Spaghetti Squash Pad Thai

 

 

 

This recipe was amazing- I am SO relieved that all the selections from our Meal Plan have been so yummy.  Jenny Collier is wonderful!  It’s a little scary when you commit to a month of recipes that you’ve never made before.  I did take a moment to look through most- in order to plan which would take more time and therefore should be made on the weekend.  While this recipe was easy to make, it did take some prep time, I was wishing we’d planned it for a weekend instead.

I prepped it while watching Knox and Jason play in the living room, it’s rare that he’s home early with us- so I thought I would get dinner started….  but sorta wished I was over there with them instead!  It started innocently by turning the oven on to roast up the squash.  I told myself, after bath/ bed for the baby– then I could easily finish the recipe and we’d eat in no time, it’d be nice to have squash ready.  Then it sucked me in one ingredient at a time- I only needed to chop the onion and garlic and green onions… shred some carrots… mix the sauce in a bowl… then I would go play with them… then I saw the meat- “I could just get the shrimp peeled and deviened too…. then it would be so easy for later to cook everything”… and finally,  ” well I should also chop up the chicken while I’m at it”.  And then it was an hour gone and dinner was completely prepped, I had 20 good minutes before Knox was too tired to keep his head up, but we ate a great dinner.

I used a recipe as a base for this but altered everything for what I know and love about Pad Thai.  We made our own peanut sauce for dipping as well- it was amazing.  Finish with a bit of lime juice, and it’s perfection:

Spaghetti Squash Pad Thai

Makes 4 servings

30-45 minutes of prep for cooking squash and chopping ingredients

10-15 minutes of active cooking

Ingredients

2 medium-sized spaghetti squash

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 red onion, chopped

4 carrots, shredded  ( reserve some for serving)

1 bunch of scallions, chopped ( reserve some for serving)

10 large shrimps, diced

2 chicken breasts, diced

canola oil, for cooking

1 lime,  ( for serving)

Sauce

1/4 cup Teriyaki Sauce

3 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp ground garlic

1 tbsp peanut butter

 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Cut spaghetti squash in half, scoop out the seeds, drizzle each flesh side with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Place squash cut side down on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  Roast in you preheated over for 45 minutes, until squash is fork tender, then set aside to cool before scooping out the squash “noodles” with a fork.

3. In a small bowl mix together sauce ingredients and set aside

4. In a large pan, heat 1 tbsp canola oil, and saute with your chopped garlic, red onion, carrots, and scallions (and any other veggies you like)

5. Once cooked down, add shrimp and chicken and cook for 5-8 minutes, until protein is cooked

6. Add in spaghetti squash (approx. 3 cups) and sauce mixture, mix well to combine

9. Taste and adjust spices to desired liking*

To serve: Top with extra scallions, shredded carrots and a squeeze of lime.  If you like it saucy add this Peanut Sauce as well:  in a small bowl mix 2 tbsp Teriyaki Sauce, 2 tbsp peanut butter and enough rice vinegar, to smooth to desired consistency, using a fork to mix.

Grilled Lemon Pork Chops with Cauliflower Puree and Parmesan Crusted Sweet Potato Chips

What a title, and what a decadent meal!  It’s been a while since we made such an all consuming dinner like this- but warm weather called for grilling out and our meal plan had some tasty recipes for us to use.  The pork marinates for 2 hours, or overnight- so plan ahead.  The favorite was hard to pick from the trio of yumminess- the crisp cheesy sweet potatoes were perfect bites, creamy cauliflower puree was full of decadent butter and milk set under a perfectly grilled pork chop that was bright and lemony with hints of Dijon and pepper….

I was really excited to make the puree, I love potatoes and have nothing against them, but when I can use a bonified vegetable that tastes just as good and that the baby can eat too- it’s a major win.  The recipe I very loosely followed called for heavy cream and 1.5 sticks of butter- we used a bit of fat free milk and 1/2 the butter, it was for cauliflower after all, so it’s balanced- right?

GRILLED LEMON + MUSTARD PORK CHOPS, adapted

serves 4

Ingredients:

2 lemons, juiced ( 1/2 cup)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

4- 8oz bone-in pork chops

 Directions:

1. In a large resealable bag, combine lemon juice, oil, garlic, mustard, salt, pepper, garlic powder and red pepper. Place chops in bag, seal, and refrigerate 2 hours or overnight. Turn bag frequently to distribute marinade.
2. Preheat an outdoor grill for high heat. Remove chops from bag to a tray, dicard marinade.
3. Lightly oil the grill grate. Grill pork chops for 5 to 7 minutes per side.

CAULIFLOWER PUREE, adapted

serves 4

Ingredients:

Two 2-pound heads of cauliflower, cored and separated into 2-inch floret

1 chicken bouillon cube

1 cup fat free milk

1/2 stick unsalted butter

salt, to taste

Cayenne pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the bouillon cube then add cauliflower florets until tender, about 7 minutes. Drain well. Return to pot over medium high heat and stir for 5 minutes, to dry out most of the water.
2. In a small saucepan, combine the milk with the butter and bring to a simmer over moderate heat just until the butter is melted.
3. Puree the cauliflower with an immersion blender stick in your pot or in a blender with the warm milk/ butter mixture until smooth, then season with salt and cayenne to your own taste.

THYME + PARMESAN ROASTED SWEET POTATOES, adapted

serves 4

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp. cornstarch

2 medium sweet potatoes, washed and cut into 1/4″ coins

2 Tbsp. olive oil

2 Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves, remove stems and rough chop

1 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 cup grated Parmesan

fresh ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 450′. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large plastic bag, toss the sweet potato coins in the corn starch to coat.

Transfer them to a large mixing bowl, drizzle the olive oil and toss to coat. Add the thyme, salt, Parmesan and a few grinds of pepper, toss again by hand to coat each coin evenly

Transfer the coins to the parchment lined tray in a single layer, sprinkle more Parmesan and cracked pepper if desired, and bake for 20 minutes.  Flip all the coins over so both sides get nice and crisp, return to the oven for 25 minutes ( total 45 minutes)

Serve with ketchup, if desired.

Rosemary and Garlic Roasted Salmon

 

Let me preface this by saying- we do not generally love salmon.  I want to love it because it is SO great for you, I want to teach Knox to love fish, and I want our family to eat fish more regularly.  This recipe is just the ticket!  The bold rosemary and garlic flavors are a perfect match for this fish, I enjoyed every single bite.  It also helped we had left over cauliflower puree to eat with it… We used a one pound wild caught sockeye salmon filet, it was perfect for 3 servings.  Nothing is quicker then cooking fish for dinner, so needless to say, this was fast and easy!  I think we will add it in to a more regular rotation.  Enjoy the simple goodness that is here:

 

 

 

Rosemary and Garlic Roasted Salmon

• 4 garlic cloves
• 5-6 fresh rosemary sprigs, about 3 tablespoons chopped
• 1 pound salmon, preferably a wild caught sockeye filet
• 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper

* For this meal we served with Cauliflower Puree and Steamed Fresh Broccoli

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425°. Peel and chop garlic and rosemary and set aside.
2. Place salmon on a parchment lined baking sheet.
3. Sprinkle with salt, pepper- then pat on the rosemary, and chopped garlic.
4. Place in the oven and roast for 12 minutes or until the salmon is flaky.

Crock Pot Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs

Ok, so this recipe was a HUGE hit.  I can’t even begin to tell you how easy it is, you just need to make this tonight.  It’s full of healthy and cheap ingredients, cooks itself, Knox LOVED it and so did we!  In fact, we loved it so much  we forgot to take a picture but I just had to share the recipe.  The original recipe is called ” Stupid Easy Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs” from the paleopot.com blog.

We aren’t doing “Paleo” but rather the meal plan we have lined up had a link to this recipe, and other Paleo recipes, and we eat like this anyways so it works.  I altered the recipe to our tastes, so it’s got more tomato sauce that has more flavors with onion and garlic.  If you really want to go ” stupid easy” please follow this recipe link! Every time I ate this, it was while feeding it to Knox, who didn’t want me to stop shoveling it in to his mouth, so I was scarfing it down when I could and thusly no photos were taken- sorry!

Crock Pot Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

2 medium spaghetti squash

1 pound of ground Italian sausage

2- 8oz cans tomato sauce

1- 14oz can diced tomato

1 large onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic,minced

Olive Oil

2 teaspoons Italian seasoning (Oregano, Basil, Thyme)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Use a large 6-7 quart slow cooker
2. Dump your tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, diced onion, garlic, and Italian seasoning into your slow cooker and stir well.
3. Cut both your squash in half on the horizontal ( so the halves are taller not wider) and scoop out the seeds, drizzle the flesh side with olive oil and salt and pepper
4. Place your 4 squash halves face down into your slow cooker, nestle in to the sauce.
5. Roll your ground sausage into meatballs, nestle them in the sauce around the squash.
6. Cook on High for 3 hours or cook on low for 5 hours.
7. Use a large fork to pull the “spaghetti” out of your squash, then top with your meatballs and sauce.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

 

Here’s the yummy soup recipe we made over the weekend, super healthy and filling- loaded with peppers and veggies.  It made 6 nice portions, so 2 were frozen and 2 are being eaten as leftovers this week for lunch.  Enjoy!

Chicken Tortilla Soup slightly adapted from http://paleomg.com/

 Prep time 30 mins

Cook time 30 mins

Total time 1 hour

 Serves: 6-8

Ingredients

For your chicken

• 3-4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 2.5lbs worth)
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

For your soup

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 poblano pepper, diced
• 1 jalapeño, finely diced
• 1 (4oz) can diced green chiles
• 1 (14oz) can fire roasted tomatoes
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 32 oz fluid chicken stock (I used low sodium)
• 1- 14 oz canned corn
• juice of 2 limes
• chopped cilantro, to garnish
• crushed plantain chips, to garnish
• sliced avocado, to garnish
• shredded cheddar cheese, to serve

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Place chicken on a parchment lined baking sheet. Pour on some olive oil and then sprinkle with cumin, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and salt and pepper.
3. Bake for 20-30 minutes (depending on the thickness of the chicken breasts). Once your chicken is done baking, dice up the chicken.
4. While your chicken is baking, get your soup ready. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat then add your minced garlic.
5. Add onions, red bell pepper, jalapeño pepper, and poblano pepper stir to saute.
6. Once your onions begin to become translucent, pour in your green chiles and diced fire roasted tomatoes, along with the rest of your spices. Mix together.
7. Then add your chicken and chicken stock to the pot.
8. Simmer on low heat for 30 minutes.
9. When your soup has simmered, add in your lime juice and a bit more salt and pepper.
10. Add your soup to a bowl along with avocado, cilantro, and plantain chips ( we skipped the chips) added shredded cheese!

Pesto Chicken Legs on Brown Rice with Green Beans | Meal Planning

This weekend, we got back on track with our meal planning and budget.  We love food, obviously, so it’s really easy for us to go nuts and buy food every other day on a whim to make at home because it sounds good.  Not only was that bad for our budget, but it’s been terrible for our waistline.  I found a great 6 week meal plan on Jenny Collier’s blog.  I spent some time over the weekend going through which recipes sounded good to us, and literally plotted out our entire month of March in meals.  We spent 50% less at the store this weekend on groceries, have had hot delicious meals every night, and leftovers every day to take for lunch.  I’ve even been able to portion out some things to keep in the freezer which I can build in to April’s plan ( cha ching- savings)!  I took her same format and customized it to work for us ( you can download her version through the link):

 

I made notes on what we should prep for the next night, and also planned for the longer cook + prep time meals to land on the weekends when we have more time to spend cooking ( date nights!).  So far this has seriously worked for us, we are loving the schedule!  It can seem a bit over board, but for us, we need this discipline or else we’d be getting delivery and spending a ton of money on extra meals for lunches and the like all week long.  This calendar has eliminated the question ” What should we have for dinner?” and ” Do we have anything to make for dinner?” and similarly ” What can we make for dinner?”.  It’s like being back in school with teh lunch calendar in teh cafeteria, except this is good food, made at home, healthy!  The recipes are all found through Jenny’s blog post but we’ll be sharing our versions here as well when we take pictures.  Each has been super simple, fast, budget friendly and DELICIOUS- perfect combo for success.  Now I just need to build in some time to work out and we’ll be golden.  Today I am sharing the Pesto Chicken- I had frozen chicken legs and frozen homemade pesto already so that’s what I used.  You can use chicken breast/ thighs, store bought pesto etc- I didn’t follow this recipe at all, but want to share it anyhow in case you’d like the baked on cheese yummified version here.

Baked Pesto Chicken
(Makes 4 servings, recipe inspired by http://www.kalynskitchen.com)

Ingredients:
8 chicken legs
salt and fresh ground black pepper for seasoning chicken
1/2- 1 cup basil pesto (I used my homemade pesto, but you can use purchased pesto)
2 cups cooked brown rice, to serve

Green beans ( enough to serve 4), cooked

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Start your rice to cook ( 1 cup dry rice in to 2 cups boiling water, reduce to simmer with lid for 40-45 minutes)

Spray a foil lined 9″ x 12″ baking dish with non-stick spray for easy clean up, then spread 1/3 cup basil pesto over the bottom of the dish. Lay chicken over the pesto, then spread the remaining basil pesto over the chicken.

Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil (or use a baking dish with a tight-fitting lid) and bake the chicken legs for 35-40 minutes, uncover and bake 10 additional minutes until chicken is cooked through.  Heat up your green beans as the chicken finishes.Serve hot with extra pesto from the pan over brown rice ( couscous, or quinoa) and steamed green beans ( ours were frozen, not fresh)

 

Date Night at Home | Pizza Party

When you want to stay home, nice and warm, but still have a fun “Date Night”- throw a pizza party!  Finding the silver lining of all this cold weather, for us, has been to make staying in fun, stay home, relaxed and cozy cozy.  Making an active dinner is a way to have FUN date, and you don’t have to go far or spend a lot of money at all, even wear your pj’s.  We had store bought pizza dough from Trader Joe’s, they’re pizza sauce too, mozzarella, black olives, artichokes.. use what you have- chop it up and roll out some dough.  I call this active cooking because you are eating while you cook the next little pizza treat, drinking some beer and relaxing in the kitchen ( as opposed to sitting in front of the TV while scarfing down your meal and not talking- this happens to everyone else right?)  We make super thin small pizzas and snack on them as we make them.  Have some good music on- no TV, and enjoying being home!  If you want to make your own dough- check a favorite recipe here

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

Literally the FASTEST and easiest soup I’ve ever made, this recipe is pureed at the end, so chopping does not have to be perfect!  If ever there were a time for fast easy dinners, that are healthy, it is now.  After working all day, we just want to enjoy family time, eating is an important aspect of that.  So if we can make something like this soup, which Knox can eat before bedtime, then it’s really exciting over here!  This soup was tasty, creamy, healthy and filling.  The green onion and grated Parmesan on op truly seal the deal, serve with bread and you’ll be eating within 25 minutes ( only 10 are actively cooking!!).  I did a quick chop of the onions and garlic, got the oil ready, and sauteed them- singing to and chatting with Knox.  While they were softened in the pan, I chopped the base off the cauliflower and rough chopped so everything cooked uniform.  Once the onions were done ( 3-4 minutes) I added everything to the pot, chopped the green onion while it came to a boil, then set to simmer for 15 minutes while I went and played with the baby!  To finish, I used my immersion blender to puree it up and dinner was served!  Love love love this recipe.  I bet you could switch this up to be broccoli instead with cheddar cheese and a hit of cream.  You could also add bright green peas after the puree to add more veggies and bite to this soup.  It’s such a great simple easy base recipe where you can add and edit to create a variety of variations.  If you have the time to roast the garlic, that would add a super amazing flavor depth to this soup.  I added Parmesan to the soup and some half and half and ricotta that we had on hand to give this super healthy original recipe a bit of healthy creamy milk fats ( the baby needs those vitamins!). The original recipe is Vegetarian, gluten-free, paleo and clean eating, if you are in to all that follow the link below!  I hope you enjoy a little more time with your family and make this super weeknight friendly soup today.

 

Adapted from Yummy, Healthy, Easy

4 adult servings, (or 3 adult servings and 3 baby servings)

INGREDIENTS

• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, rough chopped
• 1 onion, rough chopped
• 1 head cauliflower, remove stem and rough chop to same size pieces
• 32 ounces chicken broth
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1/4 cup half and half
• 1/4 cup ricotta
• 1 cup shredded Parmesan, 1/4 cup for serving
• 4 sliced green onions for serving

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a dutch oven pot (or heavy pot), heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. cook until softened, about 3-4 minutes.
2. Add cut up cauliflower, broth, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil then cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes until cauliflower is softened.
3. Turn off heat, add in the half and half, ricotta, and 3/4 cup of the Parmesan, stir to combine.
4. Using an immersion blender, carefully blend until smooth.
5. Serve in bowls with grated Parmesan cheese on top, fresh cracked pepper and sliced green onions. Enjoy!

Pickled Veggie Relish

Have you ever been to a really good Mexican restaurant where they bring you those amazing pickled carrots with jalapenos?  Yeah, they’re pretty amazing.  We’ve even posted on this before from our good friend and chef Alejandro!  We had a bunch of veggies that were getting pretty sad, so instead of being wasteful we re-purposed them in to this incredible relish.  We tossed this in to a fresh salad in lou of dressing, topped it on to some baked cod and added it like giardinera to a sandwich!  It’s very versatile and packed with flavor.  The recipe below is a loose version of what we did, use what you have on hand for vegetables- we used carrots, celery, onion, sweet mixed peppers and cilantro.

Recipe/ Directions

2-3 cups vegetables, carrots/ celery/ onion/ peppers

4-6 garlic cloves, rough chop or whole

1/2 cup chopped cilantro, optional

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup rice wine vinegar

1-2 cups water

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1/2 tsp salt and pepper, to taste

1.) Chop your vegetables to bite size or relish size pieces ( however you’d like to eat them!)

2.) Place all vegetables, garlic, cilantro, vinegars and coriander, salt and pepper in to a large saucepan, add enough water to cover everything.

3.) Bring the pan to a boil, then reduce heat and cook for about 5 more minutes.

4.) Once cooled slightly, put in to Ball jars to store in the refrigerator, And they’ll keep for about 3 months.