Adventures in Eating Cleaner

Since I have a good two weeks of thumb twiddling left. I thought there is no time like when you actually have time to try something new. Since I both have the time to grocery shop and to experimentally cook some things, I picked up a Clean Eating magazine and decided to go to town. I would love to nail down some easy, go to favorites for when my schedule takes a turn for the real (i.e. the first time in 10 years I've had a normal 9-5 job at an actual office in an actual cube). Also we bought a Nissan Leaf so I now feel obligated to be one with the earth.

Part of the down side to my prior job was always being on the road. More often than not, I would find myself in some Podunk town in East BFE middle of nowhere and I would be starving. Sometimes the only thing in town would be a McDonalds or other grand fast food establishment. And while I tried to always make a somewhat reasonable choice at these places, I don't think anything helps as much as just making another choice entirely. Now, if I was queen of time and organization, I suppose I could have packed my own cooler of goodies. But since we live in the real world where I would be stretched for time (always) and needed something quick and on the go, I became a fast food eater. It's really pretty miraculous that I didn't wind up weighing 50 pounds more over time. I guess I will just attribute that to the amount of running / exercise keeping most of the major pounds at bay.

I'm pretty excited about not having to always eat out and I feel like I'm doing a science experiment  on myself to see how the change in food really affects me. Some things this side project this is not: 

1. A dreaded diet. Diets don't work. Neither does food group elimination. The older I get the more I realize I do not want to waste my life in diet land. I love running and being active and I want to learn to fuel my body better not less.

2. All encompassing. Sure, there are people who go vegan, vegetarian, etc. and never go back. They become rabid veggie eaters with no exceptions. That person is not me. I am seeking to increase my overall average of clean vs. crappy foods. Does that mean I will never enjoy a big pile of biscuits and gravy again? Uh, no. I probably will next Saturday after my long run. And that's ok!

These are a couple of the things I tried this week. One turned out great and the other tasted great but was a ridiculous amount of steps.

I started with this recipe I found online. I love chickpeas and I always wanted to find a way to make an actual meal out of them. Anything involving 10 ingredients or less and a crock pot usually catches my attention. Super Easy Chickpea, Brown Rice and Broccoli - she had me at "super easy." And it really was - as most crock pot meals are. I basically dumped a bunch of things in a pot and let it go. The bonus to this recipe is also that it is fast by crock pot standards - only 3 hours to done. This one turned out fantastic and I would totally sub this for traditional broccoli and cheese casserole at a holiday event. It was just as cheesy and delicious. I may have used a tad more cheese than advised - sue me.

Step One: Dump it all in

Step Two: Cook it up. Done.

Step Three: Eat! 

The next recipe I tried was for Cheesy (yeah, I like cheese) Chicken and Kale Quesadillas. It's on page 86 of the new Clean Eating magazine. I couldn't find a link online, which is probably all the better. If you really have a lot of time, this recipe was pretty tasty. If you are a normal working person, it took me about an hour to do everything.  I used 4 cutting boards, a couple of mixing bowls three pots and a lot of other kitchen tools to get all the "fresh" ingredients chopped up and cooked. Oh, and it also involved a homemade guacamole. It's a good thing O was taking a nap, because I was busy destroying the kitchen. I would never see myself coming home from a long day at work and spending an hour doing all of this. Maybe if I prepped the day before or something. I don't know. It was good, it was just very involved.

Sooooo much chopping of all the things.

Decent looking guacamole. 

Boil chicken 

Sauteeing all the things together....

Finally time to eat!

It's a start! There will be more trial and error experiments I feel sure. I do feel great eating all the fresh, natural ingredients. I feel like I am doing my body a favor in the nutrient department. I hope to at least find a few things that are easy, that O will eat and that will work well as quick left-overs too. So, if you need me, I will probably be destroying my brand new kitchen. If you have any easy, clean eats you love send them my way!