Homemade Whole Wheat Egg Noodles

I used to make egg noodles often when I made homemade chicken noodle soup, thanks to my ex-in-laws for teaching me how, but I always used white flour. I haven’t made them in years because I was certain they would be gross with wheat flour, but I decided to try it. I came up with this recipe, and they were delicious!

Whole Wheat Egg Noodles

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 2 tsp oil
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 4 cups Bob’s Red Mill Whole Wheat Pastry Flour (I used this specific one, but another flour might work just as well.)

Directions

1. Wisk together eggs, oil, water, and salt in a large bowl.
2. Add 2 cups of flour, and stir with a large wooden spoon. Add another cup of flour, and begin kneading in bowl.
3. Dump the ball of dough onto a floured surface, and continue to knead in the remainder of the flour for a total of 4 cups. Knead until flour is completely incorporated. The dough may be slightly sticky, but keep the surface well floured and begin to roll out your dough. I prefer thinner noodles since they tend to plump up when they cook, so I like to roll mine out pretty thin, about as much as I would roll out a tortilla. Sometimes I have to divide my dough in half since I don’t have much countertop space.
4. Once the dough is rolled out, use a pizza cutter to cut strips according to the size you prefer.
5. Place all your noodles in a bowl until you are ready to put them in boiling broth or water, depending on what you’re using them for. Boil for about 20 minutes or until noodles are soft and ready to eat. I like my chicken noodle soup a bit more creamy, and the floured noodles help to give my soup the perfect amount of creaminess.

Zucchini and Sausage Tortellini Soup

So this recipe isn’t perfectly healthy, but I have to make exceptions for this soup. It’s our favorite. It’s fabulous. Right after I had my baby one of my sweet neighbors brought it over for dinner, and we were in heaven. So I got the recipe from her, but I’ve changed it to make it a bit healthier. It’s loaded with zucchini, and I love zucchini. We don’t even care that it’s the middle of the summer in Las Vegas – we’ll eat this soup anytime!

Zucchini and Sausage Tortellini Soup

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb Italian Seasoned Ground Turkey (I used this as a substitution for 1lb ground Italian sausage)
• 1 cup coarsely chopped onions
• 2 cloves glarlic, chopped
• 8 cups beef broth
• 3/4 cups water
• 2 cups diced tomatoes (I used canned petite diced)
• I cup thinly sliced carrots
• 1/2 tsp basil
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 8 oz tomato sauce
• 3-4 cups sliced zucchini (we like ours loaded with zucchini)
• 1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 lb frozen or refrigerated cheese tortellini (the unhealthy part)
• grated parmesan for topping
• sea salt to taste

Brown turkey sausage and set aside. Add onions and garlic and sauté until onions are tender. Add turkey sausage, beef broth, water, diced tomatoes, carrots, basil, oregano, and tomato sauce. Bring to a boil, then let simmer uncovered until carrots are mostly tender, about 20 mins. Stir in zucchini and simmer for about 10 minutes before adding the tortellini. Add the tortellini and simmer for 15-20 minutes (depending on the type of tortellini you use). I buy tortellini that’s done in about 10 minutes, but if yours needs to cook longer, add it in with the zucchini so that the zucchini doesn’t cook too long. Top with fresh grated parmesan cheese.

Cheesy Broccoli Potato Soup

Who doesn’t love a good broccoli cheese soup? I don’t know anybody. I’ve ordered it at restaurants since I was just a kid, but I know that it was never healthy. Sooo, hoping to create a healthier option, I threw some things together and came up with this savory soup. Not as thick and creamy as I wish it could be, but it was delicious – the boys were asking for seconds and my husband said it was fantastic (that was the word he used). I’m not vegan or vegetarian, but you could leave out the cheese and and use just vegetable broth to accommodate those diets. Enjoy! We sure did.

Cheesy Broccoli Potato Soup

Ingredients

• 1/2-1 cup coconut milk (the one I buy has no coconut taste whatsoever)
• 10 cups chicken or vegetable broth (I did half of each)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 head of cauliflower, chopped
• 1/2-1 cup chopped carrots
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 10 small red potatoes, chopped (you can use whatever potato you want. Add more or less to your liking but I like to use more so that the potatoes are used to thicken the soup).
• 4 cups broccoli
• 1 tsp garlic
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp parsley
• sea salt to taste (didn’t need much)
• 1-2 cups cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients except for broccoli and cheese in a pot. Bring to a boil, and simmer until veggies are almost tender. Use a hand blender in the pot to puree the vegetables into smaller pieces. Add broccoli, and cook until broccoli is tender. I used the hand blender once more to puree the veggies into finer pieces. Add cheese and stir until melted. Remove from heat and serve. You can add more veggies, less veggies, milk, or meat if you want to.

Healthy Café Rio Style Dressing

I almost kissed myself today when I threw this recipe together in hopes of making something that tasted like Café Rio’s house dressing and ended up loving it. That’s right, it was awesome! And HEALTHY!! I doubted that it could be made because it’s sometimes hard to replicate the taste of things like MSG, and a lot of time healthy food is good for healthy food but could never live up to the taste of “other” food. But it WAS good, and not just good as far as healthy foods go, but good in general. I feel this is my greatest contribution to humanity yet. My boys ate it with their fingers. We are big salad eaters around here because my children love it. And Café Rio is one of our favorite places because, well, we like delicious food. But with our new lifestyle, we can’t eat it as often as our palates might like us to, so a healthy version had to be made.

Originally, I found an avocado cilantro dressing that I tried, but it needed more oomph. I wanted it to taste like Café Rio’s dressing. I searched far and wide for a healthy Café Rio dressing but all of them called for buttermilk or mayonnaise and ranch packets. Well, ranch packets don’t fit into my new lifestyle because they have MSG in them, so I couldn’t do that. I thought about making my own ranch and combining it with other ingredients to have the Café Rio taste to it. So I came up with this today after browsing a bunch of different recipes to determine what I needed to get the taste I wanted. I am happy about this. Eating healthy makes me happy, and I have been excited about the challenge of converting recipes into their healthy form. I seriously wake up itching to get in the kitchen and discover a healthy version of my favorite recipes. I hope you enjoy this!

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Creamy Avocado Tomatillo Dressing

Ingredients:

• 1 large avocado
• 1/2 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt
• 1 cup coconut milk (or any milk you choose, but keep it healthy, Coconut milk is a bit thicker.)
• 1/4-1/2 bunch of cilantro
• 1/2 jalapeño (or more if you like it hot – I usually taste my jalapeño first to see how hot it is)
• 2 cloves garlic
• juice of 1 small lime
• 1/2 tsp onion powder (Add more if you want, I never measure so I just do to taste)
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder (Again, you may need to add more)
• 1-2 tomatillos
• 1/2 tsp parsley
• sea salt to taste

Directions

1. Throw all of your ingredients into a blender (peel and pit the avocado, of course) or food processor, and mix until well blended. Add more lime or sea salt as needed. Makes about 2 cups!

We like to serve it with salad on homemade whole wheat tortillas. Yum.

Homemade Whole Wheat Bread and Whole Wheat Tortillas

Happy Monday! I really like Mondays lately. I have designated it my get-things-done-for-the-week day. I clean my house, do all the laundry, bake bread, and make tortillas. So I stay in comfy clothes all day and get things ready for the week so that I’m free the rest of the week and have a clean house. I still do daily maintenance but I deep clean Mondays. Anyway, you just want to know about the recipes, right?

I grew up with homemade tortillas, although they were not whole wheat. My dad made them, but he never used a recipe, and I could never get my tortillas to be anything but a cracker if I didn’t use a recipe. I love this recipe for 100% whole wheat tortillas found over on 100 Days of Real Food, and I follow it exactly. I copied and pasted it below. Check out this website for awesome healthy meals!

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**As you can see, my tortillas bubbled nicely, and they do this every time! I place them between a towel while I am cooking them and then store in a bag in my fridge when they are cooled down. We use them for wraps, Café Rio style salads, burritos, or just to eat plain! I warm them on the stove for about 30 seconds.

Homemade Whole Wheat Tortillas

Serves: 12 Tortillas

Adapted from Anson Mills

Ingredients

• 2½ cups whole-wheat flour (I used King Arthur’s white whole-wheat flour) **I used King Arthur’s Whole Wheat Flour, not the white whole wheat
• ½ cup oil (I used avocado oil) **I used extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup warm water (heat in the microwave for 1 min) **I don’t microwave if I can avoid it, so I just heated on the stove.

Instructions

1. In the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer set with a dough hook, pour in the flour, oil and salt. Beat with the paddle until crumbly, about 3 to 5 minutes. Scrape the sides as needed. If your hand-held mixer comes with dough hooks those can be used as well.
2. With the mixer running, gradually add the warm water and continue mixing until the dough is smooth, about 3 minutes.
3. Take out the dough and divide it into 12 equal sized pieces. I do this by making the dough into a big log shape that is about 8 – 10 inches long. Then I cut it in the middle. Then I cut each of those pieces in the middle and so on until you have 12 pieces.
4. Using the palms of your hand roll each piece into a round ball and flatten it out on a baking tray or board. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature for at least 15 minutes or up to one hour.
5. Heat a cast iron skillet, griddle or 12-inch skillet over med-high heat. The pan should be fairly hot before you begin cooking the tortillas.
6. On a lightly floured board or counter top, use a rolling pin to turn each ball into a 8 to 10 inch flat circle (measure against your recipe if printed on a 8.5X11 sheet of paper). Be careful not to use more than a teaspoon or two of flour when rolling out each ball into a tortilla because too much excess flour will burn in the pan.
7. Grease the pan with a touch of oil (or ghee) and then carefully transfer each tortilla, one at a time, to the pan and cook until puffy and slightly brown, about 30 to 45 seconds per side. Set aside on a plate to cool slightly. Eat within an hour, refrigerate or freeze.

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Honey Whole Wheat Bread (recipe from my friend Brittany)

Ingredients

• 3 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 T yeast
• 1 tsp salt

Directions

I didn’t get any directions from Brittany, so I just threw it together and let it rise. It rose the the first time but not the second, and she told me later that this recipe only rises once. Good to know. Also, I mix this bread by hand because I don’t have a mixer.

1. Mix warm water with yeast and stir until yeast is dissolved. Water should be warmer than a baby’s bath but not too hot to touch. If it’s too hot you’ll kill the yeast, if it’s too cold you’ll kill the yeast. I did this last week, made it too hot, and my bread was like two bricks of hard dough because it never rose.
2. Add honey, oil, salt, and 2 cups flour. Stir in bowl with a large spoon until a dough starts to form. Then add the third cup of flour and mix until you can transfer dough to the counter. Add in the remaining 3/4 cup gradually and knead until dough is smooth and no longer sticky, about 10 minutes.
3. Shape into loaves and transfer to greased loaf pans. This makes enough for two medium sized loafs or one and a half regular sized loafs (as you can see my bread is not as tall because I divided the dough evenly between two pans instead of one regular and one mini pan). Cover with plastic and a towel and allow to rise until double in size. My loaves didn’t rise above the pan because I made 2 loaves instead of 1 1/2.
4. Bake on 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

**As you can see my bread rose to the top but not past it.

Broccoli, Red Pepper, and Flank Steak Stir Fry Over Quinoa

This was one of our favorite dinners thus far. My children gobbled it up, my husband said it was amazing, and my sister said she was thinking about it the next day. Now, this does have beef in it. We rarely eat steak, but I saw a recipe like this on Pinterest and thought it would be fine to use beef this time. If you don’t like meat, don’t use it. Or use chicken instead, I’m sure that would taste great as well.

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Broccoli, Red Pepper, and Flank Steak Stir Fry over Quinoa

Ingredients

• Quinoa, 1 cup uncooked
• Flank steak, thinly sliced (as little or as much as you like – we use very small amounts of meat)
• Broccoli, 1 head, cut into small pieces
• 1 red pepper
• beef broth
• soy sauce (I have yet to find a substitution for this)
• Garlic powder
• onion powder
• ground ginger
• honey, 2 tsp
• sea salt

Directions

1. To cook quinoa, add 2 cups water per 1 cup of quinoa. Rinse quinoa thoroughly before cooking. Add quinoa and water to a pot, bring to a boil, and reduce heat to medium to low. Cover with a lid, simmer for about 15-20 minutes, stirring only occasionally. Quinoa will be done when the little white thing forms a circle around the grain. Turn pot off and let sit about 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork.  **Water can be substituted for broth to add more flavor.
2. Cook beef in a little bit of olive oil or beef broth. Season with garlic, onion, ginger, and sea salt. When meat is cooked, remove from pan.
3. Add broccoli florets and thinly sliced red peppers with 1/2 – 1 cup beef broth. Season with garlic, a little soy sauce, and cover. Allow to steam for a few minutes until tender.
4. When veggies are cooked to your liking, put beef back in, add honey and more broth if needed. Stir in quinoa and serve warm.

**If using chicken, substitute beef broth for chicken broth.

Parmesan-Crusted Tilapia with Riced Cauliflower and Corn and Zucchini

For dinner tonight we had this quick and healthy meal. It was really good. Not just good for being healthy, but actually good on its own.

I have only recently become a fish eater, within the last couple years, but I’m still quite particular about which type of fish I will eat. Tilapia is one that I will eat, and I only buy it fresh. Never frozen. I’m no fish expert, so I don’t claim to know what I’m doing, but I’ve been told that they fresher the fish the less fishy the taste. Luckily, my boys love fish, and I’m pretty sure it’s because G-Pa has been cooking trout for them since they were old enough to go fishing with him. They are also good veggie eaters, so I don’t have a problem trying to force veggies down their throats. With all the healthy changes we’ve made in our house I’m glad that we can now put fish on the menu. That means less boneless skinless chicken breasts (which I pretty much HATE) around here.

For the recipes:

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Parmesan-Crusted Tilapia

I used Rachel Ray’s recipe found here. I followed this recipe pretty closely, but I think I used more fish and added sea salt. Oh, and I didn’t have fresh parsley, so I just sprinkled some parsley flakes in, but certainly not a tablespoon if you are going that route.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

• 2 teaspoons paprika

• 1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley

• 4 tilapia fillets (about 1 pound total)

• 1 lemon, cut into wedges

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees . In a shallow dish, combine the cheese with the paprika and parsley and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle the fish with olive oil and dredge in the cheese mixture. Place on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake until the fish is opaque in the thickest part, 10 to 12 minutes. Serve the fish with the lemon wedges.

**I cooked for about 18 minutes and let it set for about 10 before serving, or I found it to be too juicy. Some people like juice, but we don’t like to drink our fish around here.

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Riced Cauliflower

Ingredients

• cauliflower
• season to taste

Directions

1. 1. Steam as much cauliflower as you like until cauliflower is softened but slightly firm. Throw into a food processor and process just until cauliflower starts to look like rice. Season with sea salt or whatever you like. I added a little butter, a teaspoon or less (not margarine) so my children wouldn’t complain. Eat as a side or top with veggies or whatever you want!

**I have seen this cauliflower rice processed raw without steaming first and then microwaved, but I’m not keen on microwaving the nutrients out of my food, so I don’t use the microwave. This is the method that has worked best for me.

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Corn and Zucchini

Ingredients

• frozen sweet white corn (I use Organic super sweet white corn)
• 2 zucchini, diced
• chicken broth for cooking
• Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb seasoning
• sea salt

Directions

1. Add some chicken broth or veggie broth to the bottom of a frying pan (just enough to keep veggies from sticking to the pan, add more as needed), and then add diced up zucchini. Season with Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb seasoning, to taste. When zucchini is almost cooked add frozen corn kernels. Season with sea salt to taste, and cook for a few minutes until corn is no longer frozen.