Looks like we're on a bit of a seafood kick this week, huh? I promise, it's not all we eat...although I do try to throw down something that swims a couple times a week. Why not? It's healthy, we both love it, and it's usually pretty easy! Like this one...it caught my eye immediately for meeting my 5 ingredients or less requirement (not counting the olive oil and balsamic because I always have those on hand).

 

Can we talk about these scissors before I go all crazytown? These were supposed to really make my life easier...herb cutters to snip herbs (and green onions in this case) into perfectly sized morsels to deliver their flavor to any amazing dish just as they should. Except all the perfectly sized morsels get stuck in the scissors and I'm sticking knives in to release them rather than continuing on with my wonderous meal. I hate kitchen gadgets that don't work....BAH!! Also tried using them to do the bacon. Not a good plan. Anyway, if you get the notion, do not jump at the chance to purchase these shears when you stumble across them on Pinterest. K, thanks...

 

 

Now let's talk about something happy. Like oil and vinegar. What could be happier than that? I would drink the stuff if it was socially acceptable and diet approved. Alas, I'll settle for cooking with it and dunking the occasional loaf of crusty bread that falls in my lap into a mixture of it. This stuff was purchased on our Galena, IL trip recently and I will most certainly be ordering more from their website when I begin to even imagine I'm running low. Pomegranite balsamic, whaaaaaaa? Oh, I picked up some jalapeno balsamic that was just as whaaaaaaaa as well. You want yoself some.

 

OK, now that I've gone and told you what to buy and what not to buy like a good bossy blogger...let's get started with this simple but elegant fishy fish dindin. Here's what you need:

Two 5 oz cod fillets
1/4 cup thinly sliced scallions (I used green onions as you can see above)
2 slices reduced fat bacon or turkey bacon, snipped into tiny pieces
1/2 pint grape tomatoes, halved
2 t balsamic vinegar
2 t olive oil

Grease your baking dish and throw your fishies in there. Pile high with all the other ingredients before baking at 450 degrees for 10-15 minutes (or until fish flakes with a fork).

Boomsauce. Awesometown. Yummynation. You get it...

I served with a side of steamed asparagus with salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese topping it, per usual in our household. Asparagus is in season now so instead of it being $3.99 per bundle it runs your more like $1.99 per bundle. I'm always down for a discount :) We could eat asparagus till the cows come home...not that we really have cows. Although Main Man would have cows if I would let him. He also wants chickens. Horrible little creatures, chickens are. His most recent plan involves growing grapes to sell to wineries. He woke up from a nap with this idea and did some online research. We'll see if it comes to fruition (doubtful), but I do love his creative investment ideas, especially when they center around wine grapes. I hope your weekend brings you some great nap ideas as well...happy Friday, all!

Shrimp stir fry

Stir fry is one of the easiest ways to get yoself a ton of veggies and protein in a decently low calorie meal that tastes like fat kid food. I'm not sure why? Maybe because takeout is usually so greasy, it seems like the fakeout stuff should be bad for you as well? Either way...I love to throw a bunch of stuff in a pan and cover it with this sauce:

 

 

I've tried a lot of sauces, and this one is only 20 calories per 2 tablespoons and has (by far) the best flavor with a little kick in the pants to boot...and you know how I like my pants kicked. I should really watch my statements like that if I don't want to get a boot to the tush in the grocery store or something. Although that would be a pretty funny story, wouldn't it?! If you can't tell, the ho hum 'tude I had yesterday has been obliterated and we are in full force of a great week in my world. And let's be honest, my world is all that matters here!

 

Another great find that makes your life easier than a finger snap is these little packages of Uncle Ben's Ready Rice. I love the Whole Grain or the Long Grain and Wild but there are also Asian and Mexican variations that are wonderful for different recipes...we went with Whole Grain this time to try to keep this as healthy as possible.

 

From here on out, you can freestyle this recipe! Plus you will only dirty one skillet...don't you love solo dish nights? I used 1 pound shrimp that I had cleaned and deveined the night before so they were ready to go, but you could use a couple chicken breasts, or even a flank steak cut into strips if you would like. Whatever takes you to Smiletown. I used:

1 cup fresh snow peas
2 cans water chestnuts, sliced
1 cup shelled edamame
2 cups fresh mushrooms
1 cup cherry tomatoes
1 lb raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 cups chopped kale

Spray your largest skillet or wok with non-fat cooking spray and add all your veggies to begin cooking. Stir continuously for 5 minutes and add shrimp. Stir continuously for 5 minutes until shrimp are pink and cooked through. Add 6 T of the Szecuan Spicy Stirfry sauce as well as 2 bags of cooked (90 seconds in the microwave) Uncle Ben's Ready Rice (flavor of  your choosing...Teriyaki would be great in this).

Dish yourself a heaping helping like I did, top with low sodium soy sauce and you've got yourself some skinny kid food that feels like fat kid food. Love when I get to feel indulgent without ruining the day's workout! Oh, and don't be fooled. I'm not cool enough to eat stir fry with chopsticks. I rock them with sushi but this stuff was shoveled in by the forkful...

I have this recipe figured at 300 calories per cup basing the portions off my My Fitness Pal account. I've been doing well using it to track my intake the last couple weeks. It's a pain sometimes but keeps me very accountable, and is easier to do with the mobile app I have on my phone. How is everyone coming on the Tuff Butt April challenge? I fell a little behind this weekend and had to finish days 7 and 9 before I allowed myself to blog for you guys...luckily day 8 was a rest day or I would've been in big trouble! That means I have to throw down days 10 and 11 tomorrow and I'll be all caught up...which may be tough with kickboxing tonight and a quick turnaround to morning power sculpt hot yoga so I can have dinner with a friends and her little ladies tomorrow night. I'll let you know if I can walk to my car after work to get to said dinner....

Marinated tuna steaks with cucumber sauce

You know how some days you're just not in the mood for life? Like if I could've pulled the covers over my head and made the world disappear this morning, it would've happened instantly. Not sure why...the rain on the roof makes it exceptionally hard to get out of bed, but besides that it's just a normal Tuesday. That I would like to skip. Usually a good workout will cure that, so I'm hoping the Kosama plyo day will take care of it for me this evening. Although, by that time the day is almost over anyway so it's a moot point. My only real cure for a day like this is to smile. Try it. If you make your face smile and make yourself look like a goon for no reason, your mood has no choice but to improve. I've told my mom this before....and it works. I'm doing it now and it makes me giggle. Something about the muscles activated to form a smile being directly connected to your mood elevation...either way, I'm telling you, it works. All better...now we can get to the fun stuff.

 

I've been loving me some seafood lately. It always sounds good, and I know it's good for me, so it usually wins the debate when we're talking about what we want for dinner the following week. Yeah, we discuss our menu on the weekend so I can get to the store and do prep work beforehand...then it's smooth sailing through the week with no one getting stressed about what's for dinner. It's poifect. This was a great one to start the week with, as I could marinate the tuna steaks, thaw the sweet corn, and have the cucumber sauce made...so the only thing needed to do was start the grill!

 

If you've never had tuna steak before, you better hop on this train. It's so dense, like a steak. But so light, like fish. Great taste and very lean too. You know what that means? Nom. Nom.

 

For the tuna:

 

3 T lime juice

2 T chopped cilantro

1 clove garlic

1/4 t salt

1 lb tuna steaks

 

For the sauce:

 

1/2 cup chopped cucumber

1/4 cup greek yogurt

2 T fresh cilantro

1 T olive oil mayo

 

Mix all the tuna ingredients up (besides the tuna) and pour the drizzle over the top to marinate overnight.

 

Mix all the sauce ingredients up and refrigerate.

When ready to cook, heat a grill pan, Griddler, or your outdoor grill to a high heat. Spray with non-fat cooking spray to prevent sticking. Pour the excess marinade on top of the tuna after you add it to the pan. Sear for 3-5 minutes on each side, removing when the tuna is cooked almost through. There should be pink in the middle, but the tuna should flake easily with a fork. Remove from heat, dallop with cucumber sauce, and serve!

Told ya. You can't get much easier than that for a weeknight meal. And if you can, invite me over for dinner and show me how. I could use the tips. I'm steadily working toward a world where all I have to do is put my fork in my mouth for dinner at night....and I'm getting closer and closer each day :)

Crockpot greek chicken

I always hate to do this to you...you know, end the week on a bad note with a SNAFU.  But it can't be helped, and at least this one comes with some good looking photos. I was so happy with the presentation of this dish! I would've whipped out my camera in a restaurant had this been served to me...it looked amazing. Too bad it didn't taste as such. I really thought the premise of the recipe was good, so maybe I just need to do some tweaking. All the flavors went well together, but I couldn't put my finger on what this was missing. It sure was missing something horribly though...bad enough that I made another dinner. That doesn't happen often, but when it does, I report it to you. I had a Facebook friend recently post about his issues with trying recipes from blogs...sometimes they work and sometimes they don't but it's a total letdown when you're pumped to the max about dinner and then it falls flat. I get that people have different tastes, but by this time in our lives we usually know our own tastes. Greek flavor profiles...count me in. Except for this one. Plus, it's cooked in a crockpot. Imagine my excitement!

 

1 cup quinoa (I used red which may have been the problem, this was the first time we've tried that and the first time I haven't liked a quinoa dish)

1 small whole chicken (I used only breasts, I can't imagine that being a problem though)

1 red onion, diced

2 cups vegetable broth (I used chicken broth, but routinely swap the two out so it shouldn't have made a difference)

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

juice of 1 lemon

1 T oregano

1 T basil

1 T greek seasoning (I added this)

 

Place the chicken into the crockpot with a liner in it. Mix all other ingredients besides the quinoa together and pour over the chicken. Cook for 6 hours (I cooked for 3 hours because I chop all crockpot recipe cooking times in half, they ALWAYS burn if you go the full time, the chicken was fully done after 3 hours). Right before serving, cook quinoa on the stovetop according to directions.

 

As usual, you add equal parts liquid to the quinoa so one cup of quinoa equals one cup of liquid. You can use water but I always use chicken broth because I feel like it gives more flavor. It may not, but I do it anyway. When the liquid is absorbed the quinoa is done, simple as that.

 

Put the quinoa down on a plate and pile it with the shredded chicken with sauce. I even topped the plate with diced cucumber for some crunch, and some crumbled feta just because I love it. No can do, Kemosabe! I wouldn't say this was horrible...I mean, Main Man ate a good part of his. I just wasn't feeling it.

 

And when you're that excited to put something this pretty in your mouth...it betta taste good! Any suggestions on what could've gone wrong? The only thing I can think is I should sub normal quinoa to see if that was the problem...but to me, it was a lack of good flavor more than a different flavor from the quinoa. Either way, I chalked this one up to the SNAFU section and made myself a salad that night. At least I don't have the problem of drooling over my post while typing it up today like I have had this week...

Happy Friday, all!

Baked truffle fries

Dudes. I gotta learn to stop posting before lunch. Especially when posting means looking at drool worthy french fry photos while trying to concentrate on typing and not licking my screen or jetting to the nearest place I can for a fry or twenty. Sidenote: I would hate myself for that. I just finished Day 4 of the Tuff Butt challenge and I do believe this is going to be more challenging than originally anticipated. With two hot yoga power sculpt classes and two intense Kosama classes under my belt this week, these little daily heartrate boosters I've been doing at work are starting to really buuuuuurn. I'm going to a basketball game tonight and am truly hoping I don't topple down the steps in my wedge boots on the way to my seat. Wouldn't that be fun...

 

Anywho...back to the french fry porn. These actually aren't as bad for you as you would think, because they're not fried. Baking fries is the way to go, my calorie conscious friendies. Potatoes get a bad rap, beings carby and starchy and all, but contrary to popular belief in the last few years, taters are NOT the enemy (they've gotten an undeservedly bad rap)...even the white ones. Yes, they are a starch, but they are a good, healthy starch chuck full of good for your health vitamins and minerals and are naturally low in calories for all the bulk and fiber they provide (especially if you eat the skins)... and they fill you up to boot. Don't feel guilty eating any potato (well, maybe the fried kind); they are a healthy food! My Aunt Kris, the nurse, told me all that! So let's get this party started...

 

2 russet potatoes, sliced into fries

1-2 T olive oil

2 t Cookie's flavor enhancer

2 garlic powder

A few drops of white truffle oil

 

Throw the taters in a large plastic baggie and drizzle your oils and spices all over that shizz. Shut the bag and shake, shake, shake (pause), shake, shake, shake (pause), shake your bootay! Shake your bootay! Yeah! Coat those taters with all the love in that bag...preheat your oven to 450 degrees and bake for 30-40 minutes depending on how crunchtastic you like your fries. I like a crunchy outside and soft inside....

 

 

I had never worked with Truffle oil before this, although I had experienced its flavor in dishes before. Truffle mac and cheese is to die for, and I've had truffle fries in restaurants before as well. I absolutely adore the flavor it brings to those dishes, but from reading about it, realized that it's very strong so there's no need to go overboard with the stuff. I would probably use a little more than I did this time when I make these next, but its better to be safe than over-truffled, I always say. Actually, I never say that, but you don't know that.

 

I picked this little bottle up in Galena, IL at a cute little shop (TONS of cute little cooking shops there if you ever get a chance to go) when Main Man and I went to our Murder Mystery dinner weekend a while back. We spent the chilly day walking from shop to shop holding hands and having coffee and buying fun things like truffle oil...pretty much my perfect day date, ever in the world. I was a little aghast at the price of this stuff ($13 for this teeny bottle), but like I said, you don't need much at all so this should last me a very long time.

 

Main Man was pretty pumped about these fries. They were the talk of the town (errr, maybe just our house) that night. And if you want to try this recipe with the purple potatoes we learned about a while ago! Don't worry, I plan on it :)

New Orleans

Welcome to Nawlins, a.k.a. The Big Easy, a.k.a. NOLA!! Can I tell you how long I've wanted to visit this city? I've always been fascinated with the culture, the food, and the romance of this city...and I was not disappointed, my friends. Everything we did on this trip was right up my alley! I could've stayed another week to soak it all in, but I think Main Man was ready to get outta dodge after downing the amount of alcoholic bevvies and fried foods that we ingested. He gets a little excited :)

 

We made it to Bourbon Street, the French Market, Mother's Restaurant  for some of their famous ham, a small bar on the bayou called Bonne Chance that was full of Cajun crawfisherman, The Bayou Beer Garden for a crawfish boil, Cafe Du Monde for their famous beignets, a bar with endless daquiris called Spunky Monkey Daquiris in Pierre Part (you may recognize the town from the tv show Swamp People if you're a Louisiana love like we are), and an awesome restaurant called Coop's Place for an authentic dinner.

 

The purpose of this trip was to celebrate my good friend Manda's 30th birthday party...and boy did we celebrate! We spent a couple nights at her fishing camp (which is right down the bayou from Troy Landry's fishing camp (a name you won't recognize unless you watch the show mentioned above) and then headed into the city for a big crawfish boil one day and a sightseeing, city wandering day to follow. We celebrated our little hearts out, you understand why we needed a few days to recoop when we got home. NOLA is seriously the city that doesn't sleep with no bar closings and the ability to walk around with a drink in hand whenever and wherever you want...it makes for a very good time, and a very harsh reality adjustment when heading home.

 

Manda's Main Man, Matt, cooked us up some authentic shrimp and grits the first morning we were there. Wow. That's all I have to say. Although the fully clothed shrimpies with their whiskers and eyeballs bugging out were a tad tough to get over at first (we clean our shrimp before cooking up here in Yankee territory), these buggers were HUGE and we were easily convinced to suck all the juice out of the shells once we tasted it. I had never had grits before this so I was super excited to give them a try, and I was not disappointed. This is not skinny kid food, folks...I don't know how people down there don't weigh 400 lbs!

 

He had to cook the shrimp and sauce in a crockpot on the stove because the oven wasn't working...it didn't hurt the flava flav a tiny bit that way. This was in my top 3 meals that we had on our trip! Thanks for taking care of us, Matt!

 

Mmmmm, the grits were so good! There was a little heat to the sauce, but the creaminess of the buttery grits was a perfect match. Heaven, I tell you. Pure heaven.

200 lbs of crawfish right there to start the party off right...they're alive too!

The setup for the boil. It was fascinating watching them prepare the crawfish...there's definitely some tricks to the trade.

This little guy was trying to escape!

Nice rolling boil with that awesome crab boil flavoring in it...

Flash boil and then remove from heat, they will cook perfectly...I'll have you know that my mouth is watering from this memory!

How perdy are those!!?? The brussel sprouts especially held the flavor of the spices used when boiling...we nibbled on piles like this all day long. Word of advice: if the tail of the crawfish isn't curled, it means it wasn't alive when it was cooked and won't be as good.

 

A debris poboy from Mother's Restaurant...one of their specialties. Debris is the leftover meat drippings in the bottom of the roast beef pan with all the juice. I love me some debris. There is a slaw underneath there that is to die for, and the bread soaked up just enough of that juice that it was soft but not soggy. Perfection.

 

Main Man added ham to his...they're famous for their ham, and I see why. He always wins at the ordering lottery. To be fair, Leslie and I had 2.1 seconds to decide because we were across the street grabbing daiquiris for all of us to wait in line...the line moved much faster than expected.

Had to stop at the Tropical Isle for a Grenade, which is apparent the strongest drink in the history of drinks. I had one and fully understood why it has earned that title!

This is the only thing I would recommend NOT trying if you hit up Nawlins. Cracklin. From what I can tell, it's literally fried pig fat. No bueno!

Gator on a stick at the French Market! Talk about my dream city...all kinds of food carts, spices, sauces, and recipes for sale as you walk around sipping on a toddie. I want to be back there!! This gator sausage was so perfectly spiced and yummy....I should've written this post when I got back and was still full. Lesson learned.

Before we had our own crawfish boil, we stumbled upon a restaurant with a patio for some drinks and realized they were serving crawfish. We figured a private lesson before the big party was in order, and in no time, we were sucking the heads off like Cajuns! Manda is a big proponent of sucking the heads to get all the flavor out before eating the tail meat, but I wasn't so sure that was going to be my approach. I saw inside there and knew what would be going in my mouth. I'm telling you, you have to suck the juice out of the heads! I can't believe I'm saying that...but it's the truth. So much flavor in there! Main Man liked it :)

Beignets at Cafe Du Monde. This is a must do in NOLA if you ever head there. These are funnel-cakeish, doughnutish, fried sugary treats from the Gods. You want one.

Walking through the French Market, I had to have the charbroiled oysters. These were ahhhhh-mazing, you guys! I would've gotten another basket of them if Main Man had let me :) He is good at holding me back knowing I wanted to try everything else under the sun too...

A crabcake to trump all crabcakes. A crabcake to murder all crabcakes. A crabcake to make all other crabcakes not even exist in this universe. That's what this is.

The last night there we had dinner at Coop's Place, but of course all my camera batteries were dead (you don't take 2 cameras on vacations?) so I didn't get shots of dinner there. It was all phenomenal but Main Man had a seriously amazing pasta that is right up there with the best of the best of New Orleans that we had. It was a crawfish and tasso pasta that was sort of like a cajun alfredo with ham and seafood. Ugh. I would also recommend the redfish that Matt had...it was similarly phenomenal!

All in all...what did we come back with besides an additional 5 lbs each? An exceptional love for this new to me city, a desire to head back in the very near future to experience even more it has to offer, and an addiction to crawfish that will not be easy to satiate living in land locked Iowa. I said it won't be easy, but it will be possible :) Since it's crawfish season right now, I've done some online searching and come up with 2 crawfish boils in Des Moines in the next couple weeks. You betta baleev we shall be in attendance! We're not quite official coon-asses, but I think we've proven that we're not full Yankees :)  Happy birthday, Manda...glad we were able to celebrate with you!

Jalapeno cheddar chicken burgers

We meet again, Monday. I'm not really much of a Monday hater, to be honest. I actually enjoy my routine, and as long as I feel I got everything I wanted to done throughout my weekend (groceries, meal planning, laundry, workouts, house cleanup) I feel pretty good about starting a fresh new week. So no Monday gripes round here. I will say that Friday most definitely trumps Monday though, and that will never change. Just like Spring trumps Winter...some things are just the way they are. Ask me how I feel about Fridays in the Spring!

 

This weekend was a busy one, but I did manage to get my life in order with a couple big grocery trips to Trader Joe's and Wal-Mart, as well as get a couple great sweat seshes on the books to keep up with my new found motivation on MyFitnessPal. By the way, today is day 1 of Tuff Butt April so I just completed the required lunges, squats, and lunge holds to check today off the list. This first week will be fairly simple and take minimal time, but it shall get challenging soon. Who's joining me??

 

As you know, we've been battling Main Man's cholesterol numbers lately and trying to find workarounds for some of his favorite foods. Enter: chicken burgers. They don't necessarily sound all that great when you have a big, juicy burger in mind, but I pinky swear these babies leave you satisfied beyond the normal greasy patty burger world. They weren't tough to throw together either...

 

Start with 1 lb ground chicken (you want to go with breast meat or it won't be as lean)

1/2 cup finely chopped yellow onion

1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 t chopped jalapeno

1 t ground cumin

1 t paprika

1/2 cup finely shredded cheddar cheese

salt and pepper to taste

 

hamburger buns

guacamole

cheese (I used 2% pepperjack)

lettuce (I used spinach)

tomato

mayo (I used olive oil mayo)

 

Add all ingredients in the first group to a large mixing bowl and....mix. Duh!

 

 

Patty the burgers out. I did 3 patties because a 1/3 pound burger is plenty for this chicky poo. If you feel the need for 1/4 pounders or 1/2 pounders, feel free to make them as large or small as your appetite calls for. Per usual, I made these on a Sunday afternoon to throw in the fridge for a quick grilled weeknight dinner...and they worked splendidly!

 

Throw them on the Griddler or the grill (spray your grill with non fat cooking spray first to avoid stickage) and grill like you would any other burger. Just make sure these are cooked through before eating, rather than rare like you can do bovine burgers. Chicken needs to be cooked, yo. I sliced into mine to make sure it was done, I can't give you cooking times as all grills differ in their temperatures.

I chose a slice of Pepperjack love to melt on top and then added our burgers to their final resting places on a toasted bun layered with spinach and tomato and spread with spicy quacamole and olive oil mayonnaise. To. Die. For.

Drink in a look at that first bite. These will be a Summer staple at the lake without a doubt! Main Man tested, Main Man approved.

I have to give a HUGE shoutout to my good friend Brandy, who got engaged this morning on the beach!! Brandy is one of my oldest friends, she used to keep me out of trouble and I used to do her Geometry tests in high school...we're a good match :)

I know you all thought the "Wedding Schtuff" tag would be forgotten after our recent nuptuals but I'm sure there will be lots more fun projects to share with you in the coming year helping her prepare to become Mrs. Rizer! SO EXCITED!! See what I mean...Mondays can be awesome! :)