My husband and I have been making healthy changes in our life over the past year. We have been cutting down on processed foods and have been more conscious of the ingredients lists on the things we eat.
Growing up we ate many processed foods, hamburger helper, kraft macaroni and cheese, and just about any other food out of a box you could think of. When we got married I didn’t think anything of continuing this. In fact when we first got married we lived off of macaroni and cheese, ramen noodles and $3.00 medium pizzas on Friday night special. We had very little money and it was all we could really afford, when that changed though the bad food choices did not. Sure we would add salads and eat organic, but it was still processed prepared foods.
After we had the kids all of that started to change, I diligently made all of the girls baby food when they were little and of course breast fed them. We started to realize we needed to make changes ourselves, nothing like looking up at two little eyes that are now depending solely on you to make you want to stick around as long as possible. I started reading labels much more closely and was shocked by the sheer volume of unpronounceable items that were in my food. I started researching and found many websites that helped along the way.
Now this month is our very first month we have pledged to eat only whole “real” foods for the entire month. That means lots of cooking on my part and absolutely no eating out. We figure this will be good for both our health and our budget. Although I do think its possible to eat out and keep it clean, its much harder. We simply don’t know everything that is put into each dish and temptations abound.
Since my husband works from home and my girls are also at home all but two days a week we decided that lunch would be our big meal of the day which will generally include meat and dinner would be our lightest meal and we would keep it mostly vegetarian. So here we go!!!
Day one:
We had chicken tostada’s with homemade refried beans for lunch. I used a recipe from one of my favorite websites 100 Days of Real Food. The corn tortillas I adapted from a williams-Sonoma recipe. I used avacodo oil instead of vegetable oil, vegetable oil is a real no-no on a whole food diet. For dinner we had a leftover whole wheat pizza that I had made the day before.
Chicken Tostada and re-fried beans
Homemade Corn Tortilla
Homemade Corn Tortillas
Makes about 24 tortillas
Adapted from Willams-Sonoma
INGREDIENTS
3 cups Masa Harina
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 avocado oil
2 cups hot water
INSTRUCTIONS
In a large bowl stir together the masa harina and salt. Stir in the avocado oil and slowly stir in the hot water until the dough becomes a ball. Put the the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth, about 1-2 minutes. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for at least 30min or up to 3 hours.
Divide the dough into about 24 balls. Cover your tortilla press with plastic wrap and add your dough ball, press and remove
Using a griddle or cast iron skillet pre-heated on a medium high heat, cook until lightly brown about 1-2 minutes and flip. Cook 1 minute or until second side is lightly browned. Wrap the tortillas in a paper towel while you continue cooking remaining tortillas