The Cook & The Coach Blog

Bacon Apple Butter

4/30/2018

One of the big things that separates a good meal from a great meal is a sauce! If you like to eat out at nice restaurants like we do, that is something that they all have in common, a fantastic sauce pairing that goes along with the main course.

It can provide a balance of flavors, it can tie a dish together, and it can provide a needed level of moisture/fat with a leaner cut of meat. After years of watching cooking shows and a little experimentation myself I've learned some basics in sauce making and how to combine flavors. If you are novice learning some basic skills in this world will certainly help.

Here is a link to an article talking about the 5 French Mother Sauces. Might sound a little fancy but most sauces that exist in the world are a spinoff of these base sauces. From this you can play with flavors that pair with your main dish. Another thing I would recommend is a book that I pull out on occasion, The Flavor Bible.

This book is fantastic in that it allows you to look up a food, say pork, then it gives you a list of other foods, veggies, and spices that pair well with it. So combine that with the basics of how to make a sauce and you are pretty much set!

The cool thing about The Flavor Bible is that it highlights the ingredients that work best. For this Bacon Apple Butter, I knew we were making pork so take a look at pairings above...

Apples; in ALL CAPS means it is great
Bacon; highligthed
Butter; also highlighted
Cinnamon; also highlighted
Lemon; ALL CAPS
Onions; can't see it here but ALL CAPS

You could call me a good cook/chef but I'm just a rule follower! Pick things that pair well together and it is a lot harder to screw up flavors.

Ingredients

4 strips thick cut bacon, chopped
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 apple, skinned and diced
1 cup applesauce
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp cinnamon
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup water
Salt and pepper

Directions

Add the bacon to a medium saucepan, and render out the fat.
Remove bacon bits and most of the bacon grease, leaving behind about 1 tbsp.
Add onion and apple and cook for 6-8 minutes until onion is softened. Add the remaining ingredients, including 1/2 the bacon bits, cover and simmer on low for 15 minutes or up to 45 minutes.
Use the remaining bacon bits as a garnish on top of your finished dish.

Curry Meatloaf with Cilantro Yogurt Sauce

2/5/2018

East Meets West...

All the comfort of my grandma's homemade meatloaf combined with all of the flavor you would get from some of the best Indian curry dishes that I've had. Sounds about perfect, right???

This dish is pretty straightforward to make, nothing fancy, unless you want to make your own curry powder. If you do make your own curry powder with fresh roasted spices, please let me know how you do it or let me know where I can buy it. Even without your own curry powder this is one of those dishes that you can make and impress the heck out of some friends or family.

Don't take my word for it though. If you like meatloaf but love some ethnic food, this is a great combo. Pair it with one of your favorite veggies. We did some roasted asparagus but anything will work. Can't wait for you to try. After you do, we would for you to come back and let us know what you thought.

Ingredients

Meatloaf Ingredients

1 1/4 pounds of ground turkey
1 medium onion, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 cup mashed sweet potatoes
3 tbsp curry powder
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2 eggs, beaten

Yogurt Sauce

1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
Juice of one lime, roughly 2 tbsp
Juice of 1/2 lemon, roughly 2 tbsp
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
Pinch of salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In a skillet add your coconut oil and sautee the onion, carrot and celery for roughly 10 minutes until softened and mostly cooked through.
In a mixing bowl add the remaining meatloaf ingredients and mix thoroughly before adding the cooked veggies.
Stir to combine well.
Spay an 8" x. 8" baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Transfer meatloaf mixture to the baking dish and spread out to an even thickness.
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the meatloaf begins to pull away from the edges and is cooked through.
While the meatloaf is cooking, you can add all of the yogurt ingredients to a small dish and stir to combine.
The meatloaf should make 6 decent size portions once cooked. Serve each piece with a tbsp or 2 of the yogurt sauce and garnish with some fresh cilantro.

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

1/16/2018

I know some people that begin to drive heave if they are threatened to eat a brussel sprout. A couple are in my immediate family. Growing up my mom on occasion would make them but they were usually either steam or boiled with some butter on them. Although I could probably stomach that now, at the time it was one of the most disgusting flavors. The smell was similar to what a Band-Aid smells like and I could only imagine what they taste like.

Had my mom prepared sprouts this way, I'm guessing there would have been a 50/50 chance that I would have actually eaten them. I mean they are still green and green food in our house was immediately met with rejection, unless it was Jello. That stuff was delicious! Just don't ruin it by putting fruit in it!

The process of roasting brussels is pretty straightforward. One key is making sure you start with fresh brussels not the frozen version. If you get the frozen ones, they will be more apt to just steam and bring you and I back to that Band-Aid flavor and smell. So start fresh! Then all you need to do is trim a little bit of the chewy stem off of them if there is some. We like to half or quarter ours from there depending on the size. You could roast them whole but they would take a LONG time so that's not advised. Once you halve them, spread them out evenly on a baking sheet. Drizzle with roughly 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil per pound of brussels. Season generously with salt and I like a little pepper also but not always.

Once seasoned, put them the oven that was preheated to 425. Depending on the size they should take anywhere from 20-30 minutes and I like to stir them half way through. What you are looking for is for them to start turning slightly brown if not black. In the cooking world that's called carmelization! Do it! They aren't burnt, they are perfect that way. It will bring out some of the natural sugars that are in a plant that is inherently bitter and if prepared poorly can taste like Band-Aids!

Try it this, I bet you will like brussels for the first time! Or at worst you won't hate them.

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Parmesan Turkey Meatballs

9/19/2017

One of Laura's favorite things on the planet is a good meatball! One of my favorite things on the planet is some good pasta! Being gluten free now for almost 3 years I don't nearly get good pasta all that often. One item that didn't make the cut on things to bring in our RV was my pasta roller and cutter! So we have to stick to store bought GF pasta which isn't always the best. W'eve had pretty good luck lately with the Barilla GF pasta. It's a corn based pasta which obviously isn't health food but every once in a while we are all for having a good pasta meal.

I know you didn't come here to learn about GF pastas, so let's about this meatball!! One challenge with meatballs is they traditionally have breadcrumbs in them which unless they are made from GF bread is off limits in our house. Some things that I've used as that binder substitute in other recipes are sweet potatoes, quiona, ground up GF crackers. With this recipe I opted to skip the binder. It did make the meatballs a little stickier when rolling them into balls but is was manageable and still made a good meatball, texture-wise. If you want to alleviate that stick meat batter, go ahead and add a 1/2 cup of bread crumb or any other binder to the mixture.

We also like to find any opportunity to sneak greens into our food. Feel free to follow suit and add some like we did or leave them out. If it would have just been Laura and I eating these we would have likely added more. We were able to sneak these in and Eli still enjoyed the meatballs which is a big bonus.

We paired this meal up with our basic marinara sauce that you can find here, just leave out the ground beef since you are doing the meatball.

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
2 handfuls of spinach
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 1/4 lb ground turkey
1 egg
1/2 c shredded parmesan
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
Fresh parsley
Salt and pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Saute onions and garlic in a pan along with the olive oil. After a few minutes and the onions start to turn translucent, add your greens and continue to cook until those are thoroughly wilted and the onion is cooked through.
In a separate bowl add remaining ingredients, minus the fresh parsley and mix thoroughly. Add the sauteed veggies and mix those in too.
Once you have that mixed together, roll into 1 inch balls or maybe slightly larger. Place on a baking sheet.
Bake for 15 minutes. Enjoy on their own or with some delicious pasta and marinara sauce. Top with some fresh parsley and grated Parmesan for added boost of flavor!

Deconstructed Egg Roll

7/30/2017

One food that I have yet to find since going gluten free is a fried egg roll...they just don't exist out in restaurants and we didn't opt for the RV with the deep fat fryer. We've had a number of our challengers post in our accountability groups about creating different versions of this dish. I finally got around to make some myself and have to say it hit the spot.

We were a little spoiled too, since the two days before this my aunt picked most of the veggies that went in this dish straight out of her garden. Fresh cabbage, fresh carrots, and fresh onions!!! The only thing we added to the dish was some red pepper, garlic and the pork. Oh and a few spices and some asian sauces!

Ingredients

1 pound pork sausage
1 small onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
3 large carrots, sliced
3 tbsp minced garlic, roughly 3 cloves
4 green onions, sliced
1 small head of cabbage, grated or sliced, roughly 5 cups
1 inch of ginger, minced or 2 drops of ginger essential oil
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1/4 cup tamari, coconut aminos or low sodium soy sauce
2 tbsp coconut nectar or brown sugar (optional)
1 tbsp siracha (optional)

Directions

In a large skillet or dutch oven add the sausage and cook over medium heat until cooked through.
Remove sausage from the pan leaving the drippings behind. Add the carrot, bell pepper, ginger, and onion and cook for 8 minutes until carrots begin to soften and onion is translucent.
Add garlic, cook for 2 more minutes.
Add the cabbage along with all the other ingredients, cook over medium heat for 5 minutes stirring frequently.
Cover, and reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 15 minutes stirring once or twice.
Serve and eat as is if you are wanting a low carb meal or you can serve over the top of some prepared rice. Garnish with a little cilantro and enjoy!

Simple Homemade Pizza Sauce

6/28/2017

Pizza... everybody loves it! Even those of us that are living a healthier life love to indulge in it. It's actually one reason why I bought the domain, www.healthierpizza.com. Don't try heading over there yet, at this point it is just an idea in my head. The idea came to me because a healthy life shouldn't be one that is absent of pizza.

Upgrading some of the ingredients is the place to start. We have other posts on upgrading the crusts with whole wheat flour or using cauliflower. We have a fun recipe where we eliminate dairy and add some extra veggies with this Thai pizza. We even love the pizza so much we incorporated the flavors into this lentil dish.

With all of these, I had yet to create a delicious and healthier option for one of the most basic components, a good red sauce. Last night while Laura was away, Eli and I decided to make some pizzas. We tried out a new premade gluten free crust from Mikey's. The crust is made from paleo friendly ingredients and was pretty tasty! We topped that with a homemade red sauce that took 2 minutes to mix up then just a little time to simmer on the stove.

Check it out and let us know what you think. If you end up tweaking it feel free to comment below with what you did. This is one thing I'm always playing around with and improving.

Ingredients

1 Can of Organic Tomato Sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dry basil
2 tsp dry oregano
1/2 tsp fennel seed
Salt and Pepper

Directions

Add all the ingredients to a small sauce pan and simmer covered for a minimum of 10 minutes, up to an hour for more flavor.

Gluten Free Turkey Meatloaf with Savory Mushroom Sauce

1/13/2017

Meatloaf... it was a staple in our house growing up! My mom would always make it with beef and slather on the ketchup sauce on top. It was actually quite tasty, except for the onions. I despised onions when I was a kid. Not the flavor as much as the crunch that you would occasionally get from one that wasn't cooked enough.

Times have changed quite a bit! The breadcrumbs that you would normally add to meatloaf would now make me breakout in a rash. The high fructose corn syrup in the ketchup, yeah... we are just going to avoid that if we can. That's the backstory on how this recipe got created.

I suppose with mushroom sauce this maybe is closer to the salsibury steak that we would occasionally have in our tv dinners. No matter what you call it, I hope you call it delicious! We certainly enjoyed it!

Ingredients

Meatloaf

2 1/2 lbs of ground turkey
1 large yellow onion, diced
1 tbsp grassfed butter
1 cup of mashed sweet potato
3 eggs
2 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp dried oregano
Salt and pepper to taste

Savory Mushroom Sauce

3 cups sliced bella mushrooms
2 tbsp grassfed butter
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp tapioca starch
2 tbsp sherry wine
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1/2 -1 cup water or broth
1 tsp galic powder
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp red chili flakes (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Meatloaf

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a skillet saute the onions in butter and season with salt and pepper. Cook until it they become slightly caramelized.
In a large bowl combine the other ingredients along with the cooked onion. Make sure to not throw your hot onions on top of raw eggs otherwise you end up with scrambled eggs. Either mix the eggs or onion into the meat first.
Once everything is thoroughly mixed transfer to a large baking dish or loaf pan. We used a 6" x 9" baking dish and it fit right up to the top!
Bake for one hour or until the inner temp gets to 170 in the center of the meatloaf. The ends cook faster.
Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes.

Savory Mushroom Sauce

In the same skillet you cooked the onions, add butter, oil and mushrooms and cook over medium heat until the mushrooms have reduced in size and started giving off some liquid.
Add the sherry wine and cook for 2 minutes.
Add the tapioca starch and stir until the starch dissolves into the liquid in the pan. Add 1/2 cup of water or broth and stir until well incorporated. You should have a gravy-like texture at this point.
Add in the remaining seasonings and stir occasionally.
The sauce will take 15 minutes or so to make. You can start cooking it when your meatloaf has a few minutes left to cook. Feel free to add more water to the sauce if the texture starts getting too thick. The longer you cook it the thicker it will get.
Once your meatloaf has rested, cut and serve with a spoonful of the sauce over the top. We enjoyed it with some grilled asparagus and side salad! Hope you enjoy and let us know if you try it.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

10/10/2016

I don't know why I don't always have a batch of this soup in our fridge. So good!!! Five years ago I would have laughed at you if you would tell me that soup can be an entire meal. I guess I was used to terrible canned soups or the tiny cup of soup that you get at restaurants. Oh how the times of changed.

Now my view of soup is basically it is liquid salad! Seriously though if you make a good soup it should resemble a salad. So if you don't like to eat salad, I suggest you try soup instead. This version of chicken tortilla soup is loaded up with veggies, quality protein, and of course some amazing chicken stock.

When I make soup I love to make a huge batch because it tastes better the next day! Feel free to scale this recipe up or down but it makes about 6 large bowls of soup. Also as a little bonus here is a how I like to make my chicken stock at home which is super simple.

Homemade Chicken Stock

Ingredients

5-6 pound whole chicken
1/2 pound chicken feet (optional but not really but this is where you get all that amazing gelatenous goodness!)
2 large carrots, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
4-5 garlic cloves, smashed
2 bay leaves
2 tsp dry thyme
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Water

Directions

We use our pressure cooker if you don't have one you could do this in a stock pot or even in a slow cooker. It will just take longer.
Put your chicken and all your vegetables in your cooking vessel along with 2 cups of water. If you using a pressure cooker you will need to cook for approximately 45-60 minutes depending on how big your chicken is. Similar on a stove top and multiple hours in a slow cooker.
After the chicken is cooked, remove it from your pot. You can let it cool or if you are tough feel free to dig right in and start removing the meat from all the bones. Add the bones back into the pot that still has the vegetables in it.
Set your meat aside for later and discard the skin and gristle.
Add the remaining seasonings and ingredients and fill up your pot with water. We have a 6 quart stockpot and this amount of vegetables and spices works well with that amount of liquid.
Pressure cook for 2-3 hours depending on how much time you have. If you are using a stovetop or slow cooker you are looking at more like 24-48 hours.
After cooking, strain it so you are just left with the liquid, store in the fridge for up to a week.

Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe

Ingredients

1 lb of shredded cooked chicken meat
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion
1 green bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
0-3 jalepenos, seeds removed
2 tbsp of minced garlic
4 cups of pureed tomatoes
4 cups chicken stock
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp smoked paprika
Cayenne pepper to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Garnishes/Toppings

Green Onion
Cilantro
Corn Tortilla Chips
Shredded Cheese
Sour Cream or Greek Yogurt
Hot sauce

Directions

In a large pot add the oil, then add the onion, peppers and garlic and cook over medium heat for 8 minutes or until softened.
Add tomatoes and stock to the pot along with spices and bring to a boil.
Reduce to a low, add the chicken and simmer for minimum of 15 minutes or up to an hour.
Your done, add with some of your favorite toppings and enjoy!

Flank Steak Salad with Parsley Vinaigrette

8/30/2016

Ladies if you need a way to get your husbands to eat a salad, start with this one. I mean what guy doesn't like steak, then you combine that with mushrooms and gorgonzola cheese, it's a win! The asparagus and tomatoes are there as a way to sneak in some more veggies! The dressing is super simple and adds a fun punch of flavor. It's crisp, it's herbacious, it's delicious.

We would love to know if you try this one out! Leave us a comment below. If you love it don't forget to Pin It so you can save it for later!

Ingredients

Salad Ingredients - Makes 3 salads

6 cups of of mixed greens or spinach
1 lb of flank steak, grilled and sliced
1 1/2 cups of dry mushrooms, sauteed
1 1/2 cups of asparagus, grilled and cut into 1" pieces
1 1/2 cups of cherry tomatoes, halved
6 tbsp of gorgonzola cheese

Dressing Ingredients

1 cup fresh parsely
1/4 cup white wine vineager
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1-2 tsp minced garlic
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

Season the steak and asparagus with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper. Grill until the steak is medium rare- medium and the asparagus is soft but still has a little crunch.
Sautee the mushrooms in a skillet with a little olive oil or butter.
For the dressing, all all the ingredients in a blender and blend on high for 20 seconds or until the everything is well combined.
Put your salad together, 2 cups of greens on the bottom, then layer 1/2 cup of each of your veggies; mushrooms, asparagus, and tomatoes, top with your sliced steak. If you've never cooked flank steak make sure you slice it perpendicular to the grain of the steak.
Top with 2 tbsp of cheese, dressing, and some extra fresh parsley if you still have some.

Fish and Veggie Red Curry

8/17/2016

Laura loves curry!!! So what do you do when your wife loves curry, you make curry for her. Sometimes I'm all about doing things from absolute scratch. In the case of curry, it would be fantastic to toast my own spices then grind them fresh and use my mortal and pestle to make a paste. But let's be honest that takes time and energy.

Instead we found a pre-made curry paste, added in some fresh veggies and fish and a couple other ingredients and we had a delicious dish in under 30 minutes. This was my first time ever using fish in a curry and it turned out pretty great. If you are completely scared of fish or don't like the flavor, too bad, try it anyways. I think you will be surprised that the curry is the dominate flavor and not the fish, so it is a good way to give fish a try.

Feel free to add your favorite veggies to this dish. You don't have to use what we used, we just had these on hand and that is why we love curry dishes so much, because they are so versatile. You could also sub out the quinoa for rice or even zoodles or sweet potato noodles if you want to go grain free. The possibilities are endless. We hope you enjoy this one as much as we did.

Ingredients

1 lb of your favorite white fish, we used flounder but you could easily use cod, haddock, pollock, even walleye
1 tbsp coconut oil
2 large carrots, chopped into bite size pieces
1 large onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 cups fresh or frozen green beans
3 tbsp Red Curry paste from Thai Kitchen
1 tbsp coconut sugar, palm sugar, or brown sugar
1 15 oz can of coconut milk
1 1/2 cups of water
1/4 cup fish sauce
2 cups dried quinoa
1/4 cup fresh cilantro

Directions

In a large saucepan or dutch oven add the coconut oil and melt over a medium high heat.
Add the carrots, peppers, and onions and cook for 8 minutes.
Add red curry paste and cook and stir for 1 minute, then add the coconut milk, fish sauce, sugar, and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low.
This is where timing things out comes in handy. Depending on the type of grain; quinoa or rice, you should possibly start that before you start cooking any of the veg and curry sauce. For me I started the quinoa in our pressure cooker when I was cooking the veg. If you are doing it on the stovetop you might need to start sooner. When your grains have approximately 8 minutes left add your fish cut up into 1-2" pieces and your green beans or any other frozen veg.
Simmer the sauce with the fish and all the veg for that final 8 minutes with your pan covered. Try not to cook the fish for much longer than 8 minutes otherwise it will just start to fall apart.
Once your quinoa or rice is done, serve a couple large spoonfuls in the bottom of your bowl and top with the curry sauce. Finish with some freshly chopped cilantro and enjoy.

Enchilada Stuffed Sweet Potato

5/30/2016

I think I first heard of Danielle Walker on one the podcasts I listen to on a regular basis. She has a pretty incredible story of beating an auto immune disease, ulcerative colitis, through dietary changes she made. It's a great story that really shows the power of food. I would encourage to check out her blog or book Against All Grain.

Danielle has a recipe for this same dish that was my inspiration for making this. It was super simple and even Eli ate it. You can pretty easily scale the spice up or down depending on if you are feeding kids or you just don't like spicy food. Eating healthy food doesn't have to be flavorless which I think a lot of people fear. You just need a well equipped spice cabinet. You could easily sub out the ground beef in this recipe for ground turkey, shredded chicken or beef if you happen to have those on hand instead.

Ingredients

4 medium sweet potatoes
1 1/4 lbs of ground beef, we use the organic beef from Costco, if you buy by the pound, just scale the spices up or down.
1 medium onion, diced
3 tbsp of diced garlic
Peppers, choose any that you like, we used bell peppers because we had them, but you could use poblano, jalepeno, serrano. A combination of some of sweeter pepper and savory pepper would be my recommendation, You'll want about 1-2 cups diced total
2 tbsp of grassfed butter
3 tbsp of tapioca starch
Approximately 1 cup of chicken stock, add 1/2 cup at a time until you get the consistency that you desire
6 oz can of tomato paste
1 tbsp of dried oregano
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp of cumin
1 tsp of coriander
Pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 avocado, cubed
Cilantro

Bake sweet potatoes in a 425 degree oven for roughly 45 minutes. I usually wrap in aluminum foil to make clean up easier.
In a large saucepan or skillet add your butter, then add your beef, onions, peppers and garlic. Cook for 10 minutes or until the beef is browned.
Add the tapioca starch and stir for a minute to let the starch soak up all that good fat in the pan.
Add in the remaining ingredients and let it simmer for 15 minutes or longer. Feel free to add more or less liquid to make the sauce thinner or thicker.
Top with cubed avocado and cilantro and enjoy!

Pressure Cooker Maple Chicken

5/12/2016

Our pressure/multi cooker has been a lifesaver while we've been on the road. For convenience I wish I could just say we have an Instant Pot because 90% of the people that own a pressure cooker own an Instant Pot. We just happened to find an incredible deal on a different model, a Fagor. Doesn't exactly have the same ring as Instant Pot, does it. Either way, like I said this piece of equipment has been fantastic for us to make quick one pot meals. If you are an Instant Pot user hopefully it has similar settings and you can translate my Fagor talk to your machine.

If you are all about fast, tasty meals that are easy to clean up I highly recommend you look into getting one of these. With RV living this is perfect, because it means less dishes and dinners that can be made last minute after a day of exploring or swimming in the pool. Win for everyone!

Seriously this recipe maybe takes 20 minutes of active cooking time and 27 minutes of downtime letting the pressure cooker do its job. If you really want to kick up the flavor of this dish, add some chopped bacon, 3-4 pieces worth right away with your chicken. We had bacon for breakfast the day we made this so opted to not have anymore that day.

So easy and so good! Go make it and lets us know what you think.

Ingredients

4 chicken thighs, bone in and skin on
1 medium onion, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
3 garlic cloves, diced
2 cups of brown rice
2 1/2 cups of chicken broth
1 tsp of dried thyme
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 1/2 cups of frozen peas
2 cups of steamed broccoli

Directions

Turn your multi-cooker on to saute and place your chicken thighs in, skin side down. You may need to lower the temp periodically to simmer. The idea is to render out the fat from the chicken skin without burning it. Cook like this for 8 minutes, flip once and cook for another 4 minutes. Remove chicken from the pot leaving the fat behind.
If you aren't on saute setting crank it up and add your onion, carrot and garlic. Cook for 4-5 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients and the chicken, leave the peas out until the end. Put the lid on and cook according to whatever your book says you should do for rice. For me it is the brown rice setting for 27 minutes.
When your timer goes off, release your steam, add your peas and stir those in until they are warmed through.
Add your steamed broccoli for some extra nutrients and you are DONE!!

Lemon Ginger Shrimp and Zoodles

5/5/2016

Citrus and summer go hand in hand in my book. I know it isn't technically summer yet but the weather in South Alabama has felt like it is the middle of August. I'm sure if you were to talk to locals they would tell you how great the weather has been. For this Minnesota boy it's a different story. Temps were in the 80's everyday and the humidity was above 90% everyday. That's hot!

Being in South Alabama we had the benefit of getting some really good shrimp and it was cheap. This has definitely been one of the things that I've enjoyed about traveling so far, local food! Getting to eat food that was picked, farmed or fished recently is so fun and adds so much more flavor. We've tried to take in local markets wherever we are and get some fresh veggies and proteins, then fill in the gaps with some food from the big box stores.

I made this while in Gulf Shores, Alabama and it was super light and perfect for a warm day. We hope you enjoy it!! If you have a shellfish allergy you could easily leave out the shrimp and do a piece of baked whitefish.

Ingredients

3/4 lb of raw shrimp
1 large carrot cut into matchsticks
1 red bell pepper cut into matchsticks
1 medium onion cut into matchsticks
3 garlic cloves, minced
1" piece of ginger, peeled and minced
1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup broth of your choice or water
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 small zucchini cut into zoodles using spiralizer
1 tbsp dried parsley or 1/4 cup of fresh parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Prep all of your veggies ahead of time. Once you start cooking it goes pretty quick.
In a wok or large skillet add the oil then carrot, onion, pepper, ginger and cook for 5 minutes or until the onion starts getting a little translucent.
Add the garlic, parsley and shrimp and cook for an additional 3 minutes. Stir regularly.
Add broth, lemon juice, zoodles and toss for 2 minutes until everything is coated and the zoodles start to soften.
Season and serve! There will likely be some liquid in the bottom of the pan, feel free to drizzle your food with this or let it be.

Hearty Miso Soup

1/28/2016

We have started making an effort to clean out our cupboards and freezer as we prepare to move out of our house and into a 300 sq ft motorhome. That means we will likely be making a lot more soups. I had a coworker/chef once tell me about the concept of "Mustgo Soup." When he was making soup for the day he would look in the cooler and see what was about to go bad and that must go in the soup. I love that about soups in that they can be so versatile and there really aren't that many rules. Just throw it all together with a delicious broth and there you go.

This miso soup was super tasty and a ton of flavor. I will say that I scaled back the amount of miso from what we used, it was a little much in my version. In case you've never used miso it is a fermented soybean paste that you can find at most grocery stores in the refrigerator section. I like to shop at our local Asian grocery store, so they have an entire section of it, super easy to find! This is the kind we bought, Miso Paste. I definitely recommend splurging for organic when it come miso since it comes from soy. It ensures you aren't consuming GMO soy which is what you find in any non-organic soy products for the most part. Another miso trick is because it is a fermented food, meaning it contains live probiotics which are super healthy for your gut, you don't want to add miso to boiling soup otherwise it will kill those probiotics. I've also found it easier to separate out some of your broth and add to the miso paste to make a slurry before adding it back to the soup. It will mix in that much better.

Hope you enjoy this soup.

Ingredients

3 medium carrots, cut into bite size pieces
1 onion, diced
1 1/2 lbs of chicken breast cut into bite size pieces (could sub tofu if you want to be vegetarian)
4 cloves of garlic, diced
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp sesame oil
1 15 oz can of chickpeas, liquid drained and rinsed
1 15 oz can of full fat coconut milk
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp coconut aminos or soy sauce
1/2 of a 1.76 oz package of Wakame seaweed, roughly 1/4 cup when dry
6-8 cups of chicken stock or veggie stock
1/4 cup white miso
Juice of 1 lime

Directions

Add your coconut and sesame oil to large pot or dutch oven over medium heat.
Add in your carrots, onion, and chicken and cook for 5 minutes, then add garlic and cook until chicken is cooked through.
While all of that is cooking soak the Wakame seaweed in 2 cups of water. You'll want to soak this for 5 minutes roughly, you'll be surprised at how much it expands.
Add all the remaining ingredients except the miso and simmer for 15 minutes.
In a small bowl add your miso paste and ladle in about 1-2 cups of liquid from your pot to make a miso slurry. Kill the heat of your burner at this point and add the miso back into the pot. Also add in the lime juice at this point too.
ENJOY!!!

Cooking Will Change Your Life, Not Just Your Waistline

1/7/2016

When you don't feel like proofing a blog post, you just talk! So you get to deal with my "umm's" and "and's", hope you don't mind. I also want to start doing some more video messaging so hopefully these will get better.

Let us know your thoughts? Do you cook? How has it changed your life?

Pizza Lentils

10/29/2015

If I could eat pizza for every meal I'm pretty sure I would. It's just straight delicious. Now that I can no longer indulge in your standard gluten containing pizza crust I need to get creative in order to get my pizza consumption. I've tried cauliflower crust. I used to make my own dough with standard whole wheat flour and have since found a GF flour that works with that same recipe. I even just bought the domain, www.healthierpizza.com knowing that someday I will dedicate an entire site to pizza. So yeah I love it.

The problem with pizza and a being healthy is they don't exactly go hand in hand. It's usually pretty fatty and pretty carb heavy which is a bad combo if your goal is stay or get trim. This "version" of pizza was a random throw together that I did the other night and it turned out pretty good. I will say with the protein and fiber from the lentils this dish fares on the healthier side too.
In the dish I used a homemade pizza sauce. I have to apologize in that I have no idea what I added to it. I think I just googled "homemade pizza sauce" and semi followed a recipe. It's super simple especially if you start with a tomato sauce and not whole tomatoes. If you want to get really ambitious go for the whole tomatoes it will be worth it. Also the longer you can let it simmer the better but in a pinch 10 minutes will do. Just try to avoid adding sugar, there's no need!

I should also mention that I did this in our new Fagor pressure cooker. We love this addition to our kitchen and use it all the time for all sorts of dishes and foods. This could easily be done in a saucepan or deep skillet. I was able to saute in this then just add the lid and set the timer and walk away. Pretty slick!

One of the beauties of pizza is that you can pretty much make it however you want. My favorite combo is pepperoni, sausage, and mushrooms so I got as close to that as I could with the ingredients I had on hand, minus the mushrooms. Feel free to add whatever you like on your pizza to make this your own. Hope you enjoy!!!

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion diced
1 tbsp minced garlic
2 chicken sausage, chopped
1/2 cup pepperoni, chopped
1 cup lentils
1/2 cup pizza sauce, I might use more next time! I'm a sauce guy
1 1/2 cups water or broth
1/2 cup shredded cheese, pick your favorite. We used parmigiano reggiano
Fresh herbs (Basil or Oregano) for garnish

Directions

Over medium heat, add your olive oil to the pot and add onions and garlic. Cook for 3-4 minutes until slightly translucent.
Add the sausage and pepperoni and cook for another 5 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil if you are cooking on your stove top. Once boiling reduce to low and simmer for 20 minutes or until lentils are cooked through and most the liquid is absorbed.
Top with cheese and herbs and serve.

*A variation if you aren't looking for a GF dish would be to transfer to a baking dish after lentils are cooked, top with cheese and then top with some Italian bread crumbs.

Drunken Zoodles

9/2/2015

Who else loves Thai food??? Yeah I could pretty much eat it everyday. I love the flavor profiles of sweet, salty, sour, and spicy...it's just so good! The noodle dishes are probably my favorite when we go out to Thai restaurants. My go to's are Pad Thai, Pad See Ew, or Pad Kee Mao (Drunken Noodles). Given my new intolerance of gluten, I am a lot more cautious when it comes to ordering food at restaurants. I know most asian noodles are made from rice flour, but I guess I just have trust issues, especially when you add the sauce in on top of that. For example I had no idea soy sauce had wheat flour in it, prior to becoming allergic to it...and most Asian kitchens use soy in everything...so it just makes me a little nervous!

With all of that, I decided to try to recreate a Drunken Noodle dish to ensure that it is 100% gluten free. It's not a perfect representation of the authentic dish but it was pretty tasty.

Ingredients

1 pound of chicken breast cut into 1/4" thick slices
2 cups chopped broccoli
1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp chili oil (This isn't 100% necessary)
1 tbsp tapioca starch (corn starch works too)
2 medium zucchini cut into 1/2" wide strips
1 cup rough chopped thai basil, if you can't find thai basil regular will work

The Sauce

1/4 cup Fish Sauce
1/4 cup Coconut Aminos
2 tbsp honey
2 tsp sriracha sauce, can add more or less depending on your spice tolerance

Directions

In a hot wok or large fry pan add the coconut and chili oil until it is moving around the pan freely. Add the chicken, broccoli, and bell pepper. Cook for 4-5 minutes over medium high heat. Add garlic and cook for another minute.
Add the tapioca or corn starch and toss to coat the chicken and veggies evenly.
Add the sauce to the wok and cook for 3-4 minutes until it heats up and begins to thicken.
Add the zoodles to the wok and toss. Cook for 1-2 minutes until they are heated through. If you let them cook too long they will begin to give up their water and you will have a soupy, watery mess of a sauce.
Add your basil, toss and serve!

Download Recipe Card for Drunken Zoodles

Grilled Romaine and Steak Salad

5/4/2015

If you are a man's man and the only way you would ever eat salad is if it was grilled and has red meat, this is the salad for you. No man would or should ever be ashamed of eating a salad like this.

The idea for this salad totally belongs to a former coworker of mine, Eric Simpson. He is the executive chef and at the golf club I used to work at and was always coming up with super tasty food. Recently I was back out there with some family and someone ordered his version of this salad and it just looked tasty. I actually never tasted it but just got a look at it so I'm not sure if the flavors are similar but the main ingredients are close, I think.

This salad would totally be an awesome everyday dinner salad throughout the summer. The smokey char from the romaine pairs perfectly with freshness of the avocado and tomato. The blue cheese rounds it and will help it earn it's spot in your weekly meal rotation. Hope you enjoy this salad.

Ingredients

20 oz of sirloin steak, cut into 1" cubes
2 heads of romaine lettuce, cut in half
2 avocados, cut into small pieces
3 medium tomatoes, seeds removed and cut into small pieces
1/4 cup of diced shallot
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp chili powder
2 tbsp olive, divided
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

If you are using wood skewers to cook the beef, you will want to soak those in water a couple hours before you plan on cooking.
Same time you soak your skewers, 2-3 hours before cooking, add your cubed beef, 1 tbsp of olive oil, paprika, chili powder, salt and pepper. Toss thoroughly to evenly coat all the pieces. Cover and refrigerate until ready to cook.
In another bowl, add your chopped avocado, tomato, shallot, apple cider vinegar, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Toss lightly so as to not turn your avocado into a mash.
Drizzle the remaining olive oil on the cut side of the romaine heads.
If you are cooking your beef on skewers, time to do that. Make sure to not put too many pieces on each skewer, you want a little space in between pieces so that they cook all around.
Your ready to grill. The beef will take roughly 6-10 minutes depending on how hot your grill is and how often you open it. The romaine will take around 5 minutes to get some nice char marks on it. Depending on the size of your grill, if you need to do it in batches, do the steak first, then romaine.
Assembly is super easy, just flip your romaine so that the flat side is up, top with the avocado/tomato mixture, add steak, then top with some crumbled blue cheese to your liking. You have a restaurant quality salad done at home in less than 30 minutes.

Download the Recipe Card for Grilled Romaine and Steak Salad

Chicken Roasted in Coconut Milk

3/30/2015

I found this on Pinterest and made this when Dan was out of town a few years ago but haven't made it since. I've told him about it...and raved about it...but he thought it sounded weird so we never tried it again! UNTIL last night :)

We buy whole chickens at Costco because they're so cost effective and delicious. We then stick them in the freezer to use at a later date. Earlier this week Dan took one out of the freezer and was going to throw it in the crockpot, but then forgot about it...which gave me the perfect opportunity to cook something for him for a change! Plus, it gave me a chance to prove him wrong and show him that this is actually a delicious way to cook chicken. Win-win!

Here's the original recipe: Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk

It's pretty simple...but here's what I did:

1. Preheat the oven to 375

2. Season the chicken with salt/pepper. Brown the entire chicken in 3 tbsp of butter & 2 tbsp of coconut oil. Brown one side and then use a tongs to flip it and brown every side

3. Put all these ingredients into the dutch oven with the chicken.

1 can of coconut milk (do 2 cans if you can, I didn't have a second one so I used an additional 1/2 c of almond milk)
1 tbsp lemon juice (didn't have any fresh lemons for the zest)
1 cinnamon stick
2 tbsp of minced garlic
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 tbsp of dried sage

4. Bake for 90 minutes

Wa-lah!!

I also figured I'd throw in this sweet picture...just because.

A boy and his dog. They're so sweet!!

Lemon and Herb Chicken Breast Medallions with Roasted Sweet Potatoes in a Bourbon Cinnamon Sauce

3/23/2015

Do you ever have that night where you've been chasing around and crazy from 4:00-8:00 and finally realize that you haven't given dinner a thought yet? Well that situation is how this dish was born. Chicken medallions is just a fancy way of saying I was too lazy thaw chicken breasts so the only way I was going to get them to cook through completely is to chop them up into smaller pieces. The sweet potatoes were an easy side and so was the steamed broccoli. Don't worry the bourbon sauce doesn't taste like bourbon it actually gives it a bit of sweet flavor.

All together this meal took 30 minutes to make from when I pulled the chicken out of the freezer to when we were sitting at the table. Super easy and packed with some good flavor. Hope you enjoy it!!!

To stay up to date on all of our new meals that we share on Mondays, just add your email address below.

Ingredients

Chicken

2 chicken breasts, cut into 1" slices
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp dried sage or whatever dried herb you have handy
2 tbsp lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Sweet Potatoes

2 medium sweet potatoes chopped 1/2" cubes
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup bourbon
2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Salt and Pepper

Broccoli

Broccoli that's it!

Directions

If you are throwing this together last minute like I did, the first thing you will want to do is take the chicken breasts out of the freezer and soak in hot water for a couple minutes while you chop sweet potatoes. Also preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
While your chicken is quasi thawing or if it is thawed, start here. Peel and cut your sweet potatoes and transfer to a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake them in the oven for 20 minutes, stirring once at 10 minutes.
Once you get the potatoes going, cut your chicken and begin cooking in a skillet with the coconut oil. Season with salt and pepper and sage.
Cook the chicken approximately 4 minutes on each side. At that point add your lemon juice to the pan and cover and let them cook for another 4 minutes.
For the bourbon sauce, add the bourbon to a small saucepan and bring to a light boil. Simmer for 6-8 minutes until the liquid is reduced to a 1/3 of the original amount.
Add the butter and spices to the saucepan and stir until butter is melted. Once your potatoes are done transfer them to a bowl, pour the sauce on top and stir to evenly coat the potatoes.
Steam the broccoli either in a saucepan or microwave, season and serve. We like a little coconut oil and salt.
Enjoy!!!

Download Recipe Card for Lemon Herb Chicken Medallions

Download Recipe Card for Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Bourbon Cinnamon Sauce

Chicken and Chickpea Stew, #MakeANewMealMonday

3/16/2015

So this is our first #MakeANewMealMonday recipe and dinner idea. The idea behind this hashtag is twofold: we want to try some new stuff and have gotten into a rut with food and we hope to help you out with some new meal options too!

So what can you look forward to? Most of the recipes we will post will be healthy, made from scratch meals. Sorry no shortcuts here, we eat real food. A majority of the recipes will likely be dinner type meals that you can scale up or down depending on how many you have to feed. Some meals will be kid/family friendly, some will be a little bit more sophisticated for the adventurous types. I can't promise that all of them will be crazy delicious because they are going to be brand new creations for us too, and sometimes you don't get it quite right the first time.

We will post these recipes on our Facebook Page, The Cook & The Coach on Mondays so feel free to follow us over there. If you want to make sure you get all of these recipes delivered to your inbox just plug your email address into the section below and we will email you once a week with our recipe from that week along with any other blog posts we put out.

This first meal was a bit of a throw together meal but it turned out pretty tasty. This dish had a bit of a Moroccan feel to it. We had a rotisserie chicken in the fridge so it made this pretty easy to throw it together. Depending on who you are cooking for, you can either keep the spice level on the low side or really kick it up.

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
3 cups shredded chicken, white and dark meat
1 15 oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes
½ cup dry quinoa
2 cups chicken broth
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp cinnamon
Pinch of red chili flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
Cilantro, rough chopped for garnish

Directions

In a large pot or dutch oven, add your olive oil, onions, garlic, celery and red chili flakes and cook until all the vegetables are tender, roughly 10 minutes.
Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a gentle boil.
Cover your pot, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes or until the quinoa is cooked.
Garnish with some cilantro and ENJOY!!!

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#Hashtags#, We Love Them

3/12/2015

If you've followed us for a little bit you've seen us use some fun hashtags to connect some of our posts. I wish I could say that we did it for you guys but the truth is, doing #weirdvegwednesday or #weirdpushwednesday kept us accountable to go out and try some new veggies and it made us think of new ways to do push ups. If it helps you great. So often we can get stuck doing the same things over and over and our decisions become mindless. I think a lot of people that eat unhealthy foods don't do it necessarily because they enjoy those foods incredibly, but because it is a habit and it is easy.

So with that we have a new hashtag and we hope it will help bring some creativity to your meals.

#MakeANewMealMonday

Why Monday??? Well because we like alliterations when it comes to our hashtags, that's it. For the next 52 weeks my goal is to come up with a new, fun, healthy recipe that we will try out and we will share with you. We would love it if you used the same hashtag to tag your posts. You don't have to type up full recipes unless you want to, but use the hashtag as motivation to try some new meal ideas. It will also be a great resource for everyone to use to go find inspiration to try some new things.

We will post these recipes on our Facebook Page, The Cook & The Coach on Mondays so feel free to follow us over there. If you want to make sure you get all of these recipes delivered to your inbox just plug your email address into the section below and we will email you once a week with our recipe from that week along with any other blog posts we put out.

Maple Bacon Turkey Meatballs

1/15/2015

I'm not sure if there is anything better than the combination of maple and bacon. If you disagree, you are wrong!!! Laura spotted someone else post about making a meat ball with these flavors so when she wants food I feed her. I have to say these turned out pretty fantastic and even though they are loaded with bacon and maple syrup they are still a pretty healthy meatball. Hope you guys enjoy!

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs of ground turkey
6 strips of bacon, chopped
1/2 a large onion
1 tbsp garlic, minced
3 cups spinach
1/4 cup real maple syrup
1/4 bread crumbs
1 egg
1/2 tsp red chili flake
Salt and Pepper to taste

Makes 20 2 oz meatballs

Directions

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
In a skillet, add chopped bacon and render out the fat and until the bacon is crispy.
Remove bacon from the pan, leaving the fat in the pan. Add the onion, garlic and red chili flake and cook over medium heat until onion is tender.
Add spinach and cook and cook through, it will shrink a lot so you can add in batches if your pan isn't large enough.
Transfer, bacon, turkey, onion, garlic, and spinach to a large mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients. When you are adding the egg try not add it on top of the hot bacon or onions so you don't end up with scrambled eggs. Mix together using a metal spoon.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
One trick to keep the meat mixture from sticking to your hands is to get them wet with a little water. Its not perfect but it helps. Roll out your meatballs into whatever size you like. I did 2 oz balls and made 20 meatballs. Place on baking sheet.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until their temp hits 180 degrees.
Pair with a pasta or maybe just a little BBQ sauce or you can do like I did and just hit them plain.

Southwest Bowl with Avocado Cream Sauce

10/22/2014

This meal is brought to you by the Suedbeck pantry!!! One thing that has changed around our house is having quality ingredients around so that we can throw together healthy meals from things we have laying around. Yeah it might take a little more creativity but that's fun right. This recipe was actually inspired by a recipe we have on our 5 Day Clean Eating Guide that we use with our Clean Eating Groups. If you want more information about those feel free to click CONNECT and reach out to us whichever way you feel the most comfortable.

Ingredients

2 cups cooked Quinoa
Pulled chicken from a rotisserie chicken
Bell peppers, use any combination you want, roughly 1 cup once diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 tbsp diced garlic, 2 cloves roughly
1/2 tsp red chili flakes, feel free to adjust up or down depending on your spice tolerance, this amount had a good heat too it.
1 15 oz can of black beans, liquid drained and rinsed

Avocado Cream Sauce

1 avocado
1 cups cilantro
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 water, may need more depending on the size of your avocado and desired thickness of the sauce
1 tbsp lemon or lime juice
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Directions

If you quinoa is not cooked, do so according to package directions. Quinoa roughly doubles in volume so to get 2 cups of cooked you will need 1 cup of uncooked.
In a skillet, add 1 tbsp of some sort of fat (coconut oil, butter, lard, bacon fat) add peppers, onions, and chili flakes and cook for 5 minutes, then add garlic and cook for additional 5 minutes until onions and peppers are softened.
Add drained beans, and chicken to warm them through. Should only take 2-3 minutes.
Meanwhile in a blender or food processor, add all the ingredients for the avocado cream sauce and blend until smooth. As noted in the ingredients you may want to add more water to the mixture depending on the thickness. I wanted it a bit on the thicker side.
To serve, pile the chicken, veggie, and bean mixture on top of the quinoa and spoon/pour avocado cream on top of that. Garnish with some chopped cilantro and enjoy!!!

Southwest Chicken Casserole

9/23/2014

I have to apologize for the photo, I know it isn't the prettiest dish we have ever made but it was pretty darn tasty! Our sister-in-law asked us to HEALTHIFY a chicken and rice casserole...and she gave me a pretty blank slate, so I hope she likes this version! For those of you not from Minnesota or from a Scandavian descent, a casserole is usually made from noodles or rice, some sort of meat, cheese and usually cream of "something" soup. The veggies are typically hard to find and the processed food is usually a staple.

In an attempt to healthify the recipe, the swaps that we made was "riced" cauliflower and instead of creamy soup we used coconut milk. Then we loaded it up with some chicken breast and tomatoes. Although the cauliflower rice on it's own doesn't have the same taste as rice, when combined in a dish like this it takes on almost the exact same texture. Plus there is a enough flavor in a dish like this that you really do lose that cauliflower taste.

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower, riced
2 chicken breasts, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, diced
1/4 tsp of red chili flakes
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 14 oz can of coconut milk
2 tbsp Taco Seasoning
2 medium tomatoes, sliced
Cilantro

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Remove the leaves and most of the stems from the head of your cauliflower and chop the florets into small pieces. Add a 1/3-1/2 the pieces to a food processor and pulse into broken down into rice size pieces. There may be some bigger chunks still just add those to the next batch. Repeat until the entire cauliflower has been processed. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan a a little olive oil, then add the chicken, onion, garlic, and red chili flakes. Cook until chicken is cooked most of the way through. Roughly 8 minutes.
Add coconut milk, diced tomatoes, and taco seasoning. Simmer over medium low heat until sauce reduces a bit, roughly 10 minutes.
Stir in coconut "rice" until well incorporated. Then transfer to a baking dish, top with sliced tomatoes, and bake for 20 minutes.
Garnish with cilantro and ENJOY!!!

About Us

Dan and Laura Suedbeck have embraced an entrepreneurial lifestyle. They are constantly challenging the status quo and challenge others to do so too. They believe that you don't always have to change your situation, sometimes you just need to change the lens you view the world through. Their focus is helping people find purpose and passion with their lives all while getting healthy. Click here to find out more about them.

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