Turkey Quinoa Chili

Photo by: Taste of Home

Tonight I made a very healthy chili. I found the recipe on Taste of Home. It was so good. I think it might be the healthiest thing I have ever enjoyed! It has a lot of vitamins, fiber, and protein. I added a little fat free shredded cheddar cheese, avocado, and fat free greek yogurt to mine. Yummy!!!! I made a huge pot and plan on using it several different ways this week. I am glad my husband loved it because he is getting a lot of it this week!

Ingredients

• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed
• 3-1/2 cups water, divided
• 1/2 pound lean ground turkey
• 1 large sweet onion, chopped
• 1 medium sweet red pepper, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 cans (15 ounces each) black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
• 1 medium zucchini, chopped
• 1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, chopped
• 1 tablespoon adobo sauce
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 cup frozen corn, thawed
• 1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro

Directions

• In a large saucepan, bring quinoa and 2 cups water to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 12-15 minutes or until water is absorbed. Remove from the heat; fluff with a fork and set aside.
• Meanwhile, in a large saucepan coated with cooking spray, cook the turkey, onion, red pepper and garlic over medium heat until meat is no longer pink and vegetables are tender; drain. Stir in the chili powder, cumin and cinnamon; cook 2 minutes longer.
• Add the black beans, tomatoes, zucchini, chipotle pepper, adobo sauce, bay leaf, oregano, salt, pepper and remaining water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir in corn and quinoa; heat through. Discard bay leaf; stir in cilantro.

Happy Mardi Gras

This weekend I had my niece over. I like to do theme nights when she is here. Since Mardi Gras is coming up I decided to go with that. She had a very good time! We read a book about Mardi Gras, made a King Cake, made a float, had a Mardi Gras colored meal(I didn't get a picture, but we made yellow curry coconut chicken, broccoli, and purple potatoes), colored a mask, and watched The Princess and the Frog!

To make the King Cake, I took two containers of Crescent Rolls and laid them out flat. I pinched together all the seams. I brushed melted butter on them and sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on them. Then I rolled each one up and created a ring. I baked on 325 degrees instead of 350 because I didn't want the outside to get done before the inside. I then added the colored frosting. Normally I do white icing and colored sugar, but I was out of yellow sugar!

Clean Pizza

*Picture above has tomatoes, kalamata olives, and baby spinach.

I LOVE pizza. Pizza is a lot of things, but clean is not one of them. The pizza I made is not like the pizza you get in NYC in Little Italy, however it hit the spot just fine.

I used an Ezekiel 4:9 tortilla for the crust, added a tablespoon of pesto (I used store bought and it was clean) for the sauce, fat free cottage cheese (drained the liquid) and fat free feta (only about 1oz) for the cheese, and then threw on fresh ingredients. I baked it in the oven on 350 degrees until the tortilla was crispy.

It was so good and hit the spot for sure. Just cause your eating clean and healthy doesn't mean you can't eat yummy! You just gotta get creative!

Extreme Couponing

So a couple of weeks ago my neighbor taught me how to coupon. It's this whole new world I really never knew about. I thought it would be hard and to time consuming. I was surprised when I was wrong. If you go to the website Southern Savers, she lays it all out for you. You pick your store and then she has everything that is on sale at that store that also has either an ecoupon, printable coupon, or a coupon from the Sunday paper. As you go down the list, you check off what you are going to buy. Then at the bottom you print your list. It's so dang easy!!!! My first trip to the store I saved $56 on a $151 bill so I only spent $95. That is crazy to me.

My favorite deal so far was on Kashi cereal. Kashi is the only kind I like and it's $3.99 a box. It happen to be on sale for $2.50 and if you bought 4 boxes of it you got a free gallon of milk. So not only was it on sale for $2.50, I also had a $1 off coupon for each box making it $1.50 a piece plus the free gallon of milk....CRAZY!!!

My other new obsession is ebates. If you ever shop online you have to go there. All you do is go to the website, search for the store you are about to buy from, it takes you to their website, and you get a percent of cash back (it will tell you the percent) The other day I went to order workout clothes. I went to the store first and then remembered ebates. Went to ebates, typed in the name, ordered my workout clothes, and I have a check on it's way for $1.35. I know that's not a lot, but I didn't spend a lot and it adds up. No reason not to do it right...money in the bank!

Ripped in 30

I have been doing Jillian Michaels this week. Her Ripped in 30 video is insane. It's such a hard workout, but a great workout so I thought I would share. This week, all week long, I had not lost a single pound. Everyday I would get on the scale and everyday it would tell me the same number. After 6 days of doing Ripped in 30 I am happy to say when I got on the scale this morning it finally said I had lost 3 pounds. THANK YOU LORD!!! I was getting so frustrated. Last night I saw this on the Eat Clean Facebook Page: "Don't quit now! If you've just started your Eat-Clean journey stay strong, focus on the positive changes you've made, leave the rest behind" It really spoke to me and made me push through. Sometimes you just needs some words of encouragement to get you over a hump!

Clean Turkey Meatballs

I really wanted some pasta the other night and meatballs sounded really good. These are super duper easy to make and tasty! My husband is not on the clean eating diet, but he said he wanted me to make a big batch of these at the beginning of the week so he could eat the leftovers all week!!! :) This made about 14 meatballs that were about a tablespoon and a half in size.

Clean Turkey Meatballs

1/2 pound of lean ground turkey

2 1/2 slices of Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Bread

2 eggs (1 whole and 1 white only)

1 garlic clove minced (I used two and kept off the vampires)

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place slices of bread on a cookie sheet and cook for 5-7 minutes. Basically until it's hard and crunchy and not a square hockey puck! Normally at this point I would add this to my mini food processor. Mine is broken right now so I doubled up a freezer ziplock bag and hit it with a meat tenderizer and then jumped on it! And Voila! you have clean bread crumbs.

In a medium bowl add the bread crumbs and the remaining ingredients. Mix well. I let mine sit for about 15 minutes so that liquid would really soak up in the bread crumbs.

Heat a skillet with a couple of sprays of olive oil or Pam. Make small meatballs out of the turkey mixture. About 1 1/2 tablespoons to 2 tablespoons in size. I turned my about every 5 minutes until cooked all the way through. About 20-25 minutes total. I always suggest cutting into one to make sure they are cooked all the way through.

I served this over a clean eating spinach-tomato sauce (I will add this recipe soon) and pasta made of a brown rice flour.

My favorite kitchen gadgets

How do you know when you are fat, I mean a foodie??? Your favorite store to shop in is not J. Crew, it's not Anthropologie, and it sure as heck isn't Victoria Secret. What store is it you ask!?!?! William-Sonoma! I could spend HOURS in that store. I could also empty our bank account in this store. The good news is that my husband loves this store as much as I do. I'm one lucky girl!!!

My favorite tool in the past has been my Kitchenaid Mixer. That thing is a rockstar. I however have stopped doing a lot of baking since the diet and don't plan on doing a ton of it. I want to learn some clean cookies recipe very soon though ;) Now I have a couple of new favorites I recently got that I would like to share. They help in clean eating so that's good!!!

First is the Microplane Herb Mill. You stuff your fresh herbs in there and twist. Voila!, you have finely chopped fresh herbs. Clean up is a snap too!!!!

The other one is the Orka Oil Mister. The pots and pans I have can not have Pam and those types of sprays sprayed in them. I always have to use olive oil. I love olive oil and it's very good for you. Sometimes I get to much and don't mean to. This really helps controlling how much I use.