What's for Breakfast:
Pumpkin Oatmeal
Trader O's
Banana
Juice
What's for Lunch:
Egg salad sandwiches
Grapes
Dried fruit
What's for Dinner:
Black Olive, Green Pepper & Basil Pizza
Baked Sweet Potato Fries & Spiced Aioli Sauce
Zookies
Admittedly, Day 5 has been the hardest because we were used to the challenge but the refrigerator was looking more and more depressing. My eldest daughter also came down with a runny nose. Usually I would work to cure that with a tall smoothie and a bowl of berries or other antioxidants. My choices were slim since we have no more fruit and no freezer stash either. I poured a cup of raw milk, found an Airborne tablet in the cabinet and added that to a glass of water and hoped for the best. In many ways, we could probably go a few more weeks on this challenge but in the fresh fruit department we would be compromising our health if I don't head to the farmer's market this weekend! Lesson learned.
I was still determined to be creative and have a good attitude today about eating what we have. After all, people in the Developing World have maybe one or two - if any - choices a day. My whining would be embarassing.
My creativity today included my own "Pumpkin Oatmeal" by adding 1 tablespoon pumpkin puree along with 1 tablespoon organic raisins to a bowl of oatmeal. I sprinkled the top with cinnamon and the result was a yummy different flavor. (If you want to sweeten it, try a drizzle of a natural sweetener like honey or maple syrup and throw in some nuts for good omega-3s.) My hubby is the type who could eat the same granola for breakfast and the identical sandwich for lunch day after day. Not me. I need variety and so does my daughter.
This afternoon I realized that are usual stash of fruit, veggies and whole grain bars that we use for snacks was seriously depleted so Meilani and I used the last zucchini to make Zookies. This is a recipe we got from a friend and it incorporates healthy plus yummy (chocolate!) all into one great little cookie. Our friend's daughter calls them "Vegetable Cookies" because you can see the shredded zucchini inside but that didn't deter us. They taste like a chocolate-chip macaroon with the extra zest of zucchini flavor.
For lunch, I decided to be creative with Egg Salad. Now I know most people hear "egg salad" and think boring, blah and maybe even barf. But when I'm looking at a nearly-empy refrigerator with more than a dozen eggs left I'm thinking Egg Salad = Extra Special. My first version of Egg Salad earlier this week was a twist on my Curried Chicken Salad, a regular on our lunch menu. My classic version of Egg Salad is an Italian Egg Salad. Must be my roots but I tend to gravitate toward oregano, basil and bay leaves when it comes to the spice department. Our Classic Egg Salad includes those things. The new "snazzy" egg salad we made today used the rest of yesterday's "spiced aioli sauce" from our Baked Sweet Potato Fries. The result was a new salad with incredible nuances of flavor. Meilani and I gobbled ours down. (Recipes below.)
Our dinner tonight was a mainstay for Friday nights - pizza! There's something about Friday that just makes me crave pizza. It's also a great chance to use some of the extras from the week for creative ingredients. Since we've been doing The Great Pantry Challenge this week there wasn't much left in our produce drawers in the fridge. We did find green peppers and basil. We also opened our last can of sliced black olives to top off our Veggie Pizza. And, thank you, God, we had just enough cheese. Tomorrow is our grand finale day - we will see what it holds.
A Note from our Nutrition Guy (aka my Hubby)
A lot of people have misconceptions about the healthiness of eggs. Several years back Americans got all up in arms about eggs causing high cholesterol. The truth of it is that God created eggs as a perfect protein. Usually people who have cholesterol issues do not have it because of their consumption of eggs. Not only have studies shown that eggs do not significantly affect cholesterol levels, but the latest research suggests that eating whole eggs (both whites and yolks) may actually result in improvement in a person's blood lipids (cholesterol) profile.
When we buy eggs, we want the freshest eggs possible. The A Choice would be to buy from a local farm. In Fresno, we get our eggs from Simonian Farms in the Valley. There's also a new egg vendor at the Vineyard Farmer's Market on Shaw & Blackstone. These are fresh eggs laid by cage-free chickens who have been fed organic food. The B Choice would be to buy cage-free organic eggs from a grocery store like Trader Joe's or Costco. The difference is these eggs are from a bigger operation where the stress on the chickens could be more. Stressed out chickens do not lay healthy eggs.
Curried Egg Salad
6 hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
1 teaspoon curry powder (I use the Frontier Indian Curry powder from Whole Foods, which is a salt-free, all-natural blend)
1 small zucchini, finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1 tablespoon parsley, minced
3 tablespoons dried cranberries or raisins
1/4 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
1 cup mayonnaise
1. Boil eggs. Meanwhile, chop zucchini and combine with salt, pepper, curry, parsley, cranberries and pecans.
2. Chop eggs.
3. Blend eggs with mayonnaise and add spice-vegetable mixture. Serve on your favorite bread.
Italian Egg Salad
6 hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped
1 cup celery, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon basil (dried or fresh)
1 teaspoon chopped bay leaf
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
1. Boil eggs. Meanwhile, chop celery and combine with salt, pepper, oregano, basil, bay leaf and parsley.
2. Chop eggs.
3. Blend eggs with mayonnaise and add spice-celery mixture. Serve on your favorite bread.
Spiced Egg Salad
6 hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
1 tablespoon cilantro or fresh basil, finely chopped
1 cup mayonnaise
1. Boil eggs. Meanwhile, chop celery and combine with salt, pepper, cumin, coriander and cilantro.
2. Chop eggs.
3. Blend eggs with mayonnaise and add spice mixture. Serve on your favorite bread.
Showing posts with label Italian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italian. Show all posts
10.26.2009
Monday Pantry Challenge: Chicken Cacciatore
What's for Dinner:
Baby greens salad with Fuyu persimmons, Feta Cheese & Almonds (Our garden & Farmer's market)
with Champagne Pear salad dressing (Trader Joe's)
Mama Maria's Chicken Cacciatore (recipe below)
Rotini Whole Wheat Pasta (Trader Joe's)
Today is the official launch of our Great Pantry Challenge. We skipped our grocery shopping for this week in an effort to save money, live out of our pantry and contemplate the abundance we are blessed with in the United States. If you're just tuning in, find out more details here.
We just returned from a weekend hanging out with my brother and his family in Los Angeles. Since most of our weekend meals were provided by them, we'll say that tonight's dinner is our starting point for reflection. Our meal began with a Baby Greens Salad. The greens are the first we have ever harvested from our own garden. No, we didn't plan for them to be ready today. We have been aspiring to garden for years but never really got around to it. A friend helped us build planter boxes from Sunset magazine in June. Then we had to wait until we returned from a month-long trip to Haiti before we could plant.
Our 3-year-old picked out seeds at the local garden store for bok choy (her fave), a variety of greens (for salads) and a mix of sunflowers. We also plan to do carrots. We finally planted the seeds about six weeks ago and then waited. We've been watering (when we remember) and checking on the plants every few days. Finally on Friday we were able to harvest our first two bunches of bok choy and then today a handful of greens was ready. This was a perfect quantity for a salad. We sliced up a fuyu persimmon and sprinkled feta cheese on top. The "fuyu" persimmon is like an orange, squatty tomato and firm when ripe. These are great in place of apples or pears in your fave dishes. We have a few fuyus left from our last farmer's market trip (October 17). We pretty much always have feta cheese or goat cheese in our fridge so we added that with a handful of whole almonds we had from a local farm.
Our main entree was Chicken Cacciatore, an Italian dish I learned to make from my mom. This comfort food dish melds together the flavors of onions, green peppers, tomatoes and black olives with tender chicken. We only had frozen chicken thighs so I substituted them for the usual chicken breasts. I also had to ditch the mushrooms since we didn't have any and I threw in some fresh zucchini instead. I stock up on canned organic tomatoes (when they're not in season) and sauce from Costco at the start of each month. The great thing about this meal is that I actually made it last Thursday to feed my family (including my parents). We had enough to feed our family (of 3 minus the baby) tonight when we rolled in from L.A. and even more for at least one lunch leftover. I love making meals that I can freeze or refrigerate extra portions for another meal. I try to make at least one of these kinds of meals a week so I can save time on another busy night.
A note from our Nutrition Guy (aka my hubby, Ericlee):
Tonight's pasta was whole wheat "rotini" (curly-Qs) from Trader Joe's. We try to eat whole wheat pastas in place of the typical enriched pastas. Since Bible times wheat has played an important role in our diets. Today, we seldom think about where pastas and bread come from or what is used to make it. The life of a wheat kernel begins once it is broken open through a process called milling. Essential nutrients immediately begin to oxidize when the kernel is milled. Within 72 hours of milling, 90% of more than 30 nutrients have oxidized or disappear.
Looking back in history, the 1920s brought new technology which allowed enterprising millers to separate wheat components. They removed the germ, germ oil, and bran, and the remaining white flour could be stored forever. Now white flour was accessible to the common person and not just to royalty and the wealthy. White flour also became a status symbol; the whiter the flour, the richer the household. But while some people were feeling rich, they were eating white breads and pastas with very few nutrients and thus were getting sick. In the 1940s, the U.S. government made it mandatory that some nutrients be returned to flour so the large mill companies “enriched” the flour by replacing 3 vitamins and 1 mineral.
For more details about grains and personal grain mills, read Grains of Truth by Donna Spann or check out her web site.
Ingredients:
3 lbs. cut –up chicken pieces
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cage-free eggs, well beaten
1/4 cup raw milk
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
Sauce:
1 29 oz. can organic diced tomatoes
1 15 oz. can organic tomato sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon garlic powder or 2 cloves, crushed
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil
1 green pepper cut up in 1 in.x 2 in. slices
3 ounces mushrooms, sliced
1. Wash chicken and pat dry.
2. Heat oil to medium heat in large skillet.
3. Mix flour with salt, pepper, parmesan cheese and garlic in a plastic bag and shake together.
4. Combine eggs, milk, and parsley in a shallow dish. Shake chicken 2 pieces at a time, coating all sides. Roll in egg mixture and place skin side down in skillet. Brown all sides, turning pieces as necessary with tongs (about 20 minutes).
5. Sauce: While chicken is browning, sauté onions in a Dutch oven a few minutes, then add peppers and garlic.
6. Add all other ingredients of sauce and cook on low until chicken is browned. Carefully add pieces of chicken to sauce.
7. Cover tightly and cook on low for 30 to 45 minutes or until thickest part of meat is fork tender. Add a small amount of water if sauce becomes too thick. Chicken Cacciatore may be served plain or over cooked pasta of your choice.
Baby greens salad with Fuyu persimmons, Feta Cheese & Almonds (Our garden & Farmer's market)
with Champagne Pear salad dressing (Trader Joe's)
Mama Maria's Chicken Cacciatore (recipe below)
Rotini Whole Wheat Pasta (Trader Joe's)
Today is the official launch of our Great Pantry Challenge. We skipped our grocery shopping for this week in an effort to save money, live out of our pantry and contemplate the abundance we are blessed with in the United States. If you're just tuning in, find out more details here.
We just returned from a weekend hanging out with my brother and his family in Los Angeles. Since most of our weekend meals were provided by them, we'll say that tonight's dinner is our starting point for reflection. Our meal began with a Baby Greens Salad. The greens are the first we have ever harvested from our own garden. No, we didn't plan for them to be ready today. We have been aspiring to garden for years but never really got around to it. A friend helped us build planter boxes from Sunset magazine in June. Then we had to wait until we returned from a month-long trip to Haiti before we could plant.
Our 3-year-old picked out seeds at the local garden store for bok choy (her fave), a variety of greens (for salads) and a mix of sunflowers. We also plan to do carrots. We finally planted the seeds about six weeks ago and then waited. We've been watering (when we remember) and checking on the plants every few days. Finally on Friday we were able to harvest our first two bunches of bok choy and then today a handful of greens was ready. This was a perfect quantity for a salad. We sliced up a fuyu persimmon and sprinkled feta cheese on top. The "fuyu" persimmon is like an orange, squatty tomato and firm when ripe. These are great in place of apples or pears in your fave dishes. We have a few fuyus left from our last farmer's market trip (October 17). We pretty much always have feta cheese or goat cheese in our fridge so we added that with a handful of whole almonds we had from a local farm.
Our main entree was Chicken Cacciatore, an Italian dish I learned to make from my mom. This comfort food dish melds together the flavors of onions, green peppers, tomatoes and black olives with tender chicken. We only had frozen chicken thighs so I substituted them for the usual chicken breasts. I also had to ditch the mushrooms since we didn't have any and I threw in some fresh zucchini instead. I stock up on canned organic tomatoes (when they're not in season) and sauce from Costco at the start of each month. The great thing about this meal is that I actually made it last Thursday to feed my family (including my parents). We had enough to feed our family (of 3 minus the baby) tonight when we rolled in from L.A. and even more for at least one lunch leftover. I love making meals that I can freeze or refrigerate extra portions for another meal. I try to make at least one of these kinds of meals a week so I can save time on another busy night.
A note from our Nutrition Guy (aka my hubby, Ericlee):
Tonight's pasta was whole wheat "rotini" (curly-Qs) from Trader Joe's. We try to eat whole wheat pastas in place of the typical enriched pastas. Since Bible times wheat has played an important role in our diets. Today, we seldom think about where pastas and bread come from or what is used to make it. The life of a wheat kernel begins once it is broken open through a process called milling. Essential nutrients immediately begin to oxidize when the kernel is milled. Within 72 hours of milling, 90% of more than 30 nutrients have oxidized or disappear.
Looking back in history, the 1920s brought new technology which allowed enterprising millers to separate wheat components. They removed the germ, germ oil, and bran, and the remaining white flour could be stored forever. Now white flour was accessible to the common person and not just to royalty and the wealthy. White flour also became a status symbol; the whiter the flour, the richer the household. But while some people were feeling rich, they were eating white breads and pastas with very few nutrients and thus were getting sick. In the 1940s, the U.S. government made it mandatory that some nutrients be returned to flour so the large mill companies “enriched” the flour by replacing 3 vitamins and 1 mineral.
For more details about grains and personal grain mills, read Grains of Truth by Donna Spann or check out her web site.
Chicken Cacciatore
Ingredients:
3 lbs. cut –up chicken pieces
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cage-free eggs, well beaten
1/4 cup raw milk
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
Sauce:
1 29 oz. can organic diced tomatoes
1 15 oz. can organic tomato sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon garlic powder or 2 cloves, crushed
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil
1 green pepper cut up in 1 in.x 2 in. slices
3 ounces mushrooms, sliced
1. Wash chicken and pat dry.
2. Heat oil to medium heat in large skillet.
3. Mix flour with salt, pepper, parmesan cheese and garlic in a plastic bag and shake together.
4. Combine eggs, milk, and parsley in a shallow dish. Shake chicken 2 pieces at a time, coating all sides. Roll in egg mixture and place skin side down in skillet. Brown all sides, turning pieces as necessary with tongs (about 20 minutes).
5. Sauce: While chicken is browning, sauté onions in a Dutch oven a few minutes, then add peppers and garlic.
6. Add all other ingredients of sauce and cook on low until chicken is browned. Carefully add pieces of chicken to sauce.
7. Cover tightly and cook on low for 30 to 45 minutes or until thickest part of meat is fork tender. Add a small amount of water if sauce becomes too thick. Chicken Cacciatore may be served plain or over cooked pasta of your choice.
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