Greek Chicken, Spinach, and Quinoa Bake

When I said I would post about some recipes later this week, I hadn't planned on coming up with one on my own. Tonight, I planned on making this recipe and adding in some chicken and black beans. But on Friday night, before my sister left and before we started this, I made a dish inspired by a recipe that I literally snapped a picture of in a magazine from the rack in Publix (is that illegal?), and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. What I made was a variation on this recipe from Clean Eating Magazine for Spanakopita Casserole. If you're not restricting gluten or dairy, you should make it this week but add some shredded rotisserie chicken like I did. It was awesome.

So, a little cilantro-ed out, and still dreaming of the greek chickeny, spinachy goodness, I devised a plan. I took the basic flavor profile of the casserole, a little of this and that from the fridge, some techniques from another grain-based casserole, and voila! This comforting dish totally satisfied my craving!

Greek Chicken, Spinach, and Quinoa Bake

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

1/2 cup carrots, diced (I used a handful of baby carrots)

2 medium cloves garlic, minced

1 9 oz bag fresh spinach

1 cup uncooked quinoa

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 cups chicken stock

1 1/2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken

1/2 cup feta*

2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh mint

1 tsp dried oregano

2 eggs

salt

pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Get your quinoa going. If you have already cooked quinoa left over, use that. You could also use brown rice. Anyway, cook the quinoa according to package instructions with the mix of chicken stock and water and generous pinch of salt.

Meanwhile, sauté the onion and carrot with a pinch of salt until the vegetables are tender and translucent, adding the garlic about halfway through. Add the spinach a handful at a time so you can fit it all in the pan and cook until all the spinach is wilted. 

Transfer the vegetables to a bowl. Add the quinoa, chicken, mint, oregano, and a few cranks of black pepper to the bowl. *(If I wasn't avoiding dairy I would 100% add feta at this step.) Taste and add salt if needed. Mix in two eggs and transfer to a round or 9x9 inch baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes or until it is bubbly and beginning to brown on top. Let it cool and settle for 5-10 minutes. Serve. 

A Clean Start

A favorite photo from Scotland my sophmore year of college.

This week Keith and I are embarking on a 4-week clean-eating routine. One of my favorite things about being more intentional about what I eat is that I end up trying a lot of new foods and recipes, which I hope to share here. I also thought I'd blog about our 4-weeks for some accountability and mutual support. First, here are some things I'd like for you to know going into it.

My current relationship with food:

I have pretty much bought into the whole-food, clean eating basic idea for the past year or so. (My husband is an organic urban gardener for crying out loud). At this point, I don't feel particularly compelled to completely eliminate any entire food group from my diet permanently. In general, I think sugar, refined wheat, trans fats, processed foods, and excessive amounts of meat should be greatly limited, and I try to do that.

 I don't think healthy eating is everything, but I do think it's important. Food is not just fuel, its also something that God has given us to fellowship around, remind us of Him, and to enjoy. Having said that, I believe it glorifies him for us to be good stewards of our bodies and our family's bodies by eating, cooking, and living in a way that aims for health and balance, not JUST pleasure. It was in the context of a meal that Jesus said "do this in remembrance of me" and I believe it honors him for us to eat in a spirit of thankfulness, joy, and self-control while putting something truly good in our bodies (not in the way that I often find myself eating: out of laziness, boredom, or gluttony).

You've probably caught on to this in my years of sporadic posting and periods of blog absence, but I tend towards phases of excitement and commitment, and then swing back to apathy, rarely finishing anything I start or really making something habit. This is true in many areas of my life, and as I focus on some true discipline in the area of eating over the next few weeks, I hope to develop healthy habits in other areas as well.

What I hope to get out of this (okay fine, let's just call them goals):

• To finish something I've started
• To develop some healthy true habits, rather than phases (nutritionally, with exercise, and spiritually)
• About 8 months ago I started having some major issues with my skin, and without going into a long story about all the things I've tried to treat it, I'm hoping to either rule our or conclude whether the breakouts are food related.
• Try new vegetables and cooking methods
• Eat a vegetable with every meal and most snacks
• Run 3x weekly as I train for a half marathon in April
• Stick with a Bible reading plan
  

The basic outline of the plan: (The framework of the plan, with some of my own modifications, is from the Arbonne FreshStart plan)

• No wheat, gluten, rye, barley, or refined grains (brown rice, quinoa, and millet are some grains that are permissible.)
• No dairy
• No soy
• No sugar (small amounts of stevia or agave nectar are okay.)
• No coffee (gasp!) or alcohol or fruit juice (green tea is my new best friend)
• No pork, red meat limited to 1x weekly. 
• LOTS of vegetables
• LOTS of low-glycemic fruits such as berries
• MORE good fats found in fish and some nuts
• Run right after school twice a week and once on weekends.
• Follow the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan
  

What you can do for me:

• Comment and let me know that you're out there. I think it would be fun, and added motivation, to post recipes, tips, and track my thoughts throughout the 4 weeks. Maybe I'll even make regular posting into a habit! But I know myself, and feedback really helps keep me going in the blog world. 

Homemade Peanut Butter

We go through a large container of Whole Foods freshly ground honey roasted peanutbutter a week. Seriously. When I'm craving something sweet, I grab a spoon and feel pretty good about the indulgence because I know that it's essentially the same as eating a handful of honey roasted peanuts.

I help cook with the kids at Nehemiah's Quest, the biweekly work day that Keith runs for the kids in Rosedale, and this week we decided to make homemade peanut butter for lunch. I was really surprised by how easy it was to make at home! I'm not sure how it works that there is no oil added to the Whole Foods version. We had to add a little peanut oil to get the consistency right, but other than that, I think this version tastes at least as good.

We used it to make peanut butter sandwiches with apple (we got local apples in our CSA today!) and honey. Personally I like to keep it simple and eat my peanut butter with a spoon.

HOMEMADE HONEY ROASTED PEANUT BUTTER

1 cup plain, roasted peanuts
1 cup honey roasted peanuts
1 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp peanut oil

Combine in a food processor, adding in the order listed until smooth. Adjust the amount of honey to your taste. You could also get crazy and add chocolate, try it with other nuts, etc.

Also, I need to let you know that the child pictured below is one of my favorite children on the face of this earth.

This out-of-focus picture taken by his sister really makes me happy. He LOVES Paul.

A Lunch Breakthrough

I've gotten a few really great cookbooks lately. The most recent is one I pre-ordered months ago from my favorite food blogger, Heidi Swanson of 101cookbooks.com. If you don't read it, check it out, most of my all-time favorite recipes for healthy, vegetarian food come from this site. On Sunday I spent a few hours trying out some of the most intriguing recipes from Super Natural Everyday, and this one may have changed my life.

Here's the thing. Lunches are a challenge for me. I don't really like sandwiches, we don't often find ourselves with leftovers, and in order for something to make it into my bag before I rush out the door to work, it's gotta be easy. Far too often I find myself resorting to the school cafeteria out of convenience, and even if I do pack, so many things that qualify as easy don't also make the cheap and/or healthy category. Well, finally I've found something that has it all: super inexpensive, packed with protein and healthy goodness, easy, AND SO TASTY.

In the cookbook, they're called Chickpea Wraps, and I feel like you could call them Chickpea Salad Wraps, because the chickpea mixture really comes together similarly to a good chicken salad, and satisfies as similar taste. There are a lot of flavor profiles you could go with: curry, mustard, sweet--and I deviated a bit from Heidi's recipe by using cilantro in place of dill. The mix keeps, and actually gets better, for several days in the fridge. You could also experiment with wraps, pitas, and flat breads to fit your taste. I'm loving the red chili tortillas!

Here's my version:

Chickpea Salad Wraps

(for a big batch)
2 cans chickpeas rinsed and drained
1/2 red onion, roughly chopped
2/3 cup plain greek yogurt, thinned a bit with water
1 tsp cilantro/lime "pesto" (1 bunch cilantro, juice of 1 lime, 1 clove garlic, 1/2 cup olive oil, salt and red chili powder to taste blended in a food processor)
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Pulse all but 1/4 of the chickpeas and all the red onion in the food processor until roughly chopped and blended. Keep it chunky. In a bowl combine this mix with the remaining whole chickpeas. Set aside. Mix together the yogurt, cilantro "pesto", and mustard. Combine 2/3 of this yogurt mixture with the chickpeas and red onion and add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Keep the rest of the yogurt mixture as a spread for the wraps. Refrigerate until you're ready to use.

To assemble to wraps, spread the yogurt mixture on a tortilla, flat bread, or pita. Top with salad green and a generous scoop of the chickpea salad. Wrap, and you're ready to go!

Lunch will never be the same.

All the ingredients, so easy to assemble in the morning.

Ensalada del Tigre .or. Clemson Coleslaw

Inspired by the delicious staple of Nicaraguan cuisine, simply called "ensalada" (which translates "salad"), I went on a search for the simple combo of cabbage, carrots, and white vinegar on my first grocery shopping trip since our return. I ended up choosing the purple head, because I have a sneaking suspicion that anything that purple must be packed with antioxidants, and well, it's pretty. When I came home and started blending, I noticed that the outcome bore a strikingly nostalgic color-combo harkening to my 4 and some years spent in the South Carolina Upstate.

This essentially non-mayo based slaw has quickly become a crunchy, tangy staple for the Davis household as well. Keith loves it, and I whipped up my second batch today. Pictured above with a veggie burger topped with buffalo mozzarella and pico de gallo, I ended up stuffing the slaw in the pita as well, and it was pretty special.

Clemson Coleslaw:

1 half head of purple cabbage, shredded

1 about 1 1/2 cups shredded carrots (I used a large handful of baby carrots and shredded them in the food processor)

1 TBSP finely chopped cilantro

1 tsp finely diced or graded jalapeño

squueze of honey

squeeze of lime juice

about 3/4 cup white vinegar

about 1/3 cup olive (or whatever you prefer) oil

Combine oil, vinegar, lime juice and honey. Toss with veggies, add a big pinch of salt and pepper to taste. It gets better (and purpler) the longer everyone has to hang out together in the fridge.