Category: Blog

Fresh, light and healthy…is essential when making any meal for summer. When you can incorporate as many fresh ingredients into a dish not only does it look gorgeous but the fresh ingredients add so much more flavor that will take any ordinary dish to extraordinary!!

I am always trying to find new clean, healthier ways to make older favorites better without taking away any of the flavors. So I’m sharing my grilled chicken with cilantro, lime, avocado salsa recipe. I paired this entrée with brown rice. I also added the leftover chopped cilantro with a few lime wedges not only for garnish but to squeeze over my rice or add more lime flavor to my chicken. Now that summer has unofficially officially started, it’s time for barbecues, picnics, and garden fresh dishes!

Seriously, one of the easiest dinners I have ever made and the FLAVOR of the cilantro-lime-avocado salsa over the chicken was out of this world! My husband is always my pickiest critic and he will always be straight forward with me. He said this was one of his top 2 favorite meals I have ever made. Trust me, I have made a lot of meals and for him to say that…I’m over the moon happy. I told him that it is possible for food to taste AMAZINGLY good without loading it with cheese and other unhealthy fats. If he wasn’t a believer before he certainly is now!

I will definitely be making this dish several more time over the summer season!

Ingredients:

• 1 (6 oz) chicken breasts
• 1 Avocado, medium
• 1/3 cup Cilantro
• 1 tbsp Lime, zest
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• ½ cup olive oil
• ½ cup Red onion
• 2 Roma tomatoes, medium
• Salt and Pepper

Directions:

1. In a large bowl pour in lemon juice, lime zest, salt and pepper
2. Add diced tomatoes, diced onion, chopped cilantro, and diced avocado
3. Grill chicken (on the grill or stove).
4. Once done add salsa over the chicken and serve.

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A lot of words come to mind when I think of summer but when it comes to food I think of my husband grilling outside, picnics, warm summer night and shishkabobs!! These skewered delights are great to fix and forget about as they marinate in your refrigerator. I find that the longer you marinate any meat the better the flavor.

For this particular recipe, I used two separate bowls to marinate both my vegetables and my chicken. I marinated my vegetables in an oil and vinegar base with fresh herbs and occasionally mixed the vegetables throughout the day to make sure they were all evenly coated. For the meat, I also used ‘Garlic Expressions’ which is an oil and vinegar based salad dressing with whole garlic cloves infused in the oil. I also finely chopped additional herbs and spices to give the meat a kick in flavor! This dressing has been my go to salad dressing for almost every salad I have at home. If you have it in your grocery store than YAY, if you do not, I believe you can make requests to the customer service desk to request they carry a small amount for a trial period.

Thank you to all Veterans who are serving and who have served our Country!!! Have a wonderful Memorial Holiday weekend

Cheers to the official kick-off to Summer!

Ingredients:

• Onions
• Mushrooms
  
• Grape Tomatoes
• Bell Peppers
• Olive Oil
• Spices
• Garlic Expressions
• Wooden Skewers

Directions:

1. Cut vegetables in similar sizes to fit on skewers
2. Using a spate cutting board, cut chicken in similar sizes as vegetables so everything fits on skewers
3. In two separate bowls, place vegetables in one bowl and chicken in another bowl to marinate for 3-4 hours or longer.
4. After everything has marinated place on skewers and grill!

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When it comes to quick on the go energy most people often times do not always have time to choose the healthiest food choices and in turn that “quick energy” can be quite detrimental to your health in the long run.

When it comes to choosing healthier options for quick snacks I found these snack bites. Using dates, a mixture of almonds, pecans and walnuts, cocoa powder, pure vanilla extract, coconut flakes, chia seeds and chocolate chips.

I have made other energy bites before and posted them on my blog but these particular ones are different in that I am not using raw honey or nut butter. Sometimes it’s okay to switch it up so that you aren’t always eating the same thing over and over again.

The health benefits of these snacks are evident: pecans, walnuts, almonds, chia seed, coconut flakes but I wanted to draw particularly close attention to the benefits of consuming dates in place of refined “sugar”.

I am going to list only a few of the MANY health benefits of Dates:

• Dates are easily digested:

•allowing you to gain a lot of the beneficial vitamins and minerals

• Excellent source of soluble fiber:

•promotes healthy bowel movements and helps to prevent constipation

• High in Vitamin A:

•helps to protect your eyesight and may help to reduce night blindness

• High in B Vitamins:

•Carotenes Lutein and Zeaxanthin may help to protect against macular degeneration

• May help reduce LDL Cholesterol

•the bad cholesterol

Prep time to make these takes less than 20 minutes and will last the entire week.

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