leanKitchen » nuts

Oysters, Lobster, and Swordfish, oh MY!

leanKitchen — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 15:04:14 +0000

Hey guys, wanted to make sure you saw the new feature below and to the right; my “news” site. You can now see lK’s travels, as I go from place to place and eat out supportively at different places. It’s (most of the time, though fast food is a bit more difficult) easy to find a supportive option wherever you go. I’m in Providence, RI this weekend at a 3-day summit for fitness and nutrition, and by night, reviewing local foods

So check out the news section, to the bottom right of the NEW and IMPROVED lK site!

P.S. My first restaraunt/”victim,” Hemenway’s Seafood Grill and Oyster Bar in Providence, Rhode Island was a FABULOUS first “review”.

Not only did they totally hook us up when I told them what I was there for (and p.s. the VIP section is something I can get used to!!), but the food, atmosphere and service were bar none. Thanks again to the folks at Hemenway’s. HIGHLY recommended!

The crunch, delicious Macadamia Crusted Shrimp…sweet Lobster and Crab cakes…the perfectly grilled Swordfish Steak..and the Poppasquash Raw Oysters- don’t even get me started on how amazing those were!! Yum!

Peanut Butter and Honey-Stuffed Apples

leanKitchen — Thu, 06 May 2010 08:30:23 +0000

What a quick, easy, and delicious supportive snack!

First, take an apple and core it. You can choose to use the regular corer, or the one that cores and slices, you just won’t technically have a stuffed apple that way…or you can put it back together

So take your sliced up apple, and either pipe in (or dollop atop), a scoop of Chobani Greek Honey Yogurt,

and another scoop of natural peanut butter

Eat and enjoy!!!

Kids will love this one, too!!

Cranberry Lemon leanara bars

leanKitchen — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 03:24:04 +0000

So Tod n’ Deveney tried these on air yesterday as well…and they loved ‘em! Super simple, super quick:

1 cup almonds, 2/3 c. cranberries (dried, unsweetened), zest of 1 lemon (plus the juice of a half), and 2/3 c. dried apricots. Food process till they are all uniform like this:

Cranberry lemon bars, chopped

Next, press into a wax paper-lined bread loaf pan:

Cranberry bars, pressed in a pan!

Next, slice into bars, and enjoy! They’re that simple!!!

Cranberry lemon bars

Quick, delicious, supportive snacks-perfect for the whole family!

Sunny Sundried Tomato Pesto

leanKitchen — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:54:39 +0000

In celebration of our sunny weather, I made some sunshine tomato pesto!!

……Alright, that was a lie.

Really, this recipe was a fluke, but a wonderful one! See what happened was, last night when making dinner, I thought I had a MUCH bigger container of basil than I really did. I realized when I was cleaning my basil that I didn’t, in fact, have anywhere near enough. So, I pulled out my thinking cap, and here’s what I did:

I took my 2 oz clamshell container of basil (rinsed, then stripped the leaves from the stems), ¼ c. of pine nuts, 1 clove of garlic, ¼ cup of cheese (it’s usually parmesan, I used shredded sharp cheddar cause it’s what I had). Next up came the replacement for the Basil…what in the world was I going to use?? I looked in my fridge and saw I had a 8.5 oz. container of sun-dried tomatoes in oil (Bella Sun Luci, my favorite if I have to buy them in jars), so I dumped half of them, plus the olive oil (which had infused with that awesome sun-dried tomato flavor) into my food processor.

Pesto!

Then, I pulsed for literally 4 seconds. It was super fast.

SUNNY SUNDRIED TOMATO PESTO

I enjoyed this on a nice hot bowl of spaghetti squash (that I prepared the same way as I always do), topped with more cheese and some shrimp I’d thawed (and of course, topped with Old Bay, my favorite!!). Supportive, nutritious, and incredibly delicious!!!!! (Yes, I’m aware that rhymed : )

Sundried Tomato Pesto with Shrimp over Spagetti Squash

…and yeah, the kids were fooled again ;- )

This would be fabulous with chicken, or with maybe marinated tempeh or veggie meatballs as a complete vegetarian option.

Chocolate Cherry leanara Bars

leanKitchen — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:12:10 +0000

In my former non-supportive eating world, there was, again, a bar that I was in love with. It had cherries, coconut, grains and nuts, a fudgy, chocolatey covering, and it was oh so good!

Today, I attempted, and succeeded at, recreating a similar bar.

I took 1 cup of almonds, 3/4 of a cup of dried, unsweetened cherries, juice of 1/2 an orange 1/3 c of chocolate protein powder (Prograde), 1/4 cup of coconut flakes (unsweetened), and a tablespoon of orange zest (you can omit the orange zest if you’d like- it makes it quite orangey) and whisked them around in the food processor till processed.

Process

Proccessed

Line a bread pan in waxed paper, and press it in:

Pressing the mixure into a pan

Once you get the shape, remove from the pan, slice into bars, and ENJOY!!

Chocolate Cherry Coconut Bars

Lean…ara bars

leanKitchen — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:36:22 +0000

Alright so there’s this brand of bars I LOVE, and they boast no sugar, no gluten, no dairy, vegan, etc. etc. My favorite one of these bars is the Lemon Pie kind. So, given that I eat them constantly, I wondered if I could recreate it in my leanKitchen.

Now, the beauty of the ingredients list on the back of the package is, you get to see WHAT’S in it, but the downfall is, you don’t get the proportion of each, nor the preparation technique. I decided tonight that I was going to try my hand at making these bars, which I have renamed “lean-ara bars”. I remembered making the Christmas Swap cookie, and figured, it must be something along those lines.

So I took a cup of almonds, 2/3 cup of dates, 2/3 cup of apricots, the zest of one lemon, and the zest of an orange, along with the juice of 1/2 a lemon, and stuck it in my food processor.

lean-ara bars in the processor

I already had the blade in the bottom, but I stuck the shredder blade on top, too, just to help contain the stuff inside, as it’s fairly dry and tends to get outta control:

Processor Shredder on top of the mixture

I turned the food processor on, let everything get small and uniform in size (takes a few minutes), then pressed it all into a bread pan lined with waxed paper. I figured once I cut them into bars, the bread pan would make them just about the same length as what I was trying to replicate.

Pressed into a bread pan

Slice them with a knife into about 1 inch wide bars, and here’s what they end up looking like:

lean-ara bars

: lean-ara bars

Scrumptious!!

Perfect for snacks for you AND your kids!