Peanut Butter Treat

An alternative to DESTROYING a large bag of Doritos or Crunchy Cheese Doodles. #FabFitSnack (Apple-Cinnamon rice cake with 1 or 2 tablespoons of peanut butter and mini apple chunks on top)

Apple Pecan Salad

So I was inspired by a healthy salad at a fast food restaurant!

I love the mandarin chicken salad at Wendy’s! When my brother went to pick one up for me when I was in Virginia the other week, he came back with an apple pecan salad instead. I was disappointed to find out that it was not on the menu there. I believe that it is discontinued. Anyhow I tried the apple pecan chicken salad and loved it! I grabbed it for lunch twice when I returned home and then decided to pick up items to make my own at home, with or without the chicken. Here is the recipe for a single serving:

Bowl of Spring mix salad greens

¼ to ½ chopped apple

Glazed pecans (about two tablespoons)

Craisins (about two tablespoons)

Crumbled Bleu cheese

Raspberry Pomegranate dressing

Enjoy!

Note: Beware of caloric intake from the glazed pecans, craisins and cheese. In other words, go lightly.

My Niece's Cooking Lesson

My beautiful niece recently mentioned to me that she wanted cooking lessons.  She is now an adult and on her own with a daughter and busy schedule. When she made the request I said to myself, “Oh my goodness!” because I was thinking of my own elders (mom, aunts, grandmothers) and how they THREW down in the kitchen.

From scratch.

No cookbooks in sight.

I learned to cook by helping and observation. I remember fondly my childhood summers spent in Virginia at my grandparents.  I have a huge extended family (my mom is one of thirteen) so the kitchen was always bustling with activity. I remember helping my grandmother to snap string beans. I LOVED it. I remember trying to find the sharpest knife to peel potatoes. My dear grandmother made the BEST fried potatoes and onions, hands down. Fried apples, mackerel and salmon cakes? Go on and sit down. I grew up in a generation where children were “seen and not heard”. So as a kid, being allowed to hang around the kitchen was a treat.

I am chuckling to myself because I am now the “next generation” who is considered someone’s “elder”.  This is a serious example of “stepping up to the plate”, no pun intended.

Titus 2:3-5 instructs us to teach the younger women, by example and by training.

I am thankful to God for using my niece to be a reminder to me. Although I did not see myself as being “fit” to teach, there are lessons that she wanted to learn.

There were certain dishes that my niece liked so I picked one of those to start with for her lesson on yesterday.

No Boil Lasagna

Two boxes of Lasagna

About 1.5 – 2 pounds ground turkey

2 (26 ounce) jars of spaghetti sauce

Small onion, chopped

1 tablespoon garlic

10 ounce box frozen spinach

32 ounces ricotta cheese

8 ounce bag shredded mozzarella cheese

8 ounce bag shredded cheddar cheese

Egg

½ cup grated parmesan cheese

Seasonings (Salt, pepper, seasoned salt, oregano, etc)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In small saucepan, prepare spinach as directed.

In stockpot, sauté chopped onion and garlic in a little oil until translucent. Add ground turkey and seasonings. Brown the ground turkey. Add the spaghetti sauce. Simmer.

Put the ricotta cheese in a bowl. Mix with an egg, seasonings and parmesan cheese. Add spinach. Mix well.

Grease the bottom of a roaster pan. (A 9 x 12 baking pan is too small) Spread about a cup of spaghetti sauce on bottom of pan. Take some uncooked lasagna noodles and lay at the bottom of pan. Spread some ricotta cheese mixture across the noodles. Spoon spaghetti sauce over the noodles. Sprinkle some of the mozzarella cheese and cheddar cheese over the sauce.  Layer more lasagna noodles. Repeat until you use all of your ingredients.

Put about a cup of water in the spaghetti jar, then pour this around the edges of the lasagna then top. (This extra water is what cooks the lasagna)

Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil.

Bake for 45 minutes.

Take off foil and finish baking for another 15 minutes.

Enjoy.

My family went IN on the lasagna so I did not get a chance to take a picture of it. Smiles.

Coca Cola Chicken Recipe

My Coca Cola Chicken

A girlfriend of mine inspired me on her facebook page with a picture of her own coca cola chicken. I immediately asked her for her recipe. She's a chef though, and listed the ingredients and I am more of a follow the instructions and use measurements type of cook so I found a recipe online and gave it a shot. LOVE it! My family loves it...It is really hot so I use one or two chili peppers instead of three. I serve it with stir fried rice. Here is the link for the chicken recipe.


http://www.mijorecipes.com/chicken-recipes/coca-cola-chicken-wings/


Here is the stir fried rice recipe link (Easy version)

http://chinesefood.about.com/od/ricefried/r/basicfriedrice.htm

Literal Water

We are supposed to drink 8-10 glasses of water per day. I admire people who can do that effortlessly.

I used to keep a little poster up in my office cubicle for a visual reminder.  It was not actually a poster but a copied printout from a colleague. She was a serious runner and adamant about eating healthy, etc. At the top of the page was a drawing of 8 glasses and below it listed the benefits for water intake.

1. Lose weight: Drinking water helps you lose weight because it flushes down the by-products of fat breakdown. Drinking water reduces hunger, it’s an effective appetite suppressant so you’ll eat less. Plus, water has zero calories.
2. Natural Remedy for Headache: Helps to relieve headache and back pains due to dehydration. Although many reasons contribute to headache, dehydration is the common one.
3. Look Younger with Healthier Skin: You’ll look younger when your skin is properly hydrated. Water helps to replenish skin tissues, moisturizes skin and increases skin elasticity.
4. Better Productivity at Work: Your brain is mostly made up of water, thus drinking water helps you think better, be more alert and more concentrated.
5. Better Exercise: Drinking water regulates your body temperature. That means you’ll feel more energetic when doing exercises. Water also helps to fuel your muscle.
6. Helps in Digestion and Constipation: Drinking water raises your metabolism because it helps in digestion. Fiber and water goes hand in hand so that you can have your daily bowel movement.
7. Less Cramps and Sprains: Proper hydration helps keep your joints and muscles lubricated, so you’ll less likely get cramps and sprains.
8. Less Likely to Get Sick and Feel Healthy: Drinking plenty of water helps fight against flu and other ailments like kidney stones and heart attack. Water adds with lemon is used for ailments like respiratory disease, intestinal problems, rheumatism and arthritis etc. In another words one of the benefits of drinking water is that it can improve your immune system.
9. Relieves Fatigue: Water is used by the body to help flush out toxins and waste products from the body. If your body lacks water, your heart, for instance, needs to work harder to pump out the oxygenated blood to all cells, so are the rest of the vital organs, your organs will be exhausted and so will you.
10. Good Mood: Your body feels very good and that’s why you feel happy.
11. Reduce the Risk of Cancer: Related to the digestive system, some studies show that drinking a healthy amount of water may reduce the risks of bladder cancer and colon cancer. Water dilutes the concentration of cancer-causing agents in the urine and shortens the time in which they are in contact with bladder lining.

Can you see the importance of water to your body after understanding the above benefits of drinking water?

 

I’ve also read that this is the formula for your own personal water intake.

Take your weight in pounds, divide it by two and drink that many ounces per day. So if someone weighs 160 pounds, divide that by two, get 80. So that person should drink 80 ounces of water per day. That is ten eight ounce glasses of water throughout the day, or eight ten ounce glasses of water.

Ok this is great. The information was right there in front of me. I knew of the benefits but yet I could not consume all of this water throughout the workday. I like water when I am really thirsty but other than that, I am not that motivated about it. Coffee, juice and other beverages do not count. I am talking h2O. I did however get into the habit of diluting cranberry or grape juice at home. I would pour about one part cranberry juice and three parts water. When I dined out I would ask for a glass of water with lemon, in addition to my other beverage. So I TRIED!

While online I happened to come across links for water recipes. This really caught my attention. “Water Recipe” made the idea of preparing a glass of water EXCITING. I will share a couple of recipes here:

Cucumber-Orange Water Recipe

6 cups cold water

6 thin slices English cucumber (I used regular cucumber)

5 thin slices orange

Combine all ingredients in a large pitcher. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Serve.

Sassy Water Recipe

2 liters water (about 8 1/2 cups)

1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

1 medium cucumber (peeled and thinly sliced)

1 medium lemon thinly sliced

12 small spearmint leaves

Combine ingredients and let it stand in fridge overnight.

I really like the Cucumber-Orange water. I haven’t tried the Sassy water yet. I have all ingredients with the exception of spearmint leaves so I will try that next. What water recipes do you use?

Wow...they are selling already dyed Easter eggs at the grocery store!

“Wow....they are selling already dyed Easter eggs at the grocery store! Wow wow..” This was my text that accompanied the picture that I took as soon as I came across these eggs in the dairy section. It is the first full week of March. Easter is 34 days away. This post is not about so-called pagan practices or such, but about our microwave society. Trust me. I understand about being a wife and parent, amongst wearing other hats, having a super busy schedule and taking shortcuts for certain things in our lives for instance canned vegetables or take-out from time to time. Or for that matter, boxed cake mix versus made from SCRATCH! *Gasp!* But PRE-DYED Easter Eggs? Talk about bursting someone’s proverbial bubble! I thought that was the whole point of dying the eggs. To use vinegar and food coloring and making a mess with our kids while decorating the eggs. Now they have other decorating kits where we can use special markers to write on the eggs or do a tie-dye method so to speak. Easter Eggs Haute Couture. Who are they targeting with these “Ready Made” eggs? I am curious. Would you buy these if you were in a pinch? Is this going overboard?