kale chips

I saw a post the other day about annoying things food blogger do. The author begged bloggers to stop posting about kale chips.... What's a kale chip? Well I found out and am now going to do exactly what the aforementioned author plead against. 


Kale Chips are apparently a good way to force some veggies down your throat. Kale boasts an impressive resume of nutrients. Besides being high in fiber, it is a powerhouse of iron, calcium, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, Antioxidants, such as carotenoids and flavonoids that help protect against various cancers, omega-3 fatty acids, which help, fight against arthritis, asthma and autoimmune disorders. If Kale was someone at the bar, you'd buy em' a drink. So I was pretty excited to put this veggie in my shopping cart. (this veggie is on the dirty dozen, so buy organic if you can find it and afford it.)


So I gave kale chips a try, and while they weren't all the rage I was reading on the blog-sphere, they were a pretty tasty way to replace a potato chip. I experimented with Old Bay seasoning and another round with garlic salt, which upped the taste-o-meter. I'd definitely recommend giving kale chips a shot if you're a salt craver like my mom. My down fall is sweets, hers is salt, so maybe to her, this recipe would be all that and a bag of chips. ... pun intended. 

Here's a video on how to prepare kale chips. 

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/crunchy-salty-kale-chips/


or if you prefer, here's a text version of a slightly different recipe (with a bonus recipe on butternut squash):

http://www.doorsixteen.com/2011/01/16/butternut-squash-kale-chips/

I used curley green kale, but I'd like to give it another shot with Purple Russian Kale if I ever come across it! Sounds pretty!

shame on you, BA.

I thought Bon Appetit was supposed to be this high-falutin foodie magazine where if you took the time to buy these high class ingredients and followed their instruction you would be presented with a mouth-watering cornucopia of new tastes.... okay, I realize that's a high bill, but seriously, the food blogs by home cooks I read on my lunch break kick these recipes' butt.

The marinade is good, but don't waste your time on the chutney. bleack.
http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2013/01/yogurt-chicken-with-ginger-coriander-chutney

Gross:
http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2013/01/white-bean-chili-with-winter-vegetables

oh my gosh, you guys.

I highly recommend the chocolate chip cookie dough balls although I wasn't wild about the frozen banana "ice cream." I keep the little cookie dough balls in the fridge or freezer and pop one (or two, or five) as my evening treat. Oh and I used the honey sweetened chocolate from "what's been getting me through" instead of chocolate chips. If you're still consuming a bunch of sugar, these won't taste all that great, but if you've retrained your taste buds to pick up on the softer notes of sugar, holy cow these are delicious.  

oh she glows

http://ohsheglows.com/2011/03/18/chocolate-chip-cooke-dough-blizzard/

Another 9 days for your pleasure

So I'll be adding in a small amount of processed foods to this week's meal plan, but for the most part it is free of most isolates, added hormones, and preventative antibiotics. Caution on the bacon. I'll be consuming it in small quantities.

day 1
B- Soft Boiled Egg and Cheese
L- Salad with Guacamole and Black Beans
S- Honey Chocolate with Almonds and Coconut
D- Chicken with Chipolte Orange Glaze and side of Quinoa
*cook extra chicken for day 2's lunch and dinner and day 3's dinner
** substitute red peppers for the chipotle chilies in adobo sauce if the ingredients list has stuff you can't pronounce in it... or if your grocery doesn't carry it.

prep: dry ingredients for morning oatmeal

day 2
B- pumpkin oatmeal
L- salad w/ leftover chicken
S- Bananas
D- Bulgar Salad with Chicken and Feta Cheese served in a pita

prep: make roasted vegetable tomato soup (recipe previously posted) and divide into deli containers. After cooled, put some in freezer.

day 3   (I'm having company over, so meals will be a little more indulgent today and tomorrow)
B- Banana sliced in half longways with homemade peanut butter
L- Roasted tomato soup
S- Granola
D- Chipolte Chicken, Jalapeno, Mushroom, Bacon, Gouda whole wheat Pizza.
*freeze extra pizza dough.

prep: put ingredients in bread machine, set timer.

day 4
B- eggs and bacon with homemade bread
prep: marinade chicken
L- tomato soup with mozzarella grilled cheese
S- Apples with homemade Peanut Butter and Honey
D- Leftover bulgar salad with marinated chicken and side of broccoli dressed in garlic butter

day 5 (A Monday holiday! So my lunch and snack can be more time consuming and less portable.)
B- yogurt and blueberries
L- tomato soup with mozzarella grilled cheese
S- baked apple with oats, raisins, cinnamon, and honey 
D- Salmon with Quinoa
*cook extra salmon for day 6's lunch

day 6
B- bacon and eggs
*cook an extra slice of bacon for tonight's dinner and day 8's lunch. make 2 hard boiled eggs for day 7's and day 8's lunches.

L- Chilled Salmon on a Salad
S- yogurt with Blueberries and Almonds drizzled with honey
D- Naked Burritto: lettuce, chicken, black beans, corn, avocado, salsa, organic cheddar, bacon
*cook extra chicken for day 7's lunch

day 7
B- chia seeds in oatmeal
L- Salad with chicken and a hard boiled egg
S- granola
D- lemon garlic shrimp with veggies and side of quinoa
*cook and chill extra shrimp for day 8's lunch

day 8
B- yogurt and blueberries
L- chilled shrimp on spinach salad with tomatoes, hard boiled egg, mushrooms, bacon.
S- apple and peanuts
D- warming sweet potato and lentil salad
Dessert- vanilla roasted pears with granola sprinkled on top

prep: make day 9's meatballs

day 9-
B-soft boiled egg and cheese
L- tuna salad on greens
S- honey chocolate with almonds and coconut
D- lamb meatballs with lemon cumin yogurt sauce in a pita with feta
*make extra meatballs and freeze in accordance with recipe


P.S. I didn't list assembling the next day's lunch as prep, because I do that every night.
P.S.S. When I have a protein on my salad I'm perfectly content to skip salad dressing, but when I do make a salad dressing I use my friend Amanda's recipe for balsamic vinegar. But I'll save that for another day.           :)

What's been getting me through

As part of this sorta-detox we've kicked out all refined sugars of our diets. We have still allowed ourselves non-isolate sweeteners like honey, agave nectar, and maple syrup- but none of the white stuff, other refined sugars, and God-forbid, artificial sugars. So with checking every label, and with cooking almost everything we've stuffed our faces with, we've been pretty successful. {To be a better label detective, read this for the hidden names for sugar and this for the hidden names of MSG.}

However, I am a sugar addict and it wasn't very long into the sorta-detox that I was searching for a healthish treat to get me through. Even the super organic hippie dark chocolate bars contained sugar, so those were out. So instead I started playing with the sweetener I knew I was allowed. I'll post a picture later, but here's the recipe. It's simple, it takes a minimum of three ingredients, and it fits within my nutritional guidelines.

Honey Chocolate

• 2 tablespoons organic butter (or other fat) gentled melted
• 2 teaspoons honey whisked in with a fork
• 6 tablespoons cocoa powder stirred in

The result is somewhere between ganache and frosting. If you're having a bad day, you can stop right there and have a spoonful. However you can also refrigerate to harden and use as chocolate chips in cookies, or use as a base for making your own candy bar. My favorite was to make it with half organic butter, half coconut oil and then once it becomes chocolate, mix it with a generous amount of almonds and unsweetened flaked coconut, spread it out on parchment paper, sprinkle some more coconut on top and gently press it into the bar. Then you can roll up the parchment paper, place in a ziploc, and refrigerate. When you come home from a long day at work you can break off a piece and savor the dark chocolate crunch. This stuff was so dark and crunchy that just a little bit satisfied my sweet tooth. What would you put in your candy bar?

sorta-detox, day 9: Nearly there, and Lent nearly here.

Nearly there

The sort of detox is nearly over. Tonight we are having an encore of the favorite new recipe, chicken curry over brown rice. And then tomorrow night we are all going out to eat where we will not scour the menu for something that fits within our guidelines. I'm looking forward to my Pink Lady Sushi Roll of Crab, Masago, Cucumber, Avocado, Crunch, Soy Wrap, with Creamy Spicy Sauce. Drool! However, I will not order a diet coke- a new habit I want to keep- I still crave a big fountain soda, but no more pop for yours truly.

My goal was to post more throughout these ten days, including our recipes, victories, and defeats. I will likely post the successful recipes a little later, but for now, I simply give you a very simple, blank meal planner that you can hopefully print for your own healthy eating goals.

Meal Planner
	Breakfast	Lunch	Snack	Dinner	ingredients needed	prep ahead tonight
Saturday
Sunday
M
T
W
Th
F

I've found it takes far more time than expected to eat whole, or clean, or whatever you want to call it. It's a lot harder to get more calories than you need when there is no instant gratification and when you plan your meals. I haven't felt deprived, other than when I want something specific (cookies, ice cream) or just immediately (drive throughs). We've ate like kings yet we've lost weight. But the absolute best thing is that I haven't had headaches. Usually I get a headache every other day. Sometimes more, sometimes a little less- but through these ten days I haven't had more than an, 'I'm hungry headache' that went away within five minutes of eating. I don't know if the headaches are synced with my hormonal cycle so I've made another meal plan for the next 10 days and see if I can keep this thing going. I'm really curious to see if I'll go another stint without a headache.

Lent nearly here

Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, is really early this year: February 13th, in fact. I suspect my Lenten exercise will have something to do with this little sorta-detox experiment. I usually try to pick one of the seven deadly sins/heavenly virtues to work on in a specific way. Wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. Last year was greed, only spending what I had to so that I would give the extra to a charity. Before that was sloth, getting up as soon as the alarm went off, not putting off tasks, exercising, and other ways of practicing diligence.  Sometime before that was pride, avoiding mirrors- (I think I misunderstood pride a little back then.) It's been awhile since I've hit gluttony, and I think this year I should revisit it. The last time I worked on gluttony/temperance I simply fasted, to better understand hunger, which so many of my brethren live with, and to practice the ancient tradition which I had never really fully embraced. This year, perhaps I'll continue on this path of whole foods and change it a little to make Lent special. I've learned that when you only eat what you've prepared and only whole foods, it can shift your thinking from living to eat to eating to live. I've not once ate out of boredom or regretted eating something these past ten days. I've been truly hungry each time I've ate and each meal has nourished me, not just filled me up. I plugged in a few of my days to my fitness pal, curious about the amount of potassium I was getting instead of trying to squeeze the most out of my caloric alotment. (Turns out I was coming in under the caloric budget every day, even with snacks)
Often when I say grace, I try to quickly realize where each food comes from, what it took to get in front of me, and pray for that farmer, or thank God for the animal, etc. With this practice, that process can happen earlier are allow you more time to consider it when you are cooking, and sometimes even when you are shopping. You feel and wash each item. When you do buy something packaged, you read the ingredients. Any ideas on how I could incorporate this eating exercise into a Lenten practice would be welcomed in the comments section.

Interesting article

http://m.voices.yahoo.com/10-incredible-health-benefits-fasting-11621130.html