This past weekend I met my best girl friends in Columbus, Ohio for a weekend away. I've known these wonderful ladies for 12 years (since freshman year at OU!) and I am so blessed that we've not only maintained our friendship after college, but grown closer over the years.
They indulged me and let me take pictures of my food throughout the weekend and boy did we eat some amazing things! I did not take pictures of everything, however; since it was girls weekend, we indulged in some not so clean food items (*cough* Cheetos *cough**cough* peanut butter M&Ms...you get the picture ;)
Some of the food highlights:
We ate at Piada (think an Italian Chipolte) and I had my first piada, which is basically an Italian wrap and popular street food in Italy. It was really tasty! I had Italian sausage, Alfredo sauce, onions, tomatoes, cucumber and spinach. Very filling, very fresh and very good!
For dinner, we ate at Cooper's Hawk Winery, where I indulged in the Sweet Wine flight (an amazing deal by the way...8 tastes for only $7! And they were generous pours). For my meal, I had the Caesar Pesto Chopped Salad and Thai Chicken flatbread. The food and wine were amazing, the service not so much.
I have a confession to make.
I love Hamburger Helper.
I know. Shocking. Mrs. Clean Eating loves preservative-filled fake dinner. I've loved it for a long time though, ever since college when I would make it all.the.time. Ask my college roommate, Rachael :) I am particularly drawn to the Beef Stroganoff. I don't know what is it about that ground beef, noodly, creamy goodness that gets me every time.
Anyway, since going clean, HH has not made an appearance in our household. Luckily, I had an old recipe for Easy Beef Stroganoff tucked away and decided to give it the old college try. While it didn't measure up to HH to me, it was still good and easy, just like the name says. Plus, it was all-natural and clean. My kiddos gobbled it up.
I used all-natural, homemade egg noodles I found at a local meat market. My grandma has a recipe for homemade egg noodles as well, so maybe I'll get brave and try those too. We used the grain-fed beef for the meat, which was also really good and super tender. With this recipe, be sure not to overcook the meat, just cook until barely pink. Otherwise, it gets too tough.
Easy Beef Stroganoff
Adapted from Real Simple
12 ounces egg noodles
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound flank steak, thinly sliced
kosher salt and black pepper
1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced (optional)
2 cups fresh mushrooms
1 8-ounce container all-natural sour cream
2 1/2 tablespoons steak sauce or Worcestershire sauce
Cook the noodles according to the package directions. Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season the steak with ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper. In 2 batches, cook the steak until browned, about 1 minute per side. Transfer to a plate.
Return the skillet to medium heat and add the remaining tablespoon of oil. Add the onion and bell pepper (if desired); cook until softened, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the mushrooms and beef and cook until warmed through, about 2 minutes. In a small bowl, combine the sour cream and steak sauce and stir the mixture into the beef and mushrooms. Serve over the noodles.
This is another recipe that has been in the rotation for a long time that I was pleased to realize was clean without any modifications. This is a great dish to make for someone who just had a baby or needs a meal, because it freezes and reheats really well. I like to make mine with green beans and then add in some of the extra sliced almonds in with the green beans before I serve them. Really ties the meal together!
Almond Chicken Dijon
4 chicken breasts pounded down to about 1 inch thick (frozen or fresh)
Equal parts dijon mustard and Helman's mayo (for 4 chicken breasts, I use about 2 tablespoons of each)
1/2 cup to 1 cup of sliced almonds
Put chicken in oven-safe dish and season with salt and pepper. Mix together mustard and mayo and spread over the chicken. Sprinkle almonds over chicken and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, until chicken is cooked through. That's it! Super easy and super yummy!
I've had many successful attempts at recipes since going clean eight months ago, so it's inevitable that I would eventually try a recipe that flopped. I debated whether or not to even blog about it, but I figured maybe someone might like this recipe, even if we didn't. Plus, it good to see the bad along with the good :)
This recipe sounded great, but it ended up very bland and the chicken dried out. Perhaps a shorter cooking time at a lower heat and different spices could salvage the dish, but this one will not be going into the menu rotation.
Crock Pot Beer Chicken
From LaaLoosh
2lbs skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 bottle or can of your favorite beer
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp black pepper
Place all ingredients in the crock pot, and cook on high for 4-5 hrs, or low for 6-8 hrs.
I'm very lucky that everyone in my family, even the kiddos, love fish. It's so good for you and can be prepared in so many different ways. Last night, I made Spicy Swai. Usually, we buy tilapia (we do the frozen because it's just as good and cheaper), but Kroger had swai on sale for $1.99 for a 10-ounce bag. The swai tastes just like tilapia (light, flaky and a great option for those who don't like fish that much, because it's a very mild fish), but is usually a lot cheaper.
For the Spicy Swai, I just took the frozen fish, put in a oven-safe dish, seasoned with salt and pepper and then added half a can of Rotel and several squirts of fresh lime and lemon juice. Broil for 10-15 minutes until fish is white, opaque and flaky. I served mine with sauteed zucchini and onions from the garden.
Last weekend, we had dinner with some good friends and for dessert we made homemade ice cream in an ice cream ball (you can find them here). It was this super cute kit where you just added in ice and salt into one chamber and the milk, cream and vanilla into another. You then let the kiddos go nuts rolling it around and shaking it up. About 20 minutes later, voila, you have homemade (and all-natural!) ice cream!! The kids loved making it and it was super yummy. It's a great idea for camping, traveling or just for fun.
Last week we harvested our first pickings of zucchini and they were HUGE! This picture doesn't give you a great idea how big they were, but they were over a foot long and several inches around AND there were four of them ready to pick! I made my zucchini augratin (recipe here) and still had over 3/4 of one of them left. Needless to say, I needed to figure out something to do with all that zucchini. After a little Pinterest search, I decided to freeze the extras to have this fall and winter.
All you do is cut the zucchini however you will be using them (I cut into slices for augratin and half moon chunks for stir-frys). Blanch in boiling water for 1-2 minutes then immediately put into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Spread out on cookie sheets and put in the freezer until frozen. Transfer to ziploc freezer bags and enjoy all Fall and Winter long :)
