Entrees Archives - Page 3 of 5 - My Eating Clean Journey

Garlic Cream Sauce with Chicken and Spaghetti Squash (and how to roast a squash)

February 28, 2014

Before you can make the Garlic Cream Sauce with Chicken and Spaghetti Sauce, you need to roast a squash. I don’t cut mine in half as it’s so much easier to slice after it’s baked.

Throw your spaghetti squash on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 45-50 minutes. Remove from the oven and let stand 15 minutes. When it’s cooled off, slice the squash in half and remove the seeds with a spoon. Then take a fork and scrape out the flesh of the squash – this is the part that looks like spaghetti.

Now onto the rest of the recipe!

Garlic Cream Sauce with Chicken and Spaghetti Squash

1lb boneless skinless chicken breast grilled and cut into cubes

1 medium spaghetti squash cooked and seeded

1 pint heavy cream

8 oz cream cheese with chives

1/2 medium white onion

1 15oz can petite diced tomatos

1/2 cup grated parmasean cheese

1 cup cooked spinach

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbs oregano

1 1/2 tbs garlic powder

1 tsp lemon pepper seasoning

Sauté tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms and onions in medium sauté pan. In a separate

medium sauce pan, combine cream cheese with heavy cream and Parmesan

cheese. Warm on medium until the cheese melts, stir often. If your medium sauce pan will fit all the ingredients, you that. If not, use a mixing bowl and combine the chicken, vegetables and cheese sauce.

Add in the seasoning and mix. Serve the sauce over the spaghetti squash.Phase 3 – Omni-Drops Program through Omnitrition

On to Phase 3 and Low Carb Shepard’s Pie

February 24, 2014

I’m excited to report that I have been able to maintain my weight loss for the past week. You might be wondering why I’m excited about that when I still have so much more weight to lose. On the Omni-Drops program, you need to take a few weeks off (3 weeks during round 1) for your Hypothalamus to reset itself to your new weight. Also, if you happen stay on the drops for longer than 45 days, there is a chance your body could become immune to them. So, it’s important to take a break and let your body catch up to everything. My husband finished up his first round of phase 2 also – his stats – he lost 27 pounds in 21 days. I’m very impressed and a bit jealous as men normally lose more per day, on average, than a woman does. Although I’m really happy for him. He’s in the military and it’s important he maintains a healthy weight. Over the past few years he’s been struggling with his back and other body aches and pains that has made him put on some extra pounds. He’ll be leaving the military soon (after 33 years) and we both want to make sure he steps off with a healthy weight. Okay – back to the Omni-Drops diet – what is different about phase 2 and phase 3? On phase 3 you are no longer taking the Omni-Drops. You also get to double your amount of protein and vegetable intake. You need to stop eating oranges and your crackers. Instead, you can add back in healthy oils, lots more vegetables and even more fruit. All must be low in sugar or carbs and you need to continue to avoid eating any carbs and sugar, overall – except the natural ones in your fruit and vegetables.
Over the next three weeks, I’ll be trying to recreate some of my favorite meals but low-carbing them. Today I’ll share with you my version of my all time favorite meal, Shepard’s Pie. I normally make it with hamburg, corn and mashed potatoes. I set out to find something that would give me the same textures and similar tastes. I think I came up with something very close.

Low-Carb Shepard’s Pie

1 pound ground beef

1 head of cauliflower or one frozen bag

2 stalks of celery, diced

1 onion, chopped

1 orange or yellow sweet pepper, diced

Pepperjack cheddar cheese, optional (I love Cabot’s)

Cook your ground beef in a skillet until cooked through. Place it in the bottom of a small

casserole pan. While the hamburg is cooking you can cook your cauliflower until soft. Drain the

cauliflower and then mash them like potatoes. Feel free to season them with salt, pepper and

even butter, if you’d like. Set aside. In the pan you cooked your hamburg in, saute the celery,

onion and peppers for about 5 minutes. Just long enough to cook them a bit but not too long

where they lose their texture.

Layer the hamburg, vegetable mixture and then top with the mashed cauliflower. Place some

slices of pepperjack cheese (or any other cheese) on the top and bake in a 350 degree oven for

20 minutes.

Spicy Cabbage Salad

February 9, 2014

This was really good. I served it with the mini meatloaf. My husband compared it to a salsa. I’m not a fan of raw radishes but in this dish they worked really good and I actually enjoyed them.

Spicy Cabbage Salad

· 1oz cabbage, shredded

· 1oz tomatoes, chopped

· 1oz radishes, chopped

· 1oz green onions, chopped

· Apple cider vinegar

· Lime juice

· Dash of Salt

· Frank’s Red Hot Sauce

Mix the vegetables in a bowl. Whisk the vinegar, lime juice, salt and hot sauce together. Pour over the vegetables and mix well.

My lunch – packed in advance. Meatloaf and Spicy Cabbage Salad

Mini Meatloaf (Meatloaves)

February 9, 2014

I made these mini meatloaves using a pan I had originally bought to make brownies in. You can also use a cupcake pan or any other pan that has individual serving size slots.

Meatloaf

I used the recipe below but quadrupled it (x4) so I’d be making four servings at once.

4oz lean ground beef

1 serving Melba toast, Wasa cracker or Grissini breadstick crumbs

1 ketchup recipe

1 tablespoon chopped onion

1 clove minced garlic

Cayenne to taste

¼ teaspoon paprika

Crush cracker/toast into fine powder. Mix with the ground beef, chopped

onion and spices. Place in a baking dish, loaf pan or muffin tin for single

servings. Baste with ketchup recipe mixture and bake at 350 for 15-20

minutes. Cook longer for multiple servings using a loaf pan.

Put the broken up crackers/toast or breadstick into your blender.

Blend until it’s ground up like breadcrumbs

Add it to your hamburg mixture

These were very good and each serving was three mini loaves.

Chicken EggRolls and an Update on my Husband

February 9, 2014

My husband decided to join me on the weight loss train and almost two weeks ago he started the Omni-Drops. I’m happy to report that he’s on day 12 and he’s lost 17.8 pounds already. I love when we both are eating healthy together although it has been a challenge at times. He’s a bit lot more cranky when he’s not able to eat large amounts of food whenever he feels like it.
I’ve been perfectly happy with the amount of food I’ve been eating. I’m rarely hungry. I keep telling him that I think he’s not really hungry but it’s more of a habit to eat when he wants to. Remember the tv commercial they had for awhile where they showed people trying to quit smoking and they would talk about smoking a cigarette while eating breakfast, while driving
their car, etc? Well that’s my husband but with food. He’s a habitual eater and when taken out of his comfort zone, he gets cranky.

Two more days for me on the drops during Phase 2 and then I move onto Phase 3. I’m excited about being able to add in fats and dairy to my diet, along with all the additional vegetables and fruits I can have but there’s been something comforting about having a small list of foods I can eat. I have really enjoyed the dishes I have made and put up here on the blog. Everything has been really flavorful and made from scratch.

I have a few catch-up recipes to post here. I’ll do them individually so they are easier to find while searching my blog.

Here’s the one for Chicken Eggrolls.

Chicken “Eggrolls”

1-2 Cabbage leaves (I only used one)

shredded cabbage and diced onion – enough to equal 4oz with the whole cabbage leaves

1 Dash of Onion powder

1 Dash of chinese five spice

4oz Chicken breast diced

Steam cabbage for 2 minutes

Put shredded cabbage, onions and chicken in a pot and cook until cooked throughly

Wrap in leaves

Bun-less Sloppy Joes

January 31, 2014

Tonight’s dinner was Bun-less Sloppy Joes. It was really quick to make (approx. 10 minutes total time0. Now that my husband is doing the diet also, I end up cooking two batches of both meals. Our son is eating along with us but is enjoying at least a double portion of what we eat plus tonight he did put his mixture on top of some bread.
If you’re following the Omni-Drops plan, this is a phase 2 recipe.

Sloppy Joes

4oz ground beef

1 recipe barbeque sauce

Butter lettuce or any large variety lettuce leaves

Brown ground beef in small frying pan. Add barbeque sauce and a little water to achieve desired consistency. Cook for about 5 minutes. Serve on lettuce leaves.

Makes 1 serving

Total weight loss for today – 22 pounds in 27 days (R1P2D27)

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

January 29, 2014

Last night for dinner we made homemade chicken nuggets. No more processed, frozen nuggets for this family. These turned out so good. They were crispy and flavorful. I served them with a side of homemade BBQ sauce and roasted asparagus.

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

First, cube your chicken up into chunks

Put the cubed chicken into a bowl and squirt some mustard on them. I used French’s Spicy Mustard as it doesn’t contain any sugar. Toss the chicken pieces until they are well coated.

I used some Wasa Crackers (3 of them because I was making three batches of 4oz of chicken) and put them into my blender and blended on high to make them into a crumb. If you’re not following the hcg diet, you could use panko or regular bread crumbs.

Put the bread crumbs on a plate and dredge each piece of mustard chicken in the cracker crumbs.

Pop them on a baking sheet (I always line mine with aluminum foil)

Bake in a 400 degree, pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes. I did not turn my over half through and they came out with just the amount of crisp on them.

Eating Clean and Feeling Great – A Week of Dinners

January 23, 2014

If you’ve been reading my blog, then you know I started a new diet at the beginning of January, on the 2nd to be exact. I am feeling great. The thought that my body hasn’t had sugar, oil or processed food is wonderful. It’s the journey I have been longing for and it’s even effecting the scale. I’ve lost a total of 17.8 pounds.

One thing that I’ve noticed over my 30 years of trying to lose weight, is how much attention we give to the number that’s on the scale. If it’s not moving downwards then we get discouraged and give up. I’ve been a victim of that. I once exercised for 5 months straight, 5 times a week for one hour and didn’t see any difference in the number on the scale. I decided it wasn’t worth the effort and gave up. When the scale isn’t budging, it’s important to look at the other positive things that are happening within you. For me, although the scale is going down, I do celebrate my “non-scale” victories. For example, I have so much more energy then I had before I started eating clean. Also, last weekend my sister and I went to visit my parents in upstate New York. They live near a casino and we had plans of going to bingo a few times during our stay. We stayed on plan the whole time, no cheating from the two of us. We met my parents at bingo and my mom packed us each a salad with grilled chicken. We both packed some “approved” foods from our eating plan so we were prepared. I brought in my homemade Honey Mustard Dressing and BBQ Sauce to put on our salads. For dinner we went to the restaurant and asked what vegetables they had as a side, none of them were what we could eat. My sister asked if they had access to any asparagus and the waitress replied that the neighboring restaurant had some. She ran next door and picked us up two side orders to go with the 8oz sirloin steak that we split. Unfortunately the asparagus wasn’t very much but my sister had packed a cucumber with her and I had packed my food scale. We weighed out the asparagus and supplemented with the cucumber. It felt so good to be successful by being prepared.

So, two tips for today: Celebrate the Non-Scale Victories and Be Prepared.

Here’s what I ate this week:

Chicken Curry

4oz chicken sliced thinly (easy to do if it’s semi-frozen)

2oz onion, big slices

2oz celery, bite size pieces

curry powder, to your liking

chicken broth

In a medium sized pan, add in your onions and celery and saute with a splash of chicken broth for about 2 minutes. Toss your chicken pieces in the curry powder and add them to the pan. Add additional chicken broth to help cook the vegetables and keep the chicken from sticking to the pan. Cook until the vegetables are tender and the chicken is cooked throughout, about 10 minutes.

Low-Carb Chili

Curried Beef and Spinach

4oz ground beef

4oz spinach

curry powder

Cook the hamburg in a pot with a splash of beef broth. Cook until cooked through. Add 1/2 cup of additional beef broth and add in the spinach and curry powder (to taste). Cook for about 2-3 minutes or until the spinach is wilted.

Curried Chicken and Cabbage

(see a theme going here this week)

4oz chicken

4oz cabbage

curry powder

Cook chicken in a pot with a splash of water or chicken broth. When no longer pink, add in your cabbage and a little more broth to help cook the cabbage down. Toss in the curry powder and mix well. Add sea salt and pepper and serve.

Here’s the meal we got from the restaurant at the casino. We took it to go so we could eat it during our bingo session.

Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls

Roasted Radishes

4oz radishes

sea salt and pepper

braggs aminos in a spray bottle

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper, place the radishes on the baking sheet and spray with the Braggs Aminos. Dust with salt and pepper. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes. Keep an eye on them and check for doneness.

Italian Grilled Chicken with Radishes and Spinach

Which one is your favorite from my menu this week?

Roasted Cabbage and my Diet Update

January 16, 2014

I’m on day 13 of my weight loss journey and I’ve lost 13.8 pounds. Hoping I hit the 15 pound mark by the end of the week. I didn’t realize I was four days behind on blogging, wow – time is flying by. I can’t remember what I ate each day but I will provide you with some food porn photos. 🙂

I’ll start first with tonight’s dinner. We had Chicken and Roasted Cabbage. It was my first time trying Roasted Cabbage and I really liked it. It had a kick of lemon on it.

Roasted Cabbage and Chicken

Take a head of cabbage and cut off wedges. I was just feeding my son and myself so I only cooked three wedges (one for me and two for him).

I cut a lemon in quarters and used one quarter. Squeeze it into a small bowl and add about 1/4 cup of chicken broth – drizzle over the cabbage. I then salt and peppered it.

Bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees and then flip them over.

I cooked some chicken with some spices in a pan on low/medium heat. No oil, just add a bit of water every now and then. I love when you do that and it added the caramelization color to your chicken.

The little piece is 4oz and It’s mine. The bigger piece was my son’s.

Here’s my menu from the rest of the past few days.

Two 2oz burger sliders on a wasa cracker. Topped with homemade Ketcup. Served with Asparagus.

BBQ Chopped Chicken Salad

Chili made with ground beef, radishes, celery and a plum tomato. Simmer with a bit of water and spices (chili, cumin, chipotle and sea salt and pepper)

Cabbage and Hamburg (I could eat this everyday)

Omni Update and “Spaghetti” and Meatballs

January 11, 2014

I know I’ve been MIA the last couple of days, sorry about that. My daughter is home visiting from college and I’m trying to spend time with her before she heads back. Here’s my Omni-Drops update: R1P3D8 – I’ve lost a total of 11.4 pounds so far and my energy has been wonderful. For the past 8 days I haven’t had to deal with the afternoon nap bugging me and dragging me down. I’ve also been having a harder time going to bed. I normally go to bed around 10pm but I’m finding myself laying in bed at midnight, awake. I’m taking my NiteLite and it’s giving me a great nights sleep. I need to start making myself take it before I’m actually tired so I can get back to an earlier bed time. Since I skipped a day, I’ll be listing two days of menus. Wednesday: Breakfast – 1/2 grapefruit Lunch – BBQ Chicken Salad Dinner – Omni Burger Sliders and Asparagus Snack – Granny Smith Apple