What's In The Fridge Stuffed Peppers

I love recipes that allow me to throw whatever is in the fridge into a meal, especially if it can be healthy. As we all do I believe. So loosely take what I have for ingredients and use whatever you'd like. 

What you need for this recipe:

• 3 bell peppers (more or less depending on the amount of people you have.
• 1 cup of precooked rice. This is great to do if you have leftover rice from the day before or food prepping. I used leftover brown rice.
• half an onion
• 2 tbsp garlic
• Olive oil
• 1 cup of kale/spinach
• 1 cup of kidney beans. Other options could be cooked ground beef or chicken or any other bean you have on hand. 
• 1 cup of cheese of choice. We used marble, but mozzarella or goat cheese would be fabulous. 
• salt and pepper and/or any other seasonings you love. 

Directions:

1. Preheat he oven to 400 degrees. 
2. Heat oil in the pan and add the onions and beans until tender. Or you can add your meat of choice until cooked.
3. Add the garlic and the greens until wilted.
4. Add the rice to warm it up, if it's been cold in the fridge from leftovers.
5. Cut the peppers in half and scoop out the seeds.
6. Add cooked mixture to the inside of each half.
7. Top with cheese.
8. Put the peppers on a cookie sheet and pop in the oven until the cheese is melted and the peppers are soft. I like to put on broil the last minute to get the cheese to bubble. 
9. Enjoy!

What's in the fridge that you will put in yours?

Love, 

Jen

What's In The Fridge Spaghetti Squash Lasagna

I've had this spaghetti squash on my counter for a bit. My daughters hate spaghetti squash and I love it. Usually I would cook it and save some to be eaten later but this squash was a little on the bigger side and I just know I wouldn't have eaten it all. So I cooked it up with what I had in the fridge for a vegetarian, gluten free side dish at a potluck I was heading to.

I hate opening recipes and finding what seems like a million ingredients or finding I'm missing a couple and there is no way to make it. Really use what you've got. Use your veggies or maybe you'd prefer to have ground beef or tofu instead. Use your favourite cheese, they all get that gooey crust on top when you hit the broiler for a few minutes.

Ingredients:

• 1 Spaghetti Squash
• Olive oil
• Onion
• Garlic
• Vegetables - I used carrot, zucchini and bell pepper
• Pasta Sauce
• Cheese of choice - I used Gouda, could use traditional mozarella or a lower fat version.
• Seasoning, italian seasoning, garlic powder (I really like garlic) and fresh basil from the garden (dry will be fine too)

1. Cook the squash. I'll give you two methods depending on your time. Cut the squash in half lengthwise.

   -Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. . Roast cut side down for abour 30-40 minutes. Or until your fork goes into the squash with relative ease.

   -You can also stick it in the microwave, cut side down for 5-10 minutes depending on your settings.

2. While the squash cooks you can cook your vegetables or protein. For the vegetables I started with the carrots because they take longer to cook, then added the zucchini and bell pepper. Cook until soft and remove from the pan. Put the cooked veggies on a cutting board and cut up. This makes it easier to have the consistency of say ground beef without having to make sure all the veggies are the same size before cooking.
3. A little more olive oil in the pan and cook the garlic and onion. Cook until soft and starting to brown.
4. Add the pasta sauce to the pan with the garlic and onions and turn the temperature down low. Add seasoning to taste.
5. Add the vegetables back into the pan with the sauce. Remove pan from heat.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees if you didn't use the oven to cook the squash.
7. Now assemble like a lasagna! Little bit of sauce at the bottom, layer of spaghetti squash, layer of sauce, layer of cheese and repeat. Mine had two layers, but I had a longer shallow dish. Do with what you've got.
8. Bake for 45 minutes. Then hit broil for 3-5 minutes just until you have some browning on top. Watch this carefully, broil can go from perfect to burnt quickly.

Macros for 1/8th of the recipe. (That's very filling!)

Calories: 165, Fat 8.6g, Carb 15.4 g, Protein 8.3g, Fiber 3.4g

It's a Lifestyle, Not A Diet

I used to be so sick of hearing this. It's a lifestyle, not a diet. Blah blah blah. But you know what? It's true. Although it doesn't mean it changes overnight either. I had a great conversation with a dear old friend today. It was about her wanting to eat better, take better care of herself. For health, for esthetic, for trying to have a baby. She's struggled with eating well and exercsing. Motivation and execution. She told me "eating better" and getting healthy just seemed like such an overwhelming task. Too much to learn and know. Wished it could be as easy for her as it's been for me.

It never was just easy. Still isn't. I never learned overnight how to eat well and exercise and so on. It started with learning a little bit at a time, research, some trial and error and finding what I like and don't like.

But I get it. That feeling like no matter where you look there is advice and then just as fast someone telling you another way is the right way. Eat breakfast, don't eat breakfast. Run a lot; don't do cardio. Eat less, eat more, eat clean, eat whatever fits! No wonder so many of us give up before we start.

I'm no expert, but it's also no secret I love nutrition and exercise. I even plan to start schooling to become a Holistic Nutritionist next year. So here is the advice I shared with her.

We took her hardest hurdle. Breakfast. She never eats it. Now I will side with suggesting it should be eaten. So I told her to spend the next week focusing on breakfast. Pre-make smoothie packs and put in the freezer, then pop them out, blend with milk in the morning and go. Gave her a vague recipe to follow and told her to play with until she liked the taste. But to include carbs (fruit), protein (powder we bought together) and healthy fat (flaxseed). And a bit of spinach for micronutrients.

I know she has struggled so hard, but I know she will do this. Because we took away the perfection of it. I said, eat what you normally would each week. Burgers after ball practice, beers on Friday night, hangover pizza the next day. Whatever. Just focus on the smoothies for breakfast.

Why not give her a meal plan to follow and say "eat only this"? Because thats not changing her own opinion on foods, not helping her know the "why?". Removing the daunting task of changing her entire life. Thats just it. Changing your life overnight won't make it stick. Bit by bit, day by day, meal by meal is how you change how you view food.

Something she told me she struggled with was feeling guilty after eating a food. My response? "It's just food! You ate it, so what. Forgive yourself and move on. Doesn't mean the rest of your day, week, month is ruined and may as well restarting the diet on the proverbial Monday. Get right back on the horse the next meal, if not, the next one after that.

Pushing through a diet or new plan isn't the way to change how you are with food. Gradually learning things and applying them that suits your needs is. It's not a diet, it literally is a lifestyle.