In the Kitchen | 20 Healthy Meal Ideas

In my Clean Slate post at the end of last year, I mentioned we would be doing our annual Whole 30, but I need to fess up - I’ve been modifying the basic principals - and I’m really happy with our new and improved weekly menu! I thought I’d share my main recipe sources and my favorite meals from the cook books I use most.

As you can see by scrolling through this post, I’m one of those people who takes photos of her food. Love it or leave it I guess! It keeps me creative and accountable and makes me excited to cook. Cooking healthy can be fun and delicious, so do whatever inspires you to eat well! 

What’s the Whole 30?

In short, it’s a diet plan that focuses on meats and veggies and forbids alcohol, sugar, dairy, grains and beans. Read the full rundown here.

What are we doing differently?

Because one of the main goals of a Whole 30 is to identify what foods might inflame your system, we’ve already tested what does and does not upset our lil tummies. For starters, we’ve minimized the amount of dairy we consume (grass fed butter, milk in coffee and small bits of cheese are examples of our exceptions). In the grain department, we’re not eating refined grains that you’d find in breads or desserts* for most meals but have been eating a lot of quinoa, which we love! In the sugar realm, we still use honey as a sweetener - for my morning coffee and in salad dressings. We also eat things like bacon and sausages made by our local butcher and those tend to have sugars in them. Not a big deal to us! We also love beans - whether it’s black beans or homemade hummus, so we’ve kept them as a big part of our weekly diet. Finally, we’re in the alcohol business and we’re responsible adults, so we’ve chosen to allow ourselves red wine on weekday evenings with dinner and a cocktail or two over the weekend. #noregrets 

But Aren’t you Obsessed with Baking?

*Good call. Yes, yes I am. I plan on baking sweet treats and breads on Saturdays once and a while. Adam has a request in for baguettes and I want to do something with my new springform pan! It’s my personal belief that if you deprive yourself too much, you just go buck wild and throw caution to the wind. It also gives me something to look forward to! 

Where do you get ideas?

I’ve been using two cookbooks almost exclusively and I really love them! They are Primal Cravings by Brandon and Megan Keatley and Inspiralized by Ali Maffucci. I believe in supporting other bloggers and authors, and thus won’t be reposting their original recipes. If you like what you see in these photos, please consider supporting them yourselves and buying their cookbooks! I’ve listed my source in each photo from this post.

I’ve also included photos of easier off the cuff meals I’ve dreamed up myself with memorized family recipes or simple preparations (poaching eggs, basic red pasta sauce, etc) And don’t be afraid to pick up something pre made at the grocery or butcher like veggie kabobs!

Favorite Breakfasts

Breakfast is easily my favorite meal of the day. I love eggs cooked in all sorts of ways - poached, scrambled with veggies or hard boiled (and fried, let’s be real!) And yes you’ll see bacon below and no, not everyone would qualify it as healthy, but if you buy from your local farmer or butcher and eat it minimally, it’s a great way to get a lot of flavor in a little (or big) bite. Below are some dishes we’ve really enjoyed as a traditional breakfast meal but also for dinner! See a week’s worth of my favorite paleo breakfast ideas here.

Main Dishes

When I’m looking for recipes and meal ideas I want something nutrient dense, colorful and focused on veggies, lean meats and healthy fats. The following dishes fit the bill and can be altered to fit different dietary needs.

Snacks

Only a couple ideas here, but for me, they hit the spot. On the sweet side of things an apple with almond butter satisfies my sweet tooth. If it’s savory you’re after, a hard boiled egg wrapped in prosciutto is a quick flavor filled bite.

Do Over | Macarons 2.0

WhatIWore: Last week I was baking like a mad woman! I made 8 batches of macaroons and was pretty proud of my Pumpkin Spice coffee flavored ones that I posted that week… that is until they turned to mush less than 24 hours later. Boo! They could have been prettier too… I still have so much practice until they’re shaped properly. I’ll get there eventually!  

Set on improving my results, this weekend with my mom’s help, we made them again. Using your advice (especially you, LMR) I slammed down my trays after piping and before setting up to get more bubbles out. Now we’re getting closer!! Slightly rounded top! Little lifted feet! We did a lemon buttercream using lemon extract and lemon rind and hallelujah it was incredible. I still need to figure out how to get the entire macaroon filled (because the top dome is hollow and thus super fragile). Who’s got a tip for me?

In My Kitchen | Pumpkin Spiced Macarons

WhatIWore: Have you seen The Great British Bake Off? Adam and I are obsessed! I’ve done pies and cakes and bread, but one thing I hadn’t tried until last week were macarons. They seem like they’d be really hard, but if you find a good recipe, they’re pretty doable!

Now that the leaves are changing, why not take a hint from my favorite fall drink and do a pumpkin spiced coffee flavored version? Here’s how I made these (based on this recipe, with my changes)

Ingredients
Three Egg Whites
110 grams almond meal 
200 grams powdered sugar
1 T Coffee Flavored Liqueur (I used Cardinal Spirits Songbird Coffee Liqueur)
¼ C sugar
Gel Food Coloring (3 drops red, 3 drops yellow)

For me, the key was also in using the proper tools, which were: a kitchen scale, a  metal seive and parchment paper on a thin baking tray. (Some bakers swear by the Silpat, but when I used plain old parchment and a little cooking spray, I had much better results.) The ingredients are quite simple: powdered sugar, regular sugar, almond meal and egg whites. It’s how you handle them that makes all the difference.

For the macarons:

First get your whites into your mixer and get ‘em fluffy. I add my food coloring at this stage as well.

While those are mixing, sift 110 grams of almond meal into a bowl, followed by 200 grams of powdered sugar. Then sift them again to mix them throughly together. I found that when I was sifting my almonds some little pebbles were left in the sieve. On my first attempt I just left those in the batter, but they made the texture… bumpy. By sifting into your bowl on the scale, you’ll get the proper amount of fine almond dust!

Check your whites and add in the ¼ C regular sugar now until incorporated. They should be glossy and form peaks.

Next fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites. Do this carefully. Somewhere between 30-40 folds will yield the proper consistency. Too firm and the macaroons will pipe out too thickly and peak up and too much mixing will kill all of that fluff you’ve whipped up.

Gently transfer your mixture into a pastry bag and pipe them onto your silpat or tray. When practicing, I found my last macarons always came out best, which tells me the mix can either rest or warm up a little. Take your time to create evenly sized cookies and be sure not to place them too closely together. I also had the best success with silver dollar sized circles.

Now! Wait! You want to let the little cookies just sit on the tray at room temp so they develeop a little natural shell on top. I waited about 45 minutes for this to happen. In the meantime, you can get your oven pre-heating to 285.

To bake, I went 11-12 minutes (original recipe suggests 10), then let them cool completely before taking them off the mat (anytime I got impatient and tried to peel one off too soon it stuck and crumbled). They should be slighted domed on top and have little feet rising from the bottom.

UPDATE: Don’t do what I did with the filling. These turned to mush within 48 hours. Great flavor, not great texture. Next time I’m going to go back to buttercream and use pumpkin pie filling as part of the liquid (maybe instead of milk?) and see if I can get that pumpkiny flavor in a more solid (and less moist) filling.

For the Filling:

If I could do this part over again, I’d add a little less pumpkin filling because it made the end product a bit too moist if not eaten immediately. For this version, I mixed equal amounts of softened cream cheese and pumpkin pie filling to create a creamy, pumpkiny filling and added 1.5 T of the coffee liqueur. Once mixed I pushed it through the sieve again to get a smooth texture. It was a little runny, so I put it into the fridge to rest and firm up. Of all the fillings I’ve tried, buttercream actually holds up the best, but is too sugary for my taste. I’ll continue to experiment on this part! Once shells are cooled, pipe in filling. 

The macarons pictured here were my third attempt at this specific recipe (fifth time making macaroons overall) and I learned something each time - from the importance of using a scale with the powdered ingredients to adjusting the cooking time, to letting the little feet form (a result of proper folding… I think??) All batches tasted good, most had good texture and all of the experimenting was worth it! Are they pastry chef perfect? No way! But do they taste like your favorite fall time coffee shop latte? Heck yeah! I’d rate these easier than baking a pie and a little more challenging than bread. Definitely not something you whip up to take to a last minute dinner inviation, but doable if you have the time and patience. Now… who’s coming over for tea time!? 

In The Kitchen | Key Lime Pie

I love baking and I especially love making pies (see my #Jessicas100pies on Instagram to view past pies!) I usually go with a flakey crust and custard filling, but for Adam’s birthday weekend, I decided to make his favorite - Key Lime Pie. The recipes I used were so easy and the result was tangy, sweet and silky. If you’re a newbie to pie making, I bet you could tackle this recipe! 

Graham Cracker Crust (original recipe here)

- 1 ½ C graham crackers

- 1/3 C sugar

- 6 T melted butter

Start by tossing your graham crackers into the food processor and get them pretty well crumbled. Add sugar. Slowly add melted butter until the mixture clumps up a bit. Transfer to 9″ glass pie dish and evenly press to bottom and sides. Using glass will help you hold the dish up to the light and see if you have any holes!

Bake for 7 minutes at 375. Let cool completely before filling. 

Key Lime Filling (original recipe here)

- 3 14oz cans of sweetened condensed milk

- ¾ C key lime juice

- ½ C sour cream

- 1 T freshly grated lime zest (about one lime)

Combine all ingredients and transfer to cooled graham cracker crust. I like for a little bit of the crust to show around the edges, so if you’ve used a smaller pie dish, you might have a little filling left over. Bake for 6 minutes at 350. Watch closely! Don’t let your pretty pie get brown. 

Let your pie cool on the counter and transfer to the fridge once at room temperate. To garnish, slice a lime with your mandoline (be careful!) and layer over the top of the pie. To serve, slice and add a dollop of freshly whipped cream (heavy whipping cream with a little sugar and dash of vanilla).