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!
Happy Wednesday! This is the one day during the week where I post pictures and details of everything I ate for the day in hopes of inspiring you to try something new 
I have been a bit stressed lately over some big changes coming up around here, so I wasn’t really all that hungry this morning. I waited until mid-morning and then decided to make one of my favorite comfort meal breakfasts. This is a slice of toasted Ezekiel Sprouted Grain Bread, topped with smashed avocado, slices of red onion, tomatoes, and an egg (over-medium in olive oil). I had half of a grapefruit on the side. I love it when comfort food can be nourishing and healthy too!!
After breakfast and before picking Jake up from school, I managed to squeeze in 3 segments (30 minutes) of this dvd – it is one of my absolute favorites!! It’s easy to follow and a little challenging with some high intensity plyometric bursts. It is structured in 10 minute increments so I can mix them up or just do as many as I have time for. I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of it!!!!
I am trying to mix it up a bit on What-I-Ate-Wednesdays but I can guarantee you’ll see this meal again. I am obsessed with this chickpea (“mock tuna”) salad and make it at least every other week.
Chickpea “Mock Tuna” Salad
(note: this salad is based on the flavors of traditional tuna salad but doesn’t actually taste like tuna fish)
1 can garbanzo beans/chickpeas, rinsed and patted dry
2 T. mayonnaise (I prefer the clean ingredients in soy-free Vegenaise, found at the health food store)
1 T. fresh lemon juice
1 tsp dried dill
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 rib celery, chopped
2 T. red onion, chopped
Rinse and drain canned chickpeas and pat dry with a paper towel. Place in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the “S” blade. Pulse a few times. Add in lemon juice, mayonnaise, salt, dill, celery and red onion. Pulse a few more times to mix. Don’t over process the mix or you will just end up with mush. Hand mix with a spoon if necessary. Adjust seasonings to taste.
Sometimes I have it on toasted Ezekiel bread, but since I had that for breakfast, I wrapped it up in red leaf lettuce wraps and had it with some kiwi and grapes. Served this way, with fruit, it’s a staple lunch for me in the summer time.
I played Uno with Jake most of the afternoon until he requested a snack of leftover “chocolate pudding” – if you follow me on Instagram, you know that this chocolate avocado “pudding” was a huge hit with the kids last night!!! I was happy to oblige
Later in the afternoon, I knew I had a long math homework date with Hailey and wanted to bake up a little treat for her to have as a special after school snack (that isn’t encouraging emotional eating, is it??? at least it was packed with healthy fats, fiber and antioxidants!!!) These are the Almond Joy Bars from Peas and Thank You (minus the artificial flavor extracts and I subbed in organic coconut sugar which I’m able to get at our Meijer). Needless to say, the temptation was just too much and I ended up having one too. Straight out of the oven, warm and gooey – they were dreamy!!!! And I can only imagine how awesome they would be topped with some vanilla (coconut milk) ice cream!!!
Dinner was one of Jake’s favorites – spaghetti and meatballs. I don’t care for the overly full feeling I get from having pasta for dinner so the if I have the time, I bake a spaghetti squash for me instead of the regular noodles. I was a little disappointed the first time that I had spaghetti squash because I actually expected it to taste like pasta – HA! It definitely doesn’t but it has grown on me…..a little…..this was topped with sauteed mushrooms and a couple of the meatballs. We had a simple green salad on the side with one of my favorite homemade vinaigrette dressings (recipe to come!)
I have lots of recipes coming at you soon – two healthy snack “dips”, my go-to salad dressing, butternut squash apple & curry soup, and overnight crockpot steel cut oats just to name a few. Since I can count on my fingers how many of you are reading this little blog, please feel free to leave comments on my posts!!!! I’d love to hear from you – what recipes you’ve tried, if it turned out good/bad, any questions about foods or ingredients I’m using, or perhaps what you’d like to see on here. And thanks for reading
That wraps it up for this Wednesday!
