Healthy and Delicious? Yes, It Is Possible!

A lot of us may have a concept that, things that are healthy are not necessarily tasty or good. Well, I am learning the opposite is true. These days, I am finding creative ways to make substitutes to create healthier and honestly, tastier dishes. I have been having fun in the kitchen, which is amazing. I have never been one that enjoyed cooking.

In my quest for us to eat healthier, I have found Clean Eating magazine. Wow, I love this magazine. I can thank the Clean Eating magazine for my recent inspiration and creativity in the kitchen. The magazine has been a real eye opener for me. It has helped me to look at adding ingredients that may not be traditional to a dish or, substitute ingredients that I never thought of before, making healthier meals for us. You may want to take a look at the Clean Eating website. They have tons of good pointers and recipes there too.

I picked up a copy of the magazine and one of their cookbooks called, The Best of Clean Eating. I ran across a recipe for a turkey/sweet potato cannelloni pasta dish that looked amazing. The idea of using a sweet potato for the filling instead of heavy cheeses sounded so appealing. It called for using whole wheat pasta and I looked everywhere to find whole wheat cannelloni, but could not. I will in the future, learn to make my own. I have made pasta before and it is very easy so, whole wheat shouldn't be a big deal to make.

Since I could not find the whole wheat cannelloni, I decided to make this dish as lasagna. If you have ever been to the DeKalb Farmer’s Market in Atlanta and sampled some of the different types of lasagnas in the cafe there, you will understand my quest to try this. They have some amazing spins on lasagna at the farmer's market cafe. No longer will I look at this dish with just the traditional ingredients in mind.

I made this Turkey, Sweet Potato Lasagna for our Sunday dinner and it was amazing. I can honestly say good bye to ricotta and mozzarella cheese lasagnas. I found this recipe so tasty and delicious. It truly has more flavor than traditional lasagna and it is healthier.  Oh Yea!

So here is the basic recipe and directions. Sorry, I didn't take step by step photos. I think I was just more into making the dish and enjoying the process, to stop and take photos.  Here are the ingredients you will need.

Turkey and Sweet Potato Lasagna with Goat Cheese

2 fairly large sweet potatoes

2 Italian Turkey Sausage links plus one pound of ground turkey

½ cup of chick peas

2 cups of fresh baby spinach

1 handful of fresh basil (chopped)

1 large onion (diced)

3 large cloves of fresh garlic (minced)

1 large egg

1 ½ cups of goat cheese

3 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

1 tbsp oregano (dried)

½ tsp of cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper and 2 cups of your favorite marinara sauce

Here is what it looked like before we devoured it.

OK, so before I start with the step by step, let me apologize first. I am not a very good step by step writer. I would really never make it as a cookbook editor. With that being said, hopefully you will still get the just of my recipe and process. It isn't rocket science after all.

So, what you will need to do first, start the sweet potatoes baking in oven or microwave. I microwaved mine. Start a large pot of water to boil for cooking pasta. Add a pinch of salt to the water and a drop of olive oil. This time of the year, I welcome the humidity in the house from a boiling pot of water. It helps to cut down on static electricity. You should see the dust sticking to the front of my stainless fridge. Oops, sorry, back to the directions.

While potatoes are cooking and water is coming to a boil, chop onion, garlic and fresh basil. Place about a tsp of olive oil in a skillet with onions, garlic, Italian turkey sausage and ground turkey.  Add salt, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg and ½ tsp of oregano. Cook over medium to high heat until brown.  Remove from skillet.

Peel skins from sweet potatoes and place in a large bowl, breaking them up a bit with a fork and leave to cool.  When the potatoes have cooled a bit add one large egg.  Add a bit of olive oil to a skillet and braise baby spinach for a couple of minutes. Remove from skillet and add to the sweet potato mixture. Also add chick peas. Stir gently. You want to break up your potatoes but not turn them into a mashed mixture. I had veggie lasagna once that had nuts in it and it was delicious. At this point, you could add pecans or nuts.  I only added chick peas. Next time, I am thinking about trying nuts or a few sunflower seeds. I would love to hear about any added ingredients that you may try.

At this point, preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cook lasagna noodles for about 12 minutes or less in the boiling water. You only want them slightly cooked. They will finish cooking in the oven.

Lightly oil with olive oil a 9 x 12 or so, oven safe, glass dish. Arrange and layer pasta, sweet potato mixture along with the browned turkey. Adding small chunks of goat cheese between layers. Continue this until the dish is full with the last layer being pasta. Top with a few tablespoons of marinara sauce. Sprinkle with remaining oregano and Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil and vent by lifting one corner.

Bake for one hour and 15 minutes or so. I was surprised, this dish did take a bit longer to fully cook through. I do believe if you try it, you will be pleased and amazed. Oh, and did I tell you, it is delicious?

Blessings All!

It Doesn't Get Any Fresher...

Last night, Papaw took down two of our Barred Rock roosters. We wound up with six out of the clutch of chicks we got back at the beginning of last summer. We had already put two of them in the freezer a while back. So, we are down to two roosters now. We are pretty sure this should be about all we need for eleven hens. I guess we shall see.

We had been waiting to see which ones were more dominate and which ones we may wish to keep. We may regret this but we took out two of our feistiest roosters. They were being too aggressive we felt. They were pulling feathers from our hens and just had a general bad disposition. Papaw just wasn't going to put up with their abuse towards him either. He had been attacked a few times in going into the hen house and to feed. He said he understood their need to protect but they were just overzealous. He too wanted to see how one of those fellows would taste as a chicken noodle soup with dumplings. So, that is what we had for dinner last night.

After Papaw got off from work, he started the water boiling out there in the barn and got busy. He always takes care of our birds and I do not have to witness any of the the carnage. He gave me a call and told me to bring my soup pot and come to the barn. I walked in the door toting my big kettle. He put up hand and stopped me from coming too far into the barn. He didn't want me to see any of the mess. I held out my pot, turned my head and he placed this bird in my pot. It was kind of funny. I stewed up that big old boy and made this.

It truly was amazing and delicious. I have always heard folks say, nothing beats a fresh bird and they are right. I didn't have any frozen peas but I had soybean peas so, I used those instead. I had quiet a lot of it left over and I think I am going to freeze it in smaller package for using to make pot pies.

What's for Lunch?

Lunch is one meal that for me, gets worked in here or there. I have no real committed time for lunch. I am pretty darn bad too about breakfast. I may have breakfast and sometimes not. I have to change all of that. I have a real weight problem that I have struggled with most of my life.

A few months ago, I finally broke down and joined the gym. My guys had been on my case forever trying to get me to go to the gym with them. I will be forever grateful for their encouragement, love and support. I am down about 30 lbs since I started. I really enjoy it and it feels great to be working on getting back into shape and getting the benefit of the extra spunk that comes with exercise. A couple of things that I know must change are, my meal times and also, making time to put good effort into healthy eating.

Today for lunch, I made a delicious Korean slaw. I am smitten now. My love for Kimchi and the pursuit of learning to make it, inspired this dish today. I made Kimchi this morning. The aroma of the ginger was too much for me so, I had figure out a way to work it into lunch. There is something so pleasing about the smell of fresh grated ginger that I absolutely love. Since I have to wait 3 days for the Kimchi to ferment, I had to come up with a healthy meal choice that I could add ginger to. I had a bag of grated cabbage for making slaw so, I added a few things. 

I almost broke out the chopsticks. 

Korean Slaw

(single serving size)

1 1/2 cups of grated cabbage

1 handful of match stick carrots

2 tablespoons of sunflower seeds

1 green onion, chopped

1 teaspoon of fresh grated ginger

1 clove of garlic, chopped

a pinch of sugar

1 teaspoon of Asian Fish Sauce

1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar

1 dried chili pepper, crumbled (optional)

You could use pepper flakes instead of a dried chili.

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and toss well. That's it. It is simple and delicious, really!

Hope you enjoy!