Slow Cooker Sun Dried Tomato Chicken

By Coach Maria - Salus Nutritionist & Food Expert

This is a favorite go-to recipe for me when my day will be busy and I need to utilize my crockpot and some basic staples that I always have on hand.

It's so easy, it almost feels like you didn't really do anything at all.

The flavors from the slow cooked ingredients, though, are fantastic!

We enjoy this meal not only because of how good it tastes, but also because it can be served several different ways to satisfy different appetites without the need to become a short-order cook.

Serving options include:

• As-is and topped over a warm bed of rice
• Alongside roasted vegetables of choice
• Shredded and dumped over a baked sweet potato
• Shredded and eaten as a wrap, with shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, sliced olives

Try it - you'll love it!

Ingredients
serves 6

4 organic, free range chicken breasts
1 cup sun dried tomatoes in olive oil (Costco!), processed through blender until the consistency of pesto
1 cup water or organic chicken broth (*optional)

Place chicken in crockpot.
Top each chicken breast with 1/4 c sun dried tomato pesto
*pour water or chicken broth over chicken breasts (optional, not needed)
Cover with lid and cook for 4 hours on high.

Plan To Get Fat!

Plan To Get Fat (This Holiday Season)

Many of us think we are certified professionals when it comes to weight gain during the Holidays. But in case you doubt yourself, here are the Top 3 ways you can plan to get fat this holiday season.

1. Eat every single holiday treat that crosses your path. No really, do it. Eat the cookies your neighbor brings over, the candies offered at work, and test taste every single sugary, syrupy, sweetened snack that meets your eyes. Watch the scale go up every time you step on.

Side note- to those of you who “don’t eat sweets”- you aren’t off the hook. That extra serving of mashed potatoes and egg salad that you didn’t really need can produce the same amount of weight gain.

2. Drink as many holiday cocktails/beverages as you can. This is a GREAT way to gain weight. That “1-2 glass per night” rule you have given yourself? Throw it out the door. Indulge! Drink a cocktail- drink 4 cocktails! Double the calories in your meal through what you drink.

3. Don’t work out. Do what everyone else does. During one of the most stressful, chaotic, times of the year, drop your work out regimen. Stay stressed! Then beat your self up about it in January and make a New Years resolution.

All sarcasm aside, we understand that maintaining weight over the holidays can be difficult. Give yourself a few guidelines that are possible. Try to avoid goals like, “I am not going to eat a single cookie for the next two months.” Those absolute goals tend to lose themselves during the chaos of the holidays. Try something like, “I am only going to have 2 slices of pie this Thanksgiving.” (That includes leftovers the next day!) And if you slip up, don’t go down the screw it crazy road. Know you’re human and start fresh as soon as possible.

Click Here and join Salus for the Maintain Don’t Gain This Holiday Season challenge!

Happy Holidays!

Chicken & Bacon-a-la-King

By Coach Maria - Salus Nutritionist & Food Expert

We all grew up with comfort foods, and this meal was about a weekly staple in our household growing up. 

For whatever reason, I never really grew tired of the frequency of Chicken-a-la-King, but as an adult, I knew I didn't want the heavy cream and other ingredients that would leave me feeling overly full or bloated.

This version does not lack flavor with the addition of free range bacon and creamy coconut milk.

The ingredients can be easily switched to suit your palate and can also be made in the crockpot* for convenience.

Serve over a baked sweet potato or cauliflower rice to retain the gluten-free approach.

Ingredients

serves 6 

8 oz pastured bacon, unsweetened

1 large onion, chopped

2 leeks, chopped

8 oz mushrooms, quartered

1 large red bell pepper, diced

4 free range chicken breasts, diced

14 oz can full-fat coconut milk (this is good fat!)

1 tblsp arrowroot or tapioca powder/flour

Heat a large pan over med high heat.

Add chopped bacon and fry until semi crispy; remove with slotted spoon, reserve 1 tblsp bacon fat.

Add onion and leeks to pan, cook for about 3 minutes or until onion is translucent.

Add chicken, mushrooms and red bell pepper and cook 5 minutes or until chicken is done.

Add 3/4 of the can of coconut milk, stir until thoroughly combined.

Add the tblsp of arrowroot to the reserved 1/4 c coconut milk; mix and add to chicken mixture until sauce is thickened.

Stir in reserved bacon pieces.

Done.

*If making in crockpot:
Toss in all ingredients and set on low for 5-7 hours.

Breakfast for Dessert?

By Coach Maria - Salus Nutritionist & Food Expert

Or maybe dessert for breakfast!

Either way you ask or answer the question, you definitely get ONE impression - YUM!

The ingredients are simple, the combination is intriguing and the taste is amazing!

The only problem you might have with this recipe is deciding when to eat it - breakfast or dessert?

P.S.  (Both!)

APPLE OMELET
Ingredients
serves 1

1 tsp coconut oil or clarified butter
1/2 of a large apple, cored and sliced thin (I use this)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
2 eggs
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of sea salt

Heat oil or butter in pan over med heat.
Sprinkle apple slices with cinnamon and nutmeg.
Place in pan, cook for 5 minutes, turning halfway through cooking time.
In a bowl, beat eggs with sea salt and vanilla extract.
Pour eggs over apple slices, tilting pan so eggs cover all slices.
Cook for 3-4 minutes or until eggs are almost set.
Carefully fold the omelet in half with a spatula and finish cooking for another minute, or until set.
Sprinkle with a bit more cinnamon, if you want more of the flavor.

Baked No Gluten Chicken Tenders

By Coach Maria - Salus Nutritionist & Food Expert

Chicken tenders, chicken strips, chicken nuggets - call them what you would like, but when we think of them, we typically think of fast food, frozen food or mechanically separated food.  Heavily breaded with ingredients that can cause intestinal distress and deep fried in industrial seed oils that leave you feeling bloated and/or gut-heavy.

You have another choice and this choice is really quite simple and surprisingly quick.

Yes, you could use the traditional - albeit boring - standby: breadcrumbs.  But we want flavor and pizazz in our chicken tenders (right?).

Enter the pork rinds.

I've used pork rinds in place of breadcrumbs in several recipes and the results have been fantastic!

Simply grind them up in your food processor and you have quick, easy and tasty "breadcrumbs".

Try it!

Ingredients (not many!)
serves 8

4 chicken breasts, cut into strips
1 bag pork rinds (spicy works also!), processed in food blender
2 eggs, whisked

Preheat oven to 375
Dip each chicken tender into egg and cover with pork rinds.
Place on foiled lined baking sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes, flip and bake another 10 minutes.
Eat!

Sweet Potato & Apple Soup

Cold, rainy days bringing your spirits down?

Even though I'm still not ready to let go of the lazy days of summer, I am ready for the lazy, slow-cooked soup days!

Nothing soothes the soul quite like a bowl of hearty, warm soup.  Don't you think?

The ingredients are perfectly paired and their flavors are incredibly complimentary - the sweetness of sweet potatoes, with the tartness of apples and the smokiness of paprika.

Ingredients
serves 8

1/2 large onion, but into chunks
1 lb white sweet potatoes, cut into 1 inch pieces (no need to peel, as long as you wash first
1.5 lbs orange sweet potatoes, cut into 1 inch pieces (no need to peel, wash first)
2 apples, cut into chunks (no need to peel - wash first) (any variety works)
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 heaping tblsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp sea salt
4 c homemade broth (organic, low sodium works)
4 tblsp ghee

In a slow cooker, dump onion, potatoes, apples, garlic, paprika and sea salt.
Pour broth over the top.
Cook on high for 5 hours.
In batches, pour soup through a blender or - my favorite method - use an immersion blender and blend right in your slow cooker.
Stir in ghee.
Serve and freeze any leftovers in individual sized portions for easy meals.

*I like to stir in a teaspoon of any kind of pesto into each individual bowl before serving.

2 Ingredient Cinnamon Applesauce

By Coach Maria - Salus Nutritionist & Food Expert

The cold weather signifies a change in cooking and baking in this household.

The crockpot becomes my most used appliance in the kitchen when temperatures drop.

I tend to cook more comfort foods that bring warmth to the core.

If you have kiddos, apples are a common fruit in the home and applesauce is usually found in the pantry.  The bad part about apples and kids, however, is that if there's a bruise, a soft spot or even a mere brown spot anywhere on that apple, they tend to avoid them.

This recipe is a perfect solution for those apples - bruised and spotted apples are welcomed!

If you're not a fan of chunky applesauce, you can simply dump the cooked concoction into a food processor and blend to your liking.

This makes a great side dish to any meal or as a stand-alone dessert, and an incredible post-workout recovery when added to some mashed sweet potato.

Any variety of apples will do.  Most kiddos like the sweeter variety like Honeycrisp, Fuji or Macintosh.  You can even have different varieties for each batch!

It's easy enough to have your little ones help!

Ingredients

Apples
Cinnamon

Preheat over to 350 degrees.
Peel apples and slice into wedges (an apple slicer or even a peeler-corer-slicer works great!).
Place apples on a rimmed baking sheet.
If you want a really moist applesauce, cover with foil.
Bake for 1 hour.
At this point, you can either puree to desired texture in a food processor, or use a potato masher and mash up into thick chunks.

*You can make this in your crockpot if you want a no-fuss method, but the roasted method yields a better, more robust flavor!
*Try using other fruit like pears also!