Turkey and Vegetable Ragu Detox

On the heels of two ridiculously decadent trips... Las Vegas, NV three weeks ago and Savannah, GA last week, I am in desperate need of vegetables and lean protein.  Those two trips have revolved around eating some pretty fabulous meals.  Not to mention that the past few days I've had an average of three desserts a day.  I don't regret one bit starting breakfast with bread pudding from Goose Feathers on Sunday or the Banana Praline Gelato later that day or sampling Leopold's Ice Cream after a modest breakfast of corned beef hash on Monday....

But, today is Tuesday.  My remaining pralines from River Street are in shards in my freezer awaiting my frozen yogurt experiments.  Because again.  Today is Tuesday and I am not having dessert after breakfast today.  I do not need to live my life, "full as a tick." (A fabulous expression I heard for the first time recently.)  I have a beach trip around the corner...

Getting home yesterday at 5:00 pm, I was a bit groggy from napping on the flight, I decide I need a Target run and a grocery run.  My Target run turned into my grocery run because once in the store, I decide I can manage a dinner out of things I can find in Target and they had milk....  so who needed a real grocery store?  Here is the result, which also was my lunch today, will be a few other meals later this week, and is also in my freezer for a rainy day...

Lettuce cups, grapes, & string cheese

Turkey and Vegetable Ragu Detox

Ingredients:
1 T canola oil
1 package extra lean ground turkey
1 bag frozen spinach
1 jar Classico Pasta Sauce
1 package white button mushrooms, sliced
1 small zucchini
1 small summer squash
Seasoning - oregano, crushed red pepper, basil, garlic powder, salt, pepper
Sprinkle of Parmesan
Romaine lettuce

Directions: 
Brown turkey in oil.  Season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Add sliced mushrooms, sliced zucchini, and sliced summer squash, seasoning more and cooking for a bit.  Add bag of spinach and jar of tomato sauce.  Swish jar with water to get all the bits and add water.  Maybe 1/2 cup.  Cooking/heating til spinach is defrosted.  Add red pepper flakes to taste, more garlic, salt and pepper.  Top with parm when done.

This makes a small vat of food.  I froze two quart freezer bags for later and kept enough for 3 more meals in the fridge.

(I had the intention of serving this over spaghetti squash.  Target didn't have that.  So I ate it in romaine leaves making lettuce wraps.  One could eat it over pasta, and I may use my frozen portions over pasta later... But I was in the mood for vegetables as I have eaten my weight in starch in the form of pralines, ice cream, pie, and bacon caramel popcorn over the past few days.)

Pizza for One

Who doesn't love pizza?  But sometimes you want a little control over the pie, don't want a ton of crust, and also don't want to work that hard.  After having the afternoon off and erranding I stocked up on groceries for the weekend, Easter potluck contributions, and the coming week.  While grocery shopping I developed a craving for pizza.  (I probably shouldn't have shopped hungry and I bet my bill would have been half as much.)

This isn't rocket science and I'm sure you've made your own pizza before.  But this was too pretty and delicious not to share.  It will probably be dinner many nights this coming week.   

Ingredients:

1 tortilla (I used the super high fiber new fangled olive oil flavored ones found in the deli)

A few tablespoons of pizza sauce

2 cups raw spinach sauteed in a drizzle of canola oil with salt, pepper, and garlic powder 

2 button mushrooms sliced

1 and a half artichoke hearts chopped

1 small chicken sausage link sliced (already cooked so I tossed with the spinach to heat up)

A thick slice of a mozzarella ball

season with basil, garlic powder, and crushed red pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400.  On a cookie sheet place tortilla.  Smear with pizza sauce.  Top sauce with seasoning and then with all the things you want.  Heat in oven for 5-10 minutes.  I didn't really time it.  Not very long.  And voila.  Satisfies the pizza craving without tempting leftovers.  Nom nom.   

Mac and Cheese - ish

The raiding of the fridge

There was a lot of snow on the ground this morning.  I had a busy weekend.  I have ambitions to get to a spin class tonight.  It is Monday.  So many reasons I just didn't have the energy to go fetch groceries on the way home.  So, this is the sort of meal that was conjured driving home in my head, taking a mental inventory of my fridge and hoping I remembered the ingredients I had on hand, while craving mac and cheese.  Whipped this up and probably have enough for a few lunches this week.

Anyways... here is my made up, raiding the fridge, Mac and Cheese-ish.

Ingredients
Half a block of yummy Irish cheese

The prepping of ingredients

1/4 c shredded parm (I have a freezer bag full of it)
1 1/2 crowns broccoli (was intended for hummus snacks, but I was being slow)
Healthy sprinkling of garlic powder
1 can of chickpeas
half a box or so of whole wheat spaghetti (I would have preferred spirals or something, but again this was a rather impromptu creation)
splash of skim milk
juice of half a lemon
salt


Directions

In the pot

Boil pasta to package directions.  When there is about 5 minutes left, throw in broccoli to boiling pasta water.  Reserve a half cup or so of pasta water.

When pasta is done strain pasta and broccoli.  Throw back in pot.  Add reserved pasta water, splash of milk, cheese, can of chickpeas, garlic powder, salt, and the juice of half a lemon.

Voila.  I pretended this was mac and cheese, though, it was no where close.  But it was yummy nonetheless.

One Shallot in the Pantry Hummus

So, I alternate between hummus and those amazing 100 calorie guac snack packs for an afternoon pick me up at work with a massive pile of some combo of carrots, red bell pepper, broccoli, cucumber slices, and cherry tomatoes.  It's a 3pm hold over until dinner.  Recently, I'm making the hummus myself.  It's so much cheaper and you can control the ingredients.  I love garlic but found throwing in a straight raw clove can be a bit pungent.  This recipe can be easily altered.  Like sometimes I use olive oil, sometimes I use tahini paste.  This weekend I noticed one shallot on my shelf I had no plans for, and plenty of garlic cloves.  So I decided to saute those in oil before throwing in the food processor - made for a sweeter, less pungent flavor.

One Shallot in the Pantry Hummus
Makes 8 - 2 T servings

Ingredients
1 can chickpeas drained, reserve the pack liquid
Zest of one lemon
Juice of same lemon
1 T Olive Oil
1 shallot
2 large garlic cloves
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cumin

Directions
In a skillet on medium heat, add olive oil.  When oil is heated, saute roughly chopped shallot and garlic cloves until translucent and smelling yummy.  In food processor, put chick peas, lemon zest, lemon juice, cumin, paprika, sauteed shallot and garlic.  Puree.  Add a small amount of pack liquid.

Hummus without hot sauce
is just plain silly.

Eat it up.

Crawfish & Chicken Jambalaya

Enjoying the Crawfish at the LA State Society Boil  

Operation use things in my freezer commenced.  This afternoon, I started thinking about a stash of cleaned, cooked leftover crawfish from the Louisiana State Society's annual crawfish boil in July that I still had in my freezer.  After pigging out, the organizers let everyone take home bags of crawfish.  By the end of peeling those bad boys it was like I dragged my fingers on sandpaper covered in hot sauce.  But it was worth it.  As I am enjoying them 6 months later and mighty grateful. I heart the freezer.  I also had some leftover shredded rotisserie chicken and chopped bell pepper in the freezer. Go ahead and judge.  I use the heck out of my freezer.  But it's mostly whole foods that I've processed, soups, or frozen meals like the one you're reading about now.

Anyways, I stopped off to grab most of the ingredients on the way home to make a lightened up a Jambalaya recipe.  I looked up a few and modified.  I do that a lot.  Read like a dozen recipes and modify.  My only wish is that I remembered how long brown rice takes.. I don't like eating dinner immediately before bolting out the door to yoga.  But this made the discomfort of my full belly in shoulder stand worth it.  This came out infinitely better than I even anticipated.
  

Jambalaya
Serves 8; ~1.5 C portions (Dinner, 3 fridge portions and 4 freezer bag portions)

Chicken Sausage, Frozen crawfish, frozen
rotisserie chicken, and veggies

Ingredients
2 tsp canola oil
1 cup shredded rotisserie chicken (could cook raw chicken as well and set aside)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 link of smoked turkey sausage (I thought I had some in my freezer.... made a trip to corner market for a substitute of 1/2 lb of chicken sausage...)
1.5 cups crawfish (or you could use raw shrimp)
1 small chopped onion
1 chopped bell pepper

Veggies Cooking

Small bunch of celery chopped
3 minced garlic cloves
1 1/2 C uncooked brown rice
1 3/4 C fat-free chicken broth
1/2 C water (maybe)
2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp cayenne
sprinkling of cajun spice - like "Slap Yo Mama"
1 can of diced tomatoes

Voila!

Heat oil in skillet medium high.  Cook sausage.  Set aside.  Cook onion, bell pepper, celery, garlic, salt and pepper.  Cook covered on low until vegetables are tender. 10-12 minutes.  Add rice; broth; spices.  Simmer 30 minutes.  May need to add water and cook longer, brown rice takes awhile.  Cook until a rice grain has the right bite and liquids are mostly absorbed.  Stir in meats (frozen crawfish, frozen cooked chicken, cooked sausage) and tomatoes and cook until heated. Eat.  I sprinkled a tad more cajun spice as I served.  Divide and freeze leftover portions.

Curried Chicken Salad

Friday night was glorious.  I had an overdue date with myself.  I stopped by the grocery on the way home with plans to roast my own chicken.  But genius-ly noticed the rotisserie chickens were $6 and a raw whole chicken was $8.  I'll save roasting my own for another day.  It was already pushing 6:00 pm and I was hungry.  I took my garlic rosemary chicken home, had one skinless breast, made some homemade hummus, had lots of veggies to dip, and cracked into a bottle of Jefferson Vineyards Meritage and stopped the remote on some trashy British comedy show on public broadcasting.  I need evenings like that more often.

But what to do with the rest of that chicken?  I shredded it, froze half, and with the other half, made some yummy chicken salad for lunches this week.  I'll probably so the same with the frozen portion - later.  I just don't like committing to 4 meals in a row of the same thing.


Curried Chicken Salad
Makes 2 servings

~1.5 Cups shredded rotisserie chicken
2 T reduced fat mayo
Enough curry that you can taste it ~ 1 T ?
2 T raisins
A dash of Splenda
Nuts optional.  It'd be good with slivered almonds.

Mix.  Enjoy for lunch 2 days in a row.

Roasted Spicy Chick Pea Snack or Salad Topper

Chick Peas going into the oven

 

I first saw this recipe in some health magazine over Christmas.  I'd always wanted to try roasted chick peas.  Seemed like a delicious snack with some crunch.  And I do love some protein.  I made it a few times for family and friends to rave reviews.  I made a few tweaks to the spices and I think I have a new snack staple.  I recently took it to watch a hockey game at my friends' casa.  The obvious next step was to put it on a salad and bring it to their Super Bowl gathering.  Well, I did.  And check and mate.  There is usually plenty of sweets, chips, and dips at parties and I often show up with hummus and carrots.  This was a much more fun way to bring a veggie side. (I hope the friends enjoy the leftovers I accidentally left in their fridge.)  And #smurffail because I forgot to take a pic of the final product.  But I think you all know what an assembled salad looks like.  Also, the chickpeas are delish on their own.  Also, it's pretty easy to half the recipe.  

Spicy Chick Peas
 2 15-oz cans of rinsed and drained chick peas*
 2 T canola oil
 1 1/2 T sugar
 1 tsp smoked paprika
 1 tsp garlic powder
 1/2 tsp salt
 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
 1/4 tsp black pepper



 Mix all of the things.  Bake in a single layer on a cookie sheet at 425 for 20-25 minutes.
 *I found dried soaked and cooked chick peas work well also, they aren't as mushy and get crunchier much easier. But canned is faster.  To each their own.

Salad Additions:
1/2 C reduced fat crumbled feta
1/2 English cucumber diced
3 roma tomatoes with seeds removed and diced
Plenty of mixed greens. 3-4 cups.

Dressing: 
Juice of 1 lemon, 1 T olive oil.  Salt and pepper.

Mix everything together.  Enjoy!