What I've Been Eating Lately: Quick Healthy Meal Recipe's & Ideas

What I've Been Eating Lately: Quick Healthy Meal Recipe's & Ideas

 Ground Turkey Tacos:You guys know Im a sucker for mexican food, so i cook something mexican-"ish" at least 2x weekly.  I have posted on ground turkey tacos before, but here we added in some red and green bell peppers, corn, cilantro, and cabbage to mix it up and give it a new flavor. I also topped with lettuce, avacado, and cheese and wrapped it in a soft whole wheat flour tortilla.  I usually cook the ground turkey in a skillet with EVOO or coconut oil and put in some onion, garlic, garlic salt, chili pepper, cumin and a cajun spice spend we have. You can play with the spices or even add in salsa. Trader Joe's has a great taco seasoning if you'd rather do something easy.

 Spicy Grilled Cheese Sandwhiches & Tomato Soup: One of my all time favorites is a gooey grilled cheese sandwhich and some hearty tomato soup. I made this a month or so ago and through in a little spin on the standard grilled cheese by adding jalepenos, artichoke, spinach and used monzerella and jack cheese. Grill it in olive oil and you're set! Its spicy and so delish! Serve with a side of tomato soup. I used frozen artichoke and spinach (they dont go bad as quickly so i have some time to use them up)

 Breakfast in Bed with Blueberry Raspberry Pancakes: I've posted on my applesauce pancakes before, we simply added in some blueberries and raspberries. Find the recipee here. 

 Lemon Pepper Pappardelle Pasta with Chicken Artichoke and Veggies: These lemon pepper noodles are from Trader Joe's and they are so yummy because they are packed with flavor so you can just coat the pasta with a little olive oil and salt and pepper and you dont really even need a heavy duty sauce. I sauteed some yellow, green and red bell pepper with onion and used minced garlic, basil, and italian seasonings with sea salt and pepper to taste. I separately grilled chicken and sauteed some frozen artichoke.  Toss together with olive oil in a bowl and serve.  I served it with TJ's Chopped House salad (my current favorite premade Trader's salad).

Ground Turkey Taco Salad with Homemade Dressing:  This is so easy and so filling and of course so yummy.  Cook the ground turkey in coconut oil in a pan with onion and bell pepper and season the same way mentioned above in the tacos i made. Toss over a bed of lettuce, add some cheese and whatever veggies you feel like. Then top with the taco sauce i have previously posted on for a light meal (recipe here)

Spicy Cajun Salmon, Broccoli, and Feta Spinach Brown Rice: This meal is healthy, quick and so easy. Sauteed TJ's preseasoned Spicy Cajun salmon (highly recommend trying this, its really good, a little salty but good) use olive oil or coconut oil.  Steam some fresh broccoli and season with Steak Seasoning or garlic salt.  Sometimes we'll sprinkle parmesan on our broccoli.  Make enough brown rice to serve your family and then on the side sauteed some fresh or frozen spinach in a skillet, when its ready add in the cooked brown rice and sprinkle on as much feta as you'd like. You can season with a little garlic salt and pepper. This blend is so good! It's definetly something i'll be making more often.

Ground Turkey & Cheese Enchiladas: These are easy to make and a new take on my chicken enchiladas i've previously posted the recipe on (here).  Instead of chicken you use ground turkey, you can lightly season with a little chili powder, and garlic salt.  I also sauteed some onion and through that in too.  

Chimichurri Steak Salad: This was TO DIE FOR. I loved this meal! You will need to cook a bag of TJ's Rice Medley (includes brown rice, red rice, & black barley, it cookes in 3 minutes in the microwave).  Cook some Edamame (i used frozen, from TJ's).  Cook some yellow corn, fresh, canned or frozen.  Then grill TJ's premarinated herb and garlic seasoned sirloin steak in Chimichurri sauce, cut into pieces and set aside.  First do a layer of the rice, then top with a bed of lettuce, then top with a tiny bit of cheese, then the steak, then corn and edamame. You will really love this salad. I used some of the left over chimichurri sauce to put a little atop the salad.

ENJOY!

Be sure to follow my blog on the side bar by entering your email! And thank you to all who have been so supportive and all of the beautiful people i have met since I began this journey. You are all so loved!

 Share with me one of your favorite meals or recipes in the comments section!

Xo

What I've Been Eating Lately: Quick Healthy Meals Recipes/Ideas

What I've Been Eating Lately: Quick Healthy Meals & Recipes/Ideas

Hey all, I have been stacking up some food pics for you ladies. I try to throw in some new ideas and mix it up throughout the week as well as have some quick healthy meal options for those nights when im exhausted, just put the baby down, and want to get something nutritious in my tummy ASAP without much work involved. If there is ever anything you ladies cook up that you'd like to share i would love to know! Please share below in the comment section your favorite easy healthy meals or even places that make premade preservative free meals or have easy meal prep ideas!

Dinner- Sweet Potato Burger with Organic Grass Fed Beef:

Instructions for Sweet Potatoe Bun: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice sweet potatos into 1/4-1/2 inch and lay flat onto a baking sheet. Cook in the oven for 15 minutes and then turn over and cook another 15 minutes. 

The next time I make a sweet potato bun im going to make one that sticks together so you can pick the bun up instead of eating the burger with a fork.  Heres the recipe for that:

You'll need: 1 large sweet potato (about 3 cups, shredded), 3 large eggs, 1 teaspoon cumin, 2-4 tablespoons coconut oil

Shred the sweet potato using either the shredding blade of a food processor or box grater. Stir into a bowl with the eggs and cumin. Over medium heat place 1/4 cup sweet potato into a ball (flatten into a patty) onto a skillet with 2 tbspn of coconut oil or EVOO. Once the bottom browns and holds together, flip it over and cook the other side.
(makes 8 patties)

Grill up a regular patty and layer on top with whatever toppings and sauces you're into. We put bell peppers, cheddar cheese, lettuce, mustard and ketchup with avocado on ours.

I put a side of backed zuchini fries (Trader Joe's premade/frozen) and a delish mango tangerine slaw. ((below))

I used TJ's salad medly of kale, brussle sprouts, and cabbage mixed it together with a dollop of greek yogurt, and chopped mango and tangerines with tangerine juice squeezed on top. Mix together for a sweet tangy light salad.

Dinner- Grilled Chicken, Potatoes with Sauteed Vegetables:

Instructions: Grill chicken tenders or breasts in EVOO until almost done. Add Trader Joe's Garlic Sauce on top and cook until no longer pink inside.  Grill onion in EVOO with chicken until translucent.

Heat oven to 375 and put tiny potatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with EVOO, spribkle salt and pepper to taste, and fresh rosemary. Bake for 20 minutes.

Sautee red, green & yellow sliced bell peppers in EVOO.  If you want to be really quck you can buy TJs frozen pre-sliced pepper medly.

Luch- Italian Chicken Salad: 

Grill chicken on a skilet with some EVOO, lemon, garlic powder, and salt and pepper to taste.  Slice up some romaine lettuce, tomato, and onion. Top with light Mozerella cheese and your favorite Italian salad dressing. 

Dinner- Spicy Ground Turkey Taco Salad: 

Romaine lettuce, cabage, chopped tomato and onion, chopped cilantro, top with chedder cheese. Cook 1 lb ground turkey in a skillet on medium head in 1-2 tbspn EVOO. Add 1 tbspn Chili powder, 1-2 garlic cloves, salt and pepper to taste, cajun spice, & cayenne pepper to taste. Add crushed chipped and avocado on top. I used Trader's Flaxseed Tortilla chips.  Add a side of light sour cream or greek yogurt to be healthier.

Dinner- Lemon Garlic Chicken over Parmesan Rice with Grilled Asparagus & Greek Salad:

Cook chicken tenders or breast in EVOO, squeeze half a lemon to flavor chicken, use TJ's garlic sauce (enough to cover the top layer of chicken).  Grill asparus on George Forman or a BBQ with a little bit of EVOO and sprinkle on steak seasoning.  

Pour the chicken sauce and chicken tenders on top of a bed of cooked brown rice (sprinkle rice with parmesan beforehand if you'd like).  

Chop up some romaine lettuce, red bell pepper, cabbage, and throw together with green or black olives, feta cheese and some sliced cucumber. Top with your favorite greek salad dressing.

Lunch- Trader's Butternut Squash premade Salad with pumpkin seeds, feta cheese, spinach and romaine lettuce, pomegranate seeds, and a light vinegarette dressing. Delish! I didn't make this but their salads are worth sharing..they're so easy and i eat them all of the time for lunch with a side of some type of carb or protein.

Xo 

What I've Been Eating Lately: Quicky Healthy Meals & Recipes

What I've Been Eating Lately: Quicky Healthy Meals & Recipes

I know you ladies love these quick easy healthy meal posts. If you are anything like me and are in a season where you feel you just don't have enough hours in the day to get everything done that you need to do..then these meals I post are for you! They are quick(er) than most and are still for the most part, healthy. I'll try to post these more often, maybe one every two weeks or once a week, we'll see!

Greek Salad & Lavash Bread: For the above photo I made a quick healthy lunch with this Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Lavash Bread, their pre packaged fresh greek salad, and a side of their organic hummus. Delicious and SOO EASY! This whole wheat lavash bread is seriously amazing, you can do so much with it as you will see below, i used it like pita bread for dipping in hummus (you could dip it in olive oil with herbs), I made wraps with it, and I used it for pizza crust! Its WAY healthier for you than bread, or normal pizza crust!

Healthy QUICK pizzas: These babies cook (Broil at 425 in the oven) in 5 minutes! I used the Lavash bread mentioned above so you don't have to wait for your crust to cook like normal pizza. You just slap on whatever toppings you're in the mood for.  I used Tj's precooked preservative free grilled chicken, their sun dried tomatos, organic spinach, low fat mozerella cheese, Tj's bruchetta and of course some basil tomato pizza sauce! 

 For this pizza I used basil tomato pizza sauce, then lined it with organic baby spinach, then low fat mozerella cheese on top, then layerd it with jalapenos,  onion, TJ's fauntina and roasted garlic chicken sausage with half the pizza drizzled with TJ's tapenade (and olive blend of green and black olives) that i had left over in the fridge. You can really put anything you want on these! They were so delicious, you just have to make sure you don't use too much tomato sauce since the lavash bread is thinner than normal crust. And make sure its crispy!

Serve with a side salad and this meal would take you less than 10-15 minutes including all the prep and slicing!

Quick Curry Chicken and Vegetable Bowl: I use Trader's Red Curry sauce (they also have a green we've tried and loved, and a yellow curry sauce i have yet to try). I could make curry from scratch and it would probably be even yummier but the goal of these meals is to help all of us mamas, or tired people who come home from work and want an easy healthy meal to whip up in less than 20-30 minutes. I used Tj's 3 minute brown rice, their frozen sliced bell peppers and 1 fresh green bell pepper i had left in the fridge, frozen broccoli (takes 6-7 minutes to cook on the stove), fresh chopped onion, 1 raw garlic clove, and organic raw chicken (grilled in olive oil and 1/4 cup or so of the red curry sauce). I layered the rice first on the plate, then the veggies, then the grilled and flavored chicken. I then quickly heated up some of the curry sauce and poured it over the entire bowl (use as much as you'd like). DELICIOUS!

Spinach Kale Turkey Pattys: I used Tj's 99% fat free ground turkey and mushed it up with some chopped organic spinach, 1 tspn garlic powder, a pinch of salt and pepper, and then added in some chopped frozen kale (tj's sells this in the frozen section). I muchsed it all together into 5 or 6 patties and threw them on the george forman grill. SO quick, took 10 minutes all together! This is a perfect example of eating healthy while still being able to enjoy a delicious meal. I threw these on some whole wheat buns with veggies, ketchup, and cheese. My hubs wanted beef so here we have a his and her's meal. 

I hope some of these meals find their way into your home! Enjoy!

I always welcome your ideas and recipes if you'd like to share in the comments below I LOVE that and will possibly even feature one of your recipes!

XO

Easy Quick Healthy Meals: What I've Been Eating Lately

Easy Quick Healthy Meals: What I've Been Eating Lately

Here are some of the meals i've made over the past few days.  Im all about balance, I like to aim for healthy but if something doesnt taste right without adding a little cheese or cream here and there then ill go ahead and add it in there.  When I cook i usually try to add in lots of veggies, one starch, and a protein.  

Swedish Meatballs, Brown Rice Pasta and a side of Grilled Zucchini:  These swedish meatballs are from traders and they're super easy to grill up (you can store a bunch in the freezer for lazy nights when you don't feel like cooking from scratch).  I always try to use brown rice pasta to make pasta nights a little more healthy, and then grilled up some onion and garlic in olive oil to add some flavor to Trader Joes spicy Arrabiata sauce (this sauce is great with seafood pasta as well). It has the perfect amount of spice from sweet red peppers and tasted great with the swedish meatballs. 

For grilling the zucchini as well as what the brown rice pasta looks like click here to see my previous quick meals post where i posted pics and talked more in depth about it: Easy Quick Healthy Meals

Chicken Serenada Tacos:

This was another easy meal that tasted so delicious.  I grilled up Traders "Chicken Serenada", its fresh  chicken breast with grilled bell peppers and grilled onion all pre-marinated and precooked, you just need to reheat on the stove. I am not a fan of precooked meals but traders doesnt add any preservatives and you have to eat their food within a few days or it goes bad. Its just as though you made it yourself.  I threw it on an ezekiel sprouted grain tortilla (super healthy and so yum!), with some shredded cabbage, avocado, a little mexican cheese blend, and lettuce.  You can add on tapatio or salsa if youd like but i thought the chicken gave it plenty of flavor. 

Shrimp Tacos with Lime chipotle sauce:

Shrimp tacos are my hubbys favorite and i haven't made them in so long! I decided to give them a twist by topping them with a delicious homemade lemon chipotle sour cream sauce.  I uses fresh shrimp (it cooks fast so be careful), I cooked the shrimp in olive oil with a sprinkle of chipotle, chili powder, garlic, salt, and 2 tablespoons of salsa and a half of a lime.  I piled it onto the same Ezekiel sprouted grain tortillas as above with shredded cabbage, a sprinkle of a mexican cheese blend, and avocado. I squeezed fresh lime on top and then added my homemade sauce.

For the sauce:  you'll need 1/4 cup light sour cream or greek yogurt. Half of a lemon or a whole lime. A 1/4 teaspoon of the following spices: chili powder, chipotle, garlic, cumin,  fresh or dried cilantro salt and pepper to taste. Add in minced jalepeno (i used 4 little slivers from a jar)  You will love this sauce and can use it on fish tacos as well! It makes the tacos!

Filet Mignon with Grilled Zucchini and Onion with a Side Kale Salad:

I am not a huge red meat kinda gal but once in a while I enjoy a nice steak. I grilled up some filets, added a side of zucchini and grilled onion (off the grill instead of grilling it on stove top), and a side of my kale salad that is also one of my husbands favorites!  For the Kale salad recipe go here (at the bottom of the post): Healthy Recipes and Ideas: What I've Been Eating Lately

Eat up & Enjoy Ladies! 

What are some of your favorite easy quick and healthy recipes/ideas?!

Quick Healthy Recipes for Pregnant Women Or Those of us that Need Something Easy

Quick Healthy Recipes 

Dinner: MELT IN YOUR MOUTH CHICKEN- you can make this with chicken breasts or tenders.  Ingredients you'll need for the chicken: 4 boneless/skinless chicken breasts, 1 cup plain greek yogurt (I used Oikos), 1/2 cup parmesan cheese - grated, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper. Preheat oven to 375.  Combine in a bowl the greek yogurt, parmesan, and all other ingredients.  Line baking sheet with foil. Coat each breast or tender thickly with the mixture (i used clean fingers and a spoon).  Bake in the oven for 45 minutes.  If they are tenders depending on how big they are, you'll have to cook them for less time, keep an eye on them and cut into one and make sure the chicken is completely cooked through.  Artichoke is easy to make in a big pot with a little water or you can steam them (they are a little time consuming but i was craving them). Delish! A must try recipe.  Make the chicken early in the morning and then just preheat the oven and cook it when you get home from work! Simple!

Dinner: Lemon Rosemary Salmon. I bought fresh salmon from Ralphs, through it on a skillet with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, a whole lemon juiced on top, a couple shakes of dried rosemary, 1/2 tablespoon of fresh minced garlic, and salt to taste. I used Tj's 3 minute microwavable frozen brown rice and added on olive oil butter spray (ralphs) and fat free parmesean with salt and pepper to taste.  A side spinach salad with fresh feta cheese, fresh peaches (because they are delicious, hubbys favorite fruit, and are in season).  You can use any dressing you'd like but I used a homemade recipe: 

Dressing recipe: 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1 tablespoon of minced garlic, dried basil, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 1 tablespoon dijon mustard (you can always add 1 tablespoon of honey as well if you like a sweeter taste).  Shake in a jar until all ingredients are mixed well and keep refridgerated  

Dinner: Tader Joes does it again! I bought their frozen "Linguine with Pesto and Tomatoes". It comes in a red bag in the frozen section.  All you do is heat and serve! It takes 7 minutes max on the stove with a little added olive oil.  I decided to add in some chicken (shredded off the bone from a rotisserie chicken i bought that week for easy healthy meals) and fresh sun dried tomatos. I cooked them in a separate pot on the stove top (i try not to use the microwave if possible) with Fresh pesto sauce (Trader Joes also sells this over where they keep hummus). The one i buy is called "Trader Giotto's Genova Pesto".  I also added in a little fresh minced garlic and stirred it around until everything was heated.  I then added it into the pesto linguine mix. I purchased this Tomato Olive bread from TJ's as well and heated it for a couple seconds to just keep it warm. I made a simple side salad with fresh green apples, mediterranean feta (from TJ's) with baby spinach and a homemade dressing. 

Dressing recipe: 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1 tablespoon of minced garlic, dried basil, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 1 tablespoon dijon mustard (you can always add 1 tablespoon of honey as well if you like a sweeter taste).  Shake in a jar until all ingredients are mixed well and keep refridgerated  

Dinner or Lunch: I made this for dinner after coming across the recipe one evening while shopping at Traders.  I purchased their roasted frozen corn, organic canned black beans, three cheese mexican blend, fresh tomatos, romaine lettuce, green bell pepper, i added spinach to make it even healtheir, and instead of their cilantro creamy dressing that they sell i used lemon juice and tapatio hot sauce for a kick.  Trader's sells THEE BEST marinated carne asada so all you do is throw it on the grill. Its ready fairely quickly.  This left us with a ton of left overs. You can eat it as a salad or a taco or mix it into a burrito later in the week.  We ate it with a side of corn/wheat mixed small tortillas from Ralphs (They're a corn and whole wheat combination.. theyre really soft and yummy!). Id usually use brown rice tortillas or whole wheat but we wanted to try these out.  Serve with a side of light sour cream or greek yogurt.