Tag Archives: grill

Itz WIAW

Posted on by
35

And just like that, itz the last Wednesday in June!  Where does the time go?  Let’s get right to it and start this WIAW party with the others at Peas and Crayons!

Breakfast: Pancake made with oats, egg, applesauce, cinnamon, peaches, and vanilla almond milk.  Topped with more peaches, shredded unsweetened coconut, and Barlean’s Mango-Peach Omega Swirl Fish Oil.  Speaking of delicious fish oils, don’t forget to enter the giveaway to win a Pina Colada Omega Swirl ($25 value!).

So delicious.  The Pina Colada Omega Swirl would taste amazing with bananas and coconut.  The Omega Swirls are seriously better than syrup and way healthier!

Snack-time:  Tons of healthy banana bread bites!  A bite here.  A bite there.  Lotsa bites everywhere.

So many bites that now it’s gone.  Boo.

Lunch: Beast of a salad.  I started with a bag of broccoli slaw then diced up a green pepper, red pepper, yellow squash, part of a red onion, and added sunflower seeds, almond slivers, black beans, and corn.

For the dressing, I mashed up an avocado and added some lemon and lime juice, a few drops of soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, and spicy mustard.  Random combo, but it worked!  This made a gigantic salad, so I’ve been eating it all week.  I had the afterthought to dice up an apple or add raisins for some sweetness.  Maybe next time.

Dinner: Grill success!  After my latest grill disaster, I was determined to make it work on the grill.  I kept it simple with asparagus and tofu.  The asparagus was lightly sprayed with olive oil and just a dash of sea salt was used.  The tofu was marinated in Trader Joe’s Sweet Chili Sauce.

Avocado slices were enjoyed on the side for a nice dose of healthy fats.  Dinner was amazing.  Even Jonny said that tofu on the grill was “unbelievable.”  (His words, not mine – promise!)  The only minor mishap was that I forgot to spray the grill as directed by my wise father as well as everyone else on google, so the tofu didn’t flip as nicely as it should have.  Lesson learned.

Dessert: Papaya!  I love papaya and last weekend my dad bought me a giant one at the Farmer’s Market.  I do think the little seed/bally things on the inside look kind of gross, but fortunately they are super easy to scoop out.

The papaya was perfectly ripe, and I scooped it right out with a spoon.

That does it for this week’s WIAW!

Tell me about your favorites: summertime foods and/or grilled foods!

Healthy Banana Bread for the Win

Posted on by
28

You know how I jokingly referred to myself as a “grill master” after I prepared vegetables on the grill for the first time a few days ago?  Well, I decided to get ambitious… a little too ambitious.  I bought some lean ground turkey meat the other day and attempted to make them into turkey burgers.  But of course I didn’t just form them into patties.  I tried to get creative and make a new recipe even though I have never made turkey burgers before in my life.  I mixed the turkey meat with some red onion, a jalapeno, white beans, corn, oats, garlic, cayenne pepper, and some other spices.  It looked really good and smelled really good.

Upon the first flip, half of them started to crumble.  I salvaged the crumbled pieces and cooked them on the stove top (where I am much more comfortable!).  There were four burgers that survived and we ate them for our dinner along with brussel sprouts that I did [successfully] cook on the grill with a little olive oil, sea salt, and pepper.

When we finished eating, Jonny asked me what I thought of the burgers.  “They were fine,” I replied.  “What did you think?”  I questioned back.  “They were fine.”  Needless to say, I have some work to do on the grill.

Even though last night’s dinner didn’t turn out quite as I had planned, I am still proud of trying and taking the first steps to become a little more proficient with the grill.  Gotta start somewhere.  It is important to recognize our accomplishments, and for that I’ll give myself a high-five for this week’s High Five Friday with Meg.

I did have some success with a new recipe last night.  We had several overly ripe bananas that were in dire need of being used.  Banana bread sounded good, so after reading many different recipes, I got started on making my own healthier version.  Jonny and I were both impressed with the results.  Linz: 1.  Grill: 1.  We’re even.

Banana Bread

Ingredients:

  • 4 ripe bananas
  • 2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup old-fashioned oats
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup NuNaturals More Fiber Baking Blend
  • 1/2 cup ground flaxseeds
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
  • 2 tablespoons Artisana coconut butter
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Directions:

  • Mix all ingredients together in large bowl.
  • Pour in sprayed 9 x 13 pan.
  • Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.

Most recipes suggest mixing particular ingredients together in separate bowls.  Not me.  I mixed everything together all at once, and it still turned out.  It looks like a lot of ingredients, but you probably have most items on hand.  The banana bread was thick and flavorful and delicious.  It is not overly sweet, but it is incredibly moist and soft.  Itz perfect.  There was actually no detectable coconut taste, for better or for worse, so for people who aren’t coconut fans, you could easily omit.

I had one lone banana left so I decided to really kick up the dessert factor.  I sliced the banana and cooked it on the stove (clearly not the grill!) with a little coconut butter and a pinch of brown sugar.

Oh baby!  The banana bread just got even better!  The warm bananas reminded me of bananas foster – a treat my dad used to make when we were little.  I’m already planning how many ways I’m going to eat this banana bread.  Like, for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and snack.  Overkill?  I think not.  Linz: 2.  Grill: 1.  Boo-yah!

*The winner of the Barlean’s Strawberry Banana Flax Oil giveaway is #54 StoriesAndSweetPotatoes!  Congratulations!  Please email me within 48 hours or another winner will be drawn.  There is one week left of Barlean’s Omega Swirl June Giveaways!  The last bottle will be given away on Monday, and just wait until I announce the flavor.  It sounds beyond AMAZING!  Here’s a hint: You could very well make an adult beverage with it… Any guesses? ;)

For now… I’m off to eat more banana bread.

Fun weekend plans?  I’m having a girls night tonight and a date night tomorrow with my boo!  Hopefully a Farmer’s Market trip will happen, too!

Itz WIAW

Posted on by
35

I think itz safe to say, I’m fully cured of my food hangover.  Now that I’ve got that situation under control, let’s talk food again.  Good, healthy, wholesome food.  Specifically, WIAW food via Jenn’s Peas and Crayons.

We had leftover mushrooms from something I made last week, so for breakfast I threw the baby bellas in with the spinach while it was wilting over the stove top and topped my eggs with them.  Very tasty!

With all the hot weather summer brings, I am a huge smoothie fan.  I made a very vanilla smoothie with ice, vanilla Sunwarrior protein powder, shredded unsweetened coconut flakes, Bob’s Red Mill ground flaxseeds, Chobani plain yogurt (for extra protein and added creaminess), vanilla NuNaturals sweetener, vanilla unsweetened almond milk, and spinach.

Love that green!  For lunch I decided to break out my spiralizer because it has been way too long since I used it last.  I spiralized a zucchini and topped it with tuna salad I made.  Some garlic herb bread accompanied my lunch.

I mixed some tuna with a little of Trader Joe’s eggless reduced fat mayonnaise, relish, and red onion.  Simple, packed with protein, and tasted good.  I wanted to continue my theme of cramming as many vegetables in with my meals as possible (remedy for food hangover), so I decided to grill whatever veggies were in my fridge: red peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, green pepper, and an onion.

Confession #1: I’ve never grilled before.  I know, I know, ridiculous!  Jonny does all of the grilling around here, but after reading Powercake’s post yesterday, I decided to give it a go.  I figured I couldn’t really mess it up unless I burnt the heck outta them, so I made sure to keep a close eye on them.

Confession #2:  I may or may not needed to call my dad just to turn the grill on.  Thank you, FaceTime.  Jonny wasn’t home, and I wanted to get dinner ready by the time he arrived.  How was I supposed to know all it takes is a twist of the left burner, right burner, and igniter?  Well, now I do, so you can all stop laughing at me because dinner turned out just lovely!

We are in dire need of some grocery shopping around here, so all the veggies were served with was some quinoa and corn (which was an awesome combination!).  There was one leftover hot dog, and I graciously let Jonno have that.  I even threw it on the grill to heat it back up.  Just call me the grill-master!

After dinner, I was hankerin’ for something sweet, but didn’t want to overload on the sugar.  Again.  I had just a half scoop left of my banana protein powder, so I combined that with my Sunwarrior vanilla to make protein fudge.  I topped the fudge with Barlean’s Strawberry Banana Flax Oil.

I tried to make a heart, but the swirl got a little drippy.  Don’t forget: YOU can enter the giveaway to win a bottle of Barlean’s Omega Swirl Strawberry Banana Flax Oil!

What is your favorite food to grill?

PS: A very special happy birthday goes to Meg who I simply cannot wait to meet in August during HLS!! xoxo