One of the best parts about fall is the food. So just for you, I’ve put together a list of my favorite fall foods based on classic fall ingredients. And the best part, they’re all healthy!!! So you can enjoy all your fall favorites and still eat healthy.
A few weeks ago our family was in Breckenridge, CO. It’s one of the most beautiful, peaceful places I’ve ever been and one of our family’s favorite vacation spots. Seriously, if it didn’t snow six months out of the year, we’d live there. Our first night there we ate at a steakhouse. Steakhouses are great for healthy eating because it’s usually really easy to order any cut of meat you want and a ton of veggies.
I saw a “Spicy Santa Fe” burger on the menu that looked delicious. I asked if they could serve it without a bun and they were more than willing (side note: most restaurants will happily serve a burger without a bun). The burger was so amazing I wanted to recreate in at home. While I love the name “Spice Santa Fe” burger, It basically seemed like a taco in burger form to me, so I decided to just call it a Taco Burger.
I seasoned the meat with my Healthy Taco Seasoning (click here for recipe). This gave the patties themselves great flavor. Then add the toppings to the cooked patties and they tasted like a taco, but even better.
We all used different toppings in our family, but some suggested toppings are:
The rest of my family had their burgers on whole wheat buns, but I had mine on a lettuce cup. You could even serve it on a bed of spinach like a salad.
This Fall, I went back to school to become a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner. Fitness and nutrition are a passion for me and I find a lot of ways to relate it to everyday life. I’m currently taking an Anatomy class which terrified me because science was never my forte. Luckily, I’m finding it to be […]
Does anyone else get tired of drinking water? It sounds strange since water has no flavor, but sometimes I get tired of it. If you have the same problem, keep reading for nine fun non-water drinks you can enjoy at any point in your day without having to feel guilt or regret.
This summer got a little rough as far as me eating sugar goes. The early part of the summer we moved which encouraged my stress eating. I tried to keep it “approved” with dark chocolate, fruit and treats made with natural sugars, but still, I overdid it. Then the vacations started: camping, Disneyland, weekends with family, […]
I clearly remember New Year’s Eve growing up. We’d get together with my BFF’s family (no, seriously. We’re in our 30’s now and we still talk multiple times weekly). The adults would do horribly boring things (like chat about things other than Barbies and tutus) and the kids would run around all night. A few weeks before, we’d order a bunch of those super junky toys from Oriental Trading. We would play with those toys all night, or until they broke 20 minutes later. The most memorable toy was an ice cream cone with a trigger. When you pulled it, the ice cream part shot off the cone part. Yep. My childhood rocked.
We always had a ton of awesome food too. I’m sure there were cookies and meat trays, but the thing I remember the most was my mom’s fruit dip. I know that seems strange for an 8-year-old to have a hankering for fruit dipped in a sugary substance over a chocolaty brownie, but it was just so good! It was straight from the 70’s complete with a tub of cool whip, cream cheese and a crap-load of sugar. Nothing says “Happy New Year” like a sugar coma.
I was thinking about said dip and my ice cream cone shooter the other day and became sad that I can no longer live in ignorance about the unhealthy reality of my beloved fruit dip. That’s when I went on a mission to create a new fruit dip. A fruit dip that would put the 70’s fruit dip to shame and wouldn’t give you diabetes.
I wanted it to be easy, so I decided to keep the ingredients to a minimum. Instead of the cool whip portion, I used a full-fat Greek yogurt. It helped the dip have the same creamy consistency without all the artificial ingredients. I found this fabulous Greek yogurt at Sprouts. Make sure you pick one without a lot of added junk.
Instead of cream cheese, I used peanut butter. I mainly did this because peanut butter is just awesome, and has the ability to make things feel sweet without adding sugar. Since we nixed our artificial sweetener by removing the cool whip, we needed a little flavor. The peanut-butter made it PERFECT!
To bump up the flavor, I just added in a little vanilla and cinnamon. The dip isn’t overly sweet, but since fruit has natural sweeteners, the combination of fruit and dip gave this the perfect sweetness. If you want a little more sweetness though for a special occasion like a New Year’s Eve party complete with awesomely-cheap toys, feel free to add a little honey.
So now not only do you have a fruit dip free of sugars and artificial ingredients, but one packed with protein and healthy fats. It’s good enough to have for breakfast!
Hopefully this dip will help my children make as many awesome memories as I had as a kid. But I need to find the ice cream shooter to ensure that.
As a general rule I tend to avoid “nutrition” trends as they are generally unhealthy scams designed to make we women feel bad about the shape of our bodies, convincing us that if we just spend an exorbitant amount of money for this one product we will have perfect bodies, skin and fart rainbows. Bone […]
Last week I went to make banana bread when I realized I didn’t have any ripe bananas! Making banana bread with under-ripe bananas is lame. The bananas are too hard to mash so you usually end up with weirdly-textured banana chunks in your muffins. I don’t think my son would be impressed with this. So […]
The world is going back to school and so moms are stressed. Did you know stress lowers our immune system’s ability to fight off germs and infections. Beyond stress, I feel like going back to school is like sending my kids into cesspool of the Black Plague. I doubt I’m the only mom who gets […]
My kids started school this week. This was a big deal because my youngest started Kindergarten! I’ve never seen someone so excited to go to school. So now I have 3 1/2 hours to myself every day because we opted for half-day Kindergarten. My daughter is a smart little coconut and I’m sure she’d do just fine in full-day, but I needed the adjustment from half to full day. Here are my cutie patooties ready to go! In the words of my mom, one of these kids was okay with going to school (school is old hat once you hit third grade) and the other one is excited beyond all reason.
Day 1, I was so excited. I went grocery shopping by myself for the first time in years. It was so liberating. But then my daughter’s favorite song came on the radio. It made me a little… sad. I’m a complicated person.
Anyway… that’s what’s going on in our lives. That cute little girl in the picture loves to have eggs for breakfast. The problem is, I don’t have time to make eggs every morning now that we have to leave for school at 7:30 a.m. I wake up at 5:45 and work out while my husband gets the kids breakfast. In order to save on time and make sure the kids have a good breakfast, we set it out the night before. So how could I give my daughter eggs, but make breakfast the night before (and scrambling eggs at 9:30 p.m. was not an option for me)?
The solution: Egg muffins. These are SOOOO easy to make. Just scramble eggs and flavor them however you want. My daughter loves salsa and this makes them even easier to flavor. Be careful with salsa. There are some great options out there but read the labels. It’s really easy to find salsa without sugar, but you have to check and make sure they didn’t sneak it in. My daughter also loves bacon, so I cooked some bacon before, chopped that up and added it in.
Then I just put the eggs into a muffin tin using an ice cream scoop. Make sure you grease the pan well.
Just bake them at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes.
After the egg muffins cool put them in a Ziploc freezer bag and put them in the freezer.
When I want to serve one, I put it in the fridge the night before. Then in the morning I (or my husband) just stick it in the microwave for about 30 seconds.
This breakfast will give your kids the energy they need to leave you and go out into the world… I’ll get through this… give it a few weeks and I’ll be fine…
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