Veg Week: Day One

Hi Friends! I am going on a kitchen adventure, and this is day one. I’m talking about my Vegetarian Week.

My Meal Plan for the Day (Click the links to see recipes!)

Breakfast: Mocha Protein Shake and Small handful of Pistachios

Snack: Apple and 2 tablespoons of all natural no sugar added peanut butter

Lunch: Chipotle Bowl Salad

Snack: Celery and Ranch Dip

Dinner: Egg drop Ramen veggie Soup

How I’m feeling: Honestly I was exhausted today. I couldn’t do much of anything. I did my normal cleaning and cooking, but beyond that, I just wanted a nap. I woke up with a headache, and drank as much water as possible to counteract that. I didn’t get a workout in today. I also didn’t drop any weight yet, which isn’t a shock. I enjoyed the food! Especially the Egg Drop Soup I made for dinner. I went to bed hungry, which was a big struggle for me. Sam and I usually have a little snack together before bed. I watched him eat, while I drank water. Bummer, but I know that is one habit I really need to break! Pointless eating needs to go! Luckily I was so tired that I went right to bed with NO problems! Hoping tomorrow I have more energy!

Ciao!

 

 

 

Philly Cheese Steak Stuffed Peppers

I love peppers, A LOT. So naturally, this recipe appealed to me when I saw it on pinterest. Philly Cheese Steak without bread, YES please!
I didn’t have the time or patience to actually cook a steak and cut it very thinly, so instead I used Natural Nitrite-Free Roast Beef.

Philly Cheese Steak Stuffed Peppers:
Ingredients:
2 6oz packages of Natural Nitrite-free Roast Beef
6 slices Provolone Cheese
1 Walla Walla Sweet Onion (or whatever local variety you have on hand)
6 Organic Green Bell Peppers

Ingredients

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Dice onion. Cut roast beef into strips. I cut the pepper in half lengthwise so I can have an easier time cutting them up for the kids and it’s also better for portion control. Pop the halved peppers into the oven with some water in the dish to soften them up for a few minutes. While that’s happening, put the onions in a skillet with the roast beef to heat up. Add salt and pepper. Take out the peppers and fill them with the roast beef. Pop back in oven for about 10 minutes. Take out and add Provolone Cheese. It only takes a couple of minutes to melt! Take it out and enjoy! I served mine with a salad tonight.

Straight out of the oven

Our Dinner Plate

So delicious!

Family review: This recipe fed my whole family with a half of a pepper left over (for my lunch tomorrow!!). I was thoroughly impressed with this dish. SO yummy! My kids didn’t want to eat the pepper at first (this is the one veggie we have a hard time with) because they thought it was spicy. After I told them it was sweet, they went ahead and ate it. Sam loved it and wants to have it again! So for a first time recipe, it was a success. I will be making this again! Tomorrow I am making one of my favorite meals ever. Kung-wow Chicken!!

Taco Salad

This is one of my favorite meals ever! Its also extremely easy to put together, taking literally a few minutes! I often do this meal before church on Saturday evenings or on a weeknight when I have NO time.

This meal starts with prepping the ground beef with homemade taco seasoning. If you’ve ever looked at the package of Taco Seasoning you get from the grocery store, you will find a lot of chemicals mixed in with the seasonings. I am not a big fan of that, so I decided to make my own Taco Seasoning!

Homemade Taco Seasoning

Recipe for Taco Seasoning:
1 Cup Chili Pepper
1/2 Cup Cumin
1/4 Cup Onion Powder
1/4 Cup Oregano
2 Tablespoons Garlic Powder
2 Tablespoons Paprika
2 Tablespoons Crushed Red Pepper Flakes (more if you like the heat)
1 Tablespoon Sea Salt
a few dashes of Cayenne pepper (after all, my kiddos aren’t a big fan of heat)

Put ingredients in a pint canning jar and shake! Easy Peasy! The batch that this recipe produces has lasted me FOREVER!

So onto the Taco Salad! First I’d like to give Fred Meyer’s Grocery Store a huge thumbs up! For the first time in any major chain grocery store I found this beautiful little package.

Grass Fed Organic Ground Beef

Grass Fed Organic Beef!! WOW! Way to go Fred Meyers! You are amazing!! I see organic beef ALL the time, and yes Organic Beef is a little bit better than regular beef, but Grass Fed Beef is the best you can eat! I will reserve this topic for another post because I could talk about this forever. All I will say is it was $7 a pound, which is a little crazy, but I was thankful to see this in stores. HUGE step in the right direction.

TACO SALAD:
Ingredients:
1 pound of Grass Fed Beef
2 tablespoons of taco seasoning mix
1 lettuce head shredded
1 tomato, diced
1 bunch of green onions, sliced
1 can of black olives, sliced
1 small bag of shredded medium cheddar cheese
1 4oz of tomato sauce
2 tablespoons Organic Thousand Island Dressing

Directions:
Brown the beef in the skillet, and add the taco seasoning. Once completely cooked through, put in a container in the fridge to cool it down. While the beef is cooling, get a big bowl out to assemble salad. Put lettuce, tomato, green onions, black olives, and shredded cheese in the big bowl and mix. Empty can of tomato sauce into the salad mixture. Add thousand island and mix again. Once beef is cooled down enough, put it in the salad and mix. Garnish with some Organic Tortillas chips. YUMMMM

Taco Salad

This is JUST enough for my family of 6. Soon I will have to adjust this recipe for a bigger quantity.You can put this salad into a tortilla wrap and eat as a burrito as well. That is what my kids like best. I just like it straight up! I hope you enjoy! Tomorrow I’m making Philly Cheese Steak stuffed Bell Peppers!!

Herbed Chicken, Orzo and Zucchini

My grocery shopping day is Tuesday, so until then I have to get creative with what I already have in the house. Tonight, I looked in my fridge and took a little inspiration from pinterest to come up with dinner.

The website of my inspiration dish: http://www.recipe.com/herbed-chicken-orzo-and-zucchini/

Herbed Chicken, Orzo and Zucchini:
3 chicken breast
2 zucchini
1 cup dried orzo
basil
olive oil

Season chicken breast with salt, pepper and basil. Heat olive oil in pan and add chicken. I put it in for a few minutes for color and then cooked it all the way through in the oven at 365 degrees. I then added the cut up zucchini to the same pan for a few minutes and it was done! For the orzo, I cooked in water per the box instructions, drained and then added a little bit of olive oil and parsley! YUM!

chicken breast seasoned with salt, pepper and basil.

cut up zucchini, waiting for the pan

Mom’s plate!

Kids plate!

A few notes: Sam wasn’t home, and I know for a fact that if he was, 2 zucchini wouldn’t be enough. He loves zucchini and I had NONE left over. The kids absolutely loved it! Its also a favorite of mine. MORE zucchini next time for sure. The kids ate all of their dinner, and loved every bit of it. However, this isn’t a big deal at our house, since my kids always eat dinner. Luckily my kids are not picky and they love healthy food. But I think even if your kids are picky, they will like this dinner. I normally wouldn’t use pasta as a carb, but orzo was all I had today! Shopping plan for my upcoming week to come!

Clean Eating

I am on a mission to work harder to provide clean meals to my family. I would say I’m about 80% of the way there. I have some room for improvement, but I am definitely aware of what I put on the table. I am excited to get blogging about this because I believe it will make me more accountable. Luckily, I am pretty capable in the kitchen, and I do believe cooking is a strong point of mine. I’ve cooked for up to 100 people for church events and also events at my Chiropractor’s office. I honestly LOVE it. I wish I could do that weekly!

For now, I will be focusing on weekly meal plans. Organization is also one of my strong points, so this should be the easy part. TIME is my one enemy. Between four kids schedules (including a needy toddler), hubby’s schedule (away on business currently), cleaning (endless), starting my own business (don’t even get me started), church (which ends up being a refresher), MOPS (starting up a new group this year!), play dates (AKA sanity savers), friend dates (much needed) and sleep (do I even need that??), TIME seems to be the only thing I lack. But lets be serious for a minute, lack of the time is the most LAZY reason on earth to eat less than stellar food. I refuse to use that excuse.

So here are the stats: We are a family of 6 with a $175 weekly grocery budget. We live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, which means we have PLENTY of local farms providing yummy organic goods. I shop mostly at COSTCO, FRED MEYERS and a produce stand close to my house called CAPPY’S. I will stick to clean eating, paleo and low carbs as well. I will be updating this blog with my food buys, menu list, ideas, recipes and pictures.

I hope you read along while I undergo this adventure!