Had a ctazy morning with terrible internet connection. Didn't get around to breakfast until after 11, lunch around 4 and dinner at midnight lol Trying to clear out some of the leftover New Year's eve appetizers sitting in my freezer. This was not a healthy eating day. Haven't been all that hungry the last few days either.
Mix the fruit with the chia seeds. Mash the fruit to desired consistancy or leave whole, it's a matter of preference and use. You can also cook the fruit if you like. Stir and let sit until the chia seeds have absorbed the liquid (about 20 min to half an hour) and the mixture has thickened. Sweeten, if desired, using your prefered sweetener to taste. Add one or more flavouring to taste. Store in the fridge for up to 14 days or freeze portions.
This is a recipe that is just easy to throw together and still creates a tasty simple stew. I normally have all the ingredients lying around.
I try to follow the plate model when I eat, which means a quarter of my plate is protein, a quarter carbs (with fibre), and half a plate of veggies. I can't sort through stew that way on my plate, but I can think of those terms when it goes into the pot. From experience a pound of ground meat is about 2 cups, a cup of dry pasta is 2 cups cooked, therefore to balance out this recipe I want at least 4 cups of veggies in the recipe. This recipe has about 5 cups plus the veggies in the salsa.
Fiery Meatball Stew
Bring broth to a
boil in a large saucepan. Add pasta, mixed vegetables, peppers and onion and cook for five minutes. Add meatballs and
bring to a boil and cook for ten minutes. Stir in Salsa. Add up to 4
more cups of boiling water at any point as needed to get desired
consistency.
If I don't have time to make meatballs, and I have none sitting in the freezer I will just start by taking a pound of ground beef (or any other ground meat) and scramble frying it kind of chunky, then I adding the broth and go from there. It doesn't look as pretty but gives you more meat in every bite. I'll be honest I could rarely be bothered to make meatballs for this. In a pinch I have used spaghetti sauce instead of salsa.
Log:
This is another bar that I like to keep available. This one is a protein bar. My preference is to use whey protein isolate in many of my recipes because it doesn't have a whole lot of additives. I don't want the sweetener (and other additives) that many of the flavoured protein powders come with. I find the recipe becomes far too sweet. I actually prefer these over an actual Reese's peanut butter cup! I now find the real thing too sweet and not peanut buttery enough. As well sweeteners have been said to trigger blood insulin levels just like real sugar (although thorough studies have not been done). Sweeteners may be healthier than copious amounts of sugar, in my opinion it is still going to be far healthier to reduce both sugar and sweeteners from our diet. The sugar in these provide some instant energy, the oats a little later (plus some fiber) and then there is the protein to keep you full longer. Top this with a little bit of chocolate to satisfy the chocolate craving. To me that's a perfect snack. I make these in little containers so that I can throw one or two into my purse or lunch bag, just in case or as part of an on the go meal.
Place honey and the first amount of peanut butter in a small pan and heat over low heat, stirring until it is runny and well combined. Add in the oats and whey protein isolate and mix until combined. If it is too thick to stir then add water a little bit at a time. I use a 3 tbsp scoop per serving and place in containers using a teaspoon to press it down. Alternatively place in a 9x13 pan. Place chocolate chips and remaining peanut butter in a bowl, and melt in the microwave, 30 seconds at a time mixing afterwards until smooth. Place 1/2 tablespoon of chocolate in each container. Tap the corner of the container on the counter to help spread the chocolate around. If using a 9x13 pan spread chocolate over base. Place in the fridge to help firm up the chocolate. Cut into 24 bars.
You could use another protein powder if you wish.
Place oats, coconut, nuts and chopped fruit into a bowl. Add peanut butter and honey into a saucepan and warm over low heat stirring until melted and combined. Mix in vanilla and salt. Pour over oat mixture and stir until combined. Using a 1/4 cup scoop place mixture into containers and firmly press down using a teaspoon. Alternatively place into a 9x13 pan and press down, chill, then cut into 24 pieces.
2 cups oat flour
3 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups whey protein isolate
1/2 cup buttermilk powder
1/2 cup ground flax seed
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 tablespoons baking soda
1 tsp salt
Blend all the ingredients together well. I prefer to use a mixer so that I know everything is well distributed. Especially watch out for lumps in the brown sugar, baking powder and baking soda.
Place into an air tight container. Makes 7 1/2 cups of mix.
To make pancakes or waffles
For 1 person/ 1 waffle
Mix 1/2 a cup of mix with 1/4 cup of milk and a small egg. I just use a cereal bowl and a fork or small whisk. Mix until blended. Place batter in a greased hot waffle iron and cook for about 2 minutes or until done and lightly browned. Or pour into a hot griddle or skillet and make 2 or 3 pancakes.
I have used half an egg in this recipe by mixing the egg and pouring approximately half into mix and reserving the other half for another purpose. I have also used a whole egg which works fine, it just tastes a little more eggy.
For 1 cup mix add 1/2 a cup milk and 1 large egg.
Approximately 221 cal, 31.4 g carbs, 5.6 g fat, 12.5 g protein in 1/2 a cup mix.
With milk and egg, approximately 289 cal, 34.6 g carbs, 9.2 g fat, 17.7 g protein.
Calculated using MyFitnessPal using my best approximation of how many servings this mix will create.
In large sauté pan, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté stirring occasionally. If using uncooked chicken, add diced raw chicken and peppers, and season with a generous pinch of salt and pepper. Sauté the mixture stirring occasionally until the chicken is cooked through. Add in the beans, corn, tomatoes (and cooked chicken, if using) and stir until evenly combined. Remove pan from heat and stir in 1 cup of enchilada sauce.
To assemble the enchiladas, set up an assembly line including: tortillas, enchilada sauce, chicken mixture, and cheese. Lay out a tortilla and add a generous spoonful (1/2cup) of the chicken mixture in a line down the center of the tortilla. Roll up tortilla and place in a greased 9 x 13-inch baking dish.
I googled what I could do with butternut squash that's different from just roasting whole squash, or cubing it and roasting along with other winter vegetables, which I both love, but only so often. I came across this recipe for butternut squash and spinach lasagna: https://www.cookinglight.com/recipes/butternut-squash-and-spinach-lasagna?amp=true. It looked good and a healthy version of a nice pasta dish. I'm not a meatless dinner person though. I'm getting better about using other sources of protein. I chose to add two honey garlic sausage removed from their casing to the onion spinach mixture. (I think ground chicken would be really nice here as well and would be leaner but I don't have any). I also noticed that there isn't a lot of seasoning in the recipe so I added pepper, some hot pepper sauce and nutmeg to the yoghurt/egg mixture. I also used full fat versions for all the dairy products and mozzarella for the provolone and Gruyere. That said my regular ricotta cheese was only 0.8 percent butterfat, so very light to start with. 
I will say that slicing the butternut squash on a mandolin was not that easy, and I can't imagine keeping nice even slices trying to slice thin slices with a knife. The butternut squash was too long for the gadget that slides along the mandolin and I couldn't force the butternut squash through standing up. Especially as I got further down I had to watch my fingers near the blade and used another kitchen tool to push it towards the blade the last little piece. I think that is the one big reason that I probably won't make this very often unless I figure out another way to slice the butternut squash.Okay, this one isn't 'try a new recipe', I invented an entirely new recipe. It definitely needs some tweaking, they were a little mushy in the inside. Aside from that, if I can improve the mushy texture they would be great in a lunch beside a bowl of soup or salad or as a snack. This was an experiment in creating a hearty muffin recipe, and an attempt at using quinoa in baking. I wanted to use quinoa and oats because they would add a lot of fiber, protein and nutrients. I looked at some hearty muffins recipes and some recipes that used quinoa and threw caution to the wind and winged it taking some ideas from these recipes (that I have no idea if they were good to start with). Some things I would experiment with in the future is reducing the quinoa to 1 1/2 cups, possibly adding a second egg, and not adding the milk until the end and reduce or eliminate the milk to get a thicker batter. Oat flour doesn't give very much lift so these muffins really don't rise much above the level of the batter you put into the muffin tin. I might add in some black pepper to the seasoning as well.
Hearty Ham Quinoa Muffins
(This is my original recipe that I need to tweak as stated above.)
Preheat oven to 350F.
In a small bowl mix the oat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, garlic and Italian seasoning. Set aside.
In a mixing bowl,on medium speed beat the Greek yoghurt, milk, egg, and oil. Add the quinoa and mix well. Next add the dry ingredients and mix until combined. On low speed or by hand fold in the onion, ham, pepper and carrot.
Spoon the batter into muffin tins (greased or lined with muffin liners) filling them all the way to the top. Bake for 40 minutes. Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes before removing them from the muffin pan and transfer them to a wire rack to continue cooling.
For our first side Challenge we were challenged to try a new recipe. That is not hard for me. The only thing that gave me some direction was that I won't be doing any groceries for the next week or two. I'm trying to limit how often I go into stores during the lock down to only getting essentials and planning my grocery list to keep me stocked for two to three weeks. Considering my pantry, fridge and freezer are all well stocked that shouldn't be a problem. There are a number of recipes I have saved that I have been wanting to try but I don't have some of the essential ingredients. There are lots of recipes that I can make with ingredients I have on hand.
Here's my first attempt at something new: Eggs Benedict.
For the past three weeks I have been meaning to make Eggs Benedict. The first challenge was to make the English Muffins. Since I don't have a griddle, I had to fry them in a cast iron frying pan one by one, which was kind of tedious, and there was flour build up in the pan which over time caused the pan to smoke a little and the English muffins to get darker as I went on. Here is the recipe for the English muffins: https://www.bakedbyanintrovert.com/whole-wheat-english-muffins/.
Then I still had to make the Hollandaise sauce. I used this recipe: https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/eggs-benedict-with-homemade-hollandaise-sauce/. I only made a quarter of the recipe because I only needed one serving and mixed it in a cereal bowl over my smallest pan with some water as a double boiler. I think I kept it over the heat a little long and it got a little thicker than it should have been which in hindsight could have been easy remedied with a little bit of white wine.
I toasted the English muffin halves, added a thin slice of ham, topped each half with half an egg (I wasn't looking for a huge breakfast) and topped it with Hollandaise sauce and had some stir fried veggies on the side. Hollandaise sauce may not be the healthiest, but the serving isn't huge either. Altogether with whole wheat and veggies on the side it was a great breakfast. It was delicious and I may have to add it to my weekend breakfast repertoire. I try to do something special for breakfast once on the weekend, keeping things quick and easy during the week. (I do have another 7 English muffins tucked away in the freezer.)
So sings Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band in the song 'Old Time Rock & Roll'. It's true, there is nothing like some good music to soothe the soul. During some of the most difficult days I've had, when facing tough situations I turn to music. What kind of music that might be depends on the person, we all have our own taste in music. What one person likes will drive another person crazy. While we all have our own favourite music, there is still some music that work better for various moods we might be in or various activities we might be doing. Lyrics also play into this. I can't imagine working out to a slow lyrical song singing about the challenges of life; I want something that has a fast beat and uplifting lyrics to keep me going at a challenging pace. The same goes for our mental health.
Some songs are better at helping us to reflect on our lives and to mourn the challenges we face. (We mourn many changes in our lives.) It's easy to put on some great music and just ignore or hide our struggles and maybe dance (while no one is watching) ourselves into a better mood, but sometimes it's good to use music to face the struggles we are dealing with and use it to work though the thoughts in our mind. My personal preference
is to create playlists for some of the different moods I might face. I
do find however that for me it is helpful to either have a few more
uplifting songs in the playlist or after a while to switch to a more
upbeat playlist to move myself into a different direction. Maybe I'd start with a song like Bob Dylan's 'Blowing In The Wind' but before I move on for the day I might find it helpful to listen to something like 'Old Time Rock & Roll'.
I recall a year or two ago having a playlist of six songs that in different ways spoke to me about the challenges I was going through at the time. The different songs all helped from different perspectives, from mourning to encouraging to lifting me up. Whenever I was having a particularly hard moment I would turn to that playlist and play it over and over. The songs helped to me to mentally work through the challenging time I was having. This has helped me to use music to get me through difficult times and maybe it will help someone else.
This evening I finally baked whole wheat English muffins. I have been meaning to do that for a couple weeks. Breakfast tomorrow... eggs Benedict! Let's see how it turns out.
While I had the oven on I figured I should bake an apple pie. I have numerous bags of apple pie filling mix in my freezer, and before Christmas I had pulled pie crust out of the freezer which now needed to be used up. This fall my brothers girlfriend and I prepped a whole pile of apples for apple pies and put them into the freezer to make pies with. They have a couple apple trees with more apples than they knew what to do with. I just had to thaw the filling and cook it slightly so the uncooked juices wouldn't turn the crust soggy, dump it into the crust, put the top crust on and bake it. Making the apple pie filling together this fall was a great social activity.
