Sunday Food Prep: Blueberry, Lemon and Mint Tea

This week is going to be delicious!

This morning, while my brunch (parsnips, sweet potatoes and carrots roasted with bacon and topped with a fried egg and some avocado and hot sauce #sogood) roasted away in the oven, I tackled all of my weekly food prep. Today’s prep included hard-boiling eggs, chopping veggies for roasting (carrots, sweet-potatoes and butternut squash), cutting up an entire watermelon, making a big salad with lots of bell peppers, and making a pitcher of blueberry, lemon and mint tea (recipe below!)… For whatever reason, all of these tasks feel easy on Sunday mornings and so so daunting when I get home late from work on Tuesday nights. Anyone else know this struggle??

Food prep also involved organizing the fridge to make sure that healthy foods are in sight and easily accessible. Here is the end result:

Strategic Fridge Moves: When I open the fridge, I want to be visually triggered to eat healthy things, and there should be lots of healthy options that are easy to grab, so I put the food I need to eat in the most visible and accessible locations.

This week, I decided to make a batch of Blueberry, Lemon and Mint tea that will be great for taking on the road in the morning. This recipe takes 10 minutes or less to come together and will make your mornings 25% more joyful!

Blueberry, Lemon and Mint Tea

Ingredients:

• 8 cups of hot water (straight from the tap is fine) plus 1/2 a cup for the blueberry mixture
• 3 large cold brew iced tea bags (you can swap out hot brew bags, but just follow the directions on the package)
• 1 quart of blueberries
• 1/3 cup of lemon juice
• 6-8 large mint leaves, roughly chopped
• Ice
• Optional garnish: lemon wedges or more mint sprigs
• Optional sweetener: honey (personally, I find the berries sweet enough, but taste it and adjust to your preferences!)

Directions:

Follow directions to steep tea as usual (for me, this meant steeping three large tea bags in 8 cups of hot water for about 5 minutes, but may be different depending on your tea brand). While tea steeps, heat blueberries, lemon juice, mint leaves and 1/2 a cup of water over high heat in a medium sauce pan. Allow the mixture to simmer for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and either:

• Blend the mixture in a blender until very smooth, and then pour the whole thing straight into your tea. This option gives you the benefit of all the nutrients in the berries, but will make your tea a bit thicker.
• Use a mesh sieve to strain the juice from mixture (use a spoon to get as much juice as possible out), then pour the juice into your tea and discard the solids.

Stir your tea, taste it and add honey or another sweetener if desired. Serve over ice and garnish with sprigs of mint or a lemon wedge.

Breakfast of (Whole Food) Champions!

MC and I got together yesterday to make an awesome grain-free brunch, where MC made this life altering breakfast pizza and I made the Carrot Muffins from Practical Paleo. All that brunching got me thinking about the quick and delicious (and hearty and protein-packed!) breakfasts that I’ve been eating lately. In the Whole 30 world, one of the common pieces of advice that is given is to stop thinking of breakfast as breakfast, and dinner as dinner, or, in other words, you can eat chicken and leftover soup for breakfast and it is fine as long as your body is getting the nutrients it needs. That being said, I still really love breakfast foods (and bacon. Lord, do I love bacon.), so I thought I’d do a quick round up of breakfast hacks that save my day on the regular.

Roasted Veggies + Avocado + Egg + Hot Sauce = Oh. Em. Gee.

1. Roasted Veggies and Breakfast Sausage: This has been my go-to breakfast this week because it is so easy – a one-pan dish that basically cooks itself. I prep it first thing when I wake up, before I do any other parts of my morning ablutions (10 points to Gryffindor for word choice??), and then it does its magic while I’m in the shower.

• The Recipe: There isn’t really a fancy recipe here. Basically, I just roast sausage links and veggies drizzled in olive oil, garlic salt and cracked black pepper at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until those particular veggies are tender with crispy, caramelized edges. The magic of this recipe comes in its speed and versatility and how DELISH it always is when you are done.
• Notes On Veggies: I usually use frozen veggies (frozen broccoli, butternut squash, beets and brussels sprouts are all favorites), I also usually use part of a sweet potato, so I like to chop sweet potatoes in batches and keep them in a bag in the fridge or freezer to avoid sweet-potato-chopping-fatigue which is a real thing in my life. I also use baby carrots (usually sliced in half, to cut down on the cooking time, since carrots tend to take much longer than many veggies to get tender). On that note, the one thing that you have to be careful about is balancing the cooking times of different vegetables. You can do this by thinly slicing denser veggies like beets and carrots to about a 1/4 to an 1/8th of an inch thickness (a mandolin can help with this!). Sweet potatoes can be bigger – closer to 1/2 inch rounds. Broccoli, brussels sprouts and butternut squash should all be in as large pieces as possible so that they take a bit longer to cook. If you buy them pre-chopped and are worried that they are too small and are going to burn, you can substitute the sausage for bacon and lay the bacon over the more tender veggies to roast. The bacon will crisp up and will protect the veggies from burning as they cook.
• Notes on Sausage: I use Applegate frozen sausage links – they aren’t Whole 30 compliant because they have a little added sugar, but I love the flavor and I haven’t found an alternative in my area grocery stores. Read your labels!
• Add Ons: Top this with some Louisiana Hot Sauce, half an avocado and/or a fried egg if you are feeling fancy! Trust me, you’ll love your life if you do because the egg yolk and hot sauce will run all over everything to make a great sauce, but a bowl of veggies and sausage will be very delicious as is, too!
• Variations I’ve Made Recently:
  • Sausage, Sweet Potatoes, Baby Carrots and Broccoli with hot sauce (pretty standard for me)
  • Baby Carrots and Bacon with hot sauce (this is great for when you are running low on time or groceries because you can just dump some carrots on a pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, layer on some bacon and leave it, and I almost always have bacon and carrots in my fridge, even when I’m out of most other things.)
  • Butternut Squash, Cauliflower and Sausage (this one didn’t take long to cook at all because it had no dense veggies)
  • Broccoli, Sweet Potatoes and Bacon (#nom)
  • Beets, Sweet Potatoes and Sausage with hot sauce and an egg and avocado (Had a few extra minutes this day. So much deliciousness.)

2. Homemade Coconut Lattes: For me, one of the hardest things about doing the Whole 30 was giving up my daily McDonald’s McCafe vanilla latte (as I’ve said before, I know, I’m fancy.). Eventually, I acclimated to drinking black coffee (especially on the go, since there are no coffee shops in the Delta that sell coconut milk, and I’ve heard that Starbucks’ coconut milk isn’t Whole 30 compliant so that is out on the off chance I travel to a city with Starbucks), but for my morning coffee, I splurged and bought a very basic milk frother so that I could make my own coconut lattes at home – it takes 90 seconds and feels so luxurious compared to drinking my coffee straight.

• A note on what coconut milk to use: You’ll get different amounts of foam depending on what kind of milk you use. I use coconut milk from the can – usually Kroger brand full-fat coconut milk. I shake it before I open the can, use a little for my coffee, and keep the rest in a mason jar in my fridge for the rest of the week. I always have several cans of coconut milk in my cupboard, usually a couple of different brands because they all have different fat contents and therefore I use them for different things. For your latte, you want coconut milk that has actual cream in it – the stuff out of the carton usually won’t foam very much – but you don’t want a brand that has so much cream that it is completely solid (save those brands for making coconut whipped cream or frosting!).

3. Egg Cups: Growing up, my mom always made egg cups for special occasions. Her recipe uses bread, so it isn’t really an option on the Whole 30, but I’ve found many variations that are great. These make awesome breakfasts because they are so good right out of the oven, and they also keep well for the week.

• Recipe: Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a muffin tin with olive oil or coconut oil. Line each muffin cup with ham slices, bacon, or prosciutto. Layer in veggies of your choosing: I like bell peppers and onions or asparagus and green onion. Crack a whole egg into each muffin cup and sprinkle each one with sea salt and black pepper. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the egg has set. Eat one as soon as you can get it into your mouth without burning yourself. Save some for the week to eat with fruit for breakfast, or as an afternoon snack.
• Variations: There are so many possible variations, depending on what vegetables you want to put in there. You can also skip the bacon all-together and try Avocado Eggs (shout out to my roommie for the suggestion!).

Go forth and breakfast well, my friends!

-MM

Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Recently, I came upon a recipe over at The Kitchn for a very delicious looking Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread. This recipe looked amazing. I lusted after it. I drooled over it. I considered trading my firstborn child to the gods of processed sugars so that I could have just one bite.

Somehow, I resisted the siren song of that recipe and didn’t dive face first into all that sugar, but day after day, the thought of that recipe has haunted me. It calls to me. I dream about it. I want it. GIVE IT TO ME NOW.

I’m a firm believer that when cravings are that strong, you should give in to them… Preferably with a few swaps to make the choice a little bit healthier. In this spirit, I’ve been attempting to paleo-ify this recipe for the past two weeks. I’ve tried several different variations and had more kitchen mishaps than I’d like to admit (my sweet roommate has been so nice about trying each of these breads and telling me they weren’t awful, when, in fact, they really were the worst.) After much experimentation, though, I have a delicious and really not awful recipe to share with you! It is rich and chocolatey and moist (gross word, tasty results!) and full of sneaky vegetables. You can get away with eating a slice of this stuff for breakfast or with your afternoon coffee or for dessert. Even better news: this recipe comes together in 5 minutes in the blender. #winning

Give in to your cravings, friends, you won’t regret it!

What? I’m eating my veggies!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 c Almond Flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 3 Eggs
• 3 tbsp honey
• 1 Ripe Banana, mashed
• 1 c (1 small to medium) Zucchini (scrape out the seeds)
• 1/4 c Coconut Oil melted
• 1/3 c Cocoa Powder
• 2 tbsp Almond Butter
• 1/2 c Chopped Pecans or Walnuts (optional)
• 1/2 dark chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli 60% cocoa, because that was the option available at my Kroger. If you can get a higher cocoa percentage or fewer additives, that would be better. Ideally, you just want cocoa powder, cocoa butter and a natural sweetener).

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and use parchment paper to line bread pan (or else grease the pan well with coconut oil).
2. Use a blender to grate the zucchini and banana.
3. Add in other wet ingredients and blend until well combined.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together dry ingredients (except chocolate chups and nuts). Mix in wet ingredients until well combined. Alternatively, you could jus add the dry ingredients straight to the blender. You have to watch for clumping (no one wants a clump of baking powder in their food), but I’ve done this and the bread was still delish.
5. Mix in chocolate chunks and nuts (if using).
6. Pour batter in greased pan and bake for 1 hour, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
7. Serve with a drizzle of honey, coconut whipped cream, raspberries and/or a dusting of cocoa powder, cinnamon and red pepper (sounds weird, tastes good), or just eat it plain!

An Ode to Chia Pudding

MM here! As I was preparing meals for the week, I was really missing my old breakfast standby of overnight oats, so I decided to make some chia pudding for breakfast tomorrow.

What are chia seeds?

Chia seeds are tiny edible seeds that come from a plant in the mint family that is traditionally grown in Mexico. Chia seeds have gained a lot of popularity in recent years because they are so full of Omega-3 fatty acids, protein, fiber and anti-oxidants (you can read more about chia seeds from the experts over at WebMD). Chia seeds are not something I eat everyday, but I definitely enjoy a great chia pudding with breakfast now and again!

In the Mississippi Delta (and other such places), where do you get chia seeds?

When I first started buying chia seeds, I really had to hunt to find them and when I did find them somewhere, I would stock up. I had the best luck in the exotic foods aisle of TJ Maxx, and barring that I would buy from Amazon or sneak off to Whole Foods when my work trips would bring me to a big city. In the past six months, though, our local Kroger has beefed up their natural foods aisle and has started carrying chia seeds, which is wonderful (though sometimes I still buy my chia seeds at the TJ Maxx just out of loyalty).

Why would I want to eat this?

If you are new to chia seed pudding, don’t freak out and stay with me! Chia pudding has a texture sort of like tapioca and takes on the flavor of whatever you put in it. I usually make mine with vanilla extract, coconut milk and mango, which is pretty magical. Eating chia pudding is a fairly similar experience to eating one of those vanilla pudding cups that used to come in your school lunches in elementary school, but with zero chemicals and all the healthy sources of energy.

So, how do you make this magical pudding?

There are lots of recipes out there for chia pudding and if you are like me, you might feel a little bit overwhelmed as you try to sift through them all to find one that will be simple, Whole 30 compliant and still delicious. After some reading and some experimenting, I have learned that all chia puddings follow the same basic formula:

2 cups of liquid + 1/4 cup of chia seeds + flavor + time = magic

You can double that recipe, or halve it, but you have to keep the 4 parts liquid to 1 parts chia seed ratio right or you end up with not magic. VERY not magic.

A note on time: All of these recipes require at least an hour in the fridge for the magic to happen. I like to make mine on Sunday evenings and then it is ready to rumble the next morning when I have a case of the Mondays and am in need of a pick me up.

My favorite combinations:

I pretty much always make the same base:

2 c. coconut milk + 1/4 c chia seeds + 1 tsp vanilla extract

And then I mix in whatever sounds most appealing the next day: frozen mango; banana; sliced apples and cinnamon; pecans; shredded coconut; almond butter; coconut manna. THERE ARE SO MANY CHOICES. You really can’t go wrong, as long as you get that ratio right!

Doesn’t that look delish??