Healthy St. Patricks Day Snacks

St. Patricks day is just right around the corner and every time there is an excuse to party there is usually an excuse to be eating unhealthy too, let's be honest! Well not this week! Here are some of my favorite St. Patricks day inspired snacks on pinterest that are healthy options for you and your party. Check out my blogger friend Alyssa's blog for a fun DIY St. Patricks Day Project as well! 

Also as an early St. Patricks Day gift here is another giveaway for this awesome night cream!

Source: Rainbow Arch W/ Spinach Hummus

Source: Leprechaun Hats

Source: Grapesickles

Source: Green Veggie Tray

Source: Rainbow Platter

Blonde Bellezza | Showered In Sequins | The Salty Mess | Stef with An F

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Homemade Creamy Tomato Soup

Today's pinterest review comes from one of my very own favorite blogs Skinnytaste.com. Pretty much most of my pins in my Grub Board on Pinterest come from this blog. I have been meaning to share this one for a while because it was so good and company approved :)

I have never really cared for tomato soup/tomato basil soup and I have NEVER had the classic American favorite Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup until I made this lovely Creamy Tomato Soup recipe and served it with some lovely sun dried tomato pesto grilled cheese sandwiches. Explosions of goodness happened that night. Safe to say I am now American and will be eating that again. 

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 1 cup chopped onions
• 28 oz can whole plum tomatoes, with juice
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1/4 cup fresh basil (I used a third of that but in dried basil b/c the store didn't have fresh basil)
• 3 1/2 cups chicken broth 
• Parmesan cheese rind 
• 1 bay leaf

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 3/4 cups reduced fat milk, warmed up

Chop everything up, heat up the oil over the stove, and cook the celery, carrots, and onions for about 5 minutes. Open the can of tomatoes, and crush the tomatoes in your hands (be cautious not too splash all over your kitchen like I did). Pour the can of tomatoes and the veggies in the crock pot with the thyme, basil, chicken broth, the bay leaf, and the parmesan cheese rind. 

Cook on low for 6 hours and let the crock pot do everything. 

Use an immersion blender to blend the soup so that all of the vegetables are all blended into a creamy masterpiece. 

Melt butter over stove and add the flour. Whisk for four minutes or so. Take a cup of the hot soup and the warmed milk and stir it into the paste. Pour the mix back into the crock pot and let it sit for ten minutes or so on the low setting. 

Easy vs. Hard: 7, The crock pot does most of the work but the chopping and the blending and all of that makes it a little more difficult than just your average can of tomato soup in the micro (but don't eat that crap because it doesn't taste the same)

Taste: 8, Like I said, I have never liked tomato soup until I tried this recipe, but the grilled cheese definitely helped

Time: 8, It did require at least an hour total in the kitchen, some cutting time, and then the finishing touches at the end

Nutritional Status: 8, Not too shabby, I would like to try this recipe again after making homemade chicken broth which I hope to be experimenting with soon!

Sorry I don't have my usual cost breakdown this time around, but I can assure you that this meal is very affordable especially because most of these ingredients you may already have in your kitchen. 

Stef's Pork Tacos

I am so excited for this weekend! I am going to the Build Your Blog Conference in SLC! I can't wait to meet other more experience bloggers and learn from professionals on how to successful grow a blog. I love my little sliver of internet property and if I could help it grow I think I would love it even more :) 

Just had to share my anxiousness for tomorrow to finally be here!

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Last night we had pork tacos for dinner and I had it all done in less than 10 minutes. I can't guarantee that the clean up time was included in those short 10 minutes but all the prep work took no time at all. The reason that this meal was so quick and easy was because two weeks ago we made a pork roast and froze the leftovers. You can see Pork Loin Recipe Post here.

Tonight all I had to do was chop up tomatoes, lettuce, and cook the tortillas. I buy Tortilla Land brand uncooked corn tortillas for tacos and they take about 30 seconds to heat up per tortilla.

For the pork, I placed the zip-lock bag of frozen pork into a bowl of cold water and left it on the counter for a few hours in the morning. After 3 hours or so you can transfer your pork into a tupperware container and store it in the fridge until dinner that night.

Trick to reheating:

-I hate how reheating can dry out leftovers. Place a lightly damp paper towel over your plate of pork and cook on high in the microwave for at least two minutes.

Serve your tacos warm with all of the fixings that your so heart desires.

Now spending a little extra time in the kitchen two weeks ago really ended up paying off. It was just as delicious the second time!

Check out yesterdays post to see how you can get a discount off of your registration fee for The Great Inflatable Race. Love y'all. :)

Pork Loin Roast

Thanks for reading everyone. If you like whatchhaaa see, follow me by clicking HERE.

After yesterdays post, I am inspired to try freezing more recipes. I almost always make enough food to have leftovers for two or three days after that way I am not in the kitchen every day but I have never had the patience to freeze because I LOVE the idea of not cooking the very next day.

Once it was done I actually had enough to freeze and refrigerate for the next day, after feeding 6 people! This recipe makes a lot!

I wish I could say that this recipe is my own, but that would be false. My mom made this growing up for Sunday dinners and it is sooooo danngggg good.

When I got married she shared the recipe with me and believe it or not it is from the Crock Pot Recipe Book that came with her slow cooker.

Ingredients:

• 1 4-5 lb boneless pork loin roast- $9.48
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 clove garlic (slivered)- $FREE (I always have garlic)
• 2 med onions (sliced)- $1.50
• 2 bay leaves- $1.48
• 1 whole clove- (I already had these)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce (I already had this too)

What I do differently:

• I use liquid aminos rather than soy sauce
• I use 3 whole cloves rather than just 1 for a richer flavor

Steps:

• Slice onions and garlic 
• layer the bottom of your crock pot with half of the onions and lay the sliced garlic on the pork
• Rub the pork with the salt and pepper
• Stick your pork with the clove(s)
• Add remaining onions and lay bay leaves 
• Add water and soy sauce 
• Cook on low for 10 hours
• Cut up the veggies for your sides

We fed 6 people and have probably about 5 or 6 servings of meat left. So for the roast it ended up being about $1.04 per serving. 

On the side:

• Roasted rosemary red potatoes- $2.73
• Balsamic asparagus- $7.03 (I splurged on this, but it was worth it, we love asparagus)
• Gravy- $0.64

I cut up the veggies after prepping the meat that way when I came home from work all I had to do was cook them.

The grand total was $3.81 per serving for the entire meal. We served 6 people and a few of them had seconds.

I froze half of the leftover pork and I will have to blog about how it turned out when we have it next week. Like I said, this is one of my first experiences freezing, guess we will see how it turns out.

The original recipe can be seen HERE.

Love y'all!!!

Eating Slow Food in a Fast Food World

A few months ago I purchased The Ultimate Bundle which included like 80 E-Books, some free giveaway goodies, and access to 12 weeks of Coffee Table Conversations (Q&A's with the authors of these books). The first conference last week was on the topic of "Eating Slow Food in a Fast Food World". It was an interesting to hear the perspective of these authors, mommy bloggers, health coaches, and kitchen gurus sharing their healthy living tips with their listeners. 

Here are some of the tips that I learned or thought were neat to share with my readers!

Tips on freezing: 

• you can freeze soup or broth in jars (thought this was cool considering I always end up wasting some)
• buy stuff in summer and cut up and freeze so it is cheaper in the winter 
• ex. red bell peppers cost an arm and a leg in the winter time, buy them in the summer, cut them up, and freeze for the winter
• label label & label everything
• once you really get into freezing it is easy to mix things up so label your pasta sauce so you can tell it apart from your enchilada sauce
• add dates so you can use the oldest ones first

Finding prep time with small children:

• quadruple meats etc. when cooking
• ex. when you have a second to yourself to prep/cook dinner, quadruple the meat or other things that need prep so you can freeze or refrigerate for another meal
• saves at least 10 minutes for the next time that you need that same ingredient
• doing a little extra during dinner time prep
• when you are cooking dinner for that night, start to pack your kids lunches or your own lunches for the next day while things are either in the oven or on the stove that way you don't have to go back and do it later

How to get things done quickly:

• ask yourself... what can i use this dish for again?
• ex. if you are shredding cheese and then need the shredder for another ingredient all you need is a simple warm rinse, not a complete wash before you use it again
• double whatever you’re making and freeze it
• if you are making enchiladas for a family of 5, cook for a family of 10 and then freeze and use that frozen meal on a busy night next week
• cooking chicken in the crock pot overnight and then shredding and freezing
• something I am dying to try... boil your chicken in the crock pot overnight so in the morning you can shred and use it for the day and freeze the rest for another night

If you have limited room and want quick easy things to grab they recommend:

• yogurts
• fruit
• rolled oats
• nuts

How to help a family transition to eating real food with a picky eater:

• blending soup
• use immersion blender to thicken up soup by blending vegetables so your kids or spouse don't even see them
• have kids use a straw to drink out of their soup bowl
• just changing it up will be fun enough for them to help them to eat it
• kids won’t starve if they don’t like their dinner, do not reward the picky behavior
• do not let your kid have a cookie after dinner if they are hungry because they didn't like dinner, rewarding picky behavior encourages the behavior
• don’t try to control what your kids are eating outside of the home like at grandmas or a friends or something
• be sure though to develop a healthy palate for them inside the home where you can have more control

If wanting to start eating real foods:

• first step is the pantry, re-stock to have the healthier foods on hand
• meal planning, just decide not to buy anymore of the processed foods when you plan meals
• clean out your freezer
• that way you have room for your frozen meals
• make small changes first
• ex. start by throwing out the hamburger helper or by just simply not buying it anymore

How do you shop at Walmart and still eat Real Food:

• don’t feel like you can’t do it because you shop at Walmart, they HAVE healthy food there!
• they will supply what the customers want 
• tell the manager that you are grateful that they carry something that you enjoy
• stay away from chip and cookie isle which are located at any grocery store, even the "healthy" ones

Clean up sucks, how do I deal with it:

• paper plates (dollar store)
• washing as you cook 
• rinse a bowl out and use it again rather than getting a clean bowl out
• rinse RIGHT AWAY so food doesn't begin to cake on and make cleaning longer
• start in the biggest pot
• if you are making a soup or something that requires a big pot but the first step is to saute the veggies, use that pot rather than another pan and then dump everything else in the pot
• clean right after dinner while you are already in the kitchen

Hope someone out there finds these tips helpful! I know they will for sure be of use to me a few years down the road when I am super busy with kids!

Pinterest Review: Quinoa Chicken Chili

It has been a really long time since I have done a pinterest review! I am super excited about today's pinterest recipe because it has been something that has been a staple now in our little family for months. Click HERE for the link to the original recipe or HERE to see it on my pinterest board so you can repin.

I walked into the kitchen at 11:35 AM, put everything into the crock-pot, made my lunch, and was in the car by 11:45 headed to work. That's what I call convenient. 

So I can't use the can opener that we have to save my life so Darin always has to open cans for me but I knew he would be at work when I threw everything in the crock pot. So the night before, I had him open all the cans for me and I stuck it in tupperware in the fridge. I made sure to rinse the black beans and the corn and drain before I put that away for the night. 

Then I threw everything in the crock pot the next day, added some quinoa, two chicken breasts, chicken stock, and some spices and then BAM, turn the crock pot on low and let it do ALL THE WORK.

Ingredients:

• 2 cans of black beans - $1.36
• 1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes- $1.24
• 1 can of corn- $0.68
• 3 cups chicken stock- $2.68
• 1 can of diced tomatoes with green chilies - $0.98 (original recipe calls for 14 oz can, I buy 10 oz)
• 2 chicken breasts- $4.79
• 1 cup quinoa- I already had quinoa and I think I spend about $8.00 when I originally bought it but it keeps very well when kept in the fridge so I haven't had to buy in a while
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp cumin

Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

What I did differently: 

• After adding the chicken stock in the morning, I set aside leftover in the fridge. It thickens up a lot during the day so I add the rest of the chicken stock after I turn the crock pot off and stir with a spoon to let the chicken just fall to shreds.
• I DON'T add crushed red pepper because I hate spicy foods.

I already had all of the spices as well. I spent a total of $11.73 this past week buying stuff for this pinterest recipe. It makes approximately 8 servings. So each serving was about $1.47. Now if you had to buy the quinoa too that would add about an additional dollar per serving but it would last you through the next several times of making it! 

This picture doesn't do it much justice considering I took it in a tupperware tub but that is okay. You will just have to trust me on this one. 

Easiness: 10 honestly so easy

Taste: 7 unless you add avocado on top then it's a 9 for sure

Time: 10

Nutritional Status: 8 obviously the canned goods probably added unnecessary sodium but sometimes you make sacrifices for convenience

Not So Tuna Fishy Sandwiches

Tuna was one of the only seafoods that I would eat growing up. I remember Sunday afternoons coming home after church starving my mom would make tuna fish sandwiches for us to eat to hold us over until dinner time. If it weren't for the mercury content in canned tuna, I could probably eat it a lot more often than I actually do! For those of you that are concerned about mercury in the tuna, purchase the tuna labeled "canned light tuna" rather than the Albacore white tuna. It has a lower mercury content.

The American Heart Association recommends that we eat fatty fish twice a week. I am going to be honest and say that that is really hard for me. Mainly because I forget about how important it is but also because I live in Utah and seafood in Utah just sounds gross because there is definitely not a sea nearby haha. According to Harvard studies, if we do this, our chances of morbidity due to heart disease will decrease by more than a third.

 This recipe is one that I modified from Daphne Oz' recipe.I modified it to make it simpler and therefore a little bit cheaper. I titled the post "not so tuna fishy" because it doesn't have that fishy taste and that's why I love it so much.

Ingredients:

• 3 cans of canned light tuna
• 1 red bell pepper
• 4 stalks of celery
• 1/2 of a bunch of green onions/scallions
• 1/3 cup of olive oil
• 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

Chop up the veggies and mix with the canned tuna after draining it. Add olive oil & vinegar and stir. Serve on  whole wheat bread or add to a leafy green salad. 

So good, so cheap, and so simple. 

Franklin's BBQ

Christmas break was overwhelming with over indulging in some of my delicious favorites. I don't know how one stays fit on vacation? That is something I have yet to figure out. But I just barely made it back to Utah and can now return to eating home cooked meals and eating when I want.

Franklin's BBQ came about circa 2009 AKA my last year of high school but I never tried it until a few days ago. I could not believe my taste buds.

HAVE YOU EVER.... waited in line for FOUR hours to eat? If you have then you are CRAZY because if it wasn't Franklin's it wasn't worth it. The line is outdoors so not only was it four hours but it was four hours in the brisk 40 degree Texas winter weather.

So at around 10:00 AM an hour before the restaurant doors open, the employees come around asking about how much BBQ each person in line would like so that they can estimate how many people in line they can actually feed. Franklin's cooks a certain amount of food so once they are out then they close for the day. Once they figure out how much food each person would like they can estimate about how many people will be guaranteed food and then hand someone the "last man standing" sign. We were literally RIGHT in front of the last man standing. Had we been behind him we probably would have left because you are no longer guaranteed food and the line is still four hours long. 

The first part of our group got in line at 9:30 and the rest of us met up about 10:15. We literally didn't sit down to eat until 1:30 PM. But it was a glorious time once we finally made it. 

What an incredibly scrumptious experience.

This place was so legit they started their own YouTube channel with episodes on how to cook BBQ

The best news if you hate waiting in line but want to try Franklin's BBQ then you can order it ahead of time!!! But the shortest wait for ordering is a month and a half. So pick and choose your battles my friends.

Jalapeño Ranch

Back home in Austin their is a restaurant called Chuy's that specializes in delicious Tex-Mex. They serve chips with all kinds of salsas but my favorite thing about Chuy's is their creamy jalapeño dip.

My mom used to make jalapeño ranch to bring to potlucks and other parties growing up and she makes it about every time I come home to visit!

It is so good you won't be able to resist double dipping. 

So the recipe isn't very healthy to be honest so I did some experimenting with the recipe and I have come up with something a little better. It is still not the healthiest of foods but in moderation you can enjoy this without guilt :) 

Jalapeño Ranch: 

• 1 Bunch Cilantro
• 3/4 Cup of Half and Half
• 1 Package of Ranch Dressing Mix
• 1 Cup Low Fat Plain Greek Yogurt
• 1 Avocado
• 1/3 Cup Jalapeño from the jar

Mix everything together in a blender and enjoy with some tortilla chips or for a healthier snack carrot sticks are really good too!

We also used to put this on our BBQ burgers during the summertime to add some flavor and spice things up! However you decide to use it, I hope you enjoy!