On the healthy side...Cheeseburger Salad

Hello everyone!!! I hope everyone had a great weekend. I finally got on the ball again and worked out! Ya go me! LOL. I didn't go to long, because I wanted to work back into it, but as painful as it was, I felt better afterwards. I am trying to be good and stay on top of my healthy, but you know me I can never pass up a cake or any dessert at that. Everything in moderation though.

I went to the gym thinking that it would be kind of slow, but it was pretty busy, keep in mind this was Sunday afternoon. I am the type of person who likes to work out along or with a friend. I hate thinking that people are watching me, but I guess a lot of people do. I've been told that no one really watches, but I  used to work at a fitness center and every once in awhile someone would say something to me about another member. You can't let that hold you back though. Keep going and push yourself.

On to the food. Since I worked out, and have been having many treats on my site lately, which wont go away trust me, I wanted to give you guys something that was a healthy but satisfying.

Cheeseburger salad. Yes, you can have a healthy cheeseburger while eating well. This is made from ground turkey, but you can use lean ground beef or chicken. The meat is flavored with Worcestershire sauce, onions and steak seasoning.  You put all of this on a salad, any kind you want. I listed what I used on mine, but feel free to mix it up anyway you want, I'm not looking. You top this salad off with an easy mustard vinaigrette.

Here's how you do it:

Ingredients/recipe

Adapted From Rachael Ray

Burgers

1 1/2 pounds ground sirloin or ground turkey
1/4 cup finely chopped onion, eyeball it
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons steak seasoning blend or coarse salt and ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
3/4 pound brick sharp Cheddar (recommended: Cabot brand or Cracker Barrel brand* )

Salad

3 large hearts romaine lettuce
1 cup sliced pickles, patted dry
1 cup grape tomatoes
1 Cucumber sliced

Dressing:

3 tablespoons yellow mustard
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup  EVOO
Salt and Pepper

Directions

Preheat a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat(you can use your grill if you want)

Combine the meat with onion, Worcestershire and steak seasoning or salt and pepper. Form 2-inch meatballs, then flatten them into patties. Drizzle formed mini patties with extra-virgin olive oil to keep them from sticking to cooking surface.

Slice the brick of cheese into 1/4-inch pieces. Place patties into your skillet. Cook the mini burgers for 3 minutes on each side then add cheese to melt over patties. If you cheese is not melting, cover loosely with foil.

While the burgers are cooking, coarsely chop romaine and combine with sliced pickles and halved grape tomatoes.

Whisk together the mustard and cider vinegar. Stream in the extra-virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Arrange mini cheeseburgers on salad and drizzle the vinagrette over the salad. Serve and enjoy!

I really hope you guys try this one, its simple, healthy and did I mention 30 minutes?! It is!


Enjoy!

Buffalo Chicken Wraps

Hello! This is going to sound strange, but doesn’t a new pair of socks feel so good?! I know this is totally strange, but I love new socks. They are more comfy because you are breaking them in. Yeah I went there today.

So I hope everyone enjoyed Mondays post, my Cupcake of theMonth. I’m so excited about them I want to make them again. 

I am moving on today though and giving you guys Buffalo Chicken Wraps. These are so simple, and healthy. I cut out the cheese, but if you really love blue cheese, you can add a little bit. I also put in avocado to take place for the creamy ranch sauce. 

A little messy but so good

Look at all the veggies!

Here’s how you do it:

Ingredients/recipe

1 Grilled Chicken Breast, or chicken Boca patty

Lettuce or bagged dry broccoli cole slaw

Cucumber, 4-5 slices depending on how thick you cut them

Tomato, about 2 slices

Avocado, I used about 3 slices, ¼ of the avocado

Red Hots Buffalo sauce (zero Calories!)

 Lavash Wraps or 100 calorie wrap

Cook your chicken, whichever chicken you choose. Cut your tomato into slices along with the cucumber and avocado. This will be a very stuffed wrap, don’t worry just grab a fork.

When your chicken is done, pour a little of your buffalo sauce into a small dish and dunk your chicken breast in there. 

Build your wrap anyway you like, I start with the veggies and place the chicken on top. Roll your wrap up and enjoy!

It was hard to cut this because it was so filled with so many veggies.

Quinoa Salad..light and healthy

I wasn't sure if i was going to post this week because honestly I wasn't motivated. There are a lot of reasons why, but I am not going to get into those right now. Nothing bad or anything, but I was talking to a friend who said they liked seeing my recipes so that was definitely one motivator and I wanted to offer something healthy. I've told you before that I am pre-diabetic, and I have been reading posts by friends on Facebook that are also struggling with diabetes and I wanted to offer something healthy and filling that would satisfy everyone.

I saw this on a Woman's Health website and was excited to make it. Now I know that I really try hard to keep the cost of food down but quinoa is a little m ore expensive. You should be able to find it at normal groceries stores, either by the rice, the natural/healthy food section or by the ethic section. Quiona is amazing. It is a whole grain filled with fiber and protein.  You can find a box that cost around 5 bucks or a bag that costs around 9. I have even seen this at Big Lots for $8! If you can get it there its a great saver.

If you cannot find quiona or really don't have the money to spend, than use brown rice.

not the greatest picture, but trust me it is good. The pepper salad I will show you another day.

Here's how you do it;

Ingredients/recipe

Adapted from Womans health.

1 cup quinoa, cooked according to package instructions
1 can white beans, drained & rinsed
 3 cups chopped tomatoes
1 cups fresh spinach, finally chopped
4-5 scallions chopped
1 ts of dried basil
1 avocado, chopped,
Feta Cheese (small container)


Dressing:

2 Tbs. balsamic vinegar
1 Tbs. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Squeeze of lemon juice
Salt & pepper to taste

Preparation:
Mix the balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, and salt in pepper in a small bowl and set aside. Chop the spinach finely and put in a large bow.  Add the quinoa, white beans, avocado, tomato, scallions
 basil, and feta cheese. You can either chill this or serve right away. If serving immediately top with dressing.

This is so good and filling. You can either grill up a chicken breast and serve this salad as a side, or double up on the salad and make it a meal.

I hope you guys try this and as always enjoy!!!

Ipod and Tuna Salad

Hello!

Ho has everyone been? I feel like I have been sitting in front of my computer for days, months, years! I have been updated my ipod and making new playlists and finally getting around to putting all my cds onto my hard drive. Is it even possible that I can get exhausted from this? It takes forever and I have to rearrange things to my liking. How do you arrange your playlists?

So that has been what I have been up to, how about you?

Since this is taking up a lot of my time, I wanted to give you guys a healthy, fast dinner, or lunch.

It’s a super simple salad and you can adjust it any way you like. This is a tuna salad. I hope you guys try this and enjoy!

Ingredients/recipe

4 cups of chopped lettuce or spinach

¼ cup of white kidney beans

2 tbs of chopped olives

1 tomato, chopped

1 can of tuna, drained

¼ cup of mozzarella cheese

2 tbs of EVOO

2 tbs of red wine vinegar (I love mine tangy)

Squeeze of lemon juice

Mix all of your ingredients, except for the evoo, vinegar and lemon juice, in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix your evoo, vinegar and lemon juice. Top your salad and give it a few good tosses.  Eat and enjoy!

If you don’t like tuna, you can use chicken or just leave the meat off.

Enjoy!

Warm weather and a Italian Salad

I am loving this weather! I am not sure where you guys live, but here in the Midwest we are having a very mild winter. It is close to spring, but it’s not quite here yet. Yesterday was in the upper 60’s and today is about the same with some rain. I love the warm weather and I love the time change, because it stays lighter so much longer now. My only downfall is my sinuses don’t know what to do because of this up and down weather

.

I’m going to start this week off with a great salad. It is an Italian salad that I saw on The Sandwich Guy. I made this for a pot-luck because I wanted to do more than just bake something, which I love to do. I left out a few ingredients here and there, but it went over very well. I also made meatballs, but I will show that another time. I made the dressing for it too, but changed it to a mustard vinaigrette because I didn’t like the taste of dressing by itself. This is a delicious salad and there is pasta in it, but you could skip it, for me it didn’t make a difference. 

There was some great food!!

I am really bad at forgetting to get pictures, but here is what it looks like. Trust me it tastes great!

Ingredients/Recipe

Adapted from Jeff Mauro

Sweet Italian Mustard Dressing: 

1/2 cup red wine vinegar-I added a little more

2 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Salt and black pepper

1/2 cup olive oil

2-3 tablespoons of mustard-or to taste 

Salad:

2 cups ditalini pasta, cooked al dente and cooled

2 hearts romaine, chopped

1/4 small head red cabbage, chopped

1/4 head iceberg, chopped

4 roma tomatoes

1/2 small red onion, minced

Put all your dressing ingredients in a food processor or blender and blend. Taste to make sure your seasonings are right and adjust if needed.

Next add all your salad ingredients and mix. Add your dressing if eating right away or serve on the side. 

You could also use any dressing if you like. You can serve chicken or pork chops on the side or just use this as a side salad. 

I hope you guys like this one and enjoy!

A light Salad to get back on track

Hello all! So another holiday is over and now it’s time to get back on track. I made valentines dessert for work and it turned about bad. I was really excited to try a new cupcake recipe and after reading the directions a thousand times through, I still added an extra stick of butter when it only called for one. I will talk about these more later on. Right now I have to get back on track and start working out

Today I wanted to offer a delicious and healthy meal. Greek Salad. This one is a winner and I go back to this at least every other week.  It’s super simple and doesn’t take very long to make. 

Here is what you need to do;

Ingredients/recipe

For Chicken:

4 chicken breasts

1 clove of garlic finely chopped

A squeeze of lemon juice

Salt and pepper

For the Salad:

4 tomatoes cut into chunks

 1 red onion, thinly chopped

1 seedless cucumber, cut into bite-size chunks

1 small bell pepper, seeded and chunked

1 cup black olives

2 hearts of romaine lettuce

Feta Cheese to taste

For the Dressing:

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed in palm of your hand

Rest of the lemon juice

Salt and black pepper

First, marinate your chicken in ¼ cup of EVOO, finely chopped garlic and a little bit of lemon juice. Once it has marinated about ten minutes, bake or grill your chicken. While the chicken is baking or grilling, cut all of your ingredients and place in a large bowl.

For your dressing, mix the ingredients in a small container or bowl.

Once the chicken is done, let it rest, then cut into slices. Place on top of your salad (or serve the salad and chicken separate) and sprinkle with feta cheese to taste. Top with a little bit of your dressing and enjoy!