Stir It Up! » Blog

Wow, spring time is busy! After having some sort of sports activity every afternoon for my kids (I swear we were a 1-2 sport family) and getting home late every night this week only to rush a quick dinner, bath, homework and bed, I realized that cooking dinner at night this spring is going to be close impossible. There just won’t be enough time, so I will have to figure out a system. Fortunately, Scott and I cooked enough food last Sunday to eat leftovers a good bit for this first crazy week.

But then by Thursday night, I needed a fresh meal so I made this Mustard Lime Chicken and it was really awesome! I’ve figure out that if I can cut and prep our meat and/or veggies earlier in the day, then it makes cooking later in the evening seem less daunting. Before carpool, I pre-cut this chicken, mixed the ingredients in the bag (which took all of 10 minutes) and let it marinate in the fridge. When we got home at 6:00, all I had to do was pop this in the oven for 30 minutes and that was it! Nice, easy, and REALLY good!

This is what you need for this Mustard Lime Chicken:

 Ingredients:

• 2 pound skinless boneless chicken breast, cut into cubes
• 2 limes, juiced
• 1/3 cup dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp celtic sea salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• 1 tsp honey (optional)
• 1/4 cup almond meal (Trader Joe’s)

Directions:

Cut chicken into bite sized pieces and put in large freezer bag. Add all ingredients except for the almond meal and zip bag up. Be sure to knead the bag with your hands so the ingredients can cover the chicken evenly. Then put the bag in the fridge and let it marinate for at least 15 minutes or until you’re ready to cook it. When you are ready, preheat oven to 350, put chicken in a glass dish, sprinkle almond meal on top and cook for approximately 30 minutes and enjoy!

There was a nice sauce that ended up in this dish so next time I think I’ll make cauliflower rice to go with it.  With my leftovers I actually dipped my roasted broccoli in the sauce. Mmm it was good!

Even Alice who “thinks” she really dislikes mustard ate every bite of her chicken.  Chances are good I will be making this at least once a week or every other week for awhile. It was so easy, so good, and it made even better leftovers! I get so excited when I get a new recipe I love.  Can you tell??

By the way, a friend introduced me to this amazing balsamic vinegar…

I had no idea balsamic vinegar could taste sooo good! Since she introduced me to it, I’ve had a salad almost every day for two weeks now! I know, I am on a bit of a salad kick lately, but you have to try this stuff! It’s actually sweet…a vinegar that is sweet! I’m hooked. I got mine at Whole Foods and at a $11 per bottle it’s a little pricey, but with the amount greens I’m eating lately, it’s worth every penny!  Thanks Jody for the introduction!

Any one else have a great product or find that they just love and want to share?? Would love to hear about it!

I know a lot of people love lentils but honestly, even if they were Paleo, I’m not sure I would eat them. They just don’t have as much flavor as some meat or veggies but that’s my just my opinion. Sorry, I’m not doing a good job of selling this meal, am I?  

But my family does like them once in awhile so I thought I would try to make some. My friend (thanks Jennifer B!) sent me this recipe and the flavors sounded like it was right up my family’s alley. And you know what? I tried it and liked it, and more importantly, my family really enjoyed it!  

Anyway, here is what you need for some Spicy Brown Lentils:

• 1 tbsp of Kerrygold butter or ghee
• 1 medium size onion finely chopped (I used TJ’s precut onion, shallot and garlic pack)
• 1 medium size tomato, chopped
• 2 cups of lentils soaked at least for 4 hours or overnight
• 3 cups of water
• 1 tbsp and 1 tsp chili powder
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp of turmeric
• 1 tbsp and 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tbsp and 1 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp of Garam Marsala (if you have it)
• 2 tsp celtic salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper (although kids thought it was a little spicy so may leave this out next time)
• 3 tbsp Greek 2% yogurt (we like Fage)
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• avocado, lime (juiced), cilantro or tomatoes for garnishing
• sausage or chicken (optional)

Start by soaking your lentils. All you need to do is pour the lentils in a bowl, fill the bowl with warm water until it reaches the top of the lentils and allow them to soak for at least 6 hours. I soaked ours overnight.

If you want to know why we soak them, read this for a detail explanation.  Oh and  by the way, be sure to use a bigger bowl than you think you need. After soaking ours, they started spilling over the top of the bowl, as you can see.

Now chop your tomato and onion and sauteed them with your butter. Next, add lentils, water and bring to a boil. Then add all of your spices, lower heat to low medium and allow to cook for 25 minutes until lentils are soft. Lastly, add your yogurt, tomato paste and then garnish with avocado, tomatoes, cilantro, and/or lime juice and enjoy!

My family ended up garnishing it with lots of avocado and it really enhanced the flavor. What’s not good with some extra avocado?!  And, being the meat eaters that we are, I think next time I’ll add some sausage or chicken to the recipe. But it was good alone too, for what it’s worth!

And my favorite part of the dinner…this amazing salad and the dressing. My good bud Daphne had us over for dinner and she made this salad and I absolutely feel in love with it. I actually wouldn’t leave the area where the salad bowl was (as we stood around and chatted) because I kept picking. It was so yummy! And even tonight Tate said “mmmm, mom, great salad”. The salad itself was very simple with just tomatoes and avocado, but the dressing included the following:

• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar (Braggs from Whole Foods or Publix)
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1/2 tsp maple syrup
• 1/4 cup EVOO
• 2 tsp dijon mustard
• dash salt

This is a new staple for us!

By the way, if you make it down to 30A for Spring Break…

be sure to head over to the Saturday Seaside Farmer’s Market and check out Marla’s new organic, gluten free (some dairy free), pre-made frozen meals called Hale & Hearty! YAY, now you don’t have to cook or go out to eat and deal with the crowds (or the junk food!). Click here to check out their mouth watering menu.

Seriously, how cute are these guys? How can you not want to go visit them??

Happy almost Spring…well here in Atlanta, at least!

Greetings from the gulf coast! This week is spring break so we’ve hit the beach early. While we’ve been fortunate to have nice blue skies, it has been a bit on the cool side. So for dinner last night, we wanted a warm, feel-good dinner combined with some yummy beach seafood so we made a Cilantro Coconut Shrimp Soup.

But, before I get to the recipe, I have a couple of things I wanted to mention. First, after almost 6 months, I finally updated the recipe section of this blog. I’m sorry it took so long. I’m not sure why it did, but it’s done now. Phew! Also, I am working on getting the recipes in a printer friendly version for you all. I think I have found a solution (see below), but I like to insert pictures in between the instructions ((see the last buffalo chicken nugget recipe post example) and apparently I won’t be able to if I make the recipe printable in this format.  Personally, when I get recipes from other sites, I will typically take a picture with my iPhone (from my iPhone or computer) or I’ll cut and paste it into an email to myself or I’ll just bookmark it on my phone so I’ll have it when shopping/cooking. I am wondering, would any of these options work for y’all, or do you really want to be able to hit “print” like I’ve done below. Honestly, I don’t like how it looks as much but if y’all really want it, I’ll continue to do it as much as possible, so let me know!

Okay, back to the important stuff…the food! The kid really helped me every step of the way. I loved it!  And really from the cilantro picking, to the garlic peeling and chopping, it was their soup but we all had fun doing it together.

Cilantro makes everything good…

Alice had three helping of this soup. She said “This is REALLY fantastic mom!”. I think she loved it because she made it.