Kale, Quinoa & cheese casserole!

Tags

casserole, cheese, clean eating, dinner, Fall, food, gluten free, healthy treat, idea, kale, quinoa, savory, side dish, yum

So is this a “clean” recipe you might ask?  Somewhat.  Too much cheese can be a bit heavy but I think the other ingredients make up for it and what’s a little cheese between friends?!  The other ingredients are kale and quinoa, plus some eggs and I even added Greek yogurt….so there’s lots of protein and the kale is healthy right?  I’m totally justifying.  What the hell?  Let’s eat some cheese! Lots and lots!!!!  Cheesy goodness.  Whew! That’s out of my system.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 c quinoa
• 1 bunch kale
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 eggs
•  1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 cup cheddar cheese
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp cayenne
• salt/pepper
• panko

Cook the quinoa, I get mine in the bulk section so I always soak in cold water for about 10 mins and rinse until the water runs clear.  Then add 2 1/2 cups water to the quinoa, bring to a boil, cover & simmer until the water is absorbed. While it’s cooking, cut the kale into bite sized pieces and either stir fry or saute until wilted.

In a bowl whisk together the eggs, milk, yogurt, spices, salt/pepper and the chopped garlic.  Mix in the quinoa, the kale and the cheese.  Pour into a greased 13 x 9 baking dish and sprinkle panko or bread crumbs on top.  Bake in a 350 oven for about 30 minutes.  Like all recipes you can adjust the amounts of anything including the spices to your taste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And done!

Mango blueberry protein muffins

Tags

baking, blueberries, body for life, chia seeds, clean diet, clean eating, healthy treat, mango, muffins, protein muffins, snack, sweet, yum

More protein muffins!  Can you stand it?!  I love them. I eat them every day! Things like these make life enjoyable nowadays.  You can have your frosting covered cupcakes, I am not the least bit jealous.  Actually I’ve never really liked these new cupcakes with tons of frosting anyway, too much frosting. Now a yummy scone on the other hand? Now I’m jealous. But I can have those on my cheat day.

Here’s the back story…awhile back I made a mango, candied ginger quick bread.  I took it to work and everyone loved it. One lady in particular loved it so much she asked for the recipe.  But somehow hers did not turn out which was disappointing as she wanted to make it for her new daughter-in-laws bridal shower.  So I offered to make if for her…turns out she needed at least 10!!!  So I made 10…in my tiny little kitchen….in the middle of my clean eating 12 week challenge…and they smelled heavenly.  I won’t lie, I made one for my cheat day and ate 3 pieces and didn’t feel one bit guilty.  But I still had lots of mango puree left over.  I thought about recreating the quick bread in a protein muffin but it’s crystalized ginger, which means lots of sugar. Back to the drawing board.  I had plenty of wonderful blueberries! That would be a winning combination. Oh and I added Chia seeds, what’s the big deal about Chia seeds?  They are good for you….and they remind me of poppy seeds.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup almond flour
• 1/2 cup protein powder (I use Whey)
• 1T baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 T Chia seeds
• 1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
• 1 cup mango puree
• 3 egg whites
• 3 T honey (if you like it sweet, you should use more)
• 1/2 c blueberries

Preheat oven to 375. Combine all the dry ingredients in one bowl and all the wet ingredients in another, except the blueberries.  Fold the wet into the dry and do not overmix.  Gently fold in the blueberries. Separate the batter between 12 greased muffin tins (or use silicon cups) and bake for 20 mins.

The pictures below are courtesy of my beautiful step daughter.

Salmon with quinoa-grapefruit salad or….I can do this!

Tags

clean eating, dinner, grapefruit, healthy treat, quinoa, salmon, yum

Diet, Diet, Diet, hateful word.  However, this challenge I am doing is nothing like a traditional diet!  I’m not hungry and I get to eat up to 6 times a day!!!  In fact, it’s encouraged.  I have to admit some days I can only eat 5 times.  What in the world kind of diet is this you might ask (and I would too).  It’s from a book called Body for Life and it’s an exercise and eating program.  Yes exercise and you push yourself quite hard.  But I’m a bit of a masochist so I don’t really mind that part.  It’s the sweets part that’s harder for me.  Sweets are limited to one “free” day a week. But I can do this….  Anyway, I had a nice piece of salmon waiting for dinner and I had a grapefruit that I hadn’t eaten yet.  What could I make?

Salmon with quinoa-grapefruit salad of course!  Adapted from the Food network here

• Peel of a grapefruit
• sliced ginger (a piece as large as a thumb)
• olive oil  (3-4 Tb)
• 1 cup Quinoa

While your quinoa cooks, just like rice 1 cup quinoa, 2 cups water, bring to boil, cover and simmer until water is gone.  Oh, if you get your quinoa from a bulk food section like I do you will want to let it soak in cold water for at least 10 mins and then rinse until the water runs clean.  Otherwise it supposedly leaves a bitter taste.  I’ve never had that happen yet but I always soak and rinse.

Put the olive oil in a small pot and add the grapefruit peel, careful not to get the white pith part, and the sliced ginger.  Bring to just a simmer and turn off the heat.  Let it soak while you prepare everything else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Separate the grapefruit into segments removing the membrane. You will need at least 3 Tb of juice so make sure that happens as you separate!

Put the Quinoa in a bowl and add chopped scallion (2-3) and chopped cilantro and salt & pepper to taste.

Combine:

• 3 Tb grapefruit juice
• 1 Tb rice vinegar
• 1 tsp agave sweetener (the original recipe says 2 tsp honey)

Whisk together and slowly stream in the oil from the peel/ginger mixture to make a dressing.  I reserved some of the oil mixture to use on some asparagus and on the salmon.  Pour the dressing into the quinoa and mix well. You can add the grapefruit segments to it now, or if you’re like me and have a Jason who doesn’t like grapefruit all that much, add it to your own serving.

I took some asparagus, put it on a cookie sheet covered in foil and brushed some of the peel/ginger oil on it, sprinkled it with salt and put it on the bottom rack of a 400 F oven.  The other rack was 2 down from the top. While the asparagus cooked for about 5 minutes I put the salmon on a foil cookie sheet and poured the remaining oil on the salmon and sprinkled it with about 1 tsp of brown sugar and some salt and pepper.  After the 5 minutes was up, I left the asparagus in the bottom and put the salmon on the 2nd rack.  This cooked for about 10 mins.   Lovely.

It was really delicious. I’m getting the hang of this “clean” eating thing, I probably still don’t have it figured out yet.  But hey, I have one more meal to go tonight!  I’ll leave you with a picture of one of my silly dogs who really wanted, either my attention or a piece of fish!

Fish please.