Day 13: Lot's o' Planning & Prep!

OMG! What a crazy night last night! I accomplished more in the kitchen in 2 hours than I ever thought possible! So here's the deal: I've got a class for work this week from 9a-6p, Monday through Friday. That revelation means two things: (1) I need to plan my meals for the week in advance and they all need to be portable, and (2) I need to set hubs up for success to be able to feed the kids healthy foods while I'm away.

WHEW!

I had a lot of items on my agenda, including:

• make berry sauce to flavor plain yogurt for the kids
• make homemade applesauce
• make hardboiled eggs for egg salad sandwiches
• make homemade whole-wheat bread
• make breakfast casserole bites

Seriously! That was a lot of homemade goodness to accomplish all at once! But I was very pleased with what I was able to accomplish.

I started by making berry sauce. This sauce can be used to flavor plain yogurt (along with a touch of honey), to make strawberry milk (if you're into that sort of thing - we're not) or as a tasty ice cream topping. It was quick and easy to make! Just some fruit, water and a touch of maple syrup simmered for about 10-15 minutes, then tossed in the blender, then strained to remove seeds. I used strawberries and blueberries and it turned out quite lovely!

After I finished the berry sauce, I put it into the fridge to cool. Once it was cooled, I mixed some of it into plain yogurt with about a tablespoon of honey, then let LO give it a taste. She loved it! I used the yogurt to fill up this ice pop mold and popped them into the freezer for a cool and tasty (and healthy!) treat. This is a big improvement from even the Simply Go-Gurt "healthy" yogurt option I had previously purchased for the kids. Here's the ingredient list (whoa!):

Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Low Fat Milk, Sugar, Modified Corn Starch (for Thickening), Contains Less than 2% of: Kosher Gelatin (for Thickening), Tricalcium Phosphate, Vegetable and Fruit Juice (for Color), Potassium Sorbate (Added to Maintain Freshness), Natural Flavor, Carrageenan (for Thickening), Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D3.

I also threw some eggs into a pot to boil so I would have some hardboiled eggs for a quick breakfast and also to make egg salad. Yum!

Next up was homemade applesauce. I was happy to have some help with the apple peeling...

Then I tossed the peeled, diced apples into a saucepan with about 2 tablespoons of water and a teaspoon of cinnamon. That was it!

This is a major improvement from your typical store-bought applesauce. Check it! These are the ingredients in Mott's cinnamon applesauce:

INGREDIENTS: APPLES, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, WATER, CINNAMON, ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C), NATURAL FLAVOR

Seriously? My applesauce didn't need any HFCS and boy was it super tasty! I put the applesauce in these super-cute silicone ice pop makers for the kids. I can't wait to hear what they think about 'em!

The next thing on the list was Lisa's breakfast casserole bites. I made these several months ago and recall them fondly. They were quite tasty! I was sure these would be a hit with the family.

LO helped me by cutting up 3 slices of bread, which go in the bottom of the foil-lined muffin tins. Then  I whisked together 8 eggs with 1/4 cup of milk and poured the mixture into each muffin tin, and topped each with bacon and shredded cheese (LO took care of shredding the cheese while I cooked the bacon). These baked up yummy and smell delicious! And no surprise, they tasted awesome as well!

Mmmmmm! Bacon.

I continued my prep work by washing some fruit, including both red and green grapes that I removed from the stems and put into ziploc bags. I took the pound of walnuts I purchased and put them into individual snack bags as well.

Whew! It was a lot of work last night, but it was so worth it! The only thing I wasn't able to knock out was the homemade whole-wheat bread. I didn't have a great recipe to try and I knew I didn't have enough time to get it done, so I decided to knock that out one day this week (hopefully).

All the prep work was a huge success! I took 2 eggs and made a little egg salad this morning, and also took 2 bananas, an apple, as well as some grapes, some walnuts, and some amazing Kashi Cinnamon Harvest cereal (each in individual snack-sized ziploc bags) along with a large bottle of water to my first day of training. I came home with food leftover!

For dinner tonight, I made a little personal pizza using a whole-wheat tortilla, some crushed tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and some pepperoni (before I realized pepperoni is slightly processed). ;) It was super delish and very filling!

The kids had a great day and managed to keep our real food game plan for lunch and dinner with daddy! Yay!!

Here's hoping we have another 4 days of success all around!

Days 11-12: Whew!

Whew! What a weekend! It's been crazy but I've really enjoyed our family time together. I didn't take pics of every meal over the weekend, but let's just say we did a great job of sticking to our new plan!

I do want to share Saturday's lunch for the kids. I made a PB&J rollup (using a whole-wheat tortilla) and a bunch of fruits and veggies to make silly faces! The kids really enjoyed the faces and ate up their lunch in no time. Of course they both asked for more (since you can see I didn't use that much food for the faces), so they both had some additional fruits, veggies and applesauce (one of the last store-bought applesauce cups! Woot!).

I wasn't pleased at ALL with the dinner I made Saturday night. I pan-seared some ribeye steaks I purchased from a local vendor at the farmer's market last Saturday, and they were meh. I tried to throw together a corn-bean-tomato salad and it was not very flavorful. I tried to bake some of my tortillas into chips but they weren't as awesome as I had hoped. And I added a broccoli-cauliflower mix on the side, but nothing was really awesome about this meal. Boo. :(

For dessert (since it was Saturday night... the only meal we follow with dessert each week!), I allowed us to splurge with S'mores. Hubs was kind enough to fire 'em up using the stove, so it was a quick, easy and fun reward for the family. 

Chase really loved his s'more (s'mores?).

As did LO (pardon the crazy-wild hair!).

We did very well on Sunday, too. I had my beloved Kashi Cinnamon Harvest cereal for breakfast, then the family dined out for lunch. I had a baked potato with chili, cheese and diced tomatoes, hubs had a club sandwich on a whole-wheat tortilla, LO had a PB&J with applesauce and milk, and Chase had macaroni & cheese with applesauce and milk. It was nice to have a break from preparing a meal for the family!

Tonight was a crazy-busy night of food prep... more on that later!

Day 10: Muffins & Dining Out

Breakfast

Today we tried a new recipe for whole-wheat muffins and my sweet little darling LO was the perfect little helper! When I've made Lisa's whole-wheat recipes in the past (you know, like last week), I would do a half whole-what flour and half white flour mix to help "ease" the kids into eating whole-wheat baked goods. But this morning I decided after a whopping 9 days, the kids were ready. So I made them with 100% white whole-wheat flour and we added a variety of fruit: bananas, strawberries and blueberries. I also doubled the recipe (to make 24) so I could freeze the leftovers for quick and easy breakfasts later.

I was really hopeful that since LO helped make the muffins that she'd really enjoy them. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. She basically picked the strawberries out and left the muffin behind. And of course asked for a different breakfast. :( FAIL. I'm thinking I'll try them on her again in the next day or two and let her put some strawberry jelly on hers to see if that helps.

I definitely tasted the difference with them being made from only whole-wheat flour and they weren't nearly as sweet as I was hoping they'd be. But the fruit helped balance them out a bit with the added sweetness, in my opinion.

Lunch

Lunch was a tried-and-true favorite: quesadillas! Since we had our homemade whole-wheat tortillas stored nicely in the freezer, it was just a matter of LO grating some cheese for the kids' quesadilla, and mommy cutting up a few veggies and some leftover cooked chicken breast and sautéing them quickly for mine. LO got some grapes out and I cut up a fresh tomato for her and I (Chase is like his daddy... I can't get him to eat tomatoes!) as well as some cheese cut into sticks and a yogurt tube (finally the LAST of our processed 'go-gurt' tubes -- more on this later!).

Here's LO's lunch... she had already gobbled up her cheese before I could grab my iPhone! And yes, it was after 12PM noon and the kids were still in their pajamas.

Chase obviously went to town on the grapes first...

And mommy's lunch! I shared half of one of these quesadillas with a good friend of mine and she LOVED it! Seriously, these are SO incredibly tasty, so quick and easy to prepare, and so good for you, too! A win-win-win!!! :) And I was very pleased that I was only able to eat half of this quesadilla before feeling almost full, another Michael Pollan rule.

Dinner

Dinner was our first experiment with dining out since we started our whole food journey. We chose a local restaurant featuring Contemporary American Italian Cuisine, and I went into it knowing we were about to break some rules. The kids menu was typical, although missing the typical "chicken nuggets & fries" and "hamburger" it did include macaroni & cheese and spaghetti with a meatball. I opted to let the kids split the spaghetti meal. I inquired if they offered a whole wheat pasta option and was told no.  :( I brought grapes, cheese and applesauce to supplement the kids' dinner, which they ate in record time.

I selected the traditional house salad with diced tomatoes, rosemary croutons (which I omitted) and any signature dressing, of which I chose a three-herb vinaigrette. It was an amazing little salad, comprised mostly of various greens.

Hubs chose the homestyle cannelloni: pasta stuffed with sliced grilled chicken, mozzarella, ricotta cheese and garlic topped with tomato cream sauce, and I opted for the chicken piccata (Francese Style): tender chicken medallions thinly pounded and sautéed in lemon butter, white wine, capers and garlic over capellini. Hubs' dinner was definitely a delicious cheese-fest, while mine was rather light but disappointing. When it arrived, I was surprised to see that the chicken had been breaded/"fried" considering the description didn't mention anything other than the chicken being pounded thin and sautéed in lemon butter. :( Oh, well. It was still pretty delicious and yes, I pretty much cleared the plate.

The only real positive note (from a real food perspective) was that I told the waiter not to bring any bread to our table (they serve each table a fresh loaf of some sort of white bread). So SCORE, right? Hmph. I'm kind of disappointed with myself because I was hoping to be able to stick to our plan a bit better than we did. But at the same time, I have to stop and remind myself that this sort of meal was more of a norm for us in the past, rather than the exception it was tonight. I feel pretty proud about that.

I will add that after dinner, we ran a few quick errands, including a stop at Target (which I LOVE by the way now that we have a GROCERY section! Woot!). I was able to pick up more bananas, apples and strawberries, as well as TWO boxes of my beloved Kashi Cinnamon Harvest cereal. This was a major score because literally less than 2 hours after we ate our rule-breaking dinner, all four of us hit the box of cereal on the way home and downed over half!

Crazy, right? Durn processed white pasta... ;)

Day 9: First Holiday Meal Success!

So yesterday was Day 8 of our real food journey, and it was also the 4th of July. It was our first holiday eating only real food and I just wasn't sure what we were gonna do. What about the burgers and hot dogs (with buns)? The chips? The sugary desserts? Would we make it through on real food?

The answer is a resounding YES!!! I was very pleased with my family as we did a great job maintaining our real food plan. Dinner was awesome: grilled chicken (brined for about 8 hours in water with honey, a tablespoon of salt, some Mrs. Dash and some sliced lemons -- it was AWESOME.), roasted squash & zucchini, corn on the cob and fresh strawberries/grapes. After dinner we splurged on a mid-week dessert of real homemade strawberry ice cream, which was, of course, delicious.

After dark, we went into our backyard and were able to see all of the fireworks for a 30-mile radius and it was amazing! The kids loved it and enjoyed playing with sparklers, too. I was overcome by the "holiday-ness" of it all and decided to splurge on an extra-special treat for the family: S'MORES. We each made one and the kids gobbled them up in mere seconds! It was so much fun and was a very special memory for us (me).

Today we got back on track and stuck with our whole foods focus. And I have to tell you that I've been introduced to a beautiful, amazing breakfast treat:

Oh.Em.Gee!!! This cereal is flippin' EPIC! And check out the list of ingredients:

• Organic Whole Wheat
• Organic Evaporated Cane Juice
• Organic Cinnamon
• Natural Cinnamon Flavor

Less than 5 ingredients? That means it doesn't break Michael Pollan's food rules! I'm not sure how I feel about "organic evaporated cane juice" but all of the other ingredients are fine by me! And you guys... this cereal is to die for. Like, as in "I-just-signed-up-for-Amazon's-Subscribe-and-Save-program-to-receive-4-boxes-of-this-cereal-every-2-months" to die for. SO glad to have another breakfast idea in my arsenal. And I'm happy to tell you the kids truly loved this cereal, too. It makes a great snack food (in lieu of goldfish or Cheerios, for example) and is just as amazing in a bowl with some milk! YUM!

I'm afraid dinner tonight wasn't a huge score. I was at work (in a super awesome store... in a mall), so my dining choices were quite limited. I made the best decision I could given the options (trust me, there were no good choices... only the "least worst") and ended up with this:

A grilled chicken wrap from Chick-Fil-A. I didn't really think about it until just now, but I guess I could've taken the chicken and veggies out of the wrap and eat them (not the wrap) to lower the amount of processed food I ate. I'm not a fan of chicken from Chick-Fil-A after reading this, but again, it was the lesser of all the other evils.

I've had a busy few days but tomorrow and Saturday are WIDE OPEN so I'm looking forward to trying out some new healthy recipes and stocking the freezer for next week.

I just have to say: this transition to real food has not been nearly as scary or impossible as I thought it'd be. And I just don't miss the old processed junk as much as I thought I would. Don't get me wrong, now, we are NOT eating 100% real food 100% of the time, but we HAVE increased the QUANTITY of real food we're eating (and enjoying!) more than ever before, and are definitely trying to make better choices with every meal/snack. I can't believe we've gone well over a week without a chip, a cookie or sugary cereal. This is unheard of in my home!

Yay for steps in the right direction!!!

Day 7: A Full Week!

I am so proud of myself and my family for completing the first full week in our journey to eliminate processed foods! My kids have surprised me many times over the past 7 days with what they'll actually eat and it just goes to show you kids will eat what you put in front of them! They haven't even been asking for chips, cookies, fruit snacks, or any of the variety of processed foods I used to provide to them daily. I'm SO impressed!

I wasn't able to try any new recipes today, which is both good and bad. It's bad because I love cooking and trying new recipes and watching in amazement as the transformation away from processed foods takes place in my home. But it's good because I didn't spend the entire day in the kitchen! :)

For breakfast we had leftover whole-wheat banana/blueberry with pure maple syrup. I tried the pure maple syrup on the kids about 6 months or so ago, and they weren't having it. But the kind I picked up from Whole Foods is "thick & rich" so it looked more like the old stuff they were used to. They didn't complain a bit! They also had strawberries and turkey bacon.

Lunch was another vegetable quesadilla for me (I can't get enough of those things!) with some grapes, and the kids had PB&Js (sensing a lunchtime pattern here, are you?) with fruit, cheese and yogurt.

I wasn't able to make anything for dinner tonight since I had to work, but I did take leftovers with me (spaghetti with meatballs), as well as applesauce and a banana.

Tomorrow I'm planning to whip up some homemade strawberry ice cream since it's a holiday and I'm gonna break my "weekend only dessert" rule for the kids. I can't wait to try it! We plan to spend the holiday at the pool for a bit and, like most of America, have a cookout for dinner before going to see fireworks. This year will be quite different than last year, though. We're planning honey brined grilled chicken, corn on the cob and tons of fruits & veggies. :)

Day 6!

This morning we started the day with some amazing whole-wheat banana pancakes from 100 Days of Real Food. LO wanted waffles and Chase wanted pancakes, so I opted for the pancakes because the clean up is so much easier. ;)

I've made this recipe before (about a year ago) using only white whole-wheat flour and honestly it wasn't sweet enough and was such a different flavor than my family was used to that the kids wouldn't even eat them. So this time, I did a 50-50 mix of white whole-wheat flour and white flour, so technically they weren't 100% whole food, but I'm okay with that as my family and I ease into the task of eliminating processed foods. I used two rather large bananas (LO helped my mushing them up for me) and added an extra teaspoon of honey. Other than that, I made them per the original recipe and they were amazing!!! I added fresh blueberries to some of them and they were crazy awesome! The recipe made about 2 dozen pancakes so I had plenty of leftovers to freeze for quick and easy future breakfasts.

For lunch I made a vegetable quesadilla using my homemade whole-wheat tortillas and it was just as delish as the one I made on Saturday! The kids ate PB&Js using the fresh jarred strawberry jelly we picked up from the farmer's market on Saturday. I wasn't super happy with it because I asked how the lady made it and she told me sugar and pectin, yet I bought it anyway. Grrrrr! It was crazy super sweet, so I can only imagine how much sugar is in that little jar. :( The kids also had a variety of fruits and veggies, raisins, cheese and yogurt.

For dinner, I made spaghetti and meatballs from 100 Days of Real Food. I'm keeping it real here, so I'll tell ya I was super bummed that I didn't have any whole-wheat spaghetti and had to use the bad boxed stuff. Not that it's horrible or anything, but I'm just trying to do the best I can, which means trying to eliminate that sort of stuff. I did make the meatballs according to Lisa's recipe and they were very tasty! I was surprised to see that Chase ate ALL of his spaghetti and diced meatball pieces, which is a new accomplishment for him! LO was not on board with the meatballs, but tried them anyway and said she didn't like them. :( I also served tomato slices and corn, both from my local farmer's market.

I've started thinking about food for the 4th on Wednesday and haven't been able to figure anything out just yet. I don't want to spend the entire day in the kitchen, so I'm trying to find a way to keep it low-key but also real (food). We might grill the steaks I picked up from the farmer's market and serve it with salad and some fresh fruit. I'm pretty sure I'll make some kind of dessert as well, but I know that'll be a big challenge to make it with only whole food. Any suggestions? ;)

Day 5 and Counting...

Hope you all enjoyed your Saturday! I had a whole entire day with NO AGENDA. It was perfect! I'm really enjoying this week off from work... maybe a little too much! Hmmm...

The kids were up nice and early this morning, so I got 'em dressed and we headed out to our local farmer's market. It was my first time there and I was mildly disappointed because there were only about 5 or 6 vendors. I wasn't able to find the few items on my short list (raw honey, pure maple syrup and pure organic vanilla with no added sugar), but I did score some fresh corn and tomatoes as well as some ground beef, sirloins and chorizo from a local meat vendor. Can't wait to give them a try!

Breakfast

After the farmer's market we headed home so I could get started on breakfast. I was SUPER excited about the recipe I was going to try out this morning: a whole-wheat oven pancake from 100 Days of Real Food. I'll admit I was nervous about using only the white whole-wheat flour, so I started us out easy by doing half white whole-wheat and half white flour. It's sweetened with honey and cinnamon, but I added half of mashed banana to be sure it would be sweet enough for the kids (and me!). I diced the apples (instead of cutting them into slices) to make them easier for the kids to eat, then sautéed them in butter with a sprinkle of cinnamon and about a teaspoon of honey. The batter mixture was mixed in a blender then poured over top of the sautéed apples. It cooked for a few minutes over medium heat before transferring to the oven to finish baking/browning the top.

It. Was. Amazing. As in, heavenly.

Healthy, delicious, sweet. Perfect!

Chase ate his up in no time! He was a huge fan, as were mommy and daddy! LO wasn't too sure about it at first but eventually finished most of it. She didn't eat all of her fruit, which I thought was odd. Fast-forward about and hour after breakfast and I found two empty packages of fruit snacks (the sugary, processed ones) under a pillow on the couch ((no wonder we've been having an ant problem isolated to the couch!)). I confronted her about it and she told me she's "always hungry when I get up in the morning before you and daddy wake up to make me breakfast." This tells me she's probably done this before. Hence the durn ant problem.

Ugh.

This explains why she didn't eat much breakfast. I had let the kids share a banana on the way to the farmer's market, so between the banana and two packages of fruit snacks, no wonder she wasn't hungry!

Lunch

Whoa. I was super giddy about preparing lunch today, too! What's gotten into me? Anywho, I was really excited to make Vegetable Quesadillas on Whole-Wheat Tortillas, both recipes courtesy of 100 Days of Real Food. And I enlisted some adorable help as seen below.

They were supposed to be rolling the tortilla dough into balls. LO was a huge help, but I just gave Chase a tiny little bit of dough to play with, and it kept sticking to his hands. ;)

The dough needs to rest for 15 minutes to an hour before rolling out the tortillas, so while I waited, I prepared the delicious veggies for our quesadillas.

What you saw there was 1/2 a zucchini, 1/2 a squash, about 1/4 of both red and green peppers, a handful of mushrooms and a bit of diced onion. I am very proud of myself here because I've NEVER purchased, cooked, nor eaten bell peppers ever before in my entire life! I tried a tiny sliver of a sautéed red pepper at dinner last Saturday before the Lady A concert, and it was mighty tasty! I figured it was time to add them to my repertoire as a home chef.

I already knew the kids wouldn't be fans of those particular veggies, so I made plans to make them a cheese quesadilla instead. I think next time I'll sneak some in anyway just to see what they do. I only assume they won't like them and it'll be a big fight, but they have surprised me before!

When it was time to roll out the dough, I called over "the help" and they got started. I needed all the help I could get because I doubled the recipe to make 24 tortillas so I could store them in the freezer to aid in quick and easy meals next week.

Helper #1:

Helper #2 (my apologies for the poor iPhone photo quality):

After the dough is rolled (I'm seriously considering this tortilla press for future tortilla making endeavors... rolling it out by hand was a seriously time-consuming effort), it was time to cook 'em up in a nonstick skillet. Pictured here is my new Cuisinart Green Gourmet 10-inch hard anodized skillet -- it has a water-based Ceramica nonstick surface that won't peel off, unlike the cheap T-Fal I keep throwing away. They do cook rather quickly (about a minute per), but when you double the batch I'd highly recommend grabbing a stool because it feels like it takes FOR-EVAH!

I cooked up enough tortillas to make lunch, then finished 'em up after we all ate. The kids had their cheese quesadillas (or "pizza" as we called it for Chase) with some apple slices and milk.

Hubs and I enjoyed our amazingly delicious vegetable quesadillas with some apple slices as well.

I highly recommend these recipes, both the whole-wheat tortillas and the yummy vegetable quesadillas! I made a whole one (approximately 8 inches) each for hubs and I, and while he was able to finish all of his, I was already full after half! I ate a bit more and ended up with 1/4 of my quesadilla left over, which has already been designated for lunch tomorrow! :)

Dinner

It probably won't shock you at this point, but dinner was mighty fantastic, too! I found a recipe for pork chops with bourbon-peach sauce, which I made with fresh peaches (and no bourbon), served along with diced roasted potatoes and a fresh salad!

Check it:

Yum, huh?

I realized that I've been cooking most of our fresh veggies for the past several days, so I decided to serve a raw salad with dinner tonight. You can see from my plating that I gave top billing to the salad, even though the pork and potatoes were nicely seasoned and super tasty. ;)

I was VERY impressed that BOTH kids ate this up quicker than I've ever seen -- with little to no complaining! LO even asked for seconds, which is completely and totally unheard of. I couldn't believe it when I saw Chase eating pork chops and roasted potatoes!!!

It's not surprising, but the kids quickly recalled our discussion from earlier in the week when I told them we wouldn't be eating dessert daily, but would save special treats for the weekends from now on. Lo and behold, they reminded me of the ice cream I promised them. I had whipped up a dark chocolate sorbet last night as our special treat, refrigerated the mixture overnight and popped it into our ice cream maker this morning after breakfast. It had been sitting in the freezer all day, awaiting its appointed time following dinner.

I will say that I was NOT pleased with this recipe. It called for a T.O.N. of brown sugar (1 1/2 cups!!), but honestly I didn't have the ingredients on hand to make anything else. I really wanted to try frozen yogurt, but I had no idea you have to put plain yogurt in a cheesecloth in the refrigerator and let it sit overnight, plus I didn't have any cheesecloth. This sorbet was so overly sweet and so overly chocolatey (who knew such a thing existed?) and just not great, and certainly not healthy. The only good thing about this sorbet is that hubs and I agree there's no way he can eat an excessive amount of it in a single sitting (SCORE!). ;)

Anywho, we all enjoyed a bit of dark chocolate sorbet for dessert after dinner tonight. The picture below is from one of mine and hubs' portions. The kids had an even smaller scoop (this stuff was RICH!).

Chase was a big fan of the sorbet. He ate it up in no time and asked for more!