We can't have buns on this diet, so it's tough to want to put a lot of fixings on top of a burger when you know you're going to end up eating it with a fork, it just gets to be a hassle. So I decided to start putting my fixings IN my burgers.
I use a pound of ground turkey and it is just right to feed all 4 of us, but depending on your family, you may need more or less...
About a teaspoon and a half of Worcestershire sauce
Seasonings to taste
Diced jalapeno (About a half of a pepper)
Minced garlic (About a tablespoon)
If you like sautee'd onions, go ahead and cook some up and then dice them to add to your ground turkey. I don't, so, I don't.
Mix it all together, form your burgers and cook em up! I've also though about adding mustard to the meat before cooking it, but I'm not a big mustard fan like the rest of my family, so I haven't gone there just yet. It still goes on top of their burger...it's not like it's hard to cut...
Showing posts with label gluten free. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gluten free. Show all posts
Sunday, January 1, 2012
My Taco Meat
I always cook with ground turkey because it's so much healthier and it's always $2.29/lb at Costco which is WAY cheaper than decent hamburger.Feel free to double or triple the recipe if you'll be serving a large group or like to add some to an omlet or make a breakfast burrito with your scrambled eggs. The meat will go fast, trust me!Anyways, this is my standard for taco meat...
1 lb ground turkey (brown the meat before adding the canned ingredients)
Johnny's Seasoning
Black or white pepper
Cumin
A little Cayenne Pepper
1 10 oz can of Rotel (most of the liquid drained)
1 7 oz can of diced green chilis
1 diced jalapeno (or 2, depending on the peppers)
If you brown the meat most of the way with just the seasonings on it before adding the rotel, chilis and peppers, you seem to get a much better flavor out of this. I dunno, maybe I'm crazy...but that's always been my experience. Sometimes I make 2 lbs at a time just because I know we'll plow through it in a couple of days, especially on this diet.
1 lb ground turkey (brown the meat before adding the canned ingredients)
Johnny's Seasoning
Black or white pepper
Cumin
A little Cayenne Pepper
1 10 oz can of Rotel (most of the liquid drained)
1 7 oz can of diced green chilis
1 diced jalapeno (or 2, depending on the peppers)
If you brown the meat most of the way with just the seasonings on it before adding the rotel, chilis and peppers, you seem to get a much better flavor out of this. I dunno, maybe I'm crazy...but that's always been my experience. Sometimes I make 2 lbs at a time just because I know we'll plow through it in a couple of days, especially on this diet.
Spicy Chicken Soup
The kiddos weren't home for this one, but the hubby loved it, and so did I! I think the kids would have liked it, but they are used to spicy...
2 chicken breasts (Boiled and shredded or finely diced)
1 box of chicken broth (I go organic low sodium)
2 cups of water
7 oz can of diced green chilis
10 oz can of Rotel (tomatoes with diced green chilis, but it really pays to go brand name on this, the store brands are too Italian-y(?)
1/3 - 1/2 of each type of onion diced, white, yellow and red
Jalapeno to taste
Cumin
Johnny's Seasoning
White Pepper
Touch of Cayenne Pepper and/or Chili Powder
If you can eat corn and aren't worried about the carbs, by all means, add corn.
We also thought that some pinto beans would be super tasty in this and may allow you to use less chicken (cost savings) but they're too high in carbs for our diet, so I didn't go there either.
It does have a good kick to it, but of course you control how hot it gets. I think this would be perfect for a really cold winter day after playing in the snow, or when you're sick and need to clear out your sinuses.
2 chicken breasts (Boiled and shredded or finely diced)
1 box of chicken broth (I go organic low sodium)
2 cups of water
7 oz can of diced green chilis
10 oz can of Rotel (tomatoes with diced green chilis, but it really pays to go brand name on this, the store brands are too Italian-y(?)
1/3 - 1/2 of each type of onion diced, white, yellow and red
Jalapeno to taste
Cumin
Johnny's Seasoning
White Pepper
Touch of Cayenne Pepper and/or Chili Powder
If you can eat corn and aren't worried about the carbs, by all means, add corn.
We also thought that some pinto beans would be super tasty in this and may allow you to use less chicken (cost savings) but they're too high in carbs for our diet, so I didn't go there either.
It does have a good kick to it, but of course you control how hot it gets. I think this would be perfect for a really cold winter day after playing in the snow, or when you're sick and need to clear out your sinuses.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Chicken Veggie Soup
I totally cheated on this one, but it falls within the diet guidelines, AND the kiddos love it.
1 32 oz box of Low Sodium Chicken broth
2 cups of water
1 lb of chicken breast, fat trimmed (can even still be frozen, so long as the fat was trimmed before freezing)
1 bay leaf or two
Some Johnny's and black or white pepper
I tossed this on medium high heat while I diced veggies to get things started.
I added 2 thinly chopped celery stocks and a bag of frozen crinkle cut carrots, about a third of each type of onion: white, yellow and red. (Onion helps aid in the breakdown of fat before it can be stored in the body, so I'm trying to incorporate more of them into our diet.)
Just let it simmer, bring it to a boil and then turn it down just slightly from there and let it go for like an hour. You know it's ready when the chicken falls apart if you try and take it out of the pan. lol, if you're really determined to get the chicken out, you can shred it very easily, and then dump it back in and enjoy.
If you want it to get a little father, you can double the veggies and bump up the chicken to 1 and a half pounds. Use one box of chicken brother and then refill the box with water. You can always add a little chicken bullion to add a little more flavor.
1 32 oz box of Low Sodium Chicken broth
2 cups of water
1 lb of chicken breast, fat trimmed (can even still be frozen, so long as the fat was trimmed before freezing)
1 bay leaf or two
Some Johnny's and black or white pepper
I tossed this on medium high heat while I diced veggies to get things started.
I added 2 thinly chopped celery stocks and a bag of frozen crinkle cut carrots, about a third of each type of onion: white, yellow and red. (Onion helps aid in the breakdown of fat before it can be stored in the body, so I'm trying to incorporate more of them into our diet.)
Just let it simmer, bring it to a boil and then turn it down just slightly from there and let it go for like an hour. You know it's ready when the chicken falls apart if you try and take it out of the pan. lol, if you're really determined to get the chicken out, you can shred it very easily, and then dump it back in and enjoy.
If you want it to get a little father, you can double the veggies and bump up the chicken to 1 and a half pounds. Use one box of chicken brother and then refill the box with water. You can always add a little chicken bullion to add a little more flavor.
17 Day Diet Recipes
Ok here goes, the 17 day diet is fairly restrictive in phase 1, but here are some of the things we've been enjoying:
Breakfast
Real Eggs - It's an egg substitute made with 99% egg whiles that actually tastes like scrabled eggs. A little more expensive, but worth it for the hubby's cholesterol, and my egg yolk intolerance. Sold at Costco, you get 6 little cartons of the stuff, but it goes pretty quick when you're feeding 2 people. We use them to make omlets, add leftover taco meat to make it a crazy scramble, or just make good old fashioned scrambled eggs. Sometimes my hubby eat real, whole eggs, which you are allowed on the diet, but he has borderline high cholesterol, so I've told him no more than 4 yolks a week to try and get his numbers down.
Yogurt - I only buy Lucerne Plain Fat Free Yogurt because EVERY other bottle I've looked at contains High Fructose Corn Syrup (aka, double sided sticky tape for fat) and if I'm dieting, I refuse to eat the stuff. No point in sabotaging myself from the get go. So anyways, Lucerne Yogurt, between a half cup and a whole cup (you'll figure out how much you need), mixed with an equal part of frozen berries. I defrost and then slightly heat the berries just to take the bite off the cold yogurt. If the berries are tart, I'll add some stevia to take the edge off.
Lunches and Dinners
These really are interchangable...I try and make lunch the bigger meal, but it doesn't always happen. The three things I've made so far that have been really big hits, I'll post the recipes to separately so you don't have to go through all this rambling every time you need to find them. But so far they are:
1. Chicken and veggie soup
2. Spicy Chicken soup
3. Taco meat (for it's versatility)
and 4. Loaded Burgers
Breakfast
Real Eggs - It's an egg substitute made with 99% egg whiles that actually tastes like scrabled eggs. A little more expensive, but worth it for the hubby's cholesterol, and my egg yolk intolerance. Sold at Costco, you get 6 little cartons of the stuff, but it goes pretty quick when you're feeding 2 people. We use them to make omlets, add leftover taco meat to make it a crazy scramble, or just make good old fashioned scrambled eggs. Sometimes my hubby eat real, whole eggs, which you are allowed on the diet, but he has borderline high cholesterol, so I've told him no more than 4 yolks a week to try and get his numbers down.
Yogurt - I only buy Lucerne Plain Fat Free Yogurt because EVERY other bottle I've looked at contains High Fructose Corn Syrup (aka, double sided sticky tape for fat) and if I'm dieting, I refuse to eat the stuff. No point in sabotaging myself from the get go. So anyways, Lucerne Yogurt, between a half cup and a whole cup (you'll figure out how much you need), mixed with an equal part of frozen berries. I defrost and then slightly heat the berries just to take the bite off the cold yogurt. If the berries are tart, I'll add some stevia to take the edge off.
Lunches and Dinners
These really are interchangable...I try and make lunch the bigger meal, but it doesn't always happen. The three things I've made so far that have been really big hits, I'll post the recipes to separately so you don't have to go through all this rambling every time you need to find them. But so far they are:
1. Chicken and veggie soup
2. Spicy Chicken soup
3. Taco meat (for it's versatility)
and 4. Loaded Burgers
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Fortunate
Lately I've found myself spending a lot of time in reflection. Even if it's just a few minutes here and there, and I really do have to consider myself fortunate. Has life gone the way I had planned over the past few years? Absolutely not. Would I change it for anything? Absolutely not. Life isn't always easy, and it doesn't always do what we want it to. But it's hard to ignore that things do seem to happen for a reason. Arron and I were considering moving half way across the country to Minnesota, but I just couldn't seem to get a call back on a hospital job, and there were NO internal openings for him to be able to transfer his job. So we looked at Portland...same thing...no luck. Then we find out that the girls will be coming to live with us because their mom made some less than desirable decisions. So we decide that Arron should go back to school and we should move to Olympia to be closer to my family. Unfortunately, a job closer to home just hasn't happened for me. Until now. I've interviewed at St Joe's in Tacoma and the manager has told me that I'm her selection for the position, now I'm just waiting for HR to do all their HR things and call me with an actual offer and a rate of pay.
My sister, as many of you know, has Celiac disease. To those who don't know what that is, it is a complete intolerance of gluten. Which is found in wheat, barley, rye and other similar grains. So no bread or pasta or beer or processed foods. "Modified Food Starch" is a sneaky way of saying "I also probably contain gluten" so the only way to know on those foods, is to contact the manufacturer. But even if it's processed in the same facility as foods that contain gluten, you can almost be certain that it's been cross contaminated, and ultimately, will make her sick. It seemed to me that after...what...I guess a few years now...of being gluten free (GF) she had finally gotten used to it. She had figured out how to make meals she could still enjoy, but it involved LOTS of salad to keep it simple. I could tell that she hadn't lost hope for good bread, but she certainly hadn't found it yet. I was keeping my eyes and ears peeled for any possible options that might be good.
I remember that after she first got diagnosed she had to go to New York for work for like a week. I decided that I was going to make lasagna for her to have the night she got home. So I went to Top Foods and grabbed a box of Tinkyada pasta and thought...well, it's worth a shot...and maybe with all the other flavors, she won't notice the weird brown rice pasta...so I made the lasagna. And it was awesome! And she loved it! The thought I'd put into making something she thought was a no-no. The way I made sure the sauce and everything was (as I call it) "Manda-friendly". Well just recently she's been told there is a whole new host of foods that she may be intolerant to. So, for the next 8 weeks, no dairy, no egg yolks, no red meat, no dark green leafy veggies, no alcohol, no caffeine, low fat, and LOTS of soluble fiber. Which doesn't sound like the end of the world, until you remember no gluten either. So...it's rice, chicken, turkey, potatoes, and umm...steamed veggies.
I found the the Gluten Free Goddess and she's been a God-send. Karina is the writer of the blog and she too is GF, dairy free and egg free. She actually has more allergies, but since she was diagnosed with those later, many of her recipes contain things she now knows are no-no's. I made her vanilla cupcakes for my sister's birthday last weekend and they were pretty good. Totally different for a "normal" gluten-laden cupcake, but tasty. So I've been expirementing with things like Vegan Mayo, alternative flours, rice pasta and others, to find tasty, healthy options for both my little family, and my sister. I made a tuna pasta salad last weekend too that was Manda-safe and still good. I'm going to try and chicken corn chowder this weekend. I'll let you know how it comes out. As I experiment, I'll post anything that turns out edible here. :)
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