Category: Recipes
Egg-tastic Idea’s For Your Breakfast
Good Morning,
I am sure ready for spring. Are you? I’m excited to get back to my fitness website providing content for clean eating, exercise idea’s, motivation, and you will see a little bit of my family strewn in through out my posts.
When I sit down with my clients during the initial consultation we talk about clean eating. I touch on a variety of food groups such as eggs, chicken, and spinach. That are packed with nutrition to fuel and keep your body feeling good.
Do you feel stuck in a rut with Idea’s for your breakfast?
“I’m tired of eggs.” It’s often something I hear often from my clients. If you know me well enough I love eggs. I almost have eggs at least once a day. I love my chickens and the organic eggs they produce daily for our family.
Meet one of my Chickens
If I don’t have them at breakfast I often will eat them at lunch. I eat my eggs in various forms and have listed a few of my favorite Egg-tastic recipes below to share.
Eggs are a great high quality protein that aren’t super pricey and rich in vitamins and minerals. If we have left over bacon from a previous Sunday brunch I will save it. I’ll sauté some spinach with my eggs and chop up and throw in the bacon. I am also having myself a piece of Ezekiel bread in this photo with my homemade freezer jam. I talk a little more about homemade freezer jam here: Homemade freezer jam
Eggs, spinach, and Bacon
I love avacado and pairing healthy fats with good carbs and protien is great for refueling. I came up with this idea one day and have been hooked on this combination ever since.
2 eggs, sour cream, avacado, and homemade salsa,
Eating eggs with vegetables and salad help us absorb nutrients from the vegetables. I love meal prepping salads for the week with this combination below. I will often hard-boil a dozen eggs and then use my egg slicer and slice the eggs ino fresh salads.
arugula, cucumbers, carrots, aspargus, and red peppers
I’m getting mighty hungry typing this post. What are your favorite egg-tastic meals? How do you incorporate eggs into your meals? I hope you were able to get some new idea’s and get take a little look inside the Live Fit Women’s Fitness kitchen.
Next week I’ll be back with my top five tips for developing healthy habits.
Enjoy the end of your week! We have a baby shower and I look forward to sharing some of my DIY mason jar creations with you next week!
Blessings, Michelle
Zucchini Bread Recipe
Good afternoon, this has been a childhood favorite of mine for years. Smelling this bread cooking takes me right back to the kitchen I grew up in. I remember coming in out of the fields and sitting down on my bar stool at the island waiting for my mom to take this bread out of the oven.
Below you can find the original recipe and if you want to make it healthier I will give suggestions next to the ingredients. I always make this bread in small mini loaf pans because my husband and kids like to eat it for breakfast, snacks, it makes it easier to grab and go. It may not be the healthiest recipe but when I bake I always use the everything in moderation rule. I’ll only eat one mini-loaf at breakfast in place of my Ezekiel bread.
Zucchini Bread:
1 1/2 cup flour (wheat flour)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 cup sugar (brown sugar)
1 1/2 cup shredded zucchini
1 egg
1/4 cup oil (applesauce)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or almonds
*(healthy substitutes)
- Mix first 6 ingredients together
- In a mixing bowl beat sugar, zucchini, egg and add oil
- Stir flour mixture into zucchini mixture and fold in nuts
- Bake at 350 for 1 hr (mini-loaf pans, require less time and you will need to check every 10-15 minutes, they don’t take a full hr to cook)
- grease pan and cook until a tooth pick comes out clean
Enjoy and Blessings,
Michelle
Cook With Michelle Thursday: Homemade Wedding Soup
Good MORNING!
It is blustering cold here. My oldest has a snow day and I want to stay wrapped up in my bathrobe and drink coffee all day. I have wedding soup cooking on the stove and the house smells immaculate as the wind gusts bang against our windows and the girls clang around in pretend high heels and frozen dresses.
As a new season of resolutions and goals begins, my husband and I have really made a commitment to cut out snacking and eating out in the New Year.
Evening snacks are our nemesis. We used to be in a very good grove when it came to preparing a meal plan, eating clean, not snacking past 8pm and limiting our eating out as a family to one time per month.
But, life happens. Right. It throws you for a loop and some of our good eating habits sustained through a difficult season while some of the negative ones returned.
You learn from setbacks and mistakes and use them as knowledge to become better.
Soups are great to freeze for future lunches
One thing I love to do is prepare meals for lunches and freeze them. Easy and quick to grab when you are in a rush and this also prevents my husband from buying his lunch. I feel the winter can be a hard time to fit your daily serving of vegetables and soups are a great way to get those servings of vegetables in.
Here is my homemade wedding soup recipe:
Ingredients:
1 bag of celery
1 bag of carrotts
1 full chicken
1 3lb can of chicken broth
meatballs (you can make your own or buy tiny meatballs) I cheat sometimes and buy a frozen pre-made bag at a little mom and pop Italian Store in town
escarole (we buy it frozen at the Italian Foods store)
Romano cheese (I also buy this at the local Italian store, can you see the trend that we love Dioguardi’s)
salt
pepper
Acini De Pepe 1lb
Cooking Directions:
I created some of my own chicken broth by boiling the entire chicken in water; enough to cover it a few inches. I cooked on medium to low for 2-3 hours. I removed the chicken (carefully) and let it cool. I bought a Ninja last year at target and am in love with how it dices the vegetables for soups and salads and it is a huge time saver. I placed the carrots and celery in the ninja one at a time and diced them up. I ladled out any remaining chicken and made sure the broth was ready for cooking. I added the 3lb can of broth and diced veggies. Once the chicken was cool I shredded it and added it back to the pot of soup. Add meatballs, Romano cheese, salt, pepper (to taste), and escarole.
Cook the carrots and celery until soft. Boil the pound of pasta separately and strain. Add to soup once cooked and ready.
Enjoy, What’s your favorite winter soup? Hope you will enjoy this Wedding Soup recipe and that it keeps you warm on this cold winters day!
Fitness Tip: 1 cup of escarole is rich in fiber, vitamins K, A, and C. It can help aid in prevention of osteoporosis and hypertension. Dark leafy green vegetables like escarole may produce healthy eye health and prevent development of cancers.
Blessings, Michelle
Homemade Wedding Soup
Holiday Party Favor’s: Cook with Michelle Thursday
Good Afternoon Live Fit,
Quick post this afternoon as I need to squeeze in my workout still today (Back and Biceps). We been preparing for Christmas and my husband has been remodeling our kitchen in the mist of the holiday season. The days have seemed so long lately as we are missing our sweet Angelina Hope so much. We have been trying to document and create family traditions to help celebrate Angelina as we decorate, bake and wrap presents with the girls.
Homemade Granola
Today I made my homemade Granola and packaged it in these adorable little gift bags for my training clients and for a Christmas cookie exchange that is being hosted by one of the other girls that teaches aerobics at our gym.
Homemade Granola
I am so blessed by these women who I have gotten to know over the last few years at the gym. Our conversations are usually held while crab walking, performing burpies, holding planks and running stairs. We usually don’t get together to often outside the gym due to the craziness of life but are having a cookie exchange tomorrow and I wanted to make a cute favor to bring. I am so excited to hang out with these ladies as they have been such an incredible extended support system over the last year. It brings this verse to mind:
“Two are better then one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
Below is the link to the recipe for my homemade granola recipe: I love making big pans of this recipe and placing the crumbled up granola in little snack baggies to throw in my gym bag or purse for a quick on the go pick-me up and in my chobanni yogurt.
https://livefitwomensfitness.com/2013/08/08/quick-clean-eating-on-the-gohomemade-granola/
Packaged and Ready to Go!
I got the gift bags at a local Giant Eagle for $1.99 and the small clothes pins at Micheal’s for .99 cents.
Are you attending a cookie exchange this year? what is your favorite type of cookie to make? Do you make favors for any of your holiday parties? Please share your idea’s and favorite cookie idea’s in the comments section below!
Blessings, Michelle
Egg steak and rice stir fry : cook with Michelle Thursday
Do you ever wonder to yourself around 3:30 what am I going to make for dinner? When 4:15 rolls around my girls are always asking: “mom what’s for dinner?”
That’s why I’m introducing: Cook with Michelle Thursday
Thursdays will be the new designated day on Live Fit’s site in which I’ll be sharing what’s cooking in our kitchen!
I also encourage you to share your recipe ideas in the comments section! I know when we find a new recipe we like it’s automatically added it into our family meal rotation.
Do you have a meal rotation?
Our meal rotation consists of 10-15 different meals that I rotate throughout each month. I often have a few quick go to meals when we don’t have much time in which I keep the things needed to make these meals in my lazy Susan.
I’ve found our meal rotation keeps us eating healthy, provides a good variety of food and helps cut down on our grocery budget. I work up a meal plan pulling meals from our meal rotation for each week and grab the things I need at the store and try to stick to my list. If I’m without my list I have no direction in the store and often forget things. When I end up heading back to the grocery store I end up buying more unneeded items.
Canning is one other way I cut my grocery budget and keep my family eating fresh from our garden all year long. You can read more about canning in these posts: Canning Recipes
On tonight’s dinner menu: Egg Steak and Rice Stir Fry
I picked an Egg Steak and Rice Stir fry for a few reasons. One I needed to use up some steaks we grilled a few days ago. Secondly, our chickens have been producing 6-7 eggs a day and thirdly I had a lot of vegetables in the fridge.
Egg Steak and Rice Stir Fry
half onion
Colored peppers (I used orange and yellow)
I diced carrot sticks up in my ninja (easier for the kids to eat)
Broccoli
Sauté the above in olive oil
Cook 12 eggs in a separate skillet (I added mozzarella cheese and tomato basil feta to the eggs)
I cut up the steak and added it in with the eggs
Cook 2 servings of rice in separate pan
Add all together with a dash of salt, pepper, seasoning salt and garlic and you have a egg steak and rice stir fry!
Enjoy and blessings, what is your favorite stir fry dish?
Michelle
Peanut butter almond protein bars
My oldest daughter loves helping in the kitchen. My husband is always cleaning us out of protein. I have been trying some different recipes to make a homemade protein bar. Here is what Ava and I came up with in the kitchen today. This recipe is perfect because it was non-messy, she was able to stir these, and then roll them into balls.
Peanut butter almond protein bars:
Dry ingredients first: (I used my ninja to grind these all up very fine)
1/2 cup almonds
2 cups of oats
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup Reese chips
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup flax seeds
Chocolate protein powder(2 scoops)
Grind these all up in the ninja
Wet ingredients:
1/3 cup honey
2 cups peanut butter
Fold the dry and wet ingredients together, roll in balls and throw in the fridge. Give the about an hour! They are tasty and you could get creative adding in different ingredients, great for a quick refuel after your workout.
Blessings, Michelle
Motivation Monday: Start this week off with a healthy breakfast
Where does the weekend go seriously? Well I have really learned the hard way in the past. Working out hard and putting in my hours and not seeing results. That is when I realized how much diet and fitness work together. Our diet is just if not equally important as our fitness regimen. You want to be rewarded for your hard work by seeing results. Thats when I realized that my mom was right, It has to start with a healthy breakfast. Not with somedays, everyday. Consistency here is the key. Eating a healthy breakfast is the basis of any good and healthy routine in life.
If you have kids, or a crazy work schedule, believe me I get it. It’s hard to plan out your meals and I have fallen victim to starbucks, dunkin donuts, the big breakfast (oh man it’s good), countless times because I failed to plan. I also extend out grace on certain occasions, well because come on Starbucks is a nice treat. Most days I have gotten into the routine of making breakfast that provides lean protien, fiber, and carbs out to my kids. At first it was hard, I mean MOMMY, Mom, I NEED Water, I’m hungggery, I pooped(ya, gotta love my middle child so dramatic in the morning), I just want to throw anything I can at her because I feel a bit scattered brained and then I remember, hey I have to feed my kids healthy breakfast too!
It was also overwhelming to me when I got online to find out healthy idea’s that I could make quick for my husband and kids. I get asked a lot at the gym about my diet so I thought I would share breakfast on most days and my oatmeal trick with you:0
A few Tips why breakfast is important:
1. Eating breakfast starts us off on the right foot, helping us make better choices throughout the day
2. By skipping breakfast to cut back on calories, it could cause you to over eat at other meals
3. It helps balance your fitness regimen by fueling your workout
4. Helps control your hunger and keeps you from reaching an unhealthy mid-morning snack
A few things to incorporate with your breakfast:
1. Lean protien-holds you over longer and helps you feel full until lunch (eggs have the highest quality of protien-grab an omelet instead of a bagel!)
2. Fiber- helps digestion, decreases cholesterol, controls our blood sugar, and helps with weight loss
3. Complex carbohydrates- whole grains, veggies, fruits are high in essential vitamins and minerals. They contain fiber and polysaccharides(which require more energy to digest and are released into our blood stream slower). (USDA recommends 55-60% of our total caloric intake be from this form of carbohydrates). While only 10% is coming from simple carbohydrates. These are refined sugars, table sugar, low nutrient density food, honey, corn syrup.
We usually have this variety for breakfast:
chobani yogurt w. peanut butter and honey 100% whole wheat toast (smoothie mid-morning)
Malt o meal w. peanut butter and honey 100% whole wheat toast (smoothie mid-morning)
Omelet w. butter 100% whole wheat toast (smoothie mid morning)
Oatmeal w. nut mixture and a pinch of brown sugar (smoothie mid morning)
Below is a picutre of how, (If I know the week is going to be hectic) I store my oatmeal. I make a big batch on Monday and then I pull it out throughout the week warm it up and add some brown sugar and nuts. The kids love all of this!
Please share your idea’s below, on our Facebook page, Instagram, or twitter. I love getting new ideas and it’s healthy and good for our bodies to change up the foods we eat. #livefitin2014
Blessings, Michelle
Quick Guacamole Recipe
Hey Fitness Family,
Over the years I have tried various guacamole recipes and finally crafted one that is quick and easy. My kids beg me to make the green stuff for a snack and my husband loves refueling with some fresh guacamole after what he calls a “good Pump” in the weight room.
Here are a few benefits of incorporating avocado into your diet:
Helps with Immunity- Provides vitamin C, B6, helps fight off illness, heal infection, tissue repair and wounds.
Muscles- Helps grow, develop, assist in formation of connective tissue
Helps the body digest and metabolize food turning it into energy
Helps with skin health, teeth, bones and with the cardiovascular system.
Quick Guacamole Recipe:
2 ripe Avocado’s
1 tomato
Mash with a fork or wooden spoon (I love the chunks)
2 squirts of lemon and lime juice
sprinkle of garlic, onion powder, salt and pepper
I really love making a whole wheat quesadilla and placing this on top of it!
Enjoy and Blessings! -Michelle
Burrito Night
Hey Fitness Friends, Totally forgot to post this recipe! It’s delicious and my husbands and I’s remake of chipotle!
The original recipe is actually from a girl that I teach aerobics with at the gym. She is always making great healthy dishes. We get together regularly and let the kids play and hangout together. I get to try all types of new healthy recipes when I hangout with these ladies. They have truly been an inspiration to me on my health journey. Blessed to have these women and their children in my lives!
2cans(15oz ea)black beans, rinsed and drained
1can(11oz)mexicorn,drained
1tomatoe chopped
1 avacado,peeled and cubed
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4cup red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp hot pepper sauce (optional)
Tortilla chips
In a bowl, combine the beans,corn,tomatoe,avacado,and onion. In a small bowl, whisk the oil, vinegar, salt, and hot pepper sauce;pour over bean mixture toss to coat. Serve with tortilla chips if desired.
My husband and I ate it with tortilla chips and then decided to take the recipe one step further. We used the leftovers for burrito’s. We just cooked some hamburger in taco seasonings, threw it in a whole wheat tortilla and added a few scoops of this recipe. I added extra guacamole, tomatoes, and instead of using chopped onion I used onion powder. We did not have the hot pepper sauce on hand. This is also a great end of the year garden recipe to use up extra tomatoes and corn.
Fit Tip: Always rinse contents that you are using to cook with from a can it helps wash off excess sodium used to preserve!
Blessings Live fit, I hope you enjoyed this recipe as much as we did. What is your favorite chipotle remake recipe?
Home-canning Recipes
Hey LIve Fit,
Here are a few of my favorite canning recipes. If you are new to canning and have questions about what process or hot bath means please comment away and I will do my best to help answer your questions. My pizza sauce recipe is also just a lot of throwing together so please if you have questions with that let me know! I always make notes on my recipes in my cook book about where and who I got them from. From one kitchen to the next lets spread the wealth of healthy eating ladies!
Tomato Soup: ( My mother-in-Law for found this delicious treasure! great for a quick lunch in the winter. It tastes out of this world with the fresh tomatoes)
14 quarts ripe tomatoes
14 ribs celery
14 stems of parsley
11 bay or basil leaves (We prefer basil Leaves)
Cook this together first until it cooks down and is tender. Put through a sieve( I always have my husband do this part) Place back in the kettle. Add these ingredients:
7 Medium Onions
2 Cups of Cream
14 T. of flour
1lb of butter
8 T. of salt (I cut this in half and do 4)
16 T. of sugar (I cut this in half and do 8)
Boil a half hour and then pour in hot jars and process jars for 15 minutes
*I usually double most of my recipes, so my yield is higher
Yellow Peppers: (My mother-in-law found this a couple years back great on sandwiches, on top of fresh pizza, or in a skillet with eggs, potatoes and rice)
1 pinch of alum
1 T salt
1 clove garlic
put in each jar, then add cut up banana peppers
pour over top of above mixture after it has boiled:
6 c vinegar
6 c water
2 c sugar
Make sure the jars are hot right out of the dishwasher along with the lids. Make sure the lids pop to ensure proper sealing. You will hear a little pop and the lid will be pushed down to indicated it sealed.
Salsa: (Got this recipe from one of my best girlfriends Melissa we can it together each year)
8 cups of tomato
2 1/2 cups onion
1 cup jalapeños or green or assorted peppers
6 cloves garlic
2 1/2 tsp cumin
2 tsp black pepper
2T canning salt
1/3 cup vinegar
15oz tomato sauce
12oz tomato paste
boil 10 mins and then squirt in lime, place into hot canning jars and process 15 mins
End of the Year Pizza Sauce: ( Use up the rest of your tomatoes and bell peppers)
cut up a pan full of assorted tomatoes, green peppers, onion, garlic,
have these spices out and ready (pepper, salt, oregano,)
Fill the bottom of the blender with tomatoes and a little bit of water, add green pepper, onion, clove of garlic and a shake of pepper, salt, oregano and blend (I Usually fill blender until almost full)
have a big pot on the stove ready and pour in the blended batch and repeat until you are done with the cut up vegetables. Bring to a boil and let it cook down. Have your jars hot and ready fill them up and process them in the hot bath for 15 minutes.
when you get out a jar of this add a can of paste and heat up to thicken on the stove. Place on pizza crust, Enjoy:)
Please post your favorite canning recipe, we are on this journey of health and fitness together!
Blessings, Michelle
Live Fit Women's Fitness 