Grilled Avocado and more

I hope everybody had a great weekend! We had amazing weather on Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately it didn't last over the weekend, so we didn't go for a hike or in the Zoo. But that's okay, we had to take care of a few things (like renewing our Costco membership, taking advantage of a great diaper deal, .....) and overall just enjoyed a relaxed weekend.

On Saturday the hubby and me did our workout together (he started P90X on Monday - so exciting!) and it was fun doing Kenpo X together with him. Time flew by really quick. And after that we had a Smoothie with the new Chocolate Protein Powder he bought the day before. Yum! 

Today we did some more shopping and in the store I decided to grab a Larabar for the way home, because I was hungry and I planned on working out after the little one was done for a nap. The Larabar "Coconut Cream Pie" was extremely delicious. Even the hubby liked it and I hoped that he didn't want to have a 2nd bite. (hahaha)

It was the stretching routine today and while I was in the "Frog" position, our dog decided to join me. He came up all the way to my face and gave me a few kisses, little silly dog. :-)

I totally forgot to drink a green smoothie yesterday. But I thought it counts as a whole "St. Patrick's Day" weekend. So I threw all the ingredients for a Green Smoothie in my Vitamix......

It includes:

3/4 cup Vanilla Coconut Milk
1 frozen Banana (I just love frozen fruits)
3/4 cup Pineapple (fresh or frozen)
1 cup Spinach (I always freeze those bags of Spinach - works great for me)
6 oz fat free Greek yogurt
1 tbsp unsweetened coconut
1 scoop Vanilla Protein Powder
1 1/4 ice cubes (not shown in the picture)

If you use frozen Pineapple instead of a fresh one, use less ice unless you like a really thick smoothie :-)

.....and blended it up really good. THIS IS SO DELICIOUS!!! Even if you're not a spinach fan. Try it! I could drink that one every day.

Inspired by Skinny Taste 

Even though the weather wasn't as good as we hoped, we still started our BBQ season today.

We made "Grilled Avocado" for the very first time. And this one totally makes it on our "Healthy side dish" list for a BBQ.

You need:

1 Avocado
Lime juice
Olive Oil
Sea Salt (optional)
Greek Yogurt (or Sour Cream if you prefer)

Cut the Avocado in half, remove the seed, mix up the lime juice with the olive oil and brush it over the Avocado and place it, flesh side down, on the grill for about 4 to 5 minutes.

Put a scoop of Greek Yogurt in the middle, sprinkle a little bit of Sea Salt on it and dig in. Pure Yumminess!!!! Trust me.

After the avocado I had a piece of chicken, stuffed mushrooms and a Cucumber-Tomato-Feta Salad.

And my little one couldn't get enough of the corn and she wanted to eat it all by herself. :-)

Lean and Green Dinner

I couldn't go for a run yesterday. My knee doesn't feel right, right now. So I want to be careful and don't over do it. I still did my P90X workout and my arms are sore today.

I just finished my Yoga X workout for today, sweated a lot and I already had my Protein Smoothie. I used Grapefruit again, because I still had a half left in my fridge and it's so refreshing with that warm weather we're having right now.

Dinner last night was lean and green. I didn't feel like cooking and a Salad with Tuna did sound great to us. I picked up a mixed salad package. I usually don't buy them, but the mix with the Spinach, baby greens and so on sounded delicious!

I shredded two carrots into the salad, chopped up a half a onion and made a dressing out of Olive Oil, Balsamic Vinegar, Sea Salt, Pepper, Oregano and Garlic Powder! 

I placed the salad on the plates, added the tuna (canned in water NOT olive oil) and drizzled a little bit of lemon juice on top.

Lean. Green. Delicious.

While my kids were outside playing in the yard with my husband I fixed up a delicious (and healthy) Chocolate Mousse. I am going to make it again tomorrow. So stay tuned!

Curried Chicken Salad

Before I post today's dinner tomorrow, I thought I share the one we had last night! This curried chicken salad is so freaking delicious. Everyone in this house loves it. We already had it last week, but I was craving it, because we had such high temperatures. You have to do some chopping, but it's honestly not that time consuming. And most of the time you may have all of the ingredients already in your fridge, freezer or pantry.

You need:
Serving size: About 9 Wraps

3 chicken breasts
1 1/2 apples
3 stalks of celery
3 carrots 
1/4 cup roasted Walnuts

3/4 cup Mayo (I like to use real Mayo. And not Miracle Whip with High Fructose Corn Syrup...)
3/4 tsp Hot Curry Powder
1/8 tsp Cayenne Pepper

(If you use usual Curry Powder (not the hot one) you can use 1/4 tsp of Cayenne Pepper)

Cook or grill the chicken breast. While that is going on, cut the carrots in cubs and put them in a hot pan to soften them a little bit. Chop up the celery in really small pieces (I like to use my chopper, because in that way my kids don't taste the celery too much and eat it!). Chop up the apples and after you toasted the Walnuts in a hot pan you can cut them into little pieces as well. At last cut up the chicken breast after it's cooked.....

.....and put all the ingredients in a bowl. Ad the mayo, the seasonings and add salt and pepper to your taste.

My kids like to eat this Chicken Salad served in a Whole Wheat Tortilla. Me and my husband eat it wrapped in a Romain Lettuce. And believe when I tell you, it tastes AMAZING!!!! Seriously, give the lettuce a try. This is a perfect and delicious way to eat a dinner without carbohydrates.

And I packed my daughter the leftovers and a Tortilla Wrap for lunch. Perfect! I file it under Dinner, because I usually never cook lunch. But it would make a great lunch as well.

A thank you to theartofdoingstuff for inspiring me with this recipe!

Hey Beauties and a change of plan

I am writing this post while I drink my Meta-D, getting my little one out of bed, eating breakfast and drinking coffee. And then I am ready to get this day started.

Taking the dogs out for a walk later, taking care of the house and doing laundry is on the plan today! Because I didn't do it like I planned it yesterday (remember, I just wanted to do my Stretch workout and nothing else besides things around the house!?) Well, yes.....we needed to bring back some dumbbells to Target and get new ones. I bought 12 lbs ones the other day, but since my husband wants to start P90X too, we thought its smarter to invest in adjustable ones. And they weren't that much more expensive.

And I am excited to use them later. Because today it's the "Chest, Shoulders & Triceps and Ab Ripper X" workout.

I knew that we were going to pass Dicks Sporting goods and so I wanted to stop there as well and buy a pair of running shoes. I tried on a couple of shoes, but as soon as I had the Brooks Ravenna 2 on, I knew that this is my shoe! And they were on sale. Yaay! I also scored a long sleeve shirt which was on sale, I wanted to have one because I was freezing my butt of on Saturday morning and it's no fun to run like that. 

And I had to put on the my shoes and the new shirt and take them out for a run right after we got home. I couldn't help myself and our little one had to take a nap anyways. I uploaded a few new songs on my iPod and off I went. I ran 3.34 miles (5.37 km) in 41.27 min. But that was with stopping and talking (I met a few friends. I couldn't reach my phone to pause the App. I have to use the App until I can and want to afford the Garmin Forerunner) and even some walking when I needed to take a few breaths or when had to fix my earphones. So it could have been faster, but that's okay.

Say hi to my new Beauties!!! :-)

And my new shirt (don't you just love bathroom pictures...hahaha) Did I mention that it is a size M??? I guess it's a pretty big deal to someone who has/had shirts in the closet with a X in front of the L.

For dinner I cooked a really clean Chili.
Beans, Onions, Peppers, Tomatoes, ground turkey breast, a few spices and water. It was delicious!

 

After dinner I wanted to have a greek yogurt with frozen fruits. But I did my X Stretch workout after we brought the kids to bed and so I didn't get the chance to eat it, because it was too late. And I don't know if it was the running, not eating the yogurt or both, but my scale was good to me this morning. :-)

Have a great start into the new week!

Stupid scale and a great hike

I don't like my scale right now. I haven't lost any weight last week and today I even "gained" some. That is so frustrating. Especially since I went running yesterday morning, we did go a great hike and I did my Kenpo X (Cardio boxing) workout. But I can't and won't go on a run anymore until I have new shoes. Mine are old so I need to go and buy a new pair.

Today I am trying to drink more, don't eat my greek yogurt after dinner and all I am going to do today is my Stretch workout. And of course trying to don't be frustrated anymore. :-)

And I am so glad that we went for a hike yesterday. I woke up this morning to a cloudy sky and no sunshine. We wanted to go to the Zoo today, but maybe we're going to stay home and do stuff around the house.

Yesterday was amazing though. So far one of the best hikes we've been on since we live here.

The dogs needed a water break as well. :-) 

 

And silly Duke had to go under the bridge. 

 

After the hike I worked out and drank a protein smoothie (of course). And for dinner we had

Walnut crusted Salmon and a Quinoa salad

You need a large salmon filet

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

a little bit of honey 

Preheat your oven to 375. Brush the salmon with the honey, sprinkle it with the chopped walnuts and place in the oven until cooked.  Quick, simple and so good!

 

It's the first time that we made Quinoa and we really liked it. We added Black Beans, Red Bell Pepper and Celery. The vinaigrette was made out of olive oil, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, pepper, salt, basil, oregano and garlic. And my husband added some mediterranean spice too.  

A dinner we had the other night

We loooove to eat fish. My oldest one doesn't. But once a week we make her to, just because it's so good for your body. She likes the fish breaded so that's what we're doing for her.

I wrote about this before when I wanted to make her a fish but didn't have breadcrumbs and so I had to come up with something else. Oats! I googled a little bit for ideas and made it. And it was so good. So last week we had it again. This time I used flounder and it turned out great as well.

I grounded Oats and Flax seeds and seasoned it with curry, pepper, garlic and oregano.
I breaded the fish and placed it in a hot pan with olive oil.

The side dish was an Arugula salad with roasted Asparagus and Mushrooms.

I roasted the Asparagus with olive oil. Seasoned it with sea salt and pepper and drizzled a little bit of lime juice over it right before I took it out of the pan. The dressing for the salad was made out of Balsamic Vinegar, Olive Oil, Dijon Mustard, Lemon juice, sea salt and pepper.

Make a Low Carb pizza using Cauliflower

Craving pizza, but trying to reduce your carb intake?

This recipe might be a great alternative for you. My family loves this recipe!

Ingredients:

3 cups riced cauliflower (1 head)

3 eggs 

3 cups (fat free) mozzarella cheese 

Oregano

Minced garlic 

Tomato sauce

Your choice of toppings

Cheese

How to "rice" cauliflower:

Remove the leaves and the core from the cauliflower. Cut it into little florets and put them in your food processor (I used our Vitamix). Pulse until the pieces have the size of rice. (If you don't have a Vitamix or other food processor you can grate the florets using a cheese grater).

Place everything in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 8 minutes. You don't need to add water for cooking process. (Or use a pan to cook it, if you don't have a microwave). 

If your pizza is going to be smaller you can freeze the leftover riced cauliflower.

How to make the crust:

Preheat your oven to 450 degree. 

Mix the riced cauliflower together with the cheese, the 3 (beaten) eggs and season it with 1 Tbs Oregano and 1 Tbs minced garlic. (Or how ever you prefer to season it). 

Transfer the mixture on a baking sheet (ours is 15 1/2" x 10") and spread it out with your hands and create your pizza crust. Place it in the oven and bake it for 15 minutes.

Once you have baked the dough you can start adding the tomato sauce, your choice of toppings and cheese! You can use canned tomato sauce. I like to make our own one. Chop up your tomato in your choice of blender and season it with minced Garlic, Sea Salt, Pepper, Oregano or your choice of spices). Note: Your toppings have to be precooked before you place them on the pizza because it's just going to be in the oven for a few minutes. Place it underneath the broiler on high until the cheese is melted. (I personally don't use cheese on my piece since it's already in the crust).

Inspired by: Eat-Drink-Smile

Oat and Flax crusted Tilapia

.....that's what we had for dinner last night!
I wanted to make fish since Friday, but somehow we always made something else. Sometimes I cook my oldest one a separate meal because she doesn't like fish. But since she wanted to eat the asparagus she decided to eat it last night. I usually make a breading for her fish so it's a little bit tastier. I was out of breadcrumbs and so I had to be creative. An idea popped up in my mind, I goggled a little bit and viola - we had "Oat and Flax crusted Tilapia" with pan roasted asparagus.

And let me tell you - it was soooo delicious! I made my girls one fish so they could share it. My oldest one loved it so much that she asked for more! And she was disappointed when I had to tell her that there is nothing left.

I would love to share the recipe with you. But since I came up with that myself I can't give you any measurements. I am going to cook it again soon and I will make sure to get you more information on what I used and how much. Stay tuned!

I didn't forget that I wanted to share the Protein Shake recipe with you. But when I made it yesterday I remembered that I forgot to take pictures when I was halfway done drinking it. It's just so good. [hahahaha]. I don't mind making it again today. With pictures and the recipe for YOU!