Eating Clean

I have had these two cookbooks on my shelf for a few months, and we have tried some of the recipes. They are both by Tosca Reno and follow the Eat Clean philosophy. I don't like calling them diet, because really I think it's just about eating healthy. You can visit her site at Eat Clean Diet and also read her blog here.

This month, I gave ourselves a little challenge (I love challenges if you haven't noticed already) to eat clean for the entire month, following the recipes in these books. I also want to reduce our grocery spending.

I thought it might be nice to share our reviews from the recipes we tried, along with a few pictures. We started this past weekend!

Breakfast:

I made a batch of Morning Hot Cereal Mix (family book p.207) and this will become a staple in our house. I am not a big fan of hot cereal, but this one has a texture that I like, even a bit of crunchy goodness with the slivered almonds! Because we didn't add the dried fruit, our mix isn't sweet at all. Adrienne added a bit of honey to her portion.

I had decided a few weeks ago to stop buying boxed cereal. Instead I have been making granola and Andre loves this! The recipe I use is Crunchy Granola from More-with-Less cookbook, but there are many recipes that can be found on the internet, and some also in the eat clean books. It's very easy to make, and you know exactly what you put in it! We like to add hazelnuts or almonds in ours. Andre has it with almond milk, but I prefer with plain yogurt. My husband also likes this as a snack with strawberry yogurt.

We tried the Loaded Oats (cookbook p.29) also and it received mixed reviews. We might try it again, but with reducing the liquid part. It was too mushy for most of us...and Adrienne added maple syrup.

Lunch:

I don't have a picture of it, but I made the Eat-Clean Egg Salad (family book p.232 and online here). Adrienne and Celeste took it to school in a multi-grain wrap and I also had it for lunch on Monday. I didn't add the green onions because none of us like them, but it was still good. I was surprised how good, since it has no mayonnaise!

I also made the Turkey Waldorf Salad (cookbook p.189) without the green onions. The yogurt cheese was easy to make and added a nice flavour to this salad. Adrienne and Andre really liked this one. I put it in a wrap as well. Celeste tells me she doesn't like it, but she is my picky eater, so I am not surprised.

I made the Loaded Turkey Burrito (family p.236), we will have it for dinner but I wanted to try it first so had a portion of it for my lunch. Yum! I had made the hummus (family p.240) 2 days ago. I put some of the turkey mixture on top of it, on a wrap, and added some broccoli sprouts.

Dinner:

Sunday night, we had a roast chicken with Stuffed Peppers (cookbook p. 220). Only we forgot to get the red peppers ready so we just had the stuffing with our chicken! On Tuesday night, we had the stuffing again, this time with the peppers. The recipe is great, the only issue we had is that it made so much stuffing, compared to how many peppers it calls for (4).

I made chicken stock using the carcass and left over chicken from the roast and then made the Chicken Soup - Humble but Divine (family p.244). This soup turned out amazing!

The Turkey Burritos were a big success for dinner, even with Celeste. We added shredded carrots, zucchini, and broccoli sprouts. Adrienne and Celeste added some yogurt cheese to their wraps, along with the hummus.

We will be trying a few more recipes over the next few days and will post again.