Spoiling myself (the healthy way)

I've jumped into fitness again. Something about the nice spring weather always makes me a fitness fanatic. Oh, and the fact it's free? That's the biggest selling point. And the more interested in fitness I get, the more I'm concerned about the food that I'm eating. And the more that I am concerned about the food I'm eating, the more I want to just screw it all up by having a milkshake every night.

That is, until I made this smoothie. Words cannot express my love for this smoothie. It puts Booster Juice to shame.

Ingredients
1 handful of ice cubes
1 single serve container of yogurt (peach works best)
1 mango

Blend up ice cubes (a big of water apparently helps). Add yogurt and mango (cubed, or butcher or however you can get the fruit off the stone and the skin). Blend.

And now for the most important part - consume slowly while sitting on a deck.

Meal Makeover

I've really noticed in the last 6 months that which our mothers warned us would happen - the point where I can't just eat anything, exercise sporadically, and look and feel as great as I did when I was a teenager (all right, I was about 15 pounds heavier 10 years ago, but that was because I worked in a chocolate shop and regular sampling was a requirement of the job, I swear). As a result, I carefully plan my meals 5 days a week (and exercise *some* caution on the weekends). In my planning, I have noticed we've been eating a LOT of fat. There were some easy changes we could make - switching to low-fat mayo for our homemade dip, and reducing the amount of sausage-based meals. However, there were some changes where we had to get creative, namely, ground beef.

We would eat ground beef every day if we could, but it's probably not the best food to be eating that often, even if you buy lean varieties. However, we also realized many of our ground beef recipes don't involve actually tasting the meat - such as tacos.

As a result, I created a vegetarian alternative - without sacrificing too much protein. Introducing:

Quinoa Tacos

 

Ingredients

1/2 cup quinoa

1 cup water

1 recipe taco seasoning

taco shells

taco fixings (we had tomatos, lettuce, green pepper, and cheddar cheese)

Instructions

1. Rinse quinoa, if required (ours requires a 3 minute rinse)

2. Add quinoa and water to a pot and bring to boil

3. Stir in taco seasoning, cover and simmer for time specified by manufacturer (ours recommends 15-20 minutes)

4. While it is simmering, prepare taco fixings.

5. Fluff quinoa with fork and spoon into shells

6. Top as desired. Remember - vegetables are good for you, so use lots! (Or, if you're like me, make a taco salad!)

Tastes almost exactly the same, but has 16 grams less fat! (Alas, only a quarter of the protein, but it does have all the important amino acids)

Don't have a taco seasoning recipe that you like? Check out ours here!

It's never too early to start planning your weekend!

Last Sunday, it was a beautiful day. In the morning, we assembled patio furniture (more on that hopefully by next week!) and I spent the afternoon going for a walk with my niece. When I got home that evening, all I wanted was a glass of sangria, having passed up the option twice the previous weekend not quite feeling spring yet.

Of course, the downfall of wanting sangria NOW is that most recipes require having the fruit sit in the wine for hours. I murmured to my sister that I was going to muddle the fruit before adding it, as I was leaving her place but by the time I got home, I got lazy, (or remembered I didn't have a muddler, and my mortar and pestle is used primarily for cumin - not a sangria seasoning). Instead, I pulled out my Magic Bullet, and blended my way to a spring beverage!

Ingredients
1/2 a kiwi
1/2 a mango
sufficient amount of white wine

Directions
Peel and dice fruit. Place into Magic Bullet and add wine. Blend for 10 seconds (or longer, if you don't want fruit chunks). Add ice before or after, if you like it extra cold!

It's a little frothy, so I didn't add any fizzy beverage, as some recipes recommend.