BBQ Chicken Salad

The days are longer, the sun is shining, and I feel summer coming! I love summer food. The barbecues, the watermelon, salads, the popsicles, did I mention watermelon?  A family favorite of ours is BBQ chicken salad. It is incredibly fast, delicious, and screams summer.

Chimichurri (or Green Gold)

Our society has a bit of a love-hate recipe with Gwyneth Paltrow, and I'm no different. I subscribe to the GOOP newsletter, but I regularly end up deleting it with an eye roll. The recommendations are often completely out of touch with my normal-person lifestyle. $400 cleanses? Travel guides for the Hamptons? $900 candlesticks? That said, the woman knows how to cook, and I'm a big fan of her cookbook "It's All Good." Although not all recipes in the cookbook are slam dunks and a few are plain ridiculous (fish roasted in salt anyone?), there are also some real winners.

Homemade "Ranch" Dressing

We are big condiments fan at our house. I think we have 10 different mustards in my fridge as we speak (not kidding!). They are so fast and easy to add flavor to a lot of meals. One condiment or dressing that my kids and husband love is ranch dressing, but I have such a hard time buying or even using the bottled stuff full of 1000 ingredients. So per usual, I remade a classic into a Natalie-approved but family taste-approved dish. Behold, a diary, sugar free, preservative free ranch that is delicious.

Broccoli-Bacon Baked Omelet

Over the past few months I have been striving to get a good portion of veggies in during breakfast. It's so easy to pour a bowl of cereal, but it lacks so much good, hearty nutrition. Plus veggies are filling, low in calories, and pack in a lot of nutrients. Long story short, eggs with veggies seem to be my go-to filling breakfast because they pair easily with vegetables.

The other day our friends came over for a General Conference breakfast and brought a quiche. It's been so long since I had had quiche, and I forgot how delicious it was! I really wanted to make one, and then I remembered how calorie-laden and fatty pie crust can be. I like to save that for a special occasion, not just a throw-together any night of the week meal. I realized that a baked omelet is pretty much just a crustless quiche, so I threw together this beaut and it completely lived up to my hopes. Yum. 

You only need eggs, milk, bacon (I LOVE pre-cooked bacon for this type of thing), broccoli, and an onion. Easy.

Cauliflower Rice n' Greens Black Bean Bowls

I really, really love rice and beans. Really. Sometimes I think I should have been born in Brazil because I'm just crazy about it. When I was in college, one of my roommates introduced me to her family's favorite recipe for rice and beans and I was immediately hooked. It called for rice, beans (duh), lime juice, salt and pepper, avocado, and green onions. It was simple, tasty, and really easy on my college budget. I may even admit to eating it EVERY DAY for a week or so. (Poor college student, remember?)

I still LOVE to make up this black beans and rice recipe, but nowadays I have to scale back a bit on the rice consumption. This particular recipe was born when I came home after a particularly long day to a particularly empty fridge. All I could think to make was rice and beans, then it dawned on my that cauliflower rice would be a much better alternative. After Claire posted her excellent tutorial on making cauliflower rice, I started making up a really simple cauliflower rice and greens dish and I knew it would complement the dish well. Fortunately I had a package of cauliflower rice squirreled away in the freezer and a few handfuls of leftover greens. Thank heavens for hoarding tendencies.

The recipe is really simple and perfect if you are cooking single servings. I live alone and it can be really tricky to find recipes that don't leave you sitting with gallons of leftover chili (or whatever). I don't know about you, but there are only so many days I can gag down leftovers before throwing in the towel and ordering pizza.

Asian Meatballs

Last fall I had the most perfect baby girl. My wonderful mother came to stay and help for a week after I had her. When she left I had a clean house, a freezer full of meals, and pantry full of cookies. She also left a big bag of homemade frozen meatballs. At first I questioned when we would eat that much spaghetti and meatballs? But they turned out to be our favorite fast meal! It was a quick easy protein to throw on a salad, throw on a glaze and have mini meatloaf, eat as a lettuce wrap, or to put over some zoodles or spaghetti squash. They are now a stable in my freezer. Each time I make meatballs I try to add different spices and veggies to change them up. These "Asian" meatballs are our favorite right now.

Veggies 101: Roasted Broccoli

I've had a thing for roasted veggies since I can remember. Something about roasting vegetables takes their flavor up a notch- more than just steaming- and I absolutely prefer most vegetables roasted (there are obviously exceptions here). Being completely honest here, one of my favorite snacks is a big plate of roasted broccoli. It's filling, nutritious and SUPER low in calories. I literally eat the stuff like candy, but without feeling regretful and guilty after like candy would.

Red Velvet Smoothie

While I was visiting my sister several weeks ago she recommended the cookbook "Superfood Smoothies" by Julie Morris. This cookbook is really outstanding. I've been really impressed with most of the recipes I've made and it's given me an excuse to blend up a storm with the Blendtec I got for Christmas. The only dud I've made is the cauliflower chocolate smoothie, but I guess I should have seen that one coming! The only downside I've seen to this book is that she sometimes uses ingredients that are neither easy to find nor easy on the wallet (camu powder? dried white mulberries?). However, I've found that the funky ingredients are pretty easy to work around.

One of my favorites was the "Red Velvet Cake" smoothie. This recipe gets its gorgeous color and bulk from cooked beets and it's flavored with cocoa powder, so basically you can't go wrong. I played around with this particular recipe and found that it works really well with dates. They add the perfect amount of sweetness. You can use a medium frozen banana or an alternate sweetener (honey, stevia, etc.) in place of the dates, but I think dates taste best.

Another favorite smoothie from the book is the Pineapple Watercress smoothie. While making it I had this crazy flashback to "green drink," a horrid concoction of pineapple juice, spinach, parsley, and celery my mom used to make when we were kids. I still vividly remember the texture and smell of that horrid drink and to this day it makes me shudder. Fortunately this version is actually quite delicious, but I was reminded that in the end we all become our parents, right? :)

Riced Cauliflower + How to make prepped and frozen riced cauliflower

As I talked about last week, I did Whole 30 last month (yesterday was my last day!). One of my favorite hacks was discovered when I was shopping at Trader Joe's and found prepped and frozen cauliflower rice. I grabbed a few bags, and as I was checking out the cashier noted "It's a good thing you grabbed a few of these things. They are like gold around here!" And so it held true, I couldn't ever really find them again when I went, as they were always selling out a few hours after they were out on the shelf.  So I decided I would have to just make my own frozen version, and it has done wonders!

Avocado BLT Egg Salad

Hello there! It's been a while since I have posted. The holidays kept us busy around these parts. The holidays also left us feeling also heavy. Oh goodness, I always forget how much delicious food I end up consuming between the months of October-December. Between the dinners, holiday parties, goodie-baking for friends, the list just goes on and on and the scale just went up and up and so did the head aches.

When January came around I was so ready to start feeling good again, and after a lot of contemplation I decided to give Whole 30 a whirl. While I don't feel like eating this way is sustainable, nor healthy for long periods of time (too much meat, and I think grains are a healthy part of any food table, in moderation) , I have found it to be incredibly cleansing as well as powerful when it came to defining my relationship with food.

Spinach and White Bean Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

I saw something similar to this recipe in a cookbook years ago and tried to recreate it for some friends recently. Basically, my version was terrible but I still loved the idea. Then I remembered a miso maple sauce I had eaten awhile ago at a terrific restaurant and wondered if it would help out the mess I had created. After a quick Google search I learned that the sauce was basically equal parts vinegar, maple syrup, and miso paste. Boom - perfect! It tasted like I had spent hours working on the sauce but only took about 15 minutes to cook. The perfect fake out food!

I love fake out food - recipes that taste fancy and taste like they take a lot of time, but take minimal effort. I've found that the secret to adding flavor without a lot of effort is to add an umami ingredient. What is umami you might ask? Umami is sometimes called the fifth flavor and adds deep, rich, savory flavor that comes from glutamine. Foods with umami flavor include meats, especially stocks and other slow cooked meats, tomatoes (especially tomato paste), mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, shellfish, and fermented foods (among a few others).

For this recipe I used miso (mee-so) paste, which has a deep, lovely flavor. Miso is pretty foreign to many home cooks, although it is becoming more common. Basically, it is a salty, thick paste made out of fermented soybeans. It sounds super weird and kind of creeped me out at first. Once I got the hang of it, though, I really grew to love miso. I generally always have at least one tub of it in my fridge and it lasts a LONG time so you don't have to worry about it going bad. I like to make homemade ramen soup with miso paste, and it is GREAT flavoring for soups and salad dressings. You will generally find it in the refrigerated case near where you'd find tofu. There are multiple kinds - white, red, sweet, etc. Red miso has a somewhat stronger flavor while white is more mellow, but really any kind will work for this recipe.

If you can't find miso in your grocery store, are kind of freaked out by it, or just don't want to bother, you can also use soy sauce for this recipe. Frankly, I think it tastes much better with miso (I've tried both ways), but either way works.

It's all about food prep

You know those days when you wake up to a race bugle and you go all day only to crash that night thinking, what just happened? On days like this the first thing to go is healthful food choices and thoughtful meals prepared at home (and who are we kidding, we all know they are usually significantly better for you).

I also find myself in this rut, with work and travel (mostly for work) and a threenager, and a busy hubby with a company run for our home, and his book deadlines, and race training (I love to run and those longer races take a lot of time away from home in the wee hours of the morning). So, in order to not flop everyday, I need, nay, MUST HAVE, a plan.

Everyone does this a bit differently depending on their needs and schedules. My little sister Natalie,  and our resident homesteader, plans 4 meals weekly so she has some flexibility and the opportunity to gobble up leftovers. One of our readers, Erin, posted that she has gone back to planning her meals a month at a time because it helps her plan and budget ahead. Micah, our resident gu-ru on plant based-eating, plans her meals on Tuesdays, shops on Wednesdays (when her local grocery store's weekly sales overlap), and preps and washes all produce Wednesday night.

Beef, Veggie, & Quinoa Stew

Happy New Year! Natalie here and are talking beef stew today. A rich hearty beef stew is soul warming on a cold day. I'm not sure what the winter is like for you, but here on the Homestead in Eastern Idaho it is negative temperatures and down right miserable. I was on a search to make a veggie-filed beef stew and was once again, like many traditional comfort foods, was turned off by the prepackaged ingredients filled with MSG, high sodium, unknown ingredients, butter, flour, etc. Hence, this recipe was born and quickly became a wintertime favorite.