Shrimp vermicelli bowl

Tonight we made an interesting dish that was quite yummy! It was a Cooksmarts recipe that was good but left me a little hungry unfortunately.

The sweet and sour sauce recipe was not the best so I won't post it, but I would recommend just using a store-bought sweet and sour sauce or even a teriyaki sauce.

The best part of this meal was all the organic veggies! I chopped romaine, shredded carrots, sliced mint, and julienned cucumbers. 

While I chopped the veggies, I boiled the vermicelli rice noodles.

Then I sautéed the shrimp in grape seed oil (which I prefer over olive oil).

And finally, I threw it all in a bowl, and poured some of the sweet and sour sauce (as well as teriyaki sauce) on top. Like I said, though this meal was good, it was just not as filling as I'd hoped. Next time I would make it with some focaccia bread or rolls or something. Happy Monday!

Kale broccoli stir-fry: My go-to

Lately I have had a bit of an addiction. Luckily, it's a healthy one! For the last month and a half I have been eating copious amounts of kale, broccoli, onion and garlic, usually in the form of a stir-fry. Every week, usually on a Wednesday, I make this dish. I'd probably make it even more but I don't think my husband would appreciate that. He's not the biggest kale fan.

Kale Broccoli Stir-fry

1 bunch organic kale, chopped

1-2 heads organic broccoli, chopped 

1 medium onion

4 cloves garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

*With kale, I usually discard about 3 inches of the stalk because those stem parts are a little too thick and hard to chew in my opinion.

I simply heat olive oil in a pan, then sauté onion and garlic. I personally like to burn the onions a bit (it makes them taste sweet and caramelized). Then I add the broccoli and sauté it for about 4 minutes, and then I add the kale and sauté all of it for about 5-7 more minutes on medium heat. This is such a healthy, nutrient-packed dinner!

I usually serve the veggies over organic brown rice or quinoa. Tonight I chose to serve it over organic royal red quinoa. Royal red quinoa is so amazing! If you haven't tried it, you're missing out!

The wine is a Trader Joe's Merlot. It was decent considering it was only about $5 but I probably won't buy it again. Looking forward to next Wednesday already!

Salad, etc.

Sometimes you just have to take whatever you have in the fridge, throw it over some greens, and call it a salad. 

I used a random assortment of greens including spinach, romaine, cilantro, arugula and chard as the base. Then I added cucumber, royal red quinoa, Mediterranean hummus, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Though it was random, it sure was delicious!

A fresh baked loaf of organic sourdough bread is always a nice addition to a salad.

Dinner is served.

And since my baby is asleep and my husband is at work this evening, I get to relax, eat my dinner on the couch, and watch a few episodes of Chuck. Ahhhh....

Veggie sandwich

Sometimes you just feel like eating a sandwich. Most people think of a sandwich as a bread, meat, cheese, mayo and mustard meal but not me. My perfect refreshing, crisp sandwich is vegetarian of course, and consists of all organic veggies with a slice of organic cheese, all between two pieces of stone ground whole wheat bread.

Instead of mayo and mustard, I spread a thick layer of Mediterranean hummus from Trader Joes on both slices of bread. Then I add romaine lettuce, tomato, avocado, cucumber, and last but not least, a slice of organic sharp cheddar cheese. You can really use whatever veggies you have in the fridge. Sometimes I add bell pepper or spinach as well. A simple, yet perfect lunch :)

All this talk of veggies makes me excited to plant my vegetable garden in a few weeks! I'll make sure to share those posts! 

Vanilla banana espresso "ice cream"

I am desperately trying to stay away from sugar. It has always given me a headache but for some reason I continue to eat it. Eliminating sugar from your diet is quite the challenge but I have to say that I feel a million times more energized and healthy when I leave it out of my diet. Plus, after not eating sugar for about 3 weeks or so, it gets much easier. The cravings get less and less significant. Now my taste buds think fruit is the sweetest thing ever!

So, one night I decided to make vanilla espresso banana "ice cream," without all the nasty sugar and junk.

My recipe was so simple and DELICIOUS!

Vanilla Espresso Banana "Ice Cream"

4 Frozen organic bananas

1 c. Almond milk (you can add more depending on your preferred consistency)

2 T. Vanilla espresso almond butter

1/4 t. Vanilla extract

This Wild Friends almond butter is incredible! I chose the vanilla espresso almond butter because it sounded amazing (me being the coffee lover that I am), and it proved to be wonderful.

I puréed all the ingredients in our Ninja blender on high for about 1minute. The ice cream turned out so smooth and way better than "normal" ice cream. Plus it's such a healthy alternative.

Now I can't imagine having ice cream any other way...

Artichoke pesto fish en Papillote

One of my favorite foods is an artichoke, so when I saw a recipe on Cooksmarts for Tilapia en Papillote with artichoke pesto, I was all over it. We used Wild Caught Hake for our fish because my husband and I are not big fans of tilapia.

The artichoke pesto was made with 4 cups organic spinach, 1 can artichoke hearts, 1/4 cup pine nuts, 5 cloves garlic and 1/2 cup olive oil. Plus salt and pepper to taste. All blended in the handy food processor.

I lathered the artichoke pesto on the fish, topped it with sliced lemons, and put them on parchment paper. Notice the parchment paper is cut into a heart shape.

The heart shape allows the fish to easily be pinched and folded, to keep all the goodness inside with the fish.

I made three pieces of fish because we had a guest. These went in the oven at 425 degrees for about 25 minutes.

I decided to make a garlic herb quinoa/ brown rice on the side. I also made steamed cauliflower and mixed some leftover artichoke pesto in with it. It turned out so yummy!

The fish was perfectly moist and the artichoke pesto on top was incredible! This dinner was definitely a hit!

Vegetable lentil soup with a side of guitar

I love lentils and therefore I'm a big fan of lentil soup. This recipe was super easy and yummy.

Lentil soup
3/4 c. dried lentils
4 organic single celery stocks, chopped
3/4 lb. organic carrots, chopped
1 white onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, diced
2 T. olive oil
1tsp. thyme
3 c. organic veggie broth

Make sure to soak the lentils in water over night so you won't have to cook the soup as long.

In a medium pot, sauté the garlic in olive oil for about 1 minute, then add the onions, celery, and carrots. Sauté for 5 minutes. 

Then add lentils, thyme, and broth. Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to medium for 15-20 minutes, uncovered. 

This soup was surprisingly extremely flavorful and much better than most lentil soups I have had.

Our one-year old helped daddy sing and play the guitar while mommy made dinner :)

 

Stir-fry and Ticket to Ride

With all the many things to do in one day; work, laundry, picking up after your toddler, it is stressful when the clock reaches 5pm and you have no idea what you're going to make your family for dinner. I also had a difficult time at the grocery store because I was never sure what I was making for dinners during the week, and often over-shopped, which wasted a lot of food by the end of the week. Now, I use Cooksmarts (a meal planning service) to organize my dinner meals 4 days a week. I love having a plan for meals ahead of time, and having a prepared grocery list. Below is a meal from this week's menu that turned out pretty great!

We made a delicious tofu noodle stir-fry! It has garlic, tomatoes, tofu, spinach and baby bok choy in it. The sauce the recipe called for was a soy sauce, brown sugar, cornstarch mixture. After I mixed in the sauce with the stir-fry though, it was just a little too bland. So I spruced it up a bit.

I added a little extra soy sauce and Szechuan hot sauce to bring out more of the flavors. It definitely did the trick!

Then my husband and I played one of our favorite board games, Ticket to Ride, with a friend of ours. Somehow, the boys often win this game, but I'm determined to win one of these days!

The never sleeper

Just when you think you're getting a hold of your baby's eating habits, likes/dislikes, and sleeping/nap schedule, something happens....they suddenly change everything! Our one year old boy has decided he just doesn't have time for naps anymore. He is obviously exhausted, yet somehow he keeps himself awake by walking around his crib and tossing any stuffed animals or blankets he has, over the side onto the floor.

Sometimes he eventually falls asleep after pure exhaustion. Other times, I just give in and go up to rescue him ;) The red lights at the top of the monitor means he is yelling hehe poor baby

And pure exhaustion it is! Phew! Now I have an hour to relax/get house chores done.

With this kind of chilly morning, something warm is definitely a necessity.

Ahhh Saturday morning coffee...

A simple, filling breakfast of granola, honey peanut butter, sliced bananas and almond milk.

Pizza pizza

Making pizzas is quite the norm at our house. We often do a chicken-less BBQ or a magherita style pizza but tonight was different. We did a semi-Turkish style pizza inspired by Cooksmarts.

The crust is a garlic herb dough from Trader Joes that was delicious!

We topped it with Mediterranean hummus, feta cheese, sliced olives, shallots and just for fun we added...

Some chopped parsley :)

There's no way we could stop at just one!

Fish fish hurray

There's nothing like a complete meal of baked salmon, sautéed brussel sprouts and fresh sourdough bread.

Seasoned salmon baked at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.

Yum!

Sautéed brussel sprouts seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder. 

Sourdough bread is my husbands favorite! He often has a little sourdough bread with his butter ;)

The Remedy

Being out of town last week for business was exhausting. It's difficult to get out of your normal routine of working out and eating healthy, and trading it in for a week of long work days, very late nights, and trying to pick the most healthy item on the menu of a burger joint. Needless to say, it is SO great to be home! I have felt more tired than usual so I am doing my best to remedy that! This weekend was a weekend of juicing, vitamins, salads, sautéed veggies, and healthy soups!

This morning, I started with freshly juiced veggies and fruit! 

A new Trader Joes opened near us on Valentines Day so we went shopping this weekend. I love TJs. We bought lots of yummy organic veggies to juice!

Love love love.

Freshly juiced veggies and fruits always look like a science experiment gone wrong hehe

Oh so good!! All those delicious vitamins and nutrients all packed freshly into one glass! My energy should be back in no time.

Cream cheese mint party favors

Gosh it's so time consuming planning a one year old's birthday party! My husband and I made cream cheese mints for party favors. We were trying to come up with a party favor that would be inexpensive yet thoughtful, and I think we nailed it with these mints. However, like I said, it was a bit time consuming! We waited until we put our son to sleep for the evening and then spent until about 10pm creating these delightful treats!

We used this quick and easy recipe:

Cream cheese mints

3 oz cream cheese

1 1/2 c. powdered sugar 

1/4 t. peppermint extract

Soften cream cheese. In a medium bowl, mix the cream cheese with peppermint oil. Add in the food coloring of your choice and mix well. Next add powdered sugar. Mix with a hand mixer. Spoon mixture into a cake decorating bag and use whatever metal tip you would like! We used the flower-looking tip for our mints. 

*If it is too difficult to push the mixture through the tip, either use a bigger tip, or remove the mixture from the bag and add more cream cheese to the mixture.

We reused baby food jars and put our mints in them to use as party favors for our guests.

I wanted the mints to be a more royal blue instead of a sky blue, but I guess royal blue mints might not look as tasty, so the sky blue worked perfectly!

I then tied burlap over the top of the jars and tied on a favor tag. 

I used the same tags for the favors as I used for the invitations to tie in the theme. 

My iPad doesn't always take the clearest pictures unfortunately :(

I put a chalkboard label on the front of each jar which added that extra touch. Can't wait to give them out at my son's birthday party!

The art of juicing

I LOVE juicing! After I have a fresh glass of organic juiced veggies and fruits I feel like a million bucks. It's amazing that you get all the vitamins and nutritional benefits of ALL those veggies/fruits in one yummy glass of juice. I mean, who wants to sit down and just munch on a half bunch of kale, 4 carrots, and a half bunch of celery? But when you juice it all, it's as if you did devour all those healthy veggies in one sitting!

The rule of thumb with juicing is most often a 3:1 ratio of vegetables to fruits (i.e. 3 parts veggies to 1 part fruit). Depending on your adventure level and palette, you can switch up that ratio however you'd like. Just don't juice all fruits! That would be too much sugar and you miss out on so much nutrition.

For today's juicing recipe, I did a half bunch of kale, about 11/2 cups carrots (I usually don't use baby carrots but my time was limited), a half bunch of celery, one orange, and one apple. All organic of course! It's important to buy organic, especially when juicing so you don't get a glass full of nasty pesticides. Make sure to wash all your veggies and fruits really well, preferably with a fruit/veggie wash if possible, and rinse well!

I use either of these veggie/fruit washes and they do a great job.

There are SO many juicers to choose from but I definitely prefer this one- The Breville Juice Fountain Plus. It's very effective, easy to use, easy to wash and clean (most parts are dishwasher safe), and reasonably priced at about $150. Go to Bed Bath and Beyond with a 20% off coupon and it's an even better deal. 

As you can see, I use a leftover veggie bag from the grocery store and place it in the waste container of my juicer, so that I don't even have to clean that messy part! I take the bag out, throw it away and bam, easy clean up! You can also use the discarded parts from juicing for a soup or veggie stock, depending on what you juice.

Yummy yummy healthy, freshly juiced organic vegetables and fruits!!