Grilled Cilantro Lime Shrimp Kebabs

Grilled shrimp on skewers seasoned with cumin, garlic and finished with fresh squeezed lime juice and cilantro.  

I use my grill all summer long, and since we LOVE Cilantro Lime Shrimp, I adapted for the grill. This would be perfect for back yard parties as an appetizer, or you can serve this for dinner for 4 people with cilantro lime rice, fiesta bean salad, a big garden salad with avocado, or whatever you desire.

Since making the salmon kebabs last week, I loved how the lemon wedges looked between the salmon chunks, so I thought it would be pretty to do the same with the lime here. Completely optional but if you decide to do this, keep in mind that the lime juice will begin to cook the shrimp if you prep these too far in advance.

Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Protein Packed Banana Sunflower Cookies gluten and sugar free

My baby is going to be 4 years old in a few weeks. I suppose that means I can officially no longer use the excuse that I am still trying to loose the baby fat. What's that you say? Most people say it only takes 6 months to a year at most to lose the weight after having a baby. Well then, I guess I better find another excuse for hanging onto the chubs like being almost 40=slow metabolism, being constantly busy with 4 kids and work.......

Alright, alright. Excuses suck and they don't create results so I'll  just have to suck it up and take matters into my own hands. Step it up a notch. Or two.

My chubby tummy is really starting to get on my nerves. The chubs have gots to go! I have been telling myself for almost 4 years, since aforementioned baby numero 4 that I will not buy new clothes until I lose at least 20lbs. 30 would be super.

The fact that my wardrobe is seriously out of style should tell you something. It's been way too long just waiting for the weight to come off. After I had my first 3 children I worked out once and a while, a few times a week usually hiking or playing tennis and sometimes home workouts when it was too hot outside. The wight came off fairly easily. So what happened after baby #4? This belly won't budge!


Taking matters into my own hands I decided to join a workout program along with a month of Shakeology with my long time fellow blogger and inspirational friend Jen aka The Fit Housewife.
I'm so excited to get started! My package should be on the doorstep any day now and I'll be on a 90 kick ass jump start to the new me with Chalean Extreme.


Getting motivated to workout isn't easy for me. Usually I have to tell myself to at the very least do a Yoga or 20 minutes of Pilates and after I do I'm energized and ready to kick it into gear with a tougher workout. Cute new workout clothes also are a great motivator so when Marni from ZUMBA Fitness offered to send me some of their new apparel I was more than happy to check it out.

I recieved this cute tank top which I loved! It wans't clingy which helps hide the tummy while I try to get rid of it. I really liked how airy it was, I hate when my clothes stay wet when I sweat. 

These sports bras would look great under their open back tanks!

 I like the sassy edgy quality of Zumba's line of comfortable workout clothes. 

Sporting my cute, new workout clothes and stocked with these healthy,

 protein packed pre-workout cookies I'm ready to get my cardio on!

These banana sunflower cookies taste like banana bread, my favorite!
Sweetened with a touch of honey and a handful of shredded coconut and made with
good for you gluten free flours minus the starch. I'm in love.

 

Oil free, butter free, refined sugar free, grain free. These still tasted wonderful. They have a cake like texture and the sunflower seeds added just the right amount of texture and heartiness, not to mention tons of beneficial vitamins and protein.

PREP TIME    10 MIN   

BAKE TIME    10 MIN

YIELDS    16-20 COOKIES 

Ingredients

3 ripe bananas

1/2 cup plain, fat free yogurt (or sugar free applesauce)

1/4 cup honey preferably local Organic, aides w allergies (eye it)

1/4 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut (or more honey)

1 cup spelt flour

1 cup buckwheat flour (or almond flour)

1 cup shelled, unsalted sunflower seeds

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon iodized salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, use an electric mixer on medium speed to cream together the bananas, yogurt and honey for 1 minute.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the sunflower seeds, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture along with coconut. Mix thoroughly to combine. 

Drop rounded tablespoons of the dough onto the baking sheet, placing them about 2" apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown.

Sunflower seeds are an excellent source of Vitamin E, the body's primary fat-soluble antioxidant. Vitamin E travels throughout the body neutralizing free radicals which can reduce the
symptoms of asthma, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, conditions where
free radicals and inflammation play a big role.

The minerals and vitamins in sunflower seeds also can greatly help reduce the severity of asthma, lower high blood pressure, and prevent migraine headaches, as well as reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke.





Sources
The World's Healthiest Foods

Easy Grilled Fish Fillet in Foil Packets

 

This super easy method for grilling fish is pretty foolproof, and you can use any fresh fish that's available to you in your area. It's almost 90 degrees today, which means I'm grilling tonight. In fact I use my outdoor grill just about every night in the summer to make quick, easy, healthy dinners.

Living on the east coast, I love to take full advantage of the fresh caught local fish available to me here on Long Island. Nothing is quite better than eating fish that came out of the ocean the same day! My local fishmonger suggested the Long Island porgy that was caught early that morning – delish! I asked him to fillet it for me, and I kept the skin on, just my personal  preference. Oh, the possibilities are endless when making fish in foil, you can add any fresh herbs you like, wine, garlic, shallots, whatever you like! I also do this in a 400 degree oven in the Fall and winter months.

When I do this outside on the gas grill, I cook the foil on indirect heat, which basically means I heat up one side of the grill with the cover closed so it gets good and hot, and keep the burners off on the other side. You can also do this with a charcoal grill with a cover, by leaving the coals on one side. The fish goes on the indirect side of the grill so that it cooks from the steam created in the foil. In about 10 minutes, the fish cooked to perfection. My whole family enjoys this, even my three year old.


Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Peaches and Cream Popsicles

There's nothing like eating a sweet, juicy, ripe peach on a hot summer day – but these peaches and cream popsicles made with yogurt, almond milk and almond extract make a wonderful treat on a hot day like today.

It's in the nineties today, the kind of day where you want to either sit in front of the air conditioner and never leave the house, or swim in the pool all day – we opted for the latter.

I've been thinking about making a peach dessert combined with almond extract – because I love the smell of my peach-almond facial scrub, so I came up with this easy dessert using really ripe sweet peaches, unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze almond milk and almond extract – delish! And by the way, Almond Breeze now comes in single size servings and is hosting a giveaway on Skinny Bits. Click here for a chance to win.

I used raw sugar to sweeten these, but you could sweeten them with stevia or whichever sweetener you prefer. My star shaped ice pop mold, which you can find on Amazon makes 4 oz popsicles, so depending on the size of your popsicle mold, you may get different amounts. 

Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Grilled Pesto Chicken and Tomato Kebabs

These chicken kebobs just SCREAM summer, made with my skinny basil pesto and grape tomatoes. Serve this as an appetizer at your next backyard bash, or have them for dinner any night of the week with a great big salad or over pasta.

We grow sooo much basil in my garden all summer long, so I make a lot of pesto and use it so many ways. This is super easy and can be made a day ahead, in fact the longer it marinates the better! Doubling the skewers helps keep everything in place while grilling, and makes them easier to turn. I love how the tomatoes taste after they are grilled, and they smell just divine when they come off the grill. To make my pesto skinny, I use less oil and make it without the pine nuts – but it's still so flavorful you won't miss them! If you're having this for dinner, I would serve 2 skewers, rather than one with salad or grilled veggies on the side.

These are gluten free, inexpensive, low-carb, clean and simple. If you want to make them paleo, you can leave out the parmesan and swap it for pine nuts. If you love pesto as much as we do, you may also love Skinny Chicken Pesto Bake, Grilled Pesto Shrimp Skewers, or this delicious Eggplant Panini with Pesto – so good!!

Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Grilled Salmon Kebabs

These lovely grilled salmon and lemon kabobs are delicious and easy to make – with mega omegas in every bite! Seasoned with fresh herbs, lemon, and spices and grilled to perfection.

This was last night's supper, it was a beautiful night and we ate outdoors, oh how I love summer! I served this with a great big garden salad and everyone loved them – including my 3 year old which was a happy surprise for me.

I have so much oregano growing in my garden and I'm always looking for ways to use it. I came across this recipe on Bon Appetit and was intrigued because I would never think to combine cumin and oregano with sesame seeds. I also loved how the lemon sliced looked between each cube of salmon. This was fantastic and I plan on making lots of variations of this all summer long.


Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Roasted Strawberry Banana Bread

 

This banana bread is moist and delicious, made with white whole wheat flour, sweet roasted strawberries and ripe bananas, with just a smidgen of butter, so you can enjoy a slice without the guilt!

I had some bananas that were getting brown and I was really in the mood for banana bread, so I combined the two for a delicious quick bread. You can turn these into muffins if you prefer. In the past I attempted this recipe, but the strawberries released too much liquid which made the bread a little too moist. Roasting the strawberries is the perfect solution, most of the liquid dries out from roasting so you get the flavor of the strawberries in every bite.

Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Spicy Chipotle Ketchup

Homemade ketchup made with clean ingredients you can feel good about eating. Last summer I made my own homemade ketchup which turned out so GOOD, I made it again this year... with a twist! I added some chipotle paste to give it some heat, it goes great with turkey burgers or grilled sweet potato fries!

Finally someone came up with a chipotle paste in a tube, perfect since I never use the whole can. The brand is Olo's which I found on Amazon, but of course canned chipotle sauce will work fine here, you'll have to mince the chipotles. 

This is so EASY to make, just put a few ingredients in the sauce pan and let it simmer for 20 minutes. If you are planning on grilling this weekend and you like things a little spicy, give this a try!

Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Almond and Roasted Red Pepper Tapenade and The World's Best Ever Steak Marinade

This weekend as you well know is Father's Day weekend. Instead of hanging out around the house and  grilling some steaks and swimming in the pool we decided it would be a good idea to take all of the kids and meet the fam up at Big Lake for some camping chaos fun. If you didn't read my post from last year you may not fully appreciate how difficult interesting it can be when camping with 3 young children and a cranky teenager. If your up for a good laugh read about our adventure here.  I remain very optimistic that things will go much better this year.......

For one thing, I'm going to make things a LOT easier on myself and stick with the basics. Simple, yet good food and packing just what's necessary instead of trying to plan for every inconceivable disaster. Quite frankly I'm just too pooped to plan.


Last weekend we grilled up some steaks which turned out to be hands down best ever and all around awesome. I'm not a huge red meat so when I'm craving a nice steak or burger It better be good. I like my meat very tender and super flavorful. These steaks were both and the tangy, sweet flavor can be attributed to this marinade which worked wonders on the meat. Man, it was so good!

I also attempted to make a red pepper, cilantro pesto from Dara at Cookin' Canuck  but ended up tweaking the ingredients and process a bit to end up with more of a tapenade. I love tapenades in every variety, they are so versatile and satisfying in a grown up sort of way. They can be paired with steak, on top of smoked or grilled fish (my favorite) or as a stand alone hor d'oeuvres with crackers, a baguette and of course a good aperitif.

Basically, for this to be a tapenade instead of a pesto, you need to use a bit more almonds and less red pepper. Preferably use a small hand food processor or pulse just a few times in your regular one. I love my little manual one for chopping garlic, finely mincing onion, herbs and making salsa and guacamole. It's just a tiny little thing and so easy to clean. I use it daily.

Almond and Roasted Red Pepper Tapenade

1 small red bell pepper, roasted

3 cloves garlic

1 cup blanched almonds (2 handfuls)

small handful cilantro

squeeze lime juice

2-3 tablespoons good quality extra virgin olive oil

Pulse all ingredients except lime juice and oil in a food processor until coarsely chopped.

Drizzle in oil and lime juice. Pulse until desired consistency.

Happy Father's Day to my dad who is the coolest and most gerous guy I know and to my sweet and as perfect as they get husband who keeps me grounded, happy and calm. 

and to all you other dad's, I hope you have a wonderful day!

(camping or not)

Roast Beef Sandwich with Melted Cheese and Caramelized Onions

I wish this photo could capture how delicious this sandwich is. I made a few attempts at photographing this, but the photo can't capture how sweet these caramelized onions are and how perfect they taste with yesterday's leftover garlic infused roast beef and melted Swiss cheese.

Father's Day is coming up and I'm trying to think of dishes that would make Dad happy. For those of you who are Pinterest obsessed, I made a Skinny Father's Day board and pinned recipes I think Dads would love. My husband loves caramelized onions, I can't say I blame him. I never knew just how good they were until I met him; he makes them all the time. The onions shrink to about half their size when the slowly cook down, and as they turn golden in color they turn sweet and delicious. They are great over burgers too, I make them with a lot less oil than he does with great results.

I don't east sandwiches often, maybe once a week. But when I do eat a sandwich, my bread of choice is a fresh baked whole wheat French or Italian bread from the bakery because it's generally made with no fat and I love a crispy fresh baked loaf.


Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Garlic Lover's Roast Beef

Vampires beware, there's garlic in every bite! And if that's not enough garlic, I like to serve this with roasted broccoli with smashed garlic and skinny mashed potatoes... in my house, there's never too much garlic.

With Father's Day right around the corner, I thought it was time to re-shoot this recipe which means this is what's for dinner tonight. I make roast beef quite often in my house because it's pretty simple to make and we all love it. Roast beef is really hard to mess up as long as you have a meat thermometer and you let it rest before slicing.

For lunch today I made a delicious carved roast beef sandwich with melted cheese and sweet caramelized onions that I will be sharing tomorrow here, it was sooo good!

Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Tropical Fruit Salad Recipe

This tropical fruit salad, made with fresh papaya, mango, pineapple, bananas and grated coconut is the best tasting fruit salad... EVER!!

It makes a great big bowl, big enough to feed a crowd so it's perfect to bring to a picnic, potluck or to serve at a backyard BBQ. This is easy enough for anyone to make – if you can use a knife, you can make this salad. The bananas are added just before serving so they don't turn brown.

Fruit salad always makes me think of my Dad, when I was younger he made a great big bowl of fresh fruit salad just about every night. It's the perfect dessert because it's all natural, made with nothing but fruit – it doesn't get cleaner than that!

In my past life I must have lived on a tropical island somewhere; the climate, blue oceans, palm trees, and sweet tropical fruit are my idea of a perfect world. Thank goodness we can get papayas, mangoes, coconut and pineapples here in the states, but there are still so many tropical fruits I'd love to see a lot more tropical fruit imported here one day such as fresh guanabana (sour sop) guava or passion fruit (maybe I need to get on a plane to somewhere tropical really soon).

Fruit salad is naturally low-fat, low-sodium, gluten-free, vegan, paleo friendly, clean-eating dish you can serve for brunch, snack or dessert. Yes, there is sugar in fruit, but it's natural and unprocessed, and loaded with vitamins, antioxidants, phytonutrients and fiber. Unless you have to watch your sugar for health reason, the USDA suggests you eat about 1-1/2 to 2 cups of fruit a day.

Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Grilled Eggplant Caprese with Parmesan and Garlic White Bean Puree

Summer in Phoenix means very long, hot days and cooking is the very last thing I want to do. Sitting by the pool with an ice cold drink while waiting for my grill to work it's magic on these eggplants however, is my idea of a perfect summer supper. Grilling thick slices of eggplant brings out a wonderful smokey flavor that baking just can't replicate. In a pinch broiling them will do but I find that not only is the flavor not up to par but they turn out a bit soggier than when on the grill.











Now that the kids are out of school I seem to have lost any and all motivation to cook over involved meals. We have a fun, semi-structured summer plan to keep our bodies in motion and our minds from turning into jello. On the 3 days during the week that I work my mom is nice enough to have a short, fun and interactive lesson planned for them. They've been learning about insects, ocean creatures and the different parts of plants so far. After their lesson they do a fun project or a craft about what they learned.

On the week they learned about insects, they learned all about bees and how they make honey and interact with each other in the hive. We have a fun trip to a small, family owned farm near our house that has several bee hives on site! How cool! This will also let them see how and where plants, our food in particular grow. Right now they think that bananas grow at the grocery store and hot dogs grow on trees. O.K. not really, but living in the city they've only seen the few pathetic plants and herbs that mommy tries to grow in pots. So we are looking forward to a trip to a real farm.

Eggplant is almost at the end of it's season here in the Phoenix desert so we will have to pick up several while we are at the farm along with heirloom tomatoes, peppers, purple and green beans, 

summer squash and strawberries. 

Tonapah Rob's Vegetable Farm. Heirloom Tomatoes

I'll have to post about the whole bee hive experience and pick up a bottle of the local, Organic honey they produce there! They also have over 300 hens so hopefully we will get some nice fresh eggs. 

So excited!

Simple Summer Supper

For the Eggplant Caprese

2 medium eggplants, sliced
2 large tomatoes, sliced
8-10 oz fresh mozzarella ball, sliced
fresh Parmesan, grated
handful of fresh basil, chopped
EVOO for brushing eggplant
salt

For the White Bean Puree

2 cups dry white beans
4 cups chicken broth or water
1 small leek (optional, for more flavor)
2 bay leaves
1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 head garlic
1 teaspoon EVOO
1 teaspoon salt
freshly cracked pepper

Preparation: The night before, soak your beans in a covered bowl of water.

In the morning, drain and rinse the beans. Place in a slow cooker with water, salt

bay leaves and rosemary sprig. Cook on low for 8 hours. Do not pick up lid.

Putting it all together:

Fire up your grill on medium heat.

Using a paring knife, remove peel from eggplant. Slice into 1/2 pieces. 

Lightly brush with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt. 

Remove loose skin from garlic. Cut the top 1/4 inch off of the head of garlic.

Lightly drizzle the exposed garlic cloves with oil. Place on grill. 

Cut the dark green leaves off the leek, discard. Slice the remaining white and light green

stalk in half lengthwise. Brush lightly with oil. Place leek cut side down on grill.

Place eggplant on grill and press lightly. Cook 5-6 minutes on each side (leave the leek face down). 

I like to close the grill lid to let the smoke work it's magic. Be careful not to let them burn.

Remove from grill. Set eggplant aside. Carefully chop leek into small pieces.

Meanwhile, remove rosemary and bay leaves from cooked beans. 

Put leek into the slow cooker with the beans. Carefully squeeze out cooked garlic cloves into

beans. Using an immersion blender, puree the beans until smooth. 

Spoon onto a deep plate. Top with freshly cracked pepper.

On top of the bean puree, place a slice of grilled eggplant, top with slice of mozzarella, tomato, chopped basil, repeat. Top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and garnish with basil.

I know it may sound like a lot of preparation but it's really not. I just wanted to explain in detail.  Also, 

the flavor of the bean puree was so complex thanks to slow cooking in the herbs, the grilled garlic and leek and paired wonderfully with the eggplant caprese.

 It makes this a complete and very satisfying dinner. 

Grilled Chicken and Zucchini Yakitori

I love these Japanese inspired grilled chicken and zucchini skewers marinated with yakitori sauce and threaded onto bamboo sticks with green onions. They are perfect as an appetizer if you're having a backyard bash this summer, or you can turn it into a meal any night of the week served with rice, salad or more vegetables.

Yakitori reminds me of my college days in Soho living on a student budget. Me and my BFF Gabbie used to meet 3 to 4 times a week after class at this cute little Japanese restaurant in the Village where paper origami birds hung from the ceiling and Japanese music played in the background. I didn't have much money then, so I usually ordered the chicken yakitori off the appetizer menu which always came with white rice... a perfectly good meal when you're broke.

Now days I can make it myself, and although this could certainly serve a crowd as an appetizer, I still like to eat them for dinner like I did back in my college days. I also like to add some zucchini to my skewers so I'm grilling my veggies at the same time. As for the chicken, I prefer dark meat to white so I use Perdue Fit & Easy thighs, which calculates to a lot less points in recipe builder than generic thighs (I'm assuming because the generic isn't trimmed of all fat? Not sure!) You could also use chicken breast if you prefer white meat. Only one tiny issue I had was it makes 14 chicken skewers, so to divide that in 4 servings, you are going to get 3 1/2 skewers. Oh well, you'll just have to share!! There's plenty of marinade left if you want to make more chicken or zucchini.

Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Just Peachy Green Smoothie

At least 3 to 4 days a week, I start my morning with a green smoothie because it's a quick way to enjoy a nutritious breakfast without having to cook a thing. Just throw everything in the blender and breakfast is ready in less than a minute. I especially love this time of year when stone fruits are in season, especially sweet juicy peaches.

Which is the perfect time to make this delicious smoothie, because frozen peaches just aren't the same. For this protein packed liquid breakfast, I combined the peaches (skin and all) with a frozen ripe banana, some hemp seeds for extra protein, almond milk and baby spinach (you can't taste it, I promise!) My toddler loves green smoothies and always reminds me to buy spinach when I'm out (cracks me up!).

I often get asked about my blender, and I can't say enough good things about my Blendtec Total Blender. I never really knew what I was missing until I owned it, and now I'm not sure I could ever live without it. It's so powerful, perfect for whipping up smoothies and so much more. If you don't have one, no worries, I used to use my magic bullet and it worked just fine.

And just one note about counting points in smoothies, as per Weight Watchers the official answer is yes, you should count the fruit when you calculate the recipe in recipe builder when making smoothies. That being said, I've been told many WW leaders don't. One WW leader mentioned on my Facebook page: "you should let your weight loss be your guide. If you're doing smoothies within reason, I wouldn't count the points". So it's really up to you, if you don't count the fruit, this smoothie is 3 points plus.
Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Quinoa and Spinach Patties

 

Happy Monday! These quinoa patties are a delicious meatless dish, they almost make me think I'm eating a chicken cutlet or meatball, without the meat of course yet they are packed with protein and nutrients from quinoa and spinach.

I'm really excited about this recipe adapted from Heidi Swanson's cookbook Super Natural Every Day. Her original recipe calls for kale, but since I made them on a whim, all I had was spinach and that worked out just fine. My (meat-loving) husband even thought they were great.

These actually made enough for several meals, so I had one topped mine with a poached egg for breakfast which was super yummy, and the rest I served as a main course for dinner with a big avocado salad and quite felt satisfied. I can't help thinking how good this would be with melted cheese on top in place of a burger to make it more of a veggie-quinoa burger. May have to try that soon! These patties are inexpensive to make, can be adapted for gluten-free diets, they are vegetarian which is also perfect for Meatless Mondays and are made with clean ingredients. Hope you enjoy!!

Click Here To See The Full Recipe...