Healthier French Fries

I love both regular french fries and sweet potato fries, so I created this recipe for healthier french fries to make both at the same time without deep frying.

I used my Breville Oven which has an air fryer, but if you don’t have an air fryer you can use a roasting pan with a wire rack in it. Convection heat is best because it gives the fries more even crispness.

The trick is to start at a lower heat to cook the potatoes, then end on a higher heat to crisp up the outside. Continue reading “Healthier French Fries”

Pasta with Roasted Vegetables

Serves: 2 people + leftovers
Hands-on time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min

I adapted this recipe for pasta with roasted vegetables from a similar one I found on the Forks Over Knives website, which uses summer veggies. Since it’s winter I wanted to use winter veggies, so I swapped out the zucchini and eggplant for brussels sprouts and carrots.  Their recipe doesn’t use any oil, but I like the texture of pasta better when it has a little oil on it. Gluten-free pasta in particular tastes a bit pasty without oil. I also reduced the quantity to serve 2 people, so you’ll want to increase it if you have more mouths to feed. Continue reading “Pasta with Roasted Vegetables”

Dirty Quinoa

Serves: 3-4 people
Hands-on time: 15-20 min
Total time: 30 min

This recipe for “dirty” quinoa is adapted from the dirty rice I used to make all the time when I was single and cooking was a low priority.  I also used to chop up hotdogs and throw them in to make a meal, but um I don’t do that anymore. Now it’s just clean, whole, unprocessed food for me.  I sure wish they made a natural hotdog flavor I could add to a dish to get my hotdog fix.  Anyway, enough about hot dogs, let’s make some dirty quinoa!

Ingredients

Continue reading “Dirty Quinoa”

Classic Rice and Beans

Use the beans recipe here, but make the below adjustments.

http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/classic-black-beans-and-rice-46221

Adjustments:

  1. Don’t use sazon, it has MSG in it, just add some adobo seasoning instead, or a mix of garlic powder, paprika and salt.
  2. Double the recipe
  3. This will taste way better if you use beans you’ve cooked from dried and stored in your freezer using this recipe.  Home cooked beans are always better than canned.
  4. Serve over long grain brown rice, not white rice.

Super Easy Baked Chicken Breasts

Serves: 4-8 people
Hands-on time: 5 min
Total time: 30 min

This recipe for baked chicken breasts is truly super easy.  Baked (or roasted) chicken breasts can easily dry out and taste tough, but this recipe gives consistently moist, delicious results.

Ingredients

2 to 2-1/2 lbs chicken breasts (chicken thighs work well too but have a different nutritional profile)
1 Tbsp Olive oil
1-1/2 Tbsp Adobo or other seasoning blend Continue reading “Super Easy Baked Chicken Breasts”

Moroccan Roasted Salmon and Cauliflower

Serves: 4 people
Hands-on time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min

This roasted salmon recipe came from Cooking Light magazine. The basic recipe is intact but I modified a few things to make it healthier and fixed the time (as usual) to reflect actual prep work. (Read here about why cooking always take longer than the recipe says.) Continue reading “Moroccan Roasted Salmon and Cauliflower”