Green Bean Lasagna

Tonight was interesting. I tried to cook two other meals before I settled on this. The meat had expired for my other two options. What does one do without meat?

This was modified from Sandy. She has the basic idea for this HERE on her site, 

but I altered it quite a bit. 

This is 2 servings
4oz of 1%cottage cheese
3 tablespoons Fage 2% yogurt
2 tbsp egg beaters
6 oz skim mozzarella
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
4 oz Hunts no salt added diced tomato with basil garlic and oregano
1 oz hormel Italian sausage crumbles
12 oz frozen green beans
salt, pepper, garlic, basil to taste

I layed down the green beans (still frozen) into my baking dish and on top I spread

the cottage cheese, yogurt and egg beaters (which I had pre mixed in a measuring cup.)

Next I took the Hunts tomato and put it in my Nutri Ninja with some garlic, salt, pepper and basil.
(could have used my Magic Bullett for such small amount of sauce, but still...)

           

It came out like sauce. I poured it over the cottage cheese layer.

Then I layered the mozzarella cheese over that. With the cheese I added the precooked hormel Italian sausage crumbles. I only used 1 oz for the entire dish. It REALLY added the extra oomph this dinner needed. 

Started to look like real Italian food now!

Popped in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes, pulled out added the parmesan on top and baked another 5 minutes or so, till it looked "right" and melty.

Came out so hot we let it sit and cool a bit. 

Served. Delicious! I already want to make this again! 

Zucchini noodles (Zoodles) with Tomato Sauce and Chicken

This was super tasty! Another winner form the sugar book!
Its a double recipe in her book. One recipe for the noodles and adding the sauce. The other recipe was how to make the sauce. 

Bake two chicken breasts seasoned as you like.

canned tomatoes, basil, and sautéed onions and garlic simmering

The zucchini was washed and turned into noodles with the Veggetti cutter.

The recipe called to steam the zoodles, but apparently I am too impatient for that.  I TRIED to steam them, but maybe I had too many? They weren't heating, or cooking at all and it was taking forever. 

Trying to steam zoodles

So I put them in a skillet and tossed them with a tablespoon of EVOO for about 5 minutes. It seemed to cook them enough. 

Added the tomato sauce to zoodles and mixed up.

Finished chicken to slice up.

Add all to bowl and enjoy.

Broccoli Cheddar Casserole

Tonight was a VERY EASY meal. It was from Sandy again. It looked amazing when it came out of the oven. It was tender (almost the consistency of Mac N Cheese) and it was warm and gooey. Perfect comfort food. I personally cannot tell you how it tasted. I am so congested with my current cold that I can taste NOTHING. BUMMER! Michael said it was good and that I can definitely make it again for him. SO, I must assume it was as good as it looked. SO SIMPLE! you mix these together in a bowl,

• 1/2 cup egg beaters

• 3 cups broccoli

• 9 oz 2% cottage cheese (she calls for 1% I could NOT find it)

• 1/2 tsp Mrs dash garlic and herb seasoning 

• 1/4 tsp salt 

• 1 tbsp butter

(I doubled her recipe to make enough for two people, and changed the "light" butter to REAL butter)Add to a baking dish.
bake for 40 minutes

then take out and put the 2 tbsp parmesan cheese & 1 cup shredded reduced fat cheddar cheese on the top 
Put back in the oven for 20 minutes.

Remove, cool, eat!

Fresh out of oven bubbling hot

Eating, hot and yummy! (i think...)

When I was putting it all in the dish before it baked I was really pretty sure that it wouldn't be very good. It looked really lumpy and gloppy. Not appetizing at all. Even when I took it out after the first 40 minutes in the oven it didn't look too good. BUT Magic happened in the last 20 minutes in the oven. It got delicious looking, all melty and warm and perfect! 

I can't wait to try this again when I can taste.

Asian Chicken with Fried Coli-rice

I got fancy tonight and combined two recipes. I used the Sugar Book for the chicken, but Sandy's Kitchen Adventures for the "rice." And to be honest I am very pleased with the results!

Let the chicken marinate for about five minutes after tossing it around to get covered in the sauce.

which was low sodium soy sauce, ginger, garlic, pepper

(the recipe called for coconut aminos, which I couldn't find and to use salt, I used light soy sauce and skipped the salt)

Put in a hot pan for about 2-3 minutes a side. I used Coconut oil in the pan. 

Add the marinade to the pan and green onions, lemon slices, and sesame seeds. Put in oven for about 15 minutes to finish cooking the chicken. 

Remove and photograph :)

Make the cauli rice. (EASY) Food process the cauliflower (Michael did it for me tonight.) 

Make 4 scrambled eggs.

"fry" (i used a tablespoon of european butter) some green onion-whites and minced garlic then add the cauliflower to that. 

Stir that for about 7 minutes, 

add green onion greens, soy sauce, and a LITTLE bit of sesame oil (this is the MAGIC ingredient makes it taste real)

Add the scrambled eggs. 

Mix up.

Add "rice" to bowl and sliced chicken to that. 

Yummy!

What do you mean you don't eat no meat? It's ok. I cook lamb.

Ok, so I have never purchased lamb in my life before this meal. I have eaten it, I can remember three times, in my life. I was trepidatious! I even suggested to Michael that maybe we want to switch to bison or turkey for this recipe, he said we should at least TRY the recipe as written. OK.

I can't think about what it actually is. I will not be able to eat if I actually THINK about it. Also, touching ground meat really makes me queasy. I feel like bacteria is crawling up my arm if I even THINK I got a drop of raw "juice" on me. I dont even touch meat packages with my bare hand and it can't touch the cart without a bag, and always has to be bagged separately. 

I have a prayer/mantra I have when I am dealing with raw meat. and just keep saying "Thank you God for this good. Thank you God for healthy food, Thank you for the ability to buy food at the store. Thank you that I have options of different food to eat tonight." It really helps!

True, it's not just lamb that makes me pray while preparing. I have a HORROR of all raw meat. ALL of it. I have actually cried while I had to wash a thanksgiving turkey before my mom cooked it. SO I had to suck it up today and make burgers with ground lamb. (lets just call it meat, that sounds better)

Having said that we still got ground lamb and I started in on making the burgers. 

The avo ziki was avocado, cucumber, lemon, evoo, salt, pepper, dill, and garlic.
When I made this I was SURE it was way too lemon-ie. I was actually really disappointed with the strong sour citrus taste, but when you put it on the burger (or on the lettuce) it was REALLY perfect. Sorry I doubted you Sugar Book! I guess I'm too used to guacamole :) This was also the first time i cooked with dill. I had always thought it would be too strong a flavor for everyday cooking, but I was wrong. It was really tasty and mild, even though I used quite a bit, both in the avo-ziki and the buggers. 

Getting ready for the meat... Chopping onions for the burger topping and adding spices to meat bowl for mixing. 

There it is... the meat. 

Mixed up the spices and divided into burger patties. I like having 2 burgers so I divided the large patties into 2 smaller sliders. 

Add cheese, lay on the avo ziki and lay on lettuce.

They were really good! We also have 3 servings left over in the freezer. Its awesome to have burgers pre-made now. Yea! 

Pollo Asada with Lime Coli-rice

So this was the second recipe I made from "the sugar book"

It was simple ingredients and really not hard to make.

Cauliflower grated in food processor. Throw it into a hot pan with some cooking oil (ok I used butter...)

Add some lime, cilantro, red onion, green onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix. 

I marinated (overnight) chicken breast with onion, lime, cilantro, garlic, and a little EVOO. 

Baked in oven.

Sliced and divided into Dinner/Freezer portions. 

I have a full dinner for two in the freezer now! Huzzah! LOVE IT!

I added some marinated onion and cilantro in lime juice overnight too. Added them to the top of the "rice" and chicken. 

Michael LOVED it. So did I. It reminded us of a meal we loved at Bongos Cuban Cafe at Disney World.

So glad we have leftovers (and the recipe!)

Healthy food, Yea!

"You must be on a diet if you handle 4 slices of salami and a stick of string cheese with extreme care"-Michael

Welcome back!

Hello, were back again. Months of craziness, messy kitchens, LOTS of eating out, and traveling has created a serious lack of content for a cooking post. The two things I really DID try to cook came out reallllly bad. Note to self, when trying to make "authentic" street tacos ask your Mexican friends not the website that uses velveeta as a cheese. (No matter how good the picture of the finished product may look...) 
So were back doing the healthy thing. We started our 40 Days to Rivendell and are cooking up a storm. 

We started on a Friday morning and had to go to the store that day to get some good cooking food. 
The first three nights would be "off the grid" since it wasn't a full week of food. Michael helped me choose the three meals we were cooking. 

Friday- Artichoke and Lemon Chicken with Capers 
(I got this from my new cookbook.)

Saturday- Sandy's Creamy Buffalo Chicken Bake.
I was out of practice and it just wasnt up to par. I didnt even finish mine. 

Sunday- Pollo Asado with Lime Cauli-Rice
(I got this from my new cookbook too!)

The new cookbook is called The 21-Day Sugar Detox: Bust Sugar & Carb Cravings Naturally We have used several recipes already and so far, its been spot on goodness! I highly recommend it. Its not just for a detox. It has REALLY good food in it. So far its been low carb and creative. It's been easy to follow, and so far, the ingredients are simple, and the cook time has been short. The best kind of cooking. Lets put it this way, my husband said "This is actually a restaurant quality dinner!" the first meal I cooked him from this book. (the pollo asado and cauli rice) 
My mom always says if you get one good recipe from a cookbook, it's a good cookbook. This one has been two for two and I'm very excited to try the others!

Then sunday we sat down and planned the weeks menu. I really enjoy once a week shopping. It make me feel prepared. Here is the 1st weeks menu:

Dinner 1 

Monday TV Night

Lamb Burgers with Avo-ziki 

(4 servings) 
Recipe From: The Sugar Book

Dinner 2 

Tuesday Movie Night

Asian Chicken Fried "Rice" 

(4 servings)

Recipe From: The Sugar Book

Dinner 3

Wednesday Date Day

Broccoli Cheese Casserole 

(2 servings)

Recipe From: Sandys Kitchen Adventures

Dinner 4

Thursday Media-Fast Audio Book Night

Zoodles with creamy tomato sauce and chicken (4 servings)

Recipe From: The Sugar Book

Dinner 5

Friday Date Night
Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti Squash Casserole 

(4 servings) 
Recipe From: Sandys Kitchen Adventures

Dinner 6 

Saturday TV Night

Green Bean Lasagna 

(2 servings)

Recipe From: Sandys Kitchen Adventures

Dinner 7

Sunday Media-Fast Sermon

Taco Bake 

(4 servings)

Recipe From: Sandys Kitchen Adventures

FUEGO!!

Note to self: If you remember that you got some melted pizza cheese stuck to the bottom of your oven, clean it off before you put $40 of filet mignon steak and veggies in the oven. Or else you get an oven fire and will have to go out to dinner after you air out the apartment... Don't tell the landlords lol. 

Tea food!

Medifast in a silicone mini bunt pan/ cupcake pan. Each cake is one meal. Add a little whipped cream, Tea worthy creations. 

Oh ya, pumpkin spice coffee worthy too :)

The Daily Otter

I Weighed Myself. Treat Now?

Posted on October 13, 2014

Via Beginners Blog Otter

I get emails from "the daily otter" cause I love otters (duh) and this one made me laugh. It's so true!