Clean Eating: Back At It

Helllllooo! How are you all?!

I finally found my way back into the kitchen and I am stoked about it. After 11 weeks of eating whatever the heck I wanted, including loads of chocolate, ice cream, and Christmas goodies, my body was less than thrilled. I was starting to just feel pretty blah. I decided it was time to get back on the clean-eating train.

I’m doing a bit of a “cleanse” where I am removing caffeine, alcohol, dairy, soy, peanuts, processed sugars and gluten for a little while. I plan on sticking to this for at least a few days to give my body a jumpstart, and then I will continue with a much cleaner eating plan versus what I had been eating! I will definitely add soy back in eventually and a little bit of dairy, but I do know that I am somewhat intolerant to cow’s milk so I will continue to moderate my dairy intake.

Here is what I have been eating these last few days!

Egg salad: This time I left out the capers though because I forgot.

egg salad

Raw “brownies”–I can’t keep my hands off of these.

fudgy brownie bites

A lentil salad from the book, “Clean” by Alejandro Jungers. I wrote a bit about the Clean diet back when. It’s full of lentils, veggies, and pineapple. It’s definitely different; not my favorite but not terrible.

Homemade gummy snacks with grape juice, gelatin, and a drop of lemon essential oil. A nice little treat!

grape juice gelatin

Katie’s buffalo chicken quinoa which I made for dinner last night! This was so delicious and so easy to make! I used red quinoa which is why it look different from Katie’s.

buffalo chicken quinoa

I stocked up on veggies and made sure they were cut up and ready to go:

  • bell peppers
  • carrots
  • celery
  • broccoli
  • asparagus
  • spinach
  • romaine lettuce

Mini mini burgers with grass-fed beef from the local co-op.

Cashews to snack on as well as brown rice cakes. I also made sure to buy a bunch of brown rice tortillas.

Almond butter and sunflower seed butter. Not as good as peanut butter but just wanted to give my body a bit of a break from it.

Frozen fruit, frozen spinach and almond milk for smoothies.

We have LOTS of good food around here!

Needless to say our grocery bill was a little high this week but it is SO worth it. I need to get my body back into a clean state. I’m already feeling better after just a short time of eating better. The saying is true, “you are what you eat.”

What are your favorite healthy whole food snacks?

Continue Reading Clean Eating: Back At It

4th of July Photo Recap

Happy day my friends! I’m still unwinding from what was one incredible 4th of July weekend. Dana, Moose, and I went camping in beautiful Northern Minnesota. We ate great food thanks to loads of food prep, did quite a bit of hiking, saw some spectacular views, relaxed at the campfire, watched local fireworks, and savored the fresh air. Here’s a photo recap of our weekend!

Hiking & Sights

Silver Bay

silver bay

Gooseberry Falls

camping food

Eagle Mountain–the highest natural point in Minnesota at 2,301 feet! The hike was 7.2 miles. I was struggling towards the end of this one but the view was completely worth it.

DSCN6744

eagle mountain DSCN6741

Judge C.R. Magney State Park and Devil’s Kettle

DSCN6789

devil's kettle

Moose camping

DSCN6781

The Campsite on Lake Superior

DSCN6752

DSCN6730

DSCN6753 DSCN6754 DSCN6756

Waiting for Fireworks

DSCN6761

Food

camping

 

Homemade clean food

camping food

Fresh whitefish dinner at Angry Trout in Grand Marais

DSCN6793

grand marais

It was one seriously amazing weekend.

Continue Reading 4th of July Photo Recap

Clean Eating Food Menu For Camping

Happy 4th of July to all of my fellow Americans! I hope your day is full of celebrating with loved ones and BBQ! In case you missed it, yesterday I compiled a list of 10 patriotic recipes that would be perfect for a picnic or BBQ today.

Kitchen Mayhem

Over the past few days I have spent many hours preparing food for our camping weekend. Typical camping food for us is usually kabobs, burgers, chex mix, and s’mores, or something close to that, but this time around we will be eating a little differently. With my hopes to keep up with the clean eating while I am away, I planned out a whole clean menu for us. I don’t even want to know how many total hours I truly spent in the kitchen. All I know is it is a lot more time than what I usually spend when preparing food for a camping trip. I knew it would be a lot of work to plan a “clean” menu, but also knew it would be so worth it! I enlisted the help of some clean eating recipes that I found online to help ease the process. In case you are interested, I thought I would share with you my clean eating food menu for camping.

On the menu for the weekend:

Breakfasts:

  • Cooked buckwheat with cinnamon, a touch of stevia, almond butter and dried fruit. I am incredibly excited for this. I taste tested it after I made it and it’s awesome! To prepare it, I cooked it per directions after letting it soak for 24 hours to aid in digestion. I then added coconut milk, cinnamon, and stevia. I let it cool and then packaged it in a canning jar to bring along with us. We can either eat it cold, or warm it up at the campsite for breakfasts.

buckwheat buckwheat

Lunches:

  • Baked Falafel with salad and homemade (dairy-free) ranch dressing. I used my falafel recipe and also added carrots, red onion, and flaxseed. I baked them at home so that they would be all ready to go when needed. I’m excited to see how they turned out! I used Healthy Blender Recipe’s recipe for the ranch dressing. It’s pretty tangy and should be really good on a salad with the falafel.
  • Lunch out somewhere
  • Leftovers

falafel

falafel

ranch dressing homemade vegan

Dinners: 

  • Asian turkey meatballs over sesame spaghetti squash. I mixed and formed the meatballs and then froze them raw. We will cook them once we get to our campsite most likely on the first night so that we can have them for leftovers for lunch the next day. I got the meatball recipe from Queen of Quinoa but also added garlic and coconut aminos. I used a recipe from Family Fresh Cooking as my inspiration for the spaghetti squash but made a couple of tweaks to it as well. I used coconut aminos instead of wheat-free tamari paste and red wine vinegar instead of rice vinegar. Trying sandwiches from a very famous joint by Jimmy John Owner is also a good idea.
  • Black bean quinoa burgers with roasted veggies. I also formed these patties and froze them uncooked. I used a recipe I found online but am not super happy with them. I taste tested one and they tasted okay but they are pretty crumbly. I like my version better but couldn’t make them this time around because they have tomatoes and eggs in the recipe which are not allowed on the clean program. *Remember this is VERY short term!* For the roasted veggies, I roasted them halfway to start the process and will finish toasting them up at the campsite.
  • Leftovers or out

Spaghetti squash…

spaghetti squash

Raw turkey meatballs…

turkey meatballs

Uncooked black bean quinoa burgers…

black bean quinoa burgers

black bean quinoa burgers

Halfway roasted veggies (zucchini, onions, garlic, kohlrabi, and turnips)…

roasted veggies

Snacks:

  • Raw veggies: snap peas, carrots
  • Raw fruit: watermelon, cherries, apples
  • Dried fruit: no-sugar added dried cranberries, mango, and pineapple
  • Mixed Nuts
  • Brown Rice Cakes
  • Rice Crackers
  • Homemade sugar-free dark chocolate (lightly sweetened with stevia)

I made insane amounts of the burgers, meatballs, and falafel which is why I am planning on having leftovers for 1-2 meals. As you can see, I was a busy, busy bee. I even have callouses on my hands to show for it. I can’t wait to go relax and enjoy all of this wonderful food now!

I hope you all have a fabulous holiday weekend! Catch up with you later gators!

Continue Reading Clean Eating Food Menu For Camping

What’s Inside My Fridge

Haaaapy Hump Day! I hope everyone is having a good week and staying cozy and warm if at all possible.

Yesterday I kicked off the morning with a sweaty workout but first I ate a banana with almond butter and drank a cup of coffee while working on the blog and catching up on emails. Then I made my way downstairs to get m-o-v-i-n-g. I incorporated week 4 of the Abs Challenge with running spurts on the treadmill. It went like this:

  • 1 mile run
  • circuit (which takes 13 minutes or so)
  • 1 mile run
  • circuit
  • 1 mile run
  • 5 minute walk

It was the perfect way to warm me up on what was such a cold morning. Sweat PINK!

For lunch I made a smoothie with Jay Robb chocolate egg white protein powder, banana, almond milk, kale, and peanut butter. I always think of Shannon when I make this one because she was the one who recommended it. Yummy in my tummy.

green smoothie

I packed some snacks for the afternoon for work: sugar snap peas, carrots, and an apple.

For dinner I made tilapia with a light breading made of almond flour, italian seasoning, a little salt and pepper, and garlic powder. I first dipped the filet into egg whites, then into the flour drudge, and then onto the pan to lightly fry.

Our side dish was a cucumber salad with tomatoes, red onion, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, dried dill, and a sprinkle of onion powder.

For my “appetizer” I snacked on hummus and broccoli. We don’t mess around with our veggies in this house. Check out the Costco size bag of broccoli on the right. What we usually end up doing is eating about 3/4 of it raw, and then freezing the last 1/4 of it before it goes bad.

dinner tilapia and broccoli

tilapia

Oh how I miss my natural light in the evenings for photos. Soon enough!

Throughout the rest of the evening I continued a snacking brigade: pistachios, a glass of wine, dates…then it was off to bed I went.

***************

Fridge Talk

Is anyone else guilty of glancing into other grocery shopper’s carts while shopping? I am totally 100% guilty. It may be because I am a dietitian, and have a passion for health and nutritious food, or I may just be nosey?

I am just in amazement as I see what some people load into their carts. Just the other day I saw in one cart: multiple breakfast pastries, the most sugary cereal you can think of, chips, soda, pizza. I was flabbergasted and all I wanted to do was go replace each and every one of those items with a healthy option. But, to each their own. Of course there was no way I would do that. Everyone has a right to eat what they please. It just tugs at my heart strings a little.

After our weekly grocery trip on Sunday, I decided it might be fun for you all to get a peek into my cart and furthermore, into my refrigerator and cabinets. I am not touting that everything in my household is healthy, but I remind you that it is all about finding the perfect balance of healthy eats and treats.

Let’s take a look!

(FYI: The salmon is usually in the freezer but since I buy it at Costco and it comes in two long filets, I had yet to cut it into serving sizes and bag them up and freeze them)

fridge

fridge 2

 Sweet and Nutty Bites recipe here!

fridge 3

cupboard

There you have it. Have a warm and fuzzy day friends! xoxo.

What are some staples that YOU always have on hand?

Continue Reading What’s Inside My Fridge