting a couple recipes this week. Due to being constantly exhausted and pulled in a million directions I wasn’t super creative this week. I did a lot of repeats from previous weeks, boring stuff, and quick apples, and bananas here and there. Here are a few things I did enjoy….

• Wheat Waffles & Sweet Sauce

Ingredients:

2 Eggs, 2 C. milk, 1/3 C. Canola Oil, 2 C. Wheat Flour, 1 TB. Baking Powder, 1/2 tsp. Salt, 1 TB. Sugar

Directions:

In a blender beat egg, milk, and oil until frothy. Pour into bowl, and immediately stir in remaining ingredients. Spoon onto hot waffle iron.

I always sprinkle the surface of the batter w/cinnamon.  It makes everything taste better!

   

Now the SWEET SAUCE  I made was to replace the peanut butter and syrup I usually like to don on my waffles.  For this I just threw….

1 medium banana, 12 strawberries, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. sugar in our baby bullet.

The Sweet Sauce was by no mean “AMAZING”, but it wasn’t awful and it was a healthier choice.

Jeff and Kal ate their waffles the good ‘ole Iggy way.

Doesn’t that look delicious? and FATTENING?!

Alrighty this next recipe is one that we got from a friend a while ago. Jeff had eaten dinner at their house and they served this. He loved it! So I decided since it can be made using all unprocessed ingredients (I tweaked it a little bit), why not?!

• VEGETARIAN INDIAN CURRY

Ingredients:

1 TB.Olive Oil, 1 Onion chopped, 1 C. (1/4 inch thick) sliced Carrots, 2 TB. Curry Powder, 2 tsp. Brown Sugar, 1 TB. grated peeled fresh Ginger, 4 Garlic cloves-minced, 3 C. cooked/drained/rinsed Chickpeas, 1 1/2 C. cubed peeled baking Potato, 1 head of Cauliflower (cut into bite sized pieces), 1/2 ts. Salt, 1/4 ts. Black Pepper, 1/2 ts. Ground Red Pepper,1 (14.5 oz) can diced Tomatoes, 1 (14 oz) can Vegetable Broth, 1 can Coconut Milk, and 2 C Water (you may need more or less. you just want the liquid to be about halfway between the bottom of the crockpot and the top of the vegetables)

FYI:

*I don’t peel my potatoes (the peel is where all the nutrients are!) I also didn’t use Ginger, because it so overpowering and I can’t stand the taste.  I just diced up 3 medium sized tomatoes instead of canned,I used 1/2 a head of cauliflower, I used homemade Chicken Broth (2 cups) instead of Vegetable Broth, and I did one cup of Coconut Milk ( but i may leave that out next time and just add a little more water…..

Now I have been saving up vegetable scraps for a while now (I just add to this bag that I keep in my freezer), but didn’t have quite enough to make my own broth.

So I made Chicken Broth instead. Collect all the bones, fat, and skin from your cooked chicken and set them aside.

Now place these scraps into your crockpot along with onion, celery, or any other seasoning and veggies you like.  Fill with 4-6 C. Water.  I put this on Hi for a couple hours before I went to bed, then turned it to Low and let it cook overnight.

Strain…

CURRY PREP:

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add onion and carrot; cover and cook 5 minutes or until tender.

Add curry powder, sugar, ginger, garlic and chile; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Place onion mixture in a 5 qt. electric slow cooker. Stire in chickpease and next 8 ingredients.

       

(everything but the coconut milk) Cover and cook on HI for 6 hours or until vegetable are tender. Add coconut milk.

  

Serve with Rice.

I think this could be really good over  Quinoa as well!

Week 5 is a short one with only 4 days left in the month of July.  I won’t be slacking off though.  Here’s to a strong finish! I’m loving the results I’m getting, how I look and how I feel.  I will definitely continue to love and learn how to make myself and my family healthier!

Junk Free July WEEK: III

Week 3 and I feel marvelous.  I’m not so much counting down the days until I can have chocolate again. In fact I have really only had one day this week that I have even wanted chocolate (THIS IS HUGE!).  And guess what?! I lost another 4 pounds this week.  Workouts were great.  Fitness wise, I did the 300 workout again a few days, ran a couple different days(got up to 5 1/2 miles!) and did a hodge podge strength training day at a friends house. 

This weeks food was over all tasty and filling. Let me begin by saying…”I love and hate leftovers.”  I hate having a fridge full of tupperware of small amounts of random things, but then again it can mean I don’t have to cook or  in the best cases that I get to enjoy something delicious all over again.  Well it was a mix of the above.  I had some chili left over, a very small amount of salsa, and 1 hamburger patty from last week.  So, one morning we did..

- “breakfast burritos”-

  I made some eggs and tortillas, and then threw in the leftovers.  I did tortilla, spring mix, egg, chili/ham.patty , then topped it with salsa.  They were both pretty tasty, and hit the spot.

 

Jeff wanted cheese melted on his, and then just wanted egg and salsa.  We both agreed that this homemade salsa is perfect for this kind of application!

We love using the grill, so one night I made

-“KABABS”-

I sliced up some various veggies we had in the fridge. Potatoes, yellow and red bell peppers, cucumber, carrot, and mushrooms!

 Skewered them, and brushed them lightly with olive oil. Sprinkled them with salt, pepper, and garlic and herb.

 

Grill and DEVOUR!

I love salads! Now if i’m going to have a salad, it needs to have a lot of flavor and textures.  The problem with dressings is they can bring all kinds of flavor and CALORIES!  So, I knew I was going to have to make my own dressing (I’ve never done this) I experimented, and I was super happy with the results. I’m calling this a…

- “Fruity Fiesta Salad”-

I threw the chicken in the crockpot for a few hours on hi, along with:

4 cups Water

1/2 cup Orange Juice

then sprinkled the surface with REAL SALT, Mrs.Dash Garlic and Herb, Mrs.Dash Extra Spicy, Crushed Red Pepper, and Chili Powder. This gave the salad a little kick.

As the chicken got closer to ready, I got some wild blend rice going in the rice cooker. I then pulled the chicken….

…and sliced some veggies.

Now for the dressing I pureed 2 TB. Olive Oil, 1 TB. Red Wine Vinegar, and a handful of Craisins. It smelled kind of strong and  interesting but was sooooo delicious!

              

Spring Mix, Rice, Chicken, Carrots, Cucumber, Mushroom (on Jeff’s I hate mushrooms!) and tangy craisin dressing!

I mixed it all up really well, and the flavors were able to blend nicely. The chicken gave the salad a kick, while the dressing gave it a sweet tangy spin.  I was very pleased with this experiment indeed!

WEEK 4 here I come!

Junk Free July WEEK: II

Week 2 went pretty well. We had a rocky start, with Rusty getting hit by a car.  So I have had even less time to document my meals, and didn’t have as much time to dedicate to getting super creative with my food.  I did however manage to go running three times, and do a simplified version of the 300 workout twice this week.  I have so much energy! This week I lost 3 lbs.  I was pretty happy with our creations this week, the foods were all super tasty. No flops to be had. I made more banana muffins to just pop after a workout or get me started in the morning.  We also made up some salsa at the beginning of the week.  We like to make a big batch, split it, and use one half for a chili base.  We kind of eyeball things so these are approximates….

SALSA….

8 medium sized tomatoes

5-6 green onions

1 white onion

2 red bell peppers

1 green bell pepper

2 yellow bell peppers

1 orange bell pepper

3 serrano peppers

2 anaheim peppers  (we had never used these we usually like to use habanero, but they didn’t have any at our local market)

Dice these veggies and combine them in a large bowl. 

We then like to add some salt, tomato garlic basil, and crushed red peppers.  Then split in half one half will be for the salsa and the other half can go straight into the crockpot for chili.  Now the half that is for salsa we split in half again, now blend 1/2 in a bullet or processor.  Then add it back with the other half. This will bring out a lot of those natural juices, but you still get the chunky texture that we like in our salsa.

LOVE homemade salsa. It would be great to add some grilled corn and avacado too!

Now for our super yummy spicey chili!

I cut up another 4 tomatoes in larger pieces, and threw these right into the crockpot with the 1/2 half of salsa mixture.  You also need about 5-6 cups of kidney beans.  I had to start these early on in the day. I poured the juice from cooking the kidney beans in as well.

Then, we add TONS of spices.  Salt, Cumin, Crushed Red Pepper, Garlic Salt, Red Curry Powder, Chili Powder, Ground Cayenne Pepper, Season all season salt, spicy Montreal, Extra Spicy (mrs.dash), Garlic and Herb, Tomato Basil Garlic,Tabasco’s Smoked Chipotle.  We tend to just sprinkle each spice over the surface of the chili, not sure again on amounts…we are more generous with the cumin though.  Then we add some sugar (brown and granulated). We found this works great, since we make our chili so spicey.  The sugar makes it less overwhelming. You still get that kick in each bite, but then it subsides so you can make it through a bowl of chili without dying. 

 We also grilled a couple chicken breasts, pulled it and added it in.

And of course I didn’t get a picture of the finished product. Probably because I was too busy eating it!

We like to let it sit in the crockpot overnight so all the flavors infuse everything.

OMELETS

Whip your desired amount of eggs

Cut up your veggies- we like onion, green onion…

and bell peppers, this time i did red and yellow.

Mix the veggies in with the egg.  Warm up your skillet at a medium heat, you don’t want the outside of the omelet to cook to fast.  Once it’s warm I melt a little dab of butter and twirl the pan until the skillet base is coated. Then sprinkle with salt and pepper.

        

Pour in the omelet mixture.

Once the edge of the omelet starts to curl up, you are ready to flip, and soon there after ready to get your grub on!

We really enjoy omelets for dinner, they’re so fast and yummy!

We had some rolls left over that I made last week and jeff wanted to use them to make sliders. Even though I couldn’t use our special sauce on mine, it was still really tasty.  I will definitely make these again sometime!

Jeff’s were more like -Saucy Sliders and mine –Salsa Sliders

First Jeff drained alot of the blood out of the beef…. 

We didn’t have any hamburger seasoning, so we just sliced up some g-onions.

With your hands mix them into the beef. I didn’t do this, this time, but I could totally see throwing some blackbeans or slivered carrots into the patties as well.

Next, separate into patties (ours were super small, like i said we were using  homemade dinner rolls as buns) and grill!

First I put some spring mix on mine….

And some of the salsa we made earlier in the week!

Don’t these “Salsa Sliders” look divine?!   Well they tasted amazing!

and here are jeff’s “Saucy Sliders”

The special sauce is a mixture of honey mustard and bbq sauce. (we actually both did this separately before we ever met and were surprised when we went to lunch at a bbq place and both asked for the same condiments and then noticed that we were both mixing them together and said “you do that too?” My friends thought I was crazy growing up, and few would try it.  But it is seriously soooooo good! Anyway he also put some Famous Dave’s signature spicy pickle chips (we get these at Costco) on his.

As I’ve mentioned before I LOVE peas! More specifically snow peas, and sugar snap peas.  I get these fresh bagged peas from Costco.

 

Usually I use a little smart balance and nook em for a minute and sprinkle with salt and pepper, but since i’m doing no processed foods, I used olive oil and they tasted just as good!

Well another great week has come and gone, and I truly do look forward to this next week.  I picked some plums this week and want to make some more fruit leather with them!  I will also be kicking up the gears on my workouts this week!

Junk Free July Week: 1

 

Well, week one went pretty well. I weighed myself first thing Monday morning and then first thing Sunday Morning, and after 6 days I lost 6 lbs! Overall I feel great! By day two I was finding that I wasn’t as hungry as I usually am.  I was feeling fully after eating quantities that were much less than what I eat in other foods. Realizing this I thought to myself….there must be something in processed foods that makes you feel hungrier than raw unaltered foods.  Well I researched it, and sure enough! Read about it here  .  Sure, I had my moments of weakness where I seriously contemplated eating a piece of chocolate or just grabbing a quick granola bar-but I didn’t!  You don’t really realize how much of your food is processed until you do something like this.  Day 3, I felt like DANG THERE IS NOTHING I CAN EAT!  I love this though, it is forcing me to think outside of the box, to learn about nutrition, and to learn more about cooking.  This week I made some homemade bread…

Once it was done cooking and I cute off a slice to eat, I realized…..I don’t have anything unprocessed to eat on it! So I ate some plain bread and rolls this week.

I also made some banana muffins this week, due to have a lot of ripe bananas.  This is the recipe that my mom would always make….

Bright Day Banana Muffins-

1 C. All Purpose Flour                        1/4 tsp. Nutmeg

3/4 C. Whole Wheat Flour                  1/2 C. (1 med) mashed ripe banana

1/2 C. Sugar                                         1/2 C. Milk

2 tsp Baking Powder                          1/3 C. Vegetable Oil

1/2 tsp. salt                                          1 Egg (slightly beaten)

(To make this unprocessed you would need to use raw milk)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl combine all dry ingredients, and then stir in remaining wet ingredients just until dry particles are moistened.

Fill (12) muffin cups 2/3 full. ( if you don’t use paper baking cups you will need to grease the pan)

Bake at 400 degrees for 18-22 minutes. (the mini muffins I cooked for a little less)

Remove muffins from the pan immediately.  Now brush the tops of the HOT muffins with 2 TBSP. melted butter, and then dip each muffin top into a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. ( I obviously skipped the butter and sugar part on my personal muffins, but my family and friends got to enjoy the full product)

Serve Warm!

I made a quadruple batch, and was able to store my personal muffins in a bag to eat during the week. This came in handy and was super convenient, especially when I would get home from a run and was completely famished!

One night I made some roasted veggies…. I cut up some carrots and potatoes.  Threw them in a tupperware with a tsp. of olive oil. Shake it around until all veggies as shiny.

Spread veggies on a cookie sheet then sprinkle with salt and pepper.  I used this salt (so it’s unprocessed)

                       

Bake the veggies at 375 degrees for 25 min. or until they reach your desired tenderness.

SO DELICIOUS.  I do this with the veggie blend bags from Sam’s (the ones with cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots)  I used to hate broccoli and cauliflower, but now I love it!

Later in the week I found a recipe for Homemade Fruit Rollups. They turned out great, even though I had to change up the cooking method.  I will definitely make these again in the future. The best part is there are only 2 ingredients! It just so happens that i had some strawberries that were on the way out, and ripe enough that I couldn’t eat them straight.

2 Ingredient Strawberry Fruit Leather-

2 C. strawberries

1/4 tsp. cinnamon.

Puree it!

        

The cooking instructions were to pour it over a cookie sheet with some tephlon baking sheets or whatever it’s called.  Then to cook it at 100 degrees for 8 hours.  I didn’t have any of those cooking sheets so I wanted to split up the puree to try a few other methods. I put some in my silicone muffin pan, and then poured the remainder straight onto a greased cookie sheet.

Now my the lowest temp my oven will go is 170.  So I cooked the leather at 170 for 5 hours. Next time I will do a little less so it’s a little more maluable, so maybe 4 hours?  I think I will do it all in the silicone pans too. I like how their already little discs.  I cut up the other portion using a pizza cutter.

These are seriously sooo delicious. I’m excited to experiment making other fruit leathers.

For dinner the other night we did Salmon (we finally bought a grill, we had been without since we moved to utah!)

I have never been a fan of fish but I love salmon now using this seasoning we got from Costco. The salmon we also get at Costco!

                          

                        

 

We also grilled up some white corn on the cob!

 

I’m super excited with the results i’m getting, everything i’m learning, and to get more creative in the kitchen! Wish me luck on this next week, and please feel free to share any fun new recipes you find!