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Chocolate Banana Protein Muffins
One problem I have on a weekly basis is overly ripe bananas. I will not eat them once they are completely yellow. And unfortunately, the amigos are the exact same way. So each week, we have 2-3 bananas that are too ripe for anyone to eat. I quickly grew tired of banana bread and the amount of frozen banana bits in our freezer is rather embarrassing. A few weeks ago I noticed a recipe at the bottom of the Kodiak Pancake mix. Since then, the ripe banana epidemic has been abolished. I did make a few changes to the original recipe to make it a little more heart healthy. Also,…
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Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
It’s national chocolate chip cookie day! Probably one of the best holidays ever; and I never miss an excuse to make and then consume mass quantities of cookies. I have to admit though, the chocolate chip cookie has been one that has eluded me. Just about every recipe I’ve tried has failed the taste test. In my book, a chocolate chip cookie should be chocolatey, chewy in the middle and crisp on the edges. So when Sally from Sally’s Baking Addiction posted her chewy chocolate chunk cookie recipe today on Instagram, I had to give it a try. Sally has never let me down…she is a culinary genius and every…
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Chicken Fried Quinoa
I’ve been wanting to incorporate quinoa into my diet, but I was afraid because the last time I tried to make something with it the taste was awful. I even soaked the quinoa before I cooked it and it still tasted like bug spray. That was several years ago, and now there are a lot more options when it comes to quinoa. Quite a few of them don’t require presoaking before cooking which is a huge win for me. Tonight I decided to do chicken fried rice, but with quinoa instead, and guess what…it was SO SO yummy. I will say, although I love me some cauliflower rice, I think I…
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Summertime Avocado and Corn Salad
I have a major addiction…to avocados. Just about anything with avocados in the recipe, I will dive in head first no questions asked. We go through 1-2 bags of avocados from Sam’s Club or Costco in a week. I think we end up going through more avocado bags than gallons of milk. So when a friend posted this recipe link on her facebook, I just had to run out and get all of the ingredients immediately. SO YUMMY! So satisfying, so easy! I omitted the hard boiled eggs the first time I made it because I was going to be taking it to a Fourth of July BBQ and I didn’t want…
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Strawberry Lemonade Poke Cake
I love a good, easy sheet cake and the refreshing combination of lemon and strawberry makes for a lovely summertime dessert. This recipe is super easy and definitely satisfying. I usually like to make this if I am going to be able to share it with family and friends. Scroll down to see how I make this heavenly cake. Ingredients: 1 box lemon cake mix 1 3.5oz box of lemon instant pudding mix 1 tub of lemon frosting 4 cups fresh whole strawberries Directions: Prepare the cake from the directions on the box. After it finishes baking, let cool completely. Take a thick straw, or the handle of a…
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Chocolate PB Chia Seed Pudding
I am not the most adventurous foodie. It’s not that I’m afraid to try new things, it’s that I hate spending money on food that I end up not liking. It’s perfectly acceptable to me for Mr. Man to purchase from the store or order a meal that is new and different and then I will try it. I know, it’s super odd, especially since the money to pay for the food comes from the same place whether he purchased it or I did. It’s just something I’ve always had a hard time overcoming. So for a long time, I pinned and oogled over various chia seed pudding recipes, but…
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Grilled Steak & Veggie Rolls
I am a carnivore at heart. I love a yummy salad, but not much can beat a really good steak. After dad’s heart attack and surgery, I was on the hunt for foods and recipes that still had the familiar flavors my dad loves but were heart healthy. While red meat isn’t the most heart-healthy protein out there, I wanted to show my dad that he didn’t have to give up everything he loved…that if prepared right and consumed in moderation he could still enjoy and indulge occasionally. I found some sirloin side tip steak, which happens to be one of the leanest cuts of beef, for a good price at the…
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Air Fried Cauliflower Bites
I bought Mr. Man an air frier for Father’s Day, it arrived midweek last week and we’ve already used it 5 times. A majority of the time we make sweet potato fries, because…well…sweet potato fries! Need I say more? The other night I decided to use up the last of the cauliflower florets that I had left over from making cauliflower rice earlier in the week. And now air fried cauliflower bites are in our normal rotation. We invested in the air frier because the dietitian suggested that it would be a good cooking substitute for dad now that he needs to be on a heart-healthy diet. With the air frier,…
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Instapot Heart-Healthy Sweet and Sour Chicken
Dad is beginning his 3rd week in the hospital. He’s now in the cardiac rehab unit and learning all sorts of ways to function without putting pressure on his arms. I had no inkling all that entailed recovering from a heart attack and bypass surgery. TV and movies definitely gloss over the intense parts. Not only his he recovering from double bypass surgery, he also has his sternum and ribs healing, as well as several incisions on his lower leg. The ribs and sternum were sawed through so the surgeon could get to dad’s heart, and the leg incisions are from the surgeon searching for a viable vessel for the bypass. …
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Heart Healthy Fried Cauliflower Rice
My family has made a very conscious decision to begin a more heart-healthy lifestyle. Mr. Man and the 4 amigos as well as my parents, siblings and their families; we’ve all decided it is time to make a permanent change together. As I have been researching heart-healthy foods and recipes, I’ve noticed it isn’t as hard as I assumed it would be. The recommendations from the American Heart Association as well as the CDC and Mayo Clinic all suggest low sodium, low-fat diet with complex carbs and plenty of fruits and vegetables. For an individual who has hypertension, high cholesterol, and/or heart disease (especially if they’ve had a cardiac event) the…
