Sausage Breakfast Casserole

During the cold winter months I often crave comfort foods.  At home growing up this was always some sort of casserole dish.  Always high calorie and full of gluten and wheat products.  As I eat cleaner and find myself avoiding those foods as much as I can without insulting relatives ("What do you mean you don't want my brownies that I worked on all day to make?").  I still crave the comfort foods.  This version of breakfast casserole is tasty and relatively low calorie and higher in nutrients compared to a potato based one.  Added bonus...5 ingredients! 

Ingredients:

Approximately 4 servings
1 pound ground breakfast sausage or other ground meat
3 turnips, peeled and grated (a food processor works well for this)
1/2 onion diced
4 eggs
3 scallions, chopped

Instructions:
Sauté sausage and onions, breaking it the sausage into small pieces with a spoon or spatula, until almost cooked through.  Mix the sausage and onions with the rest of the ingredients.
Spoon into a 8×8 baking pan.  When ready to cook, heat oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 45 minutes then cover the pan and bake for 25 minutes more. Let cool 15-20 minutes so the casserole sets before cutting into it.  (my wife prefers this with a little shredded cheese on top...that ups the calories though)

Qwik Cookin'

One of the things that I get asked the most when presenting healthy, inexpensive, easy to cook meals is 'How do I do it?'. It seems that there is a whole generation of people that don't cook. Every meal is take-out, eating out, microwave or delivery. I don't blame anybody for this and I used to be the same way in college and right out of college. I had an advantage that I had worked in restaurants since the age of 16 so I always knew my way around the kitchen, but most people my age (34) seem to have skipped that day in Home-Ec (my wife hates to cook so this post will hit very close to home).

The meals I create at home and for menu plans try to encompass a few virtues.

1. Quick - I hate, hate, hate coming home from a long day at work and then spending an hour to cook a meal. BOO! On the weekend maybe.

2. Easy - By this I mean few ingredients. I always try for 5 or less, optimal is 3; this makes it hard to screw up as well.

3. Healthy - Fresh ingredients with low levels of processed carbs, gluten, dairy or beans.

We don't have a microwave so all meals are cooked over a gas range, on the grill, in the toaster oven or the real oven. Here a few tools that help to speed up the cookin'

TOOLS

Mandolin - quickly slice up your veggies but watch your fingers! Great for squash and zucchini. Added a picture b/c lots of people don't know what it looks like!


Go to the gear page to see the stuff I use in my kitchen!





Hand Chopper - Makes quick work of veggies that need to be chopped or minced. Keep it washed and clean. I love this picture; I don't have a slap chop though.











Pressure Cooker - Cook your food faster! I hate waiting an hour for delicious acorn or spaghetti squash.

Toaster Oven - We currently cook for two so we rarely have a need for heating up the oven (takes too long!) Works great for corn tortillas.

Crock Pot - The ultimate in lazy cooking! Throw in meat, veggies, water, spice. Set it on low and go to work. 6-8 hours later - eat.

There are a ton of neat kitchen products out there but I rarely need more than these to cook any meal besides a good set of pans, knives and cutting board.

More recipies coming!

Chipotle Avocado Chicken Unwhich

Been slackin' on the blog posts....I've been busy and it has been a nice lesson on why I started this blog to begin with. Making food and lifestyle choices easy and quick. I have a bunch of recipes for the next month and wanted to get this one up before it gets too cold. I love eating sandwiches this way and it allows my wife and I to eat burgers and chicken all the time w/o the bun.

Chipotle Avocado Chicken Unwich

2 chicken breasts
1 avocado
2 slices of provolone (if you like)
1 head of lettuce
1 roma tomato (sliced)
1/4 white onion sliced
1 tsp of chipotle mustard

Marinate the chicken breasts in the mustard for at least 10 minutes (30 is better) and grill em. Remove the outside layers of the lettuce and keep the pieces big...layer them 3 deep. Put your chicken breast in the middle of the lettuce (add cheese now if that is your thing). Top with onion and tomato and a squirt of the mustard. wrap the chicken up so you can hold it (you may want to let it cool for a minute).

It takes practice to eat and fold the unwhich so have patience and bring napkins if you are not into shirt-plates. These are really good and this one is not as messy as a burger unwhich. We sided this one with steamed green beans.

Making Healthy Food Easily, Cheaply and Quickly

I have been busy posting recipe after recipe without putting any implementation steps in how to do it quickly or effectively. I like easy and fast! Get a mandolin first off it will save you a ton of time, just watch the fingers! Secondly, cook and shop in bulk. This saves money and more importantly time.

We like to buy all of the chicken for the week and all of the vegetables for lunches at once. Grill all of the chicken at once and portion it out in lunch containers for the week on Sunday or Monday. We often eat leftovers from the previous dinner for lunch so just filling in the gaps during the week with 2 more chicken breasts usually works. We grill ours with a little salt, pepper and EVOO. Sometimes I throw on some italian seasoning.

We love zucchini and squash and it is real easy to slice it up on the mandolin with half an onion in a little EVOO and saute it. I just throw it on top of the chicken in the lunch containers and I'm all set for the week.

Add a small baggy of pistachios or almonds for a snack and lunch is done for the week. Easy, fast, delicious and super healthy!

Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs

Can't tell the difference from regular spaghetti!

• Prep Time: 10 min
• Cook Time: 60 min
• Servings: 4

• Ingredients:
• 1 can of organic garden tomato sauce (Hy-Vee Brand)
• 1 carrot
• 1 large spaghetti squash
• 1 lb of grass fed lean ground beef
• 1/4 white onion
• 1 tbsp spicy pizza seasoning
• 1 stalk of celery
• 3 cloves of garlic
• slice black olives

Directions:
Sometimes you just want spaghetti...so have this!

preheat oven to 400 degrees. fill a shallow baking pan 1 inch full of water, cut squash in half length wise and scoop out the seeds (keep 'em if you like and roast 'em with salt and pepper). Put the squash face down in the water and bake for 45 minutes.

While cooking (I wait until about 20 minutes left), brown ground beef in little meat balls over med-high in a 12 inch pan, add chopped onions, minced garlic, chopped carrots, chopped celery and pizza seasoning. Reduce heat, add tomato sauce and simmer.

When the timer goes off remove squash and scoop out inside (it will be hot so you can wait a minute or two). Pay attention and scoop with the grain which is NOT length wise to get spaghetti like consistency.

Plate the squash, add the sauce and meat balls. I topped with the squash seeds (which I covered in garlic salt and pizza seasoning) instead of Parmesan cheese. Top with the olives if you like.

Real tasty, Laura ate 2 helpings and already packed a lunch for tomorrow! She said she could not tell the difference between real noodles and this (she is not Paleo and really picky)

Coco-delicious

Working out and balancing a career and kids (not yet mom) make it tough to eat right especially in a fast food dominate culture. Now the following recipe can be used for building muscle and cutting fat IF you don't over do it. IF you are trying to bulk and just build mass with no real regard for % body fat use this in ADDITION to your regular meals. IF you are trying to lean out then use it as a meal replacement if you can't get a solid meal in that is very low carb and high protein. So here it goes.

Coconut Cafe Protein Shake
16 oz of water (grass fed milk if trying to bulk)
2 scoops of Whey Protein (Chocolate if trying to bulk)
1 shot of espresso (in a pinch use a tsp of instant coffee)
1tsp to 1tbsp of coconut milk

I have used this as a meal replacement when needed (only when I get hungry around lunch and know that there is no way to get my protein in for the day).

It is very good at killing any hunger for a long time due to the protein and fat content. The fat from the coconut is very healing to the gut walls and will help you absorb nutrients better.