Herb-Crusted Tilapia

April 11, 2014 / ktbuchs87

I haven’t ever really posted a recipe with meat as the main ingredient mostly because I don’t eat meat. I am a huge supporter of eating real foods that work best for you. For some people that means including meat in their diet, I just happen to feel my best on a non-meat diet. My husband, Adam, on the other hand tends to like having a few meat dishes a week. One of the easiest and simple ways to do this in our house is to make fish. Fish, and tilapia in particular, can be a nice clean slate when it comes to seasonings and flavor. Tilapia is a very mild tasting fish so you can do anything you would like to flavor it. This recipe is one of my go-to’s and I use it every week. It’s simple and quick which are musts for a weekday dinner. We buy big bags of individually wrapped frozen fish so it’s easy to just grab one filet and thaw it in the fridge before dinner. So grab what ever fish is your favorite and give this recipe a try!

Herb-Crusted Tilapia

1 filet tilapia or any other mild fish (sole or cod would work well)
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
small handful of cashews (you could also use almonds or sunflower seeds)
2 tsp oregano
2 tsp basil
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

1. Beat your one egg in a shallow dish and set aside. In a food processor or blender, pulse cashews (or other nut) a few times until they are broken up into small chunks. You don’t want to pulse it into a powder. Add in the nutritional yeast, oregano, basil, thyme, garlic, onion, and red pepper flakes. Pulse a few times until everything is combined

2. Dump your seasoning mix out onto a plate and spread it around evenly. Line up your egg dish and your seasoning dish next to your stove. In a small skillet, heat a little olive oil and heat over medium heat.

3. Take your tilapia and add a little salt and pepper. Then, dunk it into the egg and make sure it is coated. Transfer the fish over to the seasoning plate and coat both sides evenly.

4. Place the fish into the skillet and cook for about 2-3 minutes and then flip and cook for about 1-2 minutes, until the fish is flaky and opaque.

Serve over some brown rice or quinoa and add some vegetables on the side and you have a great and filling dinner! You can obviously make more than one piece of fish if you are serving more than one person. Just up your egg count to 2 or 3 and make enough seasoning to cover each piece. I hope you enjoy and I will try to include more variety of recipes like this for you guys. Have a great weekend!

Dawson Update

April 8, 2014 / ktbuchs87 / 1 Comment

Sorry for the lack of regular posts here on the blog. It has been a busy past few weeks and the blog has been pushed to the side for the time being. But don’t worry, once the craziness of our move and Adam’s new job has died down I will have plenty of time to devote to writing posts and giving you guys recipes!

I thought that I would drop in today and give you a quick update on what’s going on here in the Dawson house. If you recall my husband, Adam, was offered a job at Aon Benfield in Chicago. Once we found out and talked about it, we decided to make the move to Chicago and thus begun our search for a new apartment. Luckily it didn’t take that long and we found a great place in the Lakeview area of Chicago. We both fell in love with the area and the variety of things that are available to us there. It’s also a short commute for Adam which is pretty much one of the main reasons we were moving. We signed the lease and will be moving towards the end of May.

Now, I’m not sure how familiar many of you are with downtown living, but it tends to be a little bit of a smaller space. Our new apartment is a 1 bedroom, 1 bath, with a living room/dining room and kitchen. While it is not super tiny, it is a lot smaller than our 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, home here in Sycamore. So we have been slowly going through our things and downsizing to only the essentials. At times, I look around and start to panic and think, “There is no way that we will be able to fit into this new space!” But I know that once we actually make the move and get everything organized, it will all work just fine. It’s also nice to get down to the bare essentials, sometimes we get so bogged down with “stuff” that we think we need but we really don’t. While I may hate moving, it does help to keep us from becoming pack rats because who wants to move a bunch of useless things? Not I.

Stuff we really don’t need…

I have also been feeling my way into the health and nutrition arena of the world to see where I can fit in and start my own career. There are numerous programs to become certified in a variety of things, so I’m not worried about finding the right fit. I am finding that I am most passionate about the food/nutrition side of things and have been leaning towards continuing my education in that sense. While I have nothing definite yet, it is exciting to plan my own future and think about what I really want to do. After the move I will be able to devote 100% of my time to pursuing that and I can’t wait!

That’s pretty much all the excitement that is going on in my little corner of the world. Thankfully it seems that the weather is slowly turning to spring here in the midwest and it has been a little warmer. I really do love this time of year when I go outside and can actually smell things like trees and grass and flowers. It’s also nice to not have to put on 6 thousand layers just to walk to the car and not freeze to death. Hopefully it stays this way and we can finally enjoy spring! I hope that you all have a great week and I will talk to you soon!

Beautiful morning for a spring time run!

Polenta: A Quick Tutorial

April 4, 2014 / ktbuchs87

Polenta is one of my favorite things because it is so versatile and super tasty. Maybe you have heard of it or you’re scratching your head right now going, “Po-whatta?” Polenta is a fairly simple dish made of cornmeal that has been boiled into a porridge like consistency. After it has been boiled, polenta can be served in a variety of ways. You can eat it as is, or you can let it set and bake, fry, saute, or even grill it. It pairs well with so many things; one of my favorite ways to eat it is to top it with a mushroom gravy. Because it is so easy to make, polenta makes a really great side dish, but it can easily be made into the main course. I have a few different recipes that utilize polenta that I plan on sharing soon, but I thought that I would just give you the basic steps to making polenta as well as a few easy ways to “fancy” it up.

Basic Polenta

Polenta topped with my favorite mushroom gravy

1 cup yellow cornmeal
3-4 cups water/milk/non-dairy milk*
1 tsp salt

*If you are going to be eating the polenta in it’s porridge like form, use 4 cups of your choice of liquid. If you want to let it set and then use it, use 3 cups. I like doing a mix of water and either almond or coconut milk. Using milk makes it a little creamier than just plain water, but water works just as well.

1. In a medium saucepan bring your water/milk and 1 tsp salt to a rolling boil. Once at a boil, grab a whisk in one hand and your one cup of cornmeal in the other. Slowly add the cornmeal to the water while constantly whisking with your other hand. This helps to make sure there are no lumps.

2. Turn the heat down to low and cook until the cornmeal is nice and thick and starting to pull away from the sides of the pot. Stir often and watch out for polenta splatters!

3. You can eat it as is at this point or you can let the polenta set so you can slice it and bake or grill it. Grease or line any pan that has an edge with parchment paper and pour the polenta out. Spread the polenta evenly and place it in the fridge for at least an hour or in the freezer for 20 to 30 minutes. Once the polenta is set you can cut it up and prepare it however you would like!

That is seriously it when it comes to making polenta. I told you it was really easy! Now there are a few things that you can do to jazz it up and make it even tastier. You could:

Add in shredded cheese or butter to make it even creamier.
Try out different seasonings. I like adding in garlic and Italian seasonings as well as taco seasonings
Top with gravy, vegetables, meat, or any kind of sauce
Use it as the base for a casserole (I have a recipe for this coming soon!)

Experiment with a few different things and find out what you like best. Polenta is a very neutral canvas when it comes to food, so it is really easy to pair with many different creations. Go pick up a bag of cornmeal (if you can find it in bulk, it is really cheap!) and get your polenta on!

Chickpea Casserole

March 28, 2014 / ktbuchs87 / 1 Comment

I had the hardest time thinking up a name for this dish. I had the idea of making a lasagna type dinner, but without the noodles. I toyed with the idea of naming it noodleless lasagna, but that just sounded weird. I finally settled on chickpea casserole, even though it’s not exactly what it is. I know, first world problems right? Oh well, regardless of what this meal is called, it is delicious. We devoured it all and quickly wanted more. It makes fabulous leftovers and it is a great prepare ahead meal so that come dinnertime all you have to do is heat it up in the oven. Simple and delicious, what more could you want?

Chickpea Casserole

For the chickpea layer:

3 cups chickpeas, soaked/rinsed/cooked (you could also use 2 cans of chickpeas, but I liked dried better)
3/4 cup raw cashews, soaked overnight
1/3 to 1/2 cup nutritional yeast, depending on how “cheesy” you want it to taste
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp italian seasonings
salt and pepper to taste

For the sauce:

1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 tsp oregano
2 tsp basil
1 to 2 tsp fennel seeds
1 can fire roasted tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup vegetable broth or water
salt to taste

Make your sauce first. In a medium saucepan, heat a little olive oil over medium heat. Saute the onion and garlic for about 5 to 7 minutes. Once the onion is soft add in the oregano, basil, and fennel seeds. Stir to combine everything and then add in the tomatoes. Depending on how thick or thin you want your sauce, add in a little bit of the broth at a time. Bring the sauce to a boil and then lower to a simmer. Cover the pan halfway with a lid and simmer while you make the chickpea layer.
Preheat the oven to 400 and put the chickpeas into a food processor or blender and pulse a few times to break them up. Add in the rest of the ingredients and process until it is all combined and creamy. If it is too dry you can add in a few tablespoons of water or broth.
Lightly oil a casserole pan and spread the chickpea mixture into the bottom. Press the chickpeas down and make sure that there are no cracks. Then pour the sauce over the top and cover the chickpeas. Cover with foil and cook in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and cook for another 5 minutes, until the sauce is bubbly. Take out of the oven and let sit for 5 minutes and then cut and serve.

After you assemble the casserole, you can keep it covered in the fridge until you’re ready to cook it. Then simply heat up the oven and pop the casserole in. This would be a really good meal to take to a potluck or share with a big group of people. You can easily double it and feed a crowd. And I’m pretty sure they will gobble it up and ask for seconds! Or maybe that’s just me…. Enjoy!

Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative

March 24, 2014 / ktbuchs87

So often when we make the decision to change our lifestyles, we tend to zero in on the bad habits. This is very true when it comes to changing our health for the better. We decide that we want to eat better, exercise more, and just be healthier in general. Then we start listing all the unhealthy habits we have. We snack too much, we count walking from the refrigerator to the couch as exercise, the only cooking we do is pressing the start button on the microwave, etc. etc…. In order to be healthy we have to get rid of all those habits, and the sooner the better. Right?

Not so much. When I first decided to be healthier, I had the same mindset. I took a look at my life and immediately saw all the “bad” things that I did. I was discouraged and felt the urgent need to change everything as fast as possible. I got rid of all the junk food in my kitchen, bought new exercise DVD’s, and completely overhauled my lifestyle. All of this sounds really good and is necessary when trying to be healthier, but it shouldn’t all happen at once. Sure I had gotten rid of all the “bad” stuff, but I had no idea what to do next. I had essentially changed my whole world over night and that led to more than a few slip-ups and feeling like being healthier was impossible.

Luckily I learned from my mistakes and found a much better approach to changing my lifestyle. I slowly began to change things. I started adding healthier recipes to my weekly rotation. I experimented with a few new exercise routines to see what I liked best and I could stick with. This gradual change made it much easier to stick with a healthier lifestyle. The other thing that really helped me was to focus on the good habits that I already had before I decided to live healthier. Once I saw that I had already had some good habits, it made it feel like I could actually change for good.

If you have recently made the choice to change your lifestyle, try this approach. Instead of immediately changing every single bad habit in your life, take a look and find the good things. Maybe you’re really good at drinking a lot of water, or you have a fairly solid workout routine. Once you find your good habits, find ways to build on them. If you’re a really good cook, start incorporating healthier ingredients and recipe into your repertoire. Soon you’ll have a healthy menu and you’ll feel really accomplished and motivated to keep going. The important thing to remember is to take it slow. This increases your chances of sticking to your goal of living a healthier lifestyle. Once you see all the good things you already do and find ways to expand upon them, being healthy won’t seem like such a daunting and unattainable task. Each positive thing you do will be another step towards living and feeling great!