Nourishing Bytes: Real Food for Survival

It has been a while since I wrote a "Nourishing Bytes" post.  So, what better time to write one than after enjoying a delicious nutritious meal as a family.  I mentioned in the past that when I was stricken with cancer, one of the first questions I asked myself is "what, if anything, could I have done to prevent this?"  Honestly, I am not sure the answer to this question.  But, I do not that I can only control some things in my life.  And, what goes into my mouth, and the mouths of my family is within my control.  I believe not only is it something that is within my control, but that I should even glorify God with my body.  For me, this means making sure I fuel it with healthy substances, rather than consume foods and beverages that could harm it.  (1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 (ESV) states, "Or do you not know that you body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?  You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body.")

With that said, I understand that in the country in which we live, it is probably the most difficult to consume "real food".  Convenience, packaged foods are readily available and often seem cheaper than real, whole foods.  But, since undergoing our 10-day real food pledge challenge, we have really figured out how to live on real, whole, mostly organic and local foods. and do so very inexpensively.  We pretty much eat from scratch and consume VERY little packaged foods.  The packaged foods that we do eat do not contain ingredients that are hard to pronounce or don't occur in nature.  If you were to tell me a year ago that that is how we would be eating, I would be surprised.  It sounds like it takes a LOT of work and expensive.  However, now that we went through the challenge and I have had a lot of practice since, it is actually easier and significantly cheaper than eating packaged foods or going out.  Plus, I know every single ingredient that is going into our bodies.  It makes me feel good in so many ways!

Michael Pollan, in his newest book, "Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation," writes in the introduction that at a certain point in the late middle of his life, he made a discovery that the answer to several of the questions that most occupied him was in fact one and the same:  cook.  The questions, some of which were personal included, "what was the single most important thing we could do as a family to improve our health and general well-being?" Also, "what would be a good way to better connect to my teenage son?"  Then, there were the more political questions, "What is the most important thing an ordinary person can do to help reform the American food system, to make it healthier and more sustainable?"  Even though "cooking from scratch" is an answer to each of these questions, survey research confirms we're cooking less and buying more prepared meals every year.  In fact, time spent preparing meals in American households has fallen by half since the mid-sixties, to a measly 27 minutes a day.   However, we're talking about cooking more.  Cooking magazines and television shows continue to gain in popularity.  We like to read about it and watch it being done on television, but spend more time being spectatators, as a culture, than actually participating.

After spending some quality time cooking a simple, easy, nutritious and delicious meal with my family the other night, I decided it was time to write a post about this.  If I ever begin to deviate from this way of living, I want to re-read this and remember just how easy and awesome it is to live this way.  The kids LOVE participating in the meals.  We never make separate meals for different members of the family.  We all eat the same foods as a family at meal time each evening.  It is a wonderful time of bonding and enjoying the food that GOD (not man--as in man-made chemicals, preservatives) has given us.   Also, as a result, our kids have some pretty diverse palates and are willing to try pretty much anything.  In my opinion, teaching them to enjoy food is a critical part of their development as little human beings.  I want them to learn that we should glorify God in all things--even in the foods we consume.

We have saved a significant amount of money by consuming more veggies (even though organic) than meats.   If we have a meat protein with our meal, it is never the highlight, but rather acts like more of a "side."  If you look at all of the longest living cultures, this is how they live.  And, contrary to what you might think, we never have a problem with not feeling full.  We feel happy, healthy and satisfied!

Here is an example of a super-cheap, nutrient-packed meal, which we consumed a couple of nights ago.

Egg and veggie frittata, with an arugula, berry and watermelon salad, and garlic cheese whole wheat drop biscuits!

In my opinion, the "any veggie" frittata is one of the most nutritious, simplest and cheapest meals you can prepare and eat.     Oh---and it is pretty delicious too!   It is a great way to use up veggies that may be nearing the end of their prime.  I adapted the recipe using Michael Pollan's "guidelines" (rather than recipe) from his website.   Here are the instructions or guidelines:

Ingredients:

• One onion or leek
• Olive oil or butter
• Eight eggs
• A splash of milk
• Any or all vegetables you have around or like, including: spinach, kale or chard, asparagus, summer squash, peppers, peas, green beans, potatoes, mushrooms. Frozen vegetables are also fine. In spring, summer, and fall the elements in a frittata can reflect whatever is going on in your garden.
• Cheese—optional
• Fresh herbs (or dried)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400
Dice the onion or slice the leek.
In a cast iron pan, saute in butter or oil (or a combination) for 5-10 minutes, until soft—about ten minutes.
While the onions or leek are sautéing, slice or tear vegetables into small, bite-size pieces. Add to pan with onions or leeks. Saute for a few minutes, until tender. Season. (Potatoes should be parboiled or otherwise cooked in advance.)

Mix the eggs in a bowl with a splash of milk. Pour mixture over vegetables. Grate and add some cheese; sprinkle some fresh herbs. Let cook for a two or three minutes to let a crust form, then put in the oven for ten minutes, or until set.

You can flip the pan over to release the whole frittata onto a serving plate, or cut slices from the pan like a pie and serve slices. Good served with a salad and crusty bread.

We used mushrooms, garlic, onion, bell peppers, as well as tomatoes, basil and rosemary from our little patio garden.  We topped it with a mix of freshly shredded cheese.  It was delicious!   We have been eating watermelon all day, every day lately.  So, of course we had to add it, along with some raspberries, to a spinach and arugula salad.  Yum!  But, the most surprising (and surprisingly easy) addition to the meal was the recipe for whole-wheat garlic cheddar drop biscuits from the "100 days of real food" blog.  Oh. My. Goodness.  These reminded me of the Red Lobster biscuits, yet I actually felt good about eating them.  (I am a little afraid to know what is in the red lobster cheese biscuits.)  They took NO time to make either.   I imagine you could substitute another flour for the whole -wheat flour if you have a wheat allergy or intolerance.  

The way these appear does not do their taste justice.  Seriously--you have to try these things!

Does this little girl look happy to be eating this meal or what?

I know THIS one was!  I may have had seconds!

If I ever begin going back to making foods from boxes or packages, I want Drew to remind me of this post and the way we are living right now.  This has become our way of living, and I am loving it.  Thank you, Lord, for providing for us, and reminding us of all of your wonderful creations of yours that are out there for us to enjoy (and even glorify you with)--even FOOD (real food, that is)!

Our First Taste of Our "Crop"

We decided a couple of months ago to try our first "garden."  I have been wanting to build a container garden for quite some time, but Drew was not as much on board with the idea. The "realist" that he is saw a lot of work involved, whereas the practical optimist in me saw fresh vegetables and herbs and less trips to the grocery store for those items (as well as some money saved--can you tell that I can really be a "salesperson" sometimes?)  So, we compromised (after several sales pitches by yours truly) and used mostly pots that we had around the house, as well as a couple of "topsy turvy" planter kits that I bought on clearance at Ross ($2.99).  I love the topsy turvy containers.  The plants in those are extremely easy to take care of, bugs never seem to reach them, and you cannot over-water them.  They have grown rapidly with very easy care.

I will admit that I feel a little bit like a kid with the amount of excitement that I get "checking" the plants every day.  It is fun to watch the fruit or vegetable plants begin as a little sprout or seedling, grow flower blossoms and then morph each day a little bit into something that we enjoy eating.  Even though watering the plants daily is actually a task that has to be done, it is something I really enjoy.  Therefore, it never seems like a "chore."  And, it only takes a few minutes--a few minutes that I get to check the progress of our little plants!  It's so exciting.

Well, the day finally came yesterday--the day we got to taste our first tomatoes.  We have been enjoying our herbs very regularly.  There is nothing like the taste of fresh basil!  I have been putting it on a LOT of dishes. But, yesterday was our first taste of vegetables (or, I guess tomatoes or fruits.)  Besides a variety of tomatoes and several herbs, we are also growing red bell peppers and yellow squash.

Some of our cherry tomatoes from our topsy turvy planter.

Luke was excited to help make dinner...which even involved picking our own tomatoes.

Some of our "crop"

Rolling out the whole wheat pizza crust.   Click here for the very simple recipe.  The dough literally takes 5 minutes to prepare.

Teamwork!

Brushing on the sauce.  We like our pizzas thin, so the dough recipe makes two pizzas.  We made one with tomato sauce base and the other with a lemon olive oil base.  They are both delicious~

Time for our toppings, including freshly picked lemon basil and cherry tomatoes from our garden.

Into the oven it goes for a few minutes.

And Voila!  Here is one of our pizzas which would soon be devoured.  Luke said it was his favorite pizza ever!  I think it had something to do with him being the chef!  :-)

Days 6-10 of our Real Food Pledge

In case folks were bored with my blog posts devoted to each day of our challenge, I have decided to summarize the challenge in just two more blog posts.

It has been a while since my last post regarding the 10-day pledge.  Yes, we did finish the challenge.  It was an excellent experience, and we learned a lot that we have decided to incorporate into our lifestyle ongoing.  Actually, that is the topic of the next real food challenge blog post.  I will also include in the next post how much the challenge cost us.  But, for this blog post, I will just include the remaining menu (days 6-10).

On Saturday, we went to a farmer's market and to whole foods to pick up groceries for the rest of our pledge days.  We were low on granola, so I had to add some of those recipe ingredients to the list with the rest of the recipes' ingredients.

One other note:  last week was extremely busy for us, so I didn't get around to taking photos of the meals with our nice camera.   I took some with my phone, but the color is off, and the meals do not look nearly as appetizing as they tasted.

Day 6, Saturday (June 8):
Breakfast:  Granola and fruit
Lunch: Sandwiches (using one of Lisa's sandwich ideas, Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, or Peanut Butter, Banana and Honey Paninis) and fruit (along with salad)
Dinner: coconut chicken satay with peanut thai pasta

Thoughts:  Of course, the satay was delicious, but the peanut thai pasta was amazing.  Yummy!

Day 7, Sunday (June 9)
Breakfast:  Granola and fruit
Lunch: Sandwiches (using one of Lisa's sandwich ideas, Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, or Peanut Butter, Banana and Honey Paninis) (or leftovers from previous evening's dinner) and fruit (along with salad)
Dinner: Chicken Enchiladas using whole grain corn tortillas and steamed veggies

Thoughts:  This was a delicious and simple recipe.  Another plus was that it made two 8x8 dishes.  So, we froze the other dish (and actually ate it this past Saturday for a quick and easy dinner).


Day 8, Monday (June 10)
Breakfast:  Granola and fruit
Lunch: Sandwiches (using one of Lisa's sandwich ideas, Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, or Peanut Butter, Banana and Honey Paninis) (or leftovers from previous evening's dinner) and fruit (along with salad)
Dinner: Simple Spaghetti with salad on side

Thoughts:.  This recipe was adapted from a Williams-Sonoma Italian cookbook, so I knew it would be tasty.  Making my own tomato sauce didn't take that long, but it was a bit of work.  My hands got a little pruney from squeezing the tomato seeds out of the 20 tomato halves. The recipe called for prosciutto or pancetta, but we substituted a little local grass-fed ground beef to make a meat sauce.   I think it would be delicious with the pancetta though.

Day 9, Tuesday (June 11)
Breakfast:  Granola and fruit
Lunch: Sandwiches (using one of Lisa's sandwich ideas, Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, or Peanut Butter, Banana and Honey Paninis) (or leftovers from previous evening's dinner) and fruit (along with salad)
Dinner: Lemon Butter Chicken & Lemon Butter fish (black sole from the farmer's market) with herbed quinoa and veggie pancakes
 
Thoughts:  I modified the chicken recipe to use whole wheat flour, but didn't have to do much else to it.  The quinoa was delicious.  A lot of the recipe reviews said it was way too "lemony" as written, so I chose to modify it slightly by reducing the amount of lemon juice in the dressing.  I also really enjoyed the veggie pancakes.  Abbey absolutely loved them. It turned out to be a great kids dish!

Day 10, Wednesday (June 12)
Breakfast:  Granola and fruit
Lunch: Sandwiches (using one of Lisa's sandwich ideas, Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, or Peanut Butter, Banana and Honey Paninis) (or leftovers from previous evening's dinner) and fruit (along with salad)
Dinner: Grilled meat and veggie foil packets with potato skins

Thoughts:   Make sure to line the foil with parchment paper so that the aluminum doesn't leach into the food.  It also works best if cooked at lower temperatures (if on the grill, less than 400 degrees).  I used yukon gold potatoes and sweet potatoes for the potato skins.  I ended up scooping a bit of the potato out and mixing it with the toppings, and then put it back into the table before putting it onto the saute pan.  It made it like a twice-baked potato. For the sweet potatoes, I mixed them with cinnamon, butter and honey. That made them like dessert.  I should have made more of those because they were a huge hit!


I didn't find any of the recipes difficult or too time consuming.  Making the tomato sauce on Monday was a bit annoying, but it wasn't difficult.  It was also fun to try a lot of new meals.   Stay tuned for a summary post later this week, where I will explain what we learned form this challenge, what aspects we are going to incorporate ongoing into our normal lifestyle, and how much this whole pledge cost us.

Day 5 of our "real food" pledge

I cannot believe I am already writing about day 5.  These 5 days flew by.  Drew and I have eliminated refined sugar for nearly a week! (Let me qualify that though. We did have a tiny splurge on Tuesday night to celebrate my last radiation treatment--a sweet friend and sister in Christ (as well as fellow breast cancer survivor) sent me some delicious, warm brownies to the doctor's office for my final treatment as a congratulations.  How could we pass up a warm, delicious chocolate brownie on such a big day? We enjoyed one each and then put the rest in our freezer to enjoy later).

Drew and I have both found that we stay full all day by eating these healthful, real foods.  Our theory is that the processed, sugary foods we consumed in the past encouraged us to consume even more.  They left us feeling unsatisfied--still hungry.  Processed food and sugar was like an addictive drug--one that we do not miss at all!

But because we had given up our daily dark chocolate intake, I had been on a mission to find some healthful way we could eat our special treat.  I was able to find an awesome chocolate brownie recipe to satisfy our chocolate craving.  The recipe had absolutely no sugar.  Instead, I used honey (with a splash of real maple syrup).

These dark chocolate whole-wheat brownies were delicious.  But, then again, Drew and I love dark chocolate and didn't mind the cake-like texture.  Here is the recipe in case you are interested (note, I used 1 egg.  Although it tasted great, next time I will experiment with 2 eggs:

Dark Chocolate Whole-Wheat Brownies

SERVES: MAKES 14-16 SMALL BROWNIE SQUARES

NOTE: THESE BROWNIES ARE “CAKE-LIKE” AND A VERY “DARK” CHOCOLATE FLAVOR I.E. NOT AS SWEET AS TYPICAL STORE-BOUGHT MILK CHOCOLATE PRODUCTS.

INGREDIENTS

• ¾ cup whole-wheat flour (I tested this recipe with King Arthur’s organic white whole-wheat flour, which is 100% whole-grain)
• ½ cup unsweetened cocoa, you will have much better results if you use “dark” cocoa (Hershey’s makes some)
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ cup coconut oil
• ½ cup maple syrup (or honey – my family is divided because I loved the maple version and they loved the honey version)
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 to 2 eggs
• ¼ cup chopped nuts (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9X9 inch square glass baking dish with oil or butter.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a bowl including the flour, cocoa and baking powder and set aside.
3. In a small pot on the stove melt the coconut oil together with the maple syrup and vanilla extract.
4. Once the coconut oil is melted whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Add the egg and keep whisking until it’s mixed together thoroughly. If using nuts fold them into the batter with a spatula.
5. Pour the batter into the glass baking dish and bake for 16 – 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
   Eat or store in an air-tight container at room temperature – enjoy!

On Friday night, I wanted an easy meal.  So, I opted for another kid-friendly, easy meal:  whole-wheat macaroni and cheese. I added some peas to ours, because we usually add a veggie with macaroni and cheese to make it a little more healthful.  I used mozzarella and parmesan cheeses in the dish.  

Honestly, I wasn't the biggest fan of this meal.  I think the mozzarella was just a bit too bland.  Next time, I would opt for a sharp cheddar or fontina in addition to the parmesan.  It tasted a lot like Annie's organic macaroni and cheese, which I feel tastes a bit bland.  Regardless though, the meal definitely was kid-friendly, as our kids loved it!

One other note:  I am finding this way of eating would be a great method for someone to lose weight.  You can eat what you want (within the guidelines), feel full all day long, not feel deprived and actually lose weight! Drew and I did not want to lose any weight entering into this challenge.  Actually, neither of us can afford to lose a pound.  Randomly, because Luke and Abbey were playing on our scale in the bathroom, I weighed myself on Saturday morning.  I could not believe I had lost weight!  I actually went from 100 lbs at the beginning of the week to 97 lbs by Saturday morning, which scared me a bit.  Drew also lost 3 lbs.  We verified the accuracy of the scale by weighing Luke and Abbey.  So, my mission for the weekend would be to try to eat as much as possible to see if I could gain the weight back!  But, in the back of my mind, I know that when I was at my healthiest, eating well and working out every day (about 12 years ago, when I had a lot more muscle mass than I do now), I weighed 97 lbs.  So, part of me wonders if my body is just at its ideal weight.  I plan on going back to the gym soon to put some of the muscle mass that I lost over the past 9 months.    Anyway, I know that losing weight rapidly without trying is usually not a good symptom.  So, I am praying that it is all due to the way we are eating, and nothing else.  

Day 4 of our "Real Food Pledge"

I decided to do some swapping around of the days' planned meals in my original menu.  So, Friday's pizza meal became Thursday's dinner.   I was feeling pretty tired on Thursday due to my continued radiation recovery.  Pizza just sounded pretty easy.  And, it was.

Day 4, Thursday:

Breakfast:  Granola and fruit
Lunch: Sandwiches (using one of Lisa's sandwich ideas, Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, or Peanut Butter, Banana and Honey Paninis) (or leftovers from previous evening's dinner) and fruit (along with salad)
Dinner: Whole Wheat Pizza

During Abbey's morning nap, I made the pizza dough.  I could not believe how easy it was--it probably took me about 5 minutes with our Kitchenaid stand mixer.

The recipe says to put the dough into a ziplock bag and into the fridge to rise after mixing it.  But, I read on some of the comments from the "100 days of real food" site that some folks had difficulty with the dough rising.  Every time I make dough, I let it rise in a warm place.  So, I trusted my gut here and let it rise on the counter in a ziplock bag for about 45 minutes before I put it in the fridge.  It had no problem rising.

It was fun to review some of the pages in my favorite pizza book while the dough was rising.

For lunch, I ended up making a salad using the leftover chicken nuggets from Wednesday night.  I also added apples and strawberries to my salad.  We didn't have any leftovers of the sweet potatoes and apples dish.  So sad!  The kids ate sandwiches, fruit and veggies for lunch.


When it was time for dinner, I rolled the dough out pretty thin.  It ended up being pretty large in size, and I didn't even roll it out as thin as I would have liked.  Then, I brushed on some olive oil around the outer edges and then brushed on a basil pesto (with no pine nuts, since Drew and I are allergic) as a base. We bought a LOT of mushrooms at the farmer's market, so I used some of those as a topping for our pizza.   We also bought too many tomatoes, so I sliced one very thinly and used it as a topping as well.   I shredded some parmesan and mozzarella on top and put it in the oven onto our pizza stone.  It only took about 9 minutes to bake.   Easy peasy dinner!

I paired the pizza with some delicious, freshly cut watermelon.

We even had enough for leftovers the next day!

Day 3 of our "Real Food" Pledge

This was our plan for Wednesday:

Day 3, Wednesday
Breakfast:  Granola and fruit
Lunch: Sandwiches (using one of Lisa's sandwich ideas, Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, or Peanut Butter, Banana and Honey Paninis) (or leftovers from previous evening's dinner) and fruit (along with salad)
Dinner: Homemade Chicken Nuggets with a side of sweet potatoes and apples

I was ecstatic that there were just enough leftover's from Tuesday night's meal for lunch on Wednesday.  I was really looking forward to lunch.  Wednesday night's meal was pretty easy to fix, and didn't take a lot of prep at all.  So, if you are looking for an easy meal that is also kid-friendly, this recipe is definitely one to keep around.

Luke said it was his favorite.  And actually, it is a very kid-friendly meal. What meal could be more kid-friendly than chicken nuggets and sweet potatoes and apples? 

Throw a side salad on the plate and voila--a perfect meal.  Drew liked this meal, but I was a bit disappointed with the chicken.  After the previous dinner, it tasted a bit bland to me.  Then again, I think I was still thinking about those fajitas.  They were SO good!  I think next time I would add a little minced garlic to the egg mixture and add a little more shredded parmesan to the "breading" mixture.  But, I absolutely loved the sweet potatoes and apples mixture.  I added a little bit of cinnamon to the recipe, which made them just a bit sweeter.  Although the recipe said to leave the peels on the apples, I think I would trim the peel the next time.  I used red delicious apples, since those were the organic apples on sale last week.  The apples were very sweet, but the peel on red delicious apples tends to be a little bitter.  After cooking, the peel wasn't necessarily bitter--it just got in the way of the soft texture of the rest of the apple and sweet potato mixture. Yet still, the side dish was very tasty and sweet.

3 days down, 2 to go for this week, then it is grocery shopping and meal planning for days 6-10!

Day 2 of the real food pledge

Oh. My. Goodness.  Day 2's dinner was so delicious, that I am still thinking about it.  But, I will talk about that in a minute.

We continued our normal breakfast routine, with granola and fruit.  For lunch, I was excited to be able to eat leftovers from day 1.  That stir-fry was mouth-watering delicious, and I was super happy to be able to relive the experience for lunch.  Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

During Abbey's naptimes on Tuesday, I prepared parts of the Tomato, Corn and Black Bean Salad (dip).  Actually, I prepared the whole thing except for the corn.   We ended up grilling the corn for the salad/dip, so I began that when I got home from my last radiation treatment.  I also varied the recipe a bit more by cooking the tomatoes for just long enough to release some of the lycopene (you can read about why I cook my tomatoes here).

Around 11am, I started the slow cooker flank steak fajitas.  The local cuts of meat I ended up purchasing last weekend were a couple of flat iron steaks.  Let me just tell you--this meal was RIDICULOUSLY delicious.  I can honestly say they were the best fajitas I have ever eaten.  And, I live in Texas--which is probably where the fajita capital of the U.S.A. is located.  So, I have definitely eaten my share of fajitas.  And, I could literally devour the homemade tortillas all by themselves.  But, the combo of everything together was just divine.  I am salivating right now as I type this.  I really wish there were more of these leftovers!  Thankfully, there was enough for lunch the following day, because I think I dreamed about those fajitas on Tuesday night.

Yummy.  The recipe is here.  Mine aren't perfectly round, but it doesn't really matter.

I do have a recommendation for the tortillas though.  I would recommend putting plastic (cling) wrap on whatever surface you are rolling the tortillas out at, as well as on top of the tortilla.  Before I did this, because I rolled the tortillas out pretty thin (using the cling wrap only on top), they were difficult to peel off the board without messing them up.  Once I used a piece of cling wrap underneath, folded it over the dough and then rolled out, I could just pick up the wrap and drop the flattened tortilla onto my hand and then onto the hot pan.  Easy peasy.  But really, who cares how the tortillas look! They taste amazing, so who cares if they are odd-shaped, right?

I didn't get a good photo of the fajitas.  The one I took did not do them justice, so I have opted not to even include it.   But, here is a photo of the little salad I made.  It was really good...especially as a dip for some tortilla chips.  We found some great chips with less than 5 ingredients at our local grocery store (HEB).  Honestly, we already had them in the pantry, so we were glad we were able to use them during the challenge.

I was excited to be able to simply go to our back patio and harvest some fresh basil off of our basil plant.  The basil smelled and tasted so fresh and was so fragrant.  Now, I know what I have been missing all of these years by not having a garden.  I am extremely anxious to harvest our first tomatoes, red bell peppers and squash.

Another day down, and 8 more to go in our pledge!

Day 1 of our "10-Days of Real Food" Pledge

Day 1, which was Monday, of our "Real Food" pledge really wasn't that difficult.  Well, let me qualify that statement.....it wasn't that difficult aside from one thing:  at the end of the day, Drew and I had a major dark chocolate craving.  We had to eliminate that from our pledge challenge due to the many grams of sugar that is added to our favorite snack.  Drew picked up a 100% dark chocolate baking unsweetened baking chocolate from the store, thinking we could sweeten it up a bit naturally.  We both took a tiny bite of that stuff by itself.  Oh. My. Goodness.  It was awful.....so bitter.

So, part of my mission for next week is to figure out how to make some yummy, healthful, dark chocolate.  I will let you know how that goes.

Aside from the major chocolate craving at the end of the day, day one of the challenge was pretty easy.  We had prepared well, which was key.  We had our homemade granola for breakfast and plenty of fruit for snacktime.

Because I realized how nice it was to be so prepared on Monday morning, I used Abbey's morning nap to prepare for day 2 of the pledge.  Luke and I made some whole wheat tortillas for Tuesday night's fajitas.

My little helper...making homemade whole wheat tortillas.

Then, for lunch we all had sandwiches made from the honey whole wheat bread that we purchased from Great Harvest Bread.  Here's the scoop on the bread.  It costs $5.50 per loaf (which seems pricey, I know), but it weighs (literally) 2 lbs!  Also, I didn't know this until after we purchased the bread, but they always have a buy one loaf get one free coupon on the local website of the Great Harvest Bread company. This makes each loaf only $2.75, which is pretty equivalent to the bread we always purchased at the grocery store.  Of course, I definitely want to try to make my own whole grain bread as well.   But I knew I would already be making a lot of essentials in the kitchen this week (like pizza dough, tortillas, etc.), so I wanted one of my "packaged" items to be bread this first week.  The trip to the bakery was a fun adventure in and of itself.  The employee there let us sample any of the fresh baked breads we desired (and they had some delicious sweet ones as well.) The samples she gave us were whole slices (that felt like they weighed a quarter of a pound.)  We found out that they actually grind their grains into flour for the breads every morning---talk about fresh!  Needless to say, we are really loving the bread...and the sandwiches.  I had to pick up some new peanut butter (our previous peanut butter had sugar listed just after peanuts in the ingredients list.)  We are all LOVING the new peanut butter as well!

For snacks, we devoured a LOT of fresh fruit.  But, that is nothing out of the ordinary around our house.

After Drew arrived home from work, he played with the kids while I started dinner.  I made sure to cook the long grain brown rice during Abbey's afternoon nap (since the rice took 50 minutes to cook).  This gave me one less thing to do during dinner preparation time.  I finished our first "real-food" dinner:  farmer's market stir fry.  It. was. delicious!  I modified the recipe slightly though.   I added some garlic to the sauce,which I feel provided a great balance for the ginger.  Click here for the stir-fry recipe.

Farmer's market stir-fry with a side of long grain brown rice and freshly cut pineapple.

 The best part is that there were leftovers, which had the privilege to consume for lunch the following day.  Day 1-success!

Day 6: Chicken and Orzo Soup

Day 6 of the weekly meal planner was actually delayed a little bit, because we received a visit from Drew's parents this past weekend.  We had a wonderful time with them, as always.  They are building a new house and listing their current house for sale this week.  So, they decided it was a great time to bring up a whole SUV full of boxes of some of Drew's childhood things (baseball cards, transformers, legos, and even High School shop class projects that he made for them).   It was fun to go through Drew's art projects from elementary school--he was pretty creative and had a very impressionistic style.

Anyway, Drew didn't want me to try any new recipes out on them, so we decided to finish Day 6 and 7 of the meal planner this week.

  

This was the easiest soup I have ever made!  I will guess it took me about 20 minutes total to cook this soup.  Plus, I saved 10 minutes by preparing the orzo pasta when I had to cook it for the last meal that required it. I will add that it is probably the most delicious soup I have ever made.  Drew had a bit of a sore throat today and said the soup was a perfect match meal for it.  So, without further ado....

Here are our verdicts:

Heather:  This was an excellent combination of flavors and textures.  The crunchiness of the celery balanced the mushiness that I dislike about mushrooms.  The orzo and chicken were complimentary as well.  I really enjoyed the lemon flavor of the broth.  The parsley gave the soup a very healthful taste.  I loved that the soup contained so much protein, with the combo of cannellini beans and chicken.  I rate this an 8, which is a high rating from me for a soup.

A happy Drew enjoying the soup

Drew:  Mushrooms again!  Hooray!  A very fresh tasting and healthy dish.  It soothed my sore throat.  I liked having the orzo pasta in the soup.  This sounds strange coming from me (not a celery fan), but I think I would prefer even more celery in the soup.   My rating is an 8--delicious and I think this should stay on our meal rotation. 

Luke liked it also!

And here's the recipe in case you're interested:  Chicken-and-Orzo Soup Recipe - Every Day with Rachael Ray

Day 5: Peppers ’n’ Potatoes Beef Skillet Supper

Because we had onion Risotto leftovers on Day 4, I cooked our next weekly meal planner dish on Day 5.  Drew and I really enjoyed this dish.   My only recommendation would be not to add as many noodles as the dish calls for.  I think the plethora of noodles took a little bit away from the delicious flavors of the dish.   The recipe called for cooking the baby red potatoes in the bacon grease.  I will admit this was very hard for me.   I actually poured some of the bacon grease out of the skillet before cooking the potatoes.  I like to cook healthful dishes and cooking a veggie in bacon grease just didn't seem right.  It did taste pretty good though.

And now for the verdict:

Heather:  This is really good--I think it would be a perfect meal for a cooler day.   And, of course, bacon toppings makes just about anything better.  The only thing I would change as I mentioned above is to reduce the amount of noodles in the dish.  I rate this dish a 7.5

Drew:  I really liked this dish--I liked it more than the Buffalo Chicken and less than the tacos.  Those tacos were REALLY good.  Therefore, I need to change my rating on the tacos to an "8" so I can rate this dish a 7.5.  Loved the flavors and, of course, the bacon.  I agree with Heather on less noodles though.

Here is the recipe in case you are interested:  Peppers ’n’ Potatoes Beef Skillet Supper Recipe - Every Day with Rachael Ray.

Day 3: Orzo Risotto with Spring Greens

One word can be used to describe day 3's meal by Drew:   Onions.

When we first started dating, I learned one thing about Drew pretty quickly--he hated onions.  In fact, the first day that I met his parents, we went to lunch at North by Northwest (a local restaurant).  Drew and his parents all ordered dishes that came with onions and made sure the waiter knew they wanted the chef to hold the onions.  In fact, I remember them saying it again after he repeated our order back to us before delivering it to the kitchen, and right before they ordered onion rings.  I found this so ironically funny--hold the onions on our entrees, but we'd like some onion rings please.  :-)  However, over time, I think Drew has realized that onions really do have a place in a meal.  I learned that he actually enjoys them when they are cooked in a dish.  Cooking them makes them deliciously sweet.  Onions are to Drew as mushrooms are to Heather.

Well, this dish called for 1/2 onion, finely chopped (and cooked), but 6 scallions, thinly sliced (and uncooked).  I have to admit, I was leery of putting 6 scallions in the dish-it seemed like a lot.  But, I made the recipe as it was listed, except we added some heated, crumbled, dry coppa in it (I know it's strange, but we had that in the fridge).

In preparing today's meal, I discovered something else wonderful about these weekly meal planners.  Rachael provides tips along the way to cut back on preparation time.  For example, the tip for today was to save 10 minutes on another dish later in the week by cooking the orzo pasta for today's dish and that day's dish all at once.  Just put the other day's cooked orzo pasta in a container and you're ready to go.  We did this---10 minutes saved on our next meal!

And, now for the verdict:

Heather:  I would rate this dish a 6 as it was prepared.  I am willing to try it again, except this time I would eliminate 4 or 5 of the scallions.  Luke and I actually cleaned our very full bowls of this dish.

Drew:  Onions.  They were a bit overwhelming, taking over my taste buds; therefore, I rate this a 4.  I think this dish could be a 7 without all of the scallions.  I'm definitely willing to try it again. 

(A little note about our rating scales (1-10):  Drew says a "5" is an average dish.  A dish is rated a 7 if it is really good in Drew's rating scale.  9's are extremely exclusive--Drew rates his favorite dish (cheesy chicken roll-ups) a 9.   I'm not really sure what would warrant a 10.  At times, I have said Drew is somewhat pessimistic---he always responds, "No, I'm a realist."  He calls me an optimist.  Perhaps that tells you something about how we rate things.)

We actually ended up eating leftovers on the evening of Day 4, because we had quite a bit left from Day 3 and we both already had lunch plans on Day 4 (we don't like to be wasteful).  I spent a lot of time trying to pull some of the green onions out of the dish for Drew.  There were WAY too many though.  He did, however, get a dish on this day 4 with fewer green onions, and he cleaned his bowl. 

Here is the onion, I mean, "Orzo Risotto with Spring Greens" recipe if you are interested:  Orzo Risotto with Spring Greens Recipe - Every Day with Rachael Ray

Day 2: Beef-and-Mushroom Tacos with Avocado Salad

Day two's meal was DELISH (even though it contained mushrooms)!!!!!  I have always disliked mushrooms for three reasons.

1.  Because I have always hated the idea of eating a fungus that grows on the ground.
2.  I don't enjoy their strange texture in my mouth.
3.  I have always felt they had no flavor.

But, cooked in a lot of garlic and mixed with beef and jalapeno chilis, they were tasty.  If you are looking for a different type of taco to get you out of your traditional taco rut, you should definitely try these.

Now, I did a few things differently than the recipe called for that I think really helped.  First, I actually cooked the onions in a little butter to almost caramelize them.  This made them even sweeter and added a great offset to the saltiness of the tacos.

Second, and this is a must, I bought the flour tortillas that are ready to cook (in an uncooked state).  You cook them fresh within minutes on a griddle or in a hot pan. They are so much better than regular, premade, store bought tortillas.  You can usually find these in the section of the grocery store with the tubes of biscuits and such.  I think that these tortillas make a huge difference.  Once I purchased these tortillas a few years back, I will never go back to the pre-cooked, reheat kind.    They look similar to the package below:

The other thing that I did differently than the recipe-I added a blend of mexican cheeses (Asadero, Manchego and Queso Quesadilla) to the tacos.  The meal took about 10 minutes of prep time and 30 minutes of cooking time.

Now, for the verdict: 

Heather:  LOVED THEM!   You can see the reasons as listed above.  The cheeses added a good salty creaminess to the dish.   I finished both of my tacos before Drew finished his first one.  I rate this dish a 9.5 out of 10.  And, the leftover tacos tasted just as great the next day.

Drew:  I really liked having mushrooms in a dish (Heather doesn't buy them to cook in dishes for me often for reasons as listed above).  I was really surprised that the jalapenos didn't overpower the dish.  Overall, very good flavor.  I would like to try it sometime using skirt steak instead of ground beef.   I rate it a 7.5.

Here is the recipe in case you want to try it:  Beef-and-Mushroom Tacos with Avocado Salad Recipe - Every Day with Rachael Ray

Day 1 of the Rachael Ray Weekly Meal Planner Trial

On Sunday night I cooked the Baked Buffalo Chicken with Blue Cheese Salad (10 minute prep, 35 minutes cooking)--this coincided with day one of Rachael's weekly meal planner in her March magazine.   I loved how easy it was!  I prepared the chicken before our 4:30pm church community group meeting so that it was ready to go in the oven right after the meeting around 6pm.  All that was left to do after our meeting was throw it in the oven for 35 minutes, create the dressing for the salad, and then plate everything.

Our verdict of the meal

Heather:  I liked it.  It offered a great balance of flavors.  I enjoyed how the heat of the buffalo sauce on the chicken balanced the rich creaminess of the homemade blue cheese dressing.  I was really surprised I liked this so much, since I usually despise white sauces and dressings.   On a scale of 1-10, I rate this meal a "7".

Drew:   Liked it.  I really didn't think I would like celery in a dish, but it added a nice crunch without being overpowering.  The meal continued to grow on me.  I appreciated the flavors the more I ate it.  I rate this meal a "7".

Here's the link if you would like to try the recipe:  Baked Buffalo Chicken with Blue Cheese Salad Recipe - Every Day with Rachael Ray

Overall, we were pleased with day one and excited to try day two.  And something else nice about this--there were just enough leftovers for Drew and I for lunch the next day!