Favorite Salad Bowls and Food Travel Bag

One thing that makes healthy eating more pleasurable is the way the meal is plated and served.  Although I am guilty of eating a meal in my car when I have to, I much prefer to sit down to a pretty table (a simple placemat and fresh bunch of flowers) with some care taken in how the food is presented.  My girlfriend, Karen, turned me on to the best salad bowls ever and I'm hooked on them!  They are the Blanc Porcelain Bowls from  Sur La Table and they are so perfect because they are wide (9 inches) and shallow.  You can see all the beautiful components of your dish in this bowl and have lots of room to mix things up. A pasta or noodle dish is also perfect in this bowl, but I think it's too big to use as a cereal bowl. The bowls are expensive ($9.99 each) but so worth it.  You can microwave them and even cook up to 500 degrees in the oven, and of course, they are dishwasher safe.  A set of 4 made a nice "thank you" gift for my trainer after the bikini competition too.  

The other kitchen item I can't live without now is my insulated World Market Jane Lunch Bag.  It's insulated and I use it probably once a day if I have to take a meal with me on the go to eat later.  I can actually fit quite a bit in there- a tupperware meal for me, one for my son, an icepack, and a juice box! There are pockets on the sides that I use to put plastic silverware and napkins.  The bag is $12.99.

What kitchen item can you not live without?  Please share! 

Mustard Lemon Chicken with Thyme

If you've been following along this blog for long, y'all know how much chicken we eat around here. Last week, I shared how we typically grill up a bunch of chicken and then add it to our salads throughout the week.  I'm keeping chicken on my menu, but I wanted to find more interesting ways to prepare it.  I'm sure you know how boring chicken breasts can be if they're not salted, flavored with herbs and spices, or added to a salad with dressing.  Today, I'm sharing a recipe for Mustard Lemon Chicken with Fresh Thyme as a healthy alternative to salting the heck out of your chicken.  I've partnered with Sunkist Lemons on this post and if you want more info about sodium and reduced-sodium recipes, check out their website. 

I practically cut sodium out of my diet these last few months, and truthfully, I don't miss it.  I do use salt-free seasonings, but here, a little bit of lemon goes a long way toward brightening and adding flavor to this dish.  

And something about using lemons in the summer feels so fresh.  Aren't they pretty?!

This recipe couldn't be simpler.  You just make the mustard-lemon sauce for the chicken, then bake it in the oven.  This recipe would pair well with rice or pasta and fresh veggies. 

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Place the chicken breasts onto a baking sheet. Make the sauce below and spoon it on top of the chicken.  Add some cracked pepper on top and a few sprigs of thyme, along with lemon wedges.  Bake the chicken for about 35 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 170 degrees.  Remove from the oven and let rest about 10 minutes. 

INGREDIENTS

Chicken (boneless, skinless breasts)- 6 

Lemon (2) - zest of 1 lemon and it's juice (1 more for in the baking dish and/or garnish)

Garlic - 4 cloves minced 

Dijon mustard - 2 tablespoons

Olive oil - 2 tablespoons 

Thyme - 1 tablespoon + more for garnish

Parsley - enough for garnish

Fresh cracked pepper - to taste

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Thai Steak Salad with Peanut Sauce

I'm so happy to share a recipe featuring steak!!!  And this is a really good cut of meat, specifically, beef tenderloin.  I haven't had one of those in ages and I didn't want to mess up the cooking, so my husband cooked that part of this Thai Steak Salad for me.  He got it just right too!

Because this meal is a salad, all you have to do is prepare the marinade, and then be patient while the meat marinates at least four hours, or up to overnight.  It's easy to throw the cold salad ingredients together, then I take a short-cut and top the salad with my store-bought peanut dressing!  

INGREDIENTS

(ingredient portions depend on how many people you are feeding and what you like in your salad).

Beef tenderloin or flank steak- 1 pound 

Romaine lettuce

Cabbage

Tomato

Red onion

Avocado 

Mango

Cashews (optional)

Sesame seeds (optional)

Basil and/or cilantro (optional)

*Bangkok Padang Peanut Sauce (or other peanut sauce) 

MARINADE 

Juice of 1 lime

Low sodium soy sauce- 3 tablespoons

Canola oil- 3 tablespoons

Brown sugar- 2 tablespoons

Minced garlic- 1 tablespoon

Red curry paste- 1 teaspoon

To make the marinate, combine the above ingredients into a large plastic ziploc bag. 

Pat the meat dry with paper towels and add to the bag with the marinade.  Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or overnight.  I did 4 hours and it was great. 

To cook the steak, spray a grill pan with cooking spray and heat pan to medium-high heat.  Cook for about five minutes per side until medium rare, or longer for more doneness.  Let rest until room temperature and then slice thinly. 

Assemble the salads by adding the romaine, cabbage, onion, avocado, and mango.  You can also add fresh herbs and cashes if desired.  

I love this peanut sauce, but it's a little spicy, so I pour it into a bowl and thin it with a bit of water and add lime juice to it.  It you like some kick, it's great on it's own.  

This salad is so good!  Especially when you mix everything up and all the flavors meld together.  

I'm sure this will be in our dinner rotation again in the near future! 

Healthy Meal Prep

It goes without saying that if you want to get in shape, you have to eat healthy.  But, it's hard when there's so much going on in our lives and we feel like we don't have the TIME to prepare healthy meals.  For me, I eat five meals a day about 3 hours apart.  I have gotten used to eating the same thing twice a day (usually a grilled chicken salad).  I enjoy my salad, so it's no big deal.  And thank the Lord, my husband eats the same way, so I don't have to prepare another meal for him.  But, that's the caveat with this healthy meal prep, it's the same food twice a day, and lack of variety is fatal for some people.  With our family's busy schedule and needing to have so many meals to eat each day, it's just simpler for me to eat the same thing over and over.  No thinking about it, just prep once, then grab and go.  

My meal prep is incredibly easy.  Eating this way takes way less time than preparing several different meals for lunch or dinner.  All you really need to do is buy a big package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and grill them at once on the grill.  My husband and I both eat about two chicken breasts a day, so he will cook 12-16 at a time, and I have found they are good refrigerated for four days, sometimes five.  The photo below is my meal prep that I took to my bikini competition because that's all I ate for two days but you could use these for lunch or dinner once or twice a day, along with your other meals.  

The twelve meals above were made from the few ingredients below.

HOW TO GRILL CHICKEN 

On the grill (we use a gas grill, but you can use a grill pan on the stove), turn the fire to medium to medium high heat.  For my "contest" chicken, no oil was used, just a sprinkle of Tony Chachere's Salt-Free seasoning.  Now that the contest prep is over, he puts a little olive oil on the chicken to keep it from sticking to the grill and to keep the chicken moist.

Cook the chicken for about 10-15 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of the chicken.  When it's done, remove from the heat and cover with foil.  Let it rest for at least 10-15 minutes.

Each meal gets five ounces of chicken.  I can pretty much eyeball how much 5 ounces is now, but otherwise, I have found this scale very beneficial.  I used it everyday while on bikini prep and sometimes still do. 

For the carbs, I usually eat potatoes, but you can substitute rice or quinoa.  Sweet potatoes are great too.  I was only eating 4 ounces of carbs for this prep, so I used small, red potatoes.  

COOKING POTATOES

After washing the potatoes (I used 12), I towel-dried them, poked them a couple times with a knife, then microwaved them all at once for 10 minutes, turning halfway through the cooking time.  They shrink when cooked, so they only averaged 3.5 ounces.  Now, I'd eat about 6 ounces, so two of these small guys.  What I really like to do (when I'm home) is chop them up after they are cooked and toast them up on the stove on a medium-high heat (just spray the pan with cooking spray). 

I use my Gladware that I found at the grocery store and then begin assembling. 

A big handful of romaine lettuce, a few tomatoes or a cup of frozen green beans . . . 

then the potatoes and chicken.

I eat the salad meals cold (and add dressing now), and microwave the meals with green beans for about 1 minute or so.  You have to be careful not to reheat chicken too much or it will get dried out. 

_____________

Since I'm at home most days now, I haven't been assembling my food like this lately.  After the big batch of chicken is cooked, I put it in a large Rubbermaid tupperware container and keep it in the fridge.  We just pull out it as needed.  The variety for me now is just adding more and different things to my salad, like avocado, mango, sundried tomatoes, etc.  I was only eating Romaine lettuce before, but now I find I like a combo of Romaine and arugula.  When you add 5 ounces of chicken to your salad, it's really filling too. 

As long as you have chicken already cooked in the fridge, you're good to go for quick, easy meals, especially salads.  I need to look into other recipes using chicken (adding to pastas or casseroles) next.  

I made a Thai steak salad for dinner on Sunday and it was delicious!  I'll be sharing that recipe next!