Holiday Leftovers: Sweet Potato and Cranberry Muffins

There's something about a newborn baby at Christmas time that makes me feel nostalgic.  The first holiday season we had our oldest was unlike one I had ever experienced.  I could relate to Mary on a whole new level as I sat up late at night nursing my two month old and rocking him to sleep.  Don't get me wrong, I was dead tired and did not always enjoy those late night feedings.  But there are a few that I remember sitting in his room and this feeling of complete joy washed over me.  Children bring a joy like no other and I can only imagine the immense amount of joy Mary felt knowing her child was going to be the Savior of the world.  I wanted to hold onto that joy and feeling all throughout the year!  I love decorating for Christmas because it's a visual reminder of the joy and hope that was given to us.  I'm always reluctant to put them away because I'm afraid that in the chaos of the year to come, I'll forget.  I'm holding on as tight as I can.  Dear Jesus, help me remember in every season of the year that you are the reason for the season!

As I'm strategizing how I'm going to store my growing collection of Christmas decor, I'm also strategizing how I'm going to use up my leftovers!  I had a couple of sweet potatoes in the pantry that needed to be used, a tad bit of flour left in my jar and a bag of cranberries in my freezer so I set to work figuring out how to use these items up.  Apparently I need to go grocery shopping.  I found lots of great sweet potato muffin recipes but none seemed to suite my taste.  The closest I found was from Taste of Home.  While the recipe looked delicious, I wanted to make some changes to make this muffin a little more clean.  So I adapted it to be a clean recipe that hopefully you will enjoy!  We certainly did!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup coconut sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 large egg
3/4 cup almond milk
1/2 cup cold baked sweet potato
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 cup fresh cranberries or 1 cup frozen cranberries that have been thawed

Directions:

1.  In the bowl of your stand mixer, add all of dry ingredients and whisk until combined. 
2.  In a separate bowl, whisk together wet ingredients. 
3.  Add wet to dry and mix on low until combined.  Gently fold in whole cranberries.
4.  Pour batter into jumbo muffin pan lined with parchment paper or jumbo muffin liners.
5.  Bake at 375 for 20-25 or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. (reduce time for regular sized muffins to 15-20 minutes.

I absolutely LOVE making jumbo muffins!  I don't think I'll ever go back!  I bought myself a handy dandy ice cream scoop for my cupcake/muffin and it has helped consistency in baking and size.  Definitely worth the $5. 

Also, how cute is the parchment paper?  I cut these a little big, but I wasn't sure how big to make them.  All I did was take a sheet of parchment paper and cut it into 4 pieces. 

My test if a muffin recipe is good or not is if the paper peels away without taking half the muffin with it!  That's the worst!  These muffins passed my test, but just barely. They are pretty moist with both the sweet potato and cranberries.  

Sweet, tart and delicious!

Enjoy!

Clean Eating Stuffed Apple "Pies"

Yes, huh.  You read that right.  Clean Eating Stuffed Apple Pies.  Because?  Because.  Because since starting my Beachbodyhttp://www.beachbodycoach.com/MelFiske journey, I have made a big effort to create delicious meals and desserts that you want to eat.  That are realistic.  That don't contain a thousand weird ingredients.  That tastes good.  Made out of ingredients you have in your pantry and don't have to order from Amazon.  Also, because I had granny smith apples sitting so prettily in a bowl on my table and were about to go bad so I had to think of something quick to do with them.  And because I wanted apple pie.

I'm sorry to say I don't have any after pictures.  But I don't think you need them.  All you need to see is before.  Why don't I have them?  Well, let me tell ya.  It was all apart of my plan to include them.  But then I cooked them for just a little longer than I should have and the skins exploded and peeled back leaving the flesh of the apple exposed and soft and full of flavor from the crumble.  It actually turned out to be a good thing as far as eating goes, but not as far as pictures go!  Don't worry, I have adjusted the baking times for the recipe so hopefully you don't have explosive apple skin.  :)

Ingredients:

3 large granny smith apples
3/4 cup quick cook oats
3 T melted coconut oil
3 T raw cane sugar
1 T cinnamon
1 t apple pie spice
1/4 c raisins
1/4 c walnuts

Directions:

1.  Using an apple core or paring knife, core the apples down the center, removing the seeds.  Don't core all the way through, once you have the seeds removed, stop to leave a base so the crumble stays in the apple.
2.  Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.
3.  Take the mixture and stuff apples and place in a baking dish.  It's okay that the crumble overflows into the dish...trust me.
4.  Add 1 cup of water to the base of your cooking dish.
5.  Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Allow to cool before serving.  Though it's not clean, I couldn't resist serving these alongside some vanilla ice cream...because I wanted to!  My husband and boys devoured every last bite.  And yes, of course I did too!

So after they baked, the oatmeal in the bottom of the pan completely absorbed the water creating the most delicious baked apple pie oatmeal ever.  We scooped it up and served it with the ice cream...omg.  It was amazing!  This dessert inspired me to create a new baked oatmeal recipe for breakfast.  I can't wait to try it...can you have ice cream for breakfast though?  Because I feel like you might need to serve it with ice cream.  I think, yes.

Granny smith apples are on my shopping list because we will be having this again in the very near future.

Clean Eating Asian Lettuce Wraps

If it weren't so late I'd make my way into the kitchen right now to make these again.  There definitely were not any left overs the first time I made these.  I am on an Asian kick lately whether it's this chicken salad, teryaki chicken skewers, mongolian beef, fried rice-you name it, I want it!  This is a perfect light and fresh summer salad.  It's clean.  It's delicious.  It's filling.  What more could you want?

 

Ingredients

For the filling:

2 grilled chicken breasts

1/4 c shredded carrots

3green onions

2 T chopped cilantro

1 diced avocado

For the sauce:

1/2 c tamari

1/4 t grated ginger
1 clove of garlic
1T white wine
1/8 t sesame oil
2 T honey
1/2 t red pepper flakes
dash of rice vinegar

Directions:

1.  Dice chicken into small pieces.

2.  Add to a bowl with cilantro, carrots, avocado and chopped green onions.

3.  Grate ginger and garlic into a bowl.  Go light on the ginger, add more later if you need it. I grate them using my micro-plane.

4.  Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until combined.  Taste test, adjusting honey if need be.

5.  Pour over chicken mixture and enjoy. 

I used large romaine leaves but you can use iceberg, butter lettuce or even cabbage.  This recipe would make a great Asian cabbage roll!  mmm...

You may be wondering what tamari is, it's a gluten free soy sauce.  Recently, I've started eliminating as much gluten from my diet as I can.  Not because I have to but because of the difference I feel when I chose not to have it.  The taste is only slightly different.  You may notice it at first but once you've had it a few times you don't realize the difference.  

As I said, there weren't any left overs.  My husband and I devoured these!  We had two big wraps each and I (bow my head in shame) pretty darn well licked the bowl.  

 

Butternut Squash and Farro Salad with Kale

It's a mouthful.  Both literally and figuratively.  I love when I feel full on food that is good for you!  While browsing for healthy salads a few weeks ago I stumbled upon this salad from Well Plated.
I can never remember what it's called but I can remember that it's delicious.  How can you forget something that's delicious?  You can't.  At least I cant.

This is a perfect winter salad because it's served warm.  However it is perfectly scrumptious cold as well!  Her recipe calls for freekeh which I couldn't find and definitely didn't have so I used farro instead.  It's a very hearty grain that's perfect with this combination.

I have only recently started using maple syrup as a sweetener in salad dressings.  I normally use honey but since I've made the switch I'm sold!  I find that the type of flower the bees used can drastically change the flavor of a dish.  While maple syrup has a strong flavor it's definitely hidden when combined with other ingredients.  

This salad will be making it's way onto my menu again real soon!  I hope it's on yours too!

Chicken and Farro Soup

Well Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and whatever other holiday I may have missed!  I've been very busy behind the camera the last few months which caused me to put the blog aside.  Hopefully I'll be able to start posting more regularly now that the holidays are over.  Here is a sneak peek of the fruits of my labor!  You can check out my photography website at www.mlfotography.com.

 

 

 

Aside from photography, I was busy preparing for the Holiday Extravaganza and Christmas itself!  I shared a little bit about the HE in my post about Christmas Stove-top Scents.  In addition to making scents and printables, I made several gifts that can be made on a budget.  These can be used at any time of the year for birthday gifts, teacher or employee appreciation or just an old fashioned thank you gift!

If you know me, you know that gift wrap is a big deal to me.  Whether it's Christmas, birthday or a get well gift, I love spending time making sure each detail of the wrapping is perfect.  I think it makes the gift even more special.  For this year's gift wrap I just used Google Images to find my favorite Christmas chalkboard printable and hand copied the print onto a gift that was wrapped with butcher paper using a chalkboard marker.  Pretty cute huh?  I'm in love with it, so if you receive a gift from me in the near future you can guarantee it'll look similar!

Now for the good stuff.

I've made lots of yummy things recently but I blame poor lighting for not being able to take pictures to post them.  Oh and also time.  And sick babies.  But yesterday I made a batch of homemade chicken stock that had so much flavor I had to make a soup right away and share it with you.  For the stock I put celery (with the leafy greens), carrots, garlic, onion, parsley, bay leaves and thyme in a pot, placed 3 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts on top and covered with water and simmered for about an hour and a half.  I do have to tell you that they weren't whole breasts.  We had bought bone-in breasts a while back and cut the breasts off and I froze the remainder for the purpose of making broth.  There wasn't a ton of chicken left on there, but just enough for a small batch of soup.  If you use whole bone-in breasts, it may take longer.  Because I didn't have very much chicken for my soup, I used farro to create a more hearty and satisfying soup.

You're probably thinking far-what?  Farro.  It's becoming more and more popular and is starting to appear on restaurant menus and on recipes around Pinterest. When I first read it on a menu I have to admit I thought it was a cheese.  Haha!  I quickly learned otherwise.  It looks really similar to barley when cooked and is nutty in flavor.  All you need to know is that, yes, it is delicious!

So from a random thought to make stock, this recipe was born.  And it's delicious.

Ingredients:

3 small carrots, diced
1/4 onion, diced
1 T olive oil
1/2 cup white wine
6 cups of homemade chicken stock
1 cup of shredded chicken
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup uncooked farro
2 stocks of kale, chopped

1.  In a dutch oven, saute onion and carrots in olive oil for 2-3 minutes.
2.  Add 1/2 cup of white cooking wine and simmer for 1 minute.
3.  Add stock, chicken, farro and bay leaf.
4.  Simmer for 10-15 minutes or until farro is finished
5.  Cut the kale leaves away from the rib and chop.  Add to soup and turn off heat and recover for 5-10 minutes or until kale is wilted.

This soup was delicious when I served it but had even more flavor the next day.  The stock was incredible rich in flavor and adding the white wine only added to the incredible amounts of flavor that was happening.  I didn't need to use many aromatics in the soup because I had already done so when making the stock.  If you are using a box or canned stock or broth, you may want to add celery, garlic and thyme to your base before adding the broth.    

Be happy.  Be healthy.  Enjoy!

Grilled Chicken and Romaine Salad

This is a huge hit every time I serve it to a crowd.  It's extremely easy and an inexpensive way to feed a lot of people.  One head of romaine was .98 at Wal-Mart and you can get great deals on it at SAMs and farmer's markets as well, making it super duper budget friendly. If you want a home run impression, then add a little adobo sauce to your ceasar dressing to make a chipotle ceasar.  People won't stop talking about it.

Ingredients:

• grilled romaine lettuce
• dried cranberries (or cherries...mmmm cherries...)
• blue cheese crumbles
• toasted chopped almonds (sliced or slivered will work well too)
• ceasar dressing
• perfectly grilled chicken 

Seasoning for romaine: oil of your choice, sea salt and pepper
Seasoning for the chicken: oil of your choice, sea salt, garlic powder, onion powder, chili flake 

1.  Season your chicken.  I used sea salt, garlic powder, onion powder and red chili flake.  The difference between table salt and sea salt (or coarse kosher salt) is HUGE.  Trust me on this one.  Try it next time.  Just go easy.  You don't need as much as table salt.

2.  Grill your chicken.  After you have brought your grill up to temperature (we usually do about 600 degrees for 5-10 minutes) bring your grill back down to medium.  We have a few meat rules in our house:  FLIP THE MEAT ONCE.  If you flip back and forth...well.  Stop it. Flip your meat when your edges are nice and white and there's a little pink on top.  The other one is: LET THE MEAT REST BEFORE YOU CUT IT.  For crying out loud, you'll let the juices run out.  Do you want dry meat?  Do you?  Well do you?  (Cook chicken to an internal temperature of 160)

Beautiful, huh?

3.  While the chicken is cooking throw your chopped or sliced almonds in a skillet and toast them.  Please toss them occasionally.  You want them toasted, not burnt and get this, you'll know when their done when you smell toasted almonds (about 2-3 minutes).  Crazy, but that's what the professionals say.

4.  Now let's start on the romaine.  This will grill in a cinch, so do this last while the chicken is resting (remember, our meat rules).  Cut romaine in half length-wise, leaving the core in tact. 

5.  Season with oil, sea salt and pepper.

6. Throw them babies on the grill.  About 1-2 minutes on each side. 

You want just a little bit of char on the leaves.

7.  Your chicken is still resting, remember? When your romaine is done, cut it length wise and then cut the other direction making nice little "romaine squares" as I like to call them in my head.

8.  See?  This is well rested chicken.  Now cut your chicken in your desired grilled chicken eating shape.  Sometimes I like squares, sometimes I like thin strips. 

I wanted strips today.

9.  Top your grilled romaine with your cranberries, toasted almonds, chicken, blue cheese and of course, dressing. 

-Hey Honey, can I take a picture of you eating the salad?
-No.

Hope you enjoy, I know we did!