Breakfast for Me. And You.

I realize I haven't posted many dinners this week; I just completed a 3 day raw food cleanse AND traveled for work which meant Tim got alot of grilled cheese and frozen pizza. Which I think actually made him pretty happy, but it's not anything I really need to put out in the blogosphere. 

The raw food cleanse was good, although I definitely noticed my desire for protein sources and unfortunately raw meat was off the menu. As my friend K says, "Juice is not food." Smoothies, however, are!

I have been having a protein smoothie for breakfast every (work) morning for a few months now, and I have gone through several different iterations and flavor combinations. While I gave up the egg white protein for a few days for my cleanse, I still continued to enjoy a smoothie for breakfast. 

Ah smoothies. They take about 3 minutes to make, are easily transportable, and the flavor combinations are endless. They can be adapted to moods, seasons, or whatever you happen to have in the fridge/freezer. When I go to early morning yoga practices, I make one the night before and put it in the freezer so that it can melt at the same time as me; then I can eat it with a spoon at the office. They're especially great in the summertime when it's a zillion degrees outside, but can basically be enjoyed year round in Texas. 

This week I've been enjoying banana-mocha smoothies, which I'm sharing today for the crossfitters. I find this flavor combination  kindof helps give you your chocolate fix without adding any sugar, as the bananas are plenty sweet. You also get some good fats from the almond butter and a dose of omegas from the flaxseed meal. You can add a scoop of protein powder too if you'd like; I'm using the Vitol brand Vanilla Ice Cream flavor, which is great and not too sweet, it blends really well with everything. 

Banana Mocha Smoothie

1 banana, fresh or frozen

1tbsp almond butter

1tbsp Navitas raw Cacao Powder 

1tbsp flax seed meal

1/2c almond milk, or milk of your choice (homemade pictured)

1 shot espresso (optional)

1 scoop protein powder of your choice (optional)

Ice, as needed

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. When you get the vortex in your blender, you'll know you've got an even consistency. 

Enjoy!

Pan Seared Sword and Curry Roasted Butternut Squash

Even though I generally do something a little special for Sunday dinner, I was really tired this weekend so I was pretty lazy on Sunday. Sure I went to the market and prepped some food for the week, but I also watched like 6 episodes of Arrested Development and made Tim buy me conditioner. It was that kind of Sunday.

Nevertheless! It's almost fall here in Texas! And by almost fall I mean it's 87 degrees outside with a breeze. Actually, we had a really nice week last week and it got me excited for gourds.

I picked up a small butternut squash at the market, I really think it was just over a pound, it was pretty cute. They also had swordfish steaks on sale. Usually I don't favor sword; its a large game fish and can get bruised in the fight to land one, and because of their large size they tend to have higher levels of mercury. However, the steaks looked lovely and fresh and the seafood guys were quite impressed when I asked for 12oz and proceeded to hand-select a steak weighing in at 0.76lbs. You do the math.

Swordfish is a really steak-y fish; it's thick and meaty and holds up really well on the grill as well. I pan seared these steaks as we were having some technical difficulties with our Weber, but they tasted really good.

Curry Roasted Butternut Squash

serves two

1 small butternut squash

1/2 yellow onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced

1tbsp olive oil

2tsp curry powder

1tsp garam masala

salt, pepper

Note: You'll want to start this a good 25 minutes before you're ready to start cooking the sword.

Preheat oven to 400F. Peel, seed, and dice your squash into 2" cubes. This is a very rough estimate; mostly just make sure they are all about the same size. Add all ingredients to a bowl and toss to combine.

Spread on a parchment or foil lined baking sheet and cook for 20 minutes or until fork tender.

Note 2: This dish was effing delicious. To the point where not only was I super impressed with my skills at ignoring food in the oven, but was also really happy with the flavors that came through. I will make this again, and probably in several other iterations.

Pan Seared Swordfish

serves two

12oz Swordfish steak, rinsed and patted dry

1/2tsp Garam Masala

1/2tsp Paprika

Salt, Pepper

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat with a dash of olive oil. Season one side of the sword and place seasoned side down in the pan. Season the exposed side while the underside cooks. You should be able to see the fish change in color as it cooks-it will go from opaque to milky white. However, much like a steak, you don't want to overcook the sword. Depending on the thickness, it should take anywhere from 4-6 minutes per side.

Once the sword is cooked, divide between plates and serve with the roasted squash and a green salad. The one pictured is baby spinach, baby arugula, and snow pea sprouts with a drizzle of oilve oil and some white balsamic.

Meatballs!

Paleo Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

Like most sane people, I really like pasta. Being the health conscious nutcase that I am, however, I generally avoid it like the plague, and even more so now with the WLC. Lucky for me, I think the part I love most about pasta is the sauce; I love the warm tomato-ness and the herbs and the fact that its somewhere between soup and solid food.

I've been modifiying my pasta dishes to either use zucchini noodles or cauliflower while Tim still gets the whole wheat spaghetti he loves so much. It works, and it really doesn't take that much extra time to prepare two different bases.

This weekend, I decided to get ambitious and make meatballs. I usually am not much of a red meat eater, but you can really only eat so much poultry and fish before someone (cough cough, Tim) starts balking. So in an effort to compromise, I decided to use half ground chicken breast and half ground beef for these meatballs. You could very easily do a mixture of pork and beef here, as well as ground chicken thigh, really the possibilities are endless. I chose to use chicken breast and 95% lean ground grass fed beef simply because these were some good lean protein options.

To the meat mixture, I added an egg and some grated zucchini to up the veg factor, along with the usual bevvy of herbs and spices-salt, pepper, garlic, oregano. I also really felt like some chopped up mushrooms would have helped give the flavor just an extra oomph, but I'll try that next time.

You can bake these meatballs in the oven, sear them in the pan, or simmer them in a tomato sauce. I chose the latter, knowing that the juices from the sauce would be absorbed into the meatballs which would impart both flavor and moisture.

One more thing to note, I made these on a Sunday and promptly froze them, knowing full well I had an easy dinner waiting at home for one of those hectic days we all tend to have.

Beef and Chicken Meatballs
serves two, plus leftovers

1/2lb ground chicken breast
1/2lb 95% lean ground beef, grass fed if possible
1 egg
1/2c grated zucchini
2 cloves garlic, diced
2tsp oregano
1tsp red pepper flakes
salt, pepper

Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix everything together with your hands. Or a spoon if you're not into that sort of thing.

Roll into equal sized balls and place on parchment-lined baking tray. I ended up with 14 meatballs, meaning that each meatball was a little more than 1oz of meat, if you're watching your calories or macronutrients. Cook as below, or freeze until ready to cook.

Meatballs; just ignore the Tito's in the background

Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

1/2 yellow onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced

1tbsp olive oil

1c sliced mushrooms of  your liking, I used baby bella mushrooms

2c Pomi strained tomatoes

2tsp oregano

1tsp red pepper flakes

salt, pepper

Heat oil in a deep skillet or saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and the garlic, and soften for 3-4 minutes. Add the oregano and salt and pepper at this point. Add the mushrooms and let soften a few more minutes, then add the strained tomato (ps you can use any brand you want, I just like Pomi  because it comes in a carton and is just tomato).

Bring the sauce up to a simmer, then add your meatballs and let cook. While your meatballs are cooking, you can boil up your cauliflower and pasta (if someone is eating real pasta).

NOTE: I always cook my cauliflower/zuchhini noodles before I cook the pasta so that the starches from the pasta that end up in the water don't transfer to my veggies.

Turn the meatballs over at about the 4 minute mark, and let simmer for another 4-5 minutes. The longer they cook, the more flavor they will have, but this is also a dinner that is ready pretty quickly, which makes it perfect for a weeknight.

Once your bases are cooked, toss in a bowl and top with the meatballs and sauce. You can garnish with extra red pepper flakes and pepper, and some fresh basil or parsley goes nice here as well. I had some lovely farmers market cherry tomatoes that I used up here too. Tim got parmesan of course.

 Enjoy!

After a brief hiatus...

And we're back. We had quite a busy August, and I seriously slacked off. I was also having doubts about the blog, but I've come back with a vengeance-and a new plan.

After spending the first and last weeks of August traveling and vacationing, lets just say we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. The whole vacation month ended with a boozy wedding in a castle in Scotland. I'm pretty sure we drank enough to drown a small horse, and needless to say I was ready to get back into the routine.

I started the beginning of September with a program at my yoga studio, Baron Baptiste's 40 Days to a Personal Revolution. And with that, I've been practicing yoga 6 days a week. Not wanting to be an underacheiver, I also registered for the Whole Life Challenge through my crossfit box. With these two challenges underway, I'm back on a good exercise regimen supported by a super clean eating program. Lucky for Tim, he gets to participate from the sidelines.

I am feeling the need to help support my fellow WLC'ers, so for the next 7.5 weeks I'll be sharing dinner recipes, Sunday prep ideas, and things that I'm eating to give them another resource. Tim, of course, will be mostly exempt, although he's happily eaten WLC compliant dinners 3 nights in a row.

Caucaisan Asian Shrimp Salad

Shrimp:
1lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 stalk lemongrass, crushed and sliced
2 cloves garlic, diced
2 tsp fresh grated ginger
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
Salt, Pepper

Salad:
4c baby spinach or baby arugula (any green will do here)
1 tomato; I used a yellow heirloom
1 avocado
3 green onions, cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2c cilantro, chopped
2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 lime
Salt, Pepper

Place the shrimp with the lemongrass, garlic, ginger, and sesame oil in a bowl and toss to coat. Let marinate for a few minutes, or cover and place in your fridge until ready to use.

Prep your salad, because the shrimp cook quickly. Wash and dry your greens and divide between two plates or bowls. Slice tomato and avocado and divide between plates. Toss in chopped cilantro, and top with sesame oil and squeeze of lime.

Heat a saute pan over medium heat and lightly lubricate with olive oil or extra sesame oil. Add the shrimp with all of the marinade to the pan with the green onion pieces and cook for about 5-6 minutes, depending on size. They will be pink and firm when they are cooked through.

Pile shrimp on top of salad, hit with another squeeze of lime juice, and serve.