Sweet Potato Fries

Oh steak fries how Ive missed you!

Okay so they werent quite steak fries but they were close enough. These sweet potato fries were out standing and I cant thank our friend Lindsay enough for blogging about them (she posts a lot of good simple recipes from a variety of cookbooks, you should start reading her right away.) It wasnt until I reread the rules for eating on high fiber days that I realized sweet potatoes count as a high fiber, low GI ingredient. The exact second I found that out I remembered these fries and put them on our list of recipes for this week.

Combined with portobello steaks, a baby spinach salad, and a California red wine made for a very happy making meal. I even went the extra mile and made spicy ketchup by mixing half jerk sauce with half organic unsweetened ketchup. This made an extraordinary dipping sauce that perfectly contrasted the sweetness of the fries. That with the well marinaded tender portobellos almost made me forget I was on a often complex frustrating diet. Figuring out fake out recipes that make me stop missing things I wish I could eat it what keeps this diet from making me crazy. That and the wine.

Ive read about the Red Truck wine several times this week so when a long day at work drove me to knowing I needed wine I decided to stop into the grocery store across the street from my 40 hour a week job and find it. This wine isnt super special but its a very drinkable blend of Syrah, Petite Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Grenache, Mourvedre all from California. Its big and tannic with hints of chocolate and licorice. Nothing intense but some nights I want something that doesnt blow me away and this did the trick. Besides I was just drinking it with dinner to whet my appetite to go out to a Shiraz/Syrah tasting. They were all bargain wines but I still had a blast.

Sweet Potato Fries

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled
2 tablespoons oil
2 teaspoons fructose
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

Preheat oven to 425°. Cut sweet potatoes in half lengthwise, then into wedges. Toss wedges with oil. Combine fructose, salt and pepper, shake onto sweet potatoes, toss again.

Put on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil spreading out wedges as best as possible so they dont over lap and bake for 15 minutes. Pull them out, turn them over, and bake for another 10-15 minutes until they’re golden brown and crispy on the outside. Sprinkle with more kosher salt and/or cumin or your favorite fresh herb.

Original recipe from Lindsay at Fork Full of News.

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Clean Eating Weight Loss Meal Plan 205

Breakfast

All Natural Peanut Butter French Toast

Excellent idea for an easy and healthy breakfast. Find recipe at peanut butter French toast.

Enjoy recipe here.

Enjoy recipe here.

Enjoy recipe here.

Mid Morning Snack

Homemade Snack Bar with Chocolate, Nuts and Dates

Homemade LaraBar? Were in.

Find recipe at Clean Eating Snack Bar.

Get recipe at homemade snack bar.

Get recipe here.

Lunch

Natural Turkey and Colby Jack Slices Over Spring Mix.

Organic dressing of your choice.

Afternoon Snack

Apple Slices

Dinner

Kale Salad with Grated Parmesan and Vinaigrette Dressing

Thanks again for your time at Clean Eating Meal Plan!

Hope you enjoyed todays healthy ideas.

See you next time.

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Raw Clementine Gelato

I wish I could have gotten a picture that captured how very tasty this was. Youll just have to look at the pictures at the Raw Food Blog that actually do it justice instead of making it look like a bowl of scrambled eggs.

Until recently I didnt give the Raw Food movement much thought, it seemed a little too crazy even for me. However in my search for truly unsweetened desserts I kept running into Raw recipes that looked really tempting. Aside from honey and dates I can eat everything they cook with, which are a lot easier and cost effective to substitute than Splenda or other nasty fake sweeteners in diabetic recipes that are so heavy in sugar substitutes it makes me cringe.

The second I saw this recipe I knew I would be making it. After the success with the gelato I plan on making the accompanying cheesecake very soon. The only problem is Im wary to buy an ice cream maker, I feel like the second I had one the urge to make ice cream would disappear. So I had to get creative to get something resembling gelato consistency out of this recipe. As it freezes it turns into a triple layer terrine as the nuts sink to the bottom, the coconut oil sits in the middle and the juice floats to the top. I found running a fork through it and treating it like a granita worked out alright. It mixed the layers together but didnt quite get it creamy. After a month with no dessert other than carob chips and homemade sorbet this was heavenly regardless of the texture.

Now we have a box of left over Clementines to snack on and the ingredients to experiment with other Raw desserts on hand. These are both exciting things. I also discovered that Breyers has a whole line of low carb ice cream bars. The fruit bars are sweetened with fructose and something I loved even before this diet so it was a nice surprise to find out I could still eat them. And they have chocolate bars that have small amounts of Splenda in them which could come in handy next time I have an emergency chocolate urge.

Raw Clementine Gelato

2c cashews
1/ 2 cup coconut butter/oil
1/ 4 cup agave nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cup almond milk (we used unsweetened hazelnut milk)
1 cup Clementine juice
2 teaspoon Clementine zest

Blend all ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth. Taste for sweetness, you may need to add extra agave if your Clementines weren’t that sweet.

Pour mixture into a rectangular container and place in the freezer to set. Once set but not frozen through, run a fork through it breaking up the layers of the gelato that will have separated while setting. Blend the gelato together in a bowl using fork or mixer to combine. This wont make a smooth gelato consistency but it tastes lovely without buying another kitchen appliance. Alternatively, you can pour the mixture (unfrozen) into an ice-cream maker if you have one.

You can make your own almond milk(it is difficult to find unsweetened nut milks in the store) by blending 1 cup of almonds with 3 cups of water, and straining through a nut milk bag or sieve.

Original recipe from the Raw Chef Blog.

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Halibut with Sun Dried Tomato Butter and “Potatoes”

This is one of my favorite low maintenance menus taken of course from a Rachel Ray recipe and improved upon. There are three different things to work on all at the same time (four if you add a steamed green vegetable to the mix as I do) but none of them take any effort. Its almost too easy after some of the things Ive been making, that probably means I need to start coming up with really complex menus soon to make up for it.

I have a thing about not liking plants from the lily family raw. It probably has something to do with the fact Im allergic to the flower. This I found out the hard way a couple years ago when the fella bought me a huge arrangement of purple and orange lilies. It was gorgeous and exactly my taste and my favorite colors. It should have been perfect birthday gift except for the fact that the next day I woke up unable to breath and spent the rest of it feeling like I was about to die at any second. We put the lilies outside to think about what they had done and I miraculously returned to normal.. The poor pretty lilies got re-gifted to a friend and the fella wisely has not buy me flowers since. Its better that way, I prefer my flowers alive in the ground and to be able to breath.

So though I adore garlic, shallots, leeks and on a limited basic onions they absolutely have to be cooked in order for me to eat them. This makes things interesting considering the large quantities of raw onions people seem to toss on seemingly everything Ive ever ordered in a restaurant. I also cook the hell out of

The original recipe for this called for both raw garlic and scallions, obviously that had to change I have a tried it a couple times that way and hated it so this time around I took the time to cook them both slightly before adding them to the butter spread. This I loved. It made the spread much less intense and allowed the sun dried tomato to really shine. If youre into raw lilies feel free to just mix up the butter ingredients and save yourself some time.

This horribly divine butter is great on the fish and beans but it would be sinful not to slather it on some warm potatoes. Unfortunately potatoes arent in my near future. Instead we made a much better fake out cauliflower version of mashed potatoes than the ones I posted the recipe for a week or so ago. Boiling the cauliflower made it too wet, it wasnt possible to add cream or butter to it without making cauliflower soup. Steaming solves the problem, this makes the cauliflower the right texture to mash and mix with your favorite creamy mashed potato fixings. Top it with the sun dried tomato butter and you wont know they arent real potatoes.

Drinking a glass of the Cline Viognier made this dinner even more enjoyable. Ive already talked a couple times about how much I love everything Cline so it was no surprise that I fell in love with this bottle. It was super floral (more along the lines of roses and not lilies thankfully) on the nose and the perfect balance of dry and sweet. There were all sorts of delicious summer fruits on the first sip, I got pear and a tart apple where as the fella loved that it was citrusy. With fish and faux potatoes I couldnt have picked a better wine.

Halibut with Sun Dried Tomato Butter and “Potatoes”

BUTTER
1 tablespoon oil
1 scallion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, diced
3 tablespoons softened butter
2 sun dried tomatoes in olive oil, finely chopped

In a pan warm the oil over medium heat, add garlic and scallion and cook until tender but not browned. Place in a small bowl to cool then add butter and sun dried tomatoes, combining well to create a soft butter mixture to use when serving meal.

FISH:
3 tablespoons butter
4 six-ounce halibut fillets (or whatever tender white fish you choose)
2 tablespoons flour (if you can use it)
salt and pepper

Melt the butter in the same pan you used in the first step over medium heat. Season fish fillets with salt, pepper and flour (if using it) on both sides. When butter is fully melted and foamy start pan frying fish. Cook fish about 8 minutes total, longer if using a thicker piece of fish, flipping over half way through cooking time. Transfer to a serving dish when cooked through.

“POTATOES”
1 head cauliflower, cut into rough florets
1 tablespoon butter
1/ 4 cup milk or cream (maybe less depending on how creamy you want your “potatoes”)

Place the cauliflower pieces in a steamer and cook until tender. Mash cauliflower in large bowl until the consistency of mashed potatoes. Add butter and enough milk to make cauliflower creamy. Season with salt and pepper then serve topped with sun dried tomato butter.

Original recipe from Everyday with Rachel Ray.

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