Best Dip Ever

I am about to share with you a recipe that will change your life. I've been making Taco Dip for years but the past few times I've made it I've been experimenting and making some changes. I think I've got this recipe to the point where it just could not be any better. I have considered keeping this recipe top secret but because I love you all so much, I'm going to share the amazingness that is this Taco Dip Recipe!

Ingredients:

-1 lb ground Turkey

-16oz Sour Cream (I use light)

-8oz brick of Cream Cheese

-Tortilla Chips

-1 small onion

-Can of sliced Black Olives

-Can of chopped jalapenos

-Shredded lettuce

-2 packets of Taco Seasoning (I use reduced sodium)

-Shredded cheese (I use the Taco seasoned cheese)

-Franks hot sauce (a must for every recipe!)

Instructions:

-Start by sauteing the onions in a small amount of olive oil

- Add the ground turkey and cook until brown

-Add one packet of Taco Seasoning with 2/3 cups of water and simmer until sauce is thickened

-Next, soften the cream cheese in the microwave

-Stir in sour cream and second packet of Taco Seasoning

-Spread the cream cheese & sour cream on the bottom of a baking dish

-Add ground turkey and onions on top of the cream cheese/sour cream

-Sprinkle shredded cheese (to taste) on top of the meat

-Sprinkle Black Olives and Jalapenos on top (to taste) and if you like tomatoes chop some of those up and throw them on top (we're a non-tomato eating family)

-Add a very generous amount of Franks Hot Sauce

-Sprinkle the top with shredded lettuce

-Grab your tortilla chips and DIG IN!!! 

Wishful Wednesday

Happy Hump Day everyone! If you're in need of some blog post inspiration head on over to Kelsey's blog and link up for:

Today's top is:

'I wish'...I had ______store

as my personal closet

and could shop from it daily.

I wish I could have Bebe as my personal store! I love that store! Their clothes are so unique and stylish yet they have classic items as well. Plus they have killer shoes, great handbags and bangin' jewelery. It's your one stop shop! Here are some of the Bebe looks/items I am currently drooling over!

On another note. I made a super delicious and super healthy meal last night (and J loved it) so I thought I'd share it with you.

Chipotle Sloppy Joes and Avocado Corn Salad

Ingredients:

Chipotle Sloppy Joes

-1 lb. Extra Lean Ground Turkey

-1/2 onion (cut in rings)

-1 can chopped green chilis

-1 6oz can Tomato Paste

-1/4 cup Worcestershire Sauce

-Chipotle flavored Tabasco sauce

-Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns (to taste)

-Ground Cumin (to taste)

-Salt & Pepper (to taste)

Avocado Corn Salad 

-2 cobbs of corn

-1 avocado (peeled and cut into cubes)

-1 jalepeno (seeded and chopped)

-1/2 onion (chopped)

-1 lime

-Ground Cumin (to taste)

-Fresh Cilantro (to taste)

Instructions:

Chipotle Sloppy Joes

-Start by browning the ground turkey in a medium saucepan

-Add green chilies, tomato pasta, worcestershire, tabasco, cumin, salt and pepper. Stir to mix. 

-Next, cook the onion rings in a tablespoon of olive oil until lightly brown

-Finally, spray the whole wheat buns with "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" (or other zero calorie butter alternative) and brown in the oven at 350* for five minutes

Avocado Corn Salsa

-Start by cooking the chopped onions in a tablespoon of olive oil

-Add corn and chopped jalenenos

-Remove from heat a refrigerate until cold

-Add diced avocados, cilantro, cumin, juice of half the life, and lime zest (to taste)

This meal was super yummy and super healthy! My camera never does a good job of capturing the final product, but if you're looking for a yummy, summery, healthy meal...give this one a try!

And finally, take a look at my little angel in her brand new hot pink harness! :o)

Delicious Dinner Date

Last night, something happened that hasn't happened in I don't know how long.....J and I had no plans! On a Friday night! We didn't have any plans!!!! After the craziness that has been the past few weeks, J and I were beyond thrilled to have a night at home to ourselves to do NOTHING! In an attempt to work towards crossing off some more stuff from my 30 Before 30 list:

10. Become an awesome cook

19. Eat dinner at the table. 

Recently, J and I have been really in to ground turkey and using turkey prodcuts in place of beef or pork. It's much better for you and tastes amazing. So, I decided to try a new recipe and tweak one of my own using some of Jennie-O's amazing turkey products. It turned out really good, so I thought I'd share it with all of you lovely people.

This meal is brought to you by Jennie-O:

Turkey Burgers with Bacon Potato Salad

Ingredients:

Turkey Burgers
-1 lb. Jennie-O Extra Lean ground turkey
-1/2 a white onion (chopped)
-1/2 bag of Uncle Ben's Whole Grain Brown Ready Rice (uncooked)
-1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
-1 tsp of chopped garlic
-2 tbsp olive oil 


Bacon Potato Salad
-3 lbs Baby Red Potatoes
-8-10 slices of Jennie-O Turkey Bacon (depending on love for bacon...I used 10)
-1 1/2 tbsp Salt

-1/4 tbsp Pepper
-1/4 cup Olive Oil
-1/4 cup Cider Vinegar
-2 tbsp Honey Mustard
-1/2 White Onion (chopped)


Directions:

Turkey Burgers

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees (unless you have a grill...then GRILL 'EM!)
-Mix ALL of the ingredients in a large bowl (easiest to do it by hand)

-Divide the mix into 6 equal sized patties and place in a greased glass baking dish (Tip: don't pack the patties too tight. Just gently roll the meat into a ball and lightly push flat)

-Bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes until cooked through. Make sure to flip half way through.
*Mine were a little dry and I had them in about 28 minutes

Bacon Potato Salad
-Divide potatoes into 1/8's or 1/16's and throw in a large pot

-Fill the pot with water to just cover the potatoes. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat. Cook until tender (takes about 12-15 minutes)
-In a large bowl mix Honey Mustard, Cider Vinegar, Olive Oil, Salt, and Pepper and whisk until blended

-Strain potatoes and add them (still hot) to the sauce. Gently fold the potatoes into the sauce so they do not break. Let them sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.

-In the meantime cook the bacon in a frying pan until crispy

-Chop the bacon into small pieces
-After 30 minutes add the chopped onions and bacon to the potatoes and sauce. Serve!

*HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:

Eat your turkey burgers with:

If you have never had Frank's Red Hot sauce you need to get to the store and buy a bottle RIGHT NOW! It is my obsession! I put in on EVERYTHING and I mean EVERY. THING. It's cayenne pepper sauce so it adds a little bit of spice but doesn't cause your mouth to burst into flames. It's so flavorful and so delicious! I put it on eggs, burgers, tacos, in soup, on spaghetti-o's, pasta, salad, EVERY. THING!!!!

To complete the meal serve it up with an ice cold

And you're in business! Have a GREAT weekend everyone!

I'm on a Roll

I love pasta. I could eat it every day, especially Fettuccine Alfredo and Pasta Carbonara but of course those are the two fattiest pasta meals you could possibly eat. So, I decided to do my own low-calorie pasta carbonara! Here's the recipe (sorry no pictures for this one because frankly I was too tired):

Pasta Carbonara

(Makes 4 servings)

*** just under 500 calories/serving! Not bad for dinner!

Ingredients:

*4 chicken breasts

*1 cup cooked peas

*5 slices Jennie-O Extra Lean Turkey bacon

*Whole wheat Spaghetti pasta

Sauce:

*6 wedges of Light Laughing Cow Cheese

*1 cup skim milk

*1 tablespoon butter

*1/4 cup chopped onion

*Clove of garlic

*1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions:

*This meal is a multi-tasker so it’ll be hard to give you step by step instructions basically just cook it all so it gets done at the same time :o)

*I started by cooking the pasta since that takes longest

*Next I started the chicken breast; I did it in a frying pan. I simply browned both sides then added about ¼ cup white wine and ¼ cup water and let the chicken simmer in it to soak up the yummy wine flavor. Once the liquid was absorbed I seasoned it with salt and pepper.

*Once the chicken was started I put the turkey bacon on. The package recommends doing doing 5 minutes a side but I kept it on a little longer since I like my bacon really crispy!

*While all of this was going on I threw the peas in the microwave to let them cook, then threw them in a mixing bowl when they were finished.

*Finally, I started the sauce. It only takes about 15 minutes to cook, so plan accordingly. It’s so simple just combine all the ingredients and let it simmer until it thickens and looks smooth and creamy.

*Once the bacon is done, I chopped it up into small pieces and mixed it with the peas, then added the cooked pasta to that as well. When the sauce was nice and creamy I threw that into the mixing bowl and tossed all the ingredients together. Finally, I sliced up my chicken breast and put that on top.

It was delicious! The only thing is the sauce was a little sour for my taste due to the Laughing Cow Swiss Cheese, so I added some salt to the meal and it helped quite a bit. In the future I’ll add salt while the sauce is cooking.  I can’t wait to eat the leftovers tonight!

Egg Salad

My effort to eat healthier and get J to eat healthier mixed with the amount of time I spend watching the Food Network at work has insprired me to start trying new recipes and creating my own (see the "Move Over Rachael Ray" post) The hardest thing for Jason and I is to make healthy food decisions during the day. We're at Coffee Buzz so much that we're either eating the food we have here which, while delicious is not the healitest. Otherwise, we're running out and grabbing something, which usually isn't the healiest either. So I decided to try my hand at creating my own Egg Salad. I'm a huge egg salad fan but I am very picky about it and it's typically not all that healthy for you, until now....

Egg Salad (makes 8 servings) 

Ingredients:

*10 hard boiled eggs (Try using Farm Fresh Organic Eggs...the calories are the same but they are much healthier for your body and for the chickens they came from)
*3 Celery Stalks
*6-8 Baby Hot & Sweet Jalapeño Pickles (add more or less depending on your love for pickles!)
*1/4 of an Onion
*1/3 cup of CANOLA Mayonaise (Canola mayo has NO saturated fat or trans fat and has half the fat of regular mayonnaise. It's also cholesterol free! Plus it is made with the goodness of Canola Oil, so it is naturally rich in Omega 3)
*2 tablespoons Mustard (I reccomend using just regular generic old mustard--it's calorie free unlike those yummy fancier mustards)

Instructions:
*First, hard-boil the eggs. Make sure to let them sit in the fridge for about an hour after so they cool and firm up

*Next, chop up your celery, onion and pickles and throw them in a food proccessor. I like to add just half a cap full of vinegar to add a little tang, then I season the veggies with Salt, Pepper and some Lawry's Seasoned Salt

*Next, chop up the veggies creating a relish like mixture. You don't want to chop them too fine or they'll create a liquid. Chop them just small enough so the flavors will be balanced throughout the salad.

*After that I slice up the hard boiled eggs. I just break down the yolks by hand then slice the whites. I like big chunks of egg, so cut them as big or as fine as you prefer.

*Next add the eggs, mayo and mustard to the relish. Take a taste and add more salt and pepper to your liking!

*Throw it on Sara Lee's "45 Calories and Delightful 100% Multi Grain Bread" with some lettuce and you have a delicious lunch for right around 200 calories!

Move Over Rachael Ray

A few days ago, I was inspired to try a new recipe, one I was going to create myself. A Kristin Krosschell original. A while back I had an amazing Southwestern Turkey Burger at Champps which sparked the idea for this new recipe. It turned out amazing so I thought i'd share in case any of you want to give it a try.

Southwestern Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:

*1 package of Jennie-O Extra Lean Ground Turkey (so much better for you than ground beef and tastes amazing)
*6 Red Peppers (I used 4, but had enough for 2 more)
*1 can of Fat Free Black Beans
*I package of Corn
* 1/2 and Onion (more or less depending on taste)
*Avacado
*1 cup Fat Free Feta Cheese (because everything tastes better with Feta!)
*Garlic (to taste)
*Mrs. Dash Southwestern Seasoning (awesome because it's made without salt or msg!)
*Franks RedHot Sauce (I honestly can't make anything without this)

Instructions:

*The first thing I did was chop and sautee the onion with garlic and olive oil, then added the ground turkey to cook
*Next I strained and rinsed the black beans (a little trick I learned to cut calories and get rid of the slimy sauce they come in)
*After than I cut off the tops of the red peppers and scraped out all the seeds. I aslo rinsed the inside with water and sprayed them with oil oil so the meat doesn't get stuck to the sides while it's cooking

*Next I added the black beans and corn to the turkey and onion mixture and let those cook

*Finally I added the Mrs. Dash Southwestern seasoning and the Frank's HotSauce (add as much or as little as your want) and very last I mixed in the Feta cheese

*Next, spoon the meat mixture into the peppers and place them in a baking dish with about 2 cups of water, just enough water so the peppers cook but don't wilt.

*Cover the baking dish with tin foil and cook the peppers at 350 for about 25 minutes. Check them ever so often to make sure they aren't wilting. I like my peppers crispy so I cooked them for about 20 minutes...but keep them in longer based on your preferance.

*Once the peppers were cooked I took them out of the oven and served them with half an avacado, which tasted amazing when mixed with all of the southwestern flavors! Best part, this whole meal was only about 300 calories!

DELICIOUS!