Pasta Primavera

This dish to me doesn't even really seem like a recipe because it's so incredibly easy and there isn't even really a specific "recipe" that goes with it. However, this is one of my favorite dinners for several different reasons. One reason being, I love pasta!! In fact I could eat a giant bowl of pasta pretty much everyday, but let's be honest straight pasta is not the healthiest choice out there. This gives me the ability to enjoy an entire bowl pasta without consuming all the calories a bowl of pasta would normally have and I get the added benefit of extra veggies! 

Another plus with this dinner is that it can pretty much be made in about 15 minutes! Perfect for when you are needing a last minute meal.

Now, the real reason I love this dish so much is that it gives me hope! Let me explain... My oldest daughter is very picky! Getting her try anything new, let alone like anything new can be a serious challenge. I have been making this dish for probably 3-4 years and I like it so I make it quite frequently. This first million times I made this (ok not really but it felt like it) she would complain. She hated all the veggies in it, she would pick around them and sometimes there would even be tears if I told her she needed to try each one of the veggies. But slowly, very slowly, the veggies started to be ok. She decided she only liked the yellow ones but not the red or green; next time she only liked the red ones; etc. This has literally been going on for years! But I kept making it, kept having her try it, kept exposing her to it. Now I can happily say this is one of her favorite dishes! Tonight for dinner she not only ate her entire serving veggies and all; she had seconds, and declared we should have this ever week!! So when I say this dish gives me hope I mean that I know through patience, perseverance, and exposure I can help teach my kids how wonderful and delicious real food can really be! 

So with all that being said, lets continue...

Start by chopping 1 zucchini, 1 summer squash, and 1 red bell pepper. Sometimes I will add in extra veggies like asparagus or broccoli. This can be done while the water for the pasta is coming to a boil which cuts down on the overall dinner time. 

Once the water has come to a boil add in any type of whole wheat pasta; tonight I used penne. I used an entire box of pasta and this made a ton. We had plenty for leftovers so feel free to adjust the pasta if you want to make less. 





The pasta takes about 7-9 minutes to cook. Let it cook for about 2-3 minutes and then add the veggies to the pasta. This cooks the veggies and the pasta at the same time. Another reason why I love this meal is that it is all made in the same pot which means less dishes!! 




Once the pasta is done cooking, drain the pasta and veggies. Sometimes I will also add in leftover chicken or even cut a chicken breast into strips and sauté it and then add it to the mixture after it has been drained. Then add any type of pasta sauce over it. This is good with marinara sauce, pesto, or alfredo. Tonight I used my kale pesto. 

That is it. Literally one of the easiest dinners I make and after years of hard work one of my families favorites :) 

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Broccoli cheese soup is one of my favorite comfort foods! Although, I have to admit it doesn't have a great reputation for being exactly healthy. When I decided to make this for dinner I decided to see if I could change it up a little bit to take it a little closer to the healthy side of things. One of my favorite things about Panera's Broccoli Cheese soup is that they also add carrots to it. Extra veggies definitely bump up it's healthy factor so I took it one step further and added not only carrots but kale as well! 

Most of the recipes I was looking at used crazy amounts of butter, heavy cream, and sometimes velveeta instead of real cheese. There has to be a better way... and don't worry there sure is :) 

Start by dicing about half of an onion. For those who do not enjoy onions and are worried about biting into an onion piece you can dice them up into a little bit smaller pieces but honestly I did not even notice these were in there.

Add the onions to a large pot with 2 Tablespoons of butter. Once the butter starts to melt and the onions start sautéing add in 1 Tablespoon of butter and 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour. 

Whisk this together almost constantly, the onions will sauté and the flour will turn into a nice golden brown paste. This will take about 3-4 minutes.

While continuing to whisk the onion/flour mixture pour in 2 cups of milk. I used whole milk instead of cream to help still give a nice creamy consistency; plus that's all I had. Once it is whisked together pour in 2 cups of chicken stock. If you want the soup to be vegetarian just use vegetable stock instead. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 15-20 minutes or until it has reduced and is a bit thicker. 

While the sauce is reducing you can get the veggies ready to go. I used a medium size head of broccoli which ended up being about 2 1/2 cups once I chopped up the florets. I shredded 2 medium carrots, which ended up being about 1 cup. I just grated mine on a cheese grater since I knew I was going to need that for the cheese and if there is any way I can make less dishes I tend to do that. 

I washed and chopped up about 3 leaves of kale which ended up being about 1 cup. 

 After the sauce has simmered add in all the veggies. Stir them into the sauce and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the broccoli is tender. Make sure you stir it every couple minutes. 




 Once the broccoli is tender you can either leave the soup as it is if you like bigger pieces of broccoli or you can puree it a little bit. This can either be done with an immersion blender or pouring the soup into a blender and pureeing it. I used an immersion blender and pureed it just a little bit to cream some of the broccoli but not completely. You can also season it with a little salt and pepper if you like as well. 





I used sharp cheddar cheese and shredded 1 cup. Add this into the soup and stir it in until it is melted. 

A yummy healthier version of Broccoli Cheese Soup!

So to recap the recipe:

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons Butter

1/2 an onion diced

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

2 cups whole milk

2 cups chicken stock

2 1/2 cups chopped broccoli florets

1 cup shredded carrots

1 cup diced kale

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

Briefly sauté the onion in 2 Tablespoons of butter. 

Add in 1 more Tablespoon butter and 1/4 cup of flour. Whisk together until it becomes a thick golden brown paste. 

Pour in milk and whisk together until smooth. Add in chicken stock.

Simmer for about 15-20 minutes or until reduced and thickened. 

Add in broccoli, carrots, and kale. Simmer for another 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally until broccoli is tender.

You can season it with a little salt and pepper and puree it slightly if you like.

Add in 1 cup shredded cheese and stir in until melted and serve immediately. 

Pizza Lunchables

My oldest daughter takes her lunch to school everyday. She typically very easy to send a lunch for because she's ok with eating the same kind of things everyday... peanut butter and honey sandwich, an apple, orange slices, and a cheese stick. This varies occasionally but overall this a typical lunch. 

However, every once in awhile she begs me for a lunchable. I'll admit it, I don't give my kids whatever they want to make them happy. Don't get me wrong my kids are very happy children that literally want for nothing but just because they beg for something doesn't mean I'm going to cave and get it for them - especially if that something is really unhealthy! I just looked up the pizza lunchable ingredients and there are about 50 ingredients in a cheese pizza including crazy things like diglycerides, guar gum, calcium propionate and artificial flavors What! To me those are completely unnecessary to make pizza. 

This week my daughter's on winter break so she has the whole week off of school. As a fun project during this week we decided to make our lunchables at home! 

This can easily be done on a weekend and then sent as school lunches during the week. These little mini pizzas are also a fun dinner idea to get the kids involved in the kitchen. If your kids  have a sleepover or birthday party you could have little bowls each filled with different toppings and have a pizza making party and each kid can custom make their own pizza :) 

I used my pizza dough and sauce that I have posted on my whole wheat pizza post. This post is starting with the dough after it rises. Punch the dough down and divide into 8 separate balls. You can also roll the dough into a long tube and then cut it with a knife into 8 pieces. 

Grease a cookie sheet and then doing 1 ball of dough at a time press it out into a mini pizza. Top each pizza with sauce.

This is another part that individual pizzas are nice for our family. We all like something a little different. My oldest daughter likes just cheese, my husband likes extra sauce and his toppings under the cheese, I like my toppings on top of the cheese. This was everyone gets their own pizza to make however they want. 

Bake the pizzas in a preheated oven at 500 degrees for about 10 minutes. You will know they are done when the cheese is melted and the crust is a nice golden brown. 

 I also baked a couple of the crusts with nothing on them. These only need to bake for about 5-6 minutes. If you make them this way you can send them to school with small containers of sauce, cheese, and toppings and it can be just like a real pizza lunchable they can build themselves at school! 

Free Range Chicken

One of my goals with getting my family to eat healthy real food is to do so without really changing our grocery bill. Now that I see food as an investment in our health and our children's health I'm okay with our grocery bill being slightly higher but honestly it is not feasible for us to double our food budget. 

An area that has been especially tricky for me is meat. Grass-fed beef and free-range chicken is really expensive; usually double in price if not more than what we were paying for regular meat before. This was especially true for chicken breasts. I could find chicken breast for $2-$3 a lb. and free-range chicken breast are closer to $8 a lb. That is a huge price increase for us! 

I've had to branch out and try to find other ways to make this work. I was super excited when I found whole free-range chickens for $3 a lb. I could buy a 4 lb. chicken for $12, get 2 meals out of it plus extras. 

For example, I roasted the entire chicken one night for dinner. The four of us ate a little less than half of it. I cut up the rest of it and am using it in a second meal this week. I'm making chicken noodle soup but this could really be used for any recipe that calls for shredded chicken like chicken enchiladas, chicken salad, fajitas... the list goes on. 

Now, I said we also got extras out of our whole chicken and you may be wonder, what the heck are "extras"? Well calm down I'm about to tell you :) After I roasted the chicken I used the pan drippings to make a large batch of gravy. The gravy can be frozen and used to jazz up mashed potatoes during the week, in shepherd's pie, casseroles, meatballs, etc. 

I've gotten 2 meals and gravy out of 1 bird and now I'm left with the scraps as I like to call it; the carcass, bits of meat, the skin and what not. This can be boiled in water with veggies like carrots, onions, and celery to make your own chicken stock! This can also be frozen and pulled out to make soup or literally anything that calls for broth or stock. 

I don't know if I'm going to roast a chicken and make all of this every week but I like the option to be able to buy free-range chicken for my family and get enough out of it that my overall grocery costs don't really go up. I just have to get a little creative.

Kale Pesto

This recipe takes two of my New Year's resolutions and puts them in one yummy, easy recipe! They are eat more veggies and explore the produce section of my grocery store. I've been hearing for awhile now how awesome kale is but hadn't taken the plunge in actually trying it. Doing a little research on kale I learned that it contains crazy amounts of vitamins and minerals, like Vitamin K, A, and C, and has very few calories. It can also help the body naturally detox. The more I learn about how great a certain food is for me the more willing and excited I am to find ways to fit it into my diet. 

This is why I was super excited to come across a recipe on 100 days of real food website that showed making pesto using half basil and half kale. My husband and I made it last week and had it on pasta for lunch; it was so good!! I went to make it again and decided to try using all kale and no basil and turns out it's just as good! The pine nuts, garlic, and parmesan cheese help give the kale that really great pesto flavor.

If you have a food processor this can literally be made in a matter of minutes. 

Start by washing the kale. I also cut off the stem and cut the leaves from the the thick stem that goes up into the leaf. You will need about 1 cup of kale. 



Now just toss that into a food processor with 1 clove of garlic, 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese, 3 Tablespoons pine nuts, and 1-2 Tablespoons of olive oil. I find it better to pulse the food processor to blend it all together instead of just turning it on and letting it run. It only takes about a minute to blend all of the ingredients together.



 Once it is all blended you will have a delicious pesto spread. This recipe tends to be more of a thick paste so if you are wanting to toss it will pasta I would maybe add a little more olive oil to it to help thin it out a little bit. 



Pesto is such an awesome condiment that can used in numerous ways. Simply just toss it with pasta, put it on a sandwich or wrap, use it as a pizza sauce, use it as a chicken salad dressing... the options are endless and oh so tasty :) 

Baked Boneless Chicken Wings

There is nothing that says Super Bowl quite like chicken wings, and as delicious as they are why only enjoy them with sports? I say, lets enjoy these delicious bite size pieces of yummy all the time! I do not enjoy regular chicken wings; I am boneless wings fan all the way. The best part is these are incredibly easy to make at home with whole wheat flour and baked instead of fried! I think another aspect of these wings that I love so much is that they are basically all chicken because nothing is more disappointing then taking a bite and having it be all breading. 

Another nice part of these is that the sauce is the last thing you add to them so before you add it you have homemade chicken nuggets! That's what we did for dinner since our kids don't really like wing sauce they can have chicken nuggets while my husband and I get to enjoy wings.

The best way for this to go smoothly is to have everything set up and ready to go and then "assemble" the wings. 

First start with a bowl of flour. How much flour you use will depend on how much chicken you are cooking. I cut up 3 chicken breasts and used about 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour. I like to give my breading a little flavor so I added in 1 teaspoon each of the following - salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika. Mix this all together to make the breading.

In another bowl place 2 eggs and about 1/4 cup of milk and whisk together, I just used a fork to do this. Now your breading assembly is ready to go.

Cut the chicken up into bite size pieces, about 1 inch in size. Now you are ready to make the chicken pieces! 

 Depending on how much chicken you have and how big your bowls are you may have to assemble these in shifts. Start by putting the chicken pieces into the egg mixture and coating them in it. Then transfer the chicken pieces into the flour mixture and coat them completely in it. I've read that you can place the flour in a bag, put the chicken in there and shake it (essentially like Shake N' Bake) but I think they get coated better this way but that's just me. An important trick to remember while doing this is to have a "wet" hand and a "dry" hand. So, for example, use your left hand to place the chicken into the egg mixture and coat the chicken and then still using your left hand gently set the chicken into the flour bowl then use your right hand to cover the chicken with the flour. If you use 1 hand to do both you will essentially end up with breading your own fingers and it becomes a big mess. 

Once the chicken pieces are breaded place them a baking sheet and cook at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until they are cooked. You will want to turn them over about half way through. 

Once the chicken pieces are cooked you now have homemade chicken nuggets! If you want to make boneless wings place them in a bowl and pour wing sauce over them. Start with about 1/2 cup of sauce because you can always add more if there isn't enough but you can't take it away if they become too saucy. Stir the mixture until they become coated. 

That's it! Homemade baked boneless chicken wings