Tasty Tuesday: Seafood Gumbo

Hello, January! And the need to get off some of those holiday pounds!  In an effort to do so the other night for dinner I turned to one of my handy dandy Tosca Reno Clean Eating cookbooks to find something I could make for dinner. Tosca’s gumbo completely jumped out at me especially since it’s been cold. It sounded hearty and just what we needed.

First off you’ll need the following ingredients:

3 Tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 large green bell pepper, seeded and chopped

4 large cloves garlic, chopped

1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

4 cups low sodium chicken broth

12 oz cut frozen or fresh okra (about 3 cups)

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

2 bay leaves

1 lb 51-60 count shrimp, peeled and deveined

12 oz low fat all natural fully cooked andouille sausage

Steamed long grain brown rice, for serving

Hot sauce, to garnish


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This recipe can be made using either a Dutch oven or a large heavy-bottomed pot.  I do not own a Dutch oven so large heavy-bottomed pot it was for me!

To start add olive oil and flour in the pot, and cook, stirring occasionally.  Cook until the mixture is brown and toasty, so roughly 8 minutes.  Add onion, celery, pepper, garlic, salt, pepper, Old Bay seasoning and cayenne.  Cook the vegetables until they are tender, roughly 10 minutes.

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Add tomato paste, broth, okra, thyme and bay leaves.  Bring the mixture to a boil, stir to combine ingredients and then reduce heat to simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes.

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Increase heat to high.  Add shrimp and sausage and gently stir to submerge them into the hot liquid.  Cook for 3 -4 minutes until the shrimp are cooked through and the sausage is heated through.

Taste and add any additional seasoning if needed.  Remove the bay leaves and throw them away.  Serve over brown rice.

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For a printable version of the recipe please go HERE.

If you are in Texas today and enjoyed some of the snow maybe this is juust the recipe you need for tonight’s dinner!  It provides lots of good flavors and just as tasty as leftovers!

Slow Cooking Goodness

As we mentioned in our Cleanse Recap that Beth recruited her sister to do the cleanse with her, and after a couple days of eating pretty bland food Kate decided to research recipes that would work for the cleanse.  Ironically enough Kate found a recipe on Tosca Reno‘s website which Teal had introduced Beth to her books this past year!  If you don’t know who Tosca is, well, she is the author of the Eat-Clean Diet series as well as a model, spokesperson, media personality, motivational speaker/wellness consultant and Nutritional Therapy Practitioner.  Even if her recipes aren’t ALL for you there is a lot in her books/cookbooks to look over, draw inspiration from and just experiment with on your own personal preferences.

Beth conveniently bought a crockpot for Kate for Christmas which allowed us to try out Tosca Reno’s Slow Cooker Mexican Chicken recipe from her website!

Top is all the ingredients in the crockpot and the bottom is the meal on top of brown rice ready to eat!

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This meal is definitely a realistic clean eating alternative for you, your family or to have for multiple meals in one week!  We made the entire recipe two times throughout the cleanse.  The first time Kate was so gracious to share it with Beth & Brent and the second time it was made for two meals each for Kate & Beth.  If you would like to give this recipe a try here is a direct link to the recipe.  Let us know how you like it and if you experimented with it at all!

What is your favorite crockpot meal?  Have you found a lot of healthy eating crockpot meals?