Welcome!
Hi, I'm Tori! Welcome to Healthy Plate Happy Family!
I am a fun-loving, healthy-eating, wife, mom, holistic
nutrition student, aspiring yogi, SUP-enthusiast, living
and loving life on the beautiful coast of West Michigan.
Here you'll find all of the whole foods, clean-eating recipes
that I am cooking up to keep my family happy and healthy!
Thanks for stopping by!
It’s late and I have to get on the road early in the morning to teach a big class. But since I already took all of the pictures, I thought I would try to get my “What I Ate Wednesday” up on the blog. I’ll try to make this one quick since that’s how my day went anyway 
Breakfast was kind of light. My stomach can’t handle a heavy meal before teaching a paddle yoga class. So, before I left this morning, I blended up 3/4 cup light coconut milk, about 1 cup of fresh pineapple, 1 tablespoon of chia seeds and some ice and water. Tasted exactly like a piña colada!!!!
I had to go straight to an appointment after teaching my class, so I packed myself a little snack – a zucchini blueberry spelt muffin, fresh organic strawberries, and a few almonds. The muffins were a combination of recipes and turned out awesome. I plan on making a huge batch of them to freeze for school lunches!!
I was starving when I finally got home, so I made an open-faced sandwich on toasted Ezekiel sprouted grain bread with homemade hummus (made last week), cucumbers, and tomatoes with kale chips and fresh fruit. An awesome and filling lunch!!!!
Jake and I snacked on bananas with a little peanut butter this afternoon.
Then we made a huge Cobb Salad for dinner with two kinds of lettuce, grilled chicken, nitrate-free bacon, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, kalamata olives, avocado and a little crumbled blue cheese. We topped it off with some homemade balsamic vinaigrette.
The kids made their own little salads too! They had their bacon on the side along with some scrambled eggs
A very rare dessert – this is some of the leftover homemade key lime pie from Darren’s birthday yesterday. If I’m going to squeeze the juice out of 30 teeny tiny little key limes, you better believe that pie isn’t going to waste!!!! SO yummy and so worth it!!!!
Every Thursday night for the last 5 or 6 years, we have made homemade pizza for dinner. I’m not really sure where this little ritual came from, but it definitely makes my menu planning for the week a little bit easier!
Since this Thursday was Valentine’s Day, we had some fun with it and made….
It’s a lot of fun because we can each personalize our pizzas with our own toppings. Hailey’s standard is garlic butter (no red sauce!), cheese, and veggies. Jake is a pepperoni guy. Darren and I mix it up.
I almost always make mine on an Ezekiel 4:9 pocket bread (pita) and usually top it with mostly veggies and just a sprinkle of cheese.
This one was Mediterranean Pizza with red sauce, lots of spinach, chopped red onion, kalamata olives, sundried tomatoes, and a little bit of crumbled feta cheese.
Ezekiel Pita Pockets – I LOVE these things!!!
I buy these at our local health food store where they are kept in the freezer. They are only $1.99 for 6 of them and make the best pizza crusts! They are made of all organic ingredients including whole wheat flour, carrots, barley flour, millet flour, lentil flour, spelt flour, soy flour, fresh yeast, and sea salt. They have 100 calories, 0.5 grams of fat, 21 carbs, 4 grams of fiber, and 7 grams of protein.
I just take one out of the freezer and top it and put it in the oven for about 10 minutes or so, depending on the toppings.
Either way that we make them, pizza night is always a favorite around here, especially when you get to eat a whole heart-shaped pizza!
Homemade Pizza Crust
1 1/2 cups water (heated to 110-115 degrees or a little over a minute in the microwave)
1 tsp honey
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
2 T. extra virgin olive oil
3 1/2 cups flour, plus additional as needed (see note below)
Heat water to 110-115 degrees (important to be warm enough to activate the yeast but not too hot to kill it) and put into a large bowl. Stir in honey. Sprinkle yeast over top of the water and let stand for approximately 10 minutes until it is foamy on top (this is “proofing” the yeast and lets you know that its active) Add in salt, olive oil, and 3 cups of flour. Once everything is incorporated, turn out onto a floured mat. Knead dough and add more flour until the dough is slightly sticky but not tacky. Knead for about 5 minutes and then place into a well-oiled bowl. Cover with a clean dish towel and place in a warm dry area to rise (I set it in a corner of the counter near the oven). Dough can be ready in as little as 1 hour but I prefer to let the dough rise for closer to 2 hours or more.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees (we have found through trial and error that 400 degrees on convection is the perfect temp for us). Turn dough out onto the floured mat again and separate into 2 large crusts or 4 small crusts (great for individual pizzas) and roll out with a flour-dusted rolling pin. Place on an oiled pan and pre-bake for 7-8 minutes. Add desired toppings and bake for an additional 8-10 minutes until pizza is done to your liking. During the final baking stage, we prefer to cook the pizzas directly on the rack.
A note on flours – we originally started making these with all whole wheat pastry flour (or white whole wheat flour) as I wanted a 100% whole grain, healthy pizza crust. This is not going to give you the traditional pizza crust flavor that most people are expecting. You can try half whole wheat flour and half white flour to start. For us, I now like to use 1 cup white flour, 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour, and 1 cup of whole grain spelt flour (a grain similar to wheat). It may take some experimentation to see what you like.
Happy Wednesday!
After I dried out from a cold and wet walk with the dog this morning, I decided to switch it up from my usual smoothie/juice for breakfast. This weather definitely called for a great big warm bowl of oatmeal!!! The recipe just makes a single portion, but I think you could probably triple or quadruple the recipe to bake up a bigger pan of it to share with the family or eat throughout the week. I love this because its not too sweet, very filling, and packs in a serving of vegetables!
Zucchini Bread Baked Oatmeal for One
1/2 cup old fashion or rolled oats
1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk
heaping 1/3 cup zucchini, shredded
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 T honey (or more if you prefer it sweeter)
optional – chopped walnuts and/or raisins for topping
Mix all ingredients and pour into a lightly sprayed dish. Bake at 350 for 20-22 minutes.
Top with chopped walnuts and raisins, if desired.
My morning was busy with errands – trying to get lots done and groceries stocked up before we get hit with more snow. Luckily the oatmeal held me over until lunch. I have Jake home with me for lunch on Wednesdays so we shared our lunch of sandwiches, fruit, and kale chips. His was PB&J. My sandwich was Ezekiel sprouted wheat bread with hummus, avocado slices, tomato, cucumber, and red onion.
If you haven’t tried Ezekiel breads by Food for Life, I highly recommend them!!! They have really clean ingredients – only organic sprouted grains, yeast, vital wheat gluten and sea salt. Because the grains are all soaked and sprouted, it is easier to digest for those with grain sensitivies. I also love that each piece is only 80 calories and a whopping 4 grams of protein!
If you’re interested, its usually found in the freezer section of the grocery store and runs about $4-4.50/loaf. I keep it in the refrigerator and it lasts for weeks. The raisin bread is really good too, especially with peanut butter or almond butter on it. As a sidenote, I pretty much only like this bread when it is toasted (same goes for the kids!). Its a little heartier than normal soft, sandwich bread and toasting it makes the dense, grainy texture less noticeable.
My afternoon snack was not cooperating for photos today. This gray weather and lack of sunshine is just awful for taking pictures!!!
I learned about adding greens to smoothies a couple of years ago from blogs like this. Its such an easy way to add a little extra leafy greens into your day (or into your kids)!! I am pretty adventurous with greens in smoothies, but if you’re not, then I promise this is a good starter recipe. This one had a handful of spinach, a frozen banana, 3/4 – 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk, a scoop of vegan vanilla protein powder, and a spoonful each of raw almond butter (or PB is good too!) and ground flaxseed. The protein powder is not necessary but I like to add it in on days that I lift weights.
This particular dinner has gone through a lot of modifications. It started off as a knock-off of the Buffalitos from Buffalo Wild Wings. We would grill the chicken, add store-bought wing sauce, and wrap them in whole wheat tortillas, which was significantly healthier than the restaurant version.
My latest version is served in lettuce wraps. And after a review of the ingredients in wing sauce (soybean oil, artificial flavors, caramel color, corn syrup, and EDTA? No thanks!!), I just mix Franks red hot with a little melted organic butter. We also had roasted sweet potatoes on the side. I leave the skins on and slice them up, coat them with a little olive oil and kosher salt and roast them in a single layer at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Flip them and cook them another 15 minutes or until evenly browned. The kids aren’t a fan of the spicy sauce, so they do chicken/cheese wraps on whole wheat tortillas instead.
That wraps it up for this Wednesday
