Sweet & Spicy Pulled Chicken Slow-Cooker

My favorite food combination- sweet&spicy! I've been craving something sweet for the past couple days so after many long nights dreaming about chocolate and cheesecakes and ice cream, and I don't even like ice cream (ya its bad) I've decided to add it into my dinner and hopefully kick that nighttime sweet tooth craving.
Saturday night was a big snow storm so I stayed put on the couch all night with my mom. Usually I'd be indulging in wine or winter sam adams all night with her on those cold nights but I stuck to the no drinking after much contemplating. I even sent a couple texts to my boyfriend asking if he thinks just one glass would be ok. He encouraged me that I've been doing so good so I sat back down and continued drinking tea.
Around 10pm I started craving sweets and searched on Pinterest for no carb desserts. It got really bad but I ended up making these little oatmeal cookies and they were delish! ..if you like cookies with no chocolate, flour, or sugar.
So.. In the end, I went to bed still craving sweets. I woke up today with a new approach to kick this craving. I'm going to add sweetness to my dinner tonight and hopefully 10pm comes around and I'm ...delightfully full:)

No more rambling.. This is one of my own recipes..
Sweet & Spicy Pulled Chicken Slow Cooker Creation

1.5 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 green pepper, chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 container sliced mushrooms
1 can chunk pineapple, in pineapple juice, no sugar added
1 bottle of your favorite teriyaki sauce or BBQ sauce**
1 clove minced garlic
1 tbsp red chili flakes
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp black ground pepper

Add all ingredients into slow cooker (croc-pot?). INCLUDE pineapple juice into slow cooker. no need to cut chicken before, it'll pull apart as it cooks.
Cook on high for 4-5 hours or low for 7-8 hours. Chicken will easily pull apart when it is done.

**read carb label on BBQ bottles, some are very high. I bought a spicy mango one and it was delicious! 3g carbs.

Enjoy:)

Game day snacks

I just booked a VACATION to Florida for February.. 19 days away!!! Ahh I have no time to prepare for this so my meals might become a little less adventurous as I try to squeeze into my summer clothes in 2 weeks.

I am trying out a few different snacks this weekend since the Patriot's are playing and I'll have to skip the beers and nachos sadly..

I loooove jalapeño poppers and chips and salsa. Those are both two great snacks.. Trying to come up with new healthy ideas for those were tough but I managed to find some recipes.

I went as far as buying the ingredients but I have not made yet. Ill update how they were once eaten!

Baked, Not Fried Jalapeño Poppers

Makes 18 poppers

9 fresh jalapeños
1 8oz pkg light cream cheese
2 cups grated white cheddar cheese
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp chili powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slice jalapeños in half lengthwise. Scoop out all the insides. In a bowl, mix cream cheese, 1 cup of shredded cheese, garlic, and chili powder. Spoon the mixture into jalapeño peppers. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top of peppers. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden and bubbling.

**you can make these ahead of time and refrigerate for up to 24hrs.


The next recipe I'll share today are baked Zucchini Chips.

3 zucchinis, shredded.
2 eggs
2 cups mexican blend cheese
Spices- either black pepper or chili powder

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Grease 2 baking sheets, or line with parchment paper.
Shred zucchini with either a cheese grater or in a food processor.. Not too much or it'll get mushy. Ring out all excess water as they do hold a lot of moisture.
Mix zucchini in a bowl with cheese and eggs.
Make 6-8" rounds on cookie sheets. (very thin)
Cook 12 min, flip over and cook another 5 min.
With pizza cutter, slice rounds to triangles, about 6 for each round.
VERY IMPORTANT-
Let cool on a rack in a cool oven for 6-8 hours.
After chips have dried all the way, sprinkle with spices of your desire.

I think it's best to do overnight so you won't freeze up your oven for the day.

Good luck.. I know the chips take awhile but do the night before and it's definitely worth it to have the crunch of chips. I do miss chips. Dip in guacamole or salsa!

Email or comment with any questions..
Pictures to follow.

Turkey meatloaf and broccoli recipe

Thursday nights are always a hard night to post, I usually just eat leftovers or purchase a salad (or pizza or chicken fingers) from the deli next to the salon I work at but I've been trying to make dinner before work so I know exactly what I'm putting into it. It's been tough so it usually ends up being a leftover night, which is always fine. I figured I'd post about what I brought for leftovers tonight for dinner. I made this meal Monday and it was so delicious and makes so much. It's a good meal to make in the beginning of the week and eat all week long!

I read this recipe in a magazine from awhile ago but i modified it a little bit. It is so juicy and filling its hard to believe there's hardly any carbs.

I'll start with the TURKEY MEATLOAF..

1lb ground turkey
2 eggs
2oz reduced fat feta cheese
3/4 cup chopped spinach
1/3 cup chopped onion
1 minced garlic clove
1/2 tsp each of black pepper, red pepper flakes (if you like spice), parsley

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix all ingredients in a bowl together.
Pour mix into loaf bread and level it out.
Bake loaf until about 40 minutes.

***i bought frozen spinach, so if you do that as well make sure to ring out all the moisture from spinach!

***also, if you are like my friend, Melissa, and don't love feta cheese you can try mozzarella cheese.

This recipe calls for breadcrumbs but I took those out, I served to my boyfriend too and he loved it so it defiantly doesn't taste like your eating very healthy!
*************************

Now for this GREAT BROCCOLI!! I'm telling you it is amazingly good!!

1bag of frozen broccoli (or 1bunch of fresh)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2tbsp water
3 cloves minced garlic
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Heat oil in 12" skillet over med-high heat.
Add broccoli, cook turning only occasionally, until lightly browned. (frozen takes longer)
Sprinkle in 2 tbsp of water. Be very careful as it does splatter up.
Add garlic, cook until golden, 4-5 min.
Add pepper flakes.
Keep cooking and turning until broccoli is browned.

So easy and so good!

This picture didn't come out great, because well, it is meatloaf. I'm not sure if meatloaf ever really looks amazing but it definitely tastes amazing.. Enjoy:)

Apple Crisp Snacks.. hmmm

One more recipe I have to share today is the little snack I made last night craving sweets.

This was very easy, but time consuming.. perfect for a Sunday if you're just hanging out at home all day anyway.

These are delicious and perfect for a sweet tooth craving. I used Granny Smith apples for this recipe because I like the tartness of them but Red Delicious would be good too.. any kind would be good just not very soft ones like McIntosh. Also, use as many apples as you want, but I got lazy cutting all of them.


Apple Crisps (not to be confused with apple crisp which I was really craving)

3 apples
Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 275 degrees.
Core and slice apples very thinly. Skin is just fine kept on.
Lay out apples on a wax paper covered baking sheet.
Sprinkle apples with cinnamon
Place in oven for 1 hour.
Take out and flip over each apple to other side.
Let bake 45 minutes on other side.

Let cool off.
Store apples in tupperware or ziplock bag.

***UPDATE***

I just made more crisps tonight, well in the process of doing so and realized.. Hello! I have an apple slicer gadget. (that sounds really dumb but i don't know the exact name) this appliance slices, cores, and peels all in one step. I'm not kidding, it's amazing!! One of my best friend's got me this little gadget when I was pie making for the holidays and it saved me! She got it at Christmas Tree Shoppe so pick one up if you become obsessed with these apple crisps it'll save you!

"Kick my pizza craving" low-carb pizza!

I have a problem with making new recipes and loving them but then never writing them down or trying them again. My sister, who's the best sister in the worlddd (and not because she is the only one who reads this) gave me a binder to store all my recipes, so I try to keep up with that but right now there's a lot of recipe cut-outs from magazines. So anyway, I've stumbled across many low-carb recipes lately, my favorite one so far is this "kick my pizza craving" low-carb pizza! One of my favorite bad-for-you foods I miss is PIZZA! I've tried the cauliflower pizza and the portabella mushroom pizza but so far, and those recipes are both great- do not taste like pizza nor kick my craving for that high carb little goodness.

I found this recipe on Pinterest.. most recipes I find is from Pinterest.

I made this pizza cheese only, definately next time I will add turkey pepperoni or tons of veggies, but when I went to Walmart to pick up ingredients, they informed me that they are only accepting cash at that time.. with only have $14 in my wallet at the time, I had to put back the turkey pepperoni.. it was pretty sad. But there were a lot of mad customers in there.


OK.. SO HERE IS THE MOST AMAZING NO BREAD PIZZA RECIPE!

For the crust:
1 package Low-fat cream cheese (room temp.)
2 eggs
1 tsp each of garlic powder, oregano, black pepper
1/4 cup shredded parm cheese

For the top:
2 cups mozzerella cheese
1 cup marinara sauce (or to taste)
1 tsp each of oregano, garlic powder, crushed red peppers (for sauce because it was a little bland)
toppings you would like to add.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix together cream cheese and eggs until smooth. add in seasonings and parm cheese. Mix well.
Pour mixture into 9x13 greased pan.
Bake crust for 17 minutes or until crispy and sides brown.
Take out of oven and let stand for 10 min. (don't cut corners here or else sauce will seep into crust)

Turn oven to 400 degrees.
While that's preheating, mix sauce with seasonings. I purchased a no sugar added sauce, which was kind of hard to find but Bertolli makes one.
Pour sauce onto crust.
Sprinkle cheese and toppings onto pizza.
Bake for another 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Enjoy:)

You will be so surprised at how crispy this pizza  crust is. I brought some for lunch the next day and microwaved it because I think I'm the only one in the world who doesn't like cold pizza and it was pretty soft but that's typical of pizza reheated so I thought it was just as delicious and I gave some to my co-workers and they also loved it!

First blog post. EVER.

I'm not really sure how to start a blog! haha I guess I'll explain what this is about. I've decided that 2012 is going to be the year I finally change my eating habits and loose the weight I've been doing nothing to get rid of except drinking beer and eating a lot of late night food. I told myself that my New Year's Resolution would be not just to excersise and diet like every other year, but to really set goals and have a plan. I just heard a quote the other day, "A goal without a plan is just a wish." And I thought that really goes true with what I'm trying to do.

So anyway.. my goal is to cut out as many carbs as I can, stop drinking (and lets be clear, I don't drink excessively but that goes along with cutting out carbs), and get off my butt! The problem with my plan is that I haven't really set an ending date for this, but I didn't because I have hopes that this won't be a diet but a change of life.

So back to the drinking thing, my problem with that is I'm pretty much a light weight. And the problem with that (besides I'm a cheap date) is I will eat like crap the next day and no matter how I've been dieting or doing good with my goals it'll all crash and burn because all I really want the next day is a cheeseburger and french fries. Then.. OOPS! Another diet fail. I think the most important goal for me is the carb thing. It's not like I am in desperate need to loose weight, which is shocking because of all the bad food I eat. No, wait.. DID eat! I just thinking having a healthy diet and loosing those last few pounds will bring me to complete and utter happiness.. especially in a bathing suit this summer.

I started my goal on Jan 2nd, (again, the light weight thing- New Year's Day, I needed the cheeseburger). So far, with much success and shock, I have stuck to my goals and have not touched a peice of bread, slice of pizza, or drank a beer in 16 days. WOOHOO!

The problem with dieting (besides how plain diet food is) I have is that I start eating the same meals over and over and get bored then start dreaming about buffalo chicken dip and chips & salsa.. then BOOM.. all down hill from there. This time around, I've been coming up with very creative recipes and ideas to stay on track while kicking my pizza cravings.

I have high hopes that if I start to write down all recipes I've tried and creations I've come up with in desperate needs of carbs and sweets, I will continue my goal of becoming a health freak.. or as much as I can stand.

Here goes nothing..