Simple, Healthy Meals Lately

All of these meals take 30 minutes or less to prepare and use minimal ingredients. You can swap out protein, grain, and produce options to your liking to make them completely customizable to the foods you love, crave, and have on hand.

Lunches

Chickpea and Avocado Mash Veggie Sandwich

-1/2 cup chickpeas

-2 tbsps hummus (I used Sprout’s organic roasted garlic hummus.)

-1/4 avocado

-2 pieces sprouted rye bread (or bread of choice)

-tomato slices

-spinach

-red pepper flakes

-squeeze of half lemon

-salt

-pepper

Toast your bread, because sandwiches are better toasted.
Spread hummus on both sides of bread
In a bowl, mash your chickpeas with your avocado
To bowl, add squeeze of half lemon, a bit of salt and pepper, and as much red pepper flakes as you like spicy!
On the hummus-ed up bread, add your greens. However much you like and can squeeze in there.
Add tomato if you like tomato. Hate tomato? Don’t add it. Do cucumber and/or pickes or even shredded carrots. Get crazy.
Now, add the chickpea-avocado mash and carefully smush together your sandwich.
EAT! With chips, fruit, and a refreshing sparkling water. And make it a picnic. This lunch is very picnic-y.

Copycat Flour Bakery Everything-Spiced Tuna Salad

This is what the real thing looks like. Don’t cry when yours doesn’t look this good. You tried. Image via @flourbakeryandcafe on Instagram.

*makes 3 salads

-1 pack Wild Caught tuna

-Trader Joe’s everything but the bagel seasoning

-citrus of choice (I used an orange)

-greens of choice (I used chard + spinach mix)

-fresh dill

-fresh lemon juice

-white quinoa

-1 slice of bread (I used Sprout’s sprouted rye)

-olive oil

This is not as good as the real salad, so I highly suggest you fly to Boston if you are not local and go to Flour Bakery + Café and get the Everything-Spiced Winter Tuna Salad before they change the menu for Spring/Summer. Also get me one. Thanks.
Empty tuna packet into bowl, add 1-2 tablespoons olive oil to make this more of a “tuna salad”, but without mayo. Or use mayo. It’s up to you.
Add in some fresh dill. I don’t know how much. It’s good though. If you don’t have fresh dill, diced dill pickles would give a similar flavor. The real salad has pickles in the tuna, so I’m not sure why I didn’t do that.
Add in your Everything But The Bagel seasoning. If you don’t have it, I’m sure you could look up what’s in it and just add that. (It’s like salt and sesame and pepper and stuff.)
Stir up your “tuna salad”. Set aside.
Begin to assemble the salad salad. Put your greens in a dish, add in your quinoa for a carb source, add in your cut up citrus (Flour uses grapefruit, but I don’t like grapefruit), and toss.
Scoop 1/3 of your tuna mixture on top. Save the rest of the tuna salad to make more of these bad boys for the rest of the week.
Squeeze a generous amount of fresh lemon juice on the whole shebang.
Toast a piece of bread to eat on the side because that’s how Flour does it, and we do it that way.
EAT and try not to be too sad you’re not in Boston anymore.

a version of my nourish bowl, eaten at the coffee shop.

Nourish Bowl With Hardboiled Egg, Chickpeas, Quinoa, and Avocado

-1 hardboiled egg (I use pasture-raised)

-1/2 cup chickpeas

-1/2 cup quinoa

-1/4 avocado

-greens of choice (I used chard + spinach mix)

-fresh mint (optional)

-fresh thyme (optional)

-fresh lemon

Hard-boil a bunch of eggs at the beginning of the week, so you can make this a ton cuz it’s yummy.
Assemble your salad: put your greens in a bowl, add fresh mint to them if you’re fancy. The flavor is great!
Add the avocado to the greens and mash it around with your fingers. Not gross! Delish! Now you don’t need a dressing. Just some lemon juice.
Add your quinoa. Carbs, carbs, yay!
Add your chickpeas. I peel my chickpeas because I heard it’s better for digestion. It takes freaking forever, so unless you’ve got a good podcast to listen to or you’re binge-watching Queer Eye, you don’t have to.
Add diced hard-boiled egg.
Top everything with fresh thyme and a lot of fresh lemon.
Eat this in class and make loud sounds scraping your glass Tupperware with your fork and let everyone stare at you because your lunch is delicious and you don’t care.

Dinners

My inspiration for this meal, via Ambitious Kitchen. Wanted the mango, but wanted some more hearty-protein and veg.

Mango Chicken Tacos with Biodynamic Short-Grain Brown Rice

-tortillas of choice (I use organic corn tortillas)

-1/2 cup cooked biodynamic short-grain brown rice (or your favorite rice…I get my SGBD brown rice from the bulk bin at Whole Foods)

-1/4 cup diced mango (I used ataulfo mango)

-3 oz rotisserie chicken

-1/4 avocado

-greens of choice (I used spinach + arugula mix)

-lime juice to garnish

-cilantro to garnish

-goes great with hatch green chili salsa and hot sauce!

Wrap your corn tortillas in wet paper towels and microwave for 30 seconds. This helps them not to fall apart. Genius. Forgot where I learned this.
In a small bowl, add your rotisserie chicken. Squeeze some lime juice on top, and a little hot sauce if you’re real. Spicy is good.
In a separate small bowl, take your greens and mash your avocado into them. (Then squeeze some lime juice on that for good measure.) It’s better this way that diced on the top. Anyone can dice avocado and top a taco with it. Be different.
Ok. Put the chicken in the tortillas.
Put the avocado-d up greens in the tortillas.
Top with diced mango. Look at you being different!
Keep the rice on the side. I like to add a little lime juice and cilantro to mine so I feel like I’m add a Tex-mex place.
Put some salsa on top or on the side. Like I said – love that hatch green chili salsa!
DEVOUR.

Pictured: my mango salsa creation.

BONUS: If you have a lot of mango leftover, which you will…make mango salsa. Dice up the mango, add 1/2 a jalapeno (seeded and diced), some TJ’s Everything But The Bagel seasoning, and a lot of fresh lime juice. It’s delish with plantain chips as a snack or side.

Here’s what the real deal looks like, for inspiration.

Copycat “Dig Inn” Bowls

–1 cup short-grain biodynamic brown rice (or regular brown rice)

-3/4 cup greens (I used spinach + chard mix)

–protein of choice (I’ve used rotisserie chicken, chicken sausage, and salmon is delish, too!)

-baby carrots

-cauliflower florets

-salad dressing of choice (I love TJ’s almond butter turmeric dressing)

add greens and rice to a bowl. This is your base.
add protein to one section of bowl. Make it pretty. You’ll probably want an Instagram pic.
For the baby carrots, I roast them at 400 for about 25 minutes in cumin and cinnamon. Do this ahead of time and then add to bowl.
For cauliflower florets, I roast them at 400 for about 25 minutes in cumin and curry powder. Do this ahead of time and then add to bowl. (I like to add raisins when it’s all said and done, but I realize that’s not everybody’s jam.)
Top the bowl with your dressing, about 1-2 tbsps. I recommend something creamy like a green goddess dressing or tahini or the almond butter turmeric I mentioned.
Eat it and continue to pester Dig Inn’s social media team about building a Houston location.

Cam and I whipped this up for the fam on St. Paddy’s and it was a hit! We had leftovers and it was a hit again.

Irish-Inspired Chicken Sausage, Potato, and Veggie Skillet

*serves 2

-4 pre-cooked chicken sausages

-1 head cabbage

-1/2 bag of kale (or half a large head of kale)

-1 small white onion

-2 cloves garlic

-6 baby red potatoes

-1 cup quinoa, cooked

-3 medium carrots, diced

-thyme

-rosemary

-salt

-pepper

I recommend roasting the carrots and potatoes while you do the rest of the stuff on the stovetop. So go ahead and roast those in your spices at 400 for about 25 minutes or until golden.
While that is happening, begin to cook sauté your onion and garlic on the stove and then cook the greens (kale and cabbage). When they are all wilty, you are done with that.
Also while this is happening, you should be cooking some quinoa according to the package directions if you don’t already have some cooked on hand leftover from meal prep like I always seem to have.
Now use that pan to cook your chicken sausage. Usually 8-10 minutes gets them good and golden brown since they are already pre-cooked.
Ok! Now in a big pan or wok, just toss everything together to get the flavors going for like 5 seconds. Chicken sausage, greens, veggies that you roasted, and your quinoa.
Serve it up and do an Irish jig.

i remembered to take a picture! This was so good. if you make anything, make this.

Brown Rice Pasta With Chicken Apple Sausage and Roasted Veggies

*serves 2

-1/2 package brown rice spiral noodles (found mine at Sprout’s…you can use whatever pasta you like!)

-3 to 4 large handfuls of spinach

-small head broccoli, cut into florets (if using frozen, about 2 cups florets)

-1 red bell pepper, diced into chunks

-2 cloves garlic, minced

-one small white onion, diced

-either 2 pre-cooked chicken apple sausage links or 1 uncooked link (I get mine at Sprouts…you can find the pre-cooked ones just about anywhere!)

-olive oil

-lemon

-salt

-pepper

-red pepper flakes

Begin by boiling water for your noodles and then adding those to cook. Cook according to the package instructions to get them al dente.
We roasted our red bell pepper and broccoli on a sheet pan ahead of time, but it takes about 25 minutes at 400 degrees. Sprinkled with olive oil and TJ’s everything but the basil seasoning (or you could just do salt + pepper and maybe a little red pepper flakes for kick)
In a pan over medium heat, add some olive oil, your onion and then your garlic. Cook until garlic is fragrant then add greens. (Careful not to burn garlic…onions will cook nicely during this time.)
Once the greens are almost cooked all the way down, add in your roasted veggies just to combine everything.
Set veggies aside and use the pan to cook your sausage. You’ll just toss them in the pan for 8-10 minutes if they’re pre-cooked until golden brown. If you bought it raw like us, it will take maybe just 10-15 minutes and you’ll just want to make sure they are cooked all the way. (Golden brown and no raw spots, obvi.) We diced ours before cooking to get it to cook faster and so we could see the progress.
(I’m making the whole sausage cooking part seem harder than in is, lol.)
By now your noodles should be done, so combine everything! Noodles, veggies, and sausage into a large serving bowl. Add a whole fresh lemon, squeezed, a bit of salt and pepper, and red pepper flakes.
Serve with fresh parmesan or goat cheese if ya fancy!