However, this has helped my transition to clean eating, because I've found totally YUM and non-boring alternatives to the ho-hum meat and veggie dinner. For example:
This is a closeup of last night's dinner that I cooked for my seester. I have to take a moment to give her MAD props, because although she hasn't taken the paleo challenge, she HAS altered her diet tremendously in support of my lifestyle change, and thus she basically IS paleo. She doesn't fill our home with tempting foods and she's basically cut ALL of the foods that I've cut. Thanks E for being the raddest in all of the land.
The menu last night was: apple baked pork tenderloin, smashed cauliflower, sauteed green beans and spicy sweet potato fries. I eyeball pretty much everything, so my measurements (unless directly from a recipe) pretty much consist of things like: "a glob" "couple spoonfuls" "pinch" "smidgen" and "sprinkling".
First up: Sauteed Green Beans
I had frozen these fresh green beans because they were on sale, so I bought a couple bags and didn't use them all right away. I don't recommend freezing them normally though, because they get a little too waterlogged for my taste, and there is NOTHING better than sauteed fresh green beans. I like to cook these on a 3 or 4 for a LONG time (about an hour) turning up the heat to a 6 every now and then to brown them a tad because I like them cooked way down, they lock in the flavor that way.
I like to use coconut spread to coat the pan, I buy this at Nature's Finest which is now called something else, but you can get it at any organic food store by the butter. It looks like this:
I sprinkle garlic salt on them throughout the entire time so that they are packed with flavor. About a half hour in, I chopped some red onion that I had left over and poured a little bit of sunflower oil in to kind of give them a caramelized flavor and put the lid on.
The pork tenderloin I totally cheated with because it was on sale and it was already marinated in the apple juice reduction, so I can't tell you a ton about it, but it did have onion powder, bourbon flavoring and some other jazz. That I just dumped into the casserole on 425 for about 25 minutes, flipping it halfway through. I also threw some red onions in there for good measure. It looked like this when I sliced it (like buttaa):
The cauliflower was publix brand frozen cauliflower. I boiled it until I could stick a fork through it. Then I drained it in a collander and poured it into a bowl. I dumped in "a few shakes" of dried parsley flakes, a little black pepper, some garlic powder and a dash of salt. Then I took a fork and hand mashed them to about the consistency of mashed potatoes. Because they retain so much water, you don't need to add any liquid to them, they are PERFECT just the way that they are.
The sweet potato fries are Alexia Spicy Sweet Potato Fries that you can find in the frozen food section of any local grocery store. They look like this in the bag:
I dumped them onto a cookie sheet with a "dash" of sunflower oil and I also put a "smidge" of ground cinnamon and a "sprinkle" of cajun seasoning for good measure. I add to everything because then I feel like it's way more home made than just dumping it on the pan, plus I'm obsessed with flavor. I tossed them around and threw them in the oven. Not a literal throw (much to the dismay of my little doggie Lincoln who was patiently awaiting one to drop), because they'd have made a MESS of my kitchen. The went into the 425 but only for about 12 minutes, and I took them out around 6 and forked them around. I usually do them on 350 for about 20 minutes, but the oven was already at 425 for the pork. Just make sure if you multitask that you don't forget, like I do ALL the time. They looked like this:
Final product looked like THIS [note: because of the dinner making/talk my face off to my sister after being gone all weekend, we didn't take the fall decorations down from the attic, so there are no rad fall placemats on the table YET.. this will change asap.]:
A special thanks to my sister for not complaining about all the dishes I used so I could take pretty pictures, as she was on dish duty. :) Thanks Seester.
It was YUM to the TUM. Hope this helps yall on your journey to cleaner living. You don't have to go totally crazy all at once, you can try incorporating these kinds of meals into your life and slowly phase out the less than good-for-you things.. and remember, every BODY is different, do what works for YOU. Cheers to your happiness and your healthiness.
-yelle
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