One Fish Two Fish Red Fish BLUE FISH

This summer, I’ve really embraced the nice weather. I think being from the south spoils you a bit as far as the sunshine goes. But after 7 years in Boston, I am definitely a summer reveler! Not that this past winter was bad in terms of snow and cold, but this summer, I’ve made an avid attempt to be more active specifically outdoors! Yes, I always get workouts in and that’s active, but I mean getting outside and doing fun things that keep me from sitting on my couch or cruising the Natick Collection!

So on recommendation from my overly active personal trainer and fitness guru, Anthony Ortiz, I ventured to the North Shore for some stand up paddle boarding. Against the advice of my hair dresser citing the abundant presence of Great White Sharks in the area this summer. But that’s the Cape, so eeehhhh….took it on to Beverly!

Paddle boarding was awesome! Not just normal awesome, in fact, I plan to go again in a week, but I digress. One of the most awesome parts of the trip to Beverly was a pit stop at a local farmer stand. You know them; the kind on the side of the road. It was at this stop I found wild hand picked blueberries! What a treat. If you’ve seen these, you know they’re teeeeny weeeeny and super sweet! Much better than the ones we get in the regular grocery. I mean, they’re hand picked for goodness sake! So I used half of them to make some wheat free blueberry muffins. But what I concocted with the rest of them was so delicious it made me smile and hum while I ate it!

At the Union Square Farmers’ Market earlier that morning, I picked up some other beauts that I thought I’d share with you. They’re called fairy tale eggplants. They’re so purple and sooo cute! The man who sold them to me suggested just throw them right on the grill, so that’s what I did with some asparagus to double up on the veg that night!

I eat a lot of fish, so I’m constantly trying to change up the flavors. This time, I decided to make a blueberry sauce to go with my mahi.

Here’s the breakdown

2 mahi fillets

1 cup wild blueberries

1 Tbsp honey

Juice of 1 lemon

2 tsp chopped fresh mint

s&p

coconut oil

Put oil on your mahi fillets and salt & pepper them. Do the same with the veggies. Let them sit. Turn on your grill and let it heat up for 15 minutes or so. Meanwhile, put the blueberries, lemon juice and honey in a small sauce pan. Cook on medium heat until it starts to break down. With a spoon press down on some of the berries to make them less round. Stir frequently until the sauce thickens then stir in a pinch of salt and pepper. Throw you fish and veggies on the grill (4-5 minutes a side for the fish, just a hair less time for the vegetables, but flip them every so often). Then drizzle the blueberry sauce on the fish. You may need to add a bit of water to the sauce if it gets too thick, but don’t worry, the berries are so flavorful, you won’t water down the flavor at all! Then mix in the chopped fresh mint with the heat off. Everything onto a plate and voila! Couldn’t be easier!

It was a very merry farm dinner; the kind I love best! And I held on to the left over blueberry sauce and plan to make a salad dressing with it. Stay tuned!

Salud!

Green Slime(r)!!!

You KNOW you remember this guy! I’m going to give you a recipe today that inspired me to revisit Ghostbusters via Google. But what I’m giving you is a lot healthier than whatever he’s eating here! And far less scary!

A couple weeks ago, one of our favorite Los Angeles transplants returned permanently to California. This was definitely a very sad loss, but being involved in a program where people come to work from all over the country, one must expect to lose friends to geography once they enter the world of normally paid medicine! Despite my wish to just stomp around and pout, I decided to host a dinner for her and invited our other favorite Los Angeles transplant. However, I am still working on said transplant to come back after his 8 months served in California. Sound like prison? Good! Ray, I hope you’re reading!

With all of this useless information I’ve given you, one piece of useful information is that my dear friend Sarah is a vegetarian. A no fish vegetarian. Since I’ve recently amped up my protein intake in the form of lean meats, it took some real thinking on what to serve for dinner. But alas, I had a great idea for green gazpacho and it turned out absolutely beautiful. Gazpacho is a cold tomato based soup. However, I decided I was nixing the tomatoes and this is what I came up with.

Here’s the breakdown for 4 servings:

2 cucumbers, peeled

1 yellow bell pepper

2 cloves garlic

2 scallions

½ Serrano pepper

1 Tbsp white wine vinegar

*I did not measure this, you shouldn’t either

olive oil

s&p

fresh basil leaves, torn

Put everything except for the olive oil and basil in a blender. Ray brought the Vitamix since I blew out my blender on my cleanse! And hello Vitamix! You could blend up bodies in that thing! Ok Ok back to instructions.

Start blending and add olive oil slowly until the texture of the mix is smooth and soupy. You may have to do half the veg and add the other half once it's smooth. This will then need to be chilled for an hour or so. I didn’t have that much time, so I then blended a handful of ice into it. Either way is fine. Then pour into small cups. Pour a leeeeetle bit of olive oil on top and sprinkle with some torn basil.

This was an incredibly refreshing version of traditional gazpacho with a bit of a kick! My little vegetarian friend loved it and so did us meat eaters! Presentation on this was super impressive, so I highly encourage you to serve it for a dinner party.

Told you it was beautiful!!

Salud!

Guilt Free Pumpkin Muffins

There are very few people in this life who know or have seen my breakfast habits. This includes Josh. The only person who really knows is my home girl Electra. Why you ask? Because for 4 years staring at her across my cube, she watched me eat breakfast. Or instructed me to do so if I was cranky. Which she’ll tell you wasn’t very often because I’m a ray of sunshine in the morning. Ok, maybe she wouldn’t tell you that. In fact, what she might actually tell you is that I’m pretty much a mime until I’ve eaten breakfast and had a full and very strong coffee! But she loved that about me, right E?

That said, she would also tell you that post decision to not be a pork chop, you’d never see me eat a bagel, muffin, waffle or other type of serious breakfast carb! Not that I don’t like them. When I was a teenager and my metabolism was something out of a fairy tale, I ate a bagel or two every day! Alas, 30 approaches and I just don’t eat those kinds of carbs. Until now!

I’ve recently cut mostly all wheat and grains out of my diet. While that’s a story for another day, I’ll say that it’s been the easiest thing I’ve ever changed about my diet. But I was craving some sustenance with a breadish nature last week! That’s when I learned I could make muffins with almond flour! Sweet mother of breakthrough! Day saved!

I found a recipe on the basics for making muffins without wheat and per usual modified it Meagy style!

Here’s the breakdown – Pumpkin Muffins:

1 ½ cups almond flour

¾ cup canned pumpkin

3 large eggs

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground clove

1 tsp ground allspice

1/8 tsp salt 

2 Tbsp honey

*Total approximation here, I just squirted some out of my Bear!

2 tsp almond butter

2 Tbsp sliced almonds

¼ cup golden raisins

*Another approximation, just dumped some in

Pumpkin seeds

Coconut oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat muffin tins with coconut oil. I used two tins that hold  6 muffins each. Mix all the ingredients except the pumpkin seeds and pour evenly into tins. Sprinkle pumpkin seeds on top. I actually didn’t do this and when I added them at the end they just bounced off! Bake for 20-25 minutes on the middle rack. You know your oven, so underestimate and then check. The last thing you want to do is over cook them! Done and done!

Now, I did not eat one of these every day. If I had a hard evening workout, I’d have one with an egg filled breakfast the next day. Or if I had a very early workout, I’d eat one afterwards as second breakfast! Hey E, what about onesies!? Anyway, just because they’re better for you than wheaty muffins from Dunks doesn’t mean you should mow them! But you definitely should enjoy them without guilt when you do eat them!

Cheers!

Coconutty Happiness

I’m home by 6:00pm tonight. Workout behind me this morning and no plans this evening! How in the world did this happen? Score! So I cranked the Madonna Pandora station and got to work on dinner…but clearly not before a little bit of dancing! Hey, its Madonna and life is a mystery!

So I’m using a lot more coconut product these days for a couple of reasons. The first is that I absolutely effin love the stuff! I have loved coconut since I was a kid and even my cupcake choice for our wedding was coconut! Luckily for Josh, we had several flavors so he wasn’t subject to my coconut obsession. As a side note, I ate two of these cupcakes at 5am the morning after our wedding for breakfast on the way to Greece! Hey, I’m the bride, I’ll do whatever I want! The second reason is that the more I read about coconut, the more I find it’s actually much better for us than I ever knew. I was always scared of it because of its high fat and calorie content. But lo and behold, some genius has decided its healthy and I’m on the bandwagon!

So I’ve stockpiled coconut milk and oil in my house! I’m even putting it in my coffee as a dairy substitute! But typically if I’m thinking coconut milk for a dinner situation it is some kind of curry. Frankly, I may be more obsessed with curry than coconut. So I made a coconut curry shrimp that cured me of all my cravings! And I’m certain you’ll love it too!

Coconut Curry Shrimp:

1lb shrimp

1 can coconut milk

2tbsp red curry paste

2 garlic cloves, minced

½” fresh ginger, minced on a microplane

juice of one lime

sprinkle cayenne pepper

basil

Mix coconut milk, curry paste, garlic, ginger, cayenne and lime juice. Marinate the shrimp in half the mixture for an hour or so. Whatever you have time for. Then skewer and grill your shrimps. They won’t take long, 3 minutes or so per side depending on shrimp size. DO NOT overcook them….there is nothing worse in life than overcooked seafood! Heat the rest of the coconut milk mix in a small sauce pan over medium heat and put cooked shrimp in the sauce constantly stirring for 2 minutes. Then spoon them onto a plate garnished with fresh basil. And voila! Spicy and coconutty!

I paired this with a salad. This particular salad was pretty rockin if I do say so myself. I found these fabulous organic baby kale. Yes, kale, not spinach! 

Here’s the deal…

baby kale

mixed greens

*both Olivia’s brand

blueberries

orange pepper

sliced almonds

coconut flakes

shredded fresh basil

Basically pile this up like any other salad. I mixed up some fig balsamic vinegar with olive oil and pepper to dress it. Because of the coconut and basil the salad was completely cohesive with the shrimps. I love when I can carry an awesome flavor through the whole meal without it becoming overwhelming.

At the end of the dinner, Josh says, “Thank you for making me eat healthy!” Big Eater Small Body VICTORY!

High Five and Salud!

The Middle Egg

I am currently consuming eggs at a rapid pace. This is so strange for me because as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not really a breakfast eater. I have been doing it because it is fueling me for my days. Period. However, I’ve found myself really embracing the incredible edible egg! So much in fact, that I made a dinner with them GASP!

It is no secret that I love Middle Eastern food. So I made this great dish called Shakshuka Sunday night. I was a little concerned that it would be too far out of the realm of “dinner” so I also made Kefta Kebab. Anyway, those two middle eastern flavors should work nicely together and if not, shut up and eat it anyway, right? *wink wink

So I ventured into a dish I was incredibly unsure about. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Usually the greatest food risks breed the greatest successes. I mean, whoever said, “WOW! That’s a great plain old plate of food!” That’s right, no one!

So here’s the skivvy on this incredible edible Middle Eastern dinner albeit a little Americanized as my buddy Ray felt due to the addition of chili powder. What can I say…oh wait, what I said to him post dinner was, “Not too bad for a white girl!”

Shakshura

½ medium onion, diced

2 jalepenos, minced

1 red bell pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

6-7 tomatoes, chopped

2 tsp tomato paste

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp paprika

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

s&p

6 large eggs

fresh parsley, chopped

oil

In a cast iron skillet put a splash of oil, I used coconut, over medium-high heat. Add onion, jalapeño, and bell pepper. Sauté for 5 minutes. Then add garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste, chili powder, paprika, cayenne, s&p. Sauté for about 10 minutes until the tomatoes really start to break down. You can go longer, just eye ball it. You want it to look more like a sauce than a salsa. Then crack 6 eggs into the sauce, arranging them evenly. Put the whole skillet, covered, into a 400 degree oven for approximately 10 minutes or until the whites are firm and well, white. Take out and sprinkle with fresh parsley. COULDN’T BE EASIER!

Kefta Kebab

*Ok disclaimer, there are a million different recipes for this and they all pretty much taste the same! Ha! But here’s mine

1-1  ½ lb beef

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 small onion, minced

*I actually did this in the food processor and recommend it that way but if you don’t have one, don’t sweat it

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1 Tbsp dried parsley

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp cinnamon

1-2 Tbsp chopped fresh mint

Put all the kids in the pool together. Mix thoroughly and let sit in the refrigerator for 2 or more hours. Soak wooden skewers in water for 30 minutes or more. Then form the beef into 8 equal logs. Skewer the beef. Preheat the grill to 400 or 450. Or screaming hot if you don’t have a thermometer on your grill. Grill on each side for about 4-5 minutes.

Now, these two dishes can be eaten independently of each other, but I’m the kid who swirls everything around on my plate. So make your choice. But I ate this concoction piled up on romaine lettuce leaves. Basically, Shakshuka then beef. It was AWESOME! I added a few banana pepper rings as well. Here’s my only thing….make sure that when you stack this masterpiece, you get some egg. Your mind will tell you not to mix it, but just do it! Trust me!

All were full and we moved on to watching some extreme waterslides with smiles!

Salud!

Sexy Legs!

Welp I’m back from Paris approximately 3-5 pounds fatter than I was when I left. Yup, you can see the baguettes and croissants poking out of my belly and the creamy soup hanging out on my thighs. Wouldn’t change my consumption last week for anything. I don’t mind eating pretty healthy most of the time if when I go to the food Mecca of the world I have no guilt. And clearly there was no guilt. Well, not until I got back. So I got back into my workout routine and a predominantly protein and veg meal plan.

When I cleansed, the food was set right out for me and I didn’t really bother to think outside the box on how to make it delicious while staying within the parameters of the cleanse. But now that I have a general idea that protein and lots of fiber dense veggies help you lose weight and feel great, I can adapt them to taste good. Which, if you know me, is IMPORTANT!!

So tonight I decided to make Asian inspired chicken legs. I stole a recipe from Food Network as I actually never cook them and pretty much the only way I’ve ever had them is fried. But I wanted to grill them. The problem is, chicken legs take a while to cook all the way through. So, thank you, Food Network for a fabulous Apple-Honey Drumsticks recipe. Per usual I modified it a bit. And per usual, I think my way is better! Wink Wink

Here’s the breakdown

6 chicken legs

olive oil

salt & pepper

2 cups apple juice

½ cup apple cider vinegar

¼ cup low-sodium soy sauce

zest of one lemon

¼ tsp red pepper flakes

sesame seeds

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place chicken in a cast iron dutch oven. If you don’t have this, a glass Pyrex will do fine. Cover the chicken in a little olive oil and sprinkle salt & pepper. Bake covered for 30 minutes. Turn the legs over and lower heat to 300 degrees. Cook another 20 minutes. While the chicken is cooking, mix apple juice, vinegar, soy sauce, lemon zest and red pepper flakes in a sauce pan and cook for approximately 25 minutes. Let it cool. Then preheat your grill to about 400 degrees. You want it screaming hot because you’re not cooking the chicken, just charring it. Put your chicken on the grill and brush with the sauce; turning and coating several times. Then pour any of the left over sauce on top of legs after you’ve removed them from the grill. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

I served this with a green salad and some grilled asparagus which also doesn’t take long on the grill so you can put them on at the same time.

The chicken was super tender and spicy sweet! Absolutely fabulous actually. And the best part really was that I learned how to cook something I’ve only ever seen deep fried! Now that’s a Big Eater Small Body WIN! I’m sure you’ll enjoy this as much as I did!

Mexican Food Memories

When I was a teenager, a friend’s mother turned me into a Mexican food monster! This woman not only made delicious dinners for me, but she made homemade salsa that I will never forget, nor will I ever find anything that compares. It was super spicy, just like her, but you could taste the love she put into it. This woman, incidentally, was one of the hardest working and loving women I’ve ever known. She worked tirelessly at work and it was a bit of a guilty pleasure to eat her food because she literally cooked all day when she did. But there was nothing better and with that said, she quickly turned me into a Mexican food snob. And while in general I admit to being a food snob, this is particularly true for Mexican food and specifically salsa!

So anyway, I don’t really cook Mexican food too much. Partly because it’s never going to be that good. In fact, while talking to my friend about this dinner, I may have mentioned that my Mexican food always has a “tint of white girl” in it! Nevertheless, I attempted a chili relleno Big Eater Small Body style. Which means no deep frying. But if I’m being honest, the fried part of chili relleno is not really my favorite part anyway, so I wasn’t too bummed out about the healthy conversion! What I came up with was a much healthier and equally tasty dinner that may have gotten a round of applause from even from my little salsa making mama!

Here’s the breakdown:

2 chicken breasts

6 poblano peppers

1 can corn

1 small can green chiles

1 jalapeno, minced

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1-28 oz. can whole tomatoes

1 can Rotel

1 package Sazon

queso fresco

olive oil

Sprinkle chicken breasts with Sazon seasoning on both sides. In a cast iron dutch oven, heat 1-2 Tbsp olive oil over medium high heat and add chicken. Let cook approximately 3-5 minutes and flip over. Cook for an additional 3-5 minutes. Then add the can of whole tomatoes with the juice and the can of Rotel. Cook in the sauce for about 5-10 minutes covered. Then add to a pre-heated 350 degree oven. Cook for approximately 30 minutes. Time here is loose because the chicken will be cooked regardless, but you’re trying to get it where it will pull apart with forks. Meanwhile, roast the poblanos. You can do this on the grill very easily or directly on a gas stove. Either way roast them until they are well charred. Then put them in a bowl with a covered top. Let them sit 5 minutes or longer to return to room temperature. Then peel the char off them and make a slit in one side to remove the seeds. Sauté corn, jalapeno, garlic, onion and green chiles for about 8 minutes. Turn off the heat. Take the chicken out of the oven and shred. Add the chicken to the corn mixture. Then crumble the queso fresco to the mix. Add as much as you like, but remember, its BIG EATER SMALL BODY! Spoon the mixture into each pepper. Add a tsp or so of cumin to the leftover tomato sauce. Then spoon about half that sauce into the bottom of a baking dish, line the dish with the peppers and bake at 350 degrees for about 20-30 minutes. Everything is already cooked, you just want to heat through.

I served this with the rest of the sauce spooned over top and a cucumber, cilantro, lime and pineapple salad. This salad is super easy, just throw all those ingredients into a bowl.

What I ended up with was a super delicious labor of love. Yes, it took longer to cook than most things I blog about. But it was totally worth it! And if you’re feeding a few people, it’s really inexpensive but definitely doesn’t taste so!

I truly enjoyed the meal, although it really could have used some of that salsa!