CARE Recipe: BBQ Chicken Bites with Roasted Veggies
This recipe is to help you play with flavors that we often crave in favorite comfort foods – like BBQ – but in a more purposeful way. Satisfy that craving by dipping the bites into the sauce (allowing you to control the amount of sauce you use). These bites can also be made in less than ten minutes and are very family friendly. Individuals are often hesitant to prepare protein because they feel they lack the cooking skills needed to ensure it doesn’t end up dry or flavorless. These bites are fail-proof and can just as easily be made using turkey, lean steak, fish, or tofu.
CARE Recipe: Cheesy Turkey Stew with Fresh Papaya
Fresh papaya, in addition to tasting like a tropical dream, contains the digestive enzyme papain. This makes it a wonderful complement to richer dishes that contain legumes and animal proteins. It is also in season during our colder months, bringing a bit of sun to our shorter days up north. This stew also uses cheese and avocado in balanced amounts to add rich flavor and texture, as well as, nutrition (calcium from cheese and mono-unsaturated fat from avocado). In a consistent, long-term therapeutic lifestyle focuses on how to add favorites vs. restrict them.
CARE Recipe: Cornbread Topped Veggie Egg Bake
Leafy and tender veggies can be challenging to have for breakfast. The key is being prepared and having them prepped before your rushed morning routine. Even the most dedicated would struggle to clean, prep, and cook veggies within an hour of waking up. A solution? Breakfast Bakes. These versatile, nutrient-rich, and easy to balance bakes take less than 30 minutes to get in the oven, can be tailored to suit your individual taste preferences, and result in multiple made-ahead filling breakfasts (or brunch ideas or dinners or lunches –you pick!).
CARE Snack: No Bake Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Bites
Let me show you how to stretch your chocolate craving by using chia seeds and real peanut butter in this no-bake, 5-minute, 5-ingredient recipe! We talk a lot about the benefits of high-volume, low-density leafy and tender carbohydrates on our plates, but there are three times when dense might just be better.
CARE Recipe: Cheesy Egg Bake with Buttered Toast and Fruit
This is another go-to breakfast recipe of mine – my take on a classic, yet very easy and fast to make egg bake. I have come to depend on its versatility. Many weeks when I’m rushed on weekends, I’ll quickly get this bake in the oven on Sunday and then simply warmup on rushed mornings.
CARE Recipe: Summer Very Mint Quinoa Salad
I love turning ingredient labels into recipes so played with this one – adding edamame for more protein and came up with the following adaptation of this salad. The smell is absolutely intoxicating as you make this salad. I haven’t tried the store’s version of it to see how close I am to the original in taste, but I think that’s OK.
CARE Recipe: Blueberry Grape Chicken Salad
This is another take on the popular CARE Orange and Grape Chicken Salad. With this version, I want to show you how easy it is to create a completely new taste with just a few substitutions. In this case, I change out oranges to take advantage of now in-season blueberries. I also switch to a low-fat mayo allowing me to add extra nutrition and crunch with the addition of walnuts.
CARE Recipe: BLT Turkey Wrap with Kiwi Fruit
This wrap uses turmeric instead of traditional mustard. Turmeric is a spice that contains the anti-inflammatory compound known as curcumin. A dash of pepper is added because recent research suggests that pepper could allow us to absorb curcumin better, as does, the fat provided by the mayo. Experiment with adding turmeric to other dishes to increase your daily bioactive compounds.
CARE Recipe: Tater Tot Hash Egg Bake with Sausage | How to Balance Tater Tots Part 3
Here is another way that I like to use the CARE Tater Tot Hash. At least twice per month, I have an egg bake on my meal plan. Their versatility is endless. My husband is actually the one that discovered using tater tots with riced cauliflower while making brunch one weekend. He paired the hash with bell peppers and eggs. It was delicious. Here I turn it into a bake for easy make-ahead weekday breakfasts.
CARE Recipe: Sausage Tater Tot Hash with Avocado | How to Balance Tater Tots Part 2
This lunch is surprisingly fast to put together. Once the hash is made (either the first day you make it or made-ahead over the weekend), toss with pre-shredded greens and a reheated lean sausage (or other protein of choice) for a nutrient-rich lunch… with tater tots.
