PIZZA KALE CHIPS

Hey hey

Last week when I was munching on my cheesy BBQ kale chips I had an AWE.MAZE.ING idea!! 

P I Z Z A kale chips! 

Ingredients: 

2-3 TBSP Tomato paste

Pizza seasoning mix (below) 

1/2 cup nutritional yeast 

Seasoning mix: 

2 TBSP Itailan seasoning

1TBSP dried Basil 

1 1/2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp oregano

1/8 tsp red chili flakes

1/2 tsp crushed fennel seeds

I used a couple tsps of water in the tomato paste to thin it out a bit and added in a couple TBSP of spice mix.. Then added in a couple handfuls of washed kale torn into pieces.

I used my hands to get the sauce in all the nooks and crannies, after all they are your best utensils! 

Then I sprayed my baking pan with some coconut oil and spread out the kale chips. You dont want them to be to close together. 

Then I sprinkled a good amount of nutrional yeast over the top of them before baking them in a 220 degree oven for 30 mins 

Then I flipped them, sprinkled more nutritional yeast on them and baked for another 30-40 mins until crispy. 

Makes sure to not overload them with sauce bc they seem to not get very crispy when that happens. 

These are so TASTY!! 

I hope you enjoy them as much as my son and I did!! 

Quinoa Pinto bean salad with Avocado Lime sauce

Hey Lovelies

As you may know I have a love affair with food and cooking!  

In the kitchen is where I feel most comfortable. My mother and grandmother instilled a sense of pride in cooking homemade food from scratch with love!! 

And they both blessed my sister and I with the cooking bug, mine didn't come until later in life but I'm happy to say I have also passed it on to my daughter who is now 17 and she makes a mean creamed eggs!! I got her a leather bound journal and she keeps all her favorite (usually family) recipes in there! 

Which makes my ❤️ shine! 

Jessica with her brother Corey 

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AFTER ALL the holiday indulging my body was literally screaming at me to eat something green and fresh. As I LOVE anything Mexican that is my go to so last night I sat thinking about what ingredients I had on hand and what I could make that would satisfy my craving. 

Lucky for you I came up with this delicious fresh salad that tastes better the day after. Flavors need to sit together and marry if you will... 

What's in It and how did I make it I bet you are wondering?

If I would have sat down and thought out this recipe and had everything on hand it would have had a few per things like smoked paprika and cilantro BUT... I used what I had on hand and it turned out just fine. Feel free to add what you like and make it your own!! 

Because I FIRMLY believe SHARING IS CARING, I'm here to share the recipe with you! 

Quinoa & Pinto bean salad with Avocado lime sauce

2 cups cooked white quinoa

1 can drained and rinses pinto beans 

1 cup thawed frozen corn

1/2 finely chopped onion 

1 1/2 tsp chili powder

1 1/2 cumin powder

1/2 tsp coriander 

1/2 tsp oregano 

1 sm Clive garlic minced

Pinch sea salt

Pinch red pepper flakes 

Juice from half a lime 

Mix everything together set aside 

Avocado lime sauce 

1/4 jalapeño with or without seeds is up to you, I used seeds from one side 

1 avocado

Juice from half a lime

Pinch sea salt

Sm clove garlic

1/4 cup sour cream (I would have preferred to make this vegan but used what I had on hand) to make vegan use vegan sou cream or plain unsweetened coconut milk yogurt 

A little water to thin it out

Add everything into a magic bullet or blender ( I don't own a blender as a I LOVE my magic bullet and it never fails me for any job I have from making oat flour to my daily superfood shake) 

Add water to your desired consistency 

DONE!! Let me know how you like it and if any, substitutions you make

HAPPY EATING and keep a look out for my Ecookbook coming this summer to a PDF near you 😊

Mini White Chocolate Cheesecakes

One of my favorite blogs is Janetha's, and I'm really hoping I can meet this chicka at the next Blend retreat. She's got great content on her blog. Lots of good workout info and some healthy and some not so healthy recipes like the one this post is about. Her Hubs is a hottie and her dogs are adorable AND she's got a superhero of a momma ta boot!! No I'm not a crazy stalker, I just know a good thing when I read one!!

I did change the recipe a little, nothing to drastic but you can find her recipe here...but this is what I did.

Crust ~
1 + 1/3 cups and an extra handful of Nilla wafers
1/3 cup butter melted

tossed the Nilla wafers into my food processor.. made crumbs added the melted butter and you've got crust.
Line regular size muffin tins with 18 cupcake wrappers and put about a lrg spoonful into ea cupcake wrapper. Press with fingers. Put into a 325 degree oven for about 8 - 10 mins set aside. At this point turn your oven down to 300 so it's cooled and ready to put in the cheesecakes.

Filling ~
6 oz Ghirardelli White choc bar or chips
1/3 cup butter
16 oz 1/3 less fat Cream Cheese ~ softened to room temp
8 oz plain 0% Fage yogurt
1 Tbls Cornstarch
1 Tbls Vanilla
2 Eggs

Melt choc w/ butter in a dbl boiler or in microwave. I've never used the microwave but on Janetha's blog I think she says about 2 mins stirring about half way through. Then set aside to cool, mix yogurt and cream cheese until well blended and smooth, add in choc mixture beat again until mixed and smooth, then add in cornstarch and vanilla again mix until smooth and well incorporated. By this time you'll want to just eat the filling out of the bowl.. it smells so good!! Next add in eggs 1 at a time mixing after adding each egg.

melted choc & butter

cream cheese & yogurt

fill your cupcake wrappers evenly. I used my regular sized ice cream scooper which worked great. I filled these suckers to the top!!

Bake at 300 for 30 mins. the cheesecakes will have little splits on the tops and you'll think they aren't done but if you cook them any longer they will be dry. cool them for 20 mins then cover and place in fridge for at least 2 hrs. Top with whatever you'd like.

cooked and cooling

I'm thinking that I will make these and add in dark choc next time.. that sounds really good!

 I might try to do a no bake version.. I'm wondering what would happen if you didn't add in the eggs and just went right to filling the cupcake wrappers and put in the fridge for a couple hrs or even overnight. Hmm, now my brains working overtime.

I also got a great workout in today. Knowing that these little suckers would be in my tummy later :)

Do 3 sets and take minimal breaks in between each exercise to keep your heart rate up! I took about a min break in between each set.

1. after you do the 10 squats your going to hold a squat position with 1 leg held out to the side and just pulse it up and down. your not doing a leg raise so it's a small movement. Boy does it burn that outer saddle bag area. then do another 10 squats and pulse the opposite leg. so you'll do 20 total squats with 20 pulses on ea leg.

7. I used 12 lb weights after the first set. 10 was to easy and if your not fatiguing your muscles what's the point in my opinion. Today my chest (from the plyo pushups w/bosu) and my arms are REALLY SORE!!! which means I did what I was supposed to do!
I'm pretty much sore everywhere!

The rest is pretty self explanatory!  

 I did shorten my work week to 4 days instead of 5. I work for a cleaning company and my arm and wrists were starting to take a beating, I already have Impingement syndrome in my right shoulder that hasn't bothered me for a couple yrs, after doing physical therapy and getting some ionphoresis. But now it's hurting ALL THE TIME, not good. Since my goal is to get my trainers cert.. exciting news flash, I'm ordering my stuff from NASM tomorrow!! I don't want to junk my body cleaning. I need 1 more day of rest and this will also allow me to get in an extra workout day and study time. I'm grateful to be able to work a 4 day work week due to my wonderful husband who works his butt off!

I hope all's well with you guys! Let me know if you try the cheesecakes or my workout

OX Sherice

Light Whole Wheat baguette

Hey!

Yesterday it was very wet and rainy. Which was nice. I'm from the Pacific Northwest where it rains all the time, living on the other side of the mountains is a lot different. In Spokane we get more snow and hotter temps in the summer. It's very dry around here. But this winter has been mild and the rain is a refreshing change from snow!
Being cold and wet out I of course knew I would be making a yummy pot of soup. I settled on Green Lentil and I remembered seeing a Light Whole Wheat Baguette recipe on www.pinterest.com. I love that site! I really like the recipes and the D.I.Y. stuff.

I made the recipe and it's really good and was really easy to make as well.

Here's the link for the recipe.... http://www.goodlifeeats.com/2011/01/light-whole-wheat-baguette.html

this took me about 5 mins to mix up and the rest is just rising time.. I got about 6 smaller loaves out of this recipe. I made 3 and put 2 in freezer and 1 in fridge, which I will most likely make tonight to go with my salad. You most likely will have to get your hands "dirty" :) just get the dough mixed and let it rise... that's all there is to it.

I  love to eat healthy. And I'm glad that I notice the difference. I Don't all the time, I fall of the health wagon too now and again. But I get back on track too. You can't have that defeatist attitude. You know what I'm talking about "oh, now I might as well eat the whole bag and have pizza for dinner."
You just need to say "this moment I can change it."

When I started out on my "Healthy Journey" as I call it. I was no more educated about this stuff than you or the next guy. I did all the research myself. I read books.. a few I really enjoyed that are along the same lines is.. Jillian Michaels Master your Metabolism.. this is a super in depth (on the nerdy side), book about hormones and your endocrin system and how environment and what we put into our bodies does to them. Also Jackie Warner's Book This is Why Your Fat and How to Stay Thin Forever.
This book touches on the same topics as Master your Metabolism but on a less in depth scale. This book also has a full chapter dedicated to sugar and how bad it is for us. It really is worthless!!  I started doing research online.

Then I wanted to join a gym but knew that I wouldn't be successful unless I felt comfortable. Right!! I've belonged to other gyms and found myself standing around feeling like a moron having no clue what to do. This time I had a game plan. I joined my local Gold's Gym and I also hired a trainer once a month. She trained me and the wrote down what I was supposed to be doing when I was at the gym. How convenient!! I did that for about a yr. During that time I became very familiar with the gym and working out. I then started checking out workout videos on youtube and stumbled upon Bodyrock.tv. I then started doing there workouts. I was feeling like "If this is what I want to do and I want people to pay me to help them, then I should be able to do it on my own" So I split up with my trainer and I now do it by myself. I do get inspiration from watching workout videos and looking at magazines. And for now that's how it will have to be.. Until I get that elusive job and start working towards a personal trainers certification. Helping people with their weight, diet and out look on life are what I really want to be doing. Slowly but surely :)

Enough of me yammering on.. talk to ya later
Sherice ox

You will be surprised at how your body changes and adapts to what you put into it. I realize that eating less bread makes me feel better, I've replaced a lot of bread with Ezekiel sprouted grain bread. At first it took a bit of getting used to, But now I really like it. It's got a chewy kind of after bite to it.. Sounds weird, I know but give it a try. I like that my body wants water, nice cold water. I love the stuff and have it with me at all times.. no joke! I have a great 24oz BPA Nathan's water bottle I take everywhere.
I like that I crave fresh, delicious, vegetables, salads, and roasted veggies. Eating this way makes me feel, lighter, healthier, less weighted down. I think we've all felt that feeling. That's what unhealthy, fatty, starchy foods make you feel like. I can for sure tell the difference between eating a pile of mashed potatoes and gravy and a salad with a light oil based dressing on the side!! With the mashed potatoes, I'm sluggish and want to take a nap, with the salad I'm ready for a nice hike or something else active.
If you don't understand what I'm talking about than I challenge you to get a notebook and start journaling what your eating, how your feeling about it after wards, physically, mentally, emotionally. Then start switching up things, more fruits and veggies, less starchy breads and potatoes. more water and less carbonated soft drinks. Less cheese, dips and sauces. Use more lemon juice, fruit juices, spices, peppers, Celtic or sea salt instead of reg table salt. less processed foods and more fresh foods. no chips, cookies, candies. Trade them for nuts, dried fruit, Dark chocolate pieces.

Okay, I think you get the point. :)

Baked Pears, Sprouts & a workout

Hey!
What's happening in Blogger land?

Not a lot going on here. OH wait.. I did win an awesome prize from one of my favorite healthy blogs, www.bexlife.com.

It's a composting factory !!! *cheering and hand clapping*

It's a worm factory 360!! It comes with all the stuff minus the worms, you get those separately, and was a snap to set up!!  All I need to do is make the worm bedding with the pumice and bedding that was provided, order my worms and let them start turning garbage into compost. My husband built us 4 beautiful cedar raised beds last yr that are going to LOVE, LOVE this!!! Can you tell I'm excited!! when I get it set up and functioning, I will try to remember pictures or maybe even a vlog.. I'm interested in posting those sometimes I just need to figure out how to do it on my Macbook. Which I'm sure is super easy. :) you keep this little beauty inside. It doesn't like temps below 40 and above 80 degrees. It comes with 4 compartments but you start out with just one, when the worms have done their job and have turned the junk into compost then you simply add another compartment and they will work their little wiggly bodies up into that compartment and get busy working. You then add the bottom compost to your beds!! HOW EASY!!! and the way the worms work, there is no odor.. so don't worry about it smelling up the house, It won't! It was a little over 100 bucks, which I could not have afforded right now!! Thanks Bex!!

It seems when the weather turns cold, cloudy and snowy I turn to pj's and comfort foods. I haven't had a workout in the last couple days, So with that in mind I've tried to keep my eating on the good side.
I scoured over online recipes looking for a baked pear recipe that sounded good. But I only had what was in my kitchen to work with so that eliminated a lot of the recipes.
After not finding anything that really peaked my interest I decided to do what I usually do and that's to use a little of this and a pinch of that.
I had 2 Bosc pears in my fridge because this craving had been stewing a bit in my memory from seeing a delicious looking pear on foodgawker. I cut up the 2 pears into halves, cored them and placed them in a sprayed baking dish, then I took a couple handfuls of oats, a tsp of cinnamon, a little bit of ginger, a splash of vanilla, 1/2 cup brown sugar and some room temp Earth Balance butter maybe 3 tbls. and blended it all together with a fork.. I placed the oat mixture on top of the pears and baked it with foil at 400 for about 20 mins.. then took off the foil for about 5-10 mins. Pictures and a blog post was an after thought I'm sorry to say, so not great pictures!

This is before I cooked them. They were good. A couple days later I made them again but I used a Bartlett Pear and it was so much better. The Bartlett had so much more flavor and it created it's own juice. Even though they say Bosc are better for baking I'd use a Bartlett instead ;)

I love sprouts.. I remember my mom always had sprouts growing on the kitchen counter when I was a kid. I found this great website www.sproutpeople.com and found sprouts galore!! So I got myself a couple sprouters, or you can use the old school glass mason jars with a little screen in the tops. I like these because you can see the magic as it's happening but since my young ones aren't so young anymore and really don't care about sprouting sprouts, I opted for the "sprouter" at sproutpeople, along with the starter kit of sprouts. I have a bunch of different sprout varieties.. I've got...French garden, Italian blend, Spicy mix, alfalfa, clover, Russian mix, Oriental mix, Nick's mix, and Moo mix. You can go to the website I linked above to see what is in these mixes, but for instance the Oriental is what I sprouted and it's got, alfalfa, red clover, mustard, mizuna and tatsoi seeds! The first day you put 2 Tbls of seeds into your cup, then fill with water. Let seeds soak for 24 hrs on kitchen counter. In am drain and rinse seeds let sit on counter.. I usually rinse and drain 1-2 a day. Another reason I got this type of sprouter is because it's got an insert the when twisted it doesn't allow the inner compartment with your seeds in it, to touch the bottom. So it also works as a strainer. So if your using the old school mason jar, make sure your sprouts are not sitting in water.. that's the key to sprouts!!  In about 4 days depending on what sprouts your using you will have yummy healthy sprouts to eat!

Day 2

day 4 ready to eat

soak in water to remove hulls

Now your ready for some yummy sprout sandwiches!

I hope you've found something worth while on my blog today. Remember that today is what matters not yesterday. It's over and done. No replay!! so focus on TODAY and making good choices to improve your life! :)

EDITED @ 2:45pm

Hi again.. just finished my workout... here it is....
I did 5 exercises in a Tabata format, in between each exercise I alternated 50 toe taps and 50 mt. climbers. Here's the breakdown
10/20/8rds= 4 mins this is called a Tabata interval

1. Plie Squat w/12 lbs,  I did this 1 exercise for the whole 4 min tabata interval before moving on to my next exercise. remember 10 secs of rest and 20 secs of work for the whole 4 mins BEFORE moving to next one!!
9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 9, 10, 9

50 Toe Taps you can use the floor or a ball or what ever makes you feel good :)

2. Side Plank lift (R)
8, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10,

50 Mt. Climbers

3. Side Plank lift (L)
12, 14, 12, 10, 11, 10, 11, 12

50 toe taps

4. alternating punches with resistance band.. hopefully you have a door attachment for your resistance band..put it in door attached to your RB shut door tightly. Stand with your back to the door gripping the handles on RB walk out until there is tension on your RB then alternating punches. ;)
17, 17, 17, 17, 17, 20, 20, 18 my shoulders were on fire by round 8!!

50 mt. climbers

5. Toe Touches laying on floor
11, 12, 12, 11, 11, 10, 13, 14

I feel better now!
Sherice ox

Granola bars!

 Hi~

How is everyone's New Year going so far? Good I hope!

Here's a quick yummy granola bar recipe for ya!
I got this recipe from http://toneitup.com/ I really love this website.. they have some great recipes and workout videos so check em out!!

Granola bars ~

1 cup almonds
1 cup apricots
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup honey
1 cup peanut butter
3 scoops vanilla whey protein powder

mix 1st 3 ingredients together, then heat up peanut butter add in honey and van protein mix well. add into the dry mixture and pat into a greased dish. put in fridge to set for 45 mins.
Slice and wrap for easy on the go eats!!

I only made 1/2 the batch this recipe makes.. I didn't have enough of some ingredients. Like the honey for instance, I had almost a half cup, so I topped my 1/2 cup off with some agave nectar.. I think that's why my bars never got really hard even after the 45 mins in the fridge. And I forgot the vanilla protein powder in mine. I added in some dried blueberries as well. They are still really good and I will be tweaking this recipe to make them just right for me.. thinking maybe less honey and a little coconut oil to also help harden them up! well see. I will for sure let you know how it goes!

I also have a workout for you!
This is an H.I.I.T workout and also a quick 4 min Tabata cardio workout at the end!

No Pain No gain workout
10sec rest/45secs work/24 rds/3x thru= 24 mins

1. Squats with a kick back w/12lb weight ~ really squeeze that glute muscles on the kickback
15, 16. 17

2. Scorpion planks ~ alternating sides ~ 20, 33, 36









3. adductor lifts (L) I didn't use any weight 32, 56, 70













4. Adductor Lifts (R)
38, 65, 83

5. Fly on Stability Ball I used my med resistance band
11, 14, 16

6. Crunches on SB. I started out doing obliques but switched to regular crunch
19, 22, 22

7. Crunch on SB
16, 19, 22

8. Push ups on knees
10, 15, 17

a Tabata interval is always going to be rest for 10 sec and work for 20 sec and you do 8 rds which equals to 4 mins. I did 2 exercises Jumping jacks and jumping side lunges

1. Jumping jacks
18, 25, 25, 26

2. Jumping side lunges
27, 26, 27, 30

Ciao Bellas!!
Sherice oxox

Chicken Tacos

Hey~
Somedays it's a two post kinda day! I'll keep this one short and sweet, or should I say spicy!
This is MY version of a recipe that I saw in a magazine.. I'm always adding or omitting things from recipes to make them my own!

Shredded Chicken Tacos with salsa.. you can find the salsa recipe here....http://foodieluvsfitness.blogspot.com/2011/12/chilly-sunday.html

homemade salsa

you can use a rotisserie chicken for this or you can prepare you chicken however you'd like, but This recipe is meant for the chicken to already be cooked. I had some already shredded that I had cooked in my crock pot for another recipe and had just made extra to freeze for a quick and easy dinner like this one. Remember that if you taste the chicken and it needs more of a seasoning then go ahead add more!! but you can't take it out so just keep that in mind.

We only eat white meat here so it's chicken breast all the way..
so put your chicken in a pan, probably about 2 breasts
add in juice of 1 lime
3/4 tsp cumin powder
1/8 tsp cayenne powder
1/2 to 3/4 tsp chili powder
and about 5-6 shakes of the smoked paprika..I didn't measure this one, sorry! FYI: don't buy this at the regular grocery store like I did. for a little jar it cost me over 5 bucks then at Costco it was a few dollars more for 3 times as much.. shop around!!
Corn Tortillas

mix together and let chicken get hot.. meanwhile put your corn tortillas in some foil in a 400 degree oven, I'd recommend putting parchment or foil between the tortillas, they tend to stick together.
When everything is hot.. put chicken in tortillas add some salsa on top, if you want a little cheese and sour cream, great. But these Tacos can be really healthy, so if your going for low calorie than don't use the cheese or sour cream. I did add a tad bit of cheese on mine :)

 

They are delicious.. I don't know about you but at our house we eat Mexican at least 3 days a week probably more!! There's a running joke in our house about us having some rogue Mexican gene somewhere because we just can't get enough Mexican food!! WE LOVE IT!!

Enjoy!
OX Sherice