Orange Chicken and Rice

Look at this little man. He rides his bike without training wheels. He sleeps all night in his own bed. He gets himself dressed in the morning. He is going to be starting preschool in two months and riding the school bus.

How does five years go by so fast? Its like I blinked and all the sudden he was a toddler. Then I turned around and hes now a full grown boy! Can someone please teach me how to freeze time? Please? Otherwise if I blink again my Peanut will be 5...then Walnut will be 8! Lord help me!





Orange Chicken and Rice

1 1/2 pounds chicken tenders
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 cups cooked brown rice
3 green onions, diced

Sauce:
1 cup chicken broth
1/3 cup honey
zest from 1 orange
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 tablespoon corn starch, mixed with 3 tablespoons water

Heat canola oil in a skillet over medium high. If tenders are too thick, slice in the middle lengthwise. Brown chicken in skillet until cooked through all the way and nice brown coloring on each side. Dice chicken into bite size chunks.

In a medium sauce pan, combine all the sauce ingredients and cook over medium-high heat until sauce thickens...about 10 minutes. Be sure to stir often.

To serve, spoon a large scoop of rice onto a plate and top with chicken and sauce and chopped green onions. Add sliced almonds if desired.

Enjoy!

Roasted Green Beans with Garlic

I have gone through sort of an evolution with green beans as I've grown older. When I was newly married and just starting to cook stuff that didn't come in a microwavable tray, I always made canned beans. I don't think I knew they came any other way back then...

Then I wised up a little bit and started buying frozen beans and steaming them in the microwave. Much better and much less mushy...

And just recently, I've grown up again! Fresh picked beans straight from the garden, snap off the ends and roast them in a hot oven with garlic. Wow! That's quite the transformation from the can and I never knew green beans could taste so good.

Roasted Green Beans with Garlic

12 ounces fresh green beans
2 tablespoons olive oil
kosher salt
fresh cracked pepper
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Place green beans in a single layer on a baking sheet. Drizzle olive oil over beans and toss green beans around with your hands to make sure the oil evenly coats all the beans. Season to your liking with kosher salt and pepper. Thinly slice garlic and sprinkle over top of green beans.

Bake 20-30 minutes depending on the size of your green beans...until tender and ends begin to brown.

Enjoy!

BBQ Sauce

Sometimes I might be out of BBQ sauce...but I usually have ingredients laying around to make my own. I don't normally make my own sauce because it is so cheap to just buy bbq sauce and there are quite a few out there without high fructose corn syrup, but the other day when I was planning on making bbq sandwiches, I was without a major component of the sandwich.

BBQ Sauce

1 cup ketchup
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
1 squirt liquid smoke (about 1/8 teaspoon)
2 tablespoons molasses

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and enjoy! Store leftovers in refrigerator.

Steak with Melon Relish

I've never really been sure about relishes that combine fruit and vegetables, so when this recipe hit my inbox today from Self I have to say, my interest was piqued. I happened to have a huge ripe cantaloupe on my counter I brought at Trader Joe's over the weekend. So I figured why the heck not? With this new attempt at cutting down on carbohydrates I'm feverishly trying to find new recipes.



And it wasn't too bad! I would probably pair it with chicken or pork next time I make it, though. But the balsamic vinegar went great when paired with the cantaloupe. My little peanut sure enjoyed the cantaloupe as a snack (ok, it was her dinner...and that's all she ate. But I'm okay with that.)

Steak with Melon Relish
from Self Fitness Magazine

1 large cantaloupe, peeled, seeded and diced
1 medium red onion, diced
1 cup Italian parsley, chopped
1/2 cup fresh mint, chopped
2 tablespoons white balsamic (or cider) vinegar
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 pounds of your favorite steaks
2 teaspoons sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Toss cantaloupe, onion, parsley, mint, vinegar and oil in a bowl. Set aside. Heat a grill, grill pan or large skillet over high heat. Season steaks on both sides with salt and pepper. Cook 5 to 8 minutes on each side for medium rare, 8 to 10 minutes per side for medium and 10 to 12 minutes per side for well done. Remove from heat and allow to rest on a clean cutting board for 5 to 7 minutes. Cut steak diagonally into 1/8-inch-thick slices and transfer to a platter. Spoon half the relish on top. Serve remaining relish on the side.

The Easiest Salad Dressing Ever

I'm not kidding when I say it is the easist ever...

My favorite salad at the moment is spinach with steak, red onion and tomatoes with this dressing. A little bit goes a long way here with this dressing, just to warn you. It is sweet and the vinegar cuts through to give it a nice tang to it.

Teri's Favorite Dressing

1/4 cup Canola Oil
1/4 cup White Vinegar
1/2 cup Granulated Sugar

Combine all three ingredients in a canning jar, close lid and shake for about 3 minutes until all sugar has dissolved.

Store in the refrigerator. Give it a good shake each time you use it. The oil and vinegar doesn't live a harmonious life together so they will separate in the jar as it sets.

Enjoy!!

Spaghetti Sauce

If there is one sure fire meal that I know my kids will eat no matter how stubborn they are currently being about the food they are willing (or not willing would be more appropriate) to put into their mouths, it is spaghetti. Which is absolutly fine by me because it also happens to be my favorite food too! Have you ever looked at how much salt and surprisingly...sugar is in canned spaghetti sauce? Its a lot, and somehow that sneaky high fructose corn syrup can make it in there too sometimes. I wish someone would explain to me why that keeps sneaking up into the least suspected places.

Spaghetti sauce is suprisingly easy to make and comes together in just minutes. Just a little bit of chopping and stirring and you've got one tasty, healthy, low cost meal on your hands.

Spaghetti Sauce

1 onion, finely chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 - 28 ounce can tomatoes (if you have home canned ones, use 1 quart)
1 small can tomato paste
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 tablespoon sugar
2 - 3 teaspoons salt
1 lb whole wheat pasta

Boil water in a large pot and add pasta. Cook for 7-10 minutes until al dente.

Heat olive oil in a skillet and add garlic and onion. Saute until onions are starting to turn golden brown. If you like meat in your spaghetti, add 1 pound hamburger or ground turkey now and cook until no longer pink. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, herbs, sugar and salt (start with 2 teaspoons of salt and work from there depending on your salt tolerance). Allow to simmer for about 5 minutes until sauce thickens and the tomatoes have had a chance to suck up the aroma of the herby goodness.

Strawberry Rhubarb Sauce

This recipe always reminds me of my childhood growing up in rural North Dakota. My mom and dad had a beautiful garden that fed us all summer long. My mom always had rhubarb and strawberries in the garden too. And she made this sauce all the time. We topped our ice cream with it! I like to use it in place of syrup now...and I still pour it over my ice cream...or eat it straight from the spoon!

When the rhubarb and strawberries are ripe I make up a big batch and freeze them in canning jars. They usually last about 6 months in the freezer...not that they stick around that long in my house.

Strawberry Rhubarb Sauce

6 cup Rhubarb
½ c Water

Boil until tender.

Add 2 Cups Sugar and 1 Quart sliced strawberries

Heat over medium until boils, continue to boil for 2 minutes. Poor in jars and freeze.

Foccacia Bread

Pizza crust is incredibly versatile isn't it? It can be made ahead and stored in the fridge until you're ready to use it. It can be made into bread sticks, pizza, foccacia, dessert pizza...I've even used it for money bread because I like how light and airy this recipe is.

Tomato Basil Foccacia Bread

For the pizza dough:
1 package yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp yeast if you buy the jar)
1 cup warm water (105-115 degrees)
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp olive oil
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups flour
1 tbls corn meal

For Foccacia Toppings:
1 tbls olive oil
1 1/2 tsp dried or fresh basil
1/2 tsp kosher salt
5 or 6 thin slices of tomato

Dissolve water, yeast and sugar in warmed mixing bowl (warm bowl by running hot water over bowl). Let sit for a few minutes until the yeast forms a nice froth over top of water. Using the dough hook on your mixer, add salt, olive oil, and 2 1/2 cups of flour into bowl with the yeast and mix on speed 2 for 2 minutes.

Add additional flour 1/2 cup at a time for 2 minutes until dough pulls away from side of bowl. Mix an additional 2 minutes, still at speed 2. (You will have 6 minutes total mixing time.)

Put dough in an oiled bowl, turning dough so that oiled side is up so your dough doesn't dry out and form a crust. I always place plastic wrap loose on the top of dough then cover with a towel. Let set in a warm, draft free place for about an hour until dough has doubled. (I usually turn oven on at 400 degrees for 2 minutes, then turn oven off and put in my bread. It seems to speed the process up without cooking the dough. Just don't forget to turn the oven off after 2 minutes!)


Oil a 9" round cake pan and sprinkle with corn meal. Press dough in pan to edges and press your knuckles into the dough to form divots. Brush olive oil on top of dough and add tomatoes, then sprinkle basil and salt. Cover with towel and allow to raise a bit to desired height depending on what you are doing with your loaf. For sandwiches, which I made with this particular loaf, I allowed to the dough to double.

Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes.

Check back tomorrow for my most favorite grilled foccacia sandwich! Enjoy!

Maple Baked Beans

Before I had children...I never thought about what I put into my body for food. I never turned down a chance to go out to eat. I rarely cooked something if it wasn't frozen or from a box. In fact, I think for at least the first month of marriage my husband and I ate frozen dinners. We had a very sporadic schedule and I didn't exactly know how to cook. I remember our 1 month anniversary, I made mashed potatoes and little steaks that were cheap at the store...it was 11:30 pm and he had just got off work and I had to get up at 5:00 am to get to class. But there we sat at midnight with steak and mashed potatoes...and he didn't eat any of it. The steak was "rubbery" and the potatoes were over salted.
When we decided to start trying for our first child 5 years ago, I was 220 pounds and miserable. I felt sluggish, I felt fat, I had no motivation. And I remember reading a book about conceiving and realized being obese could have an effect on my fertility as well as the baby's health. That is when things started to change. Very slowly indeed. I started working out every day and got down to 170 pounds before finally conceiving but I hadn't really adjusted my diet yet.
Then one day when I was preparing dinner, and Walnut was just starting on solid foods...I was making Stove Top Stuffing and flipped over the box to the ingredient/nutritional information. What the heck?!?! Look at all that sodium, mono-this, di-glycerite that, mono-sodium glutamate, oh and the list went on! It took me a few years to completely phase out boxed and frozen dinners, but now it is rare to find them in my house. I make my own pizzas (which taste way better anyways), beans, spaghetti sauce, stuffing, soups...this list goes on and on. I do treat my kids though to a box of Annie's organic Macaroni and Cheese, because quite frankly, I love macaroni and cheese.
Since I started running regularly and cutting out unnecessary processed foods, I can tell the difference in my body too. I've trimmed down to 145 pounds without a single day of dieting. I have plenty of energy to make it through work, running, dinner, kids, and cleaning the house in a single day. I am happier and feel better about myself then I ever have before.
Mostly, I want to do whatever I can for my children to make sure they don't grow up to be obese, or develop type II diabetes when they are still teenagers. I want them to be able to live a happy and active life, and not be held back by poor decisions I made for them when they were too young to make them for themselves. I want to be able to give my children the tools they need to live a long healthy happy lives and start good habits early such as eating their fruits and veggies and exercising and passing up on dessert every once a while. I don't want them to go through the struggles I did with my weight or be teased for being the "fat kid."
So, I do the best I can to set the best examples for them. I eat fresh fruits and veggies every meal and make sure they at least try them. I let them try to workout with me if they want to if I'm doing a video in the house. I bring them on runs with me in the stroller or on their bike so they can see mommy moving her body.

Here is a recipe for Maple Baked Beans that are awesome! They rival Bush's any day, but without the high-fructose corn syrup and mono-sodium glutamate. And beans are low in fat, and high in fiber and protein!


Maple Baked Beans


1 pound dried navy or great northern beans
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons molasses
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
2 thick strips bacon, cut in 1/4 inch pieces

In a large pan, cover the beans with water. Bring to a boil and simmer until tender, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 300°F.

In a bowl, combine everything else except the bacon. Add to the beans. Stir in the bacon. Add just enough water to the pot to cover everything. Cover the pot with aluminum foil, then a lid. Bake for 5 hours, checking hourly to make sure the beans aren’t drying out. (Add more water as necessary to keep them submerged.) Uncover for the last half hour to brown the top, if desired.

Pico De Gallo and Guacamole

The scent of spring, sprouting flowers and sunshine are filling the air! It is making me itchy to get gardening too! Last week Walnut and I got our seeds started in the house and guess what? They are already starting to sprout! So far I've got oregano, basil, tomato, pepper and pumpkin seed sprouting. I am so tickled I could scream! I wasn't so sure how starting my own plants in the house would go, but am extremely encouraged by the turnout so far...

I made some Pico de Gallo for Easter to set out for guests while dinner was in the final stages of baking and it made me long for my garden even more. Tomatoes bought in the store never ever live up to my hopes and leave recipes falling flat compared to tomatoes straight from your own backyard...but from September to June in Minnesota...you don't have many other options!

Pico de Gallo

4 large tomatoes
3 jalapenos, deseeded
1/2 large red onion
1 handful cilantro
Juice from 1/2 lime or lemon
Salt to taste

Chop tomatoes, jalapenos, and onion to a small dice and put in a bowl. If you like it hot...you can go ahead and leave the seeds in the jalapenos. Next chop up a handful of cilantro and toss in the bowl. Squeeze juice from lime or lemon over the top and sprinkle with desired amount of salt...fold together. I usually let it sit for a little before digging in to make sure all the flavors have harmonized together!

Have a hankering for some Guacamole? Mash three ripe avocados and fold in Pico de Galo and give another good squeeze of lime or lemon juice.

Hamburger Soup

Saturday was one of those awful early Spring days where the prior week had been gorgeous outside and the kids were running around all week outdoors and playing with all the toys that had been locked up in the garage all winter long...and then in the blink of an eye Saturday was cold and rainy and we were all locked up inside again. The kids sat at the window, asking to go out and ride their bikes and all I could think of was curling up in a blanket and hiding until the sun came out again. That's the thing about kids though, they are immune to the temperature outside. Whether it is 100 degrees or -10 degrees, they don't care! All they care about is being able to exert all that energy they build up in their sleep.
So at lunch time I pulled myself from the comfort of my blanket to make some comfort in a bowl! Hamburger soup I think is basically spaghetti in a bowl. With spaghetti being my favorite food...I sneak into our weekly menu any way I can.

Hamburger Soup

1 tbls olive oil
1 whole medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
2 whole carrots, thinly sliced
1 pound ground beef
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tbls dried basil
1 tbls dried parsley
1 tbls dried oregano
2 quarts canned tomatoes
1 tbls beef bouillon
2-4 cups water, depending on how thin you'd like it
2 cups small noodles

heat oil in large stock pot. Add onion, garlic, celery and carrots. Sauté for a few minutes until veggies are tender-crisp and then add the ground beef. Begin to brown beef and then add salt, pepper, basil, parsley, and oregano. Cook until beef is brown and then add stewed tomatoes, beef broth and water.
Bring to boil and let cook for 5-10 minutes over medium heat. Skim grease from top and let cook another 5 minutes.
Add noodles.
Let cook until noodles are tender. Serve with warm bread.