Mason Jar - Greek Salad

We had company this weekend so I didn't get to dabble in a new recipe.  Greek salad is one of my favs for the summer, it's light and filling.

I chose the wide mouth Kerr jars from Target over the Ball jars because they are more uniform in size and if you decided to eat straight from the jar you wouldn't get dressing hands!

You can also see in my pic that there are two salads layered differently.  

Ingredients:

Kalmata Olives and Juice

Thin sliced red onion

Diced cucumber

Feta cheese

Chicken

Romaine lettuce

Greek Feta Dressing from Trader Joes OR Newmans Greek

There's no set amount for each ingredient, layer to taste.  I will say though that the onions can get a little strong.

Left Salad

Hubby doesn't like olives of any kind.  He also works from home so I left his dressing out so he could choose how much or little to use.

Right Salad

For me, the more Greek the better!  I chopped up 6 olives, a little onion, 1.5 tbsp olive juice and 2 tbsp feta dressing for the bottom of my jar.  Followed by chicken, feta, cucumber and lettuce. 

What I'm trying to say here is do what works for your family.  There's no wrong way here. 

Mason Jar - Dijon & Fig Glaze Salad

My latest fascination is mason jars. They are charming, country, space efficient and eco friendly. As you saw in my last post I've gone pin crazy on smoothie recipes and salads. I spent my Sunday testing new smoothie recipes and making mason jar salads.

I've also been looking into the differences between paleo and primal eating.  I am a lover of cheese, primal allows dairy.  I really shouldn't be doing dairy because of my auto immune deficiencies but as I'm dipping my toes back into the paleo pool I'm not going to cut it just yet, starting back with cutting grain and processed sugars.  You'll see some cheese etc in my recipes so change to fit your needs.

Dijon Fig Pear Champagne Glaze Salad

This glaze recipe was originally found on Trader Joes website.  I never cook a whole chicken because its just the 2 of us plus I prefer boneless skinless breasts, so I modified this slightly to fit my taste/need.  Usually I marinate and grill my chicken but in this case I'm using the glaze as my salad dressing.  Hubby kindly pre grilled a bunch of chicken for me so I could chop and go.

4 tbsp champagne pear Gorgonzola dressing

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp fig butter

Stir in a dish and microwave for 30 seconds to meld all the flavors. 

If your grilling chicken go ahead and start marinating, leave a little on the side for dipping.  If your making your salad wait for it to cool before placing in the jar.

I'm no expert here but I was told its all in how you layer your jars.  You want dressing on the bottom (be careful not to splash up on the sides) followed by meat and/or items that can marinate in dressing without falling apart, then comes your hearty veggies like cucumber, bell pepper, mushroom etc. and finally leafy greens

In my salad I chose glaze, chicken, cherries, candied walnuts, cucumber and romaine.

What do you like in your salads?

Smooth E Operator

I know its been few and far between that I've been able to post anything.  The short story of it all is that we're short staffed at my work and I've been working 13 hour days (that's right people, I'm gone from 5am to 7pm)  The sad side effect is that I've been eating out for all my meals because I leave so early and come home so late I'm to exhausted to prepare anything.....and now I've gained back all the weight I'd lost plus some more.  BOO.

Upside, Hubby bought me a Ipad so in my down time at work I've been on Pinterest, pin pin pining away paleo recipes.  By some miracle I had 6 days off in a row and decided to actually try some of these recipes and really try to get back on track with paleo eating.

These are my trusty tools:  IPAD and Blender.  I also picked up this snazzy mortar and pestle at Costco, a few of these recipes called for ground flax seed.  I also heard that ground chia seed helps thicken smoothies and is amazing in Omega 3.

This did take quite a while to cut up all the fruit and read each recipe so I don't have pictures of them all.  Instead I'm posting the pretty pictures from the blogs they came from, followed by my modified recipe, when you click on the picture it will link you to the original recipe.

Why modified you ask?  I'm allergic to banana (the base of most smoothies), I had to use the fruit on hand and some had to be paleo-fied.

Strawberry Sunbutter & Spinach

http://www.coffeeandquinoa.com/2013/03/strawberry-spinach-sunbutter-smoothie/

• 2 cups frozen strawberries
• 2 large handful spinach leaves
• 3 Tbsp sunbutter
• 1cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1.5 Tbsp maple syrup
• 1Tbsp ground flax seed
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

I doubled the original recipe and it filled 2 mason jars perfectly.   This smoothie is pretty delicious, especially if your a peanut butter lover like my hubby is.  Sun butter is the perfect sub, Trader Joe's has a pretty yummy jar for under $5.

Mango Orange

http://oursavorylife.com/a-super-hydrating-paleo-smoothie-recipe/

1 cup frozen mango's

1 orange, peeled

2 apricots

1 cup almond milk

1/2 cup 100% pure coconut milk

Chia Seed and Ground Flax optional

Bright citrus flavor, the apricot didn't blend down to well though.  If you don't like chunky smoothies I would leave it out.

Pina Colada

http://www.vegalicious.org/2011/02/04/pina-colada-smoothie/

• 2 cups pineapple (I used frozen from Trader Joe's)
• 1 cup mango
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 cup pineapple juice
• Chia Seed and Ground Flax optional

This was my favorite, the only down side was it was a little to acidic drinking it all at once, but that could just be me. I still have one more jar of this so I'm going to definitely try again.

At this point I was feeling pretty confident in my smoothie making ability's and decided to wing it.  I had purchased some pre cooked beets at Costco, super healthy....super disgusting.  Picture me, dumping 3 juicy beets in the blender, dancing in the kitchen singing "turn the beet around, blah blah blah, the passion".  It didn't matter how much fruit I put in the blender it was not going to cover that taste.  I even dumped half out and tried to salvage it.  No Bueno.

So we scrapped that batch and moved on.

Very Berrylicious

http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/clean-eating-super-berry-smoothie/

1 cup blueberries

1 cup strawberries

1 cup blackberries

2 big hand fulls of spinach

1 tablespoon chia seeds (I added ground flax too)

1 cup unsweetened almond milk 

Another fav of the Hubby's, he loves anything berry and definitely better than beets!

Here are my little beauties in the freezer, each batch filled 2 jars. My mom bought me blue ball jars at Target.  I also bought larger jars to make salads in more on that to come and more smoothie recipes too.  I found some with avocado base, that should be interesting.

Meatball Soup

It's been a while since I've posted and this little ditty is past due.  I started this one way back in March but didnt want to over load on recipes. 

Let me preface that I've never made a meatball.  Truthfully I hardly ever eat them, unless they come in the form of my mom's albondigas (mexican meatball soup).  So this was a huge step for me to make and eat meatballs.

First off I found this recipe for "italian wedding soup" on theFoodee.com (you have to click on the picture to get to the blog it originated from)  I got all my ingredients between Sprouts and Trader Joes.

• Ground beef pork (1 pound)
• Basil, dried (1 teaspoon)
• Onion powder (1/2 teaspoon)
• Garlic powder (1/2 teaspoon)
• Carrots (2)
• Celery
• Onion
• Garlic (1 clove)
• Chicken broth (6 cups)
• Tomato sauce
• Cauliflower (1 cup)
• Frozen chopped spinach (2 cups)

This Mirepoix mix from Trader Joes was a great little time saver for my soup base.  In the pot it went with garlic, spinach, chicken broth and tomato sauce.

My first soup faux pas was that I grabbed my ground pork instead of ground beef out of the freezer.  Oops.

This recipe also called for "ricing" cauliflower.  Let me just tell you, with out a food processor this makes a huge mess.  So I opted out of that and went for almond meal in lieu of bread crumbs and a good old fashion egg to combine my herbs and meat with.

Under cooking pork really freaks me out, so I made sure they were nice and brown before plopping them into the broth.

With garlic salt and ground pepper to taste, I was pleasently surprised with my paleo creation.  Next time I think I'll through in some stewed tomatos.

Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Hash

Things have been mainly quiet on the home front...just plugging away an bags and boxes.  I'm pretty happy to share that I got all my purses put up on a shelf and all the boxes in the kitchen and den cease to exist.  We've also made major headway in the curtain department.  Maybe next week I'll have some after photos for everyone. 

Paleo is also going well.  My hours have just been slipping away between work, food prep and house stuff so I haven't had time for the o' bloggeroo but I have been keeping a photo log in my phone.

Hubby made some amazing sweet potato hash, super simple and super yummy.  I'm not sure where he came up with this little ditty but we've made it a couple times so I pretty much have it memorized.

You start out by chopping half a red onion, one apple, one orange and shredding about 2 cups of sweet potato.  My poor little grater is now stained and strained!  I highly suggest getting a food processer with a grater if your looking for paleo friendly tools.  I'll be getting one next month.

Secondly heat your non stick skillet with coconut oil and saute the onion and apple till translucent.

Then add in your sweet potato and oranges.  I squeezed my oranges just a little to get some of the juice going in the pan.  You'll continue to stir and saute till the hash cooks down.  Then finish it off with a Tbsp of honey and a tsp of garlic salt.

We had this as a side to Spicy mustard pork and to steak, I'm sure it would also be great for breakfast.

Enjoy!

Paleo Stuffed Peppers

I haven't full on started my paleo journey but I did decide to give it a whirl for one dinner.  I was totally winging it and thinking this is either going to turn out great or get me a spot on Worst Cooks in America.   Using all ingredients from Trader Joe's, I started out with browning ground turkey with sea salt, TJ "every day seasoning" and onion.  Then I was thinking what goes in a meatball?  And threw in an Egg.  (Didn't think it through and the egg scrambled.)  Then topped it off with TJ Roasted Garlic spaghetti sauce.  Best sauce I've ever had.

While that was sizzling...I cut and cored my bell peppers.

I really think peppers are pretty.

After making sure they were nice and even, they got stuffed and topped with Feta.  Dairy isn't really allowed on paleo, they suggest you do not eat it for 30 days and slowly add it back in your diet to determine your tolerance. (when I made these I had not gotten to the part in the book that said dairy was a no-no.)

The finished product was pretty darn good if I do say so myself....and I do.

I also tried my hand at a paleo desert.  Chia Seeds are super good for you, high in fiber and swell in liquid.  On the back of the bag it suggested soaking them in coconut or almond milk for a pudding effect.

In my mind it was going to be like rice pudding or tapioca...in reality it was an epic fail.  First off, I'm pretty sure my coconut milk had gone bad.  It didn't taste horrible, but it didn't taste right either.  That's when I noticed on the box "use within 7-10 days of opening".  I had no clue when I opened it, but my gut told me it was around 14 days.  (Mental Note: Mark the date on the next box)  Secondly, I'm not sure if I didn't let the seeds soak long enough or they need to soak in room temperature but they remained sort of crunchy.  I'll have to give it another try eventually.

Lastly, a cute pic of my pup after a long day of playing.  He is my world...you know besides my Hubby =)

Confetti Spaghetti

I know I haven't been keeping up with tips so I thought it would be nice to share a recipe.  I made this last night for dinner. 

1. Choose any pasta of your liking and boil.  (here I used Trader Joe's Garlic Basil Linguine)

2. Grate 1 1/2- 2 cups each of carrots and zucchini.  Saute in a pan with salt, lemon pepper seasoning and 1 fresh lemon.  Start with half the lemon and add juice to taste.

3. Add confetti veggie mix to pasta with olive oil drizzle.  May need more salt and lemon pepper to taste.

I serve my pasta with baked Lemon Pepper Chicken and chopped zucchini.  Would also be great with shrimp.

Enjoy!

Pina Coladas

Today's weigh in:  -1.4
Grand total: 9.2

They rolled out a new plan today that I'm not sure I like yet. Could be that I'm just not a fan of change.  The points are the same thank goodness because I'm used to them and they are working for me.  New thing called Spaces and Routines.  The reason why I'm not crazy about them is they are things I'm already doing.  Routines is very similar to 21 day challenges and Spaces is just controlling yourself in trigger environments.  I'm sure they will be helpful to most people just starting out.  We'll see how I feel in a few weeks.

Tips from the week:
1. I've never actually used Simply Filling part of the program until this past weekend and I did it subconsciously.  We went to a anniversary party which was pretty impossible to count the food.  So I filled my plate with "safe" food.  Salad, Veggies, a small portion of meat, yams.  I kept sipping on water and avoided the dessert table. Yea Me!

2. Last Wednesday I had my hair done by my wonderful sister.  We had some nice conversations and I told her about doing WW.  It was nice to have her support me because when we went to dinner afterward she encouraged me to split a meal with her.  I'm grateful because those veggies were certainly laced with butter.
So even though on these 2 instances I wasn't exactly sure what the points were I still counted and even over estimated a little for just in case.

3. My friend and WW buddy turned me on to La Croix coconut seltzer water at Target.  The flavor is great coconut/vanilla, so I googled the name and recipe.  I got the idea to make a skinny Pina Colada!  By using a cup of frozen pineapple bits from trader joes, 1 can of coconut water and 2 oz of coconut rum, it makes 2 servings.  Technically the rum should cost you 2 points per ounce and the rest is free, but for some reason when you put it in the recipe builder it bumps you up to 4.  Its your call on how you want to count it.

I basically spent the weekend singing "If you like Pina Coladas, blah blah blah in the rain"

It helped cheer me up, since my car just got recalled for the engine catching on fire!

Hmmm I guess I could have gone around singing "Great Balls of Fire"....