Are you having a healthy day Thursday?

I have 2 hours before midnight. I MUST do my Thursday post. LOL

Who doesn’t love taco night.  I did my taco night a little bit different.  I made a salad consisting of feta, celery, garden lettuce, shredded carrots, and garden tomatoes.  Notice how I’m throwing in the word “garden” a lot. YES, we are finally getting food from all the lovely gardens in the area.

Now, when I cook the taco meat, after the meat is done and prior to throwing in the spice packet, I throw in a big carrot shredded and some kind of green. I have done arugula and spinach in the past. Today, I chopped up and used beet greens that I got at the farmers market yesterday.  OK so this time I didn’t’ use the word garden, and instead used the word “Farmers Market”.   Do you recognize a theme?  : )

Lastly, the taco’s were filled with the salad mixture, the meat mixture, some extra chopped tomatoes, sour cream, and taco sauce.  I have to have sour cream and taco sauce on my taco’s. What do you like to put on your taco’s?

When I was at the first farmers market of the season in a nearby town yesterday, one lady had  some home bread. It’s called OatMeal Graham bread.  Now, lately I haven’t been eating bread – but how could I pass up some homemade bread.  I can’t tell you the last time I had homemade bread. Woops ok so I had some at a restaurant once, but you know what I mean. ; ).  The lady told me it was a big family favorite.  It’s so fresh and good. I made a breakfast sandwich out of it this morning. I cooked up a few eggs, threw in a couple salami slices, and some American Cheese. I also had a banana.

Lunch was a bit of a rush.  It’s hot these days and I’ve been busy.  I had to eat my lunch while getting ready for a conference call.  I couldn’t even relax and had to eat it standing up. I had some left over potato salad, a couple of fresh strawberries that I got from the “Farmers Market”, and some pretzels. I also had MM”s tonight.   I know, not so healthy.  I can’t be perfect every Thursday. : ). I think that’s it. I didn’t keep track of absolutely everything. When I’m running around doing a million things, I forget things.  But, all and all – that was my day today. Oh and the potato salad is a good one, it actually has roasted beets in it – which I would of never of thought to put into a salad.

It’s I’m having a healthy day what about you? Thursday

I’d like to blog more often. I’m sure I will in the future, but some weeks all I have time for is my popular Thursday blog.  I’m having a healthy day what about you Thursday?  I did a mini fast today, so I didn’t eat until 11am. I had a bunch of almonds. Sometimes when I’m watching what I eat, I’ll count the almonds, but today I didn’t.  I probably had  2-3 servings.

Than around 12:30 ish, I treated myself to lunch at BeanTowne.  I had the”Not Yo Mama’s BLT”.  It had Bacon, Green-Leaf Lettuce, Tomato, Avocado and Garlic Mayo.  I had it on a spinach wrap.  It was a VERY good sandwich. I also had a Chocolate Banana Smoothie with a shot of espresso and some Protein Powder thrown into the mix. I’m not obsessed with Protein Powder, but I do like to have it added to my smoothies sometimes, especially on some of my work-out days. I also use it occasionally in cooking.  I will most definitely have to post my favorite protein blueberry pancakes some day.

For Supper I had some left over Fish Chowder. A friend of ours went fishing. He caught a TON of fish and he shared some of his fish with us. : )

I made this Baked Fish Chowder and WOW was it delicious. I have to admit that the site where I got the recipe from (http://blog.mainefoodandlifestyle.com/) is a very!! good site. I absolutely love it and have many recipes I will continue to make over and over.  You can’t comment on a lot of her posts, which is a shame because I’d love to send her a lot of Thank-You’s. I repeated the recipe below. Any kind of soup I’ve ever made has been on the stove. I can’t believe how good this came out and the entire soup is baked in the oven.  I crumbled a good 4-6 Ritz Crackers on the top.

I probably could have had more vegetables today. I was originally going to make a recipe called spicy-kale-stuffed-shells with ground turkey added into the mix.  I didn’t want to turn the oven on due to the heat and my kids keep me pretty busy so I didn’t have time to prepare it.

I’m afraid this will be my first post since starting this blog with no pictures.

Baked Fish Chowder
Karyl Bannister, Cook & Tell

2 pounds haddock, hake, or pollack fillets
4 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
½ cup chopped fresh celery leaves
2½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon chili powder
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 bay leaf
3 medium onions, cut into chunks
8 Tablespoon (1 stick) butter, cut into 8 pieces
¼ teaspoon dried dill weed
2 cups half-and-half or light cream

Preheat oven to 375°.

Put the fish in a 3-quart casserole dish with a cover or a Dutch oven. Layer the potatoes and celery leaves on top of the fish. Sprinkle with the salt, pepper, cayenne, and chili powder, then add the garlic and bay leaf. Top with the onions, butter, and dill. Pour in 2¼ cups boiling water. Cover and bake for 1 hour. Scald the half-and-half or cream and stir it into the chowder. Remove the bay leaf and serve hot with crusty bread or crackers.

It’s I’m having a healthy day what about you? Thursday.

SUPPER: How easy is it to cut the backbone out of a small chicken and get it ready to go on the grill.  Super easy. I tucked some garlic, orange slices and butter under the skin. Rubbed butter, salt, and pepper all over it. Onto the grill it went until it was finished.  I also cut up a few red potatoes, 1 zucchini, grabbed some big swiss chard stems and cut up a small beet. Sprinkled olive oil, salt and pepper on them and threw them on the grill as well. I plan on making some chicken broth and soup with the left over chicken and bones.

LUNCH:    I had the last of my puree bean soup with a scoop of full fat greek yogurt. My previous post has the bean soup recipe.  I also had another one of my favorite salads called “Potato Salad with Arugula”.  I had the last of my batch with my lunch today.  You steam 2lbs of small red potatoes and cut into pieces. You mix potatoes, cooked bacon, chopped red onion, minced garlic and cherry tomatoes (halved) together. When ready to serve, serve over large bed of arugula and mix with vinaigrette.  The best vinaigrette to make is to mix 6 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, salt, pepper, 3 tablespoons of white wine vinegar, and 1-2 teaspoons of brown mustard.   This salad comes from Tracey Miller. She is a Board Certified Holistic Health and Wellness Coach and she was my coach last summer  for a little while.

BREAKFAST: Smoothie (frozen banana, tablespoon of almond butter, 1/3 cup of fat-free ricotta cheese, swiss chard leaves, and unsweetened almond milk). I also had some left over pizza. The picture is what the pizza looked like when I first took it out of the oven the other day. I reheat the left overs in my toaster oven.  The crust of the pizza is made with a combination of shredded and cooked cauliflower, almond flour/meal and parmasan cheese. You can use nutritional yeast flakes instead of the parmasan cheese, actually the original recipes only states nutritional yeast flakes but I never tried them.  You can get the recipe from Lee Supercharged.

SNACKS: OK I posted and published without listing my snacks. I swear I didn’t do it on purpose. LOL. I had one munchkin from dunkin donuts. I had 1 decaf french vanilla icecoffee with cream only with an expresso shot mixed into it. I also had a small handful of my kids popcorn and 2 tablespoons of Cabots Bac’n Horseradish sour cream dip with some blue corn chips and lastly, a handful of green grapes with my kids.  I did measure the dip because if I didn’t I probably would of eat to much. I have to be careful because with summer here, cookouts, icecream stands opening all over the place, I’ve been having my share of treats as of lately.

I’m having a healthy day what about you?

It’s I’m having a healthy day what about you? Thursday.

Hello. How is everyone. Did you eat healthy today?   My mother-in-law gave me all her old Prevention magazines.  I came across a recipe called Lentil and Bean Soup.  It was pretty good. I’ve been feeling the need to get more beans into my diet.  The recipe didn’t say to puree it, but I did. I have a hard time eating a lot of beans in its whole form.  I also added a lot more parsley than it called for and I added Arugula into it.  I’ll post the recipe below.  I ate a lot of this today.

I also had some of my left over Quinoa Tabouleh Salad as shown in the picture. I love this salad.  It comes from Jen over at TheFitHousewife.com As I’ve mentioned before – great Blog.  I’ve made this salad many times.  She has a lot of recipes and good information pertaining to health.  It makes a lot and you can eat it as side dish or eat it as your meal.  Click on link to get the recipe.

I sometimes wonder why I can’t think of such simple things.  Jen over at TheFitHousewife.com doesn’t let the end of peanut butter jars go to waste. You know how sometimes there is very little left on the sides of the jar, you probably just throw it away right?  Today I put a small handful of dry roasted peanuts, a small handful of raisins, teaspoon of coco-powder, a lot of blueberries, very little unsweetened almond milk, teaspoon of coconut oil, small handful of Quick Oats and maybe about 10 chocolate chips. I put the cover back on, mixed it.  I grabbed a spoon and  mixed it more. Than I ate it right from the jar.  YUM!! Thanks Jen!  : )

A small handful of pistachios for a snack.  I bought pistachio’s because I needed them for my favorite Quinoa based hot cereal. I’ll post about the cereal in the future. : )

Finally, I went to a pampered chef party and had a slice of some desert pizza and one big Strawberry Mojito drink.

Lentil and Bean Soup

1 onion chopped

1 TBSP olive oil

2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup of dried lentils

5 cups of water

1 can of tomato sauce

3 carrots, chopped

3 ribs of celery, chopped

1 can of black beans rinsed and drained

3 1/2 oz of smoke gouda shredded

2 tablespoons of parsley and/or scallion tops

1/4 cup of sour cream (optional).

1. SAUTE onion in oil over medium high heat until golden – about 5 minutes. Stir in Chili Powder and salt

2. ADD lentils and water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to medium and simmer 5 minutes. Add tomato sauce, carrots and celery. Simmer 10 minutes. Add beans and cook until vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes.  PUREE with immersion blender if you want.  I also had a big huge!! handful of Arugula and a lot more Parsley.

3. STIR in Cheese. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Serve with sour cream if you desire.