Because I think you all need some comfort in your life, here are my favorite healty soup recipes. Hopefully we won’t have snow for a while, but a cool, cloudy day is more than enough excuse for a bowl of soup.
Tag Archives | healthy
10 Ways to Eat Healthy on a Budget
Eating healthy is so expensive! It’s much cheaper to buy a Hungry Man dinner than to buy a pound of organic apples. It’s lame, that’s what it is. L-A-M-E! Because I still want to have enough money to send my kids to college on day, we’ve had to figure out ways to eat this way […]
The Best Way to Keep Your Children Alive AND Happy
Did you know that everything is going to kill our children? It’s true. Yesterday I was browsing through Facebook while I was taking a relaxing bath (don’t use your phone in the tub. It’s actually a really bad idea), and I landed on one of those guilt-educing, horror-filled videos. This particular video listed 5 foods that will […]
Sugar Detox Sloppy Joes
1969. It was a big year the world. Richard Nixon became president, man walked on the moon and Hunts came out with a can of deliciousness called Manwich. Yes, Manwich. Just add ground meat and you have yourself a delicious sloppy joe. I grew up with this stuff. We kept it on hand a long with emergency water and matches in case of power failure. So when I got married and started my own family, I knew I had to stock up on the Manwich.
Sadly, life changes. Richard Nixon resigned after questionable activity, NASA had budget cuts and had to put an end to the Apollo missions, and I read the label on the back of a can of Manwich. The second ingredient listed is high fructose corn syrup, followed by regular corn syrup. A few ingredients later we have sugar and down the list we have ingredients with a breakdown that include high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup and sugar. That’s one giant crash for mankind, Manwich.
Yet if we learned anything from Adam Sandler and Chris Farley, it’s that sloppy joes are awesome. So something had to be done.
What I came up with was a delicious, healthy, saucy mixture to go with my ground beef for a sloppy joe that puts Manwich to shame. Eat your heart out, Manwich! But first, drizzle a little high fructose corn syrup over it.
The key is to let the ingredients simmer together.
After you brown your beef and onion, add the liquids and spices and let the whole mixture simmer together for 20 minutes. One of the ingredients in this recipe is that amazing bone broth I told you to make a few weeks ago. Now it’s even healthier than before.
We sometimes have this on whole wheat buns, but my favorite way is to scoop some into a lettuce cup. The crunch pairs nicely with the meat.
My husband and kids eat this with shredded cheese on the top, but dairy makes my hand beak out in eczema like I have a zombie hand, so I pass on the cheese.
Now if I could just find another way to put man on the moon…
Forget Taco Tuesday! Let’s do Taco Burger Tuesday!
A few weeks ago our family was in Breckenridge, CO. It’s one of the most beautiful, peaceful places I’ve ever been and one of our family’s favorite vacation spots. Seriously, if it didn’t snow six months out of the year, we’d live there. Our first night there we ate at a steakhouse. Steakhouses are great for healthy eating because it’s usually really easy to order any cut of meat you want and a ton of veggies.
I saw a “Spicy Santa Fe” burger on the menu that looked delicious. I asked if they could serve it without a bun and they were more than willing (side note: most restaurants will happily serve a burger without a bun). The burger was so amazing I wanted to recreate in at home. While I love the name “Spice Santa Fe” burger, It basically seemed like a taco in burger form to me, so I decided to just call it a Taco Burger.
I seasoned the meat with my Healthy Taco Seasoning (click here for recipe). This gave the patties themselves great flavor. Then add the toppings to the cooked patties and they tasted like a taco, but even better.
We all used different toppings in our family, but some suggested toppings are:
- Better than Restaurant Pico de Gallo (click here for recipe)
- Avocado
- Sauteed bell peppers (green, yellow, red, orange, whatever combination you like)
- Caramelized onions
- Pepper Jack Cheese Slices
- Salsa
- Mayonnaise
The rest of my family had their burgers on whole wheat buns, but I had mine on a lettuce cup. You could even serve it on a bed of spinach like a salad.
Sip On This Instead of Water
Does anyone else get tired of drinking water? It sounds strange since water has no flavor, but sometimes I get tired of it. If you have the same problem, keep reading for nine fun non-water drinks you can enjoy at any point in your day without having to feel guilt or regret.
Better than the 70’s: Healthy Peanut Butter Fruit Dip
I clearly remember New Year’s Eve growing up. We’d get together with my BFF’s family (no, seriously. We’re in our 30’s now and we still talk multiple times weekly). The adults would do horribly boring things (like chat about things other than Barbies and tutus) and the kids would run around all night. A few weeks before, we’d order a bunch of those super junky toys from Oriental Trading. We would play with those toys all night, or until they broke 20 minutes later. The most memorable toy was an ice cream cone with a trigger. When you pulled it, the ice cream part shot off the cone part. Yep. My childhood rocked.
We always had a ton of awesome food too. I’m sure there were cookies and meat trays, but the thing I remember the most was my mom’s fruit dip. I know that seems strange for an 8-year-old to have a hankering for fruit dipped in a sugary substance over a chocolaty brownie, but it was just so good! It was straight from the 70’s complete with a tub of cool whip, cream cheese and a crap-load of sugar. Nothing says “Happy New Year” like a sugar coma.
I was thinking about said dip and my ice cream cone shooter the other day and became sad that I can no longer live in ignorance about the unhealthy reality of my beloved fruit dip. That’s when I went on a mission to create a new fruit dip. A fruit dip that would put the 70’s fruit dip to shame and wouldn’t give you diabetes.
I wanted it to be easy, so I decided to keep the ingredients to a minimum. Instead of the cool whip portion, I used a full-fat Greek yogurt. It helped the dip have the same creamy consistency without all the artificial ingredients. I found this fabulous Greek yogurt at Sprouts. Make sure you pick one without a lot of added junk.
Instead of cream cheese, I used peanut butter. I mainly did this because peanut butter is just awesome, and has the ability to make things feel sweet without adding sugar. Since we nixed our artificial sweetener by removing the cool whip, we needed a little flavor. The peanut-butter made it PERFECT!
To bump up the flavor, I just added in a little vanilla and cinnamon. The dip isn’t overly sweet, but since fruit has natural sweeteners, the combination of fruit and dip gave this the perfect sweetness. If you want a little more sweetness though for a special occasion like a New Year’s Eve party complete with awesomely-cheap toys, feel free to add a little honey.
So now not only do you have a fruit dip free of sugars and artificial ingredients, but one packed with protein and healthy fats. It’s good enough to have for breakfast!
Hopefully this dip will help my children make as many awesome memories as I had as a kid. But I need to find the ice cream shooter to ensure that.
Drinking This Will Make Your Life Significantly Better
As a general rule I tend to avoid “nutrition” trends as they are generally unhealthy scams designed to make we women feel bad about the shape of our bodies, convincing us that if we just spend an exorbitant amount of money for this one product we will have perfect bodies, skin and fart rainbows. Bone […]
How to ripen bananas… FAST!
Last week I went to make banana bread when I realized I didn’t have any ripe bananas! Making banana bread with under-ripe bananas is lame. The bananas are too hard to mash so you usually end up with weirdly-textured banana chunks in your muffins. I don’t think my son would be impressed with this. So […]
Ways to Get Over a Cold You Probably Haven’t Thought of
The world is going back to school and so moms are stressed. Did you know stress lowers our immune system’s ability to fight off germs and infections. Beyond stress, I feel like going back to school is like sending my kids into cesspool of the Black Plague. I doubt I’m the only mom who gets […]