Flaxseed Crackers & Cucumber Sandwiches.

I am a huge fan of cucumber sandwiches!

In fact when I was in middle school I had my tonsils taken out and I was SO afraid to eat for a few days, but the first thing I did eat was a cucumber sandwich.

A sweet friend of mine recently mentioned that you can make cucumber sandwiches with flaxseed crackers. 

I knew I had to try some for myself, and here is a great recipe I found for garlic parmesan flaxseed crackers. 

1 cup flax seed meal

1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup water

Heat oven to 400 F.

{1} Mix all ingredients together.

{2} Spoon onto sheet pan, I lined mine with tinfoil. 

{3} Cover the mixture with a piece of tinfoil,waxed paper, etc. Even out the mixture to about 1/8 inch. I used a rolling pin. It's important not to let it be too thin around the edges or that part will overcook before the center firms up. So after you spread it out, remove the paper and go around the edges with your finger and push the thin parts toward the center. I then used a pizza cutter to score the cracker dough into squares, this will make it easier to break when it is finished baking.

{4} Bake until the center is no longer soft, about 20 minutes. If the crackers start to burn around the edges, remove from them from the oven and let the crackers cool completely - they will continue to crisp up.

{5} Break into pieces.

The crackers were so yummy and totally compatible with a clean eating diet. To make my beloved cucumber sandwiches I mixed 1 TBS of cream cheese with 2 TBS Greek yogurt (to lighten up the cream cheese) . 

Topped my crackers with my lite cream cheese and a cucumber slice.

Happy snacking!

Linking up at Rain on a Tin Roof, Love Grows Wild

A Few Guilty Pleasures...

First I need to apologize for not updating in so long, we have been really busy with hardly much time for anything else. 

I wanted to add a little somethin' somethin' on this Sunday night.

A little guilty pleasure donut.

We don't often make sweets unless we are getting together with friends (except when I was pregnant, then I made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies every week!). My husband probably wishes we had more sweets around the house but he regularly thanks me for not having them, because he claims that he would eat them all. After eating such yummy healthy meals all week I thought we deserved a super yummy, super easy treat and I've been dying to try out these great grands buiscut donuts. They turned out SO FABULOUS!

I used the Grands Jr. so they were a little smaller which was nice for our small snacks.

Use a cookie cutter or something else ingenious to cut a hole in the center of the biscuits. 

I fried mine up in about a 1/2 of an inch of coconut oil over medium heat.

These cook so fast, literally a few seconds on each side, until they are golden. When golden brown on both sides remove the donuts and place them on a paper towel to absorb excess oil.

Dipping them in a cinnamon sugar mixture really made these a million bucks! They taste awesome! We also fried up the donut "holes" too, no way we were going to let those puppies go to waste!

Enjoy!

Dinner for Two Weeks.

This is the blog project that I've worked the hardest on so far and I'm also extremely proud of it, so let's get to it...

I think the most common phrase I hear from moms and wives is "I don't know what to make for dinner..." I too am guilty of making these claims. I've come to the conclusion that this lack of planning and last minute throw together meals lead to unhealthy food choices and boring dinners. 

I like a lot of other moms have browsed Pinterest for meal planners claiming to be healthy meals only to follow a link trail to a list of freezer-meal soup for two weeks- NO THANK YOU!

So here's my solution, I've created a two week meal plan complete with meal list, shopping list and recipes. All the recipes included I've tried myself. A few of them I've created but they all include little notes and helps that I wanted to add in for your convenience. 

The entire project is available Here!

A few notes...

1. I've formatted the project so you can print and add to a binder or folder for easy access.

2.In the shopping list I left out the quantities of items you will need to buy so that you can add the quantities yourself to suit your family.

3. All of these recipes are enough for 2-4 people, some with leftovers, some without. You will need to double or triple if you have a larger group(obviously).

I plan on putting at least two of these meal plans out every month, I look forward to sharing these with everyone!

Skinny Chinese Take-out, Say What?!

One of the things I really miss about the east coast is that there seems to be a sketchy dilapidated building on every corner serving delicious chinese take-out. one of the best things about these gourmet dining facilities  is that they all have the EXACT SAME MENU.

Seriously. No matter if you are in Petersburg, Richmond, D.C. or even the good ol' NYC they all have the same take-out menu and they pretty much taste the same....I said "pretty much". Well here in good ol' Kansas this is not the case, there is no chinese take-out. The closest one is like 30min away, and guess what? They will not deliver to my house, surprise, surprise.

As a lover of asian food this is especially hard, so we make it a point to drive the 30 miles to the nearest hibachi place every few weeks. However our sweet little town is going to be home to a Panda Garden in March. Can I get a WOOT WOOT?! As you may have guessed, I am going to be all up in that! ( Also I saw the menu and to my delight.....it was the same as the chinese place down the street from my parents house, in Va. So maybe it will taste the same, Fingers crossed.)

So anyway, back to what this post is actually supposed to be about....

Not only do I like to eat asian food. I like to cook asian food as well. When I was a senior in high school I went on this crazy asian food cooking kick. I came home from school and I would cook eggrolls, and fried rice and general tso's. It was delish and thank goodness for a fast metabolism, just sayin'.

I still cook a ton of asian food, which isn't surprising since I am part asian....I had a Korean roommate in college, so that counts right?

No? ok.

Well, the other night I had a serious hankering for some General Tso's, however the Hubs and I do like to eat healthy and light especially on work nights since he has to be up at zero dark thirty doing jumping jacks. I had it..... Skinny General Tso's Chicken and Fried Rice Quinoa. BTW it was thebomb.com.

So here it is people!

P.s. This is a picture of some of the specific items that I mention in the recipes.

Also, the asian seasoning is REALLY good for stir fry and any chinese food, I got mine at TJ MAXX (LOL) but here is a link for where I know you can find it . 

Asian Spice

Skinny General Tso's Chicken

2 chicken breasts

1 TBS asian seasoning

Ty Ling Naturals or some other General Tso's sauce

olive oil/non-stick spray

Preheat oven to 375*, and cube your chicken. Spray non-stick spray in your baking dish, add chicken, toss with asian seasoning cover with foil and bake until juices run clear. Half-way through baking ( just eyeball it) uncover your chicken for the second half of baking to let all your juices evaporate. When the chicken is done remove it from the oven and coat with some of the general tso's sauce. Set your oven to broil. Cover a baking sheet with foil and broil until your individual pieces of chicken get little crunchy edges. Remove from oven and coat with as much sauce as you want.

*Notes*

I used the Ty Ling's sauce because it is lower in sugar and carbs than homemade sauce or other store brands. also, broiling is super important, since you are not breading and frying your chicken, broiling provides the slight necessary crunch.

Fried Rice Quinoa

1 package of quinoa or about 2 1/2 cups cooked quinoa

2 eggs

1 cup chopped onion

2 cups chopped nappa cabbage

1/2 cup choped carrot

1 TBS minced garlic

Salt 

Pepper

1TBS soy sauce

2 TBS Kikkomon Stir fry Sauce

2 Tsp Asian seasoning

non-stick spray 

1 TBS butter

Cook your quinoa according to the package directions. Let it cool to room temp. Heat a skillet and add non-stick spray, add onion and carrot, cook until tender. Add garlic, mix well. Add nappa cabbage and cook  until cabbage has wilted down. Pour quinoa into skillet and mix well. Add salt, pepper, asian seasoning, stir fry sauce and soy sauce. Mix well. Push the mixture to one side of the skillet. Melt the butter and scramble two eggs in the open side of the skillet. After you have scrambled the egg mix well into the quinoa and serve.

*Notes*

Quinoa is a great source of protein. With the recent studies about rice being naturally high in arsenic and the FDA encouraging people not to eat it as much, we have switched to quinoa. Also the butter is entirely optional, if you want to get really skinny with it.

An Entirely Homemade Success!

It is a lesser known fact that I dream of having a small farm and lots of land where we can one day live  quite self-sufficiently. I think there is something about the ability to be able to provide for yourself even if the entirety of civilization fell around you. I know to some that may sound like crazy talk but it's something I hope to one day achieve but in the mean time I'm going to take some baby steps. I have begun an interesting endeavor into Suppers made entirely from scratch.

A few days ago I blessed my husband with chicken carnitas, homemade tortillas and the best rendition of Uncle Julio's Salsa.

I've made the Carnitas before and they are DELICIOUS! 

Carnitas!

The recipe is actually for pork carnitas but I do chicken and they are just as yummy.

ALSO, just my little amendment.. 

when you are putting all the ingredients together add about 1/4 cup of sugar.,.

Now, on to this Uncle Julio's salsa.

I love Uncle Julio's, I could eat there every single day of my life. 

However, Kansas is the wilderness and we do not have such luxuries so, I must resort to my own craftiness to create a salsa that can mirror the perfection that is Uncle Julio's salsa.

I scanned the internet for copycat recipes and made some adjustments of my own and here you have it,  

Uncle Julio's Salsa

4 Tomatoes (I used the vine ripened tomatoes)

4 cloves of garlic ...

(mine were relatively small, if you used regular sized pieces I would go with three)

1-2 Jalapeno peppers ( use one or two depending on your taste for spicy flavors)

1/2 of a large white onion

1/2 cup cilantro

The juice from half a lime

1 TBS ground black pepper

1/4 TBS Salt

1. Fire up the grill and char the tomatoes, onions, jalepenos, and garlic.

leave the paper on the cloves of garlic, but remove the paper from the exterior of the onion. You can use a gas grill or a charcoal grill, but my suggestion for a charcoal grill would be to put a piece of foil directly on the coals and set your vegetable on that, you'll achieve a better char this way.

2. Once all the ingredients have had a chance to blister and char you will then  remove them from the grill. Remove the outer paper from the garlic, core the tomatoes and Jalapeno. Roughly chop the chard vegetable and add them to your food processor. You will then add the cilantro, lime juice, salt and pepper. Blend until chunky.

As an expert in Uncle Julio's salsa consumption I have to say that this was EXTREMELY close to the original.

And what would Uncle Julio's salsa be without warm tortillas to dip in?

Tortillas

(I grilled my tortillas, but you can definitely just fry them up on a griddle.)

We Are the Snuffle-up-a-gus' three

I seems as though we've been sick forever! But actually it's only been exactly seven days. Which is quite enough for me, I'm ready to feel healthy again.

I don't know about you but when I'm sick I want soup! I don't just want it, I crave, NO I NEED soup!

And when I say soup I don't mean some Campbell's chicken noodle. I want some homemade soup, preferably in the veggie variety.

So this afternoon i set out to make this very yummy, considerably quick Curried Cream of Leek soup.

It's a spicy one, but that only help to clear out my sinuses and soothe my scratchy throat. Maybe you should try next time you feel your tonsils a tickling! 

Curried Cream of Leek

1 Large leek

4T Butter

1/4 onion or dried onion flakes

2T flour

2 Cups vegetable of chicken broth

1/3 C Cream

2 T Golden Curry Sauce mix

2t Sriracha Sauce

2t Cayenne pepper

Sat & pepper to taste

Only use white and light green parts of your leek. Slice in half lengthwise and then chop into small sections.

Sautee leeks and onions in two T butter until translucent. Stir frequently.

Add flour and mix together. Add remaining butter, stir until melted.

Add broth, stir. Add curry and stir until curry is dissolved.

Add The remaining ingredients and simmer for 3-4 minutes.

Enjoy.

Green Tomatoes

I think I may have mentioned before thatI have an absolutely BLACK thumb, as in I cannot keep any plant alive......except that does not apply to tomatoes apparently.

Back in the spring I bought four tiny little tomato sprouts at Walmart, in hopes that I may be able to grow some nice plants. My tomato plants produced one tomato super early in the spring and then NOTHING all late spring/summer and I was pretty sure I had killed all but one of the plants.

WEEELL, little did I know that as we were moving into our new home my tomato plants had decided that they would grow out-of-control!

Alex and i went over to the old house on Friday to dig up my tomato "plant".....which while I wasn't looking turned into three tomato "plants" with about a thousand green tomatoes on them. 

Now, it has gotten into arctic temperatures here in KS and it's already frosted, so I decided to go ahead and pick all these sweet little green tomatoes and take advantage of everything they have to offer.

I plan to introduce the husband to fried green tomatoes later this week but I also wanted to try pickling the smaller tomatoes. I LOVE pickles, I also LOVE tomatoes; green tomatoes already have such a great sour/tart zing to them that i thought they would be perfect to pickle and boy was I right.

I was inspired by the pickling recipe over at A Beautiful Mess but I've made a few amendments.

1TBS Salt

1 1/2TBS Pepper Corns 

1TSP Sugar

3 Cloves garlic

1 Cup Vinegar

1 Cup water

1TSP Dill Weed

The smaller and tiny tomates I pickled whole, while I sliced the medium ones. I packed quart sized jars with the tomates, added spices. Then I added the cup of vinegar followed by as much of the water as I could, topped with a lid, shook until the salt dissolved and left in the refrigerator over night and these puppies were ready to go!

Spinach & Chicken Flautas

Day 2 of meals planned by Pintrest...

Was a Success!

I worked up a good appetite today refinishing my dinning room chairs....which still aren't finished but they are getting there and hopefully when finished will be blog worthy.

Recipe

The recipe was simple and quick. I made salad to go along with the flautas to add some extra veggies and I'd have to say it really was a pretty health conscious meal too since these flautas are baked instead of fried.

TIPS

I used a rotisserie chicken, well half of one to supply my chicken meat ( I'm using the other half for another recipe) but that really cut down on my prep time.

I also used minced garlic, about a teaspoon in place of garlic powder.

The recipe says to bake ten minutes, flip and bake for ten more minutes. I did ten on one side and five on the other. It was enough to get them crunchy on the outside but not burn the ends.

Price Break Down

• 1 pound boneless, skinless Chicken Thighs(or in my case, 1/2 a rotisserie chicken from       Walmart).................................................................................................................5.48

                                                                                                        -1/2

                                                                                                                                     2.74

• 16 ounces Beer (or chicken broth)..................................................................already had
• 2 cups Water.....................................................................................................Omitted
• 1 teaspoon Paprika.......................................................................................already had
• 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt.................................................................................already had
• 1 teaspoon Garlic Powder.............................................................................already had
• 1 teaspoon ground Cumin..............................................................................already had
• 1 teaspoon Chili Powder...............................................................................already had
• 1 Jalapeno Pepper, minced........................................................................(Walmart) .03
• 3 cups Baby Spinach, chopped...................(bag of spinach from Aldi, only used half) 1.69

                                                                                                       -1/2

                                                                                                                                      .85

• 5 burrito-size Flour Tortillas (9 inches)...........................................................already had
• 6 ounces Queso Quesadilla.................................(half a block of Monterey Jack, Aldi) 1.79

                                                                                                      -1/2

                                                                                                                                       .90

• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil, or cooking spray.........................................................already had
• Salsa, for serving..........................................................................................already had

                                                                                                Total          

                                                                                                $4.53

I'm going to say that's pretty darn good for 10 flautas!

If you want to add in the salad it was 

1/2 Aldi bag salad...............1.99

-1/2

                                         .99ish

1/2 of a tomato from a bag of 5 at Aldi.......1.69

divided by 5

                                      .34

-1/2

                                       .17

1/2 of an avocado from Aldi............ .49

-1/2

                                  .25ish

         Salad Total    

  $1.41

Leaving me with the 

Grand Total

$5.94

I would totally make this meal again! it was really delicious. Alex loved it and so did I and it was super easy!

                                                       

Dinner For Two.

Preface.

So lately I've been wanting to share my Pintrest inspired dinner menus with the world.

Alex makes fun of my Pintrest obsession almost constantly but I really don't think he realizes how many times Pintrest has actually been solely responsible for us not eating the same thing four nights in a row.

I love to cook don't get me wrong, and I am pretty adventurous when it comes to cooking-if I do say so myself. The issue though is that I've run through all of our cookbooks. I'm a big fan of the REALSIMPLE magazine cookbook that they put out seasonally but honestly I can't bring myself to pay $13.99 for an over-grown magazine, even if it is full of delicious recipes. 

Pintrest however has become my new method of fabulous meal planning. And I can't lie I have been inspired by a friend's blog and her courage in experimenting in Pintrest DIY's.

"Meal Planning" has also become my new best friend in regards to dinner time. 

When we lived in Petersburg we lived really close to a Martin's grocery store. It was heavenly.I love love love grocery shopping, in a good environment that is...

Martin's was wonderful, the lighting wasn't harsh, the international section was HUGE. There was a fresh meat and fish section and then of course there was a gluten free section and an organic section. And the free samples....who could forget those?

At the risk of sounding like a food nerd I really could have just walked around in there all day!

Back to meal planning though, when we lived in Petersburg we had access to fabulous grocery stores (except Aldi) and I would make grocery shopping a daily event. Obviously I did not have a child then....

I also would not decide before the day of what I was going to make for dinner. Now that we live in the wilderness Kansas finding great places to shop was a little more challenging. At first I was visiting our local grocery store "Country Mart" (it's not that bad....) but it's prices were higher than Walmart and even though it was convenient it didn't have nearly the selection that Walmart has (and that isn't even great).

I then realized that about 25 miles up the road in Salina there was a Aldi. For those of you who have never experienced Aldi, I am terribly sorry for you. 

Salina is great because I can go twice a month grocery list in hand and visit all the necessary stores. It works like this. 

1. I make a menu from recipes I find on Pintrest

2. Make a list of ingredients I don't have

3. Go buy all the ingredients I can from Aldi

4. I then visit Walmart for ingredients not found at Aldi

5. If there are specialty items or Walmart's selection isn't good enough I visit Dillon's

6. For ground beef and any pork I go to Country Mart (those are the few things that are cheaper there,than anywhere else).

I know that sounds like a really big hassel and a lt of running around but keep in mind I do this twice a month and actually going to town is exciting these days. (listen to me , "going to town", I sound like this is little house on the prairie....)

At first buying food for two weeks felt like I was paying a lot of money and buying a whole lot of food but that's because that was exactly what I was doing. Going from buying one meal at a time to two weeks at a time is a big jump! It felt like the beginning of the Oregon Trail game, when you have to buy everything you could possibly need at the general store just in case little francis gets typhoid a fourth of the way through the game or you run out of food half way through which is a real concern here on the prairie..... So I had to get over feeling like I was buying too much and it really helped when I began breaking the price down meal by meal. And although it's not perfect I think I have a pretty rad system going and I am really excited to begin sharing with everyone the meals we are trying, how we using them to save us money and any special little tips and tricks of these recipes that I pick up along the way.

Okay now that I have given my long-winded explanation to this post let's get down to it....

Indonesian Peanut Saute

We love some Noodles & Co around here and we definitely love some Thai food or anything spicy for that matter and this is my fav from Noodles.

*Side Note* Even though we love Noodles & Co we don't eat a lot of carbs on the regular. I don't really like carbs too much, they make me feel sluggish and may or may not cause some issues of the bathroom variety.....however ever since Grayson has been around I've been feeling faint and dizzy like I'm going to pass out, so until we find the culprit of this we are going to keep me on the carbs.

I found a blog that shared a recipe  for the vegetarian version of this dish.

TIPS

To make it meat-eater friendly I just used chicken broth instead of vegetable broth in the peanut sauce and sautéed chicken breast to add. 

I use frozen veggies whenever possible because they are cheaper and honestly I don't have time to sit there cleaning a chopping exactly 1 cup of brocoli.

Another note about the chicken breast...

I buy the huge package of "Boneless Chicken Breast" at Walmart. It's not frozen and it isn't any certain brand it just comes on a yellow styrofoam carton with plastic wrap around it. The cool thing about these chicken breast in particular is that they are really thick. thick enough that I can cut them in half and end up with two chicken breasts and they are both thick and sustainable.

(was originally one chicken breast)

One more chicken tip, when I bring home that huge pack of chicken it usually has seven or eight chicken breasts. I wrap each one individually with plastic wrap and then just stack them in a tupperware container in the freezer that way I can take out one at a time to thaw.

A few over-all tips I would give on meal planning is to put a weeks worth of meals together that share similar items. This meal for instance only uses 1 cup of the brocoli so I found a recipe to make later in the week that will use the remainder of the brocoli, same deal with the cabbage and cilantro.

Also if you keep certain items on hand at all times you will find that brings down meal cost. for example....In my pantry I ALWAYS have beef, chicken and vegetable bullion, honey, peanut butter. We also eat a LOT of asian food so we has sriracha chili sauce and soy sauce.

Price Breakdown

1 pound rice noodles ....................................................................Annie Chun's (Dillon's) 3.49

Sauce

1 cup vegetable broth.........................................................Chicken bullion cube I already had
6 heaping tablespoons creamy peanut butter........................................................already had
4 teaspoons sriracha (I <3 Rooster Sauce)............................................................already had
3 tablespoons honey..............................................................................................already had
6 tablespoons soy sauce........................................................................................already had
3 tablespoons fresh minced ginger..............................................Used powdered, already had
5 cloves garlic minced...................................................................................8oz Jar(Aldi) 1.99

Veggies

1 cup chopped brocoli................................................................................................(Aldi)1.09

                                                                                                              -1/2

                                                                                                                                 about .54

1/2 of a red cabbage, sliced................................................................................(Walmart)1.42

                                                                                                             -1/2

                                                                                                                                            .71
1 cup shoestring carrots.........................................................................................already had

Toppings

limes wedges...............................................................................................................(Aldi).19
cilantro..................................................................................................................(Walmart).88

                                                                                                             -3/4

                                                                                                                                             .22
sprouts..........................................................................................................................Omitted

Chicken.................................................................................(Walmart, 9.99 for 7=) 1.42 each

                                                                                                                                       Total    

                                                                                                                                         $8.56