Category Archives: Food

Delicious Breakfast Smoothie

Now that winter is officially over in the East Bay (I hope) it’s time to enjoy the abundance of fruits and vegetables that are coming into season with a delicious breakfast smoothie!! Normally in the winter-time I discourage my patients from drinking smoothies in the morning. A smoothie is cold, damp, and raw and can often make us feel sluggish, quite the opposite of what we set out to do when we drink them. But now that it’s warm and dry outside, it’s the perfect season to start the day with a cool, refreshing, and chock-full-of-vitamins drink!!

Yesterday was actually the first time that I made my own smoothie at home. The desire came from my inclination that I should for some reason start eating yogurt, which I actually despise. It’s just not something that I can eat by itself. Even with cut up fruit, it just makes me gag! But yogurt receives so much positive hype that I decided to jump on the bandwagon. Fortunately when blended into a fruity breakfast drink, it’s not so bad. Happy days!

I downloaded a free little e-book of recipes from EatingWell.com. I chose their “Wake-up Smoothie Recipe” even though it called for bananas, which I detest more than yogurt. Supposedly they are very healthy but in actuality they are evil and I refuse to accept them. To my delight, the instructions said that I could replace them with mango. Yes please. Let’s move on. I also added flax seed for a good dose of Omega-3 fatty acids and some kale for an extra added health benefit, plus I liked the earthy bitterness it brought to this rather sweet and sour drink. Here’s my altered recipe.

Yummy Breakfast Smoothie Recipe

1 1/4 cups orange juice, preferably calcium-fortified
1 mango – NO BANANAS!!
1 1/4 cups frozen berries
1/2 cup low-fat plain yogurt
1 tablespoon flax seeds
1/2 cup of chopping Kale (ribs removed)

Combine all the ingredients in a blender; cover and blend until creamy.
Serve immediately.

Yummy, nutritious smoothies for the All-Star and I to enjoy!!

And for dinner I have to give a shout-out to Jen at My Kitchen Addiction for her absolutely delicious Ham and Bean Soup recipe. It is SOOOOO good. Here’s a photo of the little that’s left over.

It’s a bit more pureed than Jen’s at My Kitchen Addition. I went a little nutty with the immersion blender. I’m in love with this tool! Besides, we like mushy soups that look like baby food over here so it’s perfect! 😉

Please note that I do not judge nor discriminate against those who eat and enjoy bananas. Just please don’t eat them in front of me. Thanks! ♥

This Week’s Eats No. 3

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Technically these are last week’s eats but you don’t actually know my true timeline for anything so what’s the difference right?

My own pictures of these eats are quite sub-par in my opinion. Our camera broke on our honeymoon so I’m stuck with my android for snapshots at the moment. Any suggestions for a reasonable priced fancy-pants camera??

So this week (last week) I decided to escape from online and use one of my many cookbooks to find recipes. I don’t do this often enough and it’s sad to see my books just collecting dust.

One reason I love searching the internet for recipes is I prefer one with a picture. I recently received a Cook’s Illustrated magazine in the mail and while the content is very informative, its lack of photos leaves me a bit uninspired. It does have some illustrations of cooking techniques, which I guess is why they call it Cook’s Illustrated. I don’t think I will be subscribing, but I do appreciate receiving a free one in the mail. I now have illustrated instructions for making the perfect soft-boiled egg. Hazah!

My cookbook of choice this week ~~last week~~ is ~~was~~ Food Made Fast Weeknight published by William Sonoma. This book was given to me as a gift years ago. Actually I’m pretty sure most, if not all, of my cookbooks were gifts, accept for maybe How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman, which I LOVE and reference quite often when preparing new foods. This book also has illustrations and is sans photographs but we forgive it because it’s so flippin awesome!

I made three recipes from the Food Made Fast cookbook and two of them were total winners and will have repeat performances in the future I’m sure.

The first was Sausage with White Beans and Arugula Salad

This would actually work better as a summer dish but it had been warm here and arugula is in season.

I was able to find the recipe on their website so you don’t actually have to buy the book. Their picture is prettier of course. After all it is Williams Sonoma.

I hope my photo doesn’t land me on the CraftFail blog. Have you been to this website? It’s pretty funny.

Next up was our second winner kindly brought to us again by Williams Sonoma, Thai Beef Noodle Salad.

I’m pretty sure my photo could end up on CraftFail but I assure you, regardless of the appearance, it really was delicious.

Yum? Oh yea, for sure! I’ve never prepared flank steak before. It is definitely now my steak of choice for a regular at-home-meal night. I prepared it on my little stove top griddle. We don’t have a outdoor grill so it’s what I use and it does the trick! Of course the smoke alarm went off but you have to expect that when you grill meat indoors and have low ceilings like we do. The steak didn’t seem to care and neither did we!

I want to share one more recipe which I did snag it from the internet.

For those who eat with me, don’t be surprised if you find yourself trying this some day.

I found it on Daily Dinner Table. I’m not sure how I happened upon this blog, which is usually the case, but I’m happy that I did. It reminds me of my dear friend, Julia. I’m pretty sure she makes a rice salad. If not, I’m pretty sure she would enjoy it. This one’s for you, Julia!

Once again we insert a crappy picture, but I assure you it’s good.

So that’s it for what’s been in my tummy as of late. The best part is there are lots of leftovers for us to enjoy a second time, which would be this week, so there you go. In fact, I’ll think I’ll go have some right now!

What are you eating?

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Blog Love & This Week’s Eats No. 2

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Meal planning is awesome! We have new and delicious, nutritious home-cooked meals almost every night with lots of variation and LEFTOVERS!

Thanks to the internet there is always a plethora of new recipes to choose from. This week was no different. One recipe I found deserves a ton of love because IT IS AWESOME and needs to be shared!

I found this recipe on This IS how I cook. Chicken Vesuvio is apparently a popular dish in Chicago. The picture this blogger took of this amazing dish was what first attracted my attention. It looks soooo good! See for yourself….

Chicken Vesuvio from This IS how I cook.

Once I read the ingredients, I was sold. And boy or boy, what a winner!! Thanks to Abbe at This IS how I cook. for sharing such a delicious and home-good recipe. I will definitely be making it again!!

Here are a couple of other recipes from around the web that I thought I’d share!

A delicious vegetarian dish from Closet Cooking brought to us by Zesty Cook.

Curried Red Lentil with Chickpeas and Quinoa

Nothing but slowed cooked goodness in this tasty Lime Chicken Taco recipe from Taste of Home.

Lime Chicken Tacos

This Chicken Paprikash was a hit both with the All-Star and our unexpected dinner guest. Praprikash always makes me think of when Harry Met Sally. “Waiter, there is too much pepper in my paprikash.” lol. This recipe from Lauren at Lauren’s Latest was just right!!

Chicken Paprikash from Lauren

Where do you find your favorite recipes??

This Week’s Eats – No. 1

Diet Blues and Meal Planning

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And by diet, I mean what I eat. I don’t do actual “diets.” Only before our wedding did I actually restrict certain kinds of foods. And I was quite successful in dropping a few pounds so that I could feel light and confident in my beautiful James Clifford wedding gown. (SEE!)

How’s that for a cheese?! That’s what you get when you don’t eat any for a month! Or junk food, or sugar.

Anyway, since we had a pretty big and quite successful Superbowl party here on Sunday, I didn’t have the time nor the energy to food shop or even cook actual meals this week. With all the leftovers in the fridge we’ve certainly had enough to eat, it’s just been potato salad for dinner and 7-layer dip for lunch. Uh. My intestines are frowning just thinking about it.

SO, now that this week is finally over, it’s back to my meal planning and back to eating healthy.

Last month, I mentioned that I was starting to meal plan and the first four weeks went smashingly! Never did I have to wonder what we were going to have for dinner come meal time, and we hardly ate out unless it was scheduled which means more money in our pockets and less calories in our bellies! Two weeks ago I even managed to only spend $75 for the week of groceries. That included clothes detergent and a few other cooking staples we were out of. I’d call that a success!

I thought I’d give you the run down of how I do my meal planning and show you an example.

First I open my spreadsheet where I keep everything neat and tidy.

On the left I have each day of the week and what we’re having. On the right I list what we have in the pantry and what we need. (As I mentioned in my previous post, I copied another blogger’s template but I have no idea who that was anymore. I’m so so sorry to whoever you are but if you ever do venture upon my blog, thank you and welcome!)

Under each recipe title I link to where that recipe is located so I can easily jump to it when I’m ready to cook. These fish taco and pot pie recipes both came from Allrecipes.com.

I save every week on a separate sheet and title it with the date of the Monday of that week. This is so helpful when deciding what to cook. I can easily go back and see what we’ve already had and the link to the recipe is already there! I also keep an empty copy of the template down there.

I think I’m going to start adding notes under each recipe as well so we can remember if something was good or not. A simple “Woohoo!” or “never again” should do it.

Finally I write the week’s meals on a white board I have on our fridge. The All-Star says he likes this because he can glance at it while he makes his coffee and get excited about what he’s going to eat later on. He’s such a cutey! ♥

Next weekend we’re going to Arnold so there won’t be any cooking on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. At least not in this house. That does remind me though, I should probably get the following week started. And I want to call my Aunt Linda. 🙂

So there you have it. It’s not rocket science. I actually really enjoy doing it. I find most of my recipes on Pinterest or AllRecipes. I also have several cookbooks. This system allows for us more time to relax as well as have a little more variety in our diet. It also makes food shopping a breeze. I downloaded an app called Out of Milk which I’m so far finding pretty helpful but I’m not quite sure it’s for me yet so I’ll save that for another post.

What’s your strategy for meal time? Do you meal plan like me or just wing it??