Broccoli Chicken Stir Fry

It seems like I have lots of stir fry dinners on Saturday nights! I was feeling like some more vegetables, so Saturday night became a stir fry night again! I guess I'm calling this a stir fry recipe, but what exactly constitutes a stir fry?

Regardless of what the correct name for this recipe is, it's super easy and tastes great! I think I say that every recipe of mine is super easy, but really, I don't ever make anything complicated. I don't think eating healthy has to necessarily involve huge ingredient lists or tricky instructions...just focus on eating fruits and vegetables and reasonable amounts of lean protein and you'll be fine. 

Anyway, enjoy this simple stir fry (or whatever it is)!

Ingredients:

1/2 boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into 1" pieces

1 broccoli head, chopped up into small florets

1/3 C chopped red onion

1/3 C canned pineapple chunks

1 T Asian Toasted Sesame dressing

salt and pepper to taste

chopped peanuts (optional)

1. Steam broccoli until it's almost all the way cooked.

2. Cook chicken with red onion in a medium-sized skillet.

3. Add broccoli to chicken and onion when chicken is mostly cooked.

4. Add pineapple.

5. Add dressing and mix everything together.

6. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

7. If you want, top with chopped peanuts.

And after eating up this nice and healthy dinner, my sister and I proceeded to eat a large amount of Lindor chocolates. Ah well, balance is key!

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Sunday Meal Prep

Yesterday I was feeling ambitious and decided to pre-make some meals for this week. Okay, not every single meal, but I got a head-start on my lunches, which tends to be the meal I throw together last-minute every day. 

I chopped up a head of green leaf lettuce and cooked a couple chicken breasts and added it to some onion, mushrooms, carrots, feta cheese, almond slivers, and part of a Good Seasons dry Italian dressing packet. The dry dressing mix is great because it adds some flavor without me having to worry about packing a separate container for dressing to add to my salad during lunchtime. I also chopped up a couple of Roma tomatoes, but I won't add those in until the mornings when I actually pack my lunch, so there's not as much moisture hanging out in my salad making my lettuce soggy. 

Along with the salad, I cut up an apple and a banana to go along with my breakfast this morning. 

I also blended up the dry mix for my morning protein shake. I mixed up 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder, a teaspoon or so of cinnamon, and a teaspoon or so of dry butterscotch pudding mix. This morning I added some milk to it and shook it up before drinking it.

For me, preparing ahead for the upcoming week is somewhat hit-and-miss. I'd really like to be one of those people who makes almost everything for the week on a prep day, so eventually I'll get to that point. Until then, I'm happy that I at least did something! 

I hope you have a fantastic week this week!

Go-To Breakfast

All summer long I loved drinking a smoothie for breakfast. It was relatively easy to throw ingredients in a blender and my smoothies usually tasted great. I had time to chop up fruits and time to clean the blender. Since school started, I don't think I've made more than one or two smoothies for breakfast, mainly because I don't have as much time anymore to spend prepping or cleaning with the smoothie process. Excuses, excuses, I know! Along with practicality issues, I'm also just not in the mood for a smoothie since it's gotten colder here. Instead of an ice-cold drink for breakfast, I want something warm and comforting for those chilly mornings when I'm making breakfast at 6:30. So lately I've been gravitating toward oatmeal! 

Oatmeal is super-fast to make. Just put some oats in a bowl with some liquid and microwave for 90 seconds or so and you have a bowl of warm, creamy goodness. 

I used to think that oatmeal was bland and gross, but then I started playing around with different add-ins that take the flavor up about ten notches. Lately I've become obsessed with almond butter (just like every other healthy living blogger out there), so that's been the flavor base of my oatmeal. Here's the recipe for this morning's breakfast:

-2/3 C rolled oats

-1 C almond milk

-2 spoonfuls almond butter (probably about 3-4 tsp)

-1 Tbsp brown sugar

-1 tsp mapleine

-1 Stevia packet 

Combine all ingredients, microwave, stir up a little, and enjoy!

Do you have a favorite add-in for your oatmeal? 

Simple Sweet Potato Wrap

Yesterday started out great when I actually got to sleep in! It seems like this entire fall I've had things going on almost every Saturday morning, so I haven't gotten the chance to sleep in very much. For me, sleeping in is at its best when I don't have anything to set an alarm for, and I'm able to wake up whenever my body pleases. So yesterday was quite nice!

After waking up, I went for a little 4-mile run on the Eagle section of the Boise greenbelt. If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend going for a run or even a walk on it, especially during the fall. This part of the greenbelt isn't really paved, so it feels somewhat like trail running. Right now the changing leaves on the trees are beautiful.

I've been doing P90X for the past few weeks, which I intend to keep doing, but I'd like to start incorporating some more runs into my workout schedule. I realized this week that I really miss running! Since daylight savings happened, it's not really an option for me to run most evenings, since it's already dark by the time I'm done teaching piano. Luckily, I do have a couple days in the week that I can fit a run in, so I'm going to start doing that more. I'm really enjoying the strength aspect of P90X, but I miss running as my form of cardio.

By the time I got back from my run, it was lunchtime, so I threw together some vegetables put them in a wheat tortilla. It turned out pretty well! Here's the recipe:

  
Ingredients: 
1 medium sweet potato
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/4 C red onion
1 large carrot,chopped
3 T corn
1-2 T garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
grated parmesan cheese

1. Peel sweet potato and chop into medium-sized pieces
2. Put chopped sweet potato into a tupperware with a little bit of water and steam in the microwave for about 2 minutes, or until somewhat soft (they don't need to be totally cooked at this point)
3. After sweet potato is done, steam chopped carrot as well (same as the sweet potatoes, they don't need to be totally cooked - this just speeds up the cooking process)
4. Spray a medium-sized skillet with non-stick spray and put on the stove on medium to high heat
5. Add vegetables, garlic powder, salt and pepper and saute for 5-10 minutes or until sweet potatoes and carrots are as soft as you would like them

6. Serve in a whole-wheat tortilla and top with parmesan cheese. Wrap your tortilla up however you choose!

Makes enough to fill 2 tortillas

I think that overall it doesn't matter a ton how you combine vegetables. Sure, some combinations taste better than others, but you're pretty safe in cooking and serving a bunch of vegetables together. My go-to quick lunch or dinner usually involves some combination of veggies thrown together in a pan with some seasonings, and it usually turns out decently!

What is your favorite combination of vegetable to eat?

Soy Sauce Chicken Stir Fry

For dinner last night, I ended up throwing things together in a saucepan. Lately I've been trying to eat more protein, and chicken sounded good, so that became the base of my dish. I recently started the P90x workout series, and the nutrition plan that goes with it recommends a lot of protein in order to build more muscle, so that's been my focus for my diet as of late.

Basically, you could do this with any vegetables and meat you have on hand. If you want a more Asian-tasting dish, you could leave out the tomato and put in some broccoli instead.

Soy Sauce Chicken Stir Fry

Ingredients:
6-7 oz. chicken breast, cut into small pieces
1/4 tsp rice vinegar
1 1/4 tsp soy sauce
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1-2 mushrooms, diced
1 small roma tomato
garlic powder (probably about 1/2 to 1/4 tsp., but I didn't measure)
onions (I used a sprinkling of dehydrated ones, but fresh onions would taste great too. Just add as much as you feel is necessary!)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook the chicken in a medium-sized saucepan with 1/2 tsp soy sauce
2. Add the bell pepper, mushrooms, garlic powder, onions, and rest of the soy sauce
3. Cook for 5 or so more minutes, or until peppers are as cooked as you'd like them
4. Add tomato and cook for another 30 seconds or so before removing from heat
5. Add salt and pepper and enjoy! 

Portable Lunches

The start of the new school year means going back to packing a lunch every day. It's not my favorite arrangement; I'd rather spend my lunchtime at home everyday, but that's not quite an option.

This week I set off with a running start, but who knows how long my lunch creativity will last. By the end of the year, I'm usually just throwing things in a brown bag, but for now I'm enjoying making my lunches unique.

I picked up the tupperware container (it's Ziplock brand) at Fred Meyer for about three dollars a week or so ago. It makes it a lot easier to portion-control what I pack, which is nice. I put together my lunch at night, then stick it in the fridge until the morning.

Hopefully you'll find some inspiration in what I packed!

 -Wrap (Flat Out bread, hummus, lettuce, 1 roma tomato, 1 slice ham, cheese)

-1 apple 

-1/4 C blueberries

 

-Healthier Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

-carrots (they have frost on them because I stuck this container on the top shelf of the refrigerator overnight, and they froze)

-hummus mixed with salsa (to dip the carrots in)

*I had some camera malfunctions, so the picture got cut off on the bottom!

 -quesadilla (black beans, cheese, Flat Out wrap)

-salsa

-pluot

-fruit salad (blueberries, 1 orange, 1 apple, grapes)

-carrots

-Cheerios and peanuts

Healthified Chocolatey Oatmeal Cookies (With Optional Raspberry Topping)...a baking success!

I have a love-hate relationship with "the healthy cookie." I've tried a recipe or two that was too dense and wasn't as sweet as a normal cookie. I've also tried the famous banana-oat cookie, which I'm really not a fan of. As much as my healthy instincts want me to like it, I just can't handle the overpowering banana taste. Does anyone else have this problem? Warm, gooey banana...yuck.

One of my favorite cookie recipes is oatmeal chocolate chip. So this afternoon I set out to healthify that recipe. There was only one issue: I had no idea what the essential components of a cookie actually are. Yeahhh, slight problem.

So I took my oatmeal chocolate chip recipe and searched the internet for things to replace the unhealthier ingredients (shortening, brown sugar, etc.). After a lot of Google searches, and lots of pencil marks on my recipe, I came away slightly overwhelmed. The substitution values for ingredients differed a lot from site to site, and I wasn't sure which websites had the best information.

I ended up just going at it in the kitchen, throwing in different ingredients that seemed like they would work, based on all the healthy cookie recipes I've seen. My goal, however, was to make these taste like mostly normal cookies, and not like a banana food-substance.

The end result? SUCCESS! While still using bananas, I was able to mask the banana flavor. The rest of the ingredients somehow combined to form something that actually tastes like a cookie. That may or may not be due to the large amount chocolate chips and cocoa powder I put in. I added the raspberry part last-minute. The cookies still taste good without it, but I think the raspberry taste is a nice complement to the chocolate.

If you're a little more health-conscious, you can use dark chocolate chips (vegan ones would be even better), or less chocolate chips, or even no chocolate chips at all. You can also try adding in nuts for some extra crunch, or some raisins if you're an oatmeal raisin cookie kind of person.

If you make this recipe, let me know how it goes! Tweet me pictures at @tessabrynnk! Let me know what add-ins you used in your rendition. 

Side-note: After combining my random assortment of ingredients, I got smart and searched the internet for a website to help me create a legit cookie. I came across this great post that I'll definitely turn to the next time I want to make my own cookies.

Ingredients

Cookie:
2 bananas
2 C rolled oats
1/4 C unsweetened applesauce
3/4 C whole wheat flour
2 egg whites
2 stevia packets
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 C honey
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 C cocoa powder
3/4 C semisweet chocolate chips

Raspberry Filling:
2 C raspberries
1 stevia packet

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Combine all ingredients (just for the cookie dough) in a mixer.
3. Spoon dough onto cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.

4. If using raspberry filling, mash raspberries in a bowl.

5. Add stevia packet and mix together.
6. Make an indentation in each cookie with a spoon.

7. Spoon raspberry mixture into the indentation.

8. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Nutrition (without raspberry filling)
Calories: 94 | Fat: 2.6 g | Sodium: 83 mg | Carbs: 16.7 g | Protein: 1.9 g
Serving size: 1 cookie

A Couple of Everything Salads

Happy weekend, everyone!

The past few days have been nice and relaxing, but a little bittersweet at the same time. We went on a little getaway, which was lovely, but it's also the last weekend before school starts, so that's the bittersweet part.

On Thursday I drove with my family to Oregon for a little three-day camping trip. We camped at a spot near past Baker City, Oregon that my dad and his extended family used to camp at when he was growing up. Later that day his cousin and her family joined us, as well as another family we have known for a long time.

It was pretty much a normal camping trip with hiking, exploring, talking around the campfire, eating s'mores and other yummy food, and all that great outdoors-y stuff. On Friday I went for a little four-mile run along the dirt road next to our camp, which was great! I love switching up the scenery of my run once in a while. My neighborhood, the park by my house, and everything in the general vicinity of my house gets a little boring as far as running scenery goes.

After eating some pancakes and packing up our gear this morning, we headed back to Boise. Aaaand now summer is pretty much officially over. Sigh. It's been a good one! Even though I didn't really go very many places, it was nice to spend so much time with family and just chill.

For dinner this evening I opted for a couple "everything" salads. I'm not going to lie, delicious camping food got me once again, (although not as bad other times) so I was ready for some freshness. I pretty much just opened up my fridge, chopped up almost everything I saw, and threw it all together.

Veggie Everything Salad

Ingredients:
romaine lettuce
cucumber
cherry tomatoes
green bell pepper
carrots
mushroom

chickpeas
craisins
feta cheese
almond slivers
sunflower seeds
croutons
light Italian dressing

Fruit Everything Salad

Ingredients:
Pink Lady apple
orange
blueberries
strawberries
grapes
banana
vanilla yogurt

What are your favorite salad fixings?

Chickpea Turkey Wraps

We're finally going grocery shopping this morning! Our poor fridge is all white and bare inside.

Eating meals that aren't boring can get tricky when you're getting down to the end of your groceries. On Monday I really didn't want to just eat an apple and some random snacky items for lunch, so I dug around and scrounged up some ingredients for something more interesting. This is what I came up with!

Ingredients:
1 tortilla (wheat is best, but we didn't happen to have any wheat tortillas on hand)
2-3 T hummus
2 romaine lettuce leaves
1 slice turkey
2-3 T chickpeas
1-2 T feta cheese

1. Spread hummus on tortilla.

We buy our hummus in powdered form in bulk at WinCo, then add some water and olive oil to reconstitute it. It doesn't taste any different than normal hummus.

2. Tear up lettuce and turkey and put on tortilla.

3. Add chickpeas and feta cheese.

4. Roll up and enjoy!

*Note: I made this again yesterday for lunch and added olives, which tasted great too!

Question of the Day:
What are your favorite wrap fillings? 

Healthy Stuffed French Toast, a Face-Lift, & Getting Back On Track

Yesterday was a day for getting back into the swing of things, even though I was only out of town for a weekend. It's crazy how fast a car full of yummy (but not always healthy) trip snacks can put you out of whack.

I started the day yesterday with a little bit of oatmeal before my workout. After that, I completed this workout I found on Pinterest. It says it burns 1,000 calories, which I'm not too sure about, but it was a good workout nonetheless. I would have preferred a run, but for some reason my running shoes decided to start giving me huge blisters on my heels, even though I've worn them for months now. I'm waiting for my heels to heal (hehe get it?) before I go for a run again. After the workout I enjoyed a bowl of Greek yogurt, Grape Nuts cereal, and a cut-up orange. 

After not snacking the best on the trip, I was in the mood for a snack that was actually healthy. I sliced up an apple really quick, since a sliced apple is just much more fun to eat than a whole apple!

 

For lunch I made myself a quick wrap with what I could find in the fridge. We reeeeally need to go grocery shopping, but it turned out pretty well with what I put into it. The recipe for this will be coming tomorrow!

Another quick snack of the day: almonds and peanuts!

For dinner, I went the nontraditional way with my french toast and turned it into stuffed french toast by topping each slice with Greek yogurt and folding them over. Yes, it looks weird, but it actually tasted great! It was a lot lighter than drenching my french toast with maple syrup.

For a quick evening snack, I had some air-popped popcorn (I didn't eat this whole thing), and a little bowl of granola mixed with honey nut Cheerios, topped with almond milk. Granola with almond milk is one of my favorite foods to eat late at night. I like to put my almond milk with the granola and just let it sit for about 10 minutes or so, until the milk is all soaked up. Granola doesn't really get soggy like other cereal, just softer. Personally, I like granola when it's a little less crunchy.

Then I proceeded to stay up waaay to late, working on giving this lovely blog a face-lift! I added a new header, and then I also switched up the layout. What do you think?

It feels great to get back on track with exercising and eating clean. If you ended up having a bit of a YOLO weekend with food and such, don't get discouraged...just get back into it! One step in the right direction is better than none at all.

Check back in tomorrow for my lunch recipe!

Question of the Day:
What do you eat to get back into the swing of clean eating after a less-than-healthy weekend or vacation?

Peanut Butter Coconut Oatmeal

The other day I whipped up this oatmeal to eat after a run. I haven't used peanut butter a lot in my oatmeal, and I was pleased by the result!

Ingredients:
1/3 C rolled oats
2/3 C water
1/4 C vanilla almond milk
2 T coconut
2 T PB2 (still in the powdered form)
1 packet Stevia

Microwave oats and water for about a minute and a half. Stir in other ingredients. 

Feel free to add more PB2 if you want!

Fiesta Lettuce Wraps

Yesterday for lunch I felt like experimenting. I was in the mood for something on the spicier side, so I threw some ingredients together with some taco seasoning and put it in some lettuce. Simple enough! It turned out pretty good, so I thought I'd share my recipe!

I'm not such a pro at the lettuce wrapping part, but I promise it still tastes good! 

Ingredients

1/2 C chickpeas

3/4 C black beans

1/4 C frozen corn, thawed

1 roma tomato

2 T chopped cilantro

1/4 C chopped onion

1 1/3 T taco seasoning

Romaine lettuce leaves

Combine all ingredients except lettuce. Spoon into lettuce and wrap up! Makes enough for about 6 or so wraps.