Oh my, this week is getting off to a busy start! Let’s see if I can pull off a weekly menu in 5 minutes or less. I’ll be heading to the Mom 2 Summit this week, so it’s a lot of the family fending for themselves.

MONDAY:
– Leftovers

TUESDAY:
– Taco night

WEDNESDAY:
– Spaghetti
– Salad

THURSDAY:
– English Muffin Pizzas

FRIDAY:
– Eat out night

SATURDAY:
– Eat out night

SUNDAY:
– Pot roast (because I’ll be needing a good old fashioned home-cooked meal by the end of this week!)
– Roasted potatoes and salad

We need your menus this week to provide a bit more inspiration than what I’ve got going on. Please post your weekly menus below in the comments! Thank you!

Today I have a recipe to share with you that is now my favorite. It’s a lentil rice bowl with lime-tahini dressing. That may or may not sound good to you, but no matter what you are thinking right now I promise you will like it. Well, okay, there may be someone out there not down for the lentil rice bowl but I kind of doubt it.

Last week I had a photography job in Orange County. I needed to grab lunch on the road and noticed a place called CAVA. Now that I’m not eating wheat, dairy and sugar and my diet is still quite strict (waiting to get that allergy testing done!), eating out is tricky. CAVA looked like it could be promising so I decided to give it a try. I am so glad that I did, I love this restaurant!

Heartbreakingly, we do not have a CAVA restaurant anywhere near my house. (Insert trombone.) I think the best way to describe CAVA is that it is essentially a Mediterranean-inspired Chipotle. You create a bowl, choosing your grains, greens, proteins, veggies, etc. While there were ingredients that did have wheat and dairy, there were plenty that did not. There was so much to choose from it made me happy! I ended up creating a lentil rice bowl with lime-tahini dressing and was, quite frankly, surprised how much I liked it.

I had a bit of my bowl left over when I picked up Owen from school. He ended up stealing the rest of my lunch…I have never seen him inhale unidentified vegetables and grains that way! For the last week he has been begging me to recreate the bowl at home, so last night I gave it a go.

This is my new favorite meal. It took some effort to get all the ingredients prepared, but the final dish was worth it. And now I have a fridge full of ingredients I can easily throw together for lunch or leftover dinner this week.

I did include leftover rotisserie chicken in our bowls to use it up, but you could easily leave the meat out and the bowl would be just as delicious…and completely plant based! Yay for delicious vegan food! (Update: the last time Nate and I ate this, we decided it really truly does not need chicken. This bowl is hearty and filling and delicious without meat.)

I am going to list below exactly how I built our bowls. Obviously you can mix and match ingredients or come up with your own creation. The CAVA menu provides some pretty great cooking inspiration, click here to check it out. (CAVA also has locations in 9 states as well as Washington D.C. If you live near one, I highly recommend it. Go and enjoy it for me!)

Lentil Rice Bowl with Lime-Tahini Dressing

 

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Author: Jane Maynard

Ingredients

• Brown Rice
• Lentils (Green, Brown and/or Black)
• Cooked chicken, bite-sized pieces (leave out to make this dish vegan)
• Carrots, diced
• Golden beets, diced
• Cauliflower, bite-sized pieces
• Super or Power Greens, chopped (I bought a mix from the grocery store produce section)
• Broccoli Slaw (no dressing, again, I bought a mix from the grocery store produce section)
• Hummus
• Chimichurri sauce
• 3 handfuls grape tomatoes, chopped
• 1 cucumber, chopped
• Olive oil
• 3 limes
• ⅓ cup tahini (stir well before using)
• ⅓ cup water
• 1 garlic clove, minced or pushed through a garlic press
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Instructions

1. Combine the juice from 2½ limes, tahini, water, garlic, salt and sugar in a small bowl. Whisk well and set aside.
2. Roast carrots, beets and cauliflower together in a 425º F oven for 15-20 minutes, or until vegetables are tender. Toss in olive oil and sprinkle with salt before roasting.
3. Cook brown rice and lentils as directed on the package.
4. Put tomatoes and cucumbers in a small bowl, drizzle with olive oil and squeeze the juice from the final ½ lime you haven't yet used. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss to coat.
5. In a bowl, layer the ingredients as follows: brown rice, lentils, chicken (if using), roasted vegetables, greens, slaw, spoonful of hummus, spoonful or two of chimichurri sauce, cucumber-tomato mixture. Drizzle generously with the tahnini dressing, mix all together and enjoy!
6. Tip: I mixed and prepared all the individual ingredients in the containers that I would be storing them in the refrigerator in after dinner was done. It made clean-up much easier!

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OTHER RECIPES YOU MAY LIKE:

• Homemade Salad Dressing
• Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burritos with Jalapeno Slaw
• Grilled Radicchio with Orange and Balsamic

EQUIPMENT I USED TO MAKE THIS RECIPE:

• OXO Good Grips Mixing Bowl Set with Handles
• Aluminum Half Sheet Pan
• Olive Oil Cruet
• Wusthof Classic Chef’s Knife

Happy Sunday! We’ve got a busy week ahead of us, but the dinner plan should help with the stress! Here we go…

MONDAY:
– Coconut Chicken Tenders (going to try experimenting with cornmeal instead of breadcrumbs)
– Salad

TUESDAY:
– Chili

WEDNESDAY:
– Chicken, Veggie, Rice & Lentil Bowls (going to copy something I had at Cava in Orange County, will share a recipe if what I create turns out well!)

THURSDAY:
– Leftovers

FRIDAY:
– Pesto Pasta
– Salad

SATURDAY:
– Eat out night! (The girls and I will be in Los Angeles attending the first-ever Maverick Summit for girls as well as the Get Lit Words Ignite Classic Slam…I can’t wait for this inspiring day with my daughters!)

SUNDAY:
– No clue because we have back-to-back music recitals in different towns. Will pack snacks and hope we don’t starve!

As you know this blog would be super duper boring without all of you. Please share your own weekly menu in the comments below! Thank you!

Hello. I need to share a quick recipe with you today. It’s for Urban Plates chimichurri sauce, which basically means I am totally copying a sauce I love from a restaurant called Urban plates. The Urban Plates chimichurri tastes especially delicious over steak or salmon, but it is so good you’ll probably want to pour it over all kinds of things (chicken? roasted vegetables? toasted baguette? YES to all!).

Less than a week after making my first batch of Urban Plates chimichurri I also made my new favorite meal Lentil Rice Bowls with Lime-Tahini Dressing. Holy smokes the chimichurri was good in that dish. Basically, you can pour the Urban Plates chimichurri over just about anything and be happy.

So what is this Urban Plates and I keep speaking of? It is a a restaurant chain near where we live that is pretty much my favorite take-out place to eat. The food tastes homemade, there are tons of vegetables involved and the food is consistently delicious. Lately I’ve been ordering their baked salmon with a side of their chimichurri sauce…over and over again.

The Urban Plates chimichurri sauce is divine. I dug around on the internet, found a blog post describing the ingredients in the sauce, then went to my kitchen to figure out the recipe. Happily I succeeded! I’ll still willingly go to Urban Plates where they can make the sauce for me, but I am relieved to know I can replicate this tasty sauce at home as well as share the recipe with those of you who live nowhere near an Urban Plates restaurant. Enjoy!

Urban Plates Chimichurri Sauce

 

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Prep time

5 mins

Total time

5 mins

 

This recipe is a copycat of the Urban Plates chimichurri sauce I love so much! This sauce is wonderful served over steak or salmon but would be delicious drizzled over other savory foods, too!

Author: Jane Maynard

Ingredients

• 2 cups fresh parsley (no need to chop it up at all)
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into large pieces (originally this recipe said ½ of a pepper, but I have revised to 1 whole pepper because I like it better that way)
• ½ of a red onion, cut into large pieces
• 2 garlic cloves, removed from the paper and cut in half
• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
• ¼ cup white balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ¼-1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• ⅛-1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Instructions

1. Place all ingredients in a food processor. Process on high for about 30 seconds, scraping down the sides of the bowl about halfway through. Pulse until sauce has a uniform, medium-fine chunky consistency like you see in the photos. Serve over proteins like steak or salmon, vegetables or whatever suits your fancy!

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OTHER RECIPES YOU MAY LIKE:

• Cilantro Pesto
• Creamy Tomatillo Dressing
• Sweet Tomato Jam

EQUIPMENT I USED TO MAKE THIS RECIPE:

• Kitchenaid 11-Cup Food Processor
• OXO Silicone Spatula

It’s Monday…no meal planning for me yesterday because, yes, we were working on taxes. Fun times!

MONDAY:
– Brats, peppers and onions

TUESDAY:
– Pasta Primavera (I’m excited to finally try Banza pasta for myself…family will get normal whole grain pasta)

WEDNESDAY:
– Homemade Hamburgers
– Crudite

THURSDAY:
– Leftovers

FRIDAY:
– Coconut Chicken Tenders (going to try experimenting with cornmeal instead of breadcrumbs)
– Salad

SATURDAY:
– Eat out night

SUNDAY:
– Cyclops Farms Dinner for Nate and me…SO EXCITED!
– Breakfast for dinner for the kids (I’m putting 10yo Anna in charge!)

As always, THANK YOU for sharing your own dinner plans in the comments! I love reading through them week after week!

Spring Break was a blast and we’re having a nice quiet Sunday to recuperate from our whirlwind Disneyland and Joshua Tree visits, which means time to plan this week’s menu. Here we go!

MONDAY:
– Italian Sausage, Peppers & Onions

TUESDAY:
– Salmon with chimichurri sauce
– Side vegetable (whatever looks good at the store!)

WEDNESDAY:
– Stefania’s Braised Chicken
– Brown rice and side vegetable

THURSDAY:
– Leftovers

FRIDAY:
– Taco night

SATURDAY:
– Eat out night

SUNDAY:
– Chicken Biryani
– Lentils

Thanks as always for sharing your menus in the comments below! They are so incredibly helpful to me and so many others each week as we sit down to plan dinner. Can’t wait to see what you’ve all got cooking this week!

Recently I had to go super clean with my eating. There were a few weeks where I couldn’t eat any sugar, dairy or wheat. It ended up being easier than I thought it would be (no, really), but it has been nice to slowly add those ingredients back into my diet here and there. But now that I’ve made these positive changes to my diet, I would really like to maintain those changes. As a result, I’ve started looking at some of my favorite recipes and thinking about how I can modify them. One of the first recipes to go through a makeover was my beloved Chewy Chocolate Chip Homemade Granola Bar recipe. First I made the recipe gluten free and reduced the sugar by about 3 grams per bar. Then I took it a step further, which brings us to today’s recipe for homemade chocolate granola bars.

When I was working on reducing the amount of sugar in my original granola bar recipe, I was surprised by how much sugar was coming from the chocolate chips. I wanted to be able to take out the chocolate chips but still get a good chocolate fix. By removing the chocolate chips and adding cocoa powder to the granola bar, we still get that delicious chocolate flavor with even less sugar. I tried it and it totally worked.

This recipe for homemade chocolate granola bars is awesome. My original recipe is a bit more chewy, but the texture on these chocolate bars is fantastic, a little chewy as well as a little crispy, and they don’t fall apart at all. The flavor is wonderful – I think I might even like these better than the original chocolate chip bars, which is really saying something. This recipe is gluten free and each bar contains about 8 grams of sugar, which is 5-6 grams less per bar than my original recipe. Woohoo!

Please note that if you do not need the bars to be gluten free, you can in fact use regular all-purpose flour as a substitute for the oat flour. But if you want to go gluten free, stick with the recipe below using oat flour.

Without further ado I give you Homemade Chocolate Granola Bars!

Homemade Chocolate Granola Bars (Gluten Free)

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

40 mins

 

Author: Jane Maynard

Serves: 24

Ingredients

• 4 cups rolled old-fashioned oats (make sure label says gluten free)
• 1 cup brown crisped rice cereal
• ½ cup shredded or flaked unsweetened coconut
• ⅓ cup brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons oat flour (make sure label says gluten free)
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• Generous ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• ¾ cup coconut oil
• ½ cup honey
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract or vanilla paste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325º F.
2. Combine oats, crisped rice, coconut, brown sugar, oat flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Mix well.
3. Combine coconut oil, honey and vanilla. Whisk well. Add to dry ingredients and mix well. (Stir. Stir some more. Keep stirring!)
4. Line a large cooke sheet with parchment paper. Pour granola bar mixture onto the lined cookie sheet. Press mixture out into a large, uniform rectangle, about 9" x 13" (which will be smaller than the pan, you do not push the granola all the way to the edges of the pan). It is easiest to form the rectangle if your hands are wet.
5. Bake for 15 minutes, rotate pan and bake for 14-15 more minutes.
6. Cool completely before cutting. Cut into 24 bars, 8 rows x 3 columns.

Notes

The coconut oil can be solid or liquid - whatever it happens to be sitting in your cupboard is fine!
If you do not need these to be gluten free, regular all-purpose flour can be substituted for oat flour with the same measurement.

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OTHER RECIPES YOU MAY LIKE:

• Chewy Homemade Chocolate Chip Granola Bars
• Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Granola Bars
• Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Seed Granola Bars

EQUIPMENT I USED TO MAKE THIS RECIPE:

• OXO Wooden Spoon Set
• OXO Good Grips Mixing Bowl Set with Handles
• Aluminum Half Sheet Pan
• Parchment Paper Sheets
• Kitchenaid Measuring Cups and Spoons

One of the recipes I’m most proud of on this blog is the Chewy Chocolate Chip Homemade Granola Bar recipe. I love those granola bars and everyone I’ve ever shared them with loves them. I’ve tried different flavors, but we always come back to chocolate chips. The original recipe is best! However, for reasons I will describe below, I recently developed a recipe for gluten-free homemade granola bars based on that wonderful original recipe, which I will share with you today!

Over the last few weeks I’ve had to clean up my eating and do some elimination diet stuff. (FUN TIMES!) The adjustments to my diet prompted me to modify my granola bar recipe in two ways: take out the wheat and reduce the amount of sugar. The recipe below is the gluten-free version of my original granola bar recipe and each bar contains about 3 grams less sugar than the original recipe, going from 13-14 grams added sugar per bar to about 11 grams.

This recipe tastes almost the same as the original, it’s just a little less chewy and a little more crispy. But not by much. I am perfectly happy with the modifications to this recipe and would use either recipe just as happily! Also, for those of you who do not need the bars to be gluten free, you can use all-purpose flour, which basically will make these a lower-sugar version of the original.

I have created a second modified version of these bars that has even less sugar, Homemade Chocolate Granola Bars (click here to see the recipe). The chocolate granola bars have only about 8 grams of sugar per bar and they taste great! But if you are wanting chocolate chips, here is the recipe for Chocolate Chip Gluten-Free Homemade Granola Bars!

Chocolate Chip Gluten-Free Homemade Granola Bars

 

Print

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

40 mins

 

Author: Jane Maynard

Serves: 24

Ingredients

• 4 cups rolled old-fashioned oats (make sure label says gluten free)
• 1 cup brown crisped rice cereal
• ½ cup shredded or flaked unsweetened coconut
• ⅓ cup oat flour (make sure label says gluten free)
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• Generous ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• ¾ cup coconut oil
• ½ cup honey
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or vanilla paste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325º F.
2. Combine oats, crisped rice, coconut, oat flour, brown sugar, chocolate chips and salt. Mix well.
3. Combine coconut oil, honey and vanilla. Whisk well. Add to dry ingredients and mix well. (Stir. Stir some more. Keep stirring!)
4. Line a large cooke sheet with parchment paper. Pour granola bar mixture onto the lined cookie sheet. Press mixture out into a large, uniform rectangle, about 9" x 13" (which will be smaller than the pan, you are not pushing the granola all the way to the edges to fill the pan). It is easiest to form the rectangle if your hands are wet.
5. Bake for 15 minutes, rotate pan and bake for 14-15 more minutes.
6. Cool completely before cutting. Cut into 24 bars, 8 rows x 3 columns.

Notes

The coconut oil can be solid or liquid - whatever it happens to be sitting in your cupboard is fine!
If you do not need these to be gluten free, regular all-purpose flour can be substituted for oat flour with the same measurement.

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Hello! Since yesterday was Easter and all, I am just now sitting down to plan my menu for the week. It’s an easy one, using up ham and taking day trips for my kids’ spring break!

MONDAY:
– Lentil Soup
– Leftover rolls

TUESDAY:
– Omelettes with ham, tomato, avocado, mushroom, onion

WEDNESDAY:
– Day Trip to Disneyland!

THURSDAY:
– Day Trip to Joshua Tree!

FRIDAY:
– Eat out night

SATURDAY:
– Roasted Chicken with Rice and Salad (click link for my roasted chicken tutorial, which is now published!)

SUNDAY:
– Leftovers

You know the drill….leave your own meal plans in the comments below. Have a great week!