Nice Veggetti… (and other sweaty topics)

You. Guys. Run – do not walk – to the nearest Williams Sonoma (or if you’re on a budget… Walgreens) and buy a veggie spiralizer. Don’t ask me why because I am about to tell you it is the best thing that has happened to you since you survived the Friday Fight DVD of Insanity Max: 30.

I had zucchini noodles planned for my first virgin experience with the veggie spiralizer – also known as the Veggetti (pronounced by the cool kids as…. vah – jet – ee) if you’re into As Seen on TV purchases – and was thinking it was going to take about as long as homemaking cavatelli pasta. Which, if you have not done before takes a legit 8 hours if you don’t mess up. If you do mess up and your Italian mother-in-law is on her way to your house and you think you can get away with serving her frozen pasta, you should just give up completely and come clean because she WILL know that it’s frozen and not fresh. Not that this happened to me because mine were perfect but anyway … I digress.

SO – ya’ll know that Mr. Grumpy and I love us some Italian food. We practically have pasta falling out our ears we eat it so often. We all have our issues, and ours is carbs. We tried spaghetti squash but it just didn’t taste right to us. And Mr. Grumpy has texture issues on top of his carb issues. So, I decided to embark upon the zucchini noodle, or as my clever coworker calls … the zoodle. See picture below – introducing the zoodle. 

With this spiralizer, all you literally do is put the blade in, connect the zucchini to both ends of the machinery, and turn the handle. Out come perfectly plump, happy little zoodles. It took five minutes. Maybe. And only maybe five minutes because I couldn’t find the blade. Why? Because it has a handy little shelf for it underneath the contraption. SO HELPFUL. Seriously. I just don’t even want to spend more time talking about this because it’s f*&^ing amazing. Here is the link for you to purchase one: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/paderno-sprializer/. Treat yourself. Break up with pasta now. It won’t miss you – it will move on to other people!

SO – I didn’t want to mess this whole thing up by making zoodles (the perfectly healthy option to real pasta) and then cover it in store-bought sauce. DID YOU KNOW that shit is FULL of sugar and probably salt and like extra stuff that you really, really do not need. It’s likely the reason why the next day you feel sleepy because it’s not good for you. Stop eating that – it’s really easy to make your own sauce in like 30 minutes or less. Now, you can also make sauce in 8 hours but this is easier for a weeknight and really, really tasty. Ready?

• Two roasted red peppers (I roast mine at 450 on each side for 15-20 minutes until it looks blacky spotty ish, then cool and peel off the skin)
• Four cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 shallot, chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh basil
• 2 tsp olive oil or sunflower oil
• 1.5 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 lemon
• 1/8 cup of parmesan cheese
• A dash of red pepper flakes
• 1 can of no-salt-added diced tomatoes, drained slightly

Blend together in your bullet or food processor or whatever contraption you have. That’s the sauce! You can roast the peppers in advance on Sunday when you’re bored and your husband is making you not talk because the Browns are playing. #MrGrumpy

Now, just take a tablespoon of olive oil and heat in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add your zoodles and stir them around frequently until they start to get soft. Add the sauce (we used two zucchini’s so had some sauce left over. Don’t overdo it on the sauce!) and let it simmer together for about 5-6 minutes, until the zoodles are softer and the sauce is hot. Top with some fresh basil and experience the happiness. Then tell everyone that you love your spiralizer like me until they no longer want to be your friend anymore.

Side note: DID YOU KNOW THAT SPIRALIZERS CAN ALSO MAKE SWEET POTATO FRIES? I’ll figure that one out soon. A healthified version, of course. Maybe tossed in sunflower oil and baked… working on it!

Fitness: Insanity Max: 30 – Friday Fight.
This was not ok. Shaun T – YOU BE CRAZY. I made it through and maxed out at a whopping six minutes. The first water break isn’t even until 15 minutes in. Then YOU DON’T GET ANOTHER UNTIL TEN MINUTES LATER. WTF. But then, you get done and you’re like, whoa. I just did something there. How will you know? You’ll have sweat in places you didn’t know existed on your body. And you won’t be able to walk. And you will maybe start crying (like Mr. Grumpy did). Treat yourself to a glass of wine and reminisce about how terrible you felt … and how amazing it feels to FEEL ACTUAL PAIN. That’s a key indicator you’re still alive.

Friday Nutrition:

• Breakfast: Oatmeal and a side of fruit
• Snack 1: Pears
• Lunch: Shakeology – Chocolate, 1 tbsp peanut putter, 1 cup unsweetened almond milk, ice.
• Snack 2: Clementine and 11 smoked almonds
• Dinner: This zoodle noodle dinner, plus a caesar salad fake out from Thug Kitchen Handbook. It uses soaked almonds, olive oil and lemon juice, capers, etc. instead of cheese, cream and eggs found in caesar dressing. Tastes just like the real thing. And gives you just as bad of breathe. AWESOME. 
• Water: 68 oz and counting.

What are your favorite healthy substitutes for your “we have issues” food (aka, guilty pleasures)?? Did you buy yourself a Vegetti???

Mom says, “Eat Yer Greens!” We say, “Drink ’em!” #drinkurgreens #organicgirl

organicgirl sent me a package of their kale in exchange for this post. all the rest of it was totally on me, and man are you going to be impressed! now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about smoothies!

Well, we sure do talk about making smart food choices here a lot on Home with You. Mr. Grumpy and I have been working really hard on getting our butts into shape and making smart choices after those workouts so that we can actually see the fruits of our labor. One of our favorite brands out there for getting our green on is organicgirl, which I know I talk about a lot over here, too! Well, they really are a great company, and man does their produce stay fresh for a long time (which is great for us Grumpy’s because we tend to get very distracted and forget about things in the fridge).

For the month of June, organicgirl is reminding folks out there that you don’t just have to eat a salad every single night of the week. There are more creative ways to get super fresh, power foods into your system – and one of those ways is to DRINK your greens with smoothies! Smoothies can also be an any time of the day snack or meal, depending on how often you eat during the day. For example, you can have a smoothie for breakfast, you can have one as a snack, you can add rum to it after work and have it at happy hour… oh wait.. ok, well do that last one sparingly. As part of their #drinkurgreens contest, you (that’s right, I mean YOU!) can win a year’s worth of organicgirl greens AND a Vitamix blender. Amazing, right? So, get up on that Facebook, and go directly to their page (https://www.facebook.com/iloveorganicgirl) and get to work on your very own smoothie. OR if you’re not feeling like a kitchen genius, you can make one of our ideas we came up with!

Now, Mr. Grumpy was very excited about this challenge. organicgirl sent us an entire package of their amazing 100% baby kale to try out in our smoothies. Me being the smoothie connoisseur that I am (hello, I worked for six years in an ice cream shop) was so excited to get to work, but I cannot tell you how much MORE excited Mr. Grumpy was. So, we went ahead and made soon-to-be Mr and Mrs. Grumpy smoothies for you to try.

Let’s make Mr. Grumpy’s first (first is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the … ok, I will try to grow up a bit).

Mr. Grumpy’s Razzango Smoothie

#drinkurgreens #ormrgrumpywillglareatyou

What You’ll Need:

• 1 cup organicgirl 100% baby kale
• 1 cup coconut water
• 1 tsp chia seeds (for energy!!)
• 1 cup of frozen mango
• 1 1/2 cups raspberries, fresh
• Splash of lime juice

First, combine the kale, chia seeds and the coconut water. Blend until smooth – about 1 minute. Then, add in the fruit, and blend everything again. Pour into a glass, and enjoy!!

Now, I wanted to try something a little sweeter. It took everything I had to not use ice cream – but I think you could totally substitute the vanilla Greek yogurt for vanilla ice cream if you had not been like me and skipped your workout this weekend. So… here is the soon-to-be Mrs. Grumpy smoothie for us gals!

Soon2Be Mrs. Grumpy’s Something Sweet Strawberry Mint Smoothie

#drinkurgreens #becauseisaidso

What You’ll Need:

• 1 cup organicgirl 100% baby kale
• 2 5.2 oz. containers of Chobani Greek vanilla yogurt (or 1 cup of vanilla ice cream)
• 2 tbsp fresh mint (thanks to Suzie Q’s amazing garden this year!)
• 1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries
• 1 cup ice (don’t do this if you use ice cream, ok? Ok…)

First, combine the kale, yogurt, mint and ice. Blend until smooth and all the ice is gone to the human eye. This is just to make sure that you don’t get any ice chunks. Then, add the strawberries and blend one more time until smooth.

Halfway through making my strawberry mint smoothie, another idea occurred to me that you could do the kale, mint, vanilla ice cream and chocolate chips. Like … HOW AMAZING WOULD THAT BE? Right? But, Mr. Grumpy told me we needed to get through the smoothies that I made before I started making more… and he was right because I quickly realized that we had about 45-minutes worth of dishes ahead of us.

So, get to smoothie-ing, and don’t forget to post your own creations over on Facebook (or Instagram, if you’re into that!) using #drinkurgreens. You can find more about the contest here: https://www.facebook.com/iloveorganicgirl/app_448952861833126.

Happy drinking, friends!

And… the winner is!! (Organic Girl Giveaway Winner!)

Oh my gosh – I could not be more excited to share with you the winner of my OrganicGirl giveaway… are you readdyyyyyy? 

Congratulations, Kelsey! 

I'm sure the following will be Kelsey's reaction when she reads this…

First, denial…

Last, acceptance. 
(Photos courtsey of CSMonitor.com)

Kelsey said she'd love to go everywhere in France, and is now the proud owner of OrganicGirl Vive la France blend! 

Just email me (cari[dot]j[dot]steiner[at]gmail.com) with your address, and your greens will be on their way. Unless you're GOING to France within the next week … in which case tell me what day you'd like them to arrive. 

(Giveaway Closed!) Review & Giveaway! Darling, Let’s Go to France w/OrganicGirl (Roasted Chicken, Brie & Cinnamon-Apple Paninis, plus a Peach-Bacon Salad)

Disclaimer: I received free OrganicGirl product to review for this post. All opinions are my own. The prize for this promotion is provided by and shipped by OrganicGirl and/or its representatives.  

Phew, now that THAT'S out of the way… let's talk about France. AKA, one of my favorite places on the planet. Now I know what you're wanting to ask me, "Cari, did you go to France and have a 10-day middle-school style love affair with a bleached-blonde-hair boy named Nicolas (pronouced Neec-oh-LAH) and wish you never had to return to the states?" Um, I would say SOME of that is true… But, I did get in trouble for talking too loudly during our tour of Versailles. I also misread a menu and ordered horse, instead of steak… and then two hours later proceeded to go horseback riding. Very traumatizing. But despite my completely unromantic trip to France at a ripe 14 years of age, I did come back completely in love with the culture. What can I say? France and I share a certain… je ne sais quoi … about us. Maybe it's because I used to be la canadienne .. er Canadian (a story for another time…). 

So, when OrganicGirl reached out to me, and I perused their website only to find they had a product called Vive la France… well, I just had to try it. Let me tell you first about OrganicGirl (right now they're mostly focused in greens for salads and yummy cookin') – they have such a great story. They are a group of men and women in California who literally police the BEEP out of your produce. This means that when you buy a container of their product, it's been washed three times before being packaged; it's completely organic; and it won't be brown the day after you buy it. Which is awesome because I think I have probably wasted like $300 alone this year buying lettuce in plastic containers that gets slimy on day two, and I'm left to ponder whether I should suck it up and eat it, or throw it away (Mr. G usually makes me throw it away, though he's very grumpy about wasting food). 

I went ahead and tried the Vive la France blend, which is a combination of mâche rosettes, baby chard, baby arugula and radicchio. It arrived today, and I was well-prepared. Of course, it took us like 45 minutes to track down our security dude, Chris, to unlock our package from his super stealthy case. But it was worth it – these greens are seriously delicious. Typically when we buy lettuce at the store, it's wilty and not very crunchy. The Vive la France mix was crunchy and slightly spicy (likely from the arugula). And we all know I love me some spice. So, I took Mr. Grumpy on a trip to France (aka, our super European couch), and made Roasted Chicken, Brie and Cinnamon Apple Paninis, plus a Peach-Bacon Salad avec Lemon Vinaigrette. L'awesome (that's not real French, ok?). 

Want to know what is EVEN MORE L'AWESOME? One of YOU lucky readers is going to win a package of Vive la France blend from OrganicGirl JUST LIKE ME! I know, you're thinking – this simply cannot be true. How can I be so lucky? Well, you can, my friends. You can indeed. How, you ask? You can enter my giveaway in three ways:

• Follow me (@carijeanne) on Twitter, and tweet at me using #homewithyou with what you'd most like to see if you visited France. Feel free to leave a comment below with the link to your tweet for an extra entry. 
• Leave a comment below with your French vacation dream – where would you most like to go? The south of France? Nice? Paris? The Spanish border? French Canada? 
• Like OrganicGirl on Facebook or Pinterest, and leave me a comment below saying you did it! 

The giveaway will close on June 22 – so get to commenting les petite chous! If you do all three, you earn three entries (meaning your chances will be INCREASED!). Best day ever, right? May the odds be ever in your favor, friends. I will announce the winner the week of June 24 here on my blog (and on social media too, obviously, because I will be so excited that I'll just want to share it with everyone). 

Now that I've talked your ear off, let's get cookin'! (Let's start with the panini!)

Roasted Chicken, Brie & Cinnamon-Apple Panini

Every holiday, I make baked brie, which uses candied apples (like you'd put in a pie), crescent dough and brie. It's my sister Erin's favorite. In fact, one holiday I failed to make the brie, and she felt that warrented not speaking to me for most of Christmas. I have to agree – the brie really makes Christmas feel warmer. 

So, this little sammy is just like that slice of heaven, except I'm totally going to blow your mind by taking it out of the crescent dough, and putting it onto bread. Whoa. Right? It's seriously delicious.  

What You'll Need:

• 1/2 cup Vive la France blend from OrganicGirl 
• 1/4 lb of brie
• 1 green apple
• 4 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon, divided – plus 1/2 tsp extra 
• Juice from 1/2 orange
• 2 cups organic, unsalted chicken stock
• 1 chicken breast
• 1/4 tsp dried rosemary
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander seed
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 4 slices of fresh ciabatta bread (DS pronounces like CHEE-AH-BAHTTA bread. And I think it's awesome)
• 1 tbsp butter
• Baking non-stick cooking spray

First, you want to cook your chicken. I did mine in the crock pot the day before. First, combine 2 cups of chicken stock, chicken breast, rosemary, 1 tsp cinnamon, and salt and pepper to taste. Let that cook on low for 2 to 2.5 hours until fully cooked. Let it cool enough that you can shread it with your fingers. Completely shread the chicken. In a small bowl combine 1/2 tsp cinnamon, ground coriander and ground cumin in a bowl. Sprinkle it over the chicken, and toss until the chicken is coated. Add salt & pepper to taste, as needed. 

Next, preheat your oven to 375. Spray a small baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Cut your apple into long, thin slices. The thinner, the better. They cook faster that way. Next, take your half of an orange, and squirt the juice over the apples. This is a trick Suzie Q taught me because I used to think that when apples turned brown, it meant they rotted. This was obviously an exaggeration, but she would help me out by putting juice on them to keep them looking normal. Toss the apples until they've been coated evenly with the juice. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and the remaining cinnamon (1 tsp). Sprinkle slowly over the apples, tossing the entire time to ensure they get nicely coated. Place the apples uncovered in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Remove them from the oven and stir. Return the apples to the oven, and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, and let them sit for 5 minutes.

Coat one side of each slice of bread with an even layer of butter. Begin warming a pan with grill marks (seriously, what are these things called), over medium heat. Have another pan handy (can you tell I  don't have a panini maker?). Next, cut up your brie into long slices, about a centimeter thick. Place evenly over a slice of ciabatta bread. Next, place the cinnamon apples on top of the brie. Add a layer of chicken, and finally cover the top with Vive la France greens. Smoosh the second piece of bread on top. Repeat on the second – so you have two sandwiches. That was kind of obvious…

Now, place both sandwiches on your pan (butter side should be down, obviously). Place another pan on top of your sandwiches and gently press down, for about 3 minutes. Flip your sandwiches, and repeat on the other side for an additional 3 minutes. Remove the pan from heat, and let your sandwiches sit until the brie cheese is melty and gooey and ready to be devoured. 

Peach-Bacon Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette 

To go with the paninis, we had a lovely Peach-Bacon Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette. Ok, I know you're wondering why on earth I would ever put peaches and bacon together. Well, just as Mr. Grumpy and I go together (even though I'm sweet like a peach, and he's salty like a slice of bacon), so do peaches and bacon in real life. I'm serious.

What You'll Need:

• 2 cups Vive la France blend from OrganicGirl
• 3 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 1 peach, cut into slices
• Juice from 1/2 lemon (about 1 tbsp)
• 1/2 tsp dijon mustard
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1/8 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp Lemon & Pepper Seasoning (from McCormick) 

Note: I adapted the recipe for the Lemon Vinaigrette from Martha Stewart. She's really great, isn't she? 

First, put 1 cup of greens in each salad bowl. Place slices evenly on each salad. Crumble the bacon over the top. 

In a small jam jar, combine dijon mustard, olive oil, salt, McCormick seasoning, and lemon juice. Close the lid tight, and shake until combined. This makes about 4 tbsp of dressing. Dress your salad – we put about 1 1/2 tbsp each on the salad. And, voila! As Julia Child would say, "Bon Appetite!"

 

To learn more about OrganicGirl and their products, you can check them out online too at www.iloveorganicgirl.com.