Super Easy Chicken, Rice & Veggies Dinner

Steph here, and I totally agree with Lacey about Keeping Dinners Simple. I constantly struggle with cooking a healthy meal and making it quick and easy. I was trying on a ton of new recipes which was fun, but not all of them were gluten and dairy free. I'm on a strict healthy eating kick right now (hellooooo summer) so I wanted to my make cooking nights easier.

Enter: Chicken, Rice & Veggies
- Chicken ~ we stock up and keep it frozen so we can just pull it out that morning when we need it
- Brown rice ~ boil in a bag is too damn easy
- Veggies ~ we buy a variety of frozen mixed bags

Love these veggie mixes - and no time for chopping!

Life saver / dish saver / time saver

I add in a hodge podge of spices

Dicing up the chicken - we may do this in advance over the weekend now

Finished product - delicious and healthy

via

Baked Kale Chips

Here's a great snick snack if you're trying to break that nasty potato chip habit.
Buy a big bag of kale (our grocery store had it for $.99/lb. We got two huge bags and still didn't reach a pound) and bake away. You can also do a dehydrated version of this to preserve more of the nutrients. Honestly, I just haven't tried it yet.

And why kale? Kale is one of THE MOST nutritious vegetables you can eat. Trust me on this.

Ingredients:
As much Kale as you want
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Paprika
A bit of fresh ground pepper

Directions:
Before: Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
1. Wash & dry kale. DRYING IS KEY. If you don't dry well, you won't get that nice crispy crunch we all so love about chips.

2. Break kale into small pieces (you know, small chip size) and put into a large bowl.
3. Drizzle the kale with EVOO (enough to cover the chips without making them dripping with oil) and gently massage the oil into the leaves.  Massaging is important as it takes away some of the bitter flavor some of you don't like.
4. Place oil covered pieces onto a baking sheet and sprinkle all of your spices to taste. Want more Pepper & less Paprika...go for it!
5. Bake in oven until crisp, about 15-20 minutes. Keep a careful watch so they don't burn!! Some of you might be done in 14 minutes. Watch carefully.

Tell me any other spice combinations you've added to your tasty kale chip!

Simple Veggie Stir Fry

We're always looking for simple meals. A lot of raw recipes tend to be complicated, incorporate hard-to-find ingredients, and make it difficult to keep costs down. A favorite, simple meal of mine is just a basic stir fry.  The key to this is not to cook the veggies for too long. You want to maintain as many of the nutrients as possible while still getting a hearty, warm dish.

This recipe is for 2 servings.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup uncooked brown rice (& water according to package instructions)
1 tsp Smart Balance "butter"
1/2 chopped onion
1 Handful of green beans
1/4 red pepper
1 yellow squash
1/2 tomato
1/4 cup crushes walnuts
Soy sauce to taste

Directions:
1. Prepare rice. While rice is cooking, do the following.

2. In a medium heat skillet saute onions in "butter".

3. Add green beans, red pepper, and yellow squash. Cover and allow to cook for 2 minutes.
4. After the 2 minutes, add chopped tomato and crushed walnuts. Sprinkle in a little soy sauce so the veggies can absorb it.

Mmmmmmm.

5. When the rice is complete, add it to a bowl and top off with your veggie mixture. Add a little more soy sauce for taste.

What simple recipes do you have on hand for a quick, healthy meal?

-Lacey

Guacamole with a Twist

I'm not just saying this because I made it, but I've never, ever, ever liked guacamole. Always tasted bland to me. I made this on a whim tonight with some leftover avocado from sushi from dinner the other night and I LOVE this. Love love love love.

Ingredients:
1/2 jalapeño pepper
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves
1/4 cup onion
1 tablespoon lemon juice (or lime juice if you like. I'm not a fan)
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
Pinch of sea salt
Itty bit of orange zest
1 avocado
1 small tomato (or 1/2 medium tomato) roughly cut up into 4 or 5 pieces.


Directions:
1. In a food processor, add jalapeño, garlic, cilantro, onion, lemon juice, cumin, chili powder, and sea salt. Pulse until all ingredients are chopped in small pieces.
2. Add avocado and orange zest and blend until mostly smooth (leaving little chunks is great!)
3. Add tomato pieces and pulse until chunks of tomato are left in the guacamole.
4. Enjoy on your salad, in your wraps, or as a yummy veggie dip.


***If you don't have a food processor, just finely chop all ingredients except avocado & tomato and mix together. Blend avocado in with fork and mix until mostly smooth. Add in bits of tomato at the very end for a chunky guacamole.***

Vegetable Stir Fry

This is something I just tried the other night. With loads of veggies in the refrigerator, this is a great way to get tons of veggies in one sitting. While I'm not a fan of asparagus, this is how I sneak it into a meal. Be careful not to overcook your veggies. Get them hot, but stop cooking while they're still crunchy to keep most of the nutrients.  Feel free to add veggies for variety!


Ingredients:
Stir Fry:
1 Tablespoon Olive oil
2 cups Sugar Snap Peas
1 cup Broccoli
1/3 cup Crushes cashews
2 chopped carrots
1 tablespoon shredded ginger/ground ginger
2 handfuls green beans
5 stalks asparagus, chopped into 1 inch sections
2 shallots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
salt & pepper to taste
Sauce:
1 cup vegetable broth
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons Organic 100% whole grain flour*

(Prepare long grain brown rice, however much needed, to serve stir fry on top)

Keep stirring!

Sunfood raw cashews!

Directions
1.  Put olive oil into a wok. Turn stove to high.
2. Put all stir fry ingredients (excluding sauce) into wok. Cook for 5 minutes on high, constantly stirring (hence stir fry).
3. In a separate bowl, mix together vegetable broth, soy sauce, and flour*. Pour in wok.
4. Continue cooking until vegetables are hot, but crunchy, and sauce covers everything.
5. Serve on top of cooked long grain brown rice. Top with soy sauce to taste.

*If you're being very particular about flour, you can exclude this, but just know the sauce will not be as thick.  I would also use 1/2 cup of vegetable broth instead.  We almost NEVER use flour (we don't even keep bread in our house), so this is a rarity, which is why I didn't mind using it for this recipe since it's such a small amount.  We also used some tofu in this recipe because we had it left in the refrigerator.

The finished product!

Veggie Chili

Fall is here and you can't do without a good,  hearty, warm chili for the cool evenings.  This is Lacey's own recipe! Change it to your liking though. Wanna add mushrooms? Go for it. Hate peppers? Take them out.  Add some tasty winter squash for added flavor. It's all about throwing what you love into the Crockpot for an easy meal ready  by dinner.

Ingredients
1 Green Pepper chopped
1 Orange Pepper chopped
1/4 c. Diced onion
2 chopped stalks of celery
2 c. corn
2 diced tomatoes
1 c. kidney beans
1 c. black beans
3 c. All natural or homemade tomato sauce
3 chopped carrots
1/2 c. Quinoa**
2 gloves garlic (pressed/chopped finely)
1 tsp. chili seasoning (or to taste)
1 tsp. cayenne pepper (or to taste)
1 tsp. cumin (or to taste)
1 tsp. onion powder (or to taste)
1/2 cup vegetable broth
Pinch of salt

Directions
Put all ingredients in slow-cooker & stir. Cook on Low heat for 6 hours.

**Optional: Quinoa is very similar to rice. It's a small grain that looks sort of like couscous. You can either make this separately as a base underneath or add directly into the crock pot to be part of the chili.


If you're able, I challenge you not to buy your normal canned goods for this recipe (corn, kidney & black beans). Many of them are loaded with salt. If you choose to do so (which we have to resort to many times since beans must be prepped before being used in a recipe), buy no sodium or low sodium items.

Mexican Casserole

This is a recipe I improvised using the last of our ingredients in our house. I knew it would be a lot of food and it was super filling.  You could definitely add this into some soft tortillas or buy a natural tortilla chip to dip in.


Ingredients
3 cups uncooked long-grain rice & 7 1/2 cups of veggie broth (to cook rice) OR 2 cups quinoa & 4
   cups of veggie broth
5 potatoes, diced smaller than normal
3 Tablespoons vegan butter
2 cups corn
1/3 cup diced onion
Green onions to taste
1 clove garlic
3 cans of black beans
2 red peppers
1 diced tomato
1 bag vegan cheddar "cheese"
Texas Pete Hot Sauce (to taste)
Taco Seasoning (Cayenne Red Pepper, Chili Powder, Onion Powder, Ground Cumin- all to taste)
Cilantro to top casserole

Temporary photo until I put up my own. Borrowed from SFZ.

Directions
1. Cook rice or quinoa in vegetable broth.  This will take approximately 20-30 minutes so be sure to start this first.
2. Dice potatoes and add to a large skillet with butter. Stir frequently on medium-high heat until cooked.
3. Add Corn, onion, garlic, black beans, peppers, tomato, and taco seasonings when potatoes are fully cooked.
4. Add cooked rice to potatoes & veggies mixture. Stir, test for seasonings.  Add more if needed.
5. Add Texas Pete Hot sauce to taste
6. Get casserole dish.  Put a 2" layer of this mixture and top with vegan "cheese". Add another layer of mixture, top with "cheese". Repeat until whole mixture is used. Top whole casserole with "cheese" and cilantro.
7. Cook in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes.


Let me know if you've made this & what substitutions you made (like refried beans, or any other veggies!)

Keeping Lettuce Fresh & Giveaway Winner!

We have a winner for the giveaway of an awesome basket full of Very Berry Granola bars, homemade strawberry jam, and cinnamon apple chips. The winner is Adele from Little By Little.  Adele and I went to college together and lived on the same freshman floor.  She is a thrifty wife, preggers, and still finds time to make great healthy food and start her own garden! This was her comment*:

...As for health changes, Cam and I have slowly (i.e. as budget allows) made a bunch since getting married. Most recently, we're trying to incorporate only high-quality (local, free-range, organic) meats and dairy/meat products into our diet. We've noticed wonderful differences for sure and we're hooked! Also, we're growing our own garden this year and really making an effort to eat a majority of fruits and veggies in our diet. I'm also doing my best to go "homemade" for as much food as possible (including cheese and yogurt when I have time). AND, we're working on more vegetarian meals around here, which is hard with a meat-lovin' hubby and a bean-hatin' (ok, not quite, but almost!) wifey! Haha! But that's what we love your blog for -- great ideas in those areas!

Congratulations, Adele!! I'll be mailing out everything tomorrow as I'm making the granola bars and apple chips today, nice and fresh, for you and Cam.

*winner was chosen by a completely random drawing.

Now, onto our regularly scheduled blog post:
There's nothing like buying 3 beautiful heads of fresh lettuce from the farmer's market, only to have them go bad prior to eating them all.  The advantage to buying from the farmer's market is the lettuce is recently picked (fresh), not loaded with chemicals (yummy), and fully grown so it's loaded with nutrients (healthy--store bought veggies are picked prior to full development).  The downfall is they do tend to get bad a bit sooner.

How do we prevent this?

1.  Fill sink with cold water. Place your separated leaves of lettuce in and move them around until some of the dirt has come off.  This is just a pre-rinse.  Also, if your lettuce is soft or limp, let the lettuce sit in the water for 20 minutes and the fresh cold water will make them crisp again!

2. Drain the water & refill a clean sink up with cold water and add about 1 cup of vinegar (or read this post for some other fruit & veggie washes). Dunk in the leaves & gently rub off the dirt. Place in a colander and let dry or put them in your lettuce/washer/spinner thingy (yes, that's the technical name for it) and spin like crazy until your leaves are dry.

The lettuce/washer/spinny thingy.  I LOVE this. Buy one. Now. 

2. Clean out one of your refrigerator drawers really well. Place a layer of damp paper towels down.  Damp, not dripping wet.  Too much moisture could actually speed up rotting. You ever see how the puddle of water in the bottom of your lettuce bag always seems to leave a big brown rotten spot? Yeah, you don't want that to happen.  Just wet some paper towels, ring the excess water out and line the drawer.

3. Place your clean lettuce leaves in that drawer, but don't squish the leaves. Be gentle.  Fruits & veggies bruise, and when they do, it almost guarantees rotting.  No need to smash down your leaves to fit more veggies in the drawer. Gently place them in and give them room to breath.  This draw is just for your leaves.

4.  Place a damp paper towel on top of your leaf pile.

5.  Be sure your drawer is nice and cool (place on cool & crisp setting).

Look! Doesn't take up any extra shelf space. Conveniently
tucked away and ready to be eaten!

6. Enjoy!

What is so convenient about this is you now have a massive salad in your drawer and all you have to do it open it up and pull out some leaves to put on your plate.  No cutting off just a little from a head of lettuce and then having to wash.  No plastic bags and pooling water to deal with.  It's quick and easy to make your salad now! No excuses not to eat one.  And you're lettuce will be fresh, crisp, and last longer than in that plastic bag.

Here's to big salads and clean lettuce.
-Lacey

Snick Snack Substitutes

Snick Snacks are awesome.  I bring them everywhere with me- in my purse, at my office desk, on planes, trains, cars... I like to know I have food with me to eat in case something happens.  I grew up snacking on processed foods, so I had a lot to change when I get up those foods and refined sugars.  Don't feel overwhelmed!  With a little preparation, you can fight off any craving.

You should use snacks in between meals to eat the nutrients your body needs every day. Be intentional and conscious of your snacking- of what you put in your body and how it adds up. 

I would say the biggest issue with snacking is what you are CRAVING. Often our bodies will exhibit cravings for sweets when what they really need is more protein. Realizing what and why you are craving is half the battle - if you're even truly hungry at all... I will post more research about our cravings next week. In the meantime, drink a cup of water before you start snacking. You may be just dehydrated, not hungry between meals.

My daily eating habits include snacking at least twice a day. At first I tried to incorporate some "healthy" processed foods, but I was shocked and disgusted once I researched the processed food ingredients:

APPLESAUCE:

> Tastes so good, no time to prepare.. Applesauce was my go to snack at work. Then I realized that it was loaded with high fructose corn syrup and sugar. High fructose corn syrup is a highly processed substance is more harmful to humans than regular sugar, contributing to weight gain by affecting normal appetite functions. So now I choose to eat a real apple.

Note: Yogurt tends to have a lot of sugars in it as well, so make sure you read the label!

GLUTEN & DAIRY FREE PUDDING:

> Jackpot! I was SO EXCITED when I found this gluten and dairy free pudding. Finally, an easy snack made just for me! ...Then I checked out the ingredients. The research I did was very scary, and I'll never touch this pudding again.

So there are A LOT of ingredients listed. Rule #1 - if you can't pronounce the ingredients, you shouldn't eat them. Some of the unrecognizable ingredients are: 

Carrageenan - processed, helps to gel the pudding, linked to cancer in humans

Soy Lecithin- extracted chemically (those words should scare you enough)

Calcium Carbonate - is the least useable form of calcium found in nature

...So now I prefer to stick with fresh fruit (with some honey/cinnamon) or other homemade snacks. First - clean out your closet and make the commitment to feed yourself right.

Snick Snack Substitutes:

- Very Berry Granola Bars

- Nuts
-Homemade Sugar-free applesauce

- Leftovers (small portion size)

- Oatmeal

- Popcorn (no butter)

- Cereal or Granola (w/ Lowfat or Non-Dairy Milk) - Probably the only processed food I would recommend snacking on, because it's so easy and convenient. Just make sure the first ingredient is a WHOLE grain and doesn't have too much sugar. (Post coming on how to choose your cereal soon!)
- Mashed Potatoes (homemade & with non-dairy milk)

- Dried Apples

- Dried Honey Bananas

- Fresh Fruit:

      > Drizzle honey / cinnamon over if you need something sweet

      The Earth provides us with a plethora of juicy snick snack choices: Strawberries, Grapes,
      Banana, Orange, Peach, Apple, Pear, Raspberries, Watermelon, Blueberries, etc!

-Vegetables:

      > Dip in natural peanut butter or homemade hummus for extra taste. Don't eat a
      processed veggie dip - try Lacey's Raw Ranch Dressing if you're craving a dip or ranch
      dressing.

                                       Broccoli, Carrots, Celery, Cherry Tomatoes, Peas, etc!

*Check out our recipes page for more ideas!

Note: This post will continuously be a work in progress. There are always new recipes, ideas and fresh produce that we can create snacks with! Please add any comments and suggestions, and we will share them with our readers.

Gluten Free Hot Lunch: Beef, Potato, Veggie Crock Pot Recipe

I have been a picky eater my entire life. So I grew up existing on chicken fingers, PB&J sandwiches, yodels and a variety of other (delicious, but processed) snick snacks. I moved to New York City 3 years ago and as an adult living in NYC, I continued to eat my favorite foods. I think that may be the "worst" part about being gluten free in NYC - I have access to any food I've ever wanted, at whatever time I want it. Every day I have to practice self control, and it has been one of my greatest life lessons learned so far.

So when I decided to turn my life around, I had to change my daily eating out habits... no more amazing NYC bagels or pizza for this lady. The hardest part? Packing enough food and snacks for work!

I'm at the office 8:30AM - 5PM+, so I NEED to snack at least twice during the day, plus a decent lunch. As Lacey has mentioned, it is crucial to plan ahead so you don't cave in and eat crap. In my case, cave in and drink soda in place of a meal.

I bring fruit every day to work, and I've been experimenting with a variety of recipes that are easy and painless to make for lunch every day. Luckily my boyfriend (D) is awesome at putting random gluten free recipes together and came up with my new favorite crock pot lunch! (Note: D is not gluten intolerant but he still loves this meal!) Eating a hot lunch is wonderful during the day, and it actually fills me up.

See below for pictures and recipe. Recipe can be tailored to whatever you prefer... crock pots are awesome and I recommend putting yours to use! We put this together on Sunday nights and it's ready for us Monday morning!

INGREDIENTS:

Beef (or Chicken), Carrots, Celery, Onion, Potatoes, Bouillon Cubes

Note: We have a pretty small crock pot, so adjust ingredients as necessary to fill.

RECIPE:

Beef (or Chicken) - 1 stew pack or 1 breast, cut into cubes

Carrots - 5 carrots, peeled and cubed

Celery - 4 stalks, chopped

Onion - 1/2 onion, chopped

Potatoes - 1/2 a bag, peeled and cut into cubes (Yukon Gold and Russet are our favorites)

Bouillon Cubes - 2 cubes into 1 cup of boiling water *The trick with the Bouillon Cubes for flavoring is using only 1 cup of water to dissolve them in. The other water will come out from the veggies, so don't water down your crock pot.

COOK:

1. Dice up all veggies, potatoes and meat

2. In a large bowl, mix up all the veggies and potatoes (keep meat separate)

3. Mix some pepper into 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and coat the mix of veggies and potatoes evenly

4. Boil water, dissolve Bouillon Cubes into 1 cup of water

5. In Crock Pot - put meat into 1 pile in the center of the crock pot (This is important, will help it cook the best)

6. Put mix of veggies and potatoes evenly around the meat

7. Pour the Bouillon Cubes mix evenly around the crock pot

8. Cook on low heat for 8 hours!

There are a lot of gluten free crock pot recipes out there, so try a few and see what it does for your lunch break :)

This is my new daily motto. I often get overwhelmed about my food allergies, but I take it on day by day and I've never been happier or healthier :)

"It's not what you do once in a while; it's what you do day in and day out that makes the difference."

- Stephanie