Oven Roasted Lemon Caper Cod

Fresh week- fresh menu and fresh fish recipe! I almost always do my grocery shopping on Mondays and we almost always have fish on Mondays. No special reason, it's just become habit! 

I posted last night's dinner on my Instagram stories and got tons of questions about my fish and how I cooked it. I always have hopes of having time to photograph dinners with my big girl camera but it almost never happens. I snapped this photo quickly before we ate so this is what we are rolling with. 

We LOVE cod in our house. It's a flaky and mild fish and it takes on pretty much any flavor you cook with it (it's also mu favorite fish for fish tacos!) This is wild caught fresh cod from Harris Teeter and it was delicious. I've done previously frozen fillets before and though they are a little more budget friendly, it's just not as good. This recipe couldn't be easier! I'm a lemon lover and it's my favorite flavor with fish. The capers get slightly roasted and crunchy at the end adding in the perfect salty bite. I served this with sauteed broccolini and roasted red potatoes. Easy, simple and healthy!

Oven Roasted Lemon Caper Cod

1 lb. fillet fresh cod
Salt + pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lemon, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp. butter (I like Kerrygold), cut into thin slices
2 Tbsp. capers
Olive oil, for drizzling

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet or baking dish with parchment paper.

Place fish fillet on prepared baking sheet and season with salt and pepper. Top with minced garlic, followed by butter slices and finish with the lemon slices on top. Add a quick drizzle of olive oil. Bake for 15 minutes, remove from the oven and add capers on top, then cook for an additional 5 minutes or until the fish is cooked through and flaky. 

Fitness Friday: The Paleo Plate

If you know me in real life, or if you have been reading this blog for any amout of time, you have seen or heard the word Paleo pop up here and there. I have written this post in my head time and time again but have never actually taken the time to turn my thoughts into words, and those words into a blog post. Fitness Friday (hosted by my dear friend Jen from A Daily Dose of Davis) seems like as good of a time as any to dive right in and get to business.

Let me first start out by saying that I am not a professional. While I do not have a background in nutrition, health or fitness, I am very passionate about all three. I will also add that I strongly dislike the word "diet". If you are dieting, it's more than likely that you are making drastic changes to the way that you eat, in hopes of losing a large amount of weight in a short period of time. Compare this to making healthy lifestyle changes, slowly incorporating new and smarter ways of eating and fueling your body. These are the changes that made that tend to stick. So, instead of diet, I prefer to call it a lifestyle. Makes a lot of sense, right?

A little over two years ago, shortly after Mark and I got married, we started going to a CrossFit gym in Bloomington, Illinois, where we were living. This is where we were introduced to Paleo. I will admit, at first I was skeptical, and did a whole lot of judging. When lost those 45 pounds in college, I really cut back on starchy carbs and sugar so I didn't need to be convinced of that, but this whole fueling your body like a caveman would was something foreign and frankly scary to me. I heard a lot of the Crossfitters complaining about how boring eating Paleo was and how nothing they made tasted good. Boiled chicken and steamed broccoli every day? This is when I frowned. I am Italian. And as for me and my family? We are food people. Food is meant to be enjoyed, savored and enjoyed around a giant table with hours of conversation. However, being open minded and already in favor of a lot of the Paleo minded thinking, I decided it didn't sound so bad. 

The basic idea behind The Paleo Diet is to stick to eating anything that our Paleolithic ancestors would have had access to many moons ago. If they could kill it with a bow and arrow, fish it out of the sea, or pick it off of a bush, shrub, or tree, they ate it! Meat, fish, plants and nuts. This is the backbone of the Paleo Diet. I will not get into all of the scientific research and background because frankly, I'm not qualified. At the end of this post, I will add a list of recommended reading from my well- read other half, Mark, who has read several books on Paleo. There are also a few blogs that are my go-to for all things Paleo that I will add to the list as well. 

At first glance, the Paleo Diet may look like a complicated list of food rules, but the important thing to remember is you can only do what works best for you and for your family. Many of the Paleo blogs and books talk about an 80-85% rule. This means keeping 85% of your daily intake Paleo while leaving about 15% for a little wiggle room- this is what we try to stick to. For example, strict Paleo Dieters do not eat dairy or legumes. 

My thoughts on dairy...
I happen to love Greek yogurt for breakfast a few mornings a week and we also enjoy goat cheese and fresh mozzarella for salads. And Laughing Cow cheese wedges! I try to stick to one serving of dairy a day. A quick note about dairy- be careful of anything that is labeled as fat-free. Most of the time "fat-free" equals added sugar. Read your labels! I rarely, if ever, buy fat free dairy. While my family and I were in Italy in 2007, there were no fat-free foods in sight. That's good enough incentive for me!

and Legumes... 
are another item that are seen as kind of a no-no in Paleo eating. This is largely due to the fact that our bodies don't digest beans and peanuts easily. I don't think that hummus as a snack or black beans on fish taco lettuce wraps are the worst thing you can cheat with. I prefer almond butter to peanut butter but there is nothing like peanut butter on a banana!

The thing to remember is that this is not for everyone. I will always encourage everyone to eat whole foods and cut out processed junk, fake foods and artificial sweeteners from their life, but as far as going totally Paleo, it's not for everyone- even we make some exceptions around here! (ahem, dark chocolate, red wine, pumpkin beer) Remember the 85% rule. 

Instead of getting scientific and wordy, I thought it would be fun (and helpful) to highlight my Paleo Plate- what a day eating Paleo might look like. Mark can attest to everyone reading that we eat some very delicious meals. Sticking to healthy foods doesn't have to be boring. I'm fortunate in that I grew up in a house where good, healthy food was enjoyed around the dinner table every night, so I was exposed to fresh cooking from a young age. To some, it may seem impossible to cut our breads, pastas and grains, but I am here to tell you that it's not hard to eat like this! 

Since adopting a lot of the Paleo ways a few years ago, I can tell a huge difference in my energy level and I just feel better about what I'm putting into my body. The biggest difference I noticed was how clear my skin became! I have battled with my skin since I was a young teenager and for the first time in my life, I felt like my skin was truly healthy from the inside out, and it had nothing to do with what I was washing my face with at night! In fact, I stopped using medicated face washes and went back to a mild foaming cleanser. I also never feel like I am depriving myself of delicious food. We enjoy homemade pizza nights and build in "cheat meals" that we appreciate so much more now. Moderation, moderation, moderation!

All in all, incorporating Paleo eating into our everyday lives has been a rewarding challenge. I love coming up with new and healthy recipes so that we can still enjoy the same flavors but using cleaned up, healthier versions of what our tastebuds love! Soon, I'm hoping to archive all of my Paleo friendly recipes in one place

If you have any questions, please send them my way. I'm happy to share what I know and if I don't know, hopefully I can point you in the right direction of the appropriate resource. If you are thinking about incorporating Paleo eating into your life, here are some resources to get you started with a good knowledge base.

Mark's Paleo Must Reads:

The Primal Blueprint

The Paleo Solution

Why We Get Fat and What to do About it

Paleo Blogs:

Mark's Daily Apple

Everyday Paleo

PaleOMG

Enjoy the weekend, everyone!

Eating Seasonably!

I found this neat little chart via Pinterest and I didn't think it would be very nice to keep it to myself. If you are trying to eat fresh foods, use this as a guide as you plan your meals to focus on what's in season.

Source: matchstickmolly.com via Nina on Pinterest

Curing the Holiday Hangover

With the holidays behind us, so is all of the reckless eating. Cookies constantly within an arm's reach and an eggnog latte or peppermint mocha coffee break just to enjoy and savor the beloved red cup. And there always an excuse for an extra cocktail. Or five. I don't eat everything in site but I also don't spend my holidays worrying about every morsel I put in my mouth because honestly, I just enjoy it and know that we'll return to our regularly scheduled eating habits once the season comes to an end. What's fun about indulging if you have to rationalize everything you eat? This also goes for every extra dollar that has cause the grocery budget to just be completely ignored.

The cookies are gone, the red cups are no longer available at Starbucks (sigh) and it's time to focus on cleaning up a bit and getting back into our usual routine and stocking our refrigerator with healthy fuel. I have said this before, but I don't like the word diet. You can't stick to a diet. You CAN stick to a lifestyle. And that's how we do it around here.

I meal plan every week. Ashley and I did it while living in our apartment and I have never gone back. At the beginning of the week, I sit down with my laptop, cookbooks and recipe binder and plan our dinners for the entire week. I find that one trip to the grocery store a week not only saves me time, but saves me money! Shopping with a well thought out list is key. I do most of my grocery shopping around the perimeter of the grocery store and besides a select few items, I try to stay out of the aisles since that is where most of the trouble is.

If you are in need of some healthy recipes to jump start your new year, keep reading! Below is a week worth of clean and healthy dinners, plus one for good measure. With the exception of the soup, all can be made in under an hour, making them ideal for your weeknight menus. I added many of these to our dinner menu for last week. Some are new, some are from my daily web browsing and some are my own blog recipes that I cleaned up with a few simple swaps.

Salmon roasted with fresh lemon & garlic

{salmon fillet, 2 cloves garlic minced, 6 lemon slices, salt,

pepper, brush of olive oil, 20 minutes on 350*. Easy!}

Roasted Red Pepper Pistachio Pesto

Simple baby greens salad with balsamic vinaigrette

The Culinary Couple's Tortellini Soup- one of my favorite all time recipes

(Double the sausage, skip the tortellini)

Grilled Chicken Breast with Olive Tapenade

Baby spinach salad with champagne vinaigrette

Garlic & Herb Dijon Roasted Pork Tenderloin

Green Beans Salad with Pickled Red Onions and Fried Almonds

Roasted Chicken Thighs

Spinach salad with sauteed mushrooms and Warm Bacon Vinaigrette

Asian Beef Lettuce Wraps

(Use ground sirloin and swap Hoisin sauce for 2 tbsp. natural peanut butter)

Seared Marinated Flank Steak

Pan roasted brussels sprouts

(I use olive oil instead of butter)

Tomato, cucumber and red onion salad with red wine vinaigrette

Grilled chicken breast over romaine & baby greens

cucumbers, grape tomatoes, green onions and avocados

Simple Caesar Dressing

Cheers clearing out the bad, shopping smart and to a fresh start in the kitchen in 2012!

Clean Eating Challenge

The Moores have had a BUSY November so far and with the most wonderful time of the year upon us, it's about to get even busier. We spent last weekend in Atlanta for our Goddaughter's baptism and this past weekend in Dallas visiting friends who just adopted AND had a baby! When you are with friends you haven't seen in a long time, there's always an excuse to eat dessert and drink those few extra beers. Such a wonderful time we had! But after two weekends away, Mark and I were adamant about cleaning out our systems and eating a super clean diet until Thanksgiving. Travelling tires us out so combine that with indulging a bit more than usual and we are tired, bloated, cranky lovies.

Mark is always game for a healthy challenge but I needed one more person to keep me accountable and my blonde sister (Sophie) was the lucky one! She is the ying to my yang and my accountability partner in so many areas of my life. We decided on Sunday to do this clean eating challenge together in our respective households- everything is more fun with a friend! We came up with guidelines and a shared Google document with our meal plan/ideas for the week. Our focus is lots of lean proteins, vegetables and fruits that are low in sugar and packed with fiber. Since we're really trying to eat clean, we also cut out dairy (eggs are liquid chickens, and therefore, considered a meat), complex carbohydrates and starches. This should go without being said, but ice cream night is cancelled this Wednesday as well as next and sugary treats have been put away in hiding. Sadly, the wine that we both love to sip on while cooking dinner has also been cut out- but just for this challenge!

The meal plan that Sophie and I came up with is so tasty and incorporates bursts of different flavor every night. It just proves that a healthy menu doesn't have to be a lackluster one. Here are some of our dinner choices:

Grilled Ribeye

Baby greens with plum tomatoes, sweet red peppers and dijon balsamic vinaigrette

Turkey Meatloaf

(minus cheese and breadcrumbs, add mushrooms!)

Pan roasted green beans

Grilled chicken with Roasted Red Pepper Pistachio Pesto

Romaine with plum tomatoes, avocado and lemon vinaigrette

Ginger Garlic Shrimp

Roasted broccoli

Lean Sirloin Burgers with Guacamole

Mexican Chopped Salad

Herb Roasted Pork Tenderloin

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

The best part about this challenge is that 2.5 days in and I feel so great! I don't feel as bloated as normal and when I'm full at dinner, it's not the same kind of full as when I go for that extra helping of my dad's Penne a la Vodka or that extra piece of perfect pizza with roasted mushrooms and arugula. I never weigh myself. As in I never do it. Ever. I know it sounds crazy, but my weight usually fluctuates within a 10 pound range and as long as my clothes fit me the same, I feel like I am on track. But when we got home on Sunday, I was curious as to what the scale said. I wasn't mad, but I was on the upper end of my 10 pound area and just feeling blah. Fast forward to this morning (Wednesday) and taking into account that I probably have some extra water weight this week, but I was seven pounds lighter than I was on Sunday! I realize a lot of this is water weight but results are results and as someone who has lost 40 plus pounds in college, seeing my weight go in the right direction in numbers is remarkable and encouraging.

I am by no means a health expert and cannot promise any sort of results. I am just sharing what works for Mark and I when we are trying to detox after lots of over indulging.

Here's to eating healthy before the Holidays!