Mastering My 5 Meals

I made 19 new recipes in the month of September!! A record for sure! This is my first fall out of college that I'm not coaching swimming and it's so nice to come home and actually have some time to cook. It is still a lot of work (and a TON of clean up), but it's been fun. I've learned a lot! Grant and I finished the Clean Gut cleanse earlier in the month. I posted a recipe from the Clean website when we were doing the cleanse. It was a fantastic experience and not too painful. :) Grant has been feeling great and I had more energy than usual, so that was encouraging and motivating to continue eating the same way. In short the cleanse eliminates the most common "toxic triggers" >>gluten, dairy, sugar, & caffeine  while adding a lot of supplements + probiotics to give your gut a rest and to power up and help restore balance to your intestinal flora (not to get all scientific on you)! :) We're not 100% all the time, clean/crazy, but most of the time we try to eat this way.

One of the main reasons for my September cooking craze was to continue to familiarize myself with different foods and to get more comfortable in the kitchen, so cooking wasn't stressful. This section from Clean Gut offers such good advice:

"Instead of getting wrapped up in complex recipes or the fear of eating clean for the rest of your life, focus on mastering 5 healthy meals. These five meals will be the base of your diet, the food you'll eat most of the time, but once you do, you'll be able to use them as inspiration to create a lifetime of delicious and healthy meals." Clean Gut pg.130

This week as September comes to an end and we welcome October I wanted to do a little >>Fall Celebration Week<< and highlight some of the recipes I've made AND share some fall inspiration. This is not a "food blog" in the sense of me creating my own recipes. I just like to explore new foods and recipes, try them out, and collect the good ones here on YOURS EVER. I only post the ones that I plan on making again.There were definitely a few that will not be added to our rotation. Haha. I was so happy to hear that my friend Calla, from Breakfast for 2, tried out my Cauliflower Pizza Crust! Woo hoo! :) It's been a great month. Thanks for following along. If I could, I'd invite you over for a homemade "pumpkin spice latte"! I've been making them with almond milk--yum. Maybe I'll post that recipe this week! :)

Daniel 2:21 (NIV) ²¹ He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.

Pizza Night is BACK! Crispy Cauliflower Pizza Crust

I've tried making gluten free/grain free pizza in a variety of ways using: almond flour, gluten free pizza crust mixes, combining almond flour & coconut flour etc...but this recipe takes the cake! It's now our favorite. I used another cauliflower pizza crust recipe from Pinterest, but it was not as good (the crust was a bit soggy). This recipe is THE BEST. Tried and true. It's from one of my favorite blogs, The Detoxinista. I added a few of my favorite spices to the recipe I made below and put my pictures into a grid so I can go back and reference it. I also made my own tomato sauce. I'll post that recipe later in the week. Yummmm. Next time I'm getting some good ham + pineapple + onions and making Hawaiian Pizza! Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS 4 cups of cauliflower "rice" (2 medium heads) 1 Tb. oregano 1 tsp. fennel seeds 1 tsp. garlic powder 1 egg, beaten 1/3 c soft mozzarella goat cheese (I'm sure regular mozzarella would work!)

STEPS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. ________ Total Prep Time: 25minutes Total Cook Time: crust 30minutes, pizza 10 minutes

1. Cut up your cauliflower into florets and pulse in a food processor until it has the shape of  rice. I did mine in 3 batches so I didn't overfill my food processor.

>>Next, you'll need to fill a pot with 1-2in water and bring it to a boil. Add your cauliflower rice and cook it for 3-5minutes.

2. Strain the cauliflower rice and rinse it with cold water. Then dump it into a dish cloth or cheese cloth if you have it (that's what I used) and SQUEEEEEEEZE, SQUEEZE, SQUEEZE!! As you can tell those are man hands in that picture. Grant squeezed out the water multiple times. This is a crucial step to ensure your crust is not soggy.

3. In a bowl mix together your spices, egg and grated mozzarella goat cheese. Add your dried cauliflower rice to the bowl and mix well. I used my hands!

4. Roll your crust into a ball and then flatten out on parchment paper. I would strongly recommend using parchment paper. Grant went out and bought it while I was preparing the recipe because we were out. I used aluminum foil last time I made it, I even sprayed it, but it did not work--the bottom of the crust stuck! Bake your crust for at least 30 minutes. You want it to be CRISPY and BROWN on the edges.

5. When crust is golden brown and crispy remove from oven, add your sauce and all your toppings then put it back in the oven for 10-12 minutes until cheese is bubbly.

6. Let your pizza cool a bit then slice, serve & EAT IT UP! yummm.

^^^ I tripled the recipe and made 4 individual sized pizza crusts to eat later. I froze them on parchment paper so they're ready to pop in the oven. ^^^

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UPDATE : I unfroze 2 of the individual pizza crusts (from above picture) for a quick Saturday Pizza night and baked them at 400 degrees for about 30minutes. Delicious! They were perfectly crispy. Picture below:

Enjoy!!

Almond Crusted Chicken Nuggets

The weekends are for new recipes. School is now underway and during the week it's too stressful for me to try out new things. Occasionally I'll feel adventurous mid-week, but I usually just stick to the basics we like. These almond crusted chicken strips are easy to make and they don't take too long. We ate them with this GF Thai Peanut Sauce. I'll be eating them in my salad this week (if Grant doesn't finish most of them off tonight)! I think they'll be added to our stash of regular meals. A couple weeks ago I read Clean Gut by Alejandro Junger. It is an excellent book! Though I don't agree with his spiritual beliefs, his research about how the body processes food and how we can keep our gut/intestinal flora flourishing is really interesting (to me at least)! :) He breaks our whole digestive system down so it is easy to understand and he discusses how our bodies respond to different types of foods. This recipe is from  Clean Gut, but you can also find it here on the Clean blog. I've also made these Clean brownies.

They are really good but they pack a calorie punch (from the nut buttter). The base of these clean brownies is made up of almond butter & raw cocoa (flour & sugar free). I cut them up small and they last longer and help with portion control. Delicious if you want a clean treat full of protein & healthy fats! They are actually better the day after you make them. I found that ours were more crumbly just out of the oven and after a few days they set and held together more. Yumm. I'd recommend both the book and the blog.

Ps. You should make the chicken nuggets. They're really good :)