Time for Tex Mex Burgers

Well BBQ time is upon us in full force! With the thermometer rising, it’s a perfect time for me to share my take on a ‘healthified’ Tex Mex Burger.

Here’s what I do. Take some lean ground beef, add in some Tex Mex  seasoning, Worcestershire sauce and form patties, cut some colourful peppers into strips now you are ready for the grill.

Now get your BBQ Chef (Brent) to grill the burgers and peppers while you prepare the sides- homemade oven fries and a fresh vegetable salad and there you have it! A wonderfully yummy, colourful and nutritious meal. We added salsa to our burgers to go with our Mexican theme and they were delicious!  You could add some guacamole and jalapeno- which the BBQ Chef did!

Delicious and Healthy Party Food

I am about to blast you with some delicious recipes for some nutritious and heart-healthy party food ideas. We recently celebrated my husband's birthday, and with our focus on eating and living well, I wanted to create options that were fresh, healthy and colourful- so we came up with a Mexican themed menu.

I prepared some shredded Mexican chicken breast, some taco seasoned lean ground beef, some Mexican beans and had hard tacos, soft tortilla shells and loads of veggies and 'fixins' for everyone to build their own Mexican Masterpiece.

No Mexican fiesta would be complete without some salsa and guacamole. With parents, and children joining us for the party, I didn't want to make anything too spicy, so here is my homemade version of these 2 'spiced down' favourites.

Pineapple Salsa

Ingredients

• 1 fresh pineapple cut into tidbits
• 1 plum tomato diced
• 1/3 green pepper diced
• 1/3 red pepper diced
• 2 green onions diced
• 1/4 cup cilantro finely chopped
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 tsp sea salt

Directions

Chop all ingredients and mix in bowl. Juice lime over salsa and add salt. Stir and taste for seasoning. To add a bit of spice you can add some fresh chopped jalapeno. Place in fridge for flavours to marinate. Serve cold with some tortilla chips.  This would also be delicious served over a grilled chicken breast or fish.

Guacamole

Ingredients

• 4 avocados
• 1/2 red pepper diced
• 1/3 cup cilantro finely chopped
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• Sea salt to taste

Directions

Scoop flesh out of avocados, mash them to desired 'chunkiness' consistency. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Cover and refrigerate. Serve with your Mexican favourites!

We love the Organic Neal Brothers Blue Tortilla chips. It's also delicious on your Mexican tacos, tortillas, nachos, quesadillas or even on your burgers!

BIRTHDAY TREAT TIME!!!!

Ok, ok, so I kept a little treat for the end. It was, after all, my husbands birthday party and when I asked him what special desert I could make for him he said 'trifle'. Different, right?  So I thought of a way to add a bit of 'nutrition' into this and decided to make a Banana Trifle.

Here's the recipe I loosely followed to make his creamy, dreamy whipped banana pudding trifle dreams come true!

Birthday Banana Trifle

Ingredients

• 3 bananas, diced
• 2 packages of banana instant pudding
• 4 cups 1% milk
• 1 container of light cool whip
• 1 Pound cake, diced
• 1/2 pack of Nilla wafers

Directions

Make the banana pudding according to package directions. Cool in refrigerator until ready to assemble. In your trifle bowl, layer half of the ingredients at a time. Start with the pound cake, banana pudding, bananas, crumbled Nilla wafers, place some around the perimeter of the bowl to create a nice pattern, then the cool whip. Repeat step with remaining half and reserve some chunks of cake, cookies or bananas.

Brent loved his Birthday Banana Trifle! It looked so beautiful and was a little different than the usual cake. It's OK to have a little treat on your birthday... especially when you go to the gym the next morning and work it off!

Thanks to all our family who came to celebrate and to my beautiful daughter for hosting some great party games!

Let's Eat More Veggies!

That's right!!!! We all need to eat more veggies. According to healthy living experts, half of our plates should be made up of veggies- and the darker the better!  So that is my mission right now. Fill my family up with veggies. Funny enough (but not really, as everything happens for a reason), last night I watched a new show I PVR'd by one of my favourite 'healthy eating' Chefs- Jamie Oliver. His new show is called 'Jamie's Super Food' and he was saying just that! We need to eat more veggies, in fact, he was touring the world to explore the diets of the healthiest, longest-living individuals in the world (Costa Rica and Greece, if I recall) and their diets were filled with vegetables, whole grains, legumes, fish etc.... You know where I am going with this....

Well, before I even saw this show, I prepared my own version of  'half your plate should be veggies dinner' this week.

So here it is.

Taco Sweet Potato

                                    

Very simple really, all you need is to prepare your 'Taco meat'- it could be beef, chicken, turkey.... In the meantime, place sweet potatoes that you have pricked with a fork many times in the microwave for about 10-15 minutes (careful, very hot!!!!!)

Cut the sweet potato in half, place a couple of Tbsp of 'taco meat', add shredded cheddar cheese, place in microwave for another 30 secs to melt the cheese, then add your favourite toppings- salsa, low fat sour cream - CILANTRO ( my fave!).

To complete the dinner, I added some fresh cut veggies on the plate- and there you go....half - if not 3/4 of a plate filled with veggies. Enjoy making your own version!

This is how we do it.... Chicken Tostadas from Heaven!

This beautiful picture and blog post is brought to you by 'leftover chicken'!

This summer, we have gotten into a great new habit of cooking tons of 'protein' for the week on the BBQ over the weekend. So Brent cooks chicken breasts and sausage and pork chops.... or whatever can be found in the freezer and then.... just like magic.... I create fun, healthy and fantastic meals with the leftovers!
Ta da!!!!

Let me introduce you to Chicken Tostadas made with shredded BBQ chicken

Here's what you do....

 

Shred a couple of chicken breasts, heat a pan with a bit of canola oil, add the chicken, then add about 1 cup of your favourite salsa, add some tex mex type spices too if you wish, finally add about 1/2 cup of water and cook over medium low heat until all the liquid is absorbed into the chicken.

 

Now warm up some corn tostada shells, cut some crisp veggies and cheese, sour cream, salsa and of course.... fresh cilantro!!? You can add some fresh avocado, peppers, whatever you like!!! It's a little piece of summer heaven on a tostada!

 

 

Mexican Stuffed Peppers

Everybody, Spice Up Your Life! Ok, that was an ode to the Spice Girls... But seriously, this is way to make a crowd pleasing meal- and you can make it as spicy as you want. Next time sweet peppers go on sale try this great recipe and stuff them with anything you like!

So I decided to go spicy Mexican, and added flavours and tastes from the Tex-Mex cupboard. But you could go Morrocan (cinnamon and cumin) or Spanish (safron, charizzo and tomatoes) or Italian (totmato, oregano, basil and mozzarella) or BBQ Cowboy (BBQ sauce, pepperjack cheese)!

Mexican Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:

4 colourful bell peppers

1 lb of ground meat (I chose lean ground beef)

2 cups of cooked grain (I chose basmati rice)

2 tbsp of Tex Mex seasoning

1 small onion chopped

1/2 bell pepper chopped

1/2 cup salsa

Options: Black beans, corn, jalapenos etc...

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Directions:

Set the oven to 375, cut your 4 peppers in half, length wise, remove seeds and place them in your baking dish.

Cook the equivalent of 2 cups of rice, in the meantime brown your ground beef with some tex mex seasoning, onion and peppers, once it's almost cooked, add in the salsa. At this point, you could add in additional ingredients such as black beans, corn etc. and stir in all together.

In a large bowl, add your cooked rice and the meat mixture, stir to incorporate ingredients.  Place a few spoonfuls of the meat and rice mixture in each pepper. Cover with aluminum foil and cook for about 20 minutes. Remove foil, top each pepper with shredded cheese and cook an additional 5-7 minutes, until cheese is bubbly hot.

Here you have them, a meal in a pepper. It's quite perfect, protein, carb, veggies, dairy with calcium and don't forget the yum factor too! You can serve them with a green salad and freeze the rest for later.

Soupy Sundays- Mexican Chicken Soup

As the days get colder, the soup needs to get hotter.... right???
Let me share with you a hot and delicious soup with flavours and ingredients from south of the border- Mexico.

This soup is adapted from a Glow (the Shopper's Drug Mart Magazine) issue from last year. It has fresh flavours and nice warm, earthy flavours. A perfect winter soup combination.

Mexican Turkey Soup

Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 glove of garlic- minced
1 large carrot, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 796ml can diced tomatoes
4 cups chicken broth
1/4 tsp dried cumin
1/4 tsp dried coriander
1/8 tsp of chili powder (or more!)
1 1/2 cups frozen corn
1 1/2 cups cooked and shredded chicken
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Juice from 1 lime
1 avocado, chopped

Before I even got started, I had to get some chicken all cooked up and shredded. So here's my quick and awesome trick....

Some delicious sea salt blend. A lovely present from my friend Roshni. Look, it even comes with it's own little scoop.

 Some sea salt, some herbs, some spices...

All you need to do is place your chicken breasts in a pan, rub a little olive oil on them and them sprinkle with the sea salt blend. Cook at 400 for about 25 minutes. Done! Cool them and shred them with forks. (You'll only need about 2, but keep the rest in the fridges for leftovers to add to salads and stirfries during the week).

Now here are the directions for this lovely soup.

Directions:
Heat oil in a large pot and sauté garlic, onion, carrot and celery until they start to soften, about 3 minutes. Add tomatoes, spices and chicken broth, while stirring. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. Add corn, chicken and continue to simmer for 4 minutes. Divide among bowls.

 Nice.... but wait....

 Top with cilantro, avocado and lime juice.

This makes 8, 1 cup servings. Here's the nutrition per serving:
216 calories, 9 g fat, 5 g fibre, 14 g protein

Served with some oven-toasted chili spiced tortillas cut into wedges.

Mexican Taco Pizza, that's what's cooking!

I received the Kraft, What's Cooking recipe book in the mail a few weeks ago and was impressed by the cover.

 Looks nice right? I usually don't make anything from these books anymore as I find them too processed. But I was presently surprised by this edition. It had some fresher, 'cleaner' recipes... so I was sold. I decided to make this Mexican Taco Pizza.

I used a whole wheat pizza crust, browned up lean ground beef and used about half a jar of salsa and added some Tex- Mex seasoning.

 Put it all on top of the pizza crust...

Used light Tex Mex shredded cheese and topped it the way we like it. Tomato on one half - none for Melanie.

 Bake it at 400 for about 10 minutes until the cheese melts and the crust gets golden.

When it comes out, top it with chopped lettuces and a drizzle of light ranch dressing. Brent added jalapenos after that too! Doesn't really look like the magazine cover, but still, it was delicious!

 Et voila! Nice healthier alternative than the usual crunchy shell stuff... tacos and pizza need not be separate anymore!

Healthy Homemade Tortilla Taco Salad

Check out what Santa brought me this year. Tortilla molds!

It's a healthy alternative to those taco salads served in fried bowls.

We took some small whole wheat tortillas and baked these following the directions.

Look, a little bowl, next time I suggest we use a larger tortilla for a 'meal' sized portion.

This is how we assembled ours. Iceberg lettuce on the bottom...

... then extra lean ground beef with spicy mexican seasoning, then some light shredded cheddar...

... add some light sour cream, salsa and a few Kalamata olives and there you have it! The possibilities are endless, you could mix and match lettuce, protein and veggies and have a different edible bowl salad everyday of the week!

Beef Burrito Casserole

Here's a little casserole I whipped up one summer evening. Beef Burrito with a healthy twist.

Just a little differentiation between the spicy and non-spicy side. Can you tell which is which???

I took some lean ground beef and browned it up with some salsa and shredded zucchini.

This was my assembly station. Some salsa, chopped red peppers and light double cheddar.

Took my 9 x 13 pan and added some salsa to the bottom.

Then dipped a small whole wheat tortilla in the salsa.

Placed some of the ground beef mixture and some cheese and then rolled it up. Placed bottom seam down and repeated about 9 more times then sprinkled cheese and red peppers all over and baked it at about 350 for about 20 minutes until the cheese has melted.

Tex-Mex Burger- A spicy Twist

You guys know I love my homemade real ground beef burgers every week. Well I have been experimenting with different ways to change it up! You saw the Hawaiian burger a few weeks ago, well let me introduce you to his Mexican cousin... Tex-Mex Burger.

Yummy for your tummy! Grill your hamburger, then grill some sweet colourful peppers.

Melt some cheese on your burger, then add salsa and place your roasted sweet peppers on top. And if you like it really spicy, like Mr. Halliday, add some jalapenos!



Eat, Shrink and be Merry- Great Source of Ideas!

Always on the lookout for fresh ideas for dinner that are made with fresh wholesome ingredients... I often turn to one of my favourite cookbooks. Eat, Shrink and be Merry. Almost 100% of what I have created from this cookbook turns out delicious. Check out my latest attempt. It turned out delicious!

Na-Cho Ordinary Taco Salad (adapted from Eat, Shrink and be Merry)

Ingredients

Beef:

1 1/2 lb ground extra lean ground beef

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely minced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tbsp chili powder

2 tsp cumin

2 cups grape tomatoes, quartered

1/3 cup ketchup

Salt & pepper

Salad:

1 head of iceberg lettuce, cut into bite-sized chunks

1 cup frozen corn, thawed

1/2 diced red or green pepper

1 cup light old cheddar, shredded

4 green onions, chopped

Homemade Guacamole (the Szos recipe of course)

Organic Nacho Chips to garnish – I use Garden Fresh Gourmet

Directions:

In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, add your ground beef, jalapeno and garlic and saute until cooked through. Stir in chili powder and cumin and allow to cook for about a minute. Add the grape tomatoes, ketchup, corn and salt and pepper and cook for two minutes until the flavors have combined and the tomatoes soften. Remove from the heat and set aside.

To assemble the salad, arrange the lettuce on the bottom of your plates, top with beef, red pepper, cheese, tomatoes, green onions. Top with guacamole, salsa and sour cream and place Nacho chips on the side or crumple them on top!

Makes 6 servings- 280 calories, 11g fat, 25g protein, 22g carbs, 6g fibre

Dig In!

Earth Hour - Mexican Style

We celebrated Earth Hour in Mexican Style a few weekends ago. First we had a nice Mexican dinner and then played some games 'in the dark'. Fun Family Times were had by all! We made sure we were all done cooking and stuff before the 8 o'clock hour.

Here you have a concoction I had been dreaming about for a while. Beef Tostadas.... but with healthy vessels.

What I did instead of using the fried corn tostadas, I made my own healthy alternative. I sprayed a fry pan with Pam and then placed the whole wheat tortilla on it and then spray the top side. Making sure I didn't burn it. I then flipped it to the other side until it got crunchy.

I cooked up some extra lean ground beef - I added about a cup of fresh salsa and some chili powder, salt and pepper to spice it up.

I made some delicious 'Szos Guac'.

Chopped up some sweet yellow peppers.

Shredded up some crispy romaine hearts.

...then came the building of the 'mountain'.... tostatda, beef, shredded low fat cheddar.... and then whatever you like on top. As you can see from the first picture at the top, I kicked mine up with some tomatoes, salsa, kalamata olives, guac, sour cream and jalapenos (ok- I was trying to be a tough girl, they burned the crap out of my mouth- but I always see Brent doing it .... so why not!).

Here's Melanie enjoying her creation... let me tell you, they are good, but quite messy. Definitively not a 'first date' food choice.

Ok, they never really let me pick them up at the same time, but Ace and Diamond were sleeping on the couch and I had to get them while they were still drowsy... how cute eh? They can't wait for Earth Hour!

Mella has to get in on the action too, look at Ace's smoldering eyes... He's sexy and he knows it!

Following the Earth Hour Conservation Movement, from 8-9pm we turned off all the lights. We light a whole bunch of candles and shared some homemade oatmeal cookies and coffee and played some Yahtzee. Melanie's first time, and she beat us! Beginner's luck!

The shimmery lights were nice, but we had to pull out some flashlights to see the Yahtzee dice!

Mella made a little poster to commemorate the event. Get it! So what you see there is a reflection of our kitchen light fixture on the window, and you also see our neighbours in the apartments across the street not really following along!!!!

Here's my beautiful girl... she didn't last long playing Yahtzee, we only played one game... too much math I guess!!! So we played Headbanz... too funny, especially since she could see her reflection in the window!