New Recipe Bliss

No Carb Pizza

The last couple of weeks I’ve been trying a few new recipes here and there. It’s pretty tough for a recipe to make it into our monthly rotation so when these happened into my life all at once and actually became contenders for a repeat, I was thrilled.

First up was the No Carb Pizza. I have had cauliflower crust pizza and I really liked it but this one may have just topped that on my too good to be true healthy pizza recipe list! I of course put bacon bacon and more bacon on for topings but you can do anything. Next time I make it I’m gonna go with veggies. Love my veggie pizzas!

Cauliflower Chowder

Next on the list is this little gem that I came across on Pinterest. I have a severe obsession with cauliflower. I have come to the conclusion that you can substitute in cauliflower for just about any starch for dinner. This recipe reminds me of potato soup. Of course I topped it with extra parmesan and extra bacon. I promise I don’t add bacon to everything, the next recipe on the list has none whatsoever.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I realize that this is just a basic cookie recipe but something about it made my cookies oh so good! I also realize that this isn’t a “healthy” dessert but if you compare it to a package of cookies I could buy at the grocery store you may change your thinking just a bit. I’d much rather my kids get homemade real desserts that are delicious and fresh from time to time rather than store bought processed and packaged cookies.

So here’s a few more recipes to add in to our Lane dinner rotation! Try them and let me know what you think!

Happy Cooking!

It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. It’s That Time Again

MY FALL FAVORITES

Halloween is fast approaching and while I enjoy every single thing my children do (psych!) I actually really love Halloween and all the stuff that goes with it. Every year we go to Rutledge Wilson Farm and let the kids pick out their special pumpkin. My oldest has never actually helped me clean one out though. He’s my kid that doesn’t like to get his fingers dirty. There’s one in every family right? Then my daughter came along and she is all over those pumpkin guts. She can’t get enough. Luckily my son will still pose for me with a pumpkin, taking all the credit without any of the blood, sweat and tears.

Then of course come the fall pictures. I am very very lucky because my sister is a photographer so we get major dibs on some amazing pics! The picture below is an oldie but a goodie. Love those fall colors.

Then comes the adult fun. The random mask and wigs. My sisters and I are all grown up and still can’t seem to say no to the masks. A couple years ago me and my husband and my sisters and their husbands all put our name in a hat and said a little prayer and picked one. Whoever’s name we drew was the person we had to dress up like. Somehow all of us ladies drew each others husbands and the husbands drew us ladies. Let’s just say that when I saw my hubby wearing a camisole, well that’s an image I can never erase. Unfortunately the pictures from that year have conspicuously disappeared.

And then there is the food. Fall food. The crock pot comes out as does the book of soup recipes and we bask in the warmness of fall food! Here is my most recent new favorite recipe and it actually doesn’t use a crockpot! Please try and see for yourself, it’s delicious and healthy and if you add extra bacon the men in your life will love it too!

Cauliflower Chowder

Here’s to a Happy Fall!

My Go To Recipes

So I’ve fallen quite in love with a few recipes that I could possibly eat everyday. Most are healthy but there is a little naughty in there as well! Since I’ve really put my foot down and started to get into shape after baby number 3… I’m currently doing 21 Day Fix which I will save for another post after I’m actually finished with the 21 days but I’ve tweaked even my naughtiest meal on this list to fit into my eating plan. So lets just start with breakfast and go from there. I’m gonna go ahead and let you know that a few of these are from Pinterest so I will just share the link to give credit where credit is due and below each link/recipe I will let you know the tweaks I made to fit my needs to keep up with my goals. But even without those tweaks these recipes are pretty darn good for you!! Read on if you dare! Disclaimer: I’m not responsible for the amount of mouth-watering drool you get on your keyboard or smart phone screen!

BREAKFAST

Spinach and Cheese Egg Muffins

Spinach Egg Muffins

– Tweaks were not made to this recipe, I actually double it every time and save them in the fridge in a container. My husband takes a few to work with him every morning and that’s about how many I have and the are addictive. Usually last us 4 or 5 days. Yum Yum Yum!

LUNCH

Any Smoothie Will Do!

(Not the actual smoothie that I made today!)

Smoothies, Smoothies, More Smoothies!

Okay, so I have become obsessed with smoothies and I try to eat them at lunch because that’s usually right after I’ve worked out but even if I haven’t worked out before I usually still have a smoothie for lunch…. the ingredients do change if I’ve had a work out before. For example today I didn’t have time to workout before lunch so this is what went into my smoothie-

1 Banana

1 Cup Blueberries

1/4 Cup Milk

1 Cucumber

1/4 Cup Oats

4 Strawberries (because they just looked too good!)

Ice

Blend it all up and it’s done. I like mine a little thick and to make it seem like I’m drinking more I usually add a little water and like 5 or 6 pieces of ice. Now if I had worked out before lunch I would have added a tablespoon of peanut butter and maybe a tablespoon of chocolate chips(just because I can!)  Pretty much I try to add a little more protein to the smoothies if I’ve just worked out and maybe a few more oats especially if that’s all I’m eating for lunch. I also love to add vegetables to them because I’m not the best at getting my daily amt so this way I don’t even know it’s happening!

SNACK

Flourless Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Muffins

Flourless Chocolate Muffins

My Tweaks

Now these are fine the way they are but as she says, they have around 100 calories a piece and that’s fine if you only have 1 maybe 2 for snack but have you ever seen a mini muffin pan, those muffins come out small so here’s what I did to get them down to about 50ish calories a piece and then you can have 3 or 4 with no sadness or regret!

– I doubled the recipe, so instead of 24 bite size muffins I made 48. But I kept the honey and the chocolate chip quantities the same as if I was just making a batch of 24. So I only used 3 Tablespoons of honey and half a cup of Chocolate chips for the entire double batch which cut the calories drastically!

– I also added about 2 tablespoons of my half cup of Chocolate chips to the batter and blended it in instead of kept them whole. This spreads out that chocolate sweetness a little more and makes up for the smaller amt of honey and chocolate that I put in.

My son absolutely loves these and he’s my picky eater!

DINNER

Pasta with Bacon, Tomato and Cheese Sauce

(Not actual picture but close enough)

This was not on pinterest! Shocker! Below is the recipe. This is something my husband requests on a weekly basis and if he knows that there is bacon in the house… forget about it he will whip it out and make it himself if he has to.

6-8 pieces of Bacon

Penne Pasta (but have used several different kinds)                                                                                                                  I make 8 to 16 oz so really up to your family size

14 oz can of tomatoes (usually used diced or whole Roma)

1 Cup of shredded Cheddar Cheese

Boil water and start preparing pasta according to box instructions. While pasta is cooking heat frying pan and cook bacon until crispy. Remove bacon and pour out about half of the bacon grease(you don’t need to save it). Open and partially drain tomatoes and poor into frying pan with bacon grease. While heating up tomatoes crumble or chop up bacon into small chunks. Poor chopped up bacon into pan with tomatoes and mix. Drain pasta and add to pan. Reduce heat and mix well. Once mixed turn off heat and add cheese. Mix until completely melted! That’s it, easy and delicious!

– If you want something without those pesky pasta carbs then I usually replace those with cauliflower mash. Which if you are just replacing it for you then boil about half a head of cauliflower and when  you can easily pierce with a fork, drain and add about an ounce of cream cheese, a couple of tablespoons of milk and salt and pepper and mash it all together. It’s super easy, super healthy and super delicious. Now something to remember if you are going to use cauliflower instead and you are going to feed the rest of your family the pasta, make sure that before you add the pasta into the pan with the mixture of bacon and tomatoes take about half a cup of that mixture out of the pan and put in a bowl so that you can use it to mix into your cauliflower mash. It is so good! I’ve also used scrambled eggs as an alternative to the pasta.

So there you have it… A few of My Favorite Things – Recipe Edition! I love everything above and I love that it can be tweaked and played with to fit anyone’s health needs!! Let me know what you think!!:)

Happy Recipe Testing!