Curry Lentil and Kale Soup

This is another new favorite recipe in our house so I wanted to share!  It’s fairly easy to make and has great flavor.  Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons cumin

1 teaspoon curry powder

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme (full leaf)

28-oz can diced tomatoes, drained

1 cup dried brown or red lentils (or a mix)

4 cups vegetable broth

1/2 cup water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

pinch red pepper flakes

2 cups kale, rinsed

1 lemon, juiced

Directions:

• Heat olive oil in large pot on medium heat.
• Add onion and carrots and cook for about 5 minutes.
• Stir in garlic, cumin, curry powder, and thyme.  Stir.
• Add tomatoes and stir.
• Add vegetable broth, water, lentils, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.  Bring to a boil.
• Reduce to simmer and simmer for 27 minutes.
• Add kale and continue to simmer for about 3 more minutes.
• Use immersion blender and blend soup.
• Add lemon juice and stir.
• Enjoy!!!

Notes:

My daughter doesn’t love this soup alone so I usually give it to her with peas over pasta.  She enjoys that 🙂

Sheet Pan Sausage and Veggies

Well here is what has become a new favorite in my household!  Wednesdays are sheet pan dinner night, and this is one of our favorite sheet pan meals!  It is so easy and delicious!  Hope you enjoy!

 

Ingredients:

1 head broccoli, chopped

1 pack brussel sprouts (about 20), ends cut off and chopped

1 red pepper, sliced

2-3 large carrots, peeled and sliced thinly (I just use the peel to make the thin slices)

6 italian sausages, chopped

4 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 tablespoon dried basil

1/2 tablespoon dried oregano

1/2 tablespoon dried parsley

1/2 tablespoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme (full leaf, not powder)

Sprinkles of red pepper flakes

Directions:

• Preheat over to 400 degrees.
• Place veggies in single sheet pan with sausage on top.
• Drizzle olive oil over meat and veggies.
• Sprinkle spices over meat and veggies.
• Bake for 35 minutes.  I typically flip meat with 20 minutes left and stir full dish with 5 minutes left.
• Enjoy!

 

Garbanzo Bean Stir-Fry

This was one of those delicious dinners that simply involved throwing everything I had handy into a wok and cooking it.  Those are the best dinners!  Olive oil, onion, garlic, red pepper, spinach, garbanzo beans, and whole wheat pasta.  The whole family loved it, especially my daughter.  Hope you enjoy too!

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 4 cups spinach
• 1 can garbanzo beans
• 1/2 box whole wheat pasta

Directions:

• Boil pasta separately and drain.
• Heat olive oil in wok.  Add garlic and onion and cook for a couple minutes.
• Add red pepper and cook for a couple minutes.
• Add spinach, garbanzo beans, and cooked pasta.  Continue cooking until everything is cooked to your liking.
• Enjoy!!!

Healthy Snack Bags

I’m not 100% sure how some people don’t snack during the day.  If I were to go all the way from breakfast to lunch or lunch to dinner without eating, I would surely die.  Therefore, I love to have healthy snack bags ready to go!  I can grab a couple as I go to work along with my lunch, and then happily and healthily snack.  Today I had some free time so I got a bunch of bags ready.  Feels great to be ready for a couple weeks of healthy snacking.

I made four types of snack bags.  Here they are –

1. Eggs – I make hard boiled eggs (bring water to boil, add eggs, continue boiling for 12 minutes).  Once the eggs are cooled, I put one to a bag with sea salt and black pepper.  At work, I peel the egg, roll it in the salt and pepper in the bag, and then enjoy!
2. Almonds and dried apricots – so easy and delicious.  Just add some almonds and some dried apricots to the bag, and it is ready to go.  I also like walnuts and raisins, but didn’t make those bags for this week.
3. Black bean brownies – So delicious!  I have the full recipe here: wholerealfoodblog.wordpress.com/ . Once baked, I cut these into 12 brownies and put a brownie in each bag.  I then freeze the bags and grab as needed.
4. Almond flour pumpkin muffins.  These are delicious as well.  Here is the full recipe: wholerealfoodblog.wordpress.com/ . I bake a batch of 24 muffins and freeze 2 to a bag.

Note – if you make snack bags like this, be sure to reuse the bags!  I save my bags so they are ready to go for the next snack-bag-making day.  Enjoy!

Avocado Pesto

Well, this is an exciting post!  Not only was this meal delicious, but this is officially my one year anniversary as a food blogger!! My first post was on March 13, 2016, Vegan Goji Berry Cookies (Recipe here: https://wholerealfoodblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/vegan-goji-berry-cookies/).  It has been a fun year!  Since that time, I have posted 65 recipe, received 500 likes, and now have 95 followers.  So thanks so much to all of you who have cheered on this exciting journey!  I can’t wait to celebrate many more food blogging anniversaries!

Now, as alluded to above, today is not just exciting because of the anniversary, but because of the recipe.  I have been so food bored lately, and was ready to try something new.  This was a twist on traditional pesto, and it was delicious!  My daughter also loved it and went back for thirds, which is a huge bonus!  Hope you enjoy!

Avocado Pesto

Ingredients:

• 1 garlic clove
• 1 avocado
• 1 cup fresh spinach
• 1/2 cup pecans
• 3/4 – 1 cup (or more) fresh basil
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 chicken breast
• 8 ounces pasta

Directions:

• Cook chicken.  Can stir-fry in a little olive oil or can make in crockpot (cook on high 4 hours and then shred with forks).
• Place garlic in food processor and puree.  Add avocado, spinach, pecans, basil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and water, and puree until smooth.
• Boil water and cook pasta in water, drain.
• Combine chicken, sauce, and pasta.  Cook for a couple minutes over medium heat until warm.
• Enjoy!!!

Notes:

For a vegan dish, this would be great without chicken.  This also would  be great with added spinach, tomatoes, and/or peas.  Enjoy!

10 Weeks of Chili, Week 9: Bacon Chili

I know, I know, this series has taken me way way way too long!  Way longer than 10 weeks!  I have to admit, I am growing oh so very tired of chili!  But, I absolutely insist on finishing the series!  This week’s chili was pretty decent.  I couldn’t really taste the bacon in it, so I’m not sure I would make it with bacon if I made it again (no sense eating bacon if you can’t even taste it).  Other than that, I enjoyed it, and I was pretty intrigued on the idea of bacon chili, so I’m glad I gave it a try.

Bacon Chili

 

The 10 Weeks of Chili, Week 8: Disaster!

I’ve really been dragging my feet about this week’s chili recipe.  I wanted to sample a wide-variety of chilis for my series, which included one that just didn’t look good.  It called for 2 cans of tomato paste.  Gross.  That’s a lot of tomato paste!  But, I, at last, dutifully gave it a try!  I made this chili Wednesday night and am still feeling a bit sick from the memory of it.  Yuck.  Yuck.  Yuck.  So I’m not going to post the recipe, since I imagine after this endorsement you might not want to give it a try, but I’ll still post the pic!  Luckily, we have 2 more weeks to go!  Next week’s recipe looks exponentially better!

 

Toddler Daycare Food

These days I am constantly brainstorming a list of good, healthy finger foods that I can send with my 15-month-old daughter to daycare.  It seems that all the parents I know are in the same boat, so I thought I would write down my current list of daycare foods.  My daughter eats breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack at daycare on the 3 days she goes, so I need to pack a lot of food.  Here is my list of ideas, though on any given day, I usually send only a small handful of things from the list.

• Butternut squash – boiled
• Spaghetti squash – baked
• Carrots – steamed
• Broccoli – steamed
• Green beans – steamed
• Asparagus – broiled
• Potatoes – boiled
• Sweet potatoes – boiled
• Yellow squash – steamed (not a huge hit)
• Zucchini – steamed
• Eggplant – steamed
• Cucumbers
  • Cucumbers with hummus for special days, though it’s messy!
• Tomatoes
• Avocado
• Mushrooms, raw
• Peas – I pull them out of the freezer and dump them right into her daycare container the night before, next day lunch they’re thawed
• Veggies from random leftovers, like soup
• Beans – softened in saucepan
  • Black beans
  • Cannellini beans
  • Garbanzo beans
• Falafel, cut
• Sliced almonds
• Shredded chicken – made in crockpot
• Shredded beef – made in crockpot
• Meat from random leftovers – like taco meat or chili meat
• Salmon, grilled
• Cod, grilled
• Shrimp, stir-fried and sliced
• Meatballs – Baked and cut up (I have a recipe I need to post that uses a lot of spinach)
• Homemade waffles – torn into pieces
• Homemade pancakes – torn into pieces
• Whole wheat bread – torn into pieces
• Whole wheat pasta – boiled
• Veggie enriched pasta – boiled
• Kiwi, cut
• Strawberries, cut
• Raspberries
• Blueberries
• Blackberries
• Oranges, peeled, pulled into slices, and cut
• Grapefruit, peeled, pulled into slices, and cut
• Cheese – pretty much every kind that exists including goat cheese

As of right now, this is my list.  I keep trying to brainstorm more ideas, so if you have them, please comment and share!

Almost Paleo Brownies

My mom recently introduced me to this recipe when I was visiting her in Seattle and it is good!  The brownies are made with black beans, but you can’t tell at all.  These are healthy, not too sweet, and delicious.  They are also surprisingly easy to make.  I always preheat the oven when I begin baking and my goal is to finish mixing by the time the oven is preheated, but I usually fail.  Not this recipe; I was ready to go way before the oven was preheated!  I have a feeling I’ll be making these a lot!  Also, I call them “almost Paleo” because they are made with black beans, but whenever I eat Paleo, I eat beans.  Cutting out beans seems a little unnecessary since they are healthy!  Hope you enjoy this great recipe!

Almost Paleo Brownies

Ingredients:

1 15-oz can black beans, drained and rinsed

3 eggs

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup honey

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

Chopped walnuts to top

Directions:

• Place all ingredients except walnuts in food processor and process.
• Grease a 9×9 glass pan.
• Pour mixture into pan and top with chopped walnuts.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

Notes:

Thanks to my mom for this great recipe!

 

The 10 Weeks of Chili, Week 7: Meat and Beans Chili

My husband is quite happy that I’ve now reached the more “normal” recipes in my 10 chili lineup.  This week’s chili was heavy on the meat and beans with nearly no veggies.  Not quite as healthy as I usually like, but fun to try.  Here it is:

Meat and Beans Chili