Chicken with Cherries & Olives

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Melanie

Hi again! After yesterday’s more serious post about modifying the SCD to fit my lifestyle, I thought I would make today’s post very light, including a couple of awesome recipes. But first…

Monday Recap

Breakfast: Almond bread with almond butter, honey, and banana slices. I went back for a round two slice without the bananas though.

Run: Breakfast did a great job of fueling me for a great 3-mile run around the neighborhood. I took it nice and slow and it actually felt like good run for once. It’s been a long time since I could say that. I am excited to start incorporating more of it into my routine again. My next race is a 5k at the end of August, and I am going to be ready!

Lunch: I salivate over these salads. Mixed greens with grilled chicken, strawberries, avocado, mandarin orange slices, feta cheese, and raspberry walnut vinaigrette (Newman’s Own). Insanely delicious. These are the salads I have been missing all summer. It’s time to make up for lost time.

After lunch, my mom and Abbie came over and we hung out and girl-talked it up for a while outside. As always, I love my family time.

Dinner: Quinoa with kale basil pesto.

For the pesto: food process two small handfuls of fresh kale, about 2-3 tablespoons (I used 7-8 small leaves) of fresh basil, 1 1/2 tablespoons of garlic olive oil, garlic powder, and salt until well blended. Mix the pesto in with cooked quinoa, top it with parmesan cheese, and you have yourself a winner winner quinoa dinner.

Our evening was spent watching the Olympics. My favorite is still gymnastics, but I am really loving the volleyball (except it makes me so nervous), and synchronized diving. I love it all though, really. My husband’s crazy love for the Olympics is starting to rub off on me a little bit.

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The second recipe comes from Sunday night. I scanned our fridge for dinner ideas and after seeing the cherries and olives, I thought hmm…I could do something with that.

I remembered a chicken dish that Dana’s mom had made for us a while back that had dried cherries and olives, so I thought I would try to make something of that sort except use fresh cherries instead, since that is what we had on hand.

Ready to see what I came up with?

Baked Chicken with Cherries and Olives

Ingredients

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp oregano
salt and pepper
1 cup cherries, pitted and cut in half
1/4 cup green olives, sliced
3/4 cup red wine (I used a red zinfandel)
3/4 cup reduced sodium chicken broth
3 Tbsp honey

Directions

Season chicken breasts with garlic powder, oregano, salt and pepper.
Use cooking spray to lightly coat a large non-stick skillet; cook chicken over medium heat for about 5 minutes on each side, or until the inside is no longer pink; remove from pan.
Add the remaining ingredients to the hot pan, bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Let boil until liquids reduce and you are left with about 1/4 inch of sauce in the bottom of the pan.
Return chicken back to pan, allow to heat through for 5 minutes, and serve warm.

This dish paired well with quinoa and would be great with a side of steamed green beans as well. It could be made for date night, a dinner party, or even just a casual Sunday evening. Have fun with it!

Happy Tuesday!

Question of the Day: What is your favorite go-to summer lunch?

The Modified Diet

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Melanie

Hi there! How is everyone holding up this Monday? More importantly, did everyone have a great weekend?

I already filled you in on my wonderful Friday dinner date and Saturday Farmer’s Market adventures, so that leaves us with Sunday.

Breakfast

Toasted almond bread with almond butter and honey, eaten while reading the Sunday paper and clipping coupons with my honey. Eating honey with my honey! Ha!

It was a rainy morning, and we were feeling pretty lazy. It took us a while to get up and moving, but eventually we pulled ourselves together and hit up the grocery stores for our usual Sunday shenanigans.

Lunch

Running errands really gets my appetite bumping, so when we got home I immediately started heating up leftover Pablanos in the microwave. I dolloped mine with salsa and had a side of cooked carrots with cinnamon on the side.

I also had an apple without the skin, and a bite or two of almond butter for dessert.

Then I was off to the gym. I jogged on the elliptical for 40 minutes, changing the incline and resistance every 5 minutes to keep my body guessing. I watched the Olympics and read my magazine during commercials. How perfect!

Dinner

I made baked chicken with cherries and olives in a wine sauce. I’m hoping to share this recipe with you soon; most likely this week at some point. It was very good!

My cooking process could be tweaked a little bit, because it can be made faster than the way I made it, so I think I will provide you with the revised version of the recipe; the way I would make it if I made it again.

With dinner, I served myself a side of quinoa, yes quinoa a whole grain which is not SCD legal, which leads me to my next topic…

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Specific Carbohydrate Diet and My U.C.

Moving on to more serious matters. If you have been following my blog lately you know that I have been trying my darn best to follow the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) to try to help regulate my current ulcerative colitis flare. If you are new to my blog, welcome!, and you can get caught up on this U.C. stuff real quick (click on the hyperlinks below):

Starting the Specific Carbohydrate Diet

Day 2 of the SCD

Feeling Overwhelmed with the SCD

I am going to be completely and 100% honest with you. My journey with this diet has been has been a bumpy one. After deciding that I was going to give this diet a try, I dove in headfirst. At only 1 week in, I was feeling about 80% better compared to before I began the diet. I was thrilled to be feeling so much better, and although I was finding meal and snack preparation very tedious and challenging being that I leave the home for work, I had decided it was worth it and I was going to stick it out.

Over the course of time however, I had multiple breakdowns. It was mostly because I was absolutely exhausted from all of the food prep and finding myself spending every minute, no more like hour that I had, in the kitchen when I would have much rather been hanging out with Dana or enjoying the weather outside. There were multiple times where I said I can’t do this, but then I continued on with it.

At about week 3-4, things really started to fall apart for me. My symptoms beginning to worsen, and I was beginning to feel very sad and down. I felt like that with all of this work with maintaining this strict diet, that there should be no reason for me to be digressing with my healing. But, I have done plenty of research on this diet and know that these symptoms are very common around this time while on the diet, and that they get better. I do believe this, but I also know that I need to make some changes, because this is not working for me.

What I’m realizing now, is that this diet is actually stressing me out more than I can handle. I have become lethargic and finding myself hesitating to reply to social obligations because I don’t know if I will have enough energy at times. The preparation and strict guidelines are exhausting me and also not fitting in with my lifestyle.

I have tried so hard to stay tough, but in the big picture, I need to make decisions for my body based on what my heart is telling me and what my body is telling me, not what I am reading from an online forum. Everyone is different and everybody reacts differently. I have said it a million times.

I truly support and believe in the SCD and all of the science that backs it up, but for my happiness and sanity, I have decided to deviate very slightly from the SCD. I am still going to follow a very low-carb diet and follow the SCD mostly, but I will explain my modifications.

My Modified Diet

1. Gluten-free Grains: I am going to continue to live as gluten-free as possible and eat minimal grains. On occasion, I will be including gluten-free grains such as quinoa, into my diet. Quinoa is an excellent source of protein and will help me and my non-loving meat ways, to help amp up my protein intake, and hopefully improve my energy as well. This will be the biggest change I make to my diet.

2. Fruits & Veggies: These will continue to make up a large portion of my diet. I am going to continue to experiment with adding fruits and veggies back into my diet. I will see how my body reacts, and progress gradually as I feel appropriate. I may start to include soy back into my diet as well.

3. Meat & Dairy: Nothing will change from the meat category as pretty much all meat is legal. As far as dairy goes, I may be switching to non-fat Greek yogurt or a soy-based yogurt. I may also begin to incorporate store-bought Almond milk. I will mostly stick to SCD cheeses.

4. Sauces and Misc: I will continue to be cautious of ingredients listed on store-bought sauces, however I am not going to limit myself completely to every last legal ingredient in the sauce. I will do my best to find simple sauces with limited additives so as to continue to live a clean diet.

Chocolate! I am going to allow myself to eat chocolate just not in excessive amounts. It is one of my very favorite foods and treats, and it is something that I no longer want to sacrifice. I swear, one bite of chocolate every day will be what heals me eventually. Winking smile

Beverages. I am not much of a “drinker” so this one hasn’t been difficult for me. I enjoy an occasional glass of wine, and this is allowed being that I like “legal” wines for the most part. I may begin to include flavor waters again such as Vitamin Water and Powerade Zero, as I have two full bags of it sitting in the basement from prior to the diet.

Heart on the Line

Writing this plan out for you all to see is slightly terrifying. The last thing I want is for those of you following this diet to think that I am a failure because I’m not following it completely as prescribed or haven’t given it enough time. I just know in my heart, that this is not a good fit for me. I understand that with the addition of some of the illegal foods back into my diet, I am reintroducing some bad bacteria into my gut that my body doesn’t like. I really feel that with these slight modifications, and being that I am still going to stick to a very clean diet and limiting the “bad” stuff, that my body will still continue to heal and I will be able to stick this diet out and feel like myself again.

Food is my passion. I am a foodie. Having to be so selective with my diet isn’t something that fits my lifestyle. I will continue to do my best and make wise choices and will continue to fill you in on my health status along the way. I want to reiterate that I will still be following the SCD most of the time only with slight modifications.

I am tired of being an emotional rollercoaster, and not acting or feeling like myself. I need to take care of me and make decisions that support my best well-being. It’s time to be me again.

This is by far the most challenging post I’ve written thus far. Thank you for supporting me and bearing through this lengthy post. My vulnerable heart has been poured out to you.

I will catch up with you all soon. Enjoy your day!

Stuffed Poblano Pepppers

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Melanie

Hello there! Everyone having a great weekend? Mine has been wonderful. I have quite the Saturday recap for you, hope you’re ready.

Breakfast

I blended up a fruity smoothie packed with strawberries, banana, cherries, spinach, yogurt, and sweetener. I also ate a spoonful of almond butter to pack in extra protein.

Farmer’s Market

After breakfast we cruised on over to the big Minneapolis Farmer’s Market. Holy cow I was in fresh vegetable heaven.

It was so crazy busy but it always is. It’s always encouraging as a dietitian seeing SO many people at the Farmer’s Market getting excited about fresh produce. Let’s just hope they don’t go home and make them into fried green beans and buttered bacon mushrooms. My brother Scott would say what’s wrong with that?!

We ended up buying: onions, cilantro, carrots, Poblano peppers, grass-fed ground beef and bison.

Whole Foods

We were getting pretty hungry after all of that commotion, so on our way home we stopped at Whole Foods for their outstanding salad bar.

We enjoyed our salads at the beautiful Centennial Lakes.

On our way home from lunch we drove by a few garage sales. We are thinking about buying a book shelf for our office and ideally would like to find a cheap one from a garage sale or Craig’s List, and fix it up if need be. No such luck at the sales yesterday, but we are keeping our eyes out.

Dinner

Back at home, I prepped for dinner. It was only about 2:30 in the afternoon at this point, but Dana and I were going to church at 5:00, so I figured I would get everything prepared beforehand, so that after church, we could just finish up the cooking process and have ourselves a delicious meal in no time.

Dinner involved the fresh farmer’s market Poblano peppers. I began by cutting off the tops, deseeding the peppers, and baking them in a 400° oven for 15 minutes.

***MAJOR TIP! Wear gloves or use a spoon to scoop out the seeds if you handle these bad boys. I learned the hard way; wasn’t even thinking about the fact that these were spicy peppers, and ended up with a right hand that burned for a good hour. You’ve been fore-warned.

Next, I sautéed 2 diced small onions with 3 minced garlic cloves. After about 4 minutes, I removed them, and added 1/2 of a pound of ground beef to the same pan (the less dishes the better!). I browned up the meat, then brought it to the sink so I could rinse and drain some of the fat off. I returned the meat and the onions to the pan, no longer on any heat.

I then added 1 fresh tomato—-from our garden. Our first normal tomato of the summer!

And 1 tablespoon chopped fresh farmer’s market cilantro, 1 tablespoon salsa, 1/2 teaspoon cilantro, 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese, salt, pepper, and if I would have remembered I would have put a dash of chili powder in there, but I forgot. I mixed everything together to make the “stuffing” for the peppers.

I stuffed all of the peppers using a spoon, wrapped them individually in tin foil, and placed them in the fridge for later.

Next, I made a small batch of guacamole using 1 ripe avocado, 1 teaspoon fresh cilantro, lemon juice because I didn’t have lime, a dash of garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, salt, and pepper. I gave this all a mix, covered it and put it in the fridge.

When we got home from church, and after running a couple of errands, we got the grill fired up. The peppers did their thing on the grill for about 20 minutes over medium-high heat.

Transfer to your plate, remove the foil, top with guacamole and some salsa if you like, and there you have it. Deliciously healthy stuffed Poblano peppers.

Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Ingredients

5 Poblano peppers, top cut off, deseeded
2 small onions, diced
3 small garlic cloves, minced
1/2 lb ground beef
1 small tomato, diced
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp chili powder
1 Tbsp cilantro, chopped
1 Tbsp salsa
1/4 cup cheese

Directions

Preheat oven to 400° F.
Place prepared peppers onto baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes.
In medium pan, saute onions and garlic for 4-5 minutes; remove from pan, return pan to heat.
In same pan, brown the ground beef; rinse and drain in sink, return to pan and take off heat.
Add remaining ingredients including the onion and garlic, to the pan to make the stuffing.
Once peppers are done, use spoon to fill peppers with stuffing.
Wrap peppers individually in aluminum foil.
Place on heated grill and grill for 20 minutes.**
Top with guacamole, salsa, or enjoy as they are!

**These would also work in the oven, although I am unsure of the temperature and cooking time so you may have to experiment!

Dinner Date with My Girls

Posted on July 28, 2012 by Melanie

This is going to be a short but very sweet post. Last night I met up with two of my great girlie friends, Kate and Heidi (also two of my bridesmaids) for dinner at Emma Krumbees in Belle Plaine.

Emma Krumbees is an old bakery and restaurant that offers everything from burgers, to salads, sandwiches, flatbreads, and has an extensive breakfast menu too.

I decided on the Citrus Chicken Salad and I ordered the half portion because whole salads at restaurants tend to be absolutely ridiculous. In the salad was iceberg lettuce, red onion, avocado, tomato, grilled chicken, and a lemon citrus vinaigrette on the side. It was a very simple salad, and it was pretty tasty. The amount of food was perfect.

After dinner we walked on over to the gift shop and chit chatted along the way. Emma Krumbees also has an apple orchard and in the fall you can come and pick your own apples. I did that a long time ago with my mom and dad, and would love to do it again this fall!

After a couple of hours we were forced to say our good-bye’s and go our separate ways. It has been so bittersweet getting together with Kate lately because she is moving away to Georgia in less than a week. I am attempting to soak up every last bit of her before she leaves. I definitely will be making plans to go visit her out there.

As always, it was so good to be with my girls, and although Kate will be in Georgia soon, we are still going to Skype, and have a glass of wine together that way, and before we know it I will be heading out there to visit, or she will be coming home to visit.

I stopped by my mom and dad’s on the way home and hung out with them for about an hour before heading “home, home”. Mom and dad’s is my second home, and my house is my first home. I love the comfort of each place.

The rest of the night was spent hanging out with my men.

Today has been an absolutely AMAZING Saturday. I have lots to share with you tomorrow, but it’s going to have to wait. I hope you are all having a great day as well.

Cute Little Turkey Meatloaves

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Melanie

Oh, happy day, oh happy day! Let’s give a woot woot for Friday! I have a ferocious appetite this Friday morning–I don’t know what’s up with that, but I’m feedin’ it. I have a great recipe to share with you all from last night, but first I want to share a few bits and pieces from Thursday.

The past couple of days I was at a conference for work. The conference was held on the U of Minnesota campus and believe it or not, I had never really been on campus. I’ve been to the U of M but never actually walked around the campus. It is beautiful and BIG!

On the first day, I slightly underestimated the amount of traffic there would be, and was running a twinge late. Then, when I made it to my destination, I had the challenge of finding the parking ramp. I finally found the parking ramp after making a couple of rounds around the area. Once I parked, I made sure to record where I had parked by snapping a photo.

Does anyone else do this? It’s especially essential for me to either take a photo or write down where I parked when I’m in a bit of a frenzy as I was that day, otherwise I will never remember where I parked, and ramps are incredibly confusing to me. I actually wasn’t planning to post that photo but it turned out to be kind of neat. The photo was from day 1, and on day 2, I made sure to park in the exact same spot.

On Day 2 (yesterday), I was in a much calmer mood walking onto campus since I was now familiar with where to park, which building to go to, and which room the conference was in. I even packed a backpack to carry all of my stuff so that I didn’t have to look like the crazy person about to drop a purse, a lunch bag, a binder, and a sweater as she sweats her way to the parking ramp at the end of the day, which was me the day before.

I definitely looked like a student, and felt like a student again, walking on to campus with my backpack, and confidently knowing right where I was supposed to go. It felt great.

In that ol’ backpack of mine (Dana’s actually), I packed all of my running gear and my lunch. Once we got let out for our hour-long lunch break, I quickly changed into my running gear and hit the road. There was a sidewalk right along the river that I ran right along, and the views were gorgeous. I got a couple of stanky wiffs of dead fish, but even with that, it was beautiful.

I’m not used to running mid-day or afternoon for that matter, so it felt very hot to me, but there was a nice breeze that helped to keep me cooler. It couldn’t have been a more perfect afternoon.

I have noticed that I am not in the best running shape anymore. I haven’t been running as much lately due to minimal energy and discomforts from the U.C., but small runs here and there have been feeling okay. I will get my running juice back, I just need to work up to it again.

Yesterday on my lunch run, I covered just under 3 miles. Then, I headed to my car to blast the AC, cool down, and eat my lunch, before heading back to the conference. I was so proud of myself for going for a run during break. It helped to keep me feeling warm(er) during the afternoon in the freezing cold auditorium, and also helped keep me awake. Another plus is that I didn’t have to go to the gym afterwards which is really great because I didn’t get home until nearly 6:00, and I was HUNGRY.

Dinner

My foodie brain had wandered during the morning portion of the conference, and I had created our dinner meal in my head. I texted Dana, “Mini turkey meatloaf and grilled zucchini and artichokes?” His reply, “num.” When I got home Dana had done a lot of the prep work for me already: chopped the carrots, onion, green olives, zucchini sticks, mushrooms (I added this idea later after that first text), and lastly artichoke hearts. I got to work on the rest of the prep and came up with a seriously tasty recipe for you all. No need to dilly dally, here it is!

Cute Little Turkey Meatloaves (makes 7 muffin sized loaves)

Ingredients

1/2 lb lean ground turkey
1/4 cup carrots, diced finely
1/2 cup onion, diced finely
1/4 cup olives, roughly chopped
1 egg
1/4 tsp celery seed
1/4 tsp garlic powder
a dash of cumin
salt and pepper
ketchup or BBQ sauce (I used homemade SCD BBQ sauce)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°**. Prepare 7 muffin tins by spraying with non-stick cooking spray; set aside.
In medium bowl, use hands to combine all ingredients except ketchup/BBQ sauce. Do not overmix.
Press mixture into prepared muffin cups, leaving 1/4-1/2 inch on the top.
Spread 1-2 heaping tablespoons of sauce over each loaf.
Bake for 35-45 minutes**.
Broil on high for 3 minutes. Remove from oven and enjoy these cute little loaves.

**I used the convection bake setting on my oven and baked the loaves for 35 minutes. Since convection can contribute to shorter cooking times, I extended the range of cooking time from 35-45 minutes because I realize not everyone has the convection option. Keep an eye on your loaves. Since they are in miniature sized versions, they don’t take too long to bake.

Of course I smothered my turkey loaf with even more sauce, but they don’t necessarily need more! Alongside the turkey we served grilled zucchini, mushrooms, and artichokes sprinkled with a touch of salt.

I went back for another loaf. This dinner was the bomb, like tick tick. LOVED IT. Please make these. They are perfect for kids too!

For dessert, this happened…

Dana made us up a batch of strawberry banana soft serve and it was just what I needed to end my night.

I am off to get a workout in as well as a couple of errands. Tonight I have plans with my girlies and I am pretty pumped about it! Catch you later gators.