Its a little crazy to have the time to blog... I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself. Well I do know that I will probably be blogging at least 3 times a week goodie!! So I'm looking to do something that will help me make a little extra money. I'm exploring a few options, I'm trying the Young Living Oils, I'm trying out some IT Works products so we'll see. I would NEVER sell or try to get someone else to sell something that I personally don't believe in. So at this point I'm still looking. I can say that I LOVE the greens from IT Works!!! Best sleep of my life without Benadryl or a sleep aid! I also am really liking the oils so I'll keep using different products from these companies to see how I like them. Even if I don't sell them you should try greens!! They will change your life, if only your sleeping life. I look forward to going to bed at night now! BUT there is a caveat, you must find the right mixture or they taste awful! I use 8oz. of water, greens, and 1 whole packet of Crystal Light Peach Mango Green Tea and it tastes wonderful! I think it tastes a little like a Flinstone vitamin. Trust me you won't be sorry you tried it! Last night I made Cauliflower pizza for dinner. It was very yummy! Sam (who hates cauliflower) said I hit it out of the park! So that is a win! I don't feel like writing the recipe...I'm super lame right? Basically I put cauliflower in the food processor - microwaved after for 8 minutes - let it cool - added 1 egg, salt and pepper, mozzarella cheese, and parmesan cheese - squeezed together and mixed - pressed into a Pam sprayed pan - baked for about 15 minutes at 425 - added pizza sauce, cheese, turkey pepperoni, heirloom tomato's, mushrooms, olives, and fresh basil - put back in the oven and baked another 10 minutes - sliced and ate. There you have it! HA HA if you really want to know the exact deets let me know and I'll tell you. It was yummy! Try it today! Super easy! BTW I was in bed at 9pm last night! Yippee!!! Everything else went well. Working on keeping up the fight! Have a fab day my friends!!! Let's rock it together!! But first lets go get a green tea from Starbucks!! XOXO

So I may have mentioned that I'm doing Jenny Craig. I love it. I love the ease and I love the food. However, this last two weeks some stuff has come up and I could not get my Jenny food so I had to eat low calorie low fat food and really watch myself. I already know that I cant be trusted when it comes to eating especially since I am such a foodie. I had seen a picture on pinterest on some egg muffins and I tried my own version with two eggs, a ton of diced green chilis, and a small amount of cheese. The flavor was so yummy that I made them for breakfast and dinner that night. Ok honestly, I ate them four days in a row. But only because it is so easy and I was running low on groceries. Sunday morning I knew I wanted to have them but maybe a little different since I had been eating them a lot already. So I looked in my fridge and grabbed what I thought sounded good. Some turkey pepperoni (you can eat 15 of these for 17 calories) I think I grabbed 7 and chopped it up. Then I chopped up some baby bella and spayed them with a little olive oil spray, added garlic salt and pepper and popped them in the oven on the broil setting on high for about 5 minutes I mixed together two eggs added some chopped tomato and cheese. Then I added the pepperoni and mushrooms. And then I added two table spoons of spegetti sauce because it is what I had. ( I didn't take a picture of the completed mixture cuz lets be honest it looked yucky) I then sprayed the muffin tin with Pam and scooped in my mixture. I only filled each one about 3/4 full. It made four muffins. I had turned the oven onto bake at 325 and then popped them in for about 20 minutes. They don't always transfer from pan to plate so nicely :) I know you are loving my plate right??!!!! I also made a kid friendly version with just eggs and cheese for Little Joe. These are simple and yummy and honestly you could do anything with them. 2 is perfect and fills you up. So then if you are only making them for yourself you can put the other two in a container and eat them the next day! Anywho... hope you are having an AMAZING Friday!!! Have a happy weekend! ~Heather

Well, I know that I said I was going to do this post on Saturday but man, Saturdays are a killer. So I made the executive decision to do Sunday Pinspiration instead. Works out better this way :) I had every intention of doing something crafty but decided on cooking something as Buddy requested Ba-sketti for dinner. So I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try one of the yummy looking baked spaghetti's that I've pinned. Of course the one that looked super yummy to me seemed a little fattier than I wanted so I decided to try to make it a little more waistline friendly so I decided to change it up make it a little skinnier and get some veggies hidden in there that Buddy might not notice! The result Uh-MAZE-BALLS! It really is super yummy and Buddy loved it!!!! Here is the pin pic.. of course hers looks awesome Looks yummy I know... And here is mine and step by step preparation and recipe. (Hey I'm not a professional food photographer, but trust me this is really good) and no I didn't cut a slice for you...hee hee First I wanted to get some veggies in there because Buddy does not like anything green and if he see's it then he's done with it. So I grated two full zucchini's. This way he wouldn't "see" them. I also added an entire package of baby bella's (mushrooms in case you couldn't tell from the picture). I browned some Lean ground beef (season with garlic salt and pepper) and drained any fat that was in the pan. Then I added the mushrooms and the grated zucchini to the meat. It smelled really good at this point. After the meat and veggies cook for a few minutes I added a jar of spaghetti sauce. I used Ragu just because its what I use and what I had in the pantry. At this point I HAD to make sure it tasted good so I tasted a spoonful and I was very happy! For the noodles I just used regular old spaghetti noodles. And boiled 'em up! I always add salt to the water, just 'cuz I like it that way. After the noodles were boiled and done I put them in a separate bowl and added an entire container of fat free cottage cheese, 3 heaping spoonfuls of fat free sour cream and a good amount of pepper. I sprayed the glass cake dish with olive oil spray, and then I layered the first layer of noodles into the dish. I followed that by a layer of meat and veggie sauce. Then I added a layer of cheese, 'cuz everything is better with cheese! Then repeat Then I popped it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350. So here is the run down on what I used... 1 lb. extra lean ground beef (but to make it skinnier you could use ground turkey or soy taco meat)Garlic, salt and pepper to taste 1 bottle spaghetti sauce (your choice) 1 package spaghetti noodles 1 16 oz. container Fat Free Cottage Cheese 3 Heaping table spoons Fat Free Sour Cream 1 16 oz. package shredded mozzarella cheese 2 Medium zucchini's grated 1 package sliced baby bella mushrooms That's it! Don't think I missed anything. I loved it! But just to be sure that I wasn't giving you a bias opinion, I asked my neighbor Charlie if he wanted some dinner and asked him to give me a review. He took enough food to feed two people but hey that's Charlie. He gave me a nine out of ten. Said it was a nine because when he took it home to eat it he noticed I didn't give him garlic bread or wine... oh well I'll take a nine! But, the opinion that I valued the most my little buddy gave me two thumbs up...and ate two helpings. Never once did he mention the "green stuff" or the mushrooms, just said "mmmmm this is good!". He just ate it up and asked for more. What more could a mama want. Hope you like it! xoxo!!! I linked this post to the following blogs:

There are mornings that I wish that I could put on an apron and whip up a batch of pancakes or french toast, but most mornings it is just a crazy nightmare of getting myself ready for work and getting buddy ready for school. There never seems to be time for anything let alone make a nice breakfast for my boy. So most mornings when I get a healthy breakfast made for my boy I am happy. Our usual routine consists of a nutra grain bar and some milk or his version of "coffee" which is milk with a little sugar free vanilla creamer added to it. But most days he likes a breakfast shake. We have two versions that we make around here, a chocolate version and a vanilla. They are simple and make me feel good about giving him something I think is pretty healthy. Our cast of characters include: Instant breakfast, Milk, Greek or regular yogurt, bananas, (strawberries if the vanilla version) and spinach. Buddy really loves his shakes! He loves them in either flavor. I love that I feel good about giving it to him. I just blend it all together, sometimes with a couple ice cubes so it feels more "Shakie". He doesn't even notice the spinach, he just knows that it tastes yummy! It is a simple, healthy breakfast for those mornings that we are running around crazy..(which is most mornings around here :) I always make sure to put his shake in a cup that isn't clear (wink, wink) that way he doesn't get freaked out by little green flecks in his shake. It makes our mornings much easier...and who doesn't like easier. On another note today buddy decided that when he is playing cowboys he wants to be called Tex. I think that he's decided that it sounds more cowboy that his regular name. That Tex..he's pretty awesome! Now he just needs a horse named Whiskey and he'll be a real rootin tootin cowboy!

This is a super easy and super yummy!

Malibu Pork Chops and Red and White Potatoes

I picked out some yummy think cut pork chops and seasoned them with Malibu season and stuck them on the grill. Easy peezy. The Malibu seasoning is really the best. It has the best flavor and makes the pork chops taste so good. Grilling is really best if you can for these thick pork chops.


The potatoes are equally yummy and again super easy. You'll need red potatoes, white potatoes, Anaheim chili's (or any green chili that you like), and serrano chili's (the yellow ones). We ate these potatoes a lot this summer when we could head down to the farm stand and get fresh potatoes which taste even better. Plus you can't beat buying veggies locally that cost half the price of buying them at the grocery store. I'm thinking we might try some potatoes in our garden this year!

Wash slice and dice potatoes.

Then cut your chili's in half and take out all the seeds. Slice up your chili's.


Your going to want to fry up your potatoes. Pour a good amount of oil into the pan and add in your potatoes and chili's. Sprinkle on some season salt and some kosher salt. I really like the kosher salt on the potatoes because it sticks better and I think it tastes better.


Fry them up until they are fully cooked and yummy! The chili's just add the perfect amount of flavor. Not too spicy, just strait flavor! I love it!


The finished product is a super tasty and super easy dinner.
Yummy!

xo

July in National Ice Cream Month! How excited was I to find an yummy and super easy way to make ice cream on one of my favorite blogs Kevin and Amanda! As I always do I made some variations. I've made a couple different kinds now but Marlene requested the smore's recipe so I'll share that one...it's Sam's favorite even though I LOVED the blackberry white peach version that I made even more!

You will be so surprised at how easy and simple it is to make this yummy ice cream! It only has two basic ingredients. Heavy whipping cream and sweet condensed milk. You just decide what mix ins you want. No rock salt, no crazy machines. ANYONE can make this. In fact my sweet niece and nephew help me make the first batch! They loved it!

Here is the recipe for the Smore's Ice Cream

1 Pint Heavy Whipping Cream
1 Can Sweet condensed Milk
1 cup mini chocolate chips
1 entire container of Jett Puff marshmallow cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon of butter melted
3 tablespoons of hot fudge melted
crushed graham crackers (I just eyeballed this about four crushed crackers)

Pour the heavy whipping cream into your mixer and whip it until it is firm and looked like whipped cream.

While your cream is whipping, mix together in a separate bowl the condensed milk, marshmallow cream, vanilla, melted butter, and graham crackers. When this is all mixed together add your mini chocolate chips. Once your heavy cream is whipped you can gently add your yummies from the other bowl. When this is all mixed, pour into a 2 quart freezable container. At this time I swirled in the hot fudge. I then sprinkled a handful of mini chocolate chips on top (just for looks). Freeze for 6 hours and then dig in.

The result is the most creamy yummy ice cream ever! OH MY! It is so good!
Enjoy!
xoxo,
Heather

A couple weeks ago on Father's Day I made this super yummy, super easy cake! It was perfect for the summer! I thought I'd share the recipe before the are no more yummy sweet strawberry's left at the grocery store.

Easy Peezy Strawberry Pineapple Upside Down Cake!

1 box of yellow cake mix (plus ingredients requested on the box)
1 20oz. can of Crushed pineapple in juice
1 large basket of fresh strawberries (sliced thin)
1 Stick of real butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar (you can use more or less depending on your taste)

Pre heat your oven to 350 degrees. Make the yellow cake according to the directions on the box. Open the pineapple and stain all of the juice from it, and set aside. Grab a 9 x 11 cake pan (i use a glass baking dish), place your butter in the dish.

I know a whole stick of butter sounds like a lot but you can cut it in half if you want, I just love how much better it tastes with all the butter it is just so yummy! Trust me you'll love it too!

Ok so I put the butter in the dish and stick it in the oven to melt it. Once the butter is melted you want to put the brown sugar in the baking dish and let it soak up all that butter. Spread the brown sugar evenly around the baking dish. (This is where you'll decide if you need more or less brown sugar...I always say that more is better!) Once you've coated the bottom of the dish with the buttery brown sugar you want to put in your crushed pineapple. Be sure that you spread this evenly around the dish. Now pour the cake mix you made on top of this. Stick it in the oven and bake according to the directions on the box.

Once the cake is done take it out of the oven and cover with a large flat dish. I use a cookie sheet just cuz it's easy but if you have a pretty dish that is flat and will cover the entire pan go for it. Cover the dish and turn it upside down. Cake should come out easily.

At this point you want to arrange your slice strawberries on top of the cake. Layering as you go.

Thats it! The result is a super yummy summer cake!

Hope you love it!

xoxo,
Heather