Just the Basics: Fajita Seasoning

I glanced at a package of fajita mix from the store recently...and immediately put it back on the shelf. Well darn. What's a girl to do when she's craving quick fajitas? I've made a fajita mix recipe from scratch before, but it came out fairly gross and had WAY to many ingredients so I was reluctant to try again. Buy try I did and it was a success!

I used this recipe for fajitas from NOME_ on Sparkpeople to fix dinner for my family. The seasoning is not sweet like a typical store bought mix, but it's still delicious and my family gave rave reviews. As the picky 12 year old said, "My fajita was AWESOME!" I wasn't in the mood for a tortilla, so I put the whole mixture over lettuce for a southwestern salad. To accomodate the size of my family (and hopefully have leftovers for lunch), I upped the recipe to 3 chicken breasts and 2 bell peppers (1 red, 1 orange). I also left out the coriander just because my family is not a fan of it.

For the full fajita recipe, see here. Below is the recipe just for the dry seasoning mix. Next time, I'm going to try tripling the batch and storing the extra in a bag with my other spices.

Fajita Mix
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/2 tbsp ground ginger
1/2 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp oregano, dried and ground
1 tsp coriander leaf, dried and ground

Sorry - no pictures tonight. We had to eat on the run in order to make it on time to a Baptism.

Rotation Diet: Millet

This post if from Nikki, the ever-amazing other part to this healthy endeavor:

3 years ago, my knowledge of grains was limited to processed wheat, oats (usually as granola bars), and white rice. Then around a year ago, I learned about the importance of whole grains and began the switch to whole wheat products and whole grain rice. I even tried quinoa and liked it!

Cereal is one of my absolute favorite foods - I can eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if it weren't for the fact that I know I need a few other food groups. So Kashi quickly became my new whole grain favorite...until there was the mold issue. Now I suddenly have a sensitivity to corn, wheat, and oats (among plenty of other things). I can include small amounts of each of these on a rotated basis, but there are some days that I can't handle any of them. My doctor gave me a cheat sheet of food groups that looked promising until I actually read it...Teff? Millet? Tapioca? Buckwheat? What in the world do I do with these???

I was longingly going down the cereal aisle at a local grocery store, looking for a decent rice cereal, and tucked away on a bottom shelf was Arrowhead Mill's Puffed Millet cereal. Ingredients: Puffed Millet. It sounded flavorless and unappetizing, but I grabbed a bag out of curiousity. Ready for the surprise? I was right! It tastes just like cardboard with a slightly chewy texture.

Remembering the research I did for an article on Helium about sugar-free cooking, I got to work experimenting in the kitchen and came up with Toasted Millet & Pecan cereal. Ahhh (that's my contented sigh) My beloved crunchy cereal that I can eat on wheat-, corn-, and oat-free days!

Toasted Millet & Pecan Cereal

3 cups puffed millet

1/3 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup coarsely pureed pear or pearsauce*

2 tbsp honey

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

1/8 tsp salt

*For the pureed pear, I put 1 medium pear in the food processor. This recipe is very forgiving, so it doesn't have to be exactly 1/2 cup. You will just need to adjust the cooking time if you have a bit more or a little less liquid.

Cover a baking sheet with foil, leaving the dull non-stick side of the foil facing up. (You'd be surprised at how many recipes I've accidentally put the shiny side up and had everything stick.) Preheat oven to 275. In a small bowl, stir together pear, vanilla, and honey. In a large bowl, combine the pear mixture with all of the other ingredients. Stir until well combined. Spread the mixture onto the baking sheet and bake for approximately 1 hour, stirring the mixture every 20 minutes. Remove pan from oven when cereal is almost completely dry. It will harden as it cools.

Variations: For a fruity flavor, use pureed peaches, diced strawberries, or some berry fruit spread in place of the pears. Other combinations of spices work well too, such as 1/2 cup of pureed pumpkin with 1 1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice instead of the pears, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

Catching Up

Here's an update from Nikki, who FINALLY received a diagnosis for her health problems:

So my health was doing pretty good in January, but then it started to go downhill again. May was a pretty rough month, but I moved out of my house and have been on the upswing since then. I still have some problems, but I'm feeling better right now than I have in the last year!

Earlier this week, I went to the Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine in Charleston, SC. We've FINALLY reached a conclusion about my health! My problems come from prolonged mold exposure in my home. We thought we had remediated the problem months ago, but it seems the mold came back full force. I've been out of my home for 2 months and have been steadily improving every since. Who knew mold could cause so much more than just respiratory problems? The doctor said it will still be a long road to complete improvement, but she believes I'll get there.

In the meantime, the doctor has put me on Vitamin D, allergy shots (I've developed some recent food allergies thanks to the mold), sodium bicarbonate (in place of the Prevacid), and antifungal nasal spray. Hopefully all of that will work. Now what do we do about our home...?

From the recommendation of the staff at COEM, I've also begun a Rotation Diet. That means I can only eat the same food once every 4 days. If I eat chicken on Monday, I can't eat it again until Friday. Through the allergy testing, I discovered why the Maker's Diet wasn't working for me. I had developed minor allergies/sensivities to many of the foods in Phase 1! According to the doctor, it takes 4 days for your immune system to recover from any kind of reaction it had to the food. By following a Rotation Diet, my system is able to get used to the food without lasting damage from prolonged eating of it. Supposedly, 4 cycles should eradicate the majority of my allergies. By keeping track of what I'm eating on the Rotation Diet, it will also help me narrow down any other foods I'm having a reaction to that we didn't test for. COEM helped take the guesswork out of the rotation diet by providing a list of foods that are available each day (on a 4 day cycle). Foods that I'm more allergic to will be added in every other cycle, so my body has at least a week to recover. I had to give up walnuts 3 months ago because they caused such sudden heartburn and intestinal discomfort. With the Rotation Diet, I'm adding them back in small amounts every 4 days. The diet provides lots of variety because I won't get stuck in the rut of eating the same thing every single day (but there might be a rut every 4 days...). It also is likely to be more nutritious because of the variety of foods.

The problem is I'm going to have to relook at how I plan menus and grocery shop. I can no longer plan to use leftovers for tomorrow since I can't eat the same thing 2 days in a row. And I can't buy produce in bulk with the intention of creatively using it in every meal that week. The freezer will likely be my  new best friend.

Along with the Rotation Diet, each day I'm also taking Garden of Life Raw green powder in juice, a probiotic, and fish oil. I can't swallow pills and can't force down nasty tasting stuff, so I usually include the probiotic and fish oil in the smoothie.

For today so far...
Breakfast
Smoothie of 1 gala apple, handful of strawberries, and a few chunks of frozen pineapple.

Mid-Morning Snack
Sliced peaches with maple syrup and chopped walnuts

Lunch
Turkey, green peas, baked potato
The only problem here is butter, yogurt, etc. are also rotated, so there's nothing on the list of foods allowed today that I can put on the potato to make it creamier. I'm going to cut it into cubes and sprinkle with salt and pepper. We'll see how that goes.

Dinner
I don't know about dinner yet. The allowed foods that sound good for today are quinoa, turkey, spinach, bell pepper, and okra. What do you do with that combination?

Honey-Lime Fruit Toss

I made this fruit salad for a dinner at my in-laws, and it was a big hit. I love it by itself, but my sweet-toothed man likes it best topped with vanilla ice cream or Cool Whip.

Picture from Dole

Honey-Lime Fruit Toss
Original recipe from Dole. Makes 8 servings.
1 can (20 oz) pineapple chunks
1 can (11 or 15 oz) Mandarin oranges (or 1 large fresh orange, cut into chunks)
1 large banana, sliced
1 kiwi, peeled and sliced
1 cup quartered strawberries
1/4 tsp grated lime peel (optional)
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
1 tbsp honey

1. Drain pineapple, reserving 1/4 cup of juice.
2. Combine pineapple chunks, oranges, banana, kiwi, and strawberry in a large bowl.
3. Stir together lime peel, lime juice, honey, and pineapple juice in small bowl. Pour over fruit and toss to coat.

I love that this recipe is so versatile. Measurements don't have to be exact and fresh fruit can be used in place of canned. Have another fruit you want to add, substitute, or take out? Go for it! I've made it with and without oranges, added more kiwi and/or banana, included small mango pieces, and added shredded collards to make a fruit salad for lunch. Dole, of course, recommends using all Dole fruits. However, strawberries are on the dirty dozen list (ranks high with pesticide load), so I recommend buying organic at least of the strawberries.

Raw Greens?

I used to hate greens. Turnips, collards, spinach...it was all gross. The only green I ate was lettuce. I LOVE salads, so I ate plenty of lettuce. One day I added spinach to the salad and loved that too. I realized the problem was I didn't like COOKED greens. They were too mushy and slimy. For some reason I had always thought you HAD to cook greens until they were like slop, but that's not so. Now I'm trying a variety of greens raw or barely cooked to decide which ones I actually do like. Last week it was bok choy. This week it's collard greens.
I'm putting greens in just about everything, such as fruit smoothies, omelets, fajitas, sandwiches, and wraps (using greens instead of tortillas).
I have some hummus and carrots in the fridge, so I'm going to try this Collard Green Wrap this week.

Update: I haven't tried that exact Collard Green Wrap yet. I did make my own wrap with carrots, turkey, and cream cheese which was delicious, but the collards are certainly a little tougher than lettuce or other similar greens. I decided collards are better when shredded or finely diced if eaten raw. I included shredded collards in a fruit salad (recipe soon to follow) and loved it. I also tried marinated collards (with a mix of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, roasted bell pepper seasoning, garlic powder, and a little salt and pepper. Liked it too. Then there was a "Greek-inspired" pizza to use up some leftovers. I took a whole wheat pita sliced in 2 and briefly broiled it in the oven to make it slightly crispy. I topped it with cream cheese, marinated collards, Italian-seasoned chicken, and shredded cheese. Then it was baked in the oven until the cheese melted. It would've been even better with sundried tomatoes, but I didn't have any at the time.