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!