kitchen domination

Last month the husband and I added up how much we spend at the grocery store and dining out and it wasn’t pretty.  Food is definitely where the majority of our funds go, so in an effort to stretch our grocery store purchases and eat out less, I went a little nuts preparing eats for the week.  I am also hoping that my prepping will aid in the loosening of my ever tightening pantalones.

Here’s what happened:

First up: a crust-less broccoli quiche.

Recipe:

The goods:

• 1 large broccoli head (chopped)
• 1 leek (chopped)
• 2 garlic gloves (chopped)
• approx. 14 mushrooms (chopped)
• 4 organic eggs
• 4 organic egg whites
• 2T feta
• 1.5t Ghee (butter, evoo, or coco oil will also work)- this is for sautéing veggies
• coco oil for pan greasing or whatever oil you so desire
• 1/8t garlic salt (to taste)
• 1/2t tumeric
• dash of black pepper

How To:

1. pre heat oven to 325
2. grease 12″ pie pan
3. heat ghee in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft. Stir in garlic, mushrooms, broccoli, salt, pepper and turmeric and continue cooking until soft.
4. in a large bowl whisk eggs & egg whites together.  Add broccoil mixture and stir to blend. Scoop into prepared pie pan.
5. Bake in preheated oven until eggs have set, about 35-40 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Next up:

slow cooker, salsa chicken.

I have seen this recipe (if you can call it a recipe) on other blogs and cooking websites, unfortunately I cannot remember what ones.

How To:

1. line 3 (or however many you desire) chicken breasts on the bottom of slowcooker
2. pour entire jar of salsa over chicken breasts
3. set slow cooker on low for 4-6 hours or high for 3-5 hours
4. done

The chicken turns out superb and it couldn’t be easier. We ate some of it last night on top of a kale salad.  Unfortunately, no photo was snapped.

Moving on…

eggs were hard boiled:

After a night of soaking, chickpeas were cooked.  Dry chickpeas from the bulk section are so much more economical, but I always fight the purchasing of them because of the soaking required to use them.  However, it just isn’t that hard.  At 11:00 on Saturday night I put a cup of dry chickpeas in a bowl and covered them with room temperature water then went to bed.  Why do I struggle with this?

I froze half of this batch, so next week all I will have to do is thaw.  Again, why do I fight this process?

Next up:

Two sweet potatoes were baked.  So easy: clean potatoes, wrap in tin foil, stick in oven or in toaster oven at 425 for 40-50 min depending on size. This process does not even require clean up.

Because I have a hearty sweet tooth, I needed to make sure I had some appetizing desserts on hand.

Behold grain-free, protein packed, spice muffins:

Stay tuned: Recipe to come this week.

The Man Piece’s Birthday is today.  Happy Birthday Man Piece (Aka Keith)!!  In lieu of his day of birth, he requested peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies.  I obliged.  I made these delights with the ingredients I had on hand which meant, they ended up being gluten-free, refined sugar-free, and egg-free.  They still turned out pretty darn good.  I should know because I think I ate my weight in dough and the Birthday boy seemed to enjoy.

Stay tuned: This recipe is also coming your way this week.

Burt also had one helluva Sunday.  After using up the remainder of the sunflower butter in the above creation, Burt got to help in the jar cleaning process.

Very good at his job.  Very good.