Protein Bars 1.0

Boy has it been hot this week! I think we are in day 6 of the heat wave that is supposed to be ending this weekend. I HATE hot weather. It's icky, I can't ever seem to find enough motivation and frankly I miss my sweaters. I love the beautiful sunny days, but I am an autumn girl..funny since I was born in Feb. I hate the super cold too...but I would rather it be freezing cold than grossly hot. 

Another thing I hate about the heat is that it is harder to bring snacks with me during the day. Banana's turn to smush and stink up the car, cheese get ucky too. A girl can only eat so many almonds. I love protein bars the problem is is that most of the ones on the market are covered in a "yogurt" substance or chocolate and again in the weather...not so appetizing. Or they are expensive...I love the Quest brand, especially vanilla almond crunch flavor but they do have some artificial ingredients in them, so I have been set out to make my own....I did some googling and found a bunch of recipes online and tried them out, changed ingredients, and came up with this...better yet it's a no bake! Welcome Protein Bar 1.0 experiment....

Recipe:

8 Scoops Whey Protein Isolate Chocolate Peanut Butter Flavoring ( I used this... )

3/4 Cup Raisins

1 Cup Natural Peanut Butter

3/4 Cup Crasins

1 1/4 Cup Whole Milk

6 Cups Oats

Instructions:

1. Prepare a 9/13 baking pan with wax paper

2. Place all ingredients into a large bowl

3. Mix...I used my hands was easiest.

4. Dump mixture into prepared baking pan press evenly

5. Place in refrigerator for 24 hours to set

6. Cut into desired amount of bars. 

I cut them into 26 bars, placed them into individual zip lock snack bags and put them back in the refrigerator. If no one but you eats them you may want to freeze some. 

Nutritional Stats:

Calories: 200

Carbs: 23

* Fiber: 3

* Sugar: 7

Fat: 7

Protein: 13

Sodium: 91

PROS:

* Easy to make

* No Bake

* Soft and Chewy (tastes like an unbaked oatmeal cookie)

* Minimal Ingredients (Most I had on hand)

* Can crumble to use on top of yogurt

CONS:

* Contains milk, need to keep in an insulated lunch bag on the go

* Need to be stored in the fridge not on the counter (I don't always have so much room in there)
* Super soft so they break apart easily making it hard to eat on the go

This was very successful but next round I will add some crunchy elements as it was to smushy mushy for me!

Enjoy ^.^
Laura <3

faux pah-sketti

Ok so since I had surgery there are several things that I try to not eat, or only eat occasionally. These include bread, pasta, and rice. So what happens when I really want something that contains these items? I improvise! After my last post, if you remember correctly I had a ton of stuffing and more than half a head of cabbage. So I played around and came up with this faux-spaghetti

Ingredients:
1.5 lbs ground turkey
1 onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced

1 yellow pepper, diced

1 red pepper, diced

2 tbsp olive oil
1 small to medium sized head of cabbage
1 jar tomato sauce (2-3 cups if using home made)
1 cup + more for garnish shredded parmasean cheese

Salt
Pepper
Garlic
Italian seasoning

Now all of the above has been previous cooked for me due to me using left overs so this was a very quick and easy week night meal. You can easily prepare the stuffing on the weekend and reheat and mix everything one night during the week. If you are prepping ahead I would also suggest shredding the cabbage by simply cutting it in half and running your knife through it. But if you are making this on it's own (no from left overs) it is still an easy meal.

Cooking on it's own:
1. Cut the core out of the head of cabbage and boil for a few minutes until cabbage becomes soft. Shred cabbage into long strips.

2. Saute peppers and onions season with salt pepper garlic and italian seasoning set aside to cool
3. Brown the ground turkey (as always I dont use anything in the pan the natural fat in the meat is enough to brown)- drain fat in neccessary-season with salt pepper garlic and italian seasoning.

4. Mix veggies with ground meat add in shredded cabbage and tomato sauce
5. Cover and let it heat through for about 10 minutes.
Can serve as is or with a side salad and crusty bread.

Cooking as left overs:
1. Saute precooked and pre-shredded cabbage in a large skillet with 2 tbsp olive oil until soft and almost see through.

2. Top with pre-made left over "stuffing" (ground turkey, veggies, seasonings and sauce)

3. Can add more sauce if you like. I did :) I also topped with Parmesan cheese cover and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. 

Can serve on it's own, with a side salad and with crusty bread or garlic bread if you'd like. 

I LOVE this. I could eat it for days (and I have). My picky tummy likes it and it definitely doesn't make me miss that pasta. This definitely feeds a crowd, we had left overs for several meals.

Enjoy!!
<3 Laura ^.^

świń w koc (Pigs in the blanket)

I know it has been a while since I posted. I'm sorry :( there have been several reasons...work has been crazy and this past week we ate out.. a lot. Also I have been sick and haven't felt like doing much. But I am feeling better now and have tons of pictures of things I have been making. I am going start with the świń w koc (Pigs in a blanket/stuffed cabbage) This is something that is very easy to make and it is cheap and pretty healthy. 


Did you know? Cabbage is an excellent source of vitamin C. It also contains significant amounts of glutamine, an amino acid that has anti-inflamatory properties. Cabbage can also be included in dieting programs, as it is a low calorie food.

Stuffed Cabbage served with Roasted Veggies

Ingredients:

3lbs ground turkey (you can use ground beef/chicken/pork if you like)

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 yellow bell pepper, diced

1 onion, diced

4 cups rice prepared (can use white, brown or quinoa)

1 large jar of tomato sauce

1 head cabbage

Salt

Pepper

Garlic powder

Italian seasoning

1 cup Parmasean cheese

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

**Pre-heat over 350 degrees F.**

1. Cut the core out of the head of cabbage and boil in a pot of water until leafs start to fall off and become plyable. Drain and set aside.

2. Heat a skillet with the olive oil and drop in diced veggies, season with Salt, Pepper, Italian seasoning, and Garlic. Saute until soft and set aside to cool.

3. In the same skillet that you used for the veggies brown your choice of ground meat. Season with salt pepper garlic and italian seasoning. (As always I do not use oil or spray or butter the meat naturally has enough fat for the browning process- often I have to drain the meat then continue to brown because of to much liquid released from the meat)

4. Once meat is done mix back in veggies, rice, and 1-1 1/2 cups sauce, mix and heat through.

5. Using a roasting pan use about another cup of sauce to cover the bottom of the pan. 

6. Take a leaf from the head of cabbage lay flat on your cutting board...

7. Take a 1/4 cup measuring cup of stuffing and place in the middle of the leaf...

8. Fold sides of leaf into the middle, the top down and flip over (creating a small pocket just as if you were rolling a burrito). Place in pan..repeat until pan is full.

9. Once Pan is full top with  Sauce and Parmasean cheese.

10. Bake at 350 for 20-25minutes until cheese is brown and sauce is bubbly.

You can serve this as is...it has everything you want, protein, carbs, veggies. But I think as yummy as a plate of these are I needed to serve something else with it. So I hunted and found veggies in the fridge. Broccoli, Mushrooms, Onions, Carrots, Celery, Potato and Tomatoes. Now I could have just made a salad but meh! I decided to make roasted veggies! Soooooooo yummy I don't know why I don't do this more often! Simply put what ever veggies you want on a baking sheet (cut into bite sized pieces) I topped with Salt, Pepper, Garlic and drizzled with Olive Oil. Mix to make sure everything is covered in the oil and roast at 450 degreese for 45 minues. Feel free to mix them on the try about half way through. When they came out of the oven I topped with Parmesan and Pecorino Romano Cheese and put back in for 5 min. Sooo yummy!

 

Normally I will continue the process of stuffing the cabbage until I run out of either filling or cabbage, unfortunetly the head of cabbage I bought was not very "leafy" and I stopped after the first pan. I made 12 rolls. Now this left me with more than half a head of cabbage and a ton of  stuffing. I have another recipe coming up this week that I will post that uses these left overs. This recipe will easily feed a crowd on very little money. Great for dinner parties, or pot lucks.

To make my life easier later in the week, before I put the cabbage away I ran my knife through it and shredded it up. Pre-planning and prepping -go me!

Reviews-  I make this every few weeks and we usualy have left overs for a few days to feed me on. Depending on the size of the roll I can usually eat one. So these are definetly WLS friendly! Great for those weeks we are running tight on a budget too! They are healthy but shhhhh don't tell him that!!

Enjoy!

<3Laura ^.^