Quick Turkey Meat Sauce

On Monday I was EXHAUSTED to say the least. By 4pm I literally thought my eyes were going to burn out of my skull. I came home around 4:30pm and just vegged out on the couch for about an hour and a half. Around 6 I decided I needed to get off the couch and cook something for dinner. I wanted to make something quick but filling and I came up with this recipe.

I absolutely love pasta and meat sauce. Its super filling and I was in the mood for some nice comfort food! Therefore, I took some onion and diced them up and threw them into a sauce pot with a little olive oil.

Next I threw a Jenny-O all natural white meat turkey burger. They don't need to be thawed so I can take it from the freezer and throw it right into a pan.

While the turkey burger was browning on its side I diced up some vegetable to add volume to my sauce. I diced up some orange and yellow bell peppers, garlic, and some fresh spinach.

One the turkey burger was half way cooked I took a wooden spoon and broke it up into chunks.

Next I added the vegetables and let them cook for about 5 minutes with the turkey meat. I love having my vegetables still to have a little crunch to them. If you don't let them cook for about 10 minutes so everything wilts down.

Next I threw in some canned spaghetti sauce. I added some extra Italian Seasoning and let the sauce simmer for about 10 minutes.

Put the lid on the pot if you can. It will allow the sauce to simmer a bit faster!

While the sauce is simmering I cooked up some whole wheat pasta.

Once the sauce is finished, take the lid off and put the heat on low until the pasta is finished cooking.

Soooo delicious!

Now all you need to do is add your sauce on top of the pasta and sprinkle on a little bit of Parmesan cheese!

Delicious and super healthy.

You want some don't you?

I took the left over sauce and threw it in some tupperware. On Tuesday I wanted a really quick dinner again because I had to go swimming at 5pm until class at 6:30. I didn't want to have a lot of carbs so my friend Stephanie gave me the idea to use zucchini instead of pasta! WHAT A GREAT IDEA! Just take some zucchini and use a vegetable peeler to make really thin slices.

Add some salt and pepper to the zucchini.

Then throw the sauce right on top and sprinkle with the Parmesan Cheese.

I threw it in tupperware, put the lid on and was out the door in five minutes.

It was absolutely delicious!!!!! I didn't have a chance to heat it up before class so ate the food at room temperature and it was amazing and there was soooo much food! I was so full afterwards! A great spin on a traditional dish, thanks Steph :)

Pumpkin Blueberry Muffins

I decided to make muffins again, I am in a very muffin mood. These muffins are delicious and very healthy. I got the receipe from one of my favorite websites again Fannetastic Food! It is super easy and they are SOOOO GOOD

Ingredients:

(makes 12 muffins)

Dry:

• 1.5 C whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 C oats
• 1/3 C ground flaxseed
• 1/3 C walnuts (optional)
• 1/8 C brown sugar
• 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp. baking soda

Wet:

• 1 C canned pumpkin
• 1/2 C (overflowing) frozen (or fresh) blueberries
• 3/4 C skim milk (or dairy substitute)
• 1/3 C pure maple syrup
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

First put all of the dry ingredients into a bowl.

Then all the wet into a separate bowl

Mix the wet into the dry. Now I used whole wheat flour instead of pastry flour and the muffins came out a little dense. Therefore, I'd suggest definitely sticking with whole wheat pastry flour.

Yummy! The dough is delicious!

Next spoon the mixture into a muffin tin. Top with raw oats and a little bit of cinnamon to look pretty :)

Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees! Then viola!

Tasty, delicious, and nutritious muffins.

Super portable which is great for the morning when I am always on the go!

Final picture, just to make you drool a little more!

Perfect! Now off to do some homework at Panera then a long swim before class :)

Scrambled Egg Muffins

So I decided to try and revamp the other recipe I did for the Quiche's to go. They weren't bad, but I wasn't the biggest fan. Therefore, I found a recipe on this amazing website that I am obsessed with for scrambled egg muffins. They are low in carbs and high in protein! First you need 9 eggs

Crack the 9 eggs and place them in a large mixing bowl.

Add 1/4 cup reduced fat cheese (I used 2% mozzarella, spinach, 1/3 cup spelt flour, 1 diced tomato ( I used the left over salsa I had from the Turkey Southwestern Salad, salt, pepper, and then add any additional seasonings you would like.

Whisk them all together

Then put them in muffin tins. The recipe makes 12 muffins.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, let the muffins bake for around 25-30 minutes

TAH DAH!

They are absolutely delicious...

And super healthy!

I know you want to see another close up...

Yummy! I packed two of them for breakfast this morning along with some Greek yogurt and berries! Such a great way to start off the day, especially when your day starts at 4am!

Chicken Cauliflower Soup

This recipe is super easy and really low in fat! All you do is saute some chicken breast with some onion and a little olive oil.

Wait until the chicken is browned on one side and then flip!

Next in a large sauce pot, take a whole cauliflower and dice it up into small chunks. Add a little olive oil to the bottom of the pan and whatever seasonings you would like. Saute the cauliflower for about 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes add four cups of reduced sodium fat free chicken broth. Let the cauliflower cook for about 15 minutes/fork tender.

Once the chicken is done, cut it into large chunks and throw it in the pot with the cauliflower.

Bring the soup to a boil. After the cauliflower is tender throw it into a food processor or a blender, which ever you have on hand.

Place the lid on top of the processor and pulse into a nice thick consistency. Depending on the size of the food processor you might have to cut the soup in half and process it in two different batches.

Once the soup is finished stick it back into the pot and add any additional seasonings you think it needs!

YUMMMMMY!

Nutritional Information:

Calories: 82

Fat: 1.7 g

Carbs: 2.1 g

Protein: 14.3 g

Turkey Southwestern Salad

This recipe is a super quick high protein lunch! First you need a turkey burger, I use Jennie-O All Natural Turkey Burgers.

I sauteed it in a pan with some mushrooms.


While the burger was cooking I put together the salad. First I took organic spinach, green bell peppers, red onions, and diced tomatoes and threw them into a tupperware container. Then, instead of using dressing I packed a small container of salsa. Salsa provides just as much flavor as dressing without the added fat/calories and is chuck full of vegetables!


To add a little more substance and protein to the salad I added some black beans. Black beans are a very good source of cholesterol-lowering fiber, as are most other legumes. In addition to lowering cholesterol, black beans' high fiber content prevents blood sugar levels from rising too rapidly after a meal, making these beans an especially good choice for individuals with diabetes, insulin resistance or hypoglycemia. When combined with whole grains such as brown rice, black beans provide virtually fat-free high quality protein. You may already be familiar with beans' fiber and protein, but this is far from all black beans have to offer.


When the turkey burger was finished I let it cool before adding it to my salad (didn't want it to cook the spinach or peppers).


Once it was finished cooling I sliced the turkey burger and threw it on top of the salad. I added a little avocado for flavor and because its delicious!

A huge protein packed salad ready for lunch tomorrow!


For a snack with my lunch I put some all natural peanut butter, cinnamon, and a little bit of dried fruit .


Tahhh dah! I added a greek yogurt and the muffins for breakfast I made the other day! A great healthy lunch for my day!

Vegetable Quiche To Go

So I am super busy during the week but especially on the weekends. Fridays-Sundays I walk into Jenny Craig and have clients back to back all morning. Therefore, it is extremely hard for me to be able to eat a decent breakfast.

I usually do breakfast bars for the week, but once again due to Drs orders I have to try and find another low carb/high protein alternative. I found this recipe again from the South Beach Diet book and just decided to add some spices and a couple extra veggies.

The recipe calls for egg beaters, however, I am sure you can use regular eggs (how many?? Not sure yet, but next time I am going to try with regular eggs)

The recipe called for reduced fat cheddar cheese (didn't have any in the house) so I used 2 % mozzarella cheese and decided to add fresh basil to the recipe (I am a basil junkie).

Basically the recipe says to take 3/4 cups egg beaters, 3/4 reduced fat cheese, frozen spinach (I used fresh), onions, and peppers and mix them into a bowl. To the recipe I added diced tomatoes, basil, 1 tbsp ground flax, and some seasonings (Rosemary, Oregano, Salt, and Pepper). The recipe says that it will make 12 regular quiches, however, I doubled the recipe and only got 12 mini quiches. Therefore, I believe you will only get 6 if you use the original recipe (unless I did something wrong, which I can't figure out if I did, what I did wrong).

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl

Then I took 1/4 cup of the mixture and put it in each muffin tin. Once again only got 12 muffins with double the recipe.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake!

The recipe called for baking them for 20 minutes, which I did. However, they still seemed a little under done. I kept them that way because I plan on reheating them tomorrow and don't want them to dry out. If you are not going to reheat them I would suggest putting them in for around 25 minutes.

I let the muffins cool for 5 minutes and placed them on top of some Canadian bacon for me to have for breakfast tomorrow! Truth is I bought the Canadian bacon to put in the muffins and completely forgot to put them in the damn recipe!

All done! I added some extra cracked black pepper and threw them in the fridge for tomorrow! All done in about a half hour and now I have a nutritional low carb breakfast for the morning.

Nutritional Info:

Serving Size: 1 muffin

Calories: 48

Fat: 2.1g

Carbs:1.2g

Protein: 5.6g