Going Paleo/SCD (DAMN Allergies!) Thyme chicken with Warm Beet, Turnip, Brusselsprout, Apple and pomegranate Salad

 

Now that pregnancy has come and gone, my body has reverted back to it’s former self in more ways than one. The most annoying of which is the return of my ever growing list of food allergies.

Long story short, before having our son, I ate a very strict diet gluten, dairy, soy, chickpea, casein, wheat and sesame free. It sucked, not gonna lie; however, I wasn’t feeling crappy, headachey or sick all the time, so that was good.

Anywho, we’ve made a decision as a family to go back to eating that way with a few modifications for the boy. We’ve merged several “trendy” diets from current media: Paleo, SCD (Specific Carb Diet) and veganism.

 

TOnight for dinner I pan fried heirloom beets, turnips, brusselsprouts, red onions and garlic. I sauteed all the ingredients with balsamic vinegar and smoky olive oil and S & P. I then added a green apple sliced and pomegranate seeds at the very end. We also bbq’d some chicken breasts with nothing but olive oil and thyme.

Cost wise, this meal didn’t cost us very much. We buy chickens from a local farmer a few times a year butcher it into parts and portions. We also bought most of the veggies from the market. In total, I spent approx $7.90 per person for this meal and we have left overs!

Do you have any allergy specific meals you enjoy?

Healthy Inexpensive Summer Treats!

It’s been a while since I posted on here! Sorry, everyone! I’ve been busy!

 

Here are some recipes for quick, easy, cheap and HEALTHY summer treats.

 

Frozen Nutty Banana bites:

bananas, nut butter, and Greek yogurt. Mash up a banana with the yogurt and peanut butter, and then slice the other bananas. Make little “sandwiches” by spreading the PB-banana-yogurt filling between two banana slices, and freeze for about two hours, or until semi-solid. Start nibbling!

 

 

Strawberry Greek Yogurt and Mint (or Basil) Pops:

INGREDIENTS

1 ½ cups of Greek Yogurt

1 cup fresh strawberries chopped (reserve 1/2 cup)

2 tablespoons of finely chopped mint

3 tablespoons of honey

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Mix yogurt, ½ cup of strawberries , honey and mint together in a food processor and blend – mixture will turn light pink
2. Stir in reserved berries and fill the popsicle mold until ¾ full place in freezer
3. Freeze for 1 ½ to 2 hours

Each of these treats cost me about $6 to make a batch. For reference, I got about 40 banana bites and more than enough for 8 strawberry pops! MMMMM, enjoy!

 

 

Vegan Ginger Carrot soup!

It’s a cold snowy day in Cowtown! Time for some comfort food with a healthy twist! Also, cheap and frugal-Carrot soup costs about $4 to make about 12 servings! Not bad at all. Carrot soup with ginger is a nutritious and low fat soup recipe with just a touch of sweetness and a touch of spice. This carrot and ginger soup recipe is both vegetarian and vegan.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
• 1/4 cup fresh ginger, minced
• 4 cups chopped and peeled carrots (about 1 1/2 pounds)
• 3 cups vegetable broth
• 1 1/2 cups orange juice
• dash nutmeg
• salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

In a large pot, sautee onions and ginger in olive oil until soft, about 3-5 minutes.

Add carrots and vegetable broth and reduce heat to medium. Allow to simmer for about 40 minutes, or until carrots are soft.

Add orange juice and stir well.

Working in small batches and using a food processor or blender, process soup until smooth.

Return to pot or serving bowl and add nutmeg, salt and pepper, stirring well. Serve with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream if desired and enjoy!

 

Calculator: Is your food spending normal?

This was an eye opener for me! When I have more time, I’ll share what we did with the information we learned from this tool. We budgeted and use a jar/envelope system!

Calculator: How Does Your Food Spending Stack Up?

Recipe: Low Cal Zuppa Toscana Copy cat

If you’re anything like me, then you love Olive Garden! And, there are fewer things in life awesomer than all you can eat soup and salad for $8! Zuppa Toscana is BY FAR my favourite soup there…to the point that I’ve almost cried when they’ve said they’re out and considered walking out of the restaurant lol
Here is my version of Zuppa Toscana!

Minutes to Prepare: 10

Minutes to Cook: 30

Number of Servings: 8

Ingredients

– 1 pound uncooked Italian turkey sausage links

– 1 TBSP Oscar Meyer Real Bacon Bits (or pieces) This is OPTIONAL, imo

– 2 Minced Garlic Cloves (I felt espicy today and put in 4!)

– 2 cups of Original Almond milk or alternative Milk substitute

 

– 2 cups diced potatoes

            – 2 cups thinly sliced fresh kale

                          – 4 cups water

Directions

1) remove casings from sausage
2) brown sausage then set aside to cool
3) saute’ bacon and garlic in separate in soup pan (careful to not burn garlic)
3) add water, broth and potatoes to bacon and garlic
4) bring contents of soup pan to boil, reduce heat, cover/simmer for 20 minutes (or until potatoes are tender)
5) add kale, “cream” and sausage to soup pan
6) heat through (but do not boil)
7)salt and pepper to taste

***Forgot to include I used OXO chicken boullion to taste*** Usually stick to about a tablespoon at most!

Makes about 8 servings

Nutritional Info

• Servings Per Recipe: 8
• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 143.1

• Total Fat: 5.5 g
• Cholesterol: 38.6 mg
• Sodium: 684.0 mg
• Total Carbs: 10.7 g
• Dietary Fiber: 1.5 g
• Protein: 13.4 g

Meatless Monday Recipe: Moroccan Lentil Stew (altered for my liking)

Another way we save money around here is to go Veggie/Vegan for at least 2 times a week and a full weekend a month.

We are recovering from a lip and tongue tie revision that my DS had last week, so I’m now back on the cooking bandwagon. Here is my recipe for this Meatless Monday:

I added Nutmeg, Cinnamon and caramelized 3 onions to suit my Moroccan tastes for this meal!

Lentils, potatoes, and squash simmer in your crockpot for a delicious meatless stew.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 7 hours, 30 minutes

Total Time: 8 hours

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dried lentils, sorted and rinsed
• 1 lb. butternut squash, peeled and cubed
• 10 small new red potatoes, cubed
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 (14 oz.) cans diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 Tbsp. curry powder
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. white pepper
• 1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper
• 2 cups water
• 2 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1-2 tsp. curry powder
• 8 oz. pkg. frozen cut green beans, thawed

Preparation:

Combine all ingredients except lemon juice, 2 tsp. curry powder, and green beans in a 4-5 quart slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours until lentils, squash, and potatoes are tender when tested with knife. Increase heat to high setting. Stir in lemon juice mixed with the second amount of curry powder, and thawed green beans. Cover and cook for 10-15 minutes until mixture is thoroughly heated and beans are tender. 6 servingsIf you have a new hotter cooking crockpot cook on low for 6-8 hours until lentils and potatoes are tender. If the recipe is ‘mush’ you cooked it too long. And always season food to taste. Since, as I have explained before, the crockpot mutes spices, so you may need to add more curry powder and cumin before you serve it.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Butter Chicken

Oh man! Do I ever LOVE butter chicken! If I were to die tomorrow, I would ask for it as my final meal on earth! Here is the recipe I consistently use, but I add cloves to it 🙂 Enjoy

http://www.mealplanning101.com/2008/09/slow-cooker-butter-chicken.html

Budgeting and Meal Planning Tip: The 10 Ingredient Grocery List

I calculated that before we had M we wasted upwards of $200 on food a month. Food we threw away, went bad or merely didn`t eat. It made me sick to my stomach!

Now that we`re on such strict monthly budgets, we`ve figured out a good system for shopping.

A.) Never go shopping hungry (this is not a myth and has totally saved my butt 🙂

B.) I make a list of recipes I want to try and always have 5 recipes I know by heart and shop for those 5 consistently. Therefore, I only buy what we need, nothing more, nothing less.

C.) I use the Community Good Food Box to save on produce costs.

D.) Once every few months I do a 10 ingredient meal plan and buy what I normally don`t have on hand. I`ll show you below, it gives me 5 dinners on average of $20-$30 a trip! I saw this on Stone Soup blog and loved it! It has saved our butts on rough income months!

Take 10 ingredients, a few pantry staples and the following 5 ingredients recipes.

I try to vary the canned beans or fresh beans if we have them. You could use lima beans in place of the white beans etc. Salmon or sardines have been substitutes before. I`ve even used smoked mussels or oysters. And the beef could be replaces with lamb, pork or chicken. Endless possibilities according to your palette!

The shopping list

• canned tuna
• canned white beans
• canned lentils
• canned tomatoes
• fresh baby spinach or frozen spinach
• zucchini
• ground beef
• lemons
• smoked paprika
• chilli

What you need from your pantry:

• soy sauce or tamari
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper

5 dinner recipes

Smokey Tomato & Lentil Soup

2 cans of lentils or 400g of dried beans

1 can of tomatoes or 400 g of fresh chopped or diced tomatoes

1 tbsp of smoked paprika and 1 tbsp of soy sauce

1 teaspoon of dried chili

Ground beef with buttery zucchini

450 g of ground beef

4 medium diced zucchinis

1-2 tbsp of dry chili

fresh lemon to serve

Tuna & white bean salad

1 can of tuna

1 can of white beans

2 large handfuls of spinach or baby spinach

2 heaping tablespoons of lemon juice

Vegetable & white bean stew

2 cans of white beans

2 cans of tomatos

2-3 zucchinis sliced into coins

2 tbsp of smoked paprika

1 bag of spinach leaves

Simple burgers with quick tomato sauce

450 g of ground beef

1 can of tomatoes

1 tbsp of lemon juice

2 handfuls of baby spinach

My famous Chicken Tortilla Soup (No tomatoes, corn or beans!)

This is possibly one of my favourite comfort food meals to make and enjoy. It has no “traditional” tex mex type ingredients. Some dig that, some don’t. I am in the “I don’t dig beans, corn or tomatoes” in soup boat. Well, except for meatball soup, but that’s different! lol Here’s my slack recipe. I make it to taste. I know, I suck at recipes! Sorry!

Ingredients:

Minced Garlic
(I use about 2 tablespoons or more in a 4 litre stock pot)

2-3 very veiny Jalapenos (chopped)

1 bunch of Cilantro

2 small red onions or 1 large one (I say the more onion the better!)

1 chicken breast or thigh per person/portion (I usually use about 4 breasts or 5 chicken thighs)

Chicken OXO (about 4 cubes)

Garnish/Toppings:

Half a block of chedder cheese or queso fresco if you have it

Lime wedges

Tortilla chips (crunched up)

Dice your red onions into half rings, I like mine somewhere between thick and transparent.

I chop all the cilantro and garlic first and then chop my jalapenos carefully as the seeds can be super spicy and get all over the knife and cutting board etc. It can be a real pain. If you didn’t already know this, the “stretch marks” on the pepper indicate the heat. Or at least that’s what my mom always told…she’s super espanish lol

Chop up zee lime for afterwards!

Alright, so this soup takes some patience. I boil all the chicken in a stock pot for about 2-3 hours first. I add all the garlic in about half way through. When the meat is super tender, or falling off the bone if you’re using thighs, I add the OXO, the red onions, cilantro and the jalapenos.

I let that boil/simmer for about another hour! I know! It takes some will power! The smell will drive you mad with hunger!

Once I see that the onions aren’t red anymore and that the broth is nice and yellow, I turn off the heat and let it sit for about 10 minutes.

I get a bowl and crunch up the tortilla chips, throw in some grated cheese and pour the hot soup on top! MMMMMMM! Then I add copious amounts of lime because I’m Lissette and then I sit down and inhale it!

Hope you enjoy on this cold Calgary snowy day!

SHOPPING TRIP!!! And Meal Planning

It’s been 4 weeks since our last shop I know! With the food box coming mid month, we had no reason to go back for anything. All our meat lasted the whole month and then some! Here’s all my groceries from today on the table:

List Totaling $110

Peas and Carrots (pc brand)

Plain Yoghurt (Greek)

Almond Milk 2L

Organic Bananas (4)

Organic Avocados (5)

Kassava Root

Wycote Squash

Organic Baby spinach

Organic Yellow Onions

Red Onion |(2)

Jalapeno peppers (2)

Cilantro bunch

Green Onion Bunch

Pakras Butter Chicken

Chicken Thighs (6)

Pork Sausage (10)

Ground Turkey

Ox Tail

Organic Falafels (15)

Pita Bread (10)

Raisin Bread

Whole Wheat Whole Bread loaf sliced

Carrot Slaw

Black Diamond Old Cheddar Block

Tortilla Chips

Beets

Organic Cucumber

Organic Romaine Lettuce

White Button Mushrooms

Portabello Mushrooms 3 pack (2)

Delissio Prepackaged Pizzas (2)

In my Freezer/ Fridge already

Feta Cheese

Organic Fig Goat Cheese

Condiments

Organic Free Range Eggs (12)

Carrots

Celery

Broccoli

Radishes

Locally Farmed Chicken (1)

Locally farmed Beef Steak (1)

Deep Fried Tofu (1 pkge)

Paneer (1)

2 L of Cream of Celery Soup frozen

2 L of Cream of Cauliflower Thai style (vegan)

2 L of Black Bean Chili

4 Breaded stuffed Scallops (homemade)

1 pkge of Garlic Naan Bread

Dinner Meals:

Home made Pork Pot Pie with Cesar Salad and Garlic Bread

Slow Cooker Butter Chicken with Rice and Naan Bread

Slow Cooker Spinach palak Paneer with curried potatoes

Stuffed Breaded Scallops with spinach salad with roasted beets and goat cheese with whole grain wild rice

Chicken Tortilla Soup (8 portions and will freeze 4)

Meatball Soup (turkey) with Rice (8 portions will freeze 4)

Ox Tail Soup (8 portions will freeze 4)

Portabello Pizzas with Penne Pasta and basil lemon Pesto

Beef Satay over Veggies, vermicelli and peanut sauce

Pizza Night with Cesar Salad

Ground Turkey Shepard’s Pie (Vegan)

Spinach, Sausage and Roasted Red Pepper Spaghetti Sauce over Penne Pasta

Kale, Potato and Sausage soup with grated cheese and buns

Falafel Pitas with Greek salad and home made Tzaziki sauce and garlic sauce

Pad Thai with Veggies and Tofu

Black Bean Chili with Tex Mex Salad and cheese buns

Cream of Celery Soup with mushroom and cheese paninis

Cream of Cauliflower Thai Soup with Banana Sticky Rice

Shredded cucumber and radishes with lime and peanut sauce in butter lettuce wraps

 

I use my sparkpeople.com Blackberry app to input ingredients on hand and then search for recipes that I know would win in this house hold. Sometimes I use the Canadian Living website that has a similar tool.