Easy One Pan Dinner: Roasted Pork Chops with Brussels Sprouts and Carrot & Sweet Potato Fries

Another super easy dinner that is easy to make COMPLETELY carb free if you want.

Ingredients, Serves 2
2 boneless pork chops, about 1 inch thick (about .5 lb)
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into "fries"
1 sweet potato, cut into "fries"
2 cups Brussels sprouts, peeled, trimmed and halved
Olive oil (I use a sprayer)
Salt & Pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 and line baking sheet with tin foil. Spray tin foil with olive oil and layer on carrots, sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts. Spray on a little more olive oil, mixing around to coat. Roast for about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and mix up, turning over well. Create space for pork chops and place pork chops on pan, roasting the whole thing for another 15 minutes, until pork chops are cooked through. SO easy to clean up.

1 red container
2-3 green containers
1 yellow container

Easy Dinner: One Pan Roasted Salmon & Sides

Easiest dinner ever. Cleanest dinner ever, too! And I NEVER feel that way about cooking fish!

Ingredients, serves 2

Salmon fillets, 1/2 lb
Asparagus, enough for two!
Red Potatoes, small or halved
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
Optional seasoning for salmon (I like Chef Paul's Black Fish Magic - available at grocery stores)

Preheat oven to 400. Lay tin foil over top of baking sheet. Using an olive oil sprayer, coat potatoes and onions in oil. Roast for 15-18 minutes. Remove and mix up!
Use your olive oil sprayer to coat the asparagus and the top of the salmon (this is when I add my seasoning, too!). Place both on same baking sheet and place back in oven, cooking it all for another 15-18 minutes.

Serve hot and enjoy!

1 red container
1 yellow container
1 green container

Baked Chicken Mozzarella with Basil

This is a great healthy version of Chicken Parmigiana that will make its way into your weekly menu! I served mine over zoodles to keep it super fix-friendly but served it with pasta for the rest of my family.

Serves 4

1 lb chicken breasts, cut into strips

4 tomatoes, sliced

Fresh basil

1 cup fresh mozzarella

2 cups fresh baby spinach

1/2 cup marinara sauce

Optional: Panko breadcrumbs

2 zucchini, spiralized

Preheat oven to 350. Pour marinara over bottom of casserole dish to coat. Layer chicken over top and, if you are using the Panko crumbs, sprinkle on about 1/4 to 1/2 cup. Lay spinach and basil leaves over top, a thick layer is ok! Top with tomato slices and a generous helping of mozzarella. Bake for 35 minutes, finishing with a 2-3 minute high broil to brown the top.

Heat raw zucchini in pan over high heat for about 2 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

1 red container

1 green container

1/4 purple container (depending on the kind of marinara you use! Here is my clean tomato sauce recipe)

1/4-1/2 yellow container (if you use breadcrumbs)

5 Tips for Eating Clean

Eating clean is ALL THE RAGE right now. This is so funny to me because at the beginning of this century, eating clean was the only way to go. Meaning, it was the only option! You see, eating clean means avoiding processed foods and sugars and those things didn't even come on the scene until the 1940s. So basically what we are doing is going back to the basics. It's really quite hipster of us. Yet, trendy as it is, our bodies will thank us.

Here are some of my favorite tips for eating clean:

1. Make Your Own. Take almond milk, for example. So much of what you find at the grocery store is filled with extra stuff I can't even pronounce. Have a sweet tooth? Make your own treats from scratch! I have two little lady monsters running around that are always dying to make a mess help me out in the kitchen. 
2. Read the Label. This one seems like a no-brainer but we really really really need to get in the habit of reading what's IN our food. If you don't know what it is or if the ingredient list is really long, be skeptical. BE VERY SKEPTICAL. Especially if it's something like pasta which should have about 3 ingredients in it. 
3. Shop the perimeter of the supermarket. This is my absolute favorite tip from food expert and U.S. food policy critic Michael Pollan. The best stuff is around the edge and should be 90% of your cart! 
4. Don't eat in front of the television. Once you sit down on that couch, mindful eating goes out the window. And there is something about your favorite show that makes you reach for something with a crinkly package...
5. Start a meal with greens. I don't always do this (for example, if my meal is a salad this would be just silly) but it's a good one. Before I eat, I will frequently serve myself a big handful of greens with a little olive oil and vinegar. I eat this first and then head for the rest of my meal. I invite my body to feast on the really valuable stuff first (leafy greens are just about the perfect food) and then dig into my proteins and the rest. 

Eating clean shouldn't be as hard as it is. We should be able to shop without scouring the labels like a crazy person. We should be able to trust that there aren't superfluous ingredients in our food. We should be able to eat our food without wondering whether or not there are hidden additives that will make us keep eating it. 

We should be able to do a lot of things when it comes to food but we can't. In the meantime, do your best and follow these tips! Happy CLEAN eating!

Easy Vegetarian Lunch

Enjoy this great vegetarian dish! It's also an easy meal-for-one.

Ingredients, serves 1
2 eggs
1/2 red onion, chopped into large chunks
1/2 bell pepper, chopped into large chunks
1/2 cup grape tomatoes, halved
Olive oil
1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese

Preheat oven to 375.
Toss vegetables in olive oil or use an olive oil sprayer. Combine with goat cheese and add the mixture to a small crock or baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes.
Crack eggs over top of vegetables and return to oven for another 15 minutes. Eat as is, with whole-wheat toast, over quinoa or with couscous.

Roast Chicken with Anjou Pears, Potatoes and Thyme

I love this recipe using fresh pears-- it adds a certain sweetness to this dish.

I would also recommend adding chopped carrots to up your vegetable intake!

Roast Chicken with Potatoes and Anjou Pears

Ingredients, serves 4 (adapted from a whole chicken recipe from Martha Stewart)

4 chicken thighs, skin on

2 cups red potatoes, chopped into chunks

4 shallots, cut into chunks

2 Anjou pears, cut into chunks (these do not need to be ripe)

Olive oil

Salt & Pepper

Fresh thyme

Juice of ½ lemon, fresh

Preheat oven to 350.

Layer potatoes, onions and pears into bottom of casserole dish and sprinkle in some fresh sprigs of thyme. Place chicken thighs over top of mixture and spray lightly with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and some more fresh thyme. Squeeze juice of lemon over top.

Cook for about 1 hour 15 minutes until top of chicken is browned.

1 red container

1 yellow container

1/2 purple container

1/2 green container 

Chicken Stock from a Slow Cooker

Ingredients, Makes about 8 cups of stock

Step 1 Ingredients:

●      1 Whole Chicken, about 4 lbs

●      1 onion, chopped

●      1 lemon, halved

●      Seasoning, your choice

            Toss chopped onion in bottom of slow cooker. Remove innards from chicken and coat in seasoning of your choice. I used a good mix of paprika, cayenne pepper, thyme and so much more. I’ll leave this up to you since it’s not my focus today. Stuff chicken with lemon halves and place breast-up in cooker. Set to medium/high and cook for 6 hours.

Step 2 Ingredients:

Adapted from www.100daysofrealfood.com

●      1 carrot, roughly chopped (or a few baby carrots)

●      1 sprig fresh parsley

●      ½ tsp dried thyme

●      A dash of salt

            Add all these ingredients (and more if you like- bay leaf? Celery stick?) into the slow cooker after you have removed all the meat. I removed the lemon halves but left the chopped onions. Fill slow cooker with water until almost full. Cook on low for 8-10 hours (I did this overnight). When finished, strain bones and any other solid things from the stock and store in fridge or freezer. Voila!

Whole Chicken in a Slow Cooker

This is a meal prep dream. Cook a chicken in a slow cooker and you will eat for days!

Whole Chicken in a Slow Cooker

Ingredients

●      One whole chicken, about 4 lbs

●      1 lemon, halved

●      1-2 sweet onions, largely chopped

●      Potatoes, largely chopped (vary amount based on people eating) (Skip this if you like!)

●      Adobo seasoning or just salt and pepper

            Layer potatoes and onions in bottom of crock pot. Stuff lemon halves inside chicken and place chicken breast up in crock pot. Rub seasoning (and feel free to use one of the seasoning recipes from the 21 Day Fix booklet) on chicken. Slow cook for 8 hours. Serve and use leftovers for EVERYTHING.

Mostly a red container per serving unless you added the potatoes, yellow. 

In addition to being able to eat for days off of this recipe, you can easily make your own chicken stock!

Seriously the easiest ever!

Chicken Fajita Casserole

This recipe is really similar to my Clean Chicken Fajita recipe BUT it's super easy to make ahead of time and just pop in the oven.

Chicken Fajita Casserole, Serves 4

• 2 chicken breasts cut into 1-inch thick strips 
• ½ sweet onion, sliced 
• 1 green pepper, sliced 
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese 
• 1 cup salsa 
• Fajita Seasoning (I really wing it! Make sure you taste and test) 
• 1 tbsp. chili powder 
• 1 ½ tbsp. Adobo seasoning 
• ½ tsp. paprika 
• 1 tsp. dried minced garlic  
• ½ tsp. cayenne pepper 
• 1 tbsp. cornstarch 
• ¼ cup water 
• Serving suggestions: Tortillas (yellow container), Plain low fat Greek yogurt (in lieu of sour cream- blue container) Avocado Slices (blue container)

           Preheat oven to 350. Place sliced vegetables in bottom of 9X9 casserole dish and top with chicken. In a small bowl, mix together spices, cornstarch and water to make fajita seasoning, being sure to test along the way. Pour “sauce” over chicken evenly and then pour the salsa over the chicken evenly. Sprinkle cheese over top and bake for about 40 minutes, until cooked all the way through. Serve on tortillas with sour cream or avocados.

1 red container
1/4 purple container
1/2 blue container
(without toppings and tortillas)

Chicken Fajitas

I adore Mexican food--it is amazing! But for the longest time, I cheated myself out of having amazing Mexican food in my own home. You see, I was taking the "easy" way out and buying seasoning packets. You see them- those easy little packets in the food aisle just looking at you saying, "what you come up with won't be as good as this!" Well, they are liars! And filled to the brim with sodium- yuck! Try my recipe below.

Chicken Fajitas- a clean recipe               

Serves 4

●      2 boneless chicken breasts, about 1 lb, cut into strips (1/4 of this is a red container)

●      1 bell pepper

●      1 onion (I used a Vidalia)

●      6 inch Whole-wheat tortillas (1 larger wheat tortilla = 1 yellow) or smaller, corn tortillas (2 small corn tortillas = 1 yellow)

Seasoning

●      1 tbsp corn starch

●      2 ½ tbsp chili powder

●      1 tsp salt

●      1 tsp raw sugar

●      1 tsp cayenne pepper

●      1 ½ tbsp Goya Adobo seasoning OR 1 tsp onion powder, 1 tsp pepper, 1 tsp garlic powder, ½ tsp more salt

Toppings

Shredded cheddar cheese (blue container)

Plain lowfat Greek Yogurt (in place of sour cream) (red container)

Avocado slices (blue container)

Salsa (purple container)

            Combine spices in small bowl and set aside.

            In large frying pan, sauté chicken in olive oil cooking spray over high heat for about 1 minute before adding onions. Stir continuously until chicken is just about cooked and onions are soft. Add the pepper and seasoning mix with about ½ cup of water. Mix until water is mostly absorbed and a light “sauce” has been created. Serve on tortillas with your choice of toppings.