Roasted Turnip Homefries

Comfort foods are awesome. I know, that's why they're called comfort foods, right? But seriously, sometimes some deep fried potatoes with seasoned salt is all you can think about. And that's rough when you're trying to watch what you eat. So we have to get creative. And sometimes lie to the ones we feed so they aren't aware that they're raving about how much they love the homefries and keep asking what I did differently. But then we eventually tell them that it's actually turnips, not potatoes, that they love so much and we watch their very, very confused faces.

And in all fairness to the spud, potatoes are not the worst choice we can make in the kitchen. But if you're counting carbs, turnips fair a bit better, with nearly a 1/3 of the carbs of white potatoes. 

Making turnip homefries is fairly simple. Peel and cut the turnips just like you would potatoes, then sautee (in butter of course) with seasonings such as seasoned salt and garlic, tossing in some diced green onions at the end. To get them extra crispy, spread the cooked homefries on a baking sheet and roast for another 10-15 minutes in a 375-400 degree oven, stirring about half way through. You won't regret it, and if you don't tell them, no one will know!! 

Root Vegetable Noodles with Oven Roasted Chicken

Unless you are still one of the carb loving, noddle eating, gluten devouring folks out there (that I secretly despise and am constantly envious of), then you may have run across or even tried one of the gadgets that makes "noodles" out of vegetables. The "Veggetti" is one of my favorites. It's easy to grab it and turn zucchini into noodles in a matter of seconds. But in my experience, it is kind of limited to zucchini and yellow squash. And even those need to be fairly small or you end up pulverizing the vegetables (and your hands). Even Alton Brown has something to say about it.


So I've been on the search for something a little more versatile. Especially since we officially gave up pasta this month. (Although we haven't eaten any in almost a year) I finally found one and ordered it.



It was a bit tricky to figure out at first. I'm not going to lie....the Veggetti was fairly self explanatory, but this required some actual thought. But once we figured it out, we had noodles made out of turnips, carrots and parsnips in a matter of just a couple of minutes.

Don't mind my messy counters. I wasn't exactly planning on sharing the video with everyone-just wanted to send it to a couple of people to let them know that this one actually works!

While my husband was creating the noodles, I had put the chicken in the oven and started sauteing some onions and garlic in a couple tablespoons of butter on the stove. The noodles were added to the onions and garlic and cooked until tender, but not mushy.

A little bit of sliced chicken breast, Parmesan cheese, some salt and pepper and dinner was ready! Leave the cheese off to make it Paleo friendly, or keep it there and it's Primal friendly. Either way, it was very tasty and filling! 

Recipe:
1 Medium turnip
1 Medium parsnip
2 Medium Carrots
1 onion (diced)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
Roasted chicken (or rotisserie chicken if you're in a hurry)
(Optional) Parmesan cheese

Saute onion and garlic on low heat until fragrant. Toss in spiralized vegetables and cook on low until desired tenderness. Top with chicken and sprinkle cheese on top.



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Spaghetti Squash Breakfast Bake

So a few weeks ago while I was at the doctor's office, it was suggested to me that my normal breakfast (banana, 1 Tbsp nut butter, and a whole wheat wrap) was too carb heavy and I should switch to 2 eggs and citrus fruit instead. *note: the nutrition facts below were created at http://www.caloriecount.com/. I am making the assumption they are correct and haven't bothered to double check their numbers. 

Current breakfast

Proposed breakfast

While I didn't necessarily agree with their proposed breakfast, I tried. I really did. But it turns out eating citrus every day seemed to aggravate my stomach. A lot.

So I set out to find a different breakfast that was lower in carbs, but didn't bother my stomach. And if I could add in some nutrients, that'd be cool too. So for the first try, I wanted to keep the eggs as they suggested, but add in some veggies, and I didn't want to have to make it every day. So I came up with a breakfast bake I could make over the weekend, portion out, then freeze for a grab and go breakfast.

New breakfast

It was pretty easy to make over the weekend. I roasted a medium spaghetti squash in the oven (400 degrees for about 45 minutes), sauteed the tomatoes and peppers, chopped the kale and green onions, cooked the bacon (then chopped it), and then grabbed a big bowl to mix it all together, along with the shredded cheese and some salt and pepper. Why only 3 pieces of bacon? Well, it's all I had. And to be honest, I don't think I would have noticed if it wasn't there. But I did sautee the peppers and tomatoes in the bacon grease so.....

Then spread that out into an 8x8 pan and pour over 7 beaten eggs. 

Bake at 375 for 20 minutes, then drop the heat down to 350 and continue baking until eggs are set, which was about another 10 minutes for me. That gets cut into 9 pieces and frozen. To reheat, cover and microwave on about 50% power for a minute or two.

If I kept it at 2 eggs per day, that would be 18 eggs and I'd probably need a bigger pan to bake it in, but here's what the nutrition would look like: