Italian Sausage and Cannellini Bean Stew

I love one pot meals. They make my life so much easier. Since I work until 7pm I like meals I can make relatively quickly and that are going to have as few dishes as possible. Its a wonderful thing when I can get out of the kitchen with one pan, a cutting board and a knife as my only prep dishes. This is a super easy and tasty meal, it is also pretty healthy all things considered.

You can substitute different sausage if you like, but I would recommend something with a little kick and a lot of flavor like Spicy Italian or Chorizo otherwise I think this dish could come off a little bland.

Sorry no pictures of this one! I was in a time crunch.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 lb fresh Spicy Italian Sausage/Chorizo
1 larg eonion
4 garlic cloves minced
1 sprig thyme
2 15 oz Cannellini beans (white kidney beans), rinsed
2 cups low sodium chicken broth
Kosher salt, freshly ground peper
5-6oz baby spinach
Paprika (smoked is preferable)

Directions:
Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a large skillet ove rmedium heat. Add sausage and cook, till sausage is mostly cooked through and casing is browned (15-20 minutes). Transfer to plate.
In same pan, add onion, garlic, and thyme sprig. Cook until onion is softened (5-8 minutes).**
Add beans and broth, cook and crush a few beans with spoon to thicken sauce (8-10 minutes).
Season with salt and pepper
Add spinach by handfuls and cook till wilted
Add sausage
Sprinkle with additional  olive oi and sprinkle with paprika if desired

Calories 570, Fat 33g, Fiber 11g, (I recalculated with Sparkrecipes and it said 466 calories, it just depends on the sausage I think...)

This recipe was originally featured in February 2013's Bon Appetit

**If you feel comfortable multitasking you can start the onions etc. sauteing as the sausages finish, this will cut down on your cooking time.

Day 3: Squashy Goodness

Today I am definitely feeling better. Not great, but better. Yesterday was lousy. I drank some Acai berry tea from a sampler pack. Either I was having some other issue at the same time or that tea made me feel like I had a headache and was going to vomit at the same time. Gross.

I have found the secret to making protein shake tasty, Peanut butter. I don't think it's in line with the whole juice fast thing, but I could use the extra proteins and fatty acids. That being said I think I'm going to go to Whole Foods or some place where they have those own choose yo' nuts and make some buttah! things. I wish they were marketed that way. Anyway I'm thinking at least that way I'll know it's fresh and there won't be any additional ingredients.

Juice of the Day!

Squashy Goodness
2 summer squash
1 zucchini
2 apples
1 pear
3 cups of spinach
1 cucumber
ginger

Super yummy. I think a little mint would have made it, unfortunately I don't have any right now.

Chris and I got up really early this morning and walked around the lake. It felt kind of taxing, and I just didn't feel like I had much energy, which doesn't really bode well for hiking next weekend. Oh well. Chris and I are planning on eating while hiking. Nut butters, avocado, whole fruits and Veggies. Maybe even some soup (just some veggie puree stuff). That way we'll actually have some fuel for our bodies. There will definitely be an update after that.

Revival!

Chris and I have decided to start a 30 day Juice fast. Since I've finally settled into my new job's schedule, and work from home now which definitely makes blogging easier, it seemed like a good time to revive my food blog. My makeup blog will follow shortly.

So! Today is day one, and I'm feeling pretty alright. Although I did an hour of kickboxing this morning and I think that's going to have to stop for a while. I'm feeling a little light headed and a little headache-y which I'm hoping will go away when I have a protein shake (water, whey protein, strawberries and banana) on my lunch break. I'm also cold. Which is not surprising considering it's chilly and my metabolism is probably freaking out a little.

Juice today was the original Mean Green Juice
6 Kale Leaves

1 handful of spinach (added not from original recipe)
1 Cucumber
4 Celery Stalks
2 Green Apples
1/2 Lemon
1 piece of ginger

It definitely tastes leafy, but good, I'm going to increase the ginger next time since we used a piece about as big as my thumb for a doubled version of this recipe. I think doubling that amount of ginger would be perfect. Chris and I decided that we wanted some plant matter in rather than just juice. So we actually blended the spinach and the leaves from the kale (we juiced the stalks). 

Muffin Tin Omelet/Fritata

I think most people who work and need to commute in the morning hate having to cook breakfast, and hate skipping it even more. It's so early and all you want to do is spend that extra 10-15 minutes in bed rather than get up to cook. Who needs to eat anyway? Then it's two hours later and you're looking longingly at a Starbucks for the first time in your life and thinking "They have breakfast in there...sort of!"

Normally I would make breakfast burritos in a large batch, but since Chris is limiting his carbs we needed something that got the job done, was high in protein and didn't require me waking up to cook in the morning. These are the solution! Chris and I made them last night, and I ate mine this morning for breakfast. It was pretty delicious, despite having canned spinach (which is disgusting). 

These are awesome because they're already broken up for individuals, and if you have to make them for a bunch of people you can customize them based on what people do/don't like. And they are super versatile!

We did sort of Mediterranean type thing: Spinach, cherry tomatoes, artichoke hearts, garlic, bacon and I topped mine with a little feta crumbled up. But it would be easy to do something more Spanish (topped with salsa and avocado) or something really traditional.

Bottom Line: 4.5 Stars

Fried Eggs and Mustard Creamed Spinach on a Bagel

At work we're hosting summer workshops for upcoming High School Seniors who are applying to College this fall. We provide snacks and last week we had bagels, but we over bought so we had a TON left over so I took some home. Including some specialty ones: Spinach and Provolone and  Sundried Tomato and Red Pepper with Mozarella. I got home that night and was really not excited about cooking. Chris said he wanted eggs and I thought about this recipe which I had seen in an older issue of Bon Appetit. Chris was a little apprehensive about the combination of spinach, egg and mustard, but this recipe seriously won him over. I think he said "Baby, this is really good." about 6 times in the 15 minutes it took to eat. I agree. The acidity of the mustard with the fattiness of the egg yolk was awesome. It was almost like a mock hollandaise.

Obviously I substituted the bagels for the bread crumbs. I think either would be delicious, it's just a matter of whether you want a heavier meal or a lighter one. I think in the future I would serve this with English Muffins rather than bagels if I was to use something other than the crumbs. I also didn't have half and half on hand so I did 2.5 tablespoons of milk and 1 tablespoon of butter, which I thought was fine, but stick to the recipe if you can. Don't skip the fresh thyme! It's really important.

Bottom Line: 4.7 Stars

Chicken Provencal w/ Sauteed Spinach

This is pretty yummy and quite easy. 

I doubled the garlic (I'm a garlic fiend in case you hadn't noticed!). I added 1 tbs of tomato paste, since the tomatoes I had were a little unripe still. Make sure you salt and pepper the sauce well. Other than that the one thing I would encourage is NOT skimping on the kalmata olives! Normally I feel like they can easily overpower a dish, but I think they make this one. 

I sauteed the spinach in oil with onion, garlic, salt and pepper. I then laid the chicken quarter on a bed of the spinach and spooned the sauce over the top. 

One other thing. This sauce was NOTABLY better the next day. I think letting the flavors have some time to mix was a good thing for the sauce. I don't know if I would ever make the sauce the day before or not though, just seems like a hassle.

Bottom Line 4.3 Stars

Broiled Salmon and Sauteed Squash and Spinach

So I thought that although I'm not doing anything really special with the vegetables that doesn't mean that I shouldn't include the recipes for the rest of the stuff.

This is a pretty easy, standard meal, Chris and I made it with Steelhead tail. This is how we almost always make veggies unless we are roasting them. The salmon recipe calls for "Fines Herbs" we just left this out, thinking that the dill would be sufficient. We were pretty happy with it! We didn't make any tartar sauce, but it would have been a great addition.

Bottom Line: 3.6 Stars (Solid, but not great)