Clean doesn't mean perfect

There seem to be a misconceptions floating around that people who eat clean eat nothing but rabbit food, are afraid of desserts, and generally think themselves to be better than the rest of the population. Can I just say that, for me at least, NONE of those are true? Yes, when I decided to follow a clean-eating lifestyle, I chose to eliminate some things from my diet. The key word there is CHOSE. Nobody forced me to do it.

But you know what I like about that system? I can *choose* to add them back in if and when I want. Not eating white sugar, white flour, fried foods, and a lot of processed stuff on a regular basis makes me feel healthier, happier, and, well, cleaner. There is no clean-eating police that is going to haul me away if I decide to have a piece of birthday cake or a few glasses of wine in any given week (or day...).

Contrary to some feedback I've received in person, I don't have to stop eating at restaurants with friends or family. When I do eat out, I may or may not make a super-clean-eating choice for my meal. We don't eat out all that much, so I feel perfectly justified in splurging now and then.

What keeps me in check from going off the deep end and completely reverting to my old unhealthy habits is the fact that I feel better when I eat clean, as long as I'm doing it properly and eating healthy carbs + protein every few hours. My skin is clearer, my pants fit better, my mood in general is more even-keeled. The physical benefits are remarkable to me. I've lost 30 pounds. I'm wearing sizes I never even dreamed of putting on myself. It's easier to have a good run--whether it's 3 miles or 10 miles--when I've been providing my body with good, clean fuel instead of sugary processed snacks.

BUT but but but... I'm not perfect (and I don't expect any other clean eaters to be, either). Some days I eat cold cereal (that may or may not contain HFCS) when I'm too lazy or too hungry to wait for oatmeal, or just sick and tired of eating sprouted grain toast with peanut butter. I might have a turkey hot dog for lunch if I don't think I'll get a chance to make something cleaner because my son is having a demanding, clingy day. After dinner, I might reach for the Lindor truffles hiding in the candy jar instead of blending up a frozen banana and dark chocolate because my son is in bed and I don't want to make too much noise with the blender.

Usually after a few off-track meals or munchies, I realize I could have done better if I'd planned ahead and had easy-to-grab clean snacks in the fridge. It's days like that when I make a dozen Larabars or a boil a half-dozen eggs and grill some chicken breasts on the Foreman. And that's exactly what I'm going to do right now!

I made Larabars!

After being impressed with the Cashew Cookie Larabar I had the day I forgot to eat lunch, someone shared this link with me--a homemade version! The recipe sounded simple enough, and I only had to buy dates in order to make them in my own kitchen. The $3.49 I paid for the container of dates was a great investment, considering each bar I was buying was $1.29--so I'd spent $6.45 on these bars before I finally decided to man up and make them myself!

When I was preparing these, we were planning a road trip with The H for work (which has since fallen through) so I wanted several varieties for a quick, clean snack. The recipe as written makes two bars, which would last about 10 minutes in our house (did you know Larabars are also gluten-free? A winner for The H!), so I doubled each batch to get four bars, and made three different flavors. I figured if I was going to the trouble to pulverize a few nuts and some dried fruit, I might as well make it worth my while and get more than two measly bars out of it.

The original directions said to mix the fruit and nuts together by hand, like Play-Doh, but in the comments someone posted that she accomplished the same thing using a zip-top freezer bag. That was more my style (I hate having anything under my fingernails)! I discovered that it was really easy to get the mixture into the bag if I lined a large plastic cup with the bag first--no mess on the bag zipper, no sticky hands. And now, without further ado, here is my Larabar experience:

All my supplies ready and waiting:

I did not use the chocolate or apricots this time.

Finely ground nuts in the food processor:

I tried using my 1-cup mini-chopper, but the blade just spun everything around without chopping.

My uber-fancy bag-in-a-cup system:

Gold star if you can tell me where the cup is from!

Cherry pie flavor, all mushed up. Yummy...or not (yet!):

Weighing in order to get equal portions (this was 1/3 of the cherry pie batch):

Isn't it cute?

All wrapped up and ready for the fridge:

The flavors I made were cherry pie, blueberry bliss, and peanut butter cookie. I didn't use enough dates in the peanut one, so they are crumblier than I would have liked. (However, The H just said "I loved it! I would eat those all the time" so they can't have been too bad.) The fruity ones came out much stickier, more like an actual Larabar--at least, the ones I've had.

My advice, should you decide to attempt these yourself, would be to make sure your dates are fresh and sticky (get whole, pitted dates and not pre-chopped ones), don't skimp on how many you use (make the measurements a firmly-packed 1/3 cup, for example), and take your time forming the bars if you care how they look. By the time I made the peanut butter cookie flavor, I was afraid I was getting carpal tunnel syndrome from kneading the bags so much, so they are less than appetizing--which is why I only posted pictures of the first ones. :)

Sweet potato semi-fail

I have recently discovered that I love sweet potato fries, especially when they're well-done and crispy. Their sweet, caramelized flavor is SO GOOD. I haven't yet been able to replicate the flavor of my favorites from The Cheetah, but I did come sort of close to that toasted-marshmallow goodness last summer. Sweet potatoes called to me at the grocery store this week so I gave in and bought a few. Last night we had these "chips" (they didn't all get crispy) with our local grass-fed beef burgers (topped with sauteed mushrooms, local yellow onion, and local sharp white cheddar). I served some homeade-from-co-op-fruit apple/pear sauce as well. Let's call this my DDC meal for the week, though the mushrooms and sweet taters weren't local. (I'm not very good at this challenge. I know.)

The photos don't look all that appetizing, but they really were good. Well, the ones that didn't get so charred they were fed to the dog were good, anyway! After slicing the two large potatoes with my mandoline, I set them on a baking sheet but had too many to do a single layer. That might've been part of my problem. Aren't they a gorgeous color?

I drizzled them with olive oil, but as you can see here, I may have added too much because it kind of pooled on top when I went to flip them halfway through.

A sprinkling of sea salt and dried rosemary finished them off. After I flipped them, they went back into the oven but under the broiler this time, and came out like this.

You might be able to spot a few that went to the pooch. Once they were plated (bad lighting, oh well for dark Michigan winter nights) they looked like this:

The H, LG (little guy!), and I polished them off. Tasty.

So even though they aren't show-quality, what do you think about the addition of more photos? I've been trying to use more and not be so lazy about uploading them! I think they brighten up the ol' blog. Yes?

Co-op night!

Tonight is co-op pickup, and I am so excited. Just like always! First, The H and I are having dinner at our favorite local place, the Cheetah restaurant you may have seen me mention before. I'm already drooling at the thought of raw fries... I was thrilled to find that I had a very similar approximation of raw fries saved in my Google Reader, courtesy of Elly Says Opa. Can't wait to try them!

This month we ordered more meat than usual, since I never seemed to have enough in the freezer towards the end of the month. On our list this time:

Eggs (three dozen; two never seemed like enough, especially now that I'm making more gluten-free bread at home)
Hamburger patties, grass-fed
Chicken apple sausage
Stew meat
Fingerling potatoes
Yellow onions
Dried cherries
Dried blueberries
Multigrain bread
Spelt bread
Cheddar cheese
Jack cheese w/dill

I plan to attempt my own Larabars with the dried fruit and some dates/nuts that I bought at the grocery store this week. Some of this food will travel with us to the Chicago area when the little guy and I join The H on his next business trip. Clean eating on the road, part eight hundred million, coming soon! :)

Cleaning up the Krusteaz

Yesterday was difficult. The little guy was clingy and cantankerous, which is always hard on everyone. He was very hands-on, which didn't leave me much time for puttering in the kitchen. So when lunchtime rolled around I had no idea what I was going to make. In his grumpy mood, he refused everything I offered, even his usual favorites.

Then I remembered the box of buttermilk complete Krusteaz pancake mix in the pantry. He tucked away a large blueberry pancake at running group on Saturday, so I decided to whip up a small batch. The mix itself isn't the cleanest but I added unsweetened applesauce, a healthy handful of frozen blueberries, and some ground flax seed in addition to water to make it a bit heartier.

We got 7 pancakes out of it--we each ate one for lunch (I wasn't too optimistic about my chance of getting to eat later) with a chunk of sharp cheddar, and I put the other five in the fridge. He asked for one this morning for breakfast, so we must have a winner. If I had more time, I would've made them from scratch with oatmeal so The H could have some of the leftovers.

Meal Plan Monday

Meatless Monday -- Vegetarian fried rice

Tuesday -- Vegan split pea soup, modified for the slow cooker

Wednesday -- Date night at our favorite local place before co-op pickup!

Thursday -- Mushroom cheddar burgers with sweet potato fries (this is the one I'm most looking forward to, after date night!)

Friday -- OPEN (maybe a birthday party)

Saturday -- Corn chowder with apple grilled cheese sandwiches

Sunday -- (tentative) roasted chicken, fingerling potatoes, confetti kale (DDC meal)

Happy hundredth!

This post is my 100th since the start of my clean-eating blog and lifestyle. Happy day! To celebrate (not really; I was going to make it anyway), I made spaghetti and meatballs for the first time in my entire life, I think.

The inspiration for the meatballs came from this recipe, but of course I made my own changes. First, I made them the night before we wanted to use them. To the turkey mixture (I used 12oz, what I had left from making turkey nachos for dinner on Friday) I added about 1/2 cup finely minced onion, 1/2 cup chopped mushrooms, and 1/2 cup fresh minced parsley. I also used one egg white instead of a whole egg and oat flour in place of the bread crumbs. After sautéing to brown them on all sides (some fell apart a bit--might need to adjust my egg white/oat flour additions), I put them in the fridge until dinner today.

While the water for the spaghetti and rotini--both Trader Joe's brown rice pastas--came to a boil, I simmered the meatballs in a combination of marinara sauce, leftover crushed tomatoes, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and crushed red pepper.

They turned out great! The H loved them and asked that I make them again. I thought they were very hearty--I had four, which was one too many. Rice pasta is so filling! The little guy got rotini because it's easier to pick up or poke by himself. He wouldn't eat any unless we called them "turkey balls" rather than meatballs. Whatever works!