All posts by Lauren Bolanos

Reviews

FITzee Foods Review and Coupon Code

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I was lucky enough to receive a week’s worth of FITzee Foods in exchange for an honest reveiw, and I’m really excited to share this company with everyone. Here are some reasons why I love them:

  • Their turkey is nitrate-free and hormone free, the chicken is free-range, & the beef is grass fed.
  • Their meals are delivered fresh, never frozen.
  • Meals are portion controlled to ensure you eat the right food and the right amount.
  • They offer meals in four different sizes: Small, Medium, Large, and Family Size.
  • Labels that show you which meals are DF- Dairy Free, GF- Gluten Free, PF- Paleo Friendly, VG-Vegetarian, and/or *LC- Low Carb (love this!!!)
  • All nutritional information and ingredients are labeled on each package.
  • Multiple heating method options – Microwave, Stove Top or Oven. I used the oven at 350 for ten minutes and had no issues.
  • Option to freeze meals for up to 3 months.
  • The ingredient lists consisted of fresh real food without chemicals or preservatives.

Overall, when I don’t want to deal with grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning, this is a great, healthy alternative. The portion sizes for paleo and low carb meals are perfect for someone looking to lose weight. Plus, I think these would definitely make great lunches to take to work as well. The portions are a little small for me for dinner, since I consume a ton of food, so sometimes I ate two instead of one.

Everything I tried had been flavored well, and tasted good. Obviously, I wouldn’t compare this to my own cooking, but for a busy person who doesn’t have time to cook, I think this would be really helpful. Even though I try to cook and meal plan as often as I can, life can get crazy, and a lot of times I don’t have the time or energy. I love the labeling since I always want to know if the food I buy has dairy in it, and I love being able to quickly tell if the food is paleo or gluten and dairy free without going over every single ingredient.

 They were generous enough to provide a promo code that can be used at checkout at www.fitzeefoods.com

code: healingandeating15

value: 15% off

expires 10/31/16

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Desserts

Pumpkin Ice Cream

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Pumpkin Ice Cream - Healing and Eating

October in LA is still pretty warm, so what better way to celebrate the fall than a paleo and vegan friendly pumpkin ice cream. I naturally sweetened this recipe with dates, and used full fat coconut milk to make it dairy free. I also used a pumpkin pie spice blend from Frontier, which is just a mix of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. The end result is an ice cream that tastes just like pumpkin pie filling.

Since this recipe was so thick and creamy, I shortened the amount of time in my ice cream maker by half. I do recommend a high speed blender, since I used dates as a sweetener and you want them completely blended. Dates are one of my favorite ways to sweeten up an ice cream, because they also provide fiber. Not only is fiber great for your health, but it thickens up the ice cream. A thick and creamy ice cream base, means a better end result. I’ve found that the more fiber and fat in the ice cream, the better. The pumpkin puree also provided fiber, so I used less coconut milk than I’ve used in previous recipes.

Pumpkin Ice Cream
 
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Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • 1 can of full fat coconut milk 13.5 oz (native foods)
  • 16 oz pumpkin puree
  • 19 dated, pitted (.79lbs)
  • 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (froniter blend)
Instructions
  1. Pit dates, and add them to a high speed blender with coconut milk, pumpkin puree, and pumpkin pie spice blend.
  2. Let it refrigerate a couple hours, overnight is ideal.
  3. Then pour base into ice cream maker and follow ice cream maker's instructions. I let mine run for 12 minutes.
  4. Then transfer ice cream to a container for five hours, ideally refrigerate overnight. Then enjoy.

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Soups

Curried Acorn Squash Soup

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Even though it’s 100 degrees here in LA, I still wanted to cook some fall food. I love pureed vegetable soups. They are full of healthy vegetables, paleo friendly, and make a great comfort food. I made this soup really thick and creamy (without the cream), but you can easily thin it out with some chicken or vegetable broth. I did after dinner to give myself a bit more leftovers. This soup does have a bit of a kick, mostly from the little bit of fresh ginger, I grated into the soup. I only used a 1/4 of tsp, but you could always reduce or omit that ingredient.

There are many different curry powders you could use, but I like Mandras Curry Powder, which is what you would use for a mild yellow Indian curry. I got the brand Koshys from my local Indian grocery store. But this mandras curry powder from Rani (on amazon) would work great. You can easily make your own, but it’s nice to have one hand for convenience.

Curried Acorn Squash Soup
 
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Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 2 acorn squashes
  • 2 tbsp mandras curry powder
  • 3 carrots
  • 1 large sweet white onion
  • 1 can of coconut milk
  • a pinch of sea salt
  • one grind of fresh black pepper
  • ½ cup of water
  • (optional) 1-2 cups chicken or vegetable broth (to thin out soup for desired thickness)
  • (optional) cilantro garnish
  • (optional) coconut milk garnish
Instructions
  1. Add two acorn squashes (whole), three carrots with ends cut off, one large sweet white onion cut in half, and half a cup of water to slow cooker to steam.
  2. Set slow cooker on high for 2.5 hours.
  3. Then when acorn squash seems soft to touch, be careful it will be hot in slow cooker and can burn your hand, use a fork or wooden spoon to see if it has softened. Then add carrots, onion, and 1 can of coconut milk (optional: set aside a little bit of the coconut milk for garnishing soup at the end) to the blender.
  4. Then half the squashes, and scoop out seeds inside. Scoop out squash flesh, but not skin, and add to blender. Blend in batches to prevent a mess.
  5. Once all the vegetables have been blended with the coconut milk, add them to a large pot.
  6. Then mix in curry powder and sea salt. Enjoy.
  7. (optional) Thin out soup with chicken or vegetable broth to achieve desired soup thickness.
  8. (optional) Garnish with cilantro, coconut milk, and fresh ground black pepper

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Appetizers

Roasted Shishito Peppers with Bonito Flakes

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Roasted Shishito Peppers with Bonito Flakes - Healing and Eating

This recipe for roasted shishito peppers with bonito flakes is not only easy, but a quick appetizer to make that will wow friends and family. I attempted to recreate a recipe that I had at a really awesome sushi place close to my apartment, which started my love for bonito flakes. If you don’t know what bonito flakes are, they are shaved pieces of smoked and dried bonito, which is a type of tuna. Bonito flakes are commonly used in Japanese cooking, usually as an ingredient in fish broth. These flakes have a really unique umami, salty, and smokey flavor that makes a delicious and pretty garnish. I picked up mine at my local Japanese grocery store, since my neighborhood has a large Japanese community. You can also find them on amazon.

Most of the time these peppers are mild, but a few can be pretty spicy so I recommend serving it with a refreshing dipping sauce. I think my lemon garlic aioli would taste delicious with it, but the sky is the limit, so feel free to be creative. The aioli can be made ahead of time as well, so these can be quickly made right before or even during a party.

Roasted Shishito Peppers with Bonito Flakes
 
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Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • 12 oz shishito peppers
  • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tbsp coconut aminos
  • ⅛ tsp sea salt
  • 3 tbsp bonito flakes (or more to taste)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
  2. Mix peppers with olive oil, coconut aminos, and sea salt. Then wrap it all in foil and let it roast for 6 minutes.
  3. Then unwrap peppers from foil and broil peppers for two minutes. Then move them around on the baking sheet so they blister evenly and broil for another two minutes, or until desired amount of blistering occurs.
  4. Transfer peppers to a serving dish, and drizzle with additional coconut aminos and sprinkle bonito flakes over top and serve immediately.

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Natural Living

DIY Fruit Fly Trap

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DIY Fruit Fly Trap - Healing and Eating

Fruit flies are a unfortunate reality of eating a healthy diet containing fruit. I’ve had issues with them in the past and I’ve found that this DIY fruit fly trap is the easiest and most effective way of dealing with them. Although you can’t see inside this container, I have about 7 or 8 of them floating in a a sea of tequila temptation.

Seriously, fruit flies love tequila that is 100% agave. If you don’t have any food in the sink or lying around to distract them, they will head toward the tequila eventually.  I usually put the tequila in a container and then wrap the opening of the container in some press and seal seran wrap. I punch a few holes in the seran wrap with a pen for them to get inside the trap and then leave the trap out for awhile. They end of drowning in tequila, which in my opinion isn’t a terrible way to go if you worry about that sort of thing.

You’ll find that your fruit fly problem eventually goes away, or at least get better. I’ve had to clean out the trap and make a fresh one, if the problem doesn’t go away completely in a few weeks. This method does require patience, but it’s basically a set it a forget it kind of deal. If you have a serious fruit fly problem, make a bunch of these and put them around the house. I hope this helps all my fruit loving followers! Good luck 🙂

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Breakfast

Baked Turkey Breakfast Sausage Patties

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Baked Turkey Breakfast Sausage Patties - Healing and Eating

Not only were these turkey breakfast sausage patties really easy to make, but they are also made without any chemicals or preservatives that you would normally expect to find in processed and frozen version. This recipe does have a small amount of sugar in it from the breakfast sausage spice blend that I used from Penzeys, so if you are doing a sugar free diet, keep that in mind. Personally, I’m not going to obsess about the miniscule amount of sugar in the spice blend that used for the entire batch of patties. Especially when paleo friendly desserts and even a breakfast smoothies filled with fruit will have a lot more sugar. That being said, I didn’t want to accidentally break someone’s diet or sugar free cleanse. You can always make your own sugar-free breakfast sausage spice blend, but it might not taste the same, since breakfast sausage tastes a bit sweet. Plus, I’ve been wanting to try this spice blend for awhile. It’s  been neglected in my pantry for ages.

My husband and I were very happy with the results. They were easy to make and tasted like breakfast sausage, and since we both love breakfast, we will likely use this recipe quite a bit. They best part is that these can be made ahead and frozen, similar to meatballs. I used almond flour and an egg to bind the ground turkey together before baking. I also add some fresh herbs, because what recipe doesn’t deserve some fresh herbs?

Baked Turkey Breakfast Sausage Patties
 
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Serves: 10
Ingredients
  • 1.5 lbs ground turkey
  • ½ cup of blanched almond flour
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tbsp fresh chopped rosemary
  • 3 tbsp fresh chopped flat leaf parsley
  • 1.5 tbsp breakfast sausage seasoning (Penzeys)
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.
  2. In a large bowl, add ground turkey, chopped rosemary and parsley, and breakfast sausage seasoning.
  3. Then crack in one large egg, and mix with hands.
  4. Then add blanched almond flour, until ingredients are evenly mixed.
  5. Line a cookie sheet with foil for easy clean up and grease it with olive oil.
  6. Form mixture into patties and line them on cook sheet.
  7. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until internal temperature is at least 165 F degrees.
Notes
This will have a lot of variability in this recipe. You have different thicknesses, different ovens, and different fat content. This should also tell you that you get a lot of flexibility in how you do this. The only important thing is an internal temperature of at least 165.

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