Top 10 Clean Eating TAILGATE FOODS!!

If I made a list of top 10 greatest things on earth, college football, tailgating (slash day drinking,) and food would top the list. Unfortunately, one with these as their top 3 favorite things risks gaining approximately 20 pounds during football season- especially when one is a stress eater and college football seems to be drunk this season (this is the only explanation I can come up with for UGA's performance, as well as the rest of the top 25). 

Anyway, this season I put my foot down and decided that THIS season I will NOT gain weight (and perhaps even lose weight?). And also I spent most Sundays bedridden due to excessive hangovers and this feeling that my intestines were going up in flames, so adding a 7th day to my week in the fall would be a plus too. I've spent the first part of football season experimenting with clean tailgate food swaps, feeding it to my neighbors, and demanding reviews. These foods made the top 10, as judged by a panel of football-loving friends and neighbors. And since it's me, these are all easy to make, hard to screw up, cheap, and CLEAN! Click the links for the recipes.

1. Clean Pizza {Cauliflower Crust}
2. Crispy {Baked} Buffalo Wings (also try Juicy Fall-off-the-Bone Crockpot Wings)
3. Clean "Bread"Sticks aka Fokey Sticks (Fake Pokey Sticks)
4. Savory Italian Turkey Meatballs
5. Low-Fat Deviled Eggs
6. Greek Potato Skins
7. Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Potato Skins
8. Crispy Sweet Potato Chips with Blue Cheese
9. Crockpot Turkey Chili {with a kick!}
10. Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps

What other clean tailgate food swaps are out there?

Crispy Sweet Potato Chips

Yesterday my craving for salty, crispy, delicious chips was SO REAL so I fixed myself some sweet potato chips. Can we just talk about how, why is anyone eating regular potato chips when you can eat sweet potato chips? Just look at the health difference- hmm 10 grams of fat for something that won't fill me up for more than 20 minutes or ZERO grams of fat for something that is also really good for me? {click "read the whole post for recipe and comparisons!}

Party Food: The Potato Skin 4 ways

Ok honestly I've never been a big potato skin person- I just never really got it. But in my experimentation to formulate the best tailgate food that won't upset my tummy AND won't cause me to gain 50 lbs by the BCS Bowl I came up with these cleaned up versions of the real thing. All 4 flavors were a hit but Greek and Pizza tied for first among everyone's favorites.

Lesson learned in cooking potato skins: Don't be shy about scooping out the potato guts! Less potato left on the skin = More crispy! I know, I know, everyone knows this except me because I just now got into potato skins 27 years into the game. Here are my findings: {Click "read the whole post" for recipes}


{For each recipe I'm pretending we're making 8 potato skins. Each potato makes 4 skins}

For the skins:

Hi skins! Once you are at this point halve them lengthwise again, unless you are making the chili boats.

Healthy Avocado Deviled Eggs {with a kick}

I finally got tired of breakfast casserole. The idea of waking up and eating one more square of egg/veggie/meatness made me gag a little, so I tried eggs another way: Deviled! I assume they are called "deviled" eggs because just one tiny half egg contains at least 5 grams of fat, meaning if you eat 2 halves (in my book 2 halves = 1) you have consumed almost 20% of the recommended daily fat for a 2,000 calorie diet before 8 a.m. And if I'm at a party, AS IF I would ever just eat 1-2 of these babies. So yeah, that's not for me. I experimented with a few different ways to keep the texture but cut out the fat, and this was my favorite. The cilantro and lime added a nice kick, but my conclusion is that I'm down with hard boiled eggs for breakfast but maybe deviled eggs can stay a party food.

Clean Crokpot Turkey Chili {with a kick}

HEY FALL!

Fall is here it's here it's here it's here! On Sunday I sat on the couch, nursing a Saturday Football Hangover (GO DAWGS!!), reading a book (Devil in the White City- great read, especially when it's a free e-book) with Andi wrapped in blankets with the windows open while chili cooked in the crock pot (which I got from Goodwill for $10- if you don't have access to Goodwill Amazon has great options for inexpensive crockpots here ). It smelled so delicious, tasted freaking amazing, and for like $15 could feed a small village). Here's the breakdown:

Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Helllllooooo buff chick!

Another great party food that takes zero time to make. I threw the chicken in the crockpot and ran a bunch of errands, cleaned the house, then put it onto lettuce and everyone was like "whoa this is great how do you find time to cook like this?!" Jokes on them! Sidenote-I used to work in a restaurant that had a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich and the abbreviation was "Buff Chick" which I always found hilarious. I told that story to everyone as we ate Buff Chick Wraps and no one else thought it was funny. Buff Chick? No one?! Really??

Click "read the whole post" for the ingredients and recipe

Savory Italian Turkey Meatballs

Mmmmmm look at those!!

I clearly have a thing for Italian food which I worried wouldn't be accommodated by clean eating. Boy was I wrong- there's a clean way to do everything! Here's my recipe for Clean Italian Meatballs. We ate these with my Clean {cauliflower} "Bread"sticks, and clean tomato sauce. This was really easy to throw together in a few minutes.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Servings: 5

CLEAN {cauliflower} "BREAD"STICKS

Ok did anyone else go to a college in a town with Gumby's: Home of the POKEY STICKS? Well thanks to late night pokey sticks (and a 24-hour dining hall, and penny drinks, and soft serve ice cream) I gained a solid 20 pounds in college. Thanks to clean eating and exercise I have kept those pounds off, but sometimes I get a craaaavvinnggg for pokey sticks. May I point out that this version is much less fattening/calorie-packed/carbed-out as well as much less expensive?

 So here's my pokey stick substitution:

CLEAN Cripsy {baked} Chicken Wings with Clean Blue Cheese Dip

Yeah yall, it happened. I found a way to make baked chicken wings that are every bit as crispy and delicious as their evil, fried twin. We had tons of leftovers, and since there isn't any oil in these, the texture stayed the same when we re-heated them. All week people who stopped in ate these delicious wings and couldn't believe that they are in fact very healthy. So take these to your tailgates and potlucks this fall because they. are. perfect.

Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 55 mins
Servings: 5 (makes 20 wings)

{click "read more" for the full recipe and directions}

Juicy Fall-Off-the-Bone Crockpot Chicken Wings

Fresh out of the oven with extra sauce. Yes please.

"Fall-off-the-bone is the opposite of what wings should be because wings should always be crispy. Except these. These are really good. I could really get down with these."

-BF's Wing Philosophy which I proved wrong this week in making my favorite kind of chicken which is fall-off-the-bone. I hate to say I'm always right, but if the shoe fits...

Anyway, football season is here so I'm experimenting with clean eating comfort and tailgate foods that won't have me gaining 15 lbs by the time bowl games roll around. The obvious place to start is wings, so to appease both of us I did a fall-off-the-bone wing and a crispy wing (posting soon). In reality even orthodox believers of the Crispy Wing Only Lifestyle will not be able to resist these wings. I only made 8 wings because I thought I would be the only one eating them, but this recipe is easy to double/tripe/quadruple. Also if you don't have a crockpot, get one. They are so great. I got mine at Goodwill 2 years ago for $8, best food investment I've ever made.