Eating Clean - part two!

We have been continuing our challenge this month and are really enjoying the recipes from Tosca Reno. You can see my last post here. Here are a few more reviews of recipes that we have tried from the two eating clean cookbooks.


Breakfast:
We are continuing to enjoy the hot cereal mix and the granola that I mentioned in my previous eat clean post.

Lunch:
My husband asked me to make the Spilt Pea Soup (cookbook p.44) to take to work. Split pea soup wasn't on my list of recipes to try! I was pleasantly surprised, while cooking this soup, I thought it smelled nice and after we pureed it (it doesn't mention to do that in the recipe), this soup turned out to be delicious.




Orzo Primavera (cookbook p. 81) was another lunch item that I thought would be perfect for the kids to have at school. The kids had never had orzo before or edamame. They all liked the orzo and the simple dressing in this salad, with its subtle dill taste, but not the edamame. I will try it next time with baby peas instead. I think this salad would be great during the summer, nice and fresh tasting.



The Wild Rice Summer Salad (cookbook p. 88) was delicious! I had never made dressing with toasted sesame oil before, and it gave this rice and chicken cold salad an interesting taste. The kids liked it, but again with picking out the edamame! We all said it could use more vegetables, less rice, but it was still very nice.


Dinner:
We love soup here, so I tried the Roasted Butternut Squash Soup (cookbook p. 52). With the garlic and sweet onion roasting along side the squash, the house smelled wonderful! The soup turned out delicious as well (and inexpensive to make).

For a nice Sunday dinner, we tried the Roast Stuffed Port Tenderloin (cookbook p. 207) with Smashed Sweet Potatoes (family cookbook p.267). This meal was a big hit with everyone. Celeste loved the pork tenderloin, but not the stuffing. She even asked me to give her some, cold, for her school lunch the next day, with some apple sauce to dip! The sweet potatoes were a perfect sweet side dish for this meal. I do not normally like stuffing, or stuffed meat dishes, but this filling was very tasty, maybe it was the apricots...

Another favourite of the kids was the Sweet Potato Oven Fries (family cookbook p.272) and the Turkey Meatballs (family cookbook p.293). I had made the sweet potato fries before and knew to not add the dried oregano or rosemary to them. Celeste in particular loves these fries, but not with the "crunchy little bits on top". Just garlic, salt and pepper, and these fries are gone in no time! The meatballs were also a hit with Celeste. She kept on going for more. They are full of good things for her too, wheat germ, flax seeds, oat bran, so I was very pleased!

Eating Clean

I have had these two cookbooks on my shelf for a few months, and we have tried some of the recipes. They are both by Tosca Reno and follow the Eat Clean philosophy. I don't like calling them diet, because really I think it's just about eating healthy. You can visit her site at Eat Clean Diet and also read her blog here.

This month, I gave ourselves a little challenge (I love challenges if you haven't noticed already) to eat clean for the entire month, following the recipes in these books. I also want to reduce our grocery spending.

I thought it might be nice to share our reviews from the recipes we tried, along with a few pictures. We started this past weekend!

Breakfast:

I made a batch of Morning Hot Cereal Mix (family book p.207) and this will become a staple in our house. I am not a big fan of hot cereal, but this one has a texture that I like, even a bit of crunchy goodness with the slivered almonds! Because we didn't add the dried fruit, our mix isn't sweet at all. Adrienne added a bit of honey to her portion.

I had decided a few weeks ago to stop buying boxed cereal. Instead I have been making granola and Andre loves this! The recipe I use is Crunchy Granola from More-with-Less cookbook, but there are many recipes that can be found on the internet, and some also in the eat clean books. It's very easy to make, and you know exactly what you put in it! We like to add hazelnuts or almonds in ours. Andre has it with almond milk, but I prefer with plain yogurt. My husband also likes this as a snack with strawberry yogurt.

We tried the Loaded Oats (cookbook p.29) also and it received mixed reviews. We might try it again, but with reducing the liquid part. It was too mushy for most of us...and Adrienne added maple syrup.

Lunch:

I don't have a picture of it, but I made the Eat-Clean Egg Salad (family book p.232 and online here). Adrienne and Celeste took it to school in a multi-grain wrap and I also had it for lunch on Monday. I didn't add the green onions because none of us like them, but it was still good. I was surprised how good, since it has no mayonnaise!

I also made the Turkey Waldorf Salad (cookbook p.189) without the green onions. The yogurt cheese was easy to make and added a nice flavour to this salad. Adrienne and Andre really liked this one. I put it in a wrap as well. Celeste tells me she doesn't like it, but she is my picky eater, so I am not surprised.

I made the Loaded Turkey Burrito (family p.236), we will have it for dinner but I wanted to try it first so had a portion of it for my lunch. Yum! I had made the hummus (family p.240) 2 days ago. I put some of the turkey mixture on top of it, on a wrap, and added some broccoli sprouts.

Dinner:

Sunday night, we had a roast chicken with Stuffed Peppers (cookbook p. 220). Only we forgot to get the red peppers ready so we just had the stuffing with our chicken! On Tuesday night, we had the stuffing again, this time with the peppers. The recipe is great, the only issue we had is that it made so much stuffing, compared to how many peppers it calls for (4).

I made chicken stock using the carcass and left over chicken from the roast and then made the Chicken Soup - Humble but Divine (family p.244). This soup turned out amazing!

The Turkey Burritos were a big success for dinner, even with Celeste. We added shredded carrots, zucchini, and broccoli sprouts. Adrienne and Celeste added some yogurt cheese to their wraps, along with the hummus.

We will be trying a few more recipes over the next few days and will post again.