Lightened Up Protein Power Goddess Bowl

Source (pics, too): Oh She Glows

That vegan lady strikes again.

As I am officially off of my 6 month eating plan (CAN I GET A AMEN?!), it's time to add some freaking VARIETY back into my diet!! Without blowing it, that is. I don't want to waste all of that hard work, so I got to hunting down some healthy salady foody type thing to keep my eating hole satisfied and intrigued.

I was going to prep a bunch of stuff yesterday for the week, my visit with my irresistibly adorable nephew when predictably late.

I STILL COOKED, DAMN IT.

Starting to cook when it's already past your bedtime is really super fun, you guys.

But not being prepared leads to snackers anon meetings.

Yield: 6 cups

Ingredients:

• 1 cup uncooked green lentils (yield 2 & 3/4 cups cooked)
• 1 cup uncooked speltberries (yield 2 cups cooked) OR grain of choice, like brown rice (I used quinoa)
• 1/2 tbsp olive oil, for sautéing
• 1/2 red onion (~1 & 1/3 cups), chopped
• 3-4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 large tomato, chopped
• 3 cups spinach or kale, roughly chopped (I used Lacinato kale) (I used regular ol kale)
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, minced
• 1 batch of Lightened Up Tahini-Lemon Dressing (recipe below)
• Kosher salt & black pepper, to taste
• Lemon Wedges & lemon zest, to garnish

Directions:

1. Cook lentils and speltberries (or grain of choice) according to package directions. I did this the night before to save time. Drain and set aside. (To be honest, both lentils and quinoa take a while to cook and I was way tired and impatient and noticed that they have similar cooking times. You see where I'm going with this. I cooked them together. AND IT WORKED.)

2. Prepare the Lightened Up tahini-Lemon dressing in food processor (see below for recipe).

3. In a large skillet over low-medium heat, add your olive oil and sauté the chopped onion and minced garlic for a few minutes, being careful not to burn. Now add in the chopped red pepper and tomato and sauté for another 7-8 minutes.

4. Stir in the chopped kale or spinach and sauté for another few minutes, just until tender. Stir in the full batch of tahini-Lemon dressing, the cooked & drained grains and lentils, and simmer on low for another few minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the minced parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste and garnish with lemon wedges and zest. Makes 6 cups.

Lightened Up Tahini-Lemon Dressing

Adapted from Tahini-Lemon Dressing.

Yield: Just under 1 cup of dressing

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup Tahini (it's by the pb in the store, JUST SO YOU KNOW)
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
• 1/4 cup Nutritional yeast or a bit more, to taste (I have no idea what that is and am too lazy to look it up. I found it in the bulk section at Whole Foods and am trusting that it won't kill me)
• 2-4 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil, to taste
• 1 tsp kosher salt + freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
• 3 tbsp water, or as needed

Directions:

1. In a food processor, add all ingredients and process until smooth. Makes just under 1 cup.

My notes:

Tahini smells weird and is not, in fact, the yogurt sauce that I thought it was. The chick is vegan, Summer, DUH it's not yogurt. It's just like peanut butter, but with sesame seeds instead of peanuts. Weird, right? It separates like a MOFO. Like, rock hard solid crap on the bottom and a ton of oil stuff on the top. Yum?

Also, I was all "omg hey! I totally have some green lentils!!!" and tossed some in with the brown-ish lentils that I had bought. Wrong. SPLIT PEAS ARE NOT LENTILS. I have no explanation. I amaze myself sometimes.

Being tired and cranky and smelling weird things when I made this made me a wee bit hesitant to try it today. But, I did! And it's pretty tasty (although not on my favorites list, to be honest)! And REALLY healthy.

Greek Style Zucchini Salad

This was another recipe that popped up on Pinterest. As the boy and I had just bought some fresh zucchini from the farmer's market that morning, it was screaming to be made for the dinner we put together for my folks last night. It was a good call.

(serves 5-ish as a side dish. HELLA RHYMES)

Ingredients:
1/2 pound zucchini (grated) (I had 3 med zucs and I have NO idea how much it weighed. It worked, though)
1 tablespoon mint (chopped)
1 tablespoon dill (chopped)
1 green onion (sliced)
1/4 cup feta (crumbled)
1/2 lemon (juice and zest)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic (grated)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Mix the zucchini, mint, dill,green onions and feta in a large bowl.
2. Mix the lemon juice, zest, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper in a small bowl.
3. Toss the salad and the dressing.  
4. Chill in the fridge for several hours to overnight before serving.

(photo credit to the linked website above)

Easy! Light! Herby! And, really? Actually pretty healthy. Four of us ate it as a side dish, and had another serving leftover.

Perfect little light summer dish. 

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

It's an odd thing, spying a treat on Pinterest and then going to actually make it and finding yourself square in the middle of a religious website. The Mormon's lemon cookie game is on point, y'all. Not gonna lie.




Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Makes 2-3 dozen

Ingredients:
½ cups butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 whole egg
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¼ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoons baking powder
⅛ teaspoons baking soda
1-½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cups powdered sugar


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest, and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

*If using a non-stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.


I changed exactly nothing in the recipe. These were so light and perfectly sweet and lemony. They came together pretty quickly, too. I used a cookie dough scooper thingy, which sped the process up a bit.


These are a keeper, fo sho. 

Key Lime Pie

A while back, a coworker came in and said, "Hey! I made a key lime pie! Want some?"

Duh.

This dudes key lime pie was jaw dropping. The crust was chewy and buttery, the filling was tangy and sweet. It was just....one of the best things I think I've ever had. And I've had a lot of food.

He gave me the recipe, and it sat in my inbox for probably close to a year. Intimidating.

Yesterday was the day. I was going to make my dad a key lime pie for Father's Day.

When I glanced over the recipe, it actually didn't even look that hard! We all know how that can go, though...

Total Ingredients

Graham Cracker Crust
1 ¼ cup	Graham Cracker Crumbs (or 1 individual package from a box)
2 T	Granulated Sugar
5 – 6 T	Unsalted Butter (I used 6T)
Pie Filling
3	Large Egg Yolks (Room Temperature)
14 oz	Sweetened Condensed Milk
½ cup	Key Lime Juice
2 tsp.	Key Lime Zest (grated)
Cream Topping
1 cup	Cold Heavy Whipping Cream (35-40% butterfat content)
2 T	Granulated Sugar (or ¼ cup if you like a bit sweeter)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350˚ F
2. Place oven rack in the center of oven.
3. Butter or lightly spray with non stick vegetable spray, a 9 inch pie or tart pan.

Graham Cracker Crust

4. Mix together the graham cracker crumbs (I put them in a ziploc and used a rolling pin to crush them), sugar and melted butter.
5. Press onto the bottom and up the sides of a prepared pan.
6. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until set and lightly browned.
7. Remove from oven and place on wire rack to cool while you make the filling.

Filling

8. In the bowl of your electric mixer, with the whisk attachment beat the egg yolks until pale and fluffy (2-3 minutes).
9. Scrap down the sides of the bowl and then beat in the lime juice and zest (I assume you also put the sweetened condensed milk in at this point).
10. Pour the filling over the crust and bake for about 10 – 15 minutes, or until the filling is set.
11. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.
12. Once it is completely cooled, cover and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.
13. Once the filing has chilled, in the bowl of your electric mixer, with the whisk attachment (or with a hand mixer), beat the whipping cream and sugar until stiff peaks form.
14. Either pipe (using Wilton 1M star tip) of place mounds of whipping cream on top of the filling.
15. Can be store in the refrigerator for a few days (leftovers? LOL, yeah right).

 

Makes 1 – 9 inch (23 cm) pie or tart.

I didn't really have time to let the pie cool and THEN chill it in the fridge, so I tossed it in the fridge straight away for a few hours. No harm done. 

He sweetens his whipped cream, but my mom made ours and didn't. It's phenomenal, either way. 

This pie was totally easy! Ok, juicing those tiny little key limes was a pain in the ass, but other than THAT, it was easy. The tart and sweet and buttery combo is to die for. 

Goat Cheese Stuffed Turkey Burgers with Peach BBQ Sauce

Recipe and picture from Ambitious Kitchen.

With LeGreg and my mom out of town, I decided to cook dinner for my dad and myself for my cheat meal this weekend. I love cooking my cheat meals, but it rarely happens because of events or previous engagements or whatever. When I cook them, they tend to be a lot healthier than when we eat out somewhere.

The menu for the night was these burgers and quinoa almond berry salad.

Let me tell you a wee little story about these effing burgers.

When making a recipe for the first time, I always try to stick directly to it. It's generally for the best, as improvising is NOT my strong point in the kitchen. I don't really know what my strong point is, but that's neither here nor there.

The recipe called for lean ground turkey. I've made turkey meatballs a few times and know that lean turkey meat usually falls apart and dries out due to the lack of fat in it, so I usually get meat with a little more fat in it.

BUT THE RECIPE CALLED FOR LEAN, YOU GUYS. So lean, I got, from Trader Joe's.

I opened the package of meat and was pretty grossed out. It was like paste. Meat paste. It had zero texture that ground meat should have. GROSS. There was no way in hell that these burgers wouldn't fall through a grill, so I opted to broil them in the oven. The recipe calls for 6 mins on each side.

You know how when you try to roast marshmallows on a flame from a burner on the stove and it's not the same as over a real fire and the marshmallow tends to be black and white, with parts either burnt or raw? Yeah. That's what this looked like. There was also this creepy liquid that was all over the cookie sheet that I had them on. Ick. And the second side, after I flipped them? Burnt in like 2 mins. Cool.

Oh, and before all this? I made the sauce. The sauce calls for peach jam. I bought peach conserve at the farmer's market (organic and one billion dollars, natch). Not the same. Damn it. Conserve is basically cooked down peaches. Tasty, but not very sweet. This sauce needed the sweet. It also called for hot sauce and I got a little siracha happy and made it way spicy. Oops. FAILS ALL AROUND.

So I served up the burgers and salad to my dad, warning him that the burgers were likely a complete failure, but there was plenty of salad! Yay?

The burgers, while effing HIDEOUS looking, actually tasted pretty good, and the sauce tasted completely different on them than it did on it's own. It was much sweeter and they complimented each other very well.

I wasn't going to blog this recipe, because of all my issues with it (read my notes at the bottom before attempting), but it ended up pretty good in the end. I think I'll try to make it again, with a couple tweaks. Anything worth remaking gets blogged!

(copy and pasting recipes makes for some weird text and background crap that I'm not nearly smart enough to fix)


 (LOL at this pic. Mine looked nothing like it)

Goat Cheese Stuffed Turkey Burgers with Tangy Peach BBQ Sauce

For turkey burgers:

1 pound lean ground turkey

1 egg

1/3 cup onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon ketchup

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper, plus more

2 oz goat cheese, divided into 4 equal squares

4 whole wheat (or low calorie) buns

For peach bbq sauce

olive oil

1/4 of a red onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon ketchup

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1 8-ounce can tomato sauce

1 cup peach preserves

1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon molasses

2 tablespoons brown sugar or honey

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1/2-1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon salt

a few dashes of hot sauce

freshly ground pepper

Directions

To make peach bbq sauce:

1. Heat a splash of olive oil in a medium sauce pan over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minutes. Reduce heat to low and add tomato paste (...there's no tomato paste mentioned in the ingredients soo....It says ketchup, so that's what I used. I don't know) and cumin; combining with the onion and garlic.
2. Add the tomato sauce and all remaining ingredients. Stir until combined and heated through. Taste and adjust salt, pepper, or other seasonings as you see fit. Transfer to a blender or use an immersion blender to blend until smooth. Add more water, a tablespoon or two at a time, if you prefer a thinner sauce. Set aside until burgers are ready. (my sauce was very tomato sauce-y, and didn't look much like a bbq sauce. I had to add extra apricot jam, brown sugar AND syrup to make up for my spice overload and bad peach conserve choice. Eesh!)

To make burgers:

1. Combine turkey, onion, minced garlic, ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and black pepper (and egg, I'm guessing?) in large bowl. Divide turkey into  equal sized rounds. Make 2 equal sized patties out of each round so you have 8 patties total. Sprinkle 4 of the patties with fresh ground black pepper and top with goat cheese; top with remaining patties, working the turkey around the edges to seal burgers closed. Season with salt and a few grinds of pepper. Grill or broil until cooked through, about 6 minutes per side.
2. Once burgers are cooked, place in bun and add peach bbq sauce on top. (we skipped the buns. Just because.)

Notes (hers, not mine)

• This recipe makes 4 burgers, but you could make smaller burgers. Just divide meat into 10 patties, and top with goat cheese.
• The peach bbq sauce is adapted from The Kitchn’s Tangy and Sweet BBQ Sauce.
• If you choose to bake the burgers, preheat oven to 400 degrees F and bake for 18-20 minutes or until no longer pink.
• You can omit bbq sauce and top with condiment of your choice. Another option is to use store bought bbq sauce and/or top with grilled peaches.

Quinoa Almond Berry Salad

Recipe and picture (shockingly, hers looks WAY better than my phone pics) from Oh She Glows. She is vegan, but her recipes, like this one, usually look freaking fantastic for anyone and everyone. They never have creepy stuff like fake cheese or fake meat or any of that crap in them. Only fresh "real" ingredients. As a meat eater, I'm always bookmarking or pinning her recipes as side dishes or appetizers. Good stuff.

Yield: 2-3 as a main, 4-6 as a side.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup dry quinoa
• 1 pint strawberries, sliced (2.5-3 cups)
• 16 oz. fresh blueberries (1.5-2 cups)
• 1 cup cherries, pitted and sliced
• 2 tbsp pure maple syrup (or other liquid sweetener)
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp fresh lime juice (or lemon might work!)
• Pinch of kosher salt
• 1/2 cup almonds, chopped

Directions:

1. Cook quinoa according to package directions. (usually 1 part quinoa to 1.5 parts water)

2. Meanwhile, chop the fruit and place in a large bowl.

3. Mix the dressing ingredients (maple syrup, balsamic, lime juice, salt) in a small jar and adjust to taste if necessary. Note: You may have to double the dressing recipe if your salad is quite large. (I made about 1.5x the dressing recipe and it seemed perfect)

4. Fluff cooked quinoa with a fork (I did this for a few minutes to cool it off before adding it to the fruit) and add to large bowl with fruit. Combine. Pour on dressing and mix well. Serve immediately or chill in the fridge until serving time. (I chilled it a bit, thinking that it would be good for the grains and fruit to soak up the dressing. I added the almonds just before serving.)

I went to the farmer's market yesterday morning and picked up super fresh and ripe berries. Is there anything better than perfectly ripe berries? No. No there isn't. This was super easy to make, although pitting and chopping cherries is a gd CHORE. There aren't THAT many in the recipe, though. I made this with goat cheese stuffed turkey burgers for a father daughter dinner with my pops. I was pretty sure that the burgers were a disaster, so I served it all "sorry about the horrifying looking burgers, but the berry thing will be amazing! So that's something! Right?!". Surprisingly, I'm not known as the cook of the family. Anyway, this is uber healthy, as quinoa is one of the only grains that provides a complete protein (although not a ton of it), berries are stock full of antioxidants, and almonds provide a nice healthy fat source and all that jazz. I'm totally excited to eat leftovers today. Not gonna lie. 

Pretzel Buttons

LeGreg's mom threw his brother an engagement party this weekend with a "sweet and salty" theme. I knew that I wanted to contribute, so I took to Pinterest to hunt down a little something to make. Pinterest never fails. 


I found these pretzel buttons and knew it was meant to be. What was NOT meant to be was easily finding those shaped pretzels AND the Hugs. Took a damn man hunt! In the end, though, it worked out. Other than taking the time to unwrap a million Hugs and sort out the colors of M&Ms, they were totally easy to make. I love that you can easily customize the colors. I went with green and yellow for their favorite baseball team, the A's. I made a couple with Rolos, from another baking project. They tasted good, but the caramel didn't melt down at all, so they didn't look as cute and squishy. 

 What you'll need:

• square pretzels
• Hershey's Hugs . You can use Kisses, too, but I think the Hugs taste better and they definitely soften up better!
• plain M&Ms

Directions:

Preheat oven to 200°.  If your oven runs hot you may want to turn the temp down to 170°. (I did 200)

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or Silpat.  Place the pretzels on and top them with the hugs. 

Bake for 4-5 minutes until the chocolate is shiny and soft, but NOT melting - they should still hold their shape. (I did 4.5 mins. They looked shiny and soft, but started getting a little melty after I took them out. Tread with caution!)  

Carefully place an M&M in the center of each hug and press it down to spread the chocolate (you definitely want to press them and not just set them on top. Pressing helps shape it and keep the M&M in place. The one that I just sorta set on top ended up sliding to the side, so it had to be disposed of. In my mouth.).  

Allow to cool completely, a few minutes in the fridge works perfectly, and enjoy!

 

They were a huge hit! Cute and tasty and pretty impressive looking, if I say so myself.