Change of Seasons and Spicy Slawsa

I can’t believe how quickly fall came to South Carolina.  A few weeks ago, we were enjoying the pool and sun.  And now, we’re pulling on sweaters in the morning, leaving the windows open at night, and picking apples and pumpkins.  The weather has been absolutely amazing around here.  I hope that wherever you are, it is beautiful, too!

On Saturday morning, I went out for a quick bike ride and ended up riding more than 5 miles.  It just felt so great outside.

And on Sunday, Sadie and I enjoyed a walk at a local park…

followed by frozen yogurt. 

I also was able to go to the Southern Women’s Show this weekend.  The SWS is a great shopping opportunity in Charlotte.  Lots of local and national vendors set up booths.  I can’t believe I didn’t take my camera with me.  But I ran into a friend there… my friend Julie from college!  Julie is the owner of a little product called Slawsa, which I have written about before here.  Julie has been busy making deals with many of the grocery store chains around the country.  She was at the SWS giving samples of Slawsa and telling people where to get it. 

 

I decided to try out the new Spicy Slawsa!  I liked it so much I brought home a jar. 

This inspired us to make burgers.  I ate mine sans bun, since I try to stay with a Mostly-Paleo diet, and topped mine with Slawsa and Tomatoes.  Yum! 

If you still haven’t tried Slawsa, you must!  It’s great on hot dogs and burgers!  Slawsa is sold at Ingles, Publix, and may soon be available4 at some other stores!  You can click here to find out more about Slawsa and to order some.

Alright, friends… apples are baking in my oven and they smell heavenly.  I’m going to have to say goodnight now. 

Easiest Vegetable Soup + Blogger Eats

Happy Monday!  I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend!  We did.  We enjoyed lots of family time and even got some housework done!  Which made me remember that way back in the spring, I vowed to do better about keeping the house clean.  I even pinned a schedule on Pinterest, hoping to try and follow this.  We did it for about a week or so, but then a busy week hit and… Fail.  Now we are vowing it again.

Well, I may not be the best housekeeper in the world, but I did cook a little. 

As soon as fall starts to approach, I start thinking about things like…

boots

leaves

cocoa

soup

chili

apples

Wassail from Windy Hill Orchard

pumpkin

pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks

stews

blankets

long sleeves

candles

The list goes on and on.  I am always sad when summer ends… but once fall begins to come around, I remember how much I love this time of year, when everything cools down and the fall colors start to appear in nature. 

Yesterday was sort-of a gray day, so I felt like making soup.  This is the easiest soup to make.  This is the soup recipe I give to my friends who swear they cannot cook anything.  So if you’re one of those people who always goes for the complex recipes with many steps… I can tell you this soup probably isn’t your thing. 

 

Easiest Vegetable-Beef Soup

I make this soup almost every 2nd or 3rd week in the fall and winter.  It’s so simple, but it is filling and tasty.  I like to make a big batch on Sunday night and then eat it for lunches or an easy dinner during the week.  Back before I was (mostly) Paleo, I woulod have paired it with a grilled cheese.  Now I pair it with apple slices or some extra veggies.  Maybe even a slice of quiche!  One batch makes about 5-6 servings, but it really depends on how big your bowls are! 

 

Ingredients:

1 lb. lean ground beef

1 onion, diced

2-3 cups of frozen, cut-up veggies (I use about 1/2 a bag of those frozen soup veggies with beans, corn, peas, and carrots—but you coulod certainly use fresh—whatever you have on hand)

2 cups frozen cut okra (again—I am sure fresh would also be great)

1 12-oz. can V-8 or Vegetable Juice

1 32-oz. carton chicken or vegetable broth

salt, pepper, bay leaves, or other seasoning

Preparation:

Brown ground beef with chopped onion.  When beef is browned, drain fat if needed.  (Depends on how lean the beef is.)  Add chicken broth and V8 to the pot.  Mix with a spoon.  Add frozen veggies.  Mix again.  Add seasonings.  Bring to a boil.  Then reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 15-20 more minutes.  Serve hot with your favorite soup sides!

Seriously, I told you it was easy, right?

Yay for pre-prepared lunches this week!

Speaking of preparing meals in advance… last night I tried out this recipe from PaleOMG: Tex-Mex Hash Breakfast Casserole!  I love a breakfast hash, that is for sure.  So as soon as I saw this recipe, I knew I had to try it out. 

It turned out amazing!  It is so filling and hearty, and I love anything spicy in the morning.  I’d bring tacos to work for breakfast if I didn’t think I would get some crazy looks.  But I WILL take this to work. 

Stop over at PaleOMG! for the recipe!

Alright, friends… hope you have a great week!  For those of you who are having a rainy week (like us!), stay dry!

Almost Burned (But Not Quite!) Turkey, Broccoli, and Cheddar Frittata

Happy Thursday!  Or shall we say, “Friday Eve?”  I’m feeling ready for the weekend!  Something strange happened this week… I think Fall arrived!  Seriously, the weather took quite a change.  It’s been in the 50s/60s in the morning!   I have to say that I am sad that the pool days of summer are over… they are ending just as Sadie was really getting GREAT with her swimming.  We are going to have to make a special effort to get her to the indoor pool so that she will not forget everything she has learned. 

However, there are so many things that I love about Fall.  I’m getting so excited to break out the boots soon! And making things with pumpkin!  And apples are in season! 

You can expect to see some fall-related posts coming soon.  But for now, let’s have some breakfast. 

You all know I love breakfast.

And eggs.

The frittata has become a good friend to me.

Seriously, if you’ve never made one, it’s so easy!  You can add just about anything you want.  It’s cheap.  It’s a great way to use up leftovers.  And it’s quick!  This frittata came to be because of all those reasons.  I needed to use up some leftover veggies and I also wanted to pre-make some breakfasts for the week.  And I ALMOST ruined it.  But not quite.

Turkey, Broccoli, and Cheddar Frittata

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp EVOO

1 onion, diced

3/4 cup chopped turkey slices (amount isn’t really that important—anything will work)

1 cup of cooked broccoli florets

1/2 cup shredded cheddar

5 eggs, whisked

salt, pepper

 

Preparation:

Heat oil in an small oven-proof skillet over medium heat on the stove.  Add diced onion.  Saute until soft.  Then add turkey and broccoli.  Heat until warmed through.  Reduce heat to medium-low.  Spread the veggie and turkey mixture evenly over the bottom of the skillet.  Add some salt and pepper (to taste) to the eggs.  Add cheddar to the eggs and pour evenly over the turkey and veggies.  Allow to cook for a few minutes, until the sides are beginning to thicken.  Then put the skillet into the oven.  Broil for a few minutes until the to is lightly browned.  Serve hot, or save to eat throughout the week. 

A frittata of this size will make enough for about 3 breakfasts.  I think it is great with fruit, or with some avocado or even almonds. 

Sooo… how did I almost ruin this breakfast?  I actually decided MID-BROIL that I wanted to go for a bike ride.  I was upstairs chaging, and then I came back down, I thought, “Oh no!  My frittata!”  I was sure it would be ruined.  But lucky for me, I caught it JUST in time.  It was almost too brown on top.  But it was my lucky day.  :) 

Breakfast saved.

Power Breakfast! (Paleo)

Hello friends!  I’ve been sitting on these pictures for a week now and I’ve been meaning to write up this post.  I’m still struggling with fitting in time for blogging now that I’m in a new (bigger) job.  And I have a confession to make.  I’m having a hard time making myself get out my laptop at night!  It’s so quick and easy to check email from an ipad or iphone… but unfortunately the Blogger app is not very good, so I really can’t use my mobile devices to blog.  But this morning I made myself finish up this post to share with all of you!

Let’s talk about breakfast and how it is my favorite meal of the day.  I never, ever, ever skip it.  Do you?  We’ve all been hearing for years about how breakfast is so important.  Here are just a couple of fast facts that I thought were interesting:

• If you and your kids regularly skip breakfast in the interest of saving time, calories, or getting a few more minutes of sleep, remember that eating a wholesome, nutritious morning meal will probably save you time in the long run. By recharging the brain and body, you'll be more efficient in just about everything you do.
• Some people skip breakfast in an effort to lose weight, but the practice is more likely to cause weight gain than weight loss. Skipping breakfast is strongly linked to the development of obesity. Studies show that overweight and obese children, adolescents, and adults are less likely to break the fast each morning than their thinner counterparts.

(Source: http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/most-important-meal)

And here is another great article which explains why a breakfast with protein is important.

Prior to this year, I almost always ate a breakfast of primarily carbs.  I usually have to take my breakfast with me and eat it either on the way to work or at work. Many times this included peanut butter toast or PB waffles.  Sometimes I ate cereal or oatmeal.  However, I have noticed that those breakfasts don’t always stick with me until lunchtime. 

During my Whole30, I discovered that a breakfast hash is a great way to get in some veggies early in the morning, and I can also fit in some good-for-me sweet potatoes. 

Ingredients:

• 1 shredded sweet potato (you can use a regular cheese grater, but my food processor will shred a sweet potato in under a minute)
• 1 diced yellow onion
• 1 lb. breakfast sausage
• optional: baby spinach
• optional: fried egg

 

Preparation:

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat.  Add sausage and brown.  Once the sausage is cooked through, I add in  the sweet potato and onion, and cook until soft (about 5 minutes).  Drain excess fat.  Now, you could be done at this point—because you’ve now got sausage, sweet potato, and onion hash, and it makes a great breakfast.  However, if you like spinach, you could throw in a giant handful or two at this point and cook over low heat until it wilts.  And if you like (and want the extra protein at breakfast) you can fry an egg and put it on top of your breakfast hash.  That’s also delicious.

(breakfast hash sans spinach)

 

(breakfast hash topped with a fried egg)

 

If you are like me and have to take your breakfast with you, then you can make a big skillet of this hash and portion it out for the week.  (It makes about 4-5 servings.)

I’d love to hear about your favorite breakfasts!  Do you have great ideas for portable breakfasts?  Post comments and tell mw what your faves are.  I am sure we would all love to get some new ideas.  If you are a blogger and have posts, please leave links so we can visit your blog for more ideas!

Easy Dinner and Random Shots

You may have noticed that blogging has taken a little bit of a backseat for me lately.  It’s been a crazy couple of week.  As you all know, I have a new job.  I’m still adjusting to that, and we have had close family members in the hospital, which has also been stressful.  I am happy to say that things seem to be looking up as far as medical concerns go.  I think I am going to try and keep blogging 2-3 days a week.  That’s about the average of what I had been doing prior to July.  If you’re a longtime reader, thank you for being patient! 

I have also noticed some new “likes” on my Facebook page and some new commenters on the blog!  Welcome to my new readers!

I thought I would start by sharing an easy dinner from this weekend.  I am ashamed to say that this is probably the first dinner I have cooked in 2-3 weeks.  We’ve done a lot of take-out and/or restaurant nights lately.  However, this week, we went to the grocery store and actually PLANNED out our meals again and I cooked!

Pork Tenderloin is always a go-to meal for us.  I like to watch for when they go on sale (B1G1) at Harris Teeter.  The other great thing about pork tenderloin is that there are 2 in a package.  So if we cook both, we usually have enough for two meals. 

I decided to grill it this time.  We preheated the grill and turned it to low.  I seasoned the pork with Emeril’s Original Essence and Lime Pepper (dried).  Then I cooked it on the grill, turning it approximately every 8 minutes to cook all sides evenly, until it reached 160 degrees.

We paired the pork with my new favorite summer veggie: roasted okra.

 

So simple.  Toss in EVOO, add salt, pepper, and Garlic Powder and roast for 15-20 minutes.  Delicious!

Dinner was done in under 40 minutes and was delicious!

I was just going through my memory card and I thought I would include a few random shots of what has been happening lately.  Hope you enjoy!

Movie date to see “Brave”

 

 

Baseball Date

 

Fun Zumba Times

Zumba Convention- Full Recap!

Whoop whoop!  I am back from the Zumba Convention 2012!  It was such a great trip, and I cannot wait to tell you all about it!  Early last Thursday morning, a group of Instructor friends and I met at the airport and headed down to Orlando, Florida for four days of dancing, walking, laughter, and learning.

I have been wanting to go to the Zumba Convention for a couple years, so it was a very exciting trip!  For those who are thinking about going next year, hopefully this post will be helpful for you as you make your plans.  The convention is held at 2 hotels and at the Orlando Convention Center.  The main hotel is the Peabody, but our group opted to stay at the Hilton. Luckily, the three locations are conn ected by a long walkway, which one of our instructors dubbed “The White Mile.”  (It actually IS a full mile.)

This meant that we walked somewhere around 4-6 miles per day, which sounds like a lot, but it wasn’t as bad as you might think.  It was all in the shade and some of it was indoors.  :)

I was able to participate in lots of Master classes and workshops, such as Flamenco, African, Caribbean, Hip Hop, Latin Pop, and even a workshop on warm-ups and cool-downs. 

My two favorite classes were Hip Hop, taught by these two AMAZING instructors…

… and Caribbean!  I got so many ideas for new choreography. 

I can’t wait to have some time to work on some new songs.

My last class of the weekend was Warm-Ups and Cool-Downs.  I originally signed up for this workshop because it was being taught by a mega-famous instructor, Tanya Beardsley.  However, she was not able to be at Convention.  I wasn’t really looking forward to the session, but we got a nice surprise!

Beto Perez, the creator of Zumba stopped by our session and helped lead it.  It was exciting to have a session led by Beto.  He did a warm up to one of my favorite songs of all time, “All Night Long,” by Lionel Ritchie.  Beto’s enthusiasm really is inspiring. 

The Zumba Convention also included some fun nightlife as well.  One night we were able to attend a Fitness Concert.  (This is really the biggest Zumba class ever. 

Can you believe we had a surprise visit from Vanilla Ice?  Yes, he came out and we were able to dance to “Ice Ice Baby” as he performed it LIVE!

There was also a “Dancing Through the Decades” theme party one night and a concert by Daddy Yankee! 

All in all, it was an amazing (albeit tiring) weekend.  Zumba really does know how to put on a great weekend for Instructors.  I am so glad I had the opportunity to go this year.  Now I can’t wait to go again next year!

Zumba Convention 2012

Hello from Orlando! I am so excited to be here in Florida for a very special event... The Zumba Instructor Convention! I have been looking forward to this trip since Winter and finally it is here!

Over the next few days, I will be Tweeting details and also adding pics and updates on my Facebook page. (See the links on the right side of the page to follow me and keep up with the journey!)

Here are a few quick pictures to give you a sneak peek. I will definitely be blogging about the experience but for now, here is a quick look!