Dairy-Free Sugar Cookies

Our baby is here, and she does.not.like.dairy.  As in it gives her terrible gas, causing her to scream incessantly all night. We hate to see her in pain, so after a bunch of research and tips from helpful moms like the wonderful Megs Hylland I found ways to cut dairy and soy from my diet. 

My amazing mom took a regular sugar cookie recipe and made it dairy free for me this weekend.  She felt bad that I wouldn't be able to eat any sweets over Christmas because literally everything has dairy in it.  The desserts are my favorite part of Christmas, so I was really sad.  I was supposed to put these in the freezer and save them to bring down to the Tiemeier's house (again, so I'd have something to eat), but they are so delicious I can't keep my hands off of them and will be lucky if they last this week!

Sugar Cookies

1 1/2C powdered sugar
1C vegan butter
1tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 large egg
2 1/2 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar
(mom added 1/4 C sugar to the dough too)

1. beat powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, almond extract, and egg in a large bowl with electric mixer on medium. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.

2. Heat oven to 375 F. Lightly grease cookie sheet with shortening or spray.

3. Divide dough in half. Roll each half 1/4" thick on lightly floured surface. Cut into desired shapes.

4. Bake 7-8 minutes or until edges are light brown. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.

Frosting
(all quantities estimated, adjust accordingly)

1 stick vegan butter, softened
1/4 C vanilla almond milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2+ C powdered sugar (add to taste and consistency desired)

1. Mix all ingredients together with an electric mixer.

2. Frost cookies

Pump up the Protein

Ever since I got pregnant my blood sugar has been funky, and I've been tasked with cutting carbs/sugar and adding protein to each meal.  This week one of Mark's co-workers gave him a free dozen organic, free-range eggs that she raises herself.  We've talked about buying them from her but don't eat eggs enough.  Well, she decided to give us a trial run for free!  They were delicious so I think we are going to start buying them regularly, since eggs are high in protein. 

The other night I was tired of protein and decided to spice it up a little.  Rather than plain old chicken, I tried frying it a little (healthily, of course) to change things up.  I'd also stopped at the farmers market and bought a huge bouquet of fresh basil, and decided to incorporate it. 

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts (cut all extra fat off)
1 C panko bread crumbs
paprika
Mrs. Dash garlic and herb seasoning
fresh basil, chopped
1 egg
1 T butter

Melt butter in a skillet until sizzling.  Chop the chicken breasts into chunks.  Scramble the eggs in one bowl.  In a 2nd bowl, mix Panko, seasonings, and basil.  Dip the chicken first in the egg then in the Panko mixture, then place in the skillet.  Cover and cook on medium for about 5 minutes per side, or until cooked through (no pink in the center).

We finished off the meal with fresh green beans from the farmers market and a fresh home-baked baguette from Cub.  Delicous!

Lemon Fried Chicken with Quinoa

As I've been working through my protein quest, one of my co-workers, from Israel, has been helpful with finding recipes and creative ideas.  She mentioned a few ways to attempt making quinoa (chock full of protein) taste better.  Mark and I tried out this combo and really liked it!

Quinoa Ingredients:
1 T butter
1/4C onion
2 cloves garlic
chicken broth (amount depends on how much quinoa you use)
quinoa
diced orange, red, and yellow peppers (1/2 of each)

Lemon Chicken Ingredients:
1 chicken breast (or two, if they are small)
1 C panko
1 egg
1 lemon

Melt butter in a sauce pan and add diced onion and pressed garlic.  Cook until fragrant.  Add quinoa and chicken broth and cook per directions on quinoa package (generally about 15 minutes, or until you can see the "eye" of the quinoa.  Using the veggies and chicken broth will add flavor to the quinoa.  After the quinoa is cooked, drain water and add the chopped peppers.

In one bowl, scramble the egg.  Halve the chicken breastand dip first in the egg, then in the panko.  Melt another tablespoon of butter in a skillet and add the chicken once sizzling.  Cook about 5 minutes a side, or until cooked through.  There should be no pink left in the center.  Drizzle lemon over the chicken as it cooks for a light, refreshing taste.

Mango Salsa

I'm pretty sure I've posted a similar recipe to this before, but it's so good in the summer that I thought I'd put it up again.  Today I remembered that my handy-dandy Tupperware salad spinner also has a chopper attachment, so I tried that on my salsa for the first time.  Amazing!  It cut the prep time by 75%.  All you have to do is cut the ingredients into large chunks, toss it in the chopper, and spin.  Voila - instant salsa!!  Using the chopper made it nicely diced too, way better to fit more on a chip. It also goes well as a topping for pork or chicken, if you want to cut the carbs and up your protein. 

Ingredients:
1 Mango
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
1 tomato
1/2 white onion

Smoothies part 2

I've experimented with a few types of smoothies now. Since the blender is a pain to wash I started making a couple of batches then freezing them for later. Each night I eat one to get a boost of nutrients. Here are some combos. Post your own suggestions too! Blueberry, strawberry, banana, cucumber Strawberry, raspberry, cucumber Apple, pear, strawberry

Pulled Turkey Sandwiches

This is a really easy way to make a meal (and leftovers!).

1 Jenni-O turkey fillet - we used the apple wood flavor
1C organic chicken broth
Hawaiian rolls
BBQ sauce
shredded co-jack

Place the fillet (it will come in two pieces) and chicken broth in a crock pot on low.  Cook for 4-5 hours until cooked through.  Remove and cut or shred with a steak knife (this works best).  Put about 1 oz on each roll, top with 1/2T of BBQ sauce and a little cheese.  Total calorie count per sandwich?  Approximately 175.  Eat up!

Smoothies

One of my co-workers has been expounding on the benefits of home made smoothies.  Granted, hers smell "interesting" and look like swamp juice, but I get her point.  So today when I was craving something icy and sweet I decided to attempt a smoothie. 

1/4-1/2 C lemonade
1C raspberries
1C halved strawberries
ice

blend well until smooth.  add ice to create ideal thickness.  Use less lemonade and more fruit if you want it sweeter.  This made two large smoothies, so I stuck one in the freezer for later. 

Cook book

I got a wonderful surprise on Friday as I was getting ready to leave work. See, a few months ago we had the opportunity to submit recipes for a healthy cook book for our well being initiative. I submitted the recipe for my Asian lettuce wraps. Well our well being captain stopped by Friday afternoon with a cook book....I had made it in! Only a few people from headquarters made it. Very exciting! I'm happy others will have a chance to try my yummy recipe, because it's one I truly love. Today I'm spending my afternoon making beef veggie and barley soup for dinner and prepping my lunches for the week. My new kick is adding blueberries and strawberries to my lunch. Antioxidants supply an added (and much needed) boost during the day.

Prep for Success #2

Last week I talked about preparing the weekly dinners on Sunday, to ensure you're eating decently throughout the week.  It worked really well last week!  So today as I was preparing dinners for the week, I decided to try the same for my lunches.  I normally eat very healthy at work, because honestly I don't have time to snack and only have what I've brought.  But sometimes at night I'm a little rushed trying to get my lunch together for the next day.  Hopefully having it all prepared ahead of time will give me 10 minutes back each night to breath. 

One other thing I'm trying to work into my habits is eating more balanced.  I've found that as Susanne and I are on this challenge that I eat very healthy during the day (aka low calories, not on purpose so much as that's just what I'm used to eating during the day) then binge on chips and junk at night to hit my calories.  I know, that's odd.  One of my other co-workers is super into the healthy eating lifestyle, so I got some tips from her this past week.  I haven't quite worked my way up to the smoothies she eats (I admire her strong stomach - some smell a little like swamp juice), but I did hear her message about getting enough veggies and nutrients each day to feel better.  So my goal starting this week is to focus on eating the right types of calories and having balance in the types of food I eat, rather than just focusing on the calories.  This week I made turkey & veggie tortilla soup (a version of another recipe I posted in the past), and am bringing strawberries, pea pods, and pea pods for lunch.  Hope this helps!

Home Made Mac 'n' Cheese

We had a dinner party/game night with our friends last night, and this is one of the dishes I whipped up, ala Martha Stewart (from her Oct 2011 issue).  Of course, I made a healthy dish (Chicken Tortilla soup) for myself and anyone else who wanted a lighter dinner, but this turned out pretty well!

*Warning*
This is not a healthy recipe!  The only reason I'm posting it on here is because it's all natural and is a great substitute for the boxed, preservative-chocked

Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter
1C panko breadcrumbs
5C whole milk
1/2C flour
4C grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 1/2C grated Gruyere cheese
1 1/2C Fontina cheese
coarse salt and ground black pepper
1/4tsp nutmeg
1/4tsp paprika
1/4tsp cayenne pepper

1lb elbow macaroni

I like to prep all my ingredients ahead of time in bowls so I can quickly assemble.

Preheat oven to 375F.  Butter a 9x13 baking dish.  Melt 2T butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Add breadcrumbs and toast, stirring occasionally until golden brown, about 5 min. (see pan in front right of below photo)

Warm milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat. (back left pan)  Melt remaining 6T of butter in a large high sided skillet over medium heat.  Heat until butter bubbles.  Add flour and cook, stirring constantly for 1 min.  (front left pan)

Gradually pour the warmed milk into butter mixture, whisking constantly.  Continue whisking until mixture bubbles and thickens, about 5 min.  Remove from heat and stir in 3C cheddar, and 1C each Fontina and Gruyere, 1/2tsp salt, 1/4tsp black pepper, the nutmeg, cayenne, and paprika. 

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Cook pasta.  Drain and transfer pasta to cream sauce.  Stir to coat and transfer to baking dish.  Scatter remaining cheeses on top and sprinkle with toasted bread crumbs.  (I would recommend starting the water heating when you put the milk on to warm.  That way the pasta is ready to go just as your cheese sauce is getting done.)

Bake about 15 min, until the cheeses are melted.  If you did it like me and prepared it ahead of time and stored it in the fridge for a while, you may need to cook it for longer.  We baked it for about 25 minutes.  Enjoy!

Food Scale

Well, talk about bummed.  I have this pink Taylor food scale that I LOVE from Target.  Unfortunately last week it started showing ERR instead of a weight when I turned it on.  New batteries didn't help, and after some research Mark declared it legally dead.  Add to this, Target doesn't carry this model anymore.  It matches my kitchen so perfectly that I'm very sad.  It's also crazy how dependent I'd gotten on having a food scale to measure everything out.  I'm 100% positive that I'm eating more than I think, despite my best efforts to eyeball the correct quantities.  I'm in the market for a new food scale.  If you have any suggestions please let me know!

Prep for Success

As of last week my life has become insane again.  Mark and I are working long hours and that means we don't want to make dinner when we get home (aka McDonald's tempts us as we drive past on the way home).  So tonight I decided to actually prepare everything on our weekly menu board ahead of time.  See, last summer when things got busy I purchased a menu board so that I could have the meals planned and Mark could help make them.  We've been pretty good about using it still, but not as proactively as we could.

So today I put a turkey fillet in the crock pot with some organic chicken broth.  This was basically like a roast.  It resulted in BBQ turkey sandwiches tonight for dinner, and we have shredded turkey for couscous later this week and sliced turkey for more sandwiches too.  A delicious and healthy way to kill three meals (birds) with one crockpot (stone).

Next I got the meat prepared for my favorite asian turkey lettuce wraps.  Man, this stuff smells so good I had a hard time saving it for tomorrow night.  All we'll have to do tomorrow is heat up the meat, slice the lettuce, and enjoy.

Anyways, it's such a good feeling knowing that we have our meals basically set for the week and totally prepped.  If you're as busy as us, this might be helpful for you too!

Shopping Trip

Today when we went grocery shopping I was so proud to look in our basket.  Here's what we bought:

turkey tenderloins marinated in applewood sauce (currently in my crock pot)
green bell pepper
organic carrots
organic hearts of romain
broccoli stuffed chicken breasts

and one not so proud item.....donuts.  yep, I still have balance in my diet! 

Our goal this week is to add as many veggies as possible to each meal.  I've got green beans, peppers, broccoli, tomatos, etc in the fridge right now.  Let's see how this works out!  If you have any tips or recipes please share!

Shirtdress Success!

Well, this time around has been interesting.  In some ways it's much easier because I was able to keep up with a lot of the habits.  In other ways though it's been tough.  My downfall happens when I get busy.  Work has been insane lately, and it means that I'm grabbing food in between meetings and eating dinner late.  By the time I get to dinner I'm absolutely starved, since it's been about 8 hours since I ate lunch.  So at that point all I want is junk food.  There is definitely a difference between the way I feel when I eat healthy and don't stuff myself than when I pig out.  That is enough to make me watch myself. 

This weekend I decided to do my quarterly closet excavation and see what antiques I could pull out to the front.  I discovered an adorable navy shirt dress that I stuck way in the back a couple years ago.  My hips had gotten, ahem, "a bit more generous" and this caused the dress to be a tad inappropriate for work.  I tried it on (along with other things in my "possible donation" pile) and was shocked to see that it looked great!  The front closed the way it should and it didn't look inappropriate at all!  The work fashion police won't call me out on this one anymore!  It's little things like this that make the sacrifices all worth it. 

The Challenge

I recently had the opportunity to spend 10 days in Europe. While I was over there, feeling gross after eating too much delicious Danish bread, I started talking to my buyer about eating habits. We decided to use the live strong app on our iPads to start tracking what we eat and keep each other accountable. Every Wednesday during status we review how many days we stay within our calorie goals. This is exactly what I needed to get back on track. While there are many habits I've made permanent over the past year, I still have an unhealthy addiction to junk food. The past week (yes, we are just hitting the week mark) has been tough but knowing that I'd have to show someone my meal tracker made me think twice (or 5 times) every time I went to put something in my mouth. I managed to stay within my goal every day except saturday and am down about 1.5lbs. It feels good to start eating right again! So in that vein, I desperately need new healthy recipes! If you have any good ones please consider sharing with two very grateful (not to mention hungry) ladies!

Chicken Dumpling Soup

This past weekend I stumbled across this recipe while I was digging through my recipe box for the chicken pot pie dish.  Again, it's not super healthy (probably) but it turned out pretty well!

Ingredients:
2 cans cream of chicken soup (I use the reduced sodium version to make it more healthy)
2 cans water
2 chicken breasts (can substitute turkey)
celery (I used about 5 stalks)
1/2 onion
1/2 roll of raw biscuits (approx. 4)

*The recipe also called for 2T butter, but you can make it without

Put all ingredients in a crock pot and mix well.  You'll want to ensure the soup is well dissolved in the water.  Cook on low heat for 8 hours or so.  30 minutes before serving, tear up the four biscuits into small chunks and roll them, putting the bits in the soup and turning temperature up to high.  Serve hot!

Blog Update

well, I got the blog template fixed but I've noticed that if I start a post then go back and post at a later date, it doesn't move it to the move recent spot as it used to do.  So just an FYI, if you're looking for a recipe take a few minutes to look beyond the first post.  There might be some great gems hidden in amongst recipes you've seen before!  I tend to write up several recipes at once then go back and finalize/post them at later.  Hope you find something you like!

Chicken Pot Pie

*Warning: this isn't exactly healthy, but it's a lot better for you than the frozen variety, if you're craving a hot meal this winter!

I got this recipe for home made chicken pot pie from one of my former co-workers.  It takes a while to make, but is totally worth the effort.  This recipe feeds 4 people easily.

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts
2C chicken stock (I use Swenson's organic)
1 bullion cube
5T unsalted butter
1 onion
a little less than 1/2C flour
1/4C heavy cream
16oz bag frozen peas and carrots
1 egg (whites only)
salt and pepper

Dice chicken breasts and cook in 1T of EVOO.  [note: I substituted my shredded crock-pot turkey rather than having to cook up the chicken tonight to save time]  Set chicken aside for later.

In a small saucepan, heat the chicken stock and dissolve the bouillon cube in the stock.

In a large pot or saute pan, melt the butter and saute the onions over medium low heat for 10-15 minutes, until translucent.  [see dough step below]

Add the flour and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes.

Add the hot chicken stock to the sauce.  Simmer over low heat for 1 more minute, stirring until thick.

Add salt, pepper, and heavy cream.  Add the cubed chicken, peas, and carrots.  Mix well.


[Dough]
While the onions are cooking, take your thawed dough (Paddy's frozen pie crust is the best) and roll it out.  It should be 1/2" larger than the top of your bowl(s).  Set aside for later.

Preheat the oven to 375F. 

Divide the filling into multiple ramekins, or put in one large oven-safe dish.  I use a big pyrex dish for ours.  Brush the egg white wash on the edge of the dish, then lay the crust on top.

Brush the remainder of the egg wash on the top of the crust and dust with sea salt and pepper.  Place on baking sheet and bake for 1 hour.  The top will be golden brown and the filling is bubbling hot.