Smashed Partatoes

Soooo what we initially paired this with last night for dinner, honestly, wasn't really a good combo. And it's not because anything I made didn't taste good. I just think that the flavors involved in this and the flavors of the crab cakes and shrimp we made last night were clashing. But I paired this recipe with today with my Sweet Baby Ray's Burgers (see previous post), and what a combo!

I know you're probably like,"This dumbass misspelled potatoes, what an idiot!" Yeah, I totally didn't. I mean, potatoes obviously isn't spelled like that but for what's in this recipe, the spelling is fitting and correct. Parsnips + Potatoes= Partatoes. The combo of the two is actually really good and love the aroma of parsnips as they're cooking. And even if you've never had parsnips before, the flavors of EVERYTHING else that's involved in the recipe, including the potatoes, covers up the taste of them. Just in case you were worried about not liking the way they taste.

I used Yukon Gold potatoes for this because they're softer, so they cook faster, and I like the darker yellow color they have. Parsnips are softer too so they cook in the same amount of time as the potatoes. Ready Freddy?

Smashed Partatoes

3 medium Yukon Gold Potatoes, unpeeled

4 large organic parsnips, peeled

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp onion powder

Sea salt and pepper to taste

After peeling the parsnips and NOT peeling the potatoes, chop them up into large chunks. Takes less time to cook. Boil the partato combo on high for approximately 30-40 mins or until soft and easy to split with a fork. Drain partatoes and throw them back in the empty pot. Smash them up a little with a potato masher, then add the remaining ingredients. Depending on how smooth you like your partatoes. I like mine lumpy. After you've reached the desired lumpiness, mix with a spoon to ensure all the seasonings and butter spread evenly throughout.

Notice I didn't use any milk? That's ANOTHER great reason to use the Yukon Gold. Since they're softer, they're more moist as well. So no need for the milk, and the extra calories.

If you wanted to use fresh garlic, that would be a great idea. Hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Thanks for being healthy!

Sweet Baby Ray's Burgers

So I just made these and they're AHMAZING!!! This is actually totally my own recipe and not one I tweaked, like I usually do. This is actually the first time I've used the 95% lean grass fed ground beef, and it definitely will not be the last! It tastes so much better and cleaner! I'm in love ::sigh::

I really love cooking on my days off. I just like to look in my spice cabinet, look in the freezer, look back in the spice cabinet, look in the fridge and then I decide what I'm cooking and what's going in it. This method generally works out well, in case you were wondering. This method worked out very well for this recipe as well.

I'm really not a fan of consuming things with HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) in it (mostly because my brother is allergic to corn), for obvious reasons, but I love me some Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce. I can't help it. It's delicious. And its so good that I'm afraid to try an all natural brand with no HFCS in it and then it's gonna suck and I'll just end up pissed. So, after much thought. It's decided. I'm sticking with the Ray's. I found 1 burger to be plenty when I ate these, but that may be because I ate it with my Smashed Partatoes (that's the next recipe btw), so everything was quite filling. Let's get this party started:

Sweet Baby Ray's Burgers

1lb 95% lean grass fed ground beef

1/4 cup of Sweet Baby Ray's Original BBQ sauce

2 tbsp minced garlic

1/4 cup minced onions

Pinch of black pepper (eyeball it)

Pinch of Borsari seasoned salt (again, eyeball it)

In a medium bowl add all the ingredients, including the beef, and mix throughly. I used my hand to mix it, it just works better. I actually put this back in the fridge for like 2 hours, only because I made this mixture ahead of time and wasn't ready to cook it yet. But there's no reason why you can't cook these immediately after combining everything.

Form patties to the size of your liking. I made decent sized patties, so 1 lb yielded 4 burgers. I cooked these stove top, cuz I'm afraid of using the grill (long story). But I'm sure they'd be sooooo much better on the grill. I cooked these about 7 minutes on each side total, over medium heat. I turned them a few times so as to brown evenly. You can cook them less or more depending on your desired "doneness."

Did I mention these came out amazing?!? Seriously though. Amazing. I also fried some plantains to eat with this. I did put about 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil in the pan for the burgers, but no oil for the plantains. You really don't necessarily need it if you have a good non-stick pan.

I hope you enjoy these as much as we did!! Thanks for being healthy!!

Pumpkin Spice Banana Muffins

Yet again, another recipe I took off Pinterest, but didn't really like some of the ingredients, so I jazzed it up!! These are easy and yummy for anytime. Another gluten free and dairy recipe, for all my friends and family members that cannot eat those things. Which is why I post so many gluten and dairy free recipes. Plus, I like not feeling all bloated and stuff after eating gluten ;-) Here we go!

Pumpkin Spice Banana Muffins

1/2 cup almond flour/meal

1/4 tsp baking SODA (not powder)

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp pumpkin spice seasoning

6 packets of Stevia

4 eggs

1/3 cup almond milk

1 banana

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin tin or use paper muffin cups to line pan. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a bowl first. In a food processor or blender, blend eggs, milk and banana. Blend well. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix well. Fill muffin cups approximately 3/4 full and bake for 20-25 mins.

This should yield 12 muffins. Now, the muffin pan I have has slightly larger cups so this recipe yielded 9 muffins for me. Either way, they're YUMMY! And at only 81 calories a serving, eat 'em up!! Ohh these would be super yummy with a scoop of almond milk ice cream on top or a spread of some raspberry preserves (seedless, of course). Add whatever you'd like to them and thanks for being healthy!

Breakfast Cookies

These are so YUMMMYYYY!!! And you can eat them for breakfast!! What's better than cookies for breakfast?! These are super hearty and are basically like eating your morning bowl of oatmeal, but in cookie form that you can just grab and go. You can play with these a little by adding in nuts, or different fruits. You can add the protein, or not. It's up to you. I have made these with and without the protein and they taste great either way, honestly. So, here we go:

Breakfast Cookies

3 ripe bananas, mashed

2 cups of rolled oats

1/3 cup of unsweetened apple sauce

1/4 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk

1 tsp of vanilla extract

1 tsp of cinnamon

1/2 cup of Craisins

1/4 cup of nuts (sliced almonds, chopped walnuts, etc.), optional

1 scoop of protein powder (optional)

After mashing the bananas, add the remaining ingredients into the bowl with the bananas and mix. Let sit for about 5 minutes to allow the oats to soak up the liquid. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spoon cookie mixture onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. 

Now, these are not your typical cookies. They will be soft, and a little rubbery, to be honest, because there is no flour and they're very moist. If you don't like Craisins, you can do raisins instead. Also, if you decide to add 1 scoop of protein powder, then you need to double to amount of almond milk to 1/2 cup. Also, you can add some Stevia, Truvia, or Splenda to sweeten it. I really don't think it needs it though, but it's up to you. These are so good in the morning and you can just throw it in the microwave for about 20 seconds and you're good to go. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do. Thanks for being healthy!  

Rosemary Lemon Chicken Kabob

I COMPLETELY forgot about this recipe I made one night. And it was so good too! Super easy to make (as usual) and full of flavor! I love the flavor of the lemon with the rosemary and the chicken. Super light as well ;) Let's get to it!

Rosemary Lemon Chicken Kabob

4 boneless skinless chicken breast (I really don't use anything else)

1/4 cup of lemon juice

2 TBSP of extra virgin olive oil

2 pinches of dried rosemary or fresh

2 gloves of minced garlic

Dash of black pepper

Dash of Borsari Seasoned Salt (or sea salt is fine too)

Skewers

Onions and bell peppers, chopped into chunks 

Mix all the ingredients, except the chicken, in a bowel. You may want to use a whisk so the oil and lemon juice blend completely. Cut the chicken into chunks and toss in the lemon juice mixture. You can also toss the veggies in the marinade as well, if you want. Place chicken and veggies on skewers, in whatever fashion you desire and grill. If you have some pineapple, you can slice that and grill that too. It's really good grilled. It brings out the sweetness! I didn't eat any sides with this one, BUT this would pair well with a salad or maybe some sauteed green beans. Either way, it's yummy! I hope you guys enjoy this as much as we did. Thanks for being healthy!

Healthy Snacks & Desserts

Now for the good stuff!! I get bored easily with food and really try not to eat the same thing all the time, so I take great pleasure in finding new and different HEALTHY snacks. I'm not really a sweets person either but every now and then, I gotta have something. And short of driving over to Menchie's or any other self-serve frozen yogurt place, I like eating my own sweets that are better for me. We'll start with the snacks!

I love me some potato chips! But regular potato chips are way to fattening and greasy. So my go-to chips for snacking are the Kettle brand Baked Chips. They still have that awesome kettle cooked crunch, but without all the grease and not nearly all the fat. And for 120 calories for 20 chips, I'll take it! All the flavors are good, but the Salt and Vinegar and the Barbeque are my faves!! Check out all their baked flavors: http://www.kettlebrand.com/our_products/baked_chips/?pid=19#/our_products/baked_chips/?pid=19. You can get them at Whole Foods and Target. Haven't seen them in Publix, sorry.

Another food I like to snack on is rice cakes! But not the flavorful kind. I like the plain jane, salt free rice cakes. But not by themselves (cuz that's really not appetizing), I like to lather them bad boys up with some all natural peanut butter or (my favorite) Dark Chocolate Almond Butter! Publix makes their own peanut butter. Also, you can make your own peanut and almond butter at Whole Foods and Fresh Market. And if you keep them refrigerated, the oil doesn't separate, by the way. I really love the almond butter and it's super smooth. It's also great paired with apples. Just an FYI, all natural peanut butter, or almond butter, should really only have 1-2 ingredients in it. And the first one should be peanuts or almonds. There shouldn't be sugar in it. That's not all natural. Peanut butter should be just mashed up peanuts. Keep that in mind.

A new snack that you can make at home is roasted chickpeas. Found the recipe on Pinterest (of course) and its super simple.

Roasted Chickpeas

2 cans of low sodium chickpeas

1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon (or whatever seasoning you'd like)

2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rinse the chickpeas well and place them on paper towel lined cookie sheet and dry them thoroughly. Once dried, place them in a bowel and add the olive oil and cinnamon (or whatever seasoning you want). Toss them chickpeas to thoroughly coat. Once coated place them on a cookie sheet in a single layer and bake for 45 mins. Stirring once. Now, if you're gonna use a spicy seasoning, you're probably not gonna want to use 1 1/2 tsp, unless you want it extra spicy. These are awesome because they're nice and crunchy and chickpeas are LOADED with fiber! 1/2 cup is a serving, so eat 'em up!

Now for the sweets! I'm not a huge fan of cookies, but I really love these:

They're gluten free, dairy free, AND nut free. But they aren't flavor free ;) These cookies are crunchy but they taste delicious. Totally not what you'd expect from something gluten free. They also come in sugar and chocolate chip flavors. Again, I get these at Whole Foods. Not sure if they sell them at Publix, cuz I've never checked. But they're awesome, nonetheless. They were created by a doctor. Check out the website for other locations to buy them: http://www.drlucys.com/.

As far as ice cream goes, I recently fell in love with almond milk ice cream. The So Delicious brand is AMAZING! They also make these little ice cream sandwiches that are only 90 calories and they're just the perfect amount of junk food.

This is great because it's dairy free for all those lactose intolerant peeps out there. It's also soy free for those that stay away from that as well. Plus, almonds pack all those good fats. You can't burn the bad fat without the good fats folks! I hope you enjoy these snacks and desserts as much as I do. There are tons more out there, but these are my faves. All you have to do is look. Thanks for snacking healthy!
 

Balsamic Chickpea Salad

I know it's been a while but I finally had the time to add this one! Made this one while on vacation a couple weeks ago and my brother Ty loved it! This salad is loaded with fiber and best served chilled. Plus, it's got a nice little kick to it!

Balsamic Chickpea Salad

1 can of low sodium chickpea's

1/2 of a seedless cucumber, skinned and cut into cubes

1/2 of an orange bell pepper, cut into cubes

5 grape tomatoes, sliced and seeded

1/8 cup of extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp of rice wine vinegar

1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar

1/4 tsp of cumin

1/8 tsp of cayenne pepper

 

After cutting the bell peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes, place everything in a bowl, including the seasonings, olive oil, chickpea's and vinegar's, and stir. This is good served immediately, but it's better served after being chilled for an hour or two. 

Now, you don't have to use an orange bell pepper, you can use whatever color bell pepper you have or want, but it gives the salad a nice color. I just like this because of all the fiber from the chickpeas! Plus, there's some protein in there too! Hope you guys enjoy this as much as my brother and I did! Thanks for being healthy!