Favorite Recipes from July

 

July was a month of lots of fun new (KEEPER!) recipes! Today I want to share them with you!

Baked Egg Breakfast Casserole – I love a good breakfast casserole, and this one was a new-to-me find this month. It reminds me of the one I grew up on that had almost a whole loaf of bread in it, but this one is bread-free. Eggs, egg whites, Greek yogurt, cheese, and turkey sausage are the stars of this one. Other than the time it takes to brown the sausage, this one comes together quickly and is tasty!

Creamy Shrimp Pasta – This was easy to put together! If you don’t like shrimp, you could sub in a different meat and keep the rest of the recipe. Tons of flavor in this, and just as a note, I used chickpea penne (which I get at Aldi) and Neufchatel cream cheese for my version.

Summer Cobb Salad – We do love a fresh salad in the summer, and this one was easy! I air fried the bacon in the oven and cooked the chicken on the stovetop. I swapped defrosted sweet corn from the freezer so I didn’t have to mess with cooking and cutting ears of corn. I drizzled a little SkinnyGirl buttermilk ranch dressing on mine, but it honestly is fine without any dressing!

Lemon Chicken and Zucchini Skillet – I’ve made this dish before…several times, actually…and it’s easy and tasty. It makes me smile to see the colors of the zucchini and yellow squash, and it doesn’t take too long to cook. Win all the way around.

Layered Watermelon Berry Salad – I love a fruit salad, but I don’t always love the dressings and/or sweeteners added to them. I made this TRUE fruit salad for the 4^th of  July and loved it. It simply had…are you ready for it?...layers of fruit. End of story. Easy and delicious.

Strawberry Shortcake – This recipe is a golden oldie from my own recipe collection, but I haven’t made it in a long time. I actually used leftover berries (sans watermelon) from the above salad to pair with this cake when we went to small group! Added some ice cream and…yummy!

Crockpot Teriyaki Chicken and Veggies – I’ve made this before and enjoyed it, so I brought it back this month. I didn’t cut my chicken into small pieces like the recipe reflects, but the flavor was so good. I used a frozen Asian veggie blend and steamed them on the stove. I also made brown rice.

Stuffed Pepper Casserole – Originally I had planned to make an actual stuffed pepper dish, but the truth is, I hate stuffing peppers. So when I stumbled on this recipe, I switched to it instead, and I loved it. Note: I had already bought the chicken for the other recipe, so I put shredded chicken in this instead of the ground beef/turkey. I also used riced cauliflower instead of actual rice.

Slow Cooker Clean Eating Greek Gyros – We loved this one! Super easy to make, obviously, since I could throw the meat in to cook all day, and then it made a tasty dinner! I used roasted red pepper hummus from Aldi…it’s the only one we really like.

Healthy Zucchini Bread – I am always on the hunt for a healthier version of a quick bread: something without all the oil and sugar. This one was a Pinterest find, and we both liked it. I did sub in our milled wheat for the all purpose flour the recipe called for. I also used farm fresh eggs and home grown zucchini, so I basically felt like I walked straight in from the prairie for this! (Note: I used cane sugar rather than white in this recipe.)

Clean Eating Potato Salad – This was really, really good, though both of us found we preferred it warmed up just slightly. Apparently we are not cold potato people. A couple of notes on this one: I used turkey bacon and only about 2/3 the amount it called for. I used baby potatoes, with the skin on, chopped up in quarters. I also used yellow onion instead of red, because it’s what I had on hand.

Southwest Shrimp Salad – I loved this one because it was nice and fresh and easy to make. Of course I made some modifications…I used frozen corn rather than on the cob, just to save cutting it off. I also cooked the shrimp and corn on the stovetop because I don’t have a grill basket. And I used Skinny Girl ranch dressing rather than making the avocado dressing, mostly because I knew most of it would go to waste if I did that.

No Bake Cookies – This is a golden-oldie from my own blog, and I rarely make them anymore because I will eat them all in one sitting. 😊 However, we had guests for a fun night at the lake, and I needed a quick and easy, kid-approved, finger-food kind of dessert and didn’t want to heat up the oven to bake cookies. No bakes to the rescue!

Clean Eating No Bake Cookies – I’m trying to steer clear of white sugar as much as possible, so I made the regular no bakes for Ryan and our guests, but I made myself a batch of clean eating no bakes. I used them over the course of the next week for a little sweet treat after dinner. (Ryan doesn’t love the clean eating version of this one, and I really do try to make sure he has something he loves, so it was no problem for me to make both versions to serve both of us as needed!)

Southwest Chicken Salad Lettuce Wraps – My favorite thing about this one? We used lettuce from our garden!! I boiled the chicken and shredded it in the Kitchen Aid and then added the rest of the things. I love any twist on chicken salad!

Shredded Pork Loin with White BBQ Sauce – The pork loin recipe is a golden oldie from the blog. It is so easy to make. Pork, soy sauce (I use coconut aminos now) and liquid smoke with a little bit of seasoned salt for good measure. It is always so flavorful, and it’s a slow cooker recipe too, so yay! This time, with it, I made White BBQ sauce, which I learned is a signature dish in the state of Alabama. I’d never heard of it before, but it sure was good. I made a Keto version, so even though it does still have a mayo base (I used olive oil mayo) and isn’t the MOST healthy ever, it’s better than some other recipes I found!

Pizza Casserole – I found this one on a recipe roundup and thought it looked delicious for days when I craved pizza but knew that wasn’t the healthiest choice to prepare. I used chickpea pasta from Aldi (which I love) and lean ground beef instead of ground turkey. Really good and would definitely make again!

English Muffin Breakfast Sandwich – This was the last one I tried this month. I had intended to make my own English muffins using my milled wheat, but alas, I didn’t have arrowroot powder, and our store didn’t carry it, so I purchased a healthy version of an English muffin this time. This was good, easy to make, and filling! 

And there you have it! July’s recipes!