Family

My Dad called me this morning and really put me in a good mood. We talked for awhile and as I got off the phone I realized that I was just so excited for the day. I haven't had one of those days in awhile with all the busy parts of life lately. Ive had soccer, Lee has been working, not to mention its the last few weeks of the school year. For those of you who don't know kids are bonkers right about now. They are like monkeys in a cage, I was teaching kindergarten yesterday and I had kids climbing up the fences out on the field. They just run around like chickens with heads cut off. Okay maybe not chickens but defiantly monkeys in cages.

My Dad is coming to my soccer game today and that just reminds me of old times. I had a soccer tournament over the holiday weekend and one night about 30 kids were out in the parking lot playing capture the flag and I just had to join in. It was just a great mixture of two childhood memories. One being going to soccer tournaments with my Dad and the other being capture the flag with the neighborhood kids in the summer. When did I get so old? I guess 25 isn't old, but its not running around the neighborhood barefoot either. Kids that are 10 years younger than me have already had a different childhood than I did. Pros and cons of the internet I guess.

Anyways, today's going to be a great day! I finally have time to go the gym, get the house back in decent shape, get some coaching in, but my favorite part is spending time with my family. Last night we finally got to see some of Lee's family and that's always a good time. I'm really lucky to have such great in laws. (and they don't even read this I don't think so they really are that great) Now I will see my Dad for a bit at my game and then its girls night.

I cant help but post about the fact that my "girls" are my family and I know that wherever life takes me they will always be apart of it because that's how family works. I always knew that my sisters would be my best friends but I never knew that my '7 years older than me cousin' would be too. You see my Mom past away when I was younger and we spent a ton of time at my Aunt and Uncles and my two cousins played with us a lot. I was 0-4 years old when she was sick and I only remember bits and pieces but its fun to hear them tell me everything. Seven years is a big age gap, that means when I was in Kindergarten she was in 6th grade. I love to think who would have ever thought we would be so close today... maybe my Mom.

5 Quick and Easy Dinner Ideas

Well its soccer season so that means I am a busy bee with no time to blog, or cook dinner. I decided to share some of my quick fixes that Ive been loving.  All winter I have had a really hard time eating salad and Ive finally gotten the summer itch and this dressing has me eating salads everyday. Which explains why the bottle in the picture is empty.

#1- Ideally, I would precook chicken for the week but I'll be honest and say that it doesn't happen. So I buy a bag of precooked chicken at Sam's Club and its been awesome for quick and easy lunch and dinners. Last night I threw a bunch of lettuce, chicken, pepper, parmesan cheese and caesar dressing in a bowl, tossed it and then wrapped in in a whole wheat tortilla.

#2- Tortillas are something that Ive been eating a lot lately too. Whenever I need to curb my fast food craving I throw a tortilla in a pan and sprinkle on some cheese, chicken, hot sauce, and a some drops of ranch and its just like taco bell. Mmm.

#3- Cereal has also been on the dinner list quite a bit lately, Multi-grain Cheerios to be exact. Along with cheese, veggies, and/or crackers. I really like the laughing cow garlic and herb for only 35 calories a wedge.

#4- I really think that I honestly made a dinner in less than 8 minutes the other night and 6 of them I wasn't even in the kitchen. I threw some salmon on the George Foreman grill and sprinkled on some Mrs. Dash seasoning and let it cook, put it on a bed a lettuce to finish it off. Easy peasy.

#5- Lastly, my fellow teachers and I are eagerly awaiting summer vacation and with this weather I think we feel like we are coming out of hibernation. So some of my dinners have been at happy hour and not gonna lie I cant wait for more free time with my coworkers!

Cheers to Oberon!

Tropical mango smoothie

I thought I didn't like mangos but they taste good in a smoothie. I find it odd that some of my favorite smoothies lately are with fruit that I thought I didn't like.  I found this on goodhousekeeping.com and I'm pleasantly surprised. My alterations are in green, and I added the yogurt for the protein.

1/2 cup(s) pineapple juice, chilled                 1/2 C pineapple juice - I had

                                                                        fresh pineapple in the fridge

1 cup(s) diced mango                                         1 C frozen mango

1  banana, sliced                                                 1 banana

2 teaspoon(s) fresh lime juice                           1 squirt of lime juice

1/2 teaspoon(s) grated, peeled fresh ginger       dash of dried ginger

3  ice cubes                                                       1 cup peach greek yogurt

Read more: Tropical Mango Smoothie - Good Housekeeping

Beef Stroganoff

This dish is one of our favorites by far! I'm sure I will be making this for a long time. I tried to lighten it up a bit and swap out some things for healthier ingredients. I'm still getting used to the whole wheat noodles so I decided to mix both together and it was definatly better than just all whole wheat. They do have lower sodium cream of mushroom soup but honestly it was just something I couldn't swap. It ruined it last time.


1 Tbs soy sauce
1 Tbs worcestershire sauce
1/2 C light sour cream
1/4 C skim milk
1 onion chopped
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 C mushrooms chopped
16 oz whole wheat egg noodles
1 package (1.25 lbs) ground turkey

Looks gross but its SOOO good!

Boil egg noodles and start browning your meat. Season with pepper and add in the onions and mushrooms. Once the meat is cooked add in the cream of mushroom, sour cream, soy sauce, and worcestershire. Add milk to your desired thickness. I always add a little more soy or worcestershire to my liking. That's it! Super easy!  

 

BANANAS!!! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

I thought my smoothie kick was wearing off until I discovered what was missing. I didnt have any bananas left and was making smoothies without them. The smoothies were fine, just not that yummy. Really the bananas were making that much of a difference so I bought one bunch of yellow and one of green banay-nays so I wouldnt run out again. My new favorite is blueberry banana. I dont even really like blueberries but Im really diggin the smoothie.

This time I measured it for you!

1/2 C plain yogurt

1/2 C skim milk

1 Banana

1 C blueberries

As you can see I gave the Magic Bullet another try (I was too lazy to wash the blender) and I found that it doesnt work as well with frozen fruit. Ive also noticed with the blender that the milk and the yogurt need to start on the bottom and then it can get mixing. As you can see with the Magic Bullet I put the frozen fruit on top and it did a much better job.

Stuffed Peppers

Well soccer practice got cancelled so I had plenty of time to make dinner tonight. Ive been waiting to use my Jennie O hot turkey sausage and decided I wanted to make something with the bell peppers I had in the fridge. I did my normal Allrecipes.com ingredient search and didn't really find anything so I went on JennieO.com and found a stuffed pepper recipe that I used as a guide. I was really excited because I have never made them before.

Ingredients
• Four Six bell peppers, any color or a combination
• 2 teaspoons garlic-infused or extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 package JENNIE-O TURKEY STORE® Sweet Lean Italian Turkey Sausage
• JENNIE O HOT Lean Italian Turkey Sausage
• 1 (15-ounce) can Italian-style or regular tomato sauce
• Tomato paste and can of crushed tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil or 2 teaspoons dried basil leaves 
• Frozen basil
• 1 (16-ounce) can great northern beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese
• 1/2 cup cooked brown rice
• http://jennieo.com/recipes/recipe_detail.aspx?Id=1174

Cut peppers lengthwise through stems keeping stem halves intact to hold stuffing. Discard seeds and veins. Cook in boiling salted water 5 to 6 minutes or until crisp-tender. Set aside.

 Remove the sausage from the casings and crumble in a skillet for about 5 minutes.  Add tomatoes, basil, and cooked brown rice and simmer.  Rinse and add beans and simmer for an additional 5 minutes.  I added tomato paste to thicken the mixture. I was quite proud of myself because I came up with the tomato paste idea all on my own.

 Before and after adding the tomato paste

Scoop the mixture into the peppers and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Bake in the oven at 375 for about 20 minutes.

Chores!

I can remember doing dishes when I was younger, we would have a scrubber and a loader. I always wanted to be the loader so I didn't have to dive into the sink of eight family members after dinner. I look back and I'm actually glad that we had to do chores all the time. I like that it taught me how to do a TON of things to take care of where I live. Some of my "favorites" (or shall I say the ones that I thought were easiest) were always washing the windows, cleaning the bathroom (I know but it was one of the quickest choices), dusting, and unloading the dishwasher. I'm sure my Mom would find this amusing but I'm glad that we were taught how to do a lot of things. Even though we had 3 girls and 3 boys Dad tried to get us outside as much as he could. The girls inside boys outside trick didn't work all the time. We dreaded going outside, ugh those Saturday mornings. I will say though that I now know how to plant flowers, weed, cut the grass, clean the pool, weed whip, use the edger...snow blower... leaf blower... the list goes on in that giant back yard! I chuckle as I write this because we hated doing all of this stuff.

It took Lee and I awhile to figure out housework routines and what not but now its not too bad. I think living in an apartment helps. Ive realized that not everything has to be done the way I was taught, like if the cups face up or down in the cupboard. Everyone has their own way. Lee always found it annoying that I would scrub the dishes clean and then put them in the dishwasher and I always hated unloading unclean dishes. Well I found another one of my favorite things, Cascade Complete! I barely have to scrub anymore, I guess the commercial was right when it said powers away 24 hour stuck on food. Its the little things in life! Ha!