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!