Minestrone soup!

It’s getting warmer, veggies are starting to pop up everywhere! In my opinion it’s never too warm for soup! It’s packed full of fiber and lots of nutrition! Plus it’s super easy to make. 

Minestrone soup 

2tsp olive oil 

2 onions chopped

3 cloves of garlic chopped 

2 carrots diced

2 stalks of celery diced 

1 can 28oz chopped tomatos (with juice)

4 cups water 

4 cups plain tomato juice 

1C small shell pasta (uncooked still) 

1 cup fresh green beans, cut in half 

2 zucchini chopped 

1 bag spinach torn 

1 can light red kidney beans drained

1 can dark red kidney beans drained 

Salt and pepper to taste 

Parmesan cheese for garnish (optinal) 

1) cut everything up before you even start trust me it will make your life a hell of a lot easier!!!! 

2) in a large pot sauté onion, garlic, carrot and celery until soft. 

3) add water and tomato juice, season lightly and allow to simmer for 45 minutes.
4) add green beans, zucchini, and kidney beans. Simmer for 20 minutes. 

5) Add pasta and torn spinach and cook for 15 minutes or until pasta is tender. 

6) season to taste and serve, or cool, portion and freeze! 

Seriously, this is like the ultimate good for you soup! Better then chicken noodle in my humble opinion, and it’s beautiful! Eat as much as you want and you don’t have to even feel guilty about it! 

I would have taken a picture of the result….but I kind of ate it all already…. sorrry guys 💔

Happy slurping 

TMPP 

Time flies

Yep. That’s right. Time freaking flys!!! I’m training to work mornings at the pub and it’s got my schedule all out of whack! With that combined with little sleep and being hella busy I have broken quite a few of my rules these past two weeks. I have over indulged in sugary coffee drinks (it’s been in the 80’s this past week) I have eaten wedding cupcakes, had all sorts of gross fast food, skipped prep, skipped any sort of exercise outside of work and let me tell you I am paying for it. I stepped on the scale for the first time in a few weeks and I *surprise* put on a few lbs…. 5 to be precise. No big deal, no sweat, just have to get back into making the right choices. I did a little prep this past Sunday and made a nourish bowl, lots of fruit and veggie snacks, whole grain cereal, and some chicken rice and asparagus, plus plenty of low fat, low sodium lunch meat for sandwiches and high protein snacking. 

I recognized that I fell off the wagon and actively made a choice and a plan to correct the action. I didn’t just go “well there goes all my hard work might as well quit” it’s a continuous work in progress. I made myself a plan: no soda (not even a sip because let’s be honest who just has a little sip of soda?) no sugar, no refined carbs, AND NO SUGARY DELICOUS WONDERFUL HAPPY COFFEE DRINKS (cries). 

You might be thinking about now that I have some sort of problem, well I do. I have a bit of a caffeine addiction, I also have a massive sweet tooth and if I wasn’t paying attention I could seriously eat an entire box of sugar cereal, cookies, cupcakes, frosting, ice cream, sprinkles, pudding, pie, whipped cream, doughnuts, candy, chocolate, bon bons, and just about anything that is sweet in mass. Sugar is a trigger food for me, once I have a little bit I literally cannot stop myself from eating whatever it might be. Coffee drinks are my weakness because it combines two of my most favorite things caffeine and sugar. 

One. Just one a week. Black coffee with milk, unsweet tea, and water, lots and lots of water (seriously, hydration in hot weather is important for a lot of reasons, my kitchen at work can get up into the triple digits real fast) 

But my nourish bowl was amazing. Full of whole grain (ethically sourced!!!) quinoa, roasted peppers, squash, mushrooms, and broccoli, grilled tofu, seasame seeds, and a yummy homemade Korean BBQ sauce. (Recipe to follow, put it on anything and everything) 
1/2 cup ketchup

1/2 cup rice vinegar

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

1 teaspoon sriracha

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 green onions, thinly sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 (1-inch) piece ginger, grated

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

Throw everything but the oil in a pot, simmer gently for 3 minutes while whisking gently, remove from heat and whisk in the oil. Boom. Keeps in the fridge for a week and it is freaking amazing. 

Toss with noodles, pour over rice, grill some tofu and baste with the sauce, chicken, shrimp, the possibilities are endless! And the best part is you know everything that went into making it! 

Enjoy some Korean BBQ my friends! 

Love

MPP 

Seriously the fastest and tastiest fried rice ever

I pull crazy long shifts in the restaurant, and when I get home I am tired, filthy, I usually smell like onions and hate, but with that said I wouldn’t have it any other way. I freaking love being a chef, but does that mean I want to cook the moment I get home after cooking literally all day long? Not so much. Hence why I meal prep 1 day out of the week so I don’t have to deal with it. But there are times when like this week I don’t prep and need to eat a hot meal. Hey, I can’t survive off of yougert and granola for a week solid. So I have literally the fastest and easiest fried rice you will ever make, it tastes better and is better for you then take out. 

Fried rice (serves 2) 

1C. Frozen peas and carrots (or any frozen veggies, or chopped fresh veggies, literally whatever you have laying around) 

1 bag microwave uncle bens brown rice, heated according to package directions 

2 eggs 

3tbsp of soy sauce 

If you have leftover cooked chicken, shrimp, beef, whatever throw it in or leave it vegetarian. 

1. Heat a few tbsp of oil in a skillet, add frozen veggies and cook till tender 

2. Make a well in the center and crack the eggs, break the yolks and scramble with the veggies 

3. Dump in the cooked rice

4. Add soy sauce 

5. Eat

This literally took me 5 minutes or less to throw together and BOOM I have a hot healthy meal for the love of my life as well as myself. 

Try it next time you feel like reaching for the Chinese take out menu 🙂 

Keep it real!

The meal prep princess 

Tired princess

No meal prep this week due to the Easter holiday, and the princess needs a break! After a lovely lunch with my absolutely amazing family (seriously love them!) I did manage a trip to the store for some staples to make it through the week prep free. I always pick up fresh fruit like apples and bananas, berries if they are fresh and good looking. Baby carrots for out of hand eating, whole grain bread and lunch meats for sandwhiches, packages of tuna, eggs, milk, cereal, yougert, and soup for the hubby (he’s sick 🙁) it is still possible to eat well even without prepping (though there might be a few more trips to the grocery store mid week). 

Tomorrow is all fun though! My dearest friend and fellow culinary badass are going hunting for morel mushrooms tomorrow!!! These babies are prized! They can not be grown on mushroom farms, and have a very limited window in spring when they appear. They are so so so delicious, woodsy, earthy, rich, and just so full of deep flavor. Simply fried in butter is like visiting heaven. Hopefully we can find some tomorrow, but if not we will keep searching until we hit the mother load! So I need to get some extra sleep for tomorrow I am going to be lacing up my hiking shoes and putting some extra miles on them! 

Happy (late) Easter! 

The meal prep princess 

(Pic unrelated, just being a goober) 

Slow simmered pasta sauce

It’s prep Sunday again!! So you know what that means, recipe time!!!! I love pasta, but what I love even more is a slow simmered sauce full of rich developed flavors. I have a sauce here that is built off of Marcella Hazan’s original recipe which calls for butter instead of the traditional olive oil, and trust me when I say don’t wuss out and use olive oil (it’s okay to have a little butter when you are eating clean and healthy).

But. I decided to add some different elements to my sauce instead of the simple butter, onion, salt, tomato recipe. 

Here’s mine, and trust me it’s soooo worth the wait!

Slow simmered tomato sauce 

4 big cans peeled plum tomatos 

1 whole head roasted garlic (directions below) 

1C white wine 

5tbsp butter

1 onion sliced in half, peel/paper removed

2tsp white sugar  

2tbsp. Fresh basil 

Salt and pepper to taste 

(1lb ground chuck browned if you want to make meat sauce, which is what I did) 

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees 

2. Take your bulb of garlic and slice right across the top with the paper still on. Drizzle bulb with olive oil, wrap in foil and roast for 2 hours. Remove, allow to cool, squeeze the guts out of it and set aside. 

3. Melt butter in large pot over medium low heat, add roasted garlic and allow to become fragment for about 2 minutes.

4. Add the white wine and the onion and reduce for about 7 minutes. 

5. Add tomatos with their juices and simmer on low for 4 hours. 

6. Season to taste and add fresh basil right before tossing your favorite pasta in this magical sauce. 

*freezes well 

*keeps in the fridge for 1 week

Perfect for my prep meal strategy this week!

Enjoy! 

The meal prep princess 

Baked oatmeal cups

I finally had a day off today!!!! So instead of doing nothing all day I wanted to make a new recipe. Breakfast is the hardest meal for me, most days its just a cup of coffee and I’m out the door on to the next activity. I need something filling, tasty, and something I can eat one handed. I decided to browse some recipes and baked oatmeal seems to be pretty popular amongst the diet community lately. It’s a pretty straight forward concept, make oatmeal and bake…well sort of… after a lot of experimenting today I think I have created a recipe that I can make time and time again. One part breakfast, one part cookie, one part muffin, all parts delicious! 

I actually made 3 different kinds from my base recipe, raspberry chocolate, peanut butter chocolate chip, and cinnamon apple strudel. I will post the base recipe, then the steps on how to flavor it 🙂 good luck! 

Baked Oatmeal Cups

1 egg

1/2C unsweetened applesauce 

1/4C raw honey 

1/8C chia seeds (it’s like 2 bucks a bag, just buy it. It’s so good for you and you won’t even know it’s there) 

1 banana 

1 1/4C. Milk (I use 2%) 

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 

Pinch salt 

2 teasooons vanilla extract 

2 1/2C old fashioned oats

For peanut butter chocolate chip

3-4 tablespoons peanut butter powder 

4 tablespoons Cacao nibs (6 bucks a bag, superfood, will last you for awhile, little goes a long way) 

3 tablespoons mini chocolate chips 

For apple cinnamon 

1 green apple, peeled and diced 

1 tablespoon cinnamon 

For raspberry chocolate 

1/2 cup chopped raspberries

3 tablespoons cacao nibs 

4tbsp mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease the cups of a muffin tin and set aside.

Smash banana as fine as possible, whisk in egg, milk, applesauce, honey, vanilla, and chia seeds. 

Add oats and baking powder

Add your choice of mix ins and sit for 5 minutes before scooping into greased tins and baking for 30-35 minutes or until browned and centers are set. 

Remove from pan and allow to cool before turning out. 

These freeze beautifully and can be eaten warmed in the microwave, room temperature, or cold. Perfect with your morning coffee 😉

Seriously, these are so good. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and experiment with mix ins. Nuts and seeds, dried fruit, anything you can really think of. 

Have a happy breakfast 

The meal prep princess 

What the hell is BMR?

Honestly, I hate the word “diet” when 9/10 times it is a full lifestyle change. Americans are so caught up in the “quick fix” diet culture that most people can’t see the root of the problem. 

Sorry guys but shitty diets are almost always the problem (apart from lack of exercise). Look at not only what we eat but how much of it we are eating. When was the last time you can honestly say you counted out a single serving of potato chips (about 12 chips)? Before I began my lifestyle change I would sit and eat half a bag of potato chips while watching Netflix and not even bat an eyelash. But then I really looked at how many calories I was actually consuming on something that I would consider a snack. 500 or more whopping calories in one go….. it is pretty widely known that 2,000-2,500 calories is recommended per day….. that is wrong over half the time. A woman who is a 5ft tall and sits at a desk job, doesn’t need as many calories as someone who is say is a 6ft waitress . That’s where BMR comes into play.

BMR stands for base metabolic rate, which is the amount of calories you need just to keep you alive if you were bedridden. This number changes based on age and height. Then you add on an activity factor (not active, mildly active, very active) here is mine as an example:

(For women) 655 + (4.35 x weight in lbs) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years) 

(For men) 66 + (6.23 x weight in lbs) + (12.7 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years) 

So….

655 + (4.35 x 130) + (4.7 x 65) – (4.7 x 26) = 1404 calories (rounded up) 

But… 

if you go to bmi-calculator.net and choose BMR you can just punch in the numbers without all the extra work!  

Then you would consider your activity factor, which is how active you are (now be honest with yourself or this will get you nowhere) 

Sedentary: BMR x 1.2 

Lightly active: BMR x 1.375

Moderately active: BMR x 1.55 

Very active: BMR x 1.725 

With my active job and lifestyle my activity factor is considered moderately active which means to maintain my weight I need to consume about 2100 calories per day (not as many as you would think right?) 

To loose 1lb a week you would have to reduce your calories by 500 per day which is a healthy for weight loss. To lose 1lb you need to burn through 3,500 calories per week by reducing your calorie intake or burning the extra off at the gym or doing another activity. 

With that said, never eat under your BMR!!! I don’t care how tempting fast weight loss seems, your body will go into “starvation mode” which means it will hold onto every single calorie it can because your body doesn’t know when it is going to get fuel again. Plus, it is unhealthy and can lead to a potentially life threatening eating disorder. Love yourself first and foremost always! If you don’t need to lose weight then you should eat the same amount of calories in healthier options (you end up getting to eat more in quantity and quality) 

I know this is a lot of math, but a simple google search can lead you in the right direction. I love the myfitnesspal app for my iPhone, it does all of this math for you and it helps you not only keep track of things like calories (you can even add your own recipes to calculate calories per serving which I LOVE) it also tracks your steps, progress, and you can add friends and be a part of a very supportive fitness and healthy lifestyle community. Support for a lifestyle change is so very important! 

Eating healthy isn’t a punishment, being healthy shouldn’t be torture. Lifestyle changes like these should be a journey of self discovery, self love, as well as giving you the opportunity to experiment with new foods and expand your culinary horizon. You never know if you don’t like something if you don’t try it! Just because you didn’t like broccoli when you were 10 doesn’t mean you won’t like it as an adult, your tastebuds mature right along with you. Give new food a chance and give yourself a chance to be the healthiest version of yourself not only physically but mentally as well.  

Eat well, be well, and cook fearlessly! 

The meal prep princess 

Spinach feta turkey burgers with cucumber dill tetziki

Okay, for those who don’t know me I absolutely LOVE cheeseburgers, they are legit my favorite food! I have a recipe that will just knock your socks off, trust me you won’t even miss the beef. 

Spinach feta turkey burgers 

2lbs ground turkey 

2 eggs

10oz frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed of all excess moisture 

4 oz crumbled feta cheese 

1 tsp salt 

1tsp pepper

1 tsp fresh lemon juice 

2 cloves minced garlic

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Combine all ingredients, form into 6-8 patties and place on a parchment lined baking sheet and refrigerate for 30 minutes 

Heat skillet over medium heat, add enough oil to coat the bottom. Brown turkey burgers for 2-4 minutes per side until golden brown. Place into another parchment lined sheet tray and bake for 7-8 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees (this is important! All poultry must be cooked to 165 to kill all pathogens, no medium rare burgers here please!) 

Allow to rest for 5 minutes for maximum juiciness. Serve with cucumber tetziki sauce! 

295 calories: 16g fat: 2g carb: 31g protein 

(No bun) 

Cucumber dill tetziki sauce 

2 cucumbers peeled, seeds removed, and medium diced 

1C plain Greek yogurt 

2tbsp fresh chopped dill 

Juice of 1/2 lemon 

1 clove garlic minced 

Salt and pepper to taste 

Toss cucumbers in about 2 tsp salt and pour into a colander, allow to drain for 30 minutes. Pat dry with paper towels.

Add the rest of the ingredients and season to taste. Serve cold with those yummy turkey burgers!   

37 calories: 2g fat: 3g carb: 4g protein 

*all calorie calculations were done using myfitnesspal app on a per serving basis* 

I hope you love these as much as I do! Happy grilling! 

The meal prep princess 

Meal prep Sunday!

Guess what day it is!? It’s prep day prep day prep day! I have some seriously lovely items on my menu today, so healthful and delicious, perfect to kick off spring weather (you know freeze in the morning, heatstroke by noon, snow by 8pm) 

1) spinach salad: fresh spinach, blanched asparagus, sliced strawberries, blueberries, sliced almonds, feta crumbles, and some grilled chicken. Gotta have a good salad for the week ahead ❤️! 

2) vegan chili: packed with veggies and beans! Trust me, I won’t be hungry after eating a bowl of this with some fresh cornbread (I freaking love cornbread)

3) spinach feta turkey burger with cucumber dill tatziki sauce: the most perfect alternative to a beef burger. This is so packed with flavor you won’t even notice the beef is missinf! I will be posting this recipe ASAP! 

4) tons of fresh fruit: watermelon, strawberries, pineapple, blueberries, cantaloupe, and grapes. Perfect for snacking anytime! 

Hope your prep Sunday was full of delicious food, friends, and sunshine! 

The meal prep princess 

Peanut butter cookies

So, we have been discussing healthy and diet for a few posts so let’s have a fun one shall we? Peanut butter cookies, you can smell them from a mile away and everybody LOVES them. I have a recipe that bakes a little flat with crisp edges and a soft middle. The perfect peanut butter cookie to satisfy any craving! 

Peanut butter cookies

2 sticks of softened butter 

1 cup of creamy or crunch peanut butter 

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar (plus more for rolling)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder 

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour 

Preheat oven to 350

Cream together butter, brown and white sugar, peanut butter, and vanilla until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time until combined, scraping down the bowl with each addition. 

In a separate bowl combine all dry ingredients. 

Combine wet and dry just until dough forms. Scoop into 1oz balls, roll in sugar, and press criss cross with a fork. 

Bake for 7-8 minutes. Allow to cool for 3 minutes before attempting to consume. 

For thick chewy cookies, chill dough for 1 hour before rolling. 

*fun add ins before baking: mini chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, Reese’s peices, chocolate sprinkles, dried cranberries, m&ms, and more. 

*for chocolate peanut butter cookies, add a few spoonfuls of Nutella or sundae fudge before chilling. 

Remember, it’s all about balance, have a cookie or two, just not the whole tray (but I won’t tell if you do eat the whole tray 😉)

Happy baking! 

The meal prep princess