Roasted pepper, corn, black bean salsa

On Sunday we had a picnic for a group celebration of birthdays for July.  We drove to a family friend's house in Indiana and had a great time.  Everyone knows what picnics involved...FOOD!  Normally, I would take something like salami roll ups or something easy = store bought and processed.  This year I decided that I wanted to take salsa.  Now, here's the problem that most people wouldn't run into; I can't eat raw tomatoes and neither can my dad.  First I thought about roasting the tomatoes but that didn't work out so I had to come up with a different solution.  My thrown together option was a black bean, corn, and roasted pepper salsa.  It was a bit hit!  When it comes to these types of recipes I'm more of a make it up kind of person...here it goes.

Ingredients:

2 bell peppers (I used yellow and orange but you can choose any color- Green peppers don't roast well)

1 poblano pepper

1 15 oz bag frozen corn (thawed)

1 can black beans (rinsed thoroughly)

Onion small (I had some extra in the fridge that I used)

Cilantro as desired

--Roast the peppers.  (I did it as follows.)  Arrange oven rack in highest position and preheat broiler to high.  Halve or quarter peppers and remove stems and seeds.  Place peppers, skin side up, on baking sheet and broil until skins are blackened and bubbling, about 15 minutes.  Take out of oven and immediately transfer peppers to a large bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap.  Set aside for 10 minutes for steam to loosen skin.  After 10 minutes remove skin from peppers.  

--Chop peppers and onion; mix together. (I used my food processor for this but you can also chop by hand)

-- Mix pepper/onion mix with beans and corn.

--Chop cilantro to you taste and mix in.

Serve with tortilla chips, pita chips, or whatever.  I also ate some of the leftovers on eggs- YUMMY!

Okay, so its been a VERY long time since I posted BUT here is the most recent endeavor that I have completed.  I had a very good longtime friend get married last weekend who honored me with the request to make her wedding cake!  I was extremely excited but also nervous by this prospect.  I could definitely not let my friend down!  I met with her and her fiance a couple times and talked about what they wanted.  I recruited the help of my sister for an extra set of hands as a 3 tier wedding cake is a lot of work for just me.  They both loved the way it turned out.  They had told me they wanted a 'birch tree' themed cake.  My response was 'SURE!' in my head I was thinking what in the name of God have I gotten myself into?!  I think it turned out quite well though.

It's been a LONG while...

So, life got in the way of me enjoying myself and keeping updated.  Things had gotten quite crazy at home and I got busy.  Well, tonight I made a recipe for a bake sale that brought back some great childhood memories.  It is by NO MEANS a clean recipe and I wouldn't have even thought to pull it out if not for the charity aspect.  The place that I work out is hosting a bake sale/rummage sale to help a family that attends recover from a house fire and to help with the recent store relief that is going on in our area.  I decided that while I can't donate cash I can sure donate baked goods.  I have vivid memories of making these cookies with my Grandma when I was little.  I specifically remember watching her as she spooned them out of the pot to cool.  I hope if you make them you enjoy them as much as I have and make some awesome memories in the process!

Grandma's No-Bake Cookies
Combine:

2 cups sugar

4 tbsp cocoa
½ cup milk
1/8 cup margarine or ½ stick (I used butter this time and they turned out good)
Boil 2 minutes
Add ½ cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ¾ cups oatmeal
Spoon on waxed paper and let cool.

Taco Tuesday is no more!

Tuesdays and Thursdays have a more stringent requirement for prep time.  These days I have boot camp until 8 so dinner has be super quick, easy, and still taste really yummy.  Tonight was flatbread pizza.  This one was ALL Bobby in the kitchen!  He tells me it was really easy and the most time consuming part was chopping and sautéing the veggies.  Hope you like this idea as much as I did- it was gone in no time at all!

1 pita flatbread (we had Kangaroo-white pita flatbread in the house so that's what we used)

Mushrooms- chopped

Red onion- chopped

Bell pepper- sliced

Bertolli Tomato and Basil spaghetti sauce (approx 1 tbsp)

Fresh basil- 2 tbsp chopped

Shredded Mozzarella (approx 1 oz)

Extra virgin olive oil- approx 1 tsp

Bird's eye steamfresh broccoli 1 package

Preheat oven to 400F.  Place chopped mushrooms and onions (we used about 2 oz total) in skillet with olive oil and sauté to your liking.  Cover flatbread with sauce, top with cheese, add toppings (mushrooms, onions, and sliced red pepper.)  Place directly on rack of preheated oven and bake for 10 min.  While pizza is baking follow directions on broccoli to prepare.

Remove pizza from oven, portion out broccoli and enjoy!

I had about 1 serving of broccoli (1 1/2 cup) with my pizza.  If you don't like the mushroom/onion/pepper combo use any veggies you like just remember that it can affect the nutritional value.

Nutrition info calculated with myfitnesspal.com: Pizza as prepared- Cal: 360, Carbs: 40, Fat: 11 Protein: 16, Sodium: 571.

TOTAL (including broccoli:) Cal: 390, Carbs: 44, Fat: 11, Protein: 18, Sodium: 591.

Monday, Monday!

Today while I was at work I was tryingto figure out what to make for dinner.  I finally decided that fajitas sounded fantastic.  I was looking around for a recipe and all of them were super easy but I still wanted less sodium than the regular packet of fajita seasoning includes.  I also didn't want tortilla so I came up with using romaine lettuce leaves!  I ended up dividing the chicken mixture in 1/2 and will be having a yummy lunch tomorrow!  Here is what I made:

9 oz chicken (2 boneless, skinless chicken breast)
1 red bell pepper
1/2 medium sweet onion
1/2 tbsp McCormick Grill Mates 25% less sodium Montreal Chicken
1/2 tbsp McCormick garlic powder
1 tbsp olive oil

3 romaine leaves
1 tbsp Breakstone Fat free sour cream
1 tbsp Kroger Shredded monterey jack cheese (shredded)

Slice bell pepper, onion, chicken into strips for sautéing.  Place chicken, pepper, onion and seasonings in skillet with olive oil and sauté until cooked through. 

Fill 3 leaves with 1/2 of mixture divided.  Top with cheese and sour cream.

Enjoy!

Nutrition info calculated with myfitnesspal.com: Fajitas- Cal: 245, Carbs: 13, Fat: 8, Protein: 26, Sodium: 855.  Toppings (combined) Cal: 40, Carbs: 3, Fat: 2, Protein: 3, Sodium: 56.

TOTAL: Cal: 285, Carbs: 16, Fat: 10, Protein: 29, Sodium: 911.

Why am I blogging?!

I have been on a journey to change my physical well being for a while now.  I have made huge strides in the past few months with working out but I still struggle on food choices.  Working at least 40 hours a week, having a husband who works 40+ hours a week (on the weekends and evenings too,) and a super small kitchen all make it hard to eat as well as we should.  I see lots of people I know say that they are sick of eating the same 'healthy' recipes.  My master plan is to try new recipes...'clean' recipes, light ones, made up things that I just threw together, and let people know how they turn out.  My hubby can be a little picky on some things (and I have a weird tomato allergy---more about that later I'm sure) so hopefully I can help my friends get out of the box of boring eating and venture into new territory.  I'm sure there will be bad experiences along the way (I'm sure I'll burn something at the VERY least) but that's the humor in it!  I will also post ideas for crafts as I venture into them :-)  Idle hands and whatnot.  I've learned that if I keep my hands busy I have less chance of eating things when I'm really not hungy!  Big grocery store trip this weekend so we will commence the cooking soon!