Thai Pork and Papaya

We served this over brown rice, but if you serve it over couscous, this recipe could be made within 15 minutes. Delicious!

Cooked Brown Rice

1t. olive oil
2t. Bragg's Liquid Aminos or soy sauce
1/2t. ground ginger
3 cloves garlic, minced
1lb. boneless pork chops, sliced into strips
Juice of 1 lime
1/4c. minced cilantro
1 papaya, peeled, seeded, and cut into cubes

1. Prepare the brown rice or couscous according to package and set aside.

2. In a nonstick skillet, heat the oil and add the liquid aminos (or soy sauce), ginger, and pork and cook until cooked through.
Remove skillet from heat and stir in lie juice and cilantro.

3. Place rice (or couscous) in a bowl and top with pork mixture, papaya chunks, and skillet juices.

Feta Biscuit Bites

My friend Mary always has these yummy "blue cheese biscuits" at any food event... playgroup, baby showers. I've had them a few times and they are good! and addicting! :) She recently was kind enough to share the recipe on her blog and mentioned trying it with different cheeses. So, I decided to try them with Feta cheese. So, here's my adaptation of her recipe.

Feta Biscuit Bites

1 stick of butter
1 can of "Grands" or Jumbo homestyle biscuits
1 container of feta cheese (I used the Athenos brand meditteranean herb flavor)

Preheat oven according to biscuit directions on can. Quarter each biscuit and lay out on baking sheet.

Melt the butter over low heat, adding cheese when it's halfway melted. Use a whisk and stir until it's creamy (the feta never got completely creamy and melted. Either I gave up too early, or feta just doesn't melt like blue cheese, so I left it with chunks still in it).


Use a basting brush to generously coat each biscuit. (I ended up only using about half the mixture and it seemed like each one was "generously" coated, but I could have piled it on a bit more, I still doubt I'd use it all though).


Bake according to biscuit directions. Mine took 13 minutes.


Serve warm and enjoy! Yum!

Kale Chips

A fun and healthy snack! This is a good way to get the dark greens into the kids!

Kale Chips
1 bunch of fresh kale
3 cloves of garlic chopped
1 tsp of salt
1- 1 1/2 tsp oil lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Wash & tear kale into large chip sizes.
Lay on cookie sheet & drizzle oil, sprinkle salt & garlic on kale.
Put in oven & bake until crisp.
Eat & enjoy:)

Creamy Baked Ziti

This a pretty decent pasta bake. Maddux doesn't like it, and it's not Kevin's favorite, but he'll eat it once in a while. Ava and I love it. A 9x13 pan is a lot of pasta. I think it would be pretty easy to scale down if you wanted to make a smaller batch and I plan to try that out next time as we only ate 2/3 of it in 2 dinners. I serve it with a salad and bread.

Creamy Baked Ziti

4 cups ziti pasta, uncooked
1 jar (26oz) marinara sauce
1 can (14oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
6 oz (3/4 of 8oz pkg) cream cheese, cubed
3/4 cup sour cream
1 pkg (8oz) shredded mozzerella
1/3 cup grated parmesan

Heat oven to 375F
Cook pasta in large saucepan. Remove from pan, drain. Meanwhile, add marinara sauce, tomatoes and cream cheese to same pan; cook on medium heat 5 min or until cream cheese is melted and mixture is well blended, stirring frequently. Return pasta to pan; mix well.
Layer half the pasta mixture in 13x9 in baking dish; cover with sour cream and half of mozzerella. Top with remaining pasta mixture, then remaining mozzerella and the parmesan.
Bake 20 min or until heated through.
Make Ahead: The pasta dish can be covered and refrigerated up to 8 hours before baking. Increase baking time to 30-35 minutes or until heated through.

My substitutions: I add 1/2 pound cooked ground hamburger or turkey im place of the diced tomatoes. I use more mozzerella, and don't add the parmesan.

Bean Salad

I made a big batch of this for a dinner with friends and plenty to last the rest of the week. I modified an online recipe to fit into the clean eating criteria. The original recipe calls for sugar. I simply omitted it and it is not missed at all. This version turns out more savory than sweet, and that’s OK by me and all who have tried it!

I raided the pantry and came up with a variety of beans. I also added ingredients to taste, so it probably turned out a little different from this recipe…lastly, I doubled this recipe for company and leftovers.

1 15-oz can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-oz can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-oz can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-0z can white beans, rinsed and drained
2 celery stalks, chopped fine
1/2 red onion, chopped fine
1 cup fresh, finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 Tbsp fresh finely chopped rosemary
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 In a large bowl, mix the beans, celery, onion, parsley and rosemary.

2 In a separate small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Add the dressing to the beans. Toss to coat.

3 Chill beans in the refrigerator for several hours, to allow the beans to soak up the flavor of the dressing.



The original recipe can be found at Simply Recipes

Southwest Salad Bar

This lovely ensemble fills up a shelf in the fridge! This, along with a bean salad make for a nice variety to make salads, wraps, etc. for the week.

The dark grain in the center of the photo is cooked quinoa. I have never seen quinoa this dark before and was excited to try it. It is just as yummy and makes an excellent base for grain salads.

After cooking the quinoa per direction on bag, drizzle with olive oil and lime juice.
Place in individual bowls:
*chopped cilantro
*chopped red onion
*chopped red and/or yellow pepper
* roasted corn kernels (Broil frozen corn until almost browned; watch and stir)
*canned black beans, drained and rinsed
*chopped romaine lettuce
*diced avocado (I cut what I need at the time of consumption)
Assemble the salad and use lime juice as the dressing to stay within the clean eating parameters.
This is also gluten free and you can track down some gluten free chips to add for crunch.
Other options (not necessarily “clean eating”):
For a dinner with friends, I offered the Brianna’s Chipotle Cheddar Dressing. They loved it.
You can also use this as a base for a taco salad if you want to add taco meat or chicken, and tortilla chips.
You can add queso fresco or shredded cheddar as well.

Gluten Free Cereal Treat

I made this for our small group potluck BBQ. Rice Krispy Treats sounded yummy to me, but I was surprised to learn that Rice Krispies contain gluten as a part of their manufacturing process. Since many of my friends in the small group don’t do gluten (and I am trying not to as well), I thought making a gluten free option might work. This is very sweet and a little goes a long way. We all liked them.

This recipe makes one pan. I doubled this to accomodate our group.

1/4c. butter
8c. Nature’s Path Maple Sunrise Gluten Free Cereal
1 10oz. bag marshmallows

In a large saucepan, melt butter. Add marshmallows and stir until melted. Remove from heat and add cereal. Mix until evenly coated.

Spread into a oil sprayed 13×9 pan. Cool and cut into squares.