no flour peanut butter cookies

Cookie, cookie, cookie, cookie.

Yeah I said it, and I ate it.

Because I could!

Last year, David and I went to a party where brownies and vanilla ice cream were served after dinner.  After tasting the ice cream, David looked at me and said, "I forgot what real ice cream tasted like!"  I felt bad for him.  Often times, because I try to have such a specific diet, he ends up eating like me as well.  Which he doesn't mind... most of the time.  I only use Splenda when cooking with sugar and I only buy "sugary" things made with Splenda.

Let's just say, I'm a fan.

I took a common recipe for peanut butter cookies and used Splenda instead.  There are only FOUR ingredients and none of them are flour!! Woohoo!  I made half plain and the other half with roasted no salt peanuts.  They were delicious and easy!

Peanut Butter Cookies (No Flour)

Makes 12

1 cup JIF Reduced Fat Peanut Butter

1 cup Splenda

1 egg

1/4 tsp Vanilla

Preheat to 325.

Mix all ingredients together.  If your ingredients seem to be dry when mixed together, you can add 1 egg white.  If you add too much Splenda, add some additional peanut butter and it will balance the flavors for you.

Bake for 12-14 minutes until outer edges are a shade darker than the rest of the cookie.

I enjoyed these with a glass of almond milk while working on some back-to-school projects.








Hazel helped too, but no cookies for her!

butternut squash soup

This Monday is finally coming to an end.  

We are wrapping up the evening by watching the debate, of course.

The hubs and I fell in love talking politics, so what else would we do.

But earlier tonight...

Let me just tell you... I outdid myself.

I mean I'm seriously impressed.

I made a soup.

And not just one with tons of beans, but something yummy and healthy.

Husband ate two bowls, so I know I'm not crazy, it's REALLY good!

Butternut Squash Soup.

YUM.

And it gave me an excuse to buy an immersion blender.

What goes in it?

1 large butternut squash (3-4 cups cubed)

2 carrots peeled

2 celery stalks

1 small onion

7 cups of fat free chicken broth

4 sage leaves

1/2 cup skim milk

salt and pepper

How do you put it together?

Get out a big pot and lid.

Cube your butternut squash.

Chop up your celery and onion.

Peel your carrot.

Throw it all in the pot.

Add chicken broth and sage leaves.

Boil for 10 minutes.

Cover and simmer for 40 minutes.

Remove sage leaves.

Puree with immersion blender (while on stove).

Add milk, salt and pepper to taste.

Puree, puree, puree.

Add some parmesan cheese to the top if you like.

Trust me, you won't regret it.

I hope you ENJOY :)

Roasted Green Beans and Mushrooms

This weekend has been so much fun! Friday night, David and I went on date night as usual.

We watched the end of the Braves game at dinner and saw the in-fly ball call.

Let's just say, so far, not a good weekend for Georgia sports.

However, I still love my Dawgs!

David and I threw a little get together for the game last night.

But more on that another time!

Onto the food!

The challenge I have found with a low-carb diet is coming up with good side dishes.

I am a creature of habit.

Once I find something I love (for example, mashed cauli) I wear it out.

So I've been searching for something different, something yummy that is not just frozen veggies.

And something easy.

Let me preface this recipe by saying, you will not be able to control yourself.

In fact, David and I tried it before plating it for dinner and had to stop ourselves so we would have some left!  This recipe is SO good and SO easy and SO addicting!

And being the creature of habit that I am, we ate it as a side TWICE last week!

I hope you love them as much as we do!

Roasted Green Beans and Mushrooms

Fresh cut green beans

Mushrooms

1 1/2 tbsp Olive Oil

2 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar

Salt and Pepper to your liking

Parmesan to your liking

Then follow these EASY directions...

Toss everything into a baggie.

Shake it up! Cover everything.

I've been shake it up, coating it and letting it sit until the oven preheats!

Spread everything out on a baking sheet.

Make sure you spray it so nothing sticks!

And YUM!

I hope you enjoy!!

We definitely have!

done and done

David and I are so busy during the week we hardly have time to do anything, especially cook!

While I was searching Pinterest, I started to notice how so many women make their meals once a week or once every two weeks and freeze them.  

So I picked out a couple recipes and got busy.
This literally took me less than 20 minutes to put together.

Before I talk about my recipes, I should tell you about an amazing new app I downloaded.  Not only do I have it on my iPhone, I can access it via the web anywhere.

On Google Chrome, I have a Evernote Webclipper.  So anytime I find a recipe I like, I click on my clipper and tag it in recipes.  It organizes everything for me!  I can clip any recipes and tag them to a specific notebook.

The best part, if I need to look up something from a recipe that I can't remember, I can access it EASILY while at the store!

I made two dishes for this week--Basil Pesto Chicken and Chicken Parm Bake!

I write the directions on the tops, so that David can start something before I get home if he wants.

Here are my recipes!

Basil Pesto Chicken

- Chicken breasts

- Basil Pesto

- Mozzarella cheese

Cook at 375 for 25 minutes.

Pull out, cover in mozzarella cheese and continue cooking 5-7 minutes!

Enjoy!

Chicken Parm Bake

- Chicken breasts

- 1 cup Fage greek yogurt

- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese

- Seasoned salt

- Pepper

- Garlic powder

- Onion powder

Preheat to 375.

Cover chicken breasts in the seasonings.

Mix greek yogurt and parm cheese together.

Cover chicken in mixture.  Cover the top of every piece so that it doesn't dry out!

Cook 45 minutes.

Top with fresh parm at the end and let melt.

ENJOY!

banana pancakes? no flour? yes ma'am.

I hope you are having a great weekend!  My Dawgs beat Tennessee and my Volleydoggs came in 3rd at their region tournament!  Hard work pays off!  Now all I feel like doing is going to bed for days!

Fall break is soon enough!

I have a new AMAZING recipe to share with you!

No Flour Banana Pancakes

Do the words pancakes and gluten free go together? Nope.  And they don't taste good either.

But you know what does taste good? Banana pancakes.

What's even better?  Flour free banana pancakes.

Take 1 banana, 1 egg, and 1 egg white. (I also added a little cinnamon!)

Blend. Not too much, but enough!

Spray your skillet.

Make pancakes!

No flour! Lots of protein and potassium!

And they taste, AMAZING!!!!!

I hope you enjoy them!

my mama is awesome :)

My mama is super awesome.  For a lot of reasons. I don't talk about her enough on my blog.

I was feeling a little homesick today after seeing my parents for just a short time yesterday.

David and I took care of Charley while they went to the UGA game.  She was so precious and sweet. It was really fun!

Today, I forgot to get cauliflower at the grocery store and I had this weird feeling I was supposed to go to Walmart to get it.  I was just walking around (with no particular plan in mind and FOUR bags of frozen cauli).  I had thought about getting a pumpkin to sit out for the fall season.  I was thinking about this pretty glass pumpkin my mama always puts out.  She keeps candy corn in it all season.

Just as I had this thought, I turned around and saw one that looked just like hers!  It was only $5, so needless-to-say it now sits on my dining room table with candy corn in it.  While I can't eat it, I know David will enjoy it.  And my homesickness has subsided, because now I have a piece of home here :)

I've been using my crockpot a lot lately.  My amazing mama suggested a recipe she found for Balsamic Chicken.  Yesterday I prepared it, and today we ate it.  AMAZING.  I'm seriously in love!

Let me tell you, my mama knows everything.

I put this yummy meal on before Church and it was ready when we got home!

Inside this pot you will find:

6 pieces of chicken breast (uncooked)

1 tsp Rosemary, Oregano, Basil

1/2 tsp Thyme

4 garlic cloves

1/2 cup Balsamic Vinegar

1 tsp Oil

1 can of diced tomatoes (I used fire-roasted)

1 onion (sliced, not diced)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Only 4 hours on high!

This is what the chicken looked like plated.  We had mashed cauli and black eyed peas with it!  This recipe was super easy and so good!  We absolutely loved it.

Way to go mama!  Thank you for an amazing recommendation!

I hope you had a great weekend!

sundays

I love Sundays.

First, we are loving our Church.

www.watfbc.org

Secondly, it is always just a good day.

I go grocery shopping.

Then make a dinner that will hopefully provide enough leftovers for three nights.

But more on that in a minute... I need to brag on my amazing hubby real quick.

He surprised me with a dozen red roses on Friday!

Work has been wearing me OUT, so it was a really great surprise!

 

But back to Sunday.  Last night, I burnt FOUR fingers on a pan that I didn't know was hot.  OUCH!

 David and I have received a lot of tomatoes recently.  Which I have no qualms with, because I LOVE slicing them up, adding some mozzarella and parm, Italian seasonings, and broiling them for 3-4 minutes.  It's like summer in your mouth.

 

Last night I decided to try out a snack recipe I had seen on Pinterest.   I'm not a huge edamame fan, however when I saw crispy in front of it, I knew I had to make them.

They were everything I dream they would be.  YUMMY!

All I did was shell frozen edamame, tossed them in a little oil, lots of salt and pepper, and grated parm.  400 degrees, 15 minutes. YUMMY pieces of heaven.

 

Needless to say, we had a good Sunday.

I hope yours was too!

I Did It!!!

I made the cauliflower pizza!!! It was so good (and easy)!  David is never skeptical when I tell him about my cooking ambitions.  But when I said, cauliflower pizza crust, I knew he was wondering how it would taste (as was I), it sounds weird!  However, we loved it!  It tasted just like pizza!

All that went into the crust was cauliflower, 1 egg, and seasoning!  First, I turned my cauliflower head into "rice" via my favorite kitchen appliance, the food processor.  I then steamed it on the stove.  Make sure you pat out all of the moisture afterwards.

Once I mixed the ingredients together, I patted out my crust and baked it at 450 for 30 minutes, or until you've reached the crispiness that you like!  Then I turned my oven to broil, added my toppings, and put it back in for about 6 minutes.  

It was so yummy!  I will definitely be making this dish for us again!

Just like real pizza, but gluten free/no carb!

YAY!

Have you tried cauliflower pizza? What are your thoughts?

Stuffed Peppers!

I have been eying stuffed peppers on Pinterest for awhile now. And after repeatedly being told that a crock pot is a teacher's best friend, I decided to give them a try!

I spent my Saturday doing laundry, writing lesson plans, and getting ready for the first day of school. I was so busy and seriously all over the place. So I popped those peppers in the crock pot for the day.

They were amazing! David and I are in love! They were nothing I expected, and so good!!!

Let me tell you what I did! First, I put some ground turkey in a bowl. Then I added tons of seasonings, which included:

-Onion Powder
-Oregano
-Salt
-Minced garlic
-Seasoned salt
-Garlic salt

I tossed them all together. While doing this, I was boiling some rice. Once the rice had boiled, I added a cup of cooked brown rice to the meat and tossed it all together!

Lastly, I added about a 1/2 cup of marinara sauce to the meat mixture. My sauce had chunks of tomato and basil in it, adding a good texture to the meat!

I cut the tops off my peppers (I used two green and two red) and cleaned them out. I stuffed them with the meat mixture. I even put some of the leftover mixture on two of the tops.

I put them close together in the crock pot and cooked on high the first 2 hours, then low for 4 more hours. However, I read that low for 8 hours works too.

For the last 2 minutes I threw some mozzarella cheese on them and it was perfect!

I thought David would demolish at least two of these, but one was plenty!  I could hardly eat a whole one!  So now we have leftovers :)

Seriously, these peppers are so good! I would recommend them to anyone!

I hope you enjoy!

what to cook?

The official countdown to my wedding is now 4 DAYS!!!!! I'm over the top excited :) :)

However, this blog is going to be about after the wedding. And after the honeymoon.

It's about food.

I feel as if the first meal I cook as a married woman is an important one.  So I have very carefully selected several dishes -all Pinterest and blog inspired- to choose from.  AND I would MUCH appreciate having your opinion on the matter!  So let me know what you think would be the most memorable first meal for my new hubby in my comments!

Oh and did I mention this is a 3 course meal?  Well, it is.  And carb-free/low-carb, sugar free?  Well, it is.  Setting my goals high people.

Possible Appetizers

Cauliflower Pizza

Skinny Spinach Dip

Hot Chorizo and Cheese Dip

Possible Dishes

White Chicken Enchiladas

Chicken Picatta

Possible Sides to a Chicken Dish

Zucchini Cakes (No Flour Added!)

Fake Mashed Potatoes! (I've been dying to try these!)

Possible Dessert

Frozen Peanut Butter Pie 

 

Okay, I know the Peanut Butter Pie doesn't look sugar free, but it is flour free and I can do a lot with the ingredients to get the sugar out!  But again, let me know if you have any suggestions?  What are your favorite main dishes, etc.?

Getting excited!

Love,

wedding wedding wedding

Sorry it's been awhile since I posted!  I have seriously been "going doing making" for the wedding nonstop these days!  We only have 10 days until the BIG day!!!! And we couldn't be happier!  I've been up to a lot these days.  And some of it I need to wait and show you after the wedding!  Don't want to spoil the big day for anyone!  Today, my mama and I left for Athens in the morning and spent a long day running errands and meeting with people!  I also had my make-up trial run today :)

Eating at Marti's at Midday is a HUGE treat for me!  Since I'm usually on a 21 minute lunch break... haha.  And it never fails to be amazing!  I had the curry chicken salad... YUM!  Now usually this comes with tons of yummy pita chips to eat your chicken salad with, but for the insulin resistant-I just go without!

Not to make it seem like all we did was eat today, but we tried out a new restaurant in Athens!  For those of you who are familiar with the city, it's next to Brumby on Baxter, where Jimmy John's used to be!  It's called Skogies and it was awesome!  You pick a protein (grilled or fried) and a side.  My mama and I both had grilled shrimp with broccoli salad!

Lately, I've been trying out some new hair products and I have TWO absolute favorites!!  The first is Psssst! Dry Shampoo, which I have talked about on here before.  I spray it on my clean hair and it keeps it fresher longer!

The second product that I'm LOVING is Organix Moroccan Argan Oil.  It is wonderful!  This shampoo and conditioner makes my hair feel clean, soft, and shiny.   I am in L.O.V.E! Are there any hair products you are loving? Let me know, I love trying new things!

I hope you are having a great week!  I promise to update more as the wedding gets closer!!!!!

caluiflower poppers

Lately, I've been contemplating the idea of going gluten-free. My only qualm with it is whether or not I will be able to feed a very hungry man enough food when we get married. If you have any tips or suggestions please let me know. Otherwise, for now I'm going to stick to a low-glycemic diet.

However, low-glycemic doesn't mean I can't look for ways to make healthy food yummy too right? I mean, what is more fun that healthy food that comes in the form of unhealthy food? These cauliflower poppers are to die for and wait for it.... it's good for you! Again, this wonderful recipe was found at Delighted Momma.

All you will need is cauliflower, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Let's get real... that's easy! I love it when healthy food is easy! I followed her recipe exactly and it was perfect. You can find it at the link above!