Asparagus & Turkey Bacon Scramble

You can never go wrong with scrambled eggs. The possibilities are endless when it comes to adding healthy ingredients!

You’ll Need:

•  2 or 3 organic, cage-free eggs
•  2 or 3 Asparagus Speers, trimmed & chopped.
•  Fresh Organic Baby Spinach
•  Optional- 1 tbs water for each egg
•  1or 2 slices of turkey bacon cooked and chopped or crumbled (or nitrate free, uncured, all natural bacon)
•  2 tbs Grass Fed Butter (or Smart Balance Omega Butter) or Coconut Oil
•  A sprinkle of Sea Salt
•  A sprinkle of Ground Black Pepper
• Optional- A pinch of Nutmeg after whisking.

Next:

1.  Add 1 tbs of your fat of choice (butter, coconut oil, low cal cooking spray, etc.) to pan.
2.  Add veggies and cook over medium heat, until soft and then remove from pan and set aside.
3. In the meantime, roughly whisk the egg mixture with a mixer or fork. Make sure not to whisk too much, leaving some texture to the eggs.
4. Turn pan to low and add the remaining tbs of fat to pan. You may then add your whisked egg mixture.
5.  Once the mixture is in the hot pan, let the eggs set for about 10 seconds. After that, gently stir the eggs on low heat with a wooden spoon or spatula.
6. When the eggs are still slightly wet, add veggies and herbs of your choice and cook for another minute or two, fluffing them together.
7. Toss in cooked crumbled turkey bacon or add to the side for an extra punch of protein.
8. Top with your favorite hot sauce.

Keep in mind- You can use any veggie combo you like. I love adding avocado, peppers and fresh salsa. You just got to get creative!

Open-Faced Protein Packed Breakfast Sandwich

I’m the kind of girl who needs variety when it comes to eating breakfast. Luckily, Since I’m back to running & cycling more I’ve been adding more carbs to my diet as well! These open-faced, healthy protein packed breakfast sandwiches have become quite addicting. They give me the extra energy I need to get through intense workouts not to mention they are delicious and very easy to make!

You’ll need:
– Ezekiel Sprouted bread or Schars Gluten Free and Wheat free bread. I also occasionally enjoy Dave’s Killer Organic Power Seed bread.
– 1or 2 Organic Eggs (Pan fried, baked or scrambled with coconut oil, grassfed butter, olive oil or zero calorie cooking spray)
– Your favorite breakfast veggies: fresh baby spinach, tomatoes, avocado, peppers, onion, etc.
– Turkey bacon, sliced turkey breast.
– Optional- Feta (reduced fat)
– Top with your favorite hot sauce! #sriracha #jalapenotabasco

Black Bean & Veggie Burgers

Ingredients:

• 1 (16 ounce) can organic sodium free black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 green or red bell pepper, cut into 2 inch pieces
• 1/2 onion (white or red), cut into wedges
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 organic egg
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 1 tsp-tbs Sriracha hot chili sauce
• 1/2 cup gluten free or whole wheat bread crumbs

Directions:
1. If grilling, preheat an outdoor grill for med-high heat, and lightly oil a sheet of aluminum foil. If baking preheat oven to 375 degrees, and lightly oil a baking sheet.
2. In a medium bowl, mash black beans with a fork until thick and pasty.
3. In a blender ir food processor, finely chop bell pepper, onion, and garlic. Then stir into mashed beans.
4. In a small bowl, stir together egg, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder and chili sauce.
5. Stir the egg mixture into the mashed beans. Mix in gluten free bread crumbs until the mixture is sticky and holds together. Divide mixture into 4 patties.
6. If grilling, place patties on foil, and grill about 8 minutes on each side. If baking, place patties on baking sheet, and bake about 10 minutes on each side.

Make 2 batches and freeze one of them for some healthy, delicious quick meals!

Topping options include: fresh spinach, onions, avocado, feta, peppercinis, tomato, grilled mushrooms, salsa, Sriracha, alfafa sprouts & other veggies!

Serve on: Ezekiel Sprouted Grain bread or Ezekiel Sprouted grain burger buns. Other healthy, yummy brands include Daves Killer Bread or Alvarado Street Bakery Bread.

For lower carbs. or Paleo Served open-faced or wrapped in lettuce (butter lettuce, romaine, cabbage)

Note: For a quick, on the go, delicious black bean burger try Garden Burger black bean burgers. They can be found in the “healthy food” Frozen section of most grocery stores.

Delicious & Nutritious: Salmon

If you haven’t read my recent post, “Updates! Updates!” then you don’t know that my fiance & I have been experimenting with a special diet since February 22nd (Lent). This “special diet” is known as the paleolithic diet or caveman diet.  This is a very natural approach to eating that helps you achieve great health and an awesome physique. As you know, the human body evolved for more than 2 million years with food found in nature meaning nothing was processed or man-made. Humans lived off of meat, fish, veggies, fruit, eggs and nuts. They didn’t have dairies or fast food joints and so on. The human race was thriving on this diet high in protein, good fats and low carbohydrates but obviously things changed as soon as we introduced unnatural, processed foods to our bodies…ironically, that is also when cancer, allergies & disease became more common.

For those of you who know me, you know that I am not a big meat-eater. I was a vegetarian for 12 years and I still have yet to eat any red meat & that’s probably never going to change. You also know that I absolutely love my cheese, beans and whole-grain carbs…so trying out this diet has definitely been a challenge for me, but fortunately you get used to it. It has given me the opportunity to try to create new dishes based around meat & veggies and some of them have actually become my new weekly favorites, like salmon. AJ has been a grill-o-holic since we started eating like a caveman, and his grilled pomegranate salmon is the bomb. I can’t give him all of the credit though because I created the yummy topping for this delicious dish. If it’s raining or if you don’t have a grill you can always broil or bake your pomegranate salmon. I LOVE broiled salmon.

The recipe:

Pomegrante, Mushroom & Walnut Salmon

• We found this delicious all natural, sugar-free organic pomegranate grill sauce and marinade at our local farmer’s market for $7 a pop…but it is def. worth it.  If you can’t find anything like that at your grocery store or farmer’s market then you can also use 1 cup of pomegranate juice (preferably organic & sugar-free) mixed with 2 tbsp vinegar (try balsamic) and 1 tbsp of a low-cal sweetener. (sweetener is not paleo, FYI…I think agave nectar might be though…)
• 2 salmon fillets, skin removed
• 1/2 cup of mushrooms, chopped
• 1/2 white or yellow onion, chopped
• 1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil
• pomegranate seeds (optional)
• 1/2 tsp sea salt and pepper

1.First either heat up your grill, set your oven on broil or if you want to bake it then pre heat oven to 400.

2.If broiling or baking place salmon on foil-lined baking pan.

3.Brush the salmon with 1 tbsp oil & 1 tbsp of the pomegranate glaze (only if you found the kind already made otherwise just brush with oil).

4.Sprinkle salmon evenly with sea salt and pepper.

5. Broil about 7-9 minutes or bake/grill for about 10 minutes or until salmon flakes easily with a fork.

6. Meanwhile, If you didn’t find a pre-made pomegranate glaze or sauce then now’s the time to mix the pomegranate juice, sweetener and vinegar in a pan- bring to a boil for about 8-10 minutes till sauce is reduced.

7. In a separate saute pan add the other tbsp of oil and chopped onions and mushrooms and saute over low-medium heat about 5-8 minutes.

8. If you did find the pre-made sauce then simply add 1/4 cup to the sautéed onions and mushrooms and keep it over medium heat for about 5 minutes otherwise keep the homemade pomegranate sauce and sautéed veggies separate.

9. Add the chopped walnuts to the mushroom mix and saute for another minute.

10. Spoon pomegranate sauce and mushroom mix over salmon. Top with fresh pomegranate seeds at the very end.

I usually serve my salmon with grilled asparagus…in this case grilled turkey bacon wrapped asparagus per my fiance’s request. Enjoy!

Note: Picture above  is broiled salmon, picture right here is grilled salmon and asparagus.