Meal Plan Monday // Week 3

Another round of Meal Plan Monday :)

Today is Husband's birthday, and it's our first birthday as a married couple!  I asked him what he wanted for dinner and he's opting for Los Cucos.  You can't be $1.99 margaritas on your birthday!


Breakfast is our usual Meal Replacement Shakes - we have chocolate, mint chocolate brownie, and white chocolate peppermint to choose from.  We'll be at home this weekend, so I'm going to experiment with cinnamon rolls or donuts using gluten free flour! I'm pretty pumped.

All of our lunches this week will be leftovers from dinner.  That being said, we have...

Sage Pork Chops with Roasted Brussel Sprouts + Bacon

Indian-Spiced Beef Short Ribs with mashed sweet potatoes

Homemade Pizza (a Sunday tradition)

Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore with Steamed Broccoli

Chicken Patties with Bacon + Garlic Roasted Veggies

Roasted Chicken Thighs with Mushrooms + Steamed Asparagus with Lemon




With the exception of pizza, all these recipes are from Emeals.  You can pick what type of plan you want - these are all paleo.  Most have been really good, very rarely do we not like the recipe.  We pick between weeks which recipes we want to use.  The best part - if you get a week that you like everything on the list, there's a completed grocery list on the last page! SUPER CONVENIENT




Which recipe should I post? Comment to vote below!



Have a great week!

Meal Plan Monday // Week 2

I'm excited about this week's meals! I tried to mix it up a little for us - Tex-Mex, Italian, BBQ, and (paleo) Chinese.  They're all pretty simple recipes!

Even though I'm not super busy with school right now, we still have a lot of work going on around the house.  Who knew so much stuff comes with getting married?!

I find that making meals that can be served more than once is a HUGE help for cooking during the week.  For example, I have a meeting in the morning, so I'm prepping lunch for tomorrow (enchiladas) tonight, and it'll be easy to pop in the oven tomorrow when I get back! Even better, there's enough for lunch on Tuesday, too!

Here's what I have planned for the week:

Monday/Tuesday - 
B: Meal Replacement Shake + banana
L: Enchiladas + rice & beans
D: "Spaghetti" (Squash) with meatballs + salad & broccoli

Wednesday/Thursday -
B: Meal Replacement Shake + banana
L: Honey BBQ Chicken Burgers + coleslaw, green beans & chips
D: Paleo Teriyaki Chicken + "rice"

Friday -
B: MRS + banana
L: Honey BBQ Chicken Burgers + coleslaw & chips
D: Pecan crusted salmon + salad & corn

Snacks vary by day, but I have strawberries, blackberries, and protein snack packs on hand :)



Saturday and Sunday we will be celebrating Hubby's birthday with his family! We're excited to see our nieces and nephew!!





What kind of meals are you looking forward to this week?

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

We've experimented with gumbo a couple of times now.  The best one was two times ago.. I don't know what was different about it, but it was sooo good.  Even the roux was the right color despite it being gluten free.

The downer was that we had to reheat everything really good in order for the flour to not clump together.  We decided for this attempt, I would give corn starch a try.

SUCCESS

I found online that the cornstarch ratio to flour is 1:2.  However, I used more than half the amount calculated.  Still, it totally worked!

Look at that roux! (Plus onions/celery/garlic :| )

I can't wait for lunch!

Ingredients:

2 lb. smoked sausage (can substitute andouille)

2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts

salt, to taste

pepper, to taste

vegetable oil

1/2 c. cornstarch (again, I used more as mine needed more thickening and darkening in the roux)

2 lg onions, chopped

6 ribs celery, chopped

6 cloves garlic, minced

4 Qt chicken broth

2 bay leaves

1 T cajun seasoning

1 bunch green onions, chopped

Directions:

1. In large heavy, lidded cast iron pot on medium-high heat, cook and stir sausage until it starts to release it's fat juices.

2. Season chicken with salt and pepper, then add to the pot.  Cook, turning with sausage occasionally until they are both well browned.  Remove and set aside.  *I put mine in a colander in the sink so that the grease dripped off

3. Making the roux - guesstimate how much fat juices you have in the pot and add enough vegetable oil to make 1 cup.  Slowly add in the cornstarch; add about half and stir constantly (The roux will burn if you don't!).  Once it's well mixed, continue adding the cornstarch.  The roux will darken slowly; mine took about 20 minutes to reach a medium brown.   *At about 10 minutes, I had added the total amount of cornstarch but my roux completely stopped darkening.  I added about another couple T and it instantly started darkening again.  Altogether I added a total of 2/3 c. cornstarch.  BUT start slow! Every roux is different!!

4. Add the onions, celery, and garlic.  Cook, still stirring constantly, for about 4-5 minutes.

5. Add the stock, bay leaves, cajun seasoning, salt and pepper, to taste.

6. Add back the chicken and sausage.  Raise the heat to get the gumbo to boil.  One it has begun, reduce the heat to low and cook covered for at least 2 hours.

7. About 15 minutes before serving, add the green onions (we omitted these).

8. Remove the bay leaves before serving over rice.

I mean, come on..

You are going to love this!

Meal Plan Mondays (late)

This week my husband and I decided we were getting back on track. Back to Advocare. Back to healthy breakfasts, lunches, and dinners... you get the point. 

The big change, though, is that Spens has agreed that we will not have carbs with dinner. We'll still use mayo and I'm sure I'll make a balsamic reduction eventually, but no bread type forms. It's already really hard. Really really hard. 

Breakfasts:

Spark + Emergen-C

Meal Replacement Shakes - Mint Chocolate Brownie and Chocolate Peanut Butter (omg) + banana

Lunches:

Leftovers

Gumbo (here) + rice & salad

Dinners:

Chicken salad + veggie

Skirt Steak fajitas 

I'm so excited! I already feel better properly fueling my body with Advocare products. We'll even be placing an order early courtesy of the Cyber Monday week long special!! (White Chocolate Peppermint Shakes, come to mama!)

If you're interested, you better hurry! Catalyst has already SOLD OUT of the event pricing :(((

Annnnd I beat my mile time today! First time under 9 minutes in at least a couple years! 

(I just find this hilarious)

HEB Noodles

For quite awhile we have been trying different noodles to see which are good and which are crap...but mostly which actually taste like real noodles. It's no secret that as soon as someone asks what my favorite brand is, I immediately say "HEB". With ZERO hesitation. 

So I thought, why not explain what I do with them? 

This is my local HEB in College Station. Can I just say how awkward it was to take this photo? A woman to my right gave me weird looks, a guy walking across stopped for me to take the photo but realized what I was doing and probably got confused as to why, aaaand the couple that was to the left of me still wasn't sure why I propped the bags. But I did it anyways because I'm excited. 

For the first time (that I've found) HEB has their own gluten free lasagna noodles!! My HEB also has fusilli (the cork screw looking one), penne, and spaghetti noodles. So awesome!!

To help out a gluten free part of our family we made a couple casseroles for them to have as freezer meals. I naturally thought of King Ranch Chicken, and Lasagna. Duh. Hence this post. 

I have a lasagna recipe that Spens and I have used for a couple years now, it's pretty great. But you could honestly use any recipe you'd like. 

Couple tips: 1) check your sauce ingredients unless you're making it from scratch, like we do. 2) blanch the lasagna noodles! For some reason, even though it says no boil, we have found that they bake and reheat better if you blanch them first. Maybe 7-10seconds in boiling water, then layer as you normally would. 3) when you reheat the leftover lasagna, do it in the conventional oven! The microwave just doesn't get it right. Trust me. 

I use the penne or fusilli for Alfredo or other pasta dishes. Spaghetti for spaghetti, so on and so on. Sometimes I get real fancy and make Mac and cheese. 

Do you have a favorite lasagna recipe? Should I post mine? Happy baking to you!

Bacon Breakfast Sushi

I'm not sure how I didn't post this before, so here we go...

Bacon Breakfast Sushi

Preheat oven to 400'F

1. Lay your bacon in rows across your non-stick sprayed baking sheet vertically. Starting with the second piece, flip it on its self so only an inch is laying like the other pieces. Continue to do so for every other piece. 

Then take a piece of bacon and lay it horizontally, stretched across the vertical pieces. 

(The best example picture I could get because I forgot...)

Put the flipped bacons back in their normal position. 

Now flip the odd slices, and follow the same steps. Continue alternating odds and evens until all bacon is layed out and you have a beautiful bacon lattice. 

2. In a bowl, mix 1 egg, 1 cup of shredded cheese (dealer's choice), and about 2 cups mashed tater tots. *optional chopped chives and onions to be mixed in, about 1/4 cup each

3. Spread mixture across the finished bacon lattice as evenly as possible. 

4. Roll bacon in a sushi like fashion, wrapping as tight as you can. Once rolled, pin with toothpicks to hold in place. 

5. Bake for about 40 minutes or until bacon at desired crispness!

Hope you enjoy!!

Udi's Gluten Free Whole Grain Hamburger Buns

These are the best buns I've had yet. It also helps that I added a new trick...

1) Melt some butter in microwave safe bowl. 

2) Place buns flat side down onto melted butter. 

3) Let said buns soak up said butter. 

4) GRILL!

5) Devour. With or without burger/chicken/bacon/vegetable additions. Your choice. 

You can see the buttery goodness ..

Find them in your local grocery store, possibly in a special gluten free freezer section!

What's your favorite burger combo?