Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup

This past week I had so many after-work commitments, I knew it would be nearly impossible to make dinner most nights.  It was one of those crazy "I'm juggling 50 things at once" weeks, and I knew that the only way to make it work was to rely on my trusty crock pot.

In the past I would have driven through somewhere, or ordered food to go from a restaurant. I am so proud of our family for quitting the excuses and relying WAY less on take-out meals. It takes a bit more planning, but if you own a crock pot, it's really very easy to have a healthy, home-cooked meal ready for your family when you get home!

So this week we made minestrone soup. I love minestrone, and it is full of veggies, which works really well for the 21 Day Fix meal plan that I am currently following.  Plus, you can switch up what you serve with the soup to make different meals. The soup is great on it's own, or even better when paired with a nice salad, but our favorite is serving it with turkey and cheese panini's made in our panini press! However you decide to serve it, everyone is sure to love it.

Ingredients:
1 15 oz can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup shredded cabbage
1/2 cup sliced carrot
1/2 cup sliced celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes with basil, oregano and garlic
1 14 oz can beef broth (can use veggie broth if you want this to be a truly vegetarian dish)
3 cups water
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
8 oz fresh green beans, cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 cup tiny whole wheat macaroni noodles
2 tbsp snipped fresh parsley
1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese (optional)

To make the soup:

In your slow cooker, place beans, cabbage, carrot, celery and onion. Stir in undrained tomatoes, broth, water, salt and pepper. Cover, cook on low setting for 8-10 hours or high setting for 4-5 hours.

If using low setting, turn to high. Stir green beans and macaroni noodles into soup mixture. Cover; cook for another 30 minutes.  Stir in parsley. Ladle into soup bowls. Sprinkle each serving with Parmesan cheese, if desired.  Enjoy!

Crockpot BBQ Apple Pork Tenderloin

I am obsessed with finding new healthy crockpot meals! My goal is to make dinner in the crockpot at least once a week, ideally twice. I mean, how awesome is it to come home from work and have dinner ready? It is so much better than stopping to pick something up, or having to slave in the kitchen for an hour when I am already hungry and exhausted.

I adapted this recipe from one I saw on Pintrest, and it was so simple and delicious that I couldn't help but share! There are literally 4 ingredients. That's it! You can't get much easier than that, right? Plus, it's pretty versatile, so you could easily change it up a little bit to make different variations.

Here are the ingredients:

1 pound pork tenderloin (you could use turkey or beef tenderloin if you don't eat pork)
1 cup unsweetened applesauce (chunky is best, but not necessary)
1 cup BBQ sauce
1/4 cup minced onion

It was really eye opening to find a BBQ sauce that was anything I could consider adding to a clean recipe. Almost every single bottle in the store had high fructose corn syrup, and usually as the first ingredient! Some of them had more than 20 ingredients that I did not recognize, and many topped off at more than 20 grams of sugar per serving! I did end up finding a good choice though, with all natural ingredients that I recognized and only 6 grams of sugar per serving. Just check your labels carefully and choose wisely. Or, you could choose to make your own BBQ sauce. Simply google "homemade BBQ sauce" and a ton of recipes come up. For my purposes, I was trying to make a super fast meal that could be thrown into the crock pot in 5 minutes on a weekday morning, so I wanted to use bottled.

To make this, you literally just have to place the pork tenderloin, silver skin removed, on the bottom of the slow cooker.

Mix the applesauce and BBQ sauce together and pour evenly over the pork. Top with minced onion. Cook on high for 6 hours. When done, the meat should easily shred with two forks. Stir the shredded pork with the sauce and let it sit in the crock pot for about 5 more minutes, to make sure that all of the meat has been soaked with the sauce.

I served the meat on top of a piece of whole wheat toast with a spinach and raspberry side salad, but it would be great as a shredded pork sandwich on a bun, or on top of rice, or even wrapped up in lettuce! There are tons of options.

Hope you enjoy!

Melt in Your Mouth Chicken

I get so bored of chicken recipes, and it seems like it's tough to keep finding new ways to enjoy it that are healthy and still make everyone in the family happy. Luckily, we found this recipe on Pintrest, and it was honestly one of the best chicken recipes I've ever tasted. We eat it all the time now!

• 4 chicken breasts, pounded thin
• 1/2 C parmesan cheese
• 1 C plain fat free greek yogurt
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 1/2 tsp seasoning salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper

Preheat oven to 375. Spray a 9 X 11 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray and place the chicken breasts side by side in the dish.

In a small bowl, combine all other ingredients. Spread yogurt mixture all over chicken and bake for 45 minutes or until chicken is done. Switch oven to broil and broil the chicken for 5 more minutes, or until topping is golden brown.