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!
What a day! Super busy morning and a dead phone battery meant no What I Ate Wednesday pics 
Luckily, there was a little time this afternoon for this…..
Seriously gorgeous Fall day! I couldn’t pass it up!
With Michigan weather, any day could be our last day out on the water, so we had to take advantage of it.
Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about dinner since it was already prepped. I threw a jar of my mom’s canned summer tomatoes into the Crockpot with a few fresh veggies and dried herbs and made my first homemade marinara sauce. Have you ever tried this? I had no idea it was so easy! And it made the house smell amazing! It was kind of an experiment so I don’t have an exact recipe yet.
I do have an awesome recipe for the meatballs that went with it though!
I actually made these on Sunday. I used the spinach feta turkey mixture to make a burger and just rolled the rest into meatballs and baked them. They are easy and come together really fast. And they are out of this world good! I served the meatballs and marinara over a bed of spaghetti squash that was roasted earlier in the day.
Spinach Feta Turkey Meatballs (or burger)
Ingredients
1 lb of lean ground turkey (see if you have the option of some local ground turkey or organic since the regular grocery store stuff contains extra flavoring additives)
Spinach (a big handful or two of fresh or you can use about 1/2 a bag of frozen spinach, defrosted, water squeezed out)
1/2 cup crumbled feta
1 egg, beaten
Salt and Pepper
Directions
If making meatballs, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Heat a skillet to medium heat. Chop spinach finely if using fresh. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and season with freshly ground salt and pepper. Form into patties or meatballs. To make burgers, cook patties over medium heat for about 6 minutes on each side. For meatballs, sear in the skillet to brown the meatballs and transfer to a baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes.
I am long overdue for a new post! Seeing as how we’ve entered a new season, my most favorite of all, I thought I would post the recipe for the meal that we had to celebrate the first day of Fall. It was just cool enough that I could pull off a one-dish comfort meal like this Chicken and Noodles!
Not only was it budget-friendly and super easy to make, but it was SO good too! I know that this is not cutting edge health food, but I have come to the conclusion that there is room in our diet for comforting, enjoyable meals like this. Of course there were plenty of variations running through my mind, like using spaghetti squash instead of noodles or buying the whole wheat flax fettuccine noodles so feel free to experiment with those options if that appeals to you. But it has been my goal lately to simplify and de-stress our family dinner time by making only one meal that everyone can enjoy. I have been encouraging the kids to choose what we will have for dinner and letting them help out in the kitchen more. This was definitely a kid-friendly dish and it makes a great leftover to send reheated in a thermos for lunch the next day. Enjoy… and Happy Fall!!!
Homestyle Chicken Noodles
inspired by Better Homes and Garden
Ingredients
Chicken Thighs (I just bought a package that had 5-6, bone-in would be great to for additional flavor)
3 cups water
2 cups chicken broth (one without msg, “natural flavor”, or yeast extract)
2 Bay leaves
1 tsp dried thyme (I had ground thyme which worked nicely)
Salt and pepper to taste ( I added close to 1 tsp. of sea salt and a few grinds of pepper)
1 medium onion, chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 ribs of celery, chopped
Homestyle egg noodles (I used the thick fettuccine style noodles)
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup milk
2 T. flour
Directions
Add chicken pieces, chopped onion, carrot, and celery, herbs, water and broth to a large stockpot or Dutch oven. Bring to a boil and simmer covered for 25-30 minutes until chicken is done. Remove and discard bay leaves. Remove chicken and place on a cutting board to cool. Remove bones if necessary and shred or chop into bite-sized pieces and set aside.
Bring the broth mixture back up to a boil and add noodles. Cook according to package directions (mine were about 12-15 minutes). Stir in frozen peas. In a lidded container, combine milk and flour and shake until thoroughly mixed. Pour milk mixture into pot. Add chicken back in. Cook over low heat until thickened.
