Beef and Quinoa Sautee

I made another delicious, healthy, new meal.

Want to hear about it?

Great!

This recipes comes from The Best of Clean Eating - Book 2.  The sequel to my first meal plan adventure. MJ got me Book 2 for my birthday.  Lame gift right?  

But then he proposed.  MJ for the win.

Book 2 is like the ugly step sister to my original bible/book because there is no meal plan in the back.  I was surprised and disappointed and relieved to see there wasn't another meal plan included, because I wasn't sure I had it in me to commit to the full Julie/Julia style system again but wouldn't have be able to turn it down if there was.  So I've just be trying recipes as though Book 2 were just a regular cook book.  Which it is.  So this is normal.

So here's your first Book 2 Recipe:

Book 2 names this recipe "Beef Stir-Fry" which is so smothered in boring that I was required to rename it "Beef and Quinoa Sautee."  Much better, right?

Here's what you do:

1. Cook 1 cup quinoa, according to package directions.  Set aside.
2. On a wok, heat 1 Tbsp oil.
3. Add 1 cup chopped onion and 3 cloves of minced garlic.  Heat for 2/3 minutes.
4. Add 1 chopped red pepper, 1 chopped orange pepper, and 1 chopped green pepper. (I used 1 red and 2 orange.  Sue me).  Also add 1 cup chopped roasted red pepper.  Stir for 2 more minutes
5. Add 1 lb of beef, trimmed of fat and cut into this strips.  Stir for 2 minutes.
6. Add 1 cup low sodium beef broth.  Simmer for 2 minutes until steak is cooked through.
7. Remove from heat. season with basil, salt and pepper.
8. Serve over quinoa.
9. Enjoy immensely.

As you may have gathered by this recipe, you are going to spend a lot of prep time chopping away.  I enlisted the help of Sous Chef Jordan and I'm sure he'd be happy to come to your house and help you chop vegetables... as long as you feed him.

Book 2 claims this meal serves 4 and is 377 calories per serving.  We both ate seconds and had a ton of left overs, so this is a great meal to make if you don't feel like cooking the next day or later in the week.

Finally, Book 2 has an image of chopsticks next to their much prettier picture of their boring-titled "Beef-Stir Fry."  If you plan on using chopsticks, I wish you luck.  We opted for forks.

Week 4, Saturday LAST DAY! (Day 65)

Holy cow, here we are.  The last day of the 28 day meal plans... only took 9 weeks!

I honestly cannot believe I got through all 28 days and that I actually continued to blog the whole time.  No, I will not be stopping.  Tomorrow will be a leftover day and then I've yet to decide whether I will continue by either:

• repeating days I liked
• repeating days I didn't do right the first time
• using meal plans from the Clean Eating Magazine (available online)
• making my own meal plans
• trying new healthy meals, muffins, cookies, etc. from the rest of the clean eating cookbook

I'm interested to see what you would most like to follow, but ultimately the decision is mine.  I don't want to stop because I've seen such great results by clean eating, I'm afraid that I will make backwards progress if I don't continue to follow some type of meal plan.  

But that will be after a few days of leftovers anyway.  I'll also write another post with things I've learned, the best meals, and the worst meals.

Now without further ado, Week 4, Saturday!


Breakfast: 1 cup quinoa with 1 sliced banana; 1 cup low fat milk
Although I was a fan on quinoa for dinner, I can't say that I'm a fan of quinoa for breakfast.  This kind of reminded me of oatmeal, only very different.  I couldn't stomach the thought of adding a banana into the quinoa, so I ate that separately.  I got though maybeeee half of the quinoa.  I'll try it again another time.

When I got to work I ate one minimini (very tiny) blueberry muffin and one bigbig (very needed) coffee.




Snack 1: 8 multigrain flaxseed crackers, 2 tbsp natural almond butter, 1 apple

Shockingly, I messed up this snack.  Very fitting for the last day, right?  I packed peanut butter without realizing until right now it was supposed to be almond butter.  The peanut butter with the flaxseed crackers was a great combo.  I highly recommend it.

The apple was refreshing and light as always.  I realize that I only really like bites with skin.  I also like apples 1000 times more if they are cold (aka straight out of the refrigerator). 




Lunch: 3 oz shredded lean pork chicken, 1/4 cup onions and 1/4 cup green pepper with 1 tbsp low-sugar bbq sauce on 1 whole wheat sandwich roll; 1/2 cup strawberries.

I looked high and low in my grocery store for a "low-sugar" BBQ sauce to no avail.  I was going to settle for regular bbq sauce when I found this great Jack Daniels pulled chicken (precooked) mix.  The calories for one serving was really low and I knew that 3 oz was going to be way less than what they consider a serving.  Plus it saved me the convenience of having to buy both pulled chicken and a BBQ sauce.  Plus it was delicious.  I microwaved my sandwich when I got to work and when a co-worker saw me eating it she asked if I purchased it!  That's how good it looked!  Unfortunately I didn't have my camera at work, or else I would have snapped a photo for you.  If/when I make this sandwich again, I'll be sure to take a picture!

I ate the strawberries with my afternoon snack, mostly because it was easier to package all the fruit together in one container!



Snack 2: 1 oz goat cheese; 1/2 cup blackberries


1) goat cheese is not portable
2) goat cheese is not meant to be ate without crackers
3) I forgoat (pun intended) to pack the goat cheese. 


Instead, I intentionally replaced the blackberries with blueberries and ate them with my strawberries.  Delish!




Dinner: Spinach Salad (2 cups spinach, 3 oz tuna, 1 chopped hardboiled egg, 1/2 cup mandarin oranges and 1 oz chopped walnuts with 1 tbls balsamic vinegar and 1 tsp dijon mustard); 3.4 cup low-fat plain yogurt with 1 tsp honey.

This was a very simple, light, easy meal to put together and a great way to end my 28/65 days of meal plans.  I liked not having to really chop up anything.  MJ doesn't like tuna, so I used some of the Jack Daniels chicken in his salad, which he really enjoyed.  

Here's a picture of my salad without the dressing, which was served on the side.
 

 

As per usual, I forgot to eat the yogurt.  I now have a huge container of yogurt that was supposed to be eaten a number of times this week, and managed to get skipped each time.  I'm not sure why - I really do like yogurt, especially when I have some berries throw in.  I was interested in trying the yogurt with honey as well.  And granola.  These all sound like good ideas for my future meal plans :)

So that's it.  28 days completed.  MJ and I poured minimini glasses of wine as a toast to how far I'd come, even if it did take 9 weeks to get there!

Week 4, Sunday (Day 64)

Monday Morning Weigh In:

I lost another half pound this week.  That means I'm only 2 pounds away from my goal weight.  I'm also 2 days away from finishing the meal plans in the book.  

Breakfast: 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1 chopped apple, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 cup low-fat milk; 3 egg whites

This morning's breakfast was pretty good.  I ate the apple as a whole apple instead of spending time chopping it up.  The oatmeal was decent with the cinnamon.  I upped the milk to 3/4 cups and instead of 3 egg whites had 1 hard boiled eggwhite.  Very filling.
  
Snack 1: 2 tbls natural almond butter, 1 whole wheat English muffin

This was a nice twist on my normal "go to" breakfast.  I think I like peanut butter on an English muffin better than almond butter on an English muffin, but it wasn't bad at all. 

Lunch: 1/2 cup edamame, 3/4 cup wild rice; 1/2 cup blueberries with 3/4 cup yogurt

I vote this meal in the "strange" category.  When I went to prepare this lunch in the morning, I was disappointed to see that MJ selected a package of edamame that expired the week before.  I could see that the edamames were brown and slimy inside.  I ran to the grocery store and went right to the customer service desk.  They let me replace the edamames, but all the fresh packages were expired or dated today (I advised the customer service lady to take the bad edamame off the shelves) and so I had to get frozen edamames.  This only required a little more effort on my part in the morning, but I definitely like the ease of using the fresh, shelled edamames.

Instead of wild rice, I used microwavable frozen brown rice.  Way easier since I had to spend more time with the edamame.  I threw in some soy sauce as well to add some flavor to  my otherwise boring lunch.  


I never got around to eating the yogurt or blueberries.  Whoops.


Snack 2: 1 sliced banana with 1 tbsp natural peanut butter wrapped in 1 whole wheat tortilla; 1 handful unsalted almonds

Another snack similar to my "go to" breakfast and lunch, but different.  This was a pretty good snack, but could definitely use a big cup of milk!  


I also had 1 mini Reese's Peanut butter cup.

And a free iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts (SO MUCH BETTER THAN STARBUCKS!)

And 2 beers at happy hour.

Dinner: 3 oz grilled pork chop (replaced with chicken thighs), 1 cup torn romaine lettuce and 1/2 cup chopped cucumbers with 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar and 1/2 tsp evoo; 1 cup cooked black beans; 1/2 cup cooked quinoa

MJ and I don't eat pork, so we replaced the pork with some chicken thighs.  I ended up broiling the thighs so they would cook fasted.  We also didn't have any black beans, so we used a can of chickpeas instead, which went well with the "salad" side dish.

This was my first time making quinoa.  My mom warned me to rinse the quinoa a few times before I cooked it to get off the "yucky" taste.  Rinsing quinoa is kinda tricky because it is so small!  I need a strainer with smaller holes!  Mom also suggested throwing fresh, raw garlic bulbs into the water while the quinoa was cooking to give it some added flavor.  I think the final result turned out very successful!

 

Looks good right!??!?! It was super filling and I would definitely make this meal or some combination of this meal again!     


The only negative thing was the amount of dishes I used making this meal.  Good thing the rule in our house is whoever cooks doesn't have to do dishes!  Thank you, Michael Jordan.

Also, I didn't go to the gym today, but Mr. Fitbit says I walked 12,419 steps (5.35 miles) and burned 2,152 calories!


Also, I now have over 3,000 blog hits!  Thank you for reading my blog!!! Maybe one day my blog hits will surpass my fitbit steps.... maybe...