Zucchini Bites

I had to try this after seeing it so many times on pinterest and knowing how deeply I love zucchini. So I'll spare you the chit chat and we can get right to the action. I made mine in a regular muffin tin so of you do the same. Add an extra 5-10 minutes bake time.

Zucchini Bites

- 1 cup zucchini, grated

- 1 egg

- 1/4 yellow onion, diced

- 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

- 1/4 cup Italian style bread crumbs, or whatever you have on hand

- salt and pepper to taste


1. Preheat oven to 400 degree F. Spray a mini-muffin tin with nonstick spray, set aside.

2. Grate the zucchini and then place in a dish towel to squeeze out the excess water, like when using frozen spinach. If you skip this part, the middle of the zucchini bites will be really soggy while the outside gets crispy.

3. In a bowl combine, the egg, onion, cheese, bread crumbs, zucchini, salt and pepper.

4. Using a spoon or a cookie scoop, fill the mini muffin cups to the top. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the top is browned and set. If you are using a regular muffin tin add 5-10 minutes bake time.

Spring Fever

I have caught the warm weather bug. So basically I have been spending my time far away from my computer and out venturing in the sun. I know, I know. I'll be back on track soon. I have decided I need to refocus on my weight loss. I have been great with going to the gym and keeping up with it but when it comes to the diet piece of it, I am slacking.

So the long and short is that I will be incorporating juicing back into my diet. I really feel my body functions better when it's receiving as many fresh fruits and veggies and possible. I am somewhat picky when it comes to eating and sometimes I have so little time in my day I can't always make a proper meal. So back to juicing it is and no more fast food! Expect to see posts about my juicing that way if I commit to sharing it with you I will have to commit to doing it.

Hope all is well and sunny where you all are.

Pancake sandwich

This weekend I took off to visit some of my friends in New York. It's been a while since I've seen them and I had to get out here before they move again across the country. We always do some of the most random things. This mornings breakfast was no exception.

For breakfast they introduced me to the pancake sandwich. It's probably the perfect combination of breakfast in a sandwich. Pancake. Egg. Bacon. Syrup. Pancake. So good! Probably the perfect morning munchie.

Freezeable?

A lot of people ask me how I cook, bake, prepare food for one person. I didn't always have a great system in place. I used to make a meal and that was all I ate all week for lunch and dinner because it's difficult to make lasagna for one. Over time I have made a system for myself of portions and freezer storage. This has, believe it or not, saved me money and time. I find myself spending most of the weekend, when I have free time, baking and cooking meals to my hearts content. I will make a different lunch and dinner each day and portion it out so I can freeze the remained into "frozen dinners" if you will. Then during the week I have an assortment of things to eat for lunch and dinner and I don't have to listen to people say, "Lasagna again?!"

When I do tell people what my system is, they usual say something like "I didn't think you could freeze that." So I recently came across this great blog article by a stay at home mom named Andrea. It was so through and really makes it easy for someone new to freezing to understand the ins and out. So instead of me posting all my tips and tricks, feel free to take a look at Freezeable Foods. You might even find a new trick or two to save your self the two thing we could all use more of: time and money.

This is the inside of my freezer.

'A boy broke my heart last night.. again' Smoothie

My friends are not going to be surprised that this same boy broke my heart again. It happens so often its almost sad. I wish he could just wake up and decide that this is where he belongs, but that would just be too easy. So I woke up in a funk and I am determined to not eat cookies and brownies and ice cream all day. I'm trying to lose weight and even though I am sure I will be baking a batch of something sweet later today, I need to still keep my focus.

Enter my breakfast today. Sweet sweet smoothie. I almost reached for the processed breakfast sandwich in my freezer but then I was like, NAH! Grabbed my chocolate protein, a banana, and an orange and made some tasty beverage.  The orange you can either do one of two things with: peel and blend or peel and juice. All depends on whether you like pulp or not. I have never been a fan of pulp so I busted out my juicer. For those of you who don't have a juicer, there is nothing quite like freshly juiced vegetables and fruits. You will find yourself avoiding buying juices after a while because its much tastier to have a natural fruit or vegetable juice without added sugar and ingredients you cant pronounce.

Anyway, it's a tastier treat and is hitting my chocolate craving. Just what the doctor ordered.

Chocolate Banana and Orange Smoothie
aka 'A boy broke my heart last night... again' Smoothie

Ingredients

• 1 banana
• 1 medium orange
• 1 scoop chocolate protein powder
• 1 cup water 

Option 1

1. Add water and banana to blender and blend. While blending, pour in protein powder.
2. Peel and juice orange with juice. Add juice to blender. Blend well and drink. 

Option 2

1. Add water, peeled orange, and banana to blender and blend. While blending, pour in protein powder.
2. Drink.

Beef and Spinach Lasagna

Excuse the terrible cell phone food porn. I wish my camera was not missing. I am totally obsessed with this lasagna. OBSESSED! I went back and forth between what I wanted to have for dinner. Whether I should order out or just make this lasagna. I decided on making lasagna and I am so glad that I did. I totally was craving this. You know when you have a bad day and you are just craving a comfort food. This day, this food. Spot, hit. Haha. Sorry I'm so corny. I'm sharing the 'diet' version of the lasagna. I didn't make the 'diet' version this time. So feel free to do the 'diet' lasagna or not. Either way its yummy noms.

Beef and Spinach Lasagna

Ingredients

• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 2 jars of 26oz meatless spaghetti sauce
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 package (10oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dried
• 2 cups ricotta cheese
• 2 cups (8oz) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
• 9 no cook lasagna noodles

1. In a large skillet, cook the beef and onion until meat is browned. Drain.
2. Stir in the spaghetti sauce, garlic, oregano, and basil. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 10 minutes.
3. In a large bowl, combine spinach, ricotta, and 1 cup mozzarella.
4. Spread a thin layer of meat sauce in a greased 13x9 baking dish. Top sauce with 3 noodles. Spread layer of sauce over noodles and spread to cover noodles. Layer with half of the spinach mixture. Repeat layers. Top with remaining noodles, sauce, and mozzarella.
5. Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until bubbly. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting.

Serves 12
Nutrition Facts: 1 piece equals 281 calories, 11g fat (6g saturated fat), 50mg cholesterol, 702mg sodium, 26g carbohydrate, 3g fiber, 20g protein.

Recipe and Nutrition Information from The Comfort Food Diet

Ginger-Carrot Soup

If you don't care for ginger and don't really like carrots, you might want to stop reading now.

Tonight I decided I needed a soup. One I haven't enjoyed in a long time. Enter ginger-carrot soup. The ingredients listed below are as the recipe calls for them. I have a bad habit of never measuring things for soups or stews. I usually just grab 2.5lbs of carrots, 1/2 a large onion, and 2inches of ginger root. Tonight I also substituted the vegetable broth with chicken broth because it was all I had and I was entirely to tired to run to the store. I truly tasted no difference. Also I omitted the sour cream topping because I didn't feel it was entirely necessary, and my lazy butt didn't have any. =]

This is such an easy soup to make and it reheats well. So I doubled the recipe and I'm freezing 3/4 of it. Since I am a single lady, I do this with a lot of stuff so I essentially have a freezer full of frozen foods I can reheat whenever. Cheaper than frozen dinners, healthier, and tastier too.

CAUTION: When you are blending, please please please be careful. If your blender doesn't seal well and you don't wait a little bit for your mixture to cool you might have an explosion of gingery carrot goodness all over your kitchen! Since I doubled my batch, when I got to the second blender-full I got lazy and didn't wait for my mixture to cool a little bit before attempting to overfill my blender. So even though my blender has a great seal, I made a mess.

Ginger-Carrot Soup

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 cup yellow or white onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons ginger, peeled and grated
• 3 1/2 cups carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, ground
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Reduced fat sour cream and chopped green onions for topping (optional)

 

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook until tender and translucent. Add grated ginger and cook until fragrant.
2. Add carrots, broth, nutmeg and salt and bring to a boil.
3. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook 15 minutes or until carrots are fork-tender. 
4. Allow mixture to cool approximately 5 minutes. Carefully pour (or spoon) mixture into a blender and puree, adding water as needed to thin the mixture.
5. Pour soup into serving bowls and top with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt and chopped green onions, if desired.

Green Smoothies?

I'm not sure how many of you have heard about green smoothies/drinks but I am a pretty big fan. I never thought I would be because honestly, I don't like to eat my greens. I'll admit it. For the longest time you couldn't pay me to eat lettuce unless it was buried in a cheeseburger or drenched in Caesar salad dressing and cheese. But the older I get the more I seem to change my taste buds and food choices. I also seem to be having a terrific time keeping my weight at a reasonable number. Its unfortunate that I can no longer eat all the junk food I want and not gain a pound.

Right now my weight has peeked again. I'm at that point where I'm not the heaviest I've ever been but my current pants are getting tighter and I am refusing to go up a size. Down is the only direction my pants need to go. So I decided to get back into the only thing that seemed to help me, adding more greens to my diet. I am not the type of person who likes to sit there and enjoy a salad. I have never been that way. Maybe it's because I'm a New Englander and everything has got to be faster paced. Or maybe it's because I'm always on the road. Either way, liquifying my greens makes them easier and faster for me to consume. And I definitely consume more in a smoothie than I would in a salad.

I first started doing green smoothies when I was on a huge semi vegetarian raw vegan sort of kick. (If you are ever interested in exploring that lifestyle more thoroughly I highly recommend reading Living Raw Food by Sarma Melngailis. Truly delightful.) Obviously I have come to terms with the fact that I can not devote myself entirely to that lifestyle because I love to nom on chicken and beef. But I can incorporate elements into my life. The Green Smoothie is one of the things I am going to work to incorporate into my diet more. It's surprisingly filling, tasty, and gives me the extra boost of energy to get through the day. Sure in the beginning my coworkers were like, "what are you drinking?" But once they saw the benefits in my skin and weight the stopped with the comments.

You can add to it whatever you want. The one in the picture above, which I must admit was my first one in a long time was the following items:

• 2 cups fresh spinach
• 1 banana
• 1 scoop chocolate protein powder
• 1 cup water

Throw it in the blender. Blend well and drink. The faster you drink it the more nutrients you get from it, because as you will notice, the bright green color will turn brown if its left out. You can mix and match whatever you want in the drink and find a combination that works well for you. Dark greens are the ones most rich in nutrients and work best in this type of drink. (Kale, spinach, cilantro, etc) You can add things like agave nectar or honey to it to sweeten it up if you need to, but I find most fruits you add do the trick. Cilantro has great benefits for your health and is fantastic to add in this drink. But it's all up to your personal taste. Trial and error.

Don't be surprised if the smell of the first one you make is kind of startling. This was the first one I had made in a while and let me tell you, I was a little taken a back. I don't usually add protein powder but figured why not this time. I promise you, it was not as disgusting as it probably sounds. My mom loves to add mangos to hers and I really love adding pears or apples.

If you try it or have tried this before, what's your favorite things to throw in a green smoothie? I'll share some more of my smoothies and I'd love to try your combinations so feel free to leave them in the comments below.

Take care!