Sunday Rituals

I have a few Sunday rituals I like to adhere to, which helps me relax after what usually turns out to be a busy weekend and allows me to prepare for the week ahead. Sometimes I get in an extra yoga class or a friendly brunch, but I always do my weekly shop Sunday morning then come home to spend time in the kitchen.

Since I'm not making any fabulous dinners this week, I thought I'd share some tips and tricks I use to help make healthy eating quick, easy, and accessible for everyone. On a side note, I did make a kick ass pot of turkey and fennel chili on Sunday night that kept me in lunches and dinners throughout the week.

During the week, I am constantly on the go. For the past 6 weeks, I've been getting in 6am yoga classes a few times a week, which means getting up extra early and having a post workout breakfast ready in addition to lunch and afternoon snack. In order to accomplish this, I make a protein smoothie the night before and pop it in the freezer, pack my lunch in its bag and leave that in the fridge, and make sure my gym bag is ready to go with my work clothes and a second set of workout gear.

It sounds like alot, I know. But I promise if you have even a spare hour once a week to prep a few things, you can do it too. Here are my Sunday standbys; do it with a mimosa in your hand and you might not even notice.

1. Hard boil 4-5 eggs. Put your eggs in a large pot of water, bring it to a boil then turn it off and let the eggs sit until you're finished with everything else. They are easy to ignore!

2. Cut up / individually bag veggies. I like to buy whole carrots and cut them up for lunch/snacks. I usually put 2 carrots per bag; sometimes I add celery, sometimes I'm real lazy and just get baby carrots. Just pre-portion everything and leave it in the fridge. And make sure to re-use your ziplocks!

3. Buy frozen fruit for smoothies or cut and freeze your own. I buy frozen berries and pineapple and greens, but I prefer to freeze my own bananas; keep extra on hand if you need to make banana ice cream one night.

4. Buy pre-cooked chicken for lunchtime salads. This is my biggest secret and best tip-I always hit up the salad bar at WFM and load up on the all natural pre cooked chicken breast they stock there. It is a bargain at $7.99/lb.
As an alternative! You can buy a whole roasted chicken from most grocery stores and pull all the meat from it and store it in a container to add to salads or whatever. If you do this, I highly recommend using the carcass to make your own chicken stock, which will keep in the freezer for months.

5. Clean your greens. You can buy the pre-washed stuff, and I do, but I always like to give it a rinse. Keep it bagged up and accessible for making salads when you don't have leftovers.

6. Buy easily transportable fruit. Especially now that we're out of berry season, apples, pears, and citrus all travel well and don't require any extra packaging, just toss it in with the rest of your lunch.

7. Buy in bulk and bag the breasts. I buy the boneless, skinless natural chicken breasts from WFM in bulk for $4.99/lb (which is a bargain for clean meat!) then I bag two breasts at a time and keep in the freezer for speedy dinners-think curries, soups, pastas, etc.

So there you have it, my Sunday ritual. I'll probably roast a few beets now that it's fall again, and I might do a few other things here and there. With a little advanced preparation, you can not only always have a healthy meal within minutes, you can travel with food you feel good about eating.

Good Luck and Good Eating!

Seared Albacore and Red Chard

So I haven't posted anything in over a week! Shame on me for being so slack; Tim's been away for almost a week and I've either had too much time on my hands or have overbooked each day since he's been gone. That being said, I haven't been cooking for him this week, just myself, which can sometimes seem like more effort than its worth, especially since he always cleans up the kitchen.

We both tend to travel for work a fair bit, so we end up making some changes to our routine to adapt; Tim eats frozen pizza and I have to do my own laundry. When I'm on my own, I can get pretty lazy and have nights where I am quite content to have an apple with peanut butter for dinner. But I digress.

Last week before he left, I whipped up this seared albacore dish with red chard. My mom makes a delicious red chard and I decided to copy her, mostly cause I was feeling inspired by the beautiful leafy green tops and bright red stalks, and also because sometimes you just need to switch it up.

Bear in mind that you can use any leafy green here you wish-rainbow chard, spinach, baby bok choy, whatever you have on hand or whatever your favorite green is. I also happened to use albacore because not only was it fresh and beautiful, but it was also on sale.

Seared Albacore with Red Chard

1 bunch red chard, leaves ribboned and stems diced

1/2 yellow onion, sliced

2 cloves garlic, diced

2 portions albacore, I used a 4oz and 7oz piece

Olive Oil

1 orange, zested

Salt, Pepper

*Grapefruit balsamic vinegar

Prepare the marinade for your fish: rinse fish and pat dry and place in a shallow bowl with 1tbsp olive oil, salt, pepper, and about 1tbsp of orange zest. Let sit while you prep your chard.

Heat a deep skillet over medium high heat. Add a little olive oil to the pan and sautee your onions for 3-4 minutes until soft. Add the garlic and the chard stalks and sautee another 2-3 minutes, then add the leaves and let them wilt. Turn off the heat and let sit until ready to plate.

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium high heat and add a little olive oil. Cut your orange in half and squeeze some juice over the fish just before you place it in your skillet, seasoned side down. Season the top side with salt, pepper and orange zest while the bottom browns. Flip after 3-4 minutes; you should see the fish turn from translucent to opaque as it cooks. Sear for another 3-4 minutes, but don't cook  your tuna all the way through as it tends to get tough.

Add your wilted chard to a plate or bowl, and top with a dash of salt and freshly ground pepper. I drizzled mine with a fabulous grapefruit balsamic vinegar, but you can use the other half of your orange to dress the chard otherwise. Top with the albacore, another squeeze of orange and crack of pepper, and you're ready to eat.

Enjoy!

Roasted Carrot and Sweet Potato Soup with Turkey and Leeks

Fall has finally come to Texas, and maybe even a bit earlier than usual. Either way, I am very much enjoying a reprieve from the heat and humidity we've endured for the last several months. Maybe that's why I am so excited for fall this year, or it could be my love of gourds, root veggies, and earthy spices. I used to be such a summertime girl, but now the idea of scarves and spices has me totally stoked.

I may have mentioned this before, but I also love soup. Like really love soup. We didn't have a particularly soup friendly winter last year, so I'm hoping for an extended fall and a reasonable winter. Note that a reasonable winter in my mind means nothing below 45 degrees F; nowhere in Texas has coat checks and we tend to use our heat in the winter the same was as we use our AC all other times of year.

I had a little bit of extra time on the weekend, and decided to make a roasted carrot and sweet potato soup, inspired by one of my trips to Scotland earlier in the year.

The soup I ate was served with a healthy drizzle of sage oil and a fried sage leaf, which really complements the flavors of the carrot and sweet potato. I used a sage seasoning in this version, but cannot recommend fresh sage and a sage oil enough here; I was really missing it.

I roasted the carrots and sweet potatoes with onions, garlic, salt, pepper, rosemary and dried sage, and tossed everything in olive oil to roast (aka ignore) while I prepped lunch for the week. You'll want to make sure your veggies are roughly the same size so that they cook at the same rate.

When they were fork tender, I pulled them out and popped them in a dutch oven with some melting leeks and chicken stock to simmer further. You can use vegetable broth here if you'd like to make this soup vegetarian/vegan as well. When everything was good and soupy and soft, I pulled out my immersion blender (one of my favorite Christmas presents...seriously) and pureed until smooth. I topped ours off with some italian turkey sausage from WFM and a few extra caramelized leeks. It was awesome for a cool fall evening, and delicious leftover for lunch the next day!

Roasted Carrot and Sweet Potato Soup with Turkey and Leeks

2 Italian Turkey sausages, casings removed

1 leek, white parts sliced

1/2 onion, sliced

1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced

4 carrots, cut into rounds

2 cloves garlic, crushed

4c chicken or vegetable stock

1 sprig fresh rosemary

1tsp sage, dried or fresh

Olive oil, salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 400F and peel and chop your veggies. Toss carrots, sweet potato, onion, rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper, and sage with 1tbsp of olive oil, and spread on a foil lined baking sheet. Roast in oven until fork tender, about 35 minutes.

In a dutch oven over medium heat, add 1/2tbsp oilve oil and half your sliced leeks. Let soften for a few minutes, then add your roasted veggies and stock. Let everything simmer and soften together and let the flavor of the veggies infuse the broth. Once soft, use an immersion blender to process until smooth. You can also use a regular blender here if you don't have an immersion blender.

In a skillet over medium heat, sautee the remaining leeks in 1/2tbsp olive oil until starting to caramelize. Push to one side and add the turkey sausage, breaking up large chunks as they form.

Ladle soup into bowls and top with turkey and caramelised leeks and fresh ground pepper.