spinach + artichoke cauliflower + cheese casserole

Wow, that's a mouthful. I was going to make you suffer through some random blabbering of mine, but I decided against it... you guys are just too nice to torture. Instead, I'll just leave you with a recipe.

Paleomg was the first site that I found in my quest to learn more about being paleo. Not only is she ridiculously humorous, her dishes are full-belly-deli good. When thinking about transitioning to paleo, it’s easy to think you have to throw the baby out with the bathwater… but no siree… you can have your cake and eat it too (as long as it’s made with natural, paleo-friendly ingredients, that is). Her spinach and artichoke dip recipe is one my favorites. It is so simple and easy, even a caveman could do it.

I must warn you, this is most certainly a simple recipe, but it is a MESSY one. If you’re looking for a dish that will only dirty one or two dishes, this isn’t for you. But it’s creamy and comforting enough to make up for its mess.

SPINACH AND ARTICHOKE CAULIFLOWER + CHEESE CASSEROLE

Yes, I know this is a pretty horrendous photo. It looks like mush. But I’ll have you know—it is DELICIOUS mush. I totally forgot to take a picture of this dish fresh out of the oven on Mother's Day, so you get a picture of the leftovers instead. 

For spinach + artichoke mix:

• follow instructions at paleomg! 

For casserole:

• 1 head of cauliflower and broccoli, chopped
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese

First, preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare the spinach and artichoke dip as directed. While it’s cooking, steam cauliflower and broccoli. Alton Brown taught me a new technique… place raw veggies in bottom of large sauce pot, add about a half cup of water, cover, and heat on medium. The cover will trap the steam, thus effectively cooking your veggies without a fancy-dancy contraption. (I know they’re not that fancy… I just don’t have one.)

Prepare your topping... pretty simple, just mix bread crumbs and parmesan together in a bowl. Once the spinach and artichoke mix is complete and the veggies are appropriately steamed, mix together. Add mix to casserole dish, and top with parmesan panko bread crumbs. Place in oven and cook for about 15 minutes. Remove from oven, let sit for a few minutes, and dig in!

eat. more. KALE!

It's Friiiidayyyy!!! Yeah baby! On tap this weekend is a 10K up in Vermont, and a little Mom's Day celebration on Sunday. But first, in honor of all green super foods, I give you kale three ways. 

1. Kale Chips

This is probably the easiest and healthiest snack ever. If you have a bunch of kale (like not a bag of kale), then you will first need to remove the leaves from the stems. In the past I've stuck with using a knife to de-stem my kale, but this looks like a much easier way.

This time around, I had a bag of chopped kale from Trader Joe's. Some pieces still had stems, so I removed those by hand. Preheated the oven to 400 F. Added the chopped pieces to a bowl, sprinkle with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder (yum!) and mixed well. Spreaded kale evenly on a baking sheet. Baked for about 15 minutes, took a break about halfway through to flip so it cooked evenly. After that... it found it's new home in my belly :)

2. Kale Quinoa Salad

Super easy. Super delicious. Heat olive oil in a pan and add your selected veggies (any veggies!). I chose mushroom and the leftover eggplant slices, chopped into smaller pieces. Cook down. Then add kale, and saute for another 5 minutes or so. Add veggie mixture to cooked quinoa and mix well. The end! Healthy, simple, and easy side dish.

3. Toasted Kale Dijon Topping

So I had kale chip crumbs leftover from my early evening snack. How can I use them? Waste not, want not. Then it hit me-- toasted kale breadcrumbs! So I added the kale chip crumbs to a small saute pan with a bit of almond meal and started toasting. A little bit of djjon mustard and coconut milk added, and a spreadable topping emerged. A dollop on top of baked salmon was the perfect touch.

J-Hay and I have been trying to incorporate more kale into our daily life... we're hoping to absorb some of its superpower! :)  

eggplant fettuccine

Spring semester is DONE. YES. 

And while I recover from the mind-fog that is getting through finals, I leave with you another suitable alternative for pasta. For some reason I was really craving pasta on Monday. With crustaceans. I think I saw a recipe for garlic herb shrimp and it looked supremely delicious. And then I saw a recipe for zoodled zucchini and it looked as supremely delicious as the shrimp. Perfect combo. Until Trader Joe's didn't have any zucchini (or summer squash for that matter), and I was left with one option... eggplant. It must work as pasta too, right??

Eggplant Fettuccine

• 1 eggplant
• any mixings you feel like
• protein as you please

1. Peel your eggplant. And then slice into noodles. A julienne peeler would probably work GREAT in this situation, but I don't have one. Whomp whomp.

2. Put slices into a collander and sprinkle with salt. Let the juices drain for about a half hour.

3. While your eggplant is draining, cut up your assorted veggies... I went with broccoli and onion. YUM.

4. When the half hour is up, rinse the eggplant slices well and pat to dry.

5. Heat olive oil in pan and saute veggies.

6. Add eggplant slices last. These will only need about 5-10 minutes to become soft.



7. Enjoy your finished product! This is what our dinner looked like:

Those are sweet potato biscuits on the side... here's the recipe I used.


 

dinner on the run... err, walk

Wow, I felt pretty awful during my run tonight. It was just like... UGH... from the start. Might have been because of one of these things...

a. Doubling (two runs in one day) yesterday with the hope of increasing my mileage and improving my fitness
b. Having ridiculously sore hamstrings because I'm finally back to lifting after a three month hiatus
c. Not fueling enough during the day, leaving my body feeling a wee-bit depleted
d. a little bit of all of the above

Option d, most definitely. The run just didn't feel right. My hamstrings ached every step, and I swore I'd hear (and feel) a pop of a muscle pull as I stopped to stretch them (thankfully this did not occur). So instead of pushing it a little further, I decided to play it safe and get my legs home in the shortest distance possible, with the intent to spend some quality time with the stretching band and foam roller.

But I didn't have much free time when I got home, as I had to get to a study session for an upcoming final exam. I was also hungry, with little time to prepare anything. What's a girl hoping to stick with real foods to do?  A smoothie seemed in order.


So what's in my smoothie? I don't have exact measurements, but there's some frozen blueberries, frozen pineapples, frozen strawberries, 3/4 scoop vanilla protein powder, and enough coconut milk to mix and make it smoothie-like.

I used my food processor, as I swear J-Hay's blender doesn't like me and enjoys frustrating me every time I use it. So once your ingredients are in your FP/blender, rev it up until it starts sticking, then add coconut milk as needed.











You should get a final product that kind of looks like this...  yummy. I was able to walk to Starbucks to meet my study group and enjoy a yummy portable dinner.







final thoughts!

Wondering what type of protein powder we get? J-Hay loves Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey. This is his preferred brand because it's a high quality protein powder-- it uses whey protein isolates as it's primary source... best type of protein I've been told.  I think having some type of vanilla flavor (this one is Vanilla Ice Cream) on hand is necessary... you can put it in smoothies, pancakes, muffins, breads, etc... For post-workout, we both enjoy more exotic flavors... J-Hay currently has Caramel Toffee Fudge, while I have Mocha Cappuccino.