Black Bean Burritos February 29, 2012

Cheap, fast, easy and healthy. My favorite kind of dinner. Isn’t that everyone’s favorite kind of dinner?! That was exactly what I made tonight and Big Sister looooved it. In fact the child ate 4 of them.

Black Bean Burritos

2 cans black beans (drained and rinsed)

handful of fresh cilantro, torn

sprinkle of cayenne pepper

2 tsp cumin 

whole wheat tortillas

shredded cheddar cheese

plain Greek yogurt

all natural salsa

Mash the black beans gently with a whisk or potato masher. Mix in cilantro, cumin and cayenne. (I also added a couple splashes of chicken broth)

Put some bean mixture on a whole wheat tortilla. Top with a sprinkle of cheese, a little Greek yogurt and salsa. 

Place in microwave until heated through. 

Tah-Dah!

Chocolate Mousse Filled Decadence February 23, 2012

I firmly believe that any food with a hole in it should be filled with something. And any food that can can easily have a hole put into it should be have a hole and be filled.

And this filling should be chocolate. Thus became chocolate mousse filled fruit.

I just don’t know why I didn’t do it earlier. I am sure people across the world have been examining the hole in a raspberry and filling it with all kinds of delightful things for centuries. In fact someone somewhere probably has a board dedicated to it on Pinterest, I’m sure of it.

I think it was the combination of raspberries being on sale, my recent viewing on Pinterest (yes, I have an addiction, but you know you do too.) of someone making holes in strawberries with a straw and my desire to make Chocolate Covered Katie’s Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Mousse again that brought about my need to make this dessert. Whatever the reason dear friends, the outcome was fabulous.

Since I posted about this mousse I have been dying to make it again. I will seriously eat it on anything, homemade graham crackers, green apples, with some Greek yogurt mixed it….or ya know,straight from the blender… Big Sister can’t get enough of it either.

The whole 10 minutes “cook” time went like this.

I made the mousse like Katie tells me to and while it was in the fridge getting thick I put some shallow holes in my strawberries. Once that was done I put the mousse in my icing bag and filled the strawberries and raspberries. Tah dah!

And on a random stroke of genius I used a throw away cupcake container to store  the fruit so it could all stand up since it had to be transported. I love it when the genius happens.

It was yummy with the strawberries, but the mousse in the raspberries was to die for.

Here is your mission: Go fill something with something chocolate!

200 Calorie Yumminess- Baked Honey Apple February 20, 2012

Think simple. Think fast. Think yummy.

What do you get? This dessert apple, that’s what.

These were the apples before I put them into the oven. I couldn’t decide if I wanted red or green so I made both and split them with hubby.

(Side note: I must say that any food that has something dripping down it looks just that much more divine.)

So, are your ready for the easiest thing you will ever bake? Here we go.

• Core your favorite kind of apple
• Fill center with 2 tbsp chopped walnuts
• Drizzle with 2 tsp raw honey
• Sprinkle with shake of cinnamon (I took the pic before I went for the cinnamon)
• Put a little water in the bottom of the baking dish
• Bake @ 350 for 25 minutes

When the timer went off for mine I turned the oven off, opened the door and let them sit for about 10 minutes.

They are wonderful like this for 200 calories or maybe dip your bites into a little Greek yogurt mixed with some pure maple syrup.

Dang. Now I want to make another one.

 

A Few of My Favorite Things February 17, 2012

A question I get all the time when I talk about drinking Herbalife shakes a consistently is, “What if I don’t like it?” and “What if I get tired of it?”

Well, my answer to that is you won’t get tired of it as long as the creativity is flowing, my friend.

While the soy-based protein shakes offer a lot of flavors (like mint chocolate, wild berry, cookies n’ cream, etc), since I drink the whey-based protein the only flavors I get are chocolate and vanilla. That could get boring fast.

So, I buy the vanilla and get a little add crazy. Here are some of my favorite things to put in my shakes.

 

 

• Frozen or fresh fruit (the usual suspects: blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, peaches, etc)
• Plain Greek yogurt (sometimes I add a little pure maple syrup to the yogurt too)
• Raw oatmeal (don’t knock it till ya try it)
• Apple juice (I use my juicer)
• Orange juice (again with the juicer)
• Bananas (I add one to every shake I make no matter what it is. Just because I like the flavor and it seems to even out the vanilla flavor)
• Dark chocolate chips (you gotta get the good stuff)
• Dark Chocolate Brownie Batter Dip

Depending on the flavor you are going for spices can make for a yummy shake too. I use vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg a lot.

Extracts are good too. Try a little peppermint extract with the dark chocolate chips or the brownie batter dip. Or maybe some almond extract with the oatmeal and vanilla.

Seriously, just go with it.

 

 

The Envy of the Other Sweet Potatoes

Yesterday I was so excited all day about dinner, don’t you love days like that? I knew what was coming was going to be fantastic and I could not wait.Seriously, I was talking about it at work and texting it with my husband. 

Can you guess where I got this oh-so-fabulous recipe? That’s right. Chocolate Covered Katie.I heart her. 

She doesn’t post a lot of non-dessert recipes so when she said something was so good that she had to post it even though it wasn’t chocolate covered I knew I had to try it. And on top of that it’s a soup which is my favorite thing to have for dinner and lunch… and breakfast?

I got home from work and got to work on the Sweet Potato Chili. The first instructions in this recipe are  , “Combine all ingredients in on big pot”. Could there be any better start to a recipe? If I could search for recipes by their instructions that would be what I would type in the search bar. Combine all ingredients. Perfect.  

So, as you can tell this was crazy easy and the result was ridiculously wonderful, Even my husband, who does not get too excited when I cook him dinner without the manliness of meat liked it. 

I used vegetable broth with mine and I probably added a little more than directed because I like a little juice, so it was probably on the verge of both chili and soup, but whatever it was it was wonderful and is being added to the regular rotation.

Yay for Chocolate Covered Katie. And convenience. And healthy dinners.

Eat Mor Chikin…

Eat mor chikin protein!

This is my confession… I have an anti-protein style of eating. When I was pregnant with both of my girls all I heard my midwife say was, “You need more protein Chelsea”

“Chelsea how much protein have you had today?”

“Chelsea why haven’t you had more protein today?”

The short answer? I just don’t like it.

Why don’t I like it? I don’t know, but I am inclined to blame my mom who also has protein issues. Yep, I blame my mom.

After two years of never getting enough protein it was just recently that I started really learning about protein and finding creative ways to get it into my diet in ways other than just meat. The first and most important thing that made me want to find more ways to eat protein was when I learned that protein burns calories.

It. Burns. Calories.  What more could you want from your food?!

I snack on Greek yogurt, (seriously I put it in everything. Soup, smoothies, oatmeal, dip, baked potatoes and everything else. It is high in healthy sources of protein and its just yummy), pumpkin seeds, Gouda cheese, avocados, homemade granola bars and anything else I can put natural peanut butter, nuts, seeds and yogurt in like muffins and oatmeal.

Still working on finding new protein rich snacks to add to my list, but having the Herbalife protein shakes and protein beverages has made a huge huge difference in my protein intake and weight loss and my ability to have protein on the go.

Hooray for convenience.

Chocolate Covered Yumminess February 16, 2012

I made dark chocolate covered strawberries for Big Sister and Daddy for Valentine’s day yesterday and as I’m making them I began to wonder….”When did chocolate covered strawberries take the majority on romantic Valentine’s desserts?” So I decided to Google it (because yes, that is my answer to everything).

I found some extremely interesting facts about this awesome dessert that I never would have guessed.

So, this morning when I was experimenting with my shake I was looking through my fridge for something interesting and found left over chocolate covered strawberries, in the shake they went.

It was fantastic.

I put a banana in every shake I make, just because I like the nanners, and then a couple of the strawberries and it turned into this slightly strawberry, slightly chocolate, sweet numminess of a drink. And as a bonus the little pieces of chocolate gathered at the bottom for a chocolaty surprise at the end of my drink.

Yep, it was a good day.

AND I have to ask. When dipping strawberries and you run out of strawberries, but still have chocolate do you scour the kitchen for other fun things to dip so you don’t waste the chocolate?!

Oh, I do.

My Awesome Skinny Friend

For three years Serena was the children’s pastor at Bear Valley Church where I teach preschool. She is the one who got me started on Herbalife products and I thought I would share her story.

Last year I had reached an all time high in my personal weight and decided I needed to change my habits before things got even more out of hand because the scale kept going up and I was outgrowing everything in my closet!  I did what any reasonable person would do and I decided to join a gym for the first time in my life and got serious about my fitness thinking that would solve my weight problem.  But despite my efforts, 5-6 days in the gym each week for 1-2 hours a day, nothing significant had happened.  A pound lost here and there but then the weight would fluctuate back and forth with little progress.   I was pretty frustrated to say the least!  I worked out with 2 different trainers and even had them tell me that I was within my calorie range for weight loss. The problem was my nutrition, so I started on Herbalife products to help me balance my nutrition.   I kept the same calorie intake as before and got more results in 10 weeks than I had in 10 months prior.  I lost a total of 27lbs, five inches in my waist alone and got back into a size 2 which I never thought would happen and to top it all off I have the muscle tone I have always wanted and no more cellulite thanks to two of my favorite products, Aminogen & Cell-u-loss.  I never thought after having 2 kids I would be able to be high school skinny again, but I reached my goals before going to my 10 year class reunion this past summer!  And the best part is I have tons of energy to keep up with my kids and I feel incredible every day!  For those who want to lose a little, a lot or are hitting the gym wanting those Level 10 results, you have to fuel your body with good nutrition.  If anyone is skeptical, just try it for a month and see what happens, you just might be in for an amazing surprise!

Shakin’ success and the almighty juice cup February 12, 2012

For my shake this morning I went for the blueberry muffin recipe and may I just say, oh. my. goodness. My husband’s exact words were, “Wow.” Yea that’s right, be jealous.

The beautiful thing is Big Sister even liked it! She had been tasting my shakes for a couple days, but after taking one sip she usually gave the cup back and went on her way. This morning though she took my cup and ran away. Now get the nice mental image going in your head because what happened next was Momma chasing Big Sister through the house saying, “Mine! Give it back!” (Too many years at the preschool maybe?)

Well I did get my cup back and gave her some in her own cup. The wonderful thing about this is that usually when she likes something in my cup, once it is transferred to her own not-as-cool-as-momma’s-cup-cup she loses all interest, but she continued to drink the shake even in a cup that wasn’t mine.

AND she handed me her juice cup in return. Now you have to understand the rule of the juice cup in our house. Big Sister must have her cup while playing, eating, sitting on the potty, riding in the car, watching a movie,  getting dressed, taking a bath, cleaning up, going down the slide… get the point? So, when she took my shake cup and gave me her juice cup (which the child does not give up easily, just as her preschool teachers) I could see the heavens parting and hear the angels singing, “Big Sister willingly gave up her juice cup. Ooooh oooh ooooh”

Awesome.

You know it really is the small things in life.

Do you like brownies? How about batter? And dip? Um..yes please!

My favorite website came in quite handy when I was asked to make something sweet for our family super bowl party last week and I am thinking about it now because I am totally craving it again. I went straight to CCK to search through all her genius for the party and found Chocolate Chip Cookies and Brownie Batter Dip.

She writes a lot about how no one ever knows the things she brings to parties are healthy and I just had a hard time believing that so I had to try it myself. And whaduya know, everyone loved it! I mean really, how do you go wrong with chocolate chip cookies dipped in chocolate brownie batter dip?!

I followed the recipe for the cookies as written, except I added a little bit of water because my dough turned out a little crumbly. But with the brownie dip I omitted the sugar and melted dark chocolate chips to blend into it instead. Oh it was yuuumy.

Leftover Brownie Batter Snack:

So, we had some dip left over and of course I could just eat it straight out of the bowl, but I decided to mix it up a little. I added Greek yogurt to it and it became like this chocolate pudding/yogurt/mousse snack that I ate by itself, with apples and with homemade graham crackers.

Greek yogurt, how I love thee.