Quinoa Banana Nut Pancakes

I've been trying some healthy recipes lately, and this one is so unique, I had to share it! 

I adapted this recipe from Self Magazine's Drop 10 diet.  I've been getting a lot of great recipes from there lately. 

Quinoa Banana Nut Pancakes (Serves 2)

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked Quinoa
2 egg whites
1 whole egg
2 T brown sugar
1/2 t vanilla
1/2 banana
Handful chopped walnuts

Directions:
Wisk the Quinoa, Eggs, brown sugar and vanilla together.  Add the sliced banana and chopped walnuts and stir.
Cook on a griddle about 3 minutes on each side.  These babies are FRAGILE, but as with any pancake, meat or egg, it starts to release a little when it's ready to be flipped.

A few notes...

When planning to blog a pancake recipe before ever trying it, make sure to make at least 2 batches...  This is what the first one will look like.

Set your griddle to "fish pancakes" setting.  Wait, what?  EW! 

Serve this with some eggs scrambled with onions and peppers and a little cheese.  

On another note, look at this awesome quickie lunch I made today...  Roasted veggie pizza.

I roasted all the veggies the other day, so I can use them for anything and everything all week.  I just took a tortilla, topped it with some pizza sauce, the veggies and some mozzarella cheese.  Baked it on my pizza stone and there it is. 

Delish. 

Sweet Potato Lentil Burritos

Don't know if you're a magazine junky like I am, but I'm always excited to get one of my new mags in the mail, and I troll their websites for great meal ideas. 

A lot of the time I find complicated recipes to make with lots of ingredients, but lately I've just been looking for something easy and delicious to fill my belly. 

So Friday, when I was looking for some recipes before going grocery shopping, I found the "Drop 10" Challenge on Self Magazine's website. 

There were a ton of easy recipes for every meal, and I copied down at least 10 of them. 

One recipe I was super excited about was the Bueno Burritos.  So I adapted them to my currently-simple life. 

Ingredients:
1 sweet potato, peeled and diced
1/4 cup chopped onions
1 cup cooked lentils
Mrs. Dash Fiesta Lime Seasoning
4 tortillas
Greek Yogurt, shredded cheese, salsa as garnish

Sautee the sweet potatoes and onions in some olive oil until tender.   Sprinkle with Fiesta Lime Seasoning.
Smash the sweet potatoes up, layer some greek yogurt, cheese, the sweet potatoes and lentils on a tortilla and wrap it up like a yummy burrito.  

I used my Foreman Grill to finish it off with some grill marks to crisp it up. 

Yeah, my pics are bad...  Meh.

NOW EAT IT!

Yum. 

Creamy Taco Soup

I have been away from blogger for a while, but this recipe, and the next one I'm going to post, convinced me to come back.  They are SO STINKIN' GOOD, I had to share them. 

Having already emailed the recipe for this soup to my girl, Autumn because I figured her and her hubs would love this rich-tasting, low-cal twist on a cream-based soup, I had to share it with the rest of yous. 

I got the recipe from Pinterest, and it's directly from Muscle Fitness Hers (find the link here).

I followed it pretty closely, with a few changes.  And for me, it served 4 as a main course.  Maybe 7 as a soup/salad combo

Doesn't it look creamy????

"Creamy" Chicken Taco Soup

3/4 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1 15-oz can 50% less sodium white beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-oz can diced tomatoes with lime and green chiles
1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 cup frozen or fresh corn
1 1/2 pounds shredded precooked chicken breast
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tbsp fresh oregano, chopped
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp Mrs. Dash Fiesta Lime Seasoning Blend
1/ Place 1/2 cup broth and white beans in a blender and puree. Add yogurt and blend again. Pour liquid into slow cooker.
2/ Add remaining ingredients and stir well.
3/ Cover and cook on high for 2 hours or on low for 4-5 hours.
Note: Be sure to rinse and drain black beans and chicken well before adding to slow cooker.

This turned out to be kinda spicy! I have no idea where the spice came from, but I'm not mad atcha. 

Another note, this took me 10 minutes to throw together in the crock pot.  If the chicken is already made, it's a cinch. 

Hey Sugar

I've been recording my cals and exercise on myfitnesspal.com the last year or so, and even though I mostly stay within my cals for the day, there are also those days where I eat like Micheal Phelps and workout like an overweight cat. 

So I decided to take a closer look at how my calories break down, and there was one big red number staring me in the face daily.  That number was the amount I went OVER on my allotted sugar intake. 

I can stay within my goals for calories and fat with simple portion control, but that darn sugar just creeps up on you!  175 cals and 2 grams of fat for a yogurt parfait sounds like the best option at McDonalds... But it has 25 of my allotted 37 grams of sugar!  That's about 6 teaspoons of straight-up sugar. 

Now, I'm not hating on sugar that occurs naturally in fruits, I'd happily disregard the 1-2 grams of sugar that naturally occurred in the 2 strawberries in my parfait, and the scant amount that was in the milk before they caramelized yogurt-afied it.  

So, enough about my fast food breakfast craving... Here is a list of food on the "Sugar Busters Diet" that I found on WebMD. 

The Sugar Busters! diet advises you to eat:
Meats, including:

• Lean beef and pork
• Canadian bacon
• Poultry
• Game meats, such as venison
• Fish and shellfish

Vegetables, including:

• Beans
• Lentils
• Peas
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Squash
• Zucchini
• Mushrooms
• Asparagus
• Artichokes
• Cabbage
• Celery
• Cucumbers
• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Eggplant
• Onions

Fruits, including:

• Apples
• Lemons and limes
• Pears
• Cherries
• Raspberries
• Kiwis
• Grapefruits
• Apricots
• Melons other than watermelon
• Tomatoes
• Tangerines and oranges

Now, I'm not touting the sugar busters diet... They make some weird claims I can't really get behind.  But I do agree that limiting sugar in a sweet-obsessed country could do some damage to the obesity rate, and I'm willing to keep my eyes open for sneaky hidden sugars and delicious naturally low-sugar foods. 

Topping this list are some of my FAVORITE foods...  Artichokes, Eggplant, Brussels sprouts, lentils, BEEF!!!  And I am excited to work some of these fruits into my current juicing obsession.  Kiwi-cherry juice?  Gimme Gimme!

If nothing else, I hope this list gives you some fun ideas for the next grocery trip and while you're there, turn over that box of food you're about to put in your cart and check that little sugar number.  You might be surprised. 

Juicing is Fun

They say you become the 5 people you spend the most time with....

So I figure I will become,
1. Arnold (my bf)
2. Courtney (my boss)
3. My mom
4. My dad
5. Kizzy (The girl at the front desk of the Y)

I've already started saying things that Arnold says, like TRU and verbatim... 

My mom and I always end up with the same clothes.

I have a ton in common with my Dad, we both like motorcycles and Jeeps and carbs...

Not sure what I have in common with Kizzy, other than we are always at the gym.

And finally, Courtney.  She is an uber healthy eater.  I like fruits and vegetables and eating good-for-you noms, but her commitment to healthy eating could surely rub off on me a little more. 

She mentioned that she was getting a juice for Christmas, and I dusted off my old $5 juicer I got in college at some garage sale and started experimenting.

Surprise! I BOOKING LOVED IT!  (Have you seen that commercial where they replace the F-word with "booking"?  I saw it for the first time when I was watching TV with Arnold's grandma and it was booking awkward. 

Anyhoo, I haven't been too hungry today, probably because I ate WAY too much yesterday including Chinese buffet and a tenderloin.  wowza.  So after having a banana for breakfast and another banana for lunch, I got some soup from Gateway and fixins for a green juice.

The ingredients in this delish juice are:
Carrots
Oranges
Green Apple
Spinach
Ginger

I am obsessed with ginger, so I could have used even more than the dice-sized chunk I juiced.

Little tip for juicing: Add a green apple to anything and it will rock.

On another note, do any of you juice? What do you do with the pulp it spits out? I can't bring myself to throw it all out... I was thinking of using it in place of eggs or oil ala applesauce in a quick bread or something.  Ideas?

Cherry Almond Granola in a Slow Cooker

I'm still alive!  Yes, I know, it's been MONTHS since I blogged... And Yes, I know, I quit in the middle of my 12 ways of giving. 

Get over it. 

Anyway, thanks to my dear friend and blogger Desiree, I am back and excited to share a recipe for Cherry Almond granola that I made in a crock pot while I did laundry. 

My mom makes granola a lot, and I like it a lot, but I've always found the process stressful.  I don't like taking things out of the oven, trying to stir a full cookie sheet, getting burned in the process, knocking bits on the floor...  It all just seemed annoying to me. 

So I found this recipe for Almond Cherry Granola in a crock pot, changed a few things (it's still me after all), and got to work. 

Ingredients:

2.5 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup raw, whole almonds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup dried cherry flavored craisins.  

Directions:
Place the oats, honey, oil, almonds and vanilla in a big slow cooker. Stir. Leave uncovered and turn on high. Cook for 1 hour, stirring every 20 to 30minutes. 

Reduce to low and add the coconut, and sunflower seeds.   Continued to cook on low uncovered for about 4 hours, stirring every 20 or so minutes. The granola is done when it looks completely dry. Cool on baking sheets.  Add the craisins just before you want to pack it all up, then store in an air tight container.

You can also make it in the oven, but I'm not giving you those directions because I'm not going to be responsible for you burning yourself or making a mess on the floor.  

12 Ways of Giving: Adopt a Family

I've been working hard on this way of giving, so hard that my brain hasn't been focused on any other fun ways of giving!

But this is my favorite EVER way of giving during this season. 

I have been doing angel trees since I was a little tot.  When we were young my parents would bring us to this store next to Ben Franklin in Nevada and pick out an angel.  We got to buy fun and practical gifts for the angel based on what she wanted and needed. 

In high school and college, I helped with the City of Ames angel tree.  I would call families to tell them they had been selected for the angel tree, I'd get an angel, buy gifts, help wrap the gifts at the police station, deliver gifts, be at the station coordinating gift pick-up... I got a bunch of friends together to package Christmas dinners in big brown paper bags for all the families.  I was REALLY involved, and I loved every minute of it. 

The last few years, I've decided to rally the troops, and with a little help from my parents and my grandparents, I provided gifts for a family in need through the Adopt a Family program with the Boys and Girls Club. 

I got a family of 4.  A 70 year old woman, an 18 year old girl, 16 year old boy and a 7 year old girl. 

They all wanted coats and shoes, and no one but the girl put anything on their wish list that wasn't clothes!  But I got a little creative and got some AWESOME gifts for everyone in the family. 

For the little girl, I got her a Barbie! It's been so long since I bought a Barbie... it was so much fun. 

Here are some pics of the loot.  It isn't all there, but you get the idea!

I got the coats and some of the clothes and shoes at Burlington Coat Factory.  They are NAME BRANDS and they weren't expensive at all!  Also, the older woman and the boy needed 3X, and they were just as inexpensive as the normal sizes at Burlington.  SCORE! 

Anyway, enough of the random store promotion. 

I had so much fun doing this project, and I'm sad it's over, but now maybe my brain can handle thinking of some other fun ways of giving before the big day!  (Christmas)