In case you thought I was kidding when I keep saying everything has sugar in it heres another thing to add to the list: chipotles in adobo sauce. Theyre a standard ingredient in our kitchen especially to add a nice kick to Tuesday crockpot meals. However after a month of searching we couldnt find a single grocery store can of them that wasnt full of brown sugar not even at Whole Foods. Not willing to live without them and not liking any of the smoky pepper sauce alternatives we tried the fella searched out a recipe. Gotta love him.

So on Sunday when I was out drinking beer with another man he stayed home and made adobo sauce. I came home and the house smelled like a smoky spicy heaven. Apparently it was one of the easiest things ever to make as its a toss it in the pan and forget it for hours type thing. And the final product was better than any canned adobo weve ever had. The fella tossed them in the crockpot chili he made today and my lips are still burning hours later.

Take that sugar weve once again found a way around you. Next stop: bacon.

Chipotles in Adobo Sauce

10-whole chipotle peppers
1/3 cup onion, diced
5 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 cloves garlic, sliced
4 tablespoons sugar free ketchup (found in the organic aisle)
3 cups water
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan.

Cook over a very low heat for 1 to 2 hours until the chilies are very soft and the liquid has been reduced to about 1-cup. Put in blender and process for a thicker sauce.

Will keep for a week in an air tight container when refrigerated.

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This is one of my favorite low maintenance menus taken of course from a Rachel Ray recipe and improved upon. There are three different things to work on all at the same time (four if you add a steamed green vegetable to the mix as I do) but none of them take any effort. Its almost too easy after some of the things Ive been making, that probably means I need to start coming up with really complex menus soon to make up for it.

I have a thing about not liking plants from the lily family raw. It probably has something to do with the fact Im allergic to the flower. This I found out the hard way a couple years ago when the fella bought me a huge arrangement of purple and orange lilies. It was gorgeous and exactly my taste and my favorite colors. It should have been perfect birthday gift except for the fact that the next day I woke up unable to breath and spent the rest of it feeling like I was about to die at any second. We put the lilies outside to think about what they had done and I miraculously returned to normal.. The poor pretty lilies got re-gifted to a friend and the fella wisely has not buy me flowers since. Its better that way, I prefer my flowers alive in the ground and to be able to breath.

So though I adore garlic, shallots, leeks and on a limited basic onions they absolutely have to be cooked in order for me to eat them. This makes things interesting considering the large quantities of raw onions people seem to toss on seemingly everything Ive ever ordered in a restaurant. I also cook the hell out of

The original recipe for this called for both raw garlic and scallions, obviously that had to change I have a tried it a couple times that way and hated it so this time around I took the time to cook them both slightly before adding them to the butter spread. This I loved. It made the spread much less intense and allowed the sun dried tomato to really shine. If youre into raw lilies feel free to just mix up the butter ingredients and save yourself some time.

This horribly divine butter is great on the fish and beans but it would be sinful not to slather it on some warm potatoes. Unfortunately potatoes arent in my near future. Instead we made a much better fake out cauliflower version of mashed potatoes than the ones I posted the recipe for a week or so ago. Boiling the cauliflower made it too wet, it wasnt possible to add cream or butter to it without making cauliflower soup. Steaming solves the problem, this makes the cauliflower the right texture to mash and mix with your favorite creamy mashed potato fixings. Top it with the sun dried tomato butter and you wont know they arent real potatoes.

Drinking a glass of the Cline Viognier made this dinner even more enjoyable. Ive already talked a couple times about how much I love everything Cline so it was no surprise that I fell in love with this bottle. It was super floral (more along the lines of roses and not lilies thankfully) on the nose and the perfect balance of dry and sweet. There were all sorts of delicious summer fruits on the first sip, I got pear and a tart apple where as the fella loved that it was citrusy. With fish and faux potatoes I couldnt have picked a better wine.

Halibut with Sun Dried Tomato Butter and “Potatoes”

BUTTER
1 tablespoon oil
1 scallion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, diced
3 tablespoons softened butter
2 sun dried tomatoes in olive oil, finely chopped

In a pan warm the oil over medium heat, add garlic and scallion and cook until tender but not browned. Place in a small bowl to cool then add butter and sun dried tomatoes, combining well to create a soft butter mixture to use when serving meal.

FISH:
3 tablespoons butter
4 six-ounce halibut fillets (or whatever tender white fish you choose)
2 tablespoons flour (if you can use it)
salt and pepper

Melt the butter in the same pan you used in the first step over medium heat. Season fish fillets with salt, pepper and flour (if using it) on both sides. When butter is fully melted and foamy start pan frying fish. Cook fish about 8 minutes total, longer if using a thicker piece of fish, flipping over half way through cooking time. Transfer to a serving dish when cooked through.

“POTATOES”
1 head cauliflower, cut into rough florets
1 tablespoon butter
1/ 4 cup milk or cream (maybe less depending on how creamy you want your “potatoes”)

Place the cauliflower pieces in a steamer and cook until tender. Mash cauliflower in large bowl until the consistency of mashed potatoes. Add butter and enough milk to make cauliflower creamy. Season with salt and pepper then serve topped with sun dried tomato butter.

Original recipe from Everyday with Rachel Ray.

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Breakfast

Whole Wheat Waffle and Brie Melt with Brown Sugar Ham Slices and Strawberry Preservatives

Using this easy healthy whole wheat waffle recipe.

Mid Morning Snack

Apple, Orange and Pomegranate

Try NORTHWEST FRESH FROZEN POMEGRANATE.

Lunch

Turkey and Avocado Sandwich with Whole Wheat Bread

Afternoon Snack

Homemade Pumpkin Pie with Nonfat Frozen Greek Yogurt, Topped with Ground Cinnamon

Dinner

Hard Boiled Eggs and Avocado Over Mixed Green Salad

Thank you for your time again!

We hope you liked todays clean eating choices.

See you next time.

PRODUCTS USED IN TODAYS CLEAN EATING MEAL PLAN

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The idea for this meal came out of knowing our friend Iris likes Rieslings and I love an excuse to buy a wine I dont usually drink much of, she would be happy and wed all get to drink. Everyone wins. At about the same time I invited her and her fella Will over for a meal I stumbled across a recipe in the French cookbook of scary pictures for something called Riesling Chicken. It sounded good and since it had the name of the wine I wanted to serve in the title of the recipe it would save me a lot of trouble trying to figure out a main dish that went with the wine.

For something with Riesling in the name I was a little disappointed in how little Riesling flavor was actually in this dish however. It wasnt that it was a bad recipe it was just a little blah. Ultimately its baked chicken with a cream mushroom sauce which was fine, everyone liked it just fine. It would probably be improved a bit if I had cooked with bone in chicken pieces rather than breasts which I used to save all of us the trouble of trying to politely de-bone greasy bits of chicken.

Problem is I had obsessively shopped for the perfect Rieslings the week before cooking this. I ended up buying three different bottles trying to find a semi dry Riesling that wasnt expensive. Thats more difficult that one might imagine. The dry Rieslings were plentiful but started at the $30 range. I like my friends but knew wed rather have a couple decent bottles I knew nothing about in order to try them out than nursing one snobby bottle we might not even like. So I decided to trust the advice of San Fransisco Chronicle in their article about $10 Rieslings that werent sugar monsters. I bought the Relax and the Mosel River Rieslings that they suggested and the Bex Riesling that I remember liking from a tasting.

The fella and I opened them all to see which one was dry enough to cook with and not overwhelm the chicken and leeks, both of required wine to cook in. They were all pretty sweet so I used a little of each in the food and hoped for the best, figuring the chicken wouldnt care if I mixed wines. While dinner finished up we drank the Mosel River and moved onto the Bex as we ate. Both are from the Urzig region and so where pretty similar. The Mosel River being slightly sweeter with a heavy pear syrup flavor and a slight effervescence. Where as the Bex had a tartness that made my mouth water while still being Riesling sweet. Both were easy to drink and would be perfect for summer drinking. There was a nice limestone minerality to them that added a bit of character to the fruit.

The Relax was a bit of a shock after the other two wines. It was tight in a way only red wines usually are. I dont usually open a bottle of white and think about it needing to get a bit of air before drinking but this was apparently the exception. It was sweet but it held back its sweetness until the finish. This would be a great Riesling for someone who likes sweet but doesnt like the cloying fruitiness of many white wines. They were all great choices for the meal, they didnt overwhelm the chicken or roasted vegetables. All in all I was happy with all the wines. And we were all pretty happy with dinner. Or at least everyone made enough believable yummy noises that I assumed they were pleased.

We finished off the evening with a puppy walk and a silly card game that got even more silly when I opened a bottle of red. Its no secret that Im in love with Cline wines but their Moudevre is out of this world. Light bodied with very little tannin. It was as if the perfect California coast Pinot Noir and a fruit bomb Zinfindel had a super smooth love child. This is one of those times where the wine was so good I have no words for it.

My new food fantasy is to disappear for a day with a bottle of Cline Moudevre and a beet torte. Ive found my new favorite wine. Sorry Conquista Malbec youve been replaced.

Other recipes from the Riesling Feast:
Almond Soup
Saras Braised Leeks
Roasted Cauliflower and Fennel
Beet Torte

Riesling Chicken

4 pounds whole chicken or chicken parts
2 tablespoon oil
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 pound mushrooms, chopped
1 small white onion, chopped
2 shallots, chopped finely
1/2 cup Riesling
1/2 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 325.

Cut chicken into servings size pieces or purchase pre-cut pieces of legs, thighs, and breasts (this works just fine with all chicken breasts but will end up on the dry side.) Rub chicken pieces with salt and pepper.

In a large oven safe skillet over medium heat, warm the oil and butter. Brown the chicken pieces on all sides, adding more oil if needed. Add mushroom and onion to pan, cover and place in oven for 30 to 40 minutes or until chicken is tender and cooked through.

While the chicken bakes, in a small pan cook shallots in a small amount of oil, about 2 minutes until tender but not browned. Add wine and simmer until reduced to half. Stir in cream and cook without boiling until sauce thickens. Pour over chicken when serving.

Original recipe from Modern French Culinary Art.

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