Sprouts!
I went camping with some friends and learned about growing sprouts! Once I got home, I decided to give it a try and I’m so glad I did!! Some of the benefits of eating sprouts are: they are biogenic and produce life in our body, rival meat in nutritive value, full of antioxidants, high in fiber, and full of vitamins and minerals.
If you want to give it a try, this is how I did it:
I bought a mason jar sprouting kit and put a table spoon of sprout seeds in a jar, with about an inch of water. I left this in the pantry with the light out over night. I used a spicy variety, but there are tons of different options to try. Two times a day, I rinsed and drained the jar and then put it back in the dark pantry for a total of five days. On the fifth day, I let it sit out on the counter for about a half a day to get some sun.
At the end of the day, I de-hulled the sprouts by using a salad spinner, filling it with water and draining it, sifting out as many hulls as I could until most of them were gone. Then I spun it, put all the sprouts in a baggie and put it in the fridge.
I made a really delicious salmon salad and threw on the sprouts! It was DELICIOUS!!! I highly recommend.
This next time, I’m going to try to grow some mung beans, since they look a little thicker and I think I would like the crunch!!
Affiliate links to amazon were used in this blog.
Italian chicken salad
One thing I will tell you about a cruise is that you WILL gain weight. I had so much fun on the cruise, but I gained about 6 lbs. YIKES! I’d already gained about 15 since I moved back to Dallas, so 6 more is totally not acceptable to me!! PLUS, my 30 year reunion is in 2 more weeks. So, what is one to do in this situation? Get back on track. Start eating healthy.
I went to the book store and got a couple of South Beach Diet books. I’m not going to do the full diet. I don’t want anything that is restrictive, but they have some really good recipes in those books. I’ve already done grocery shopping and plan to eat my own cooking for lunch and dinner rather than eat a lean cuisine at lunch and go to a restaurant for dinner.
This one I kind of made up on my own, but it was really good!!
Baked Italian Chicken:
1 chicken breast
1/4 bottle of Zesty Italian Dressing Lite
Lemon pepper to taste
Put the chicken breast in a pan and cover it with the italian dressing, it doesn’t have to be all the way full of the dressing, just enough so there is a little at the bottom. Shake as much lemon pepper on top of the chicken as you like. Put in the oven at 400 degrees for about an hour or until cooked thoroughly.
Salad:
50/50 Spring Mix
Zesty Italian Dressing, Lite
Mozzarella cheese
Baked italian dressing
(you can also add tomatoes, onions, etc on top)
Make a bed of lettuce. Put mozzarella cheese on top of the lettuce. Put chicken strips on top of the cheese. Cover with Italian Dressing.
You now have a healthy salad to eat that will fill you up!!
Taco Salad
One of my favorite places in Dallas is the Arboretum. This week, they had one of my favorite Austin bands, The Spazmatics playing at their Thursday concert. I was so excited when I saw they were playing that I bought tickets immediately. The Arboretum concerts are so much fun because you can bring a blanket, food and drinks and enjoy the music while overlooking White Rock Lake. Unfortunately, they announced that the Spazmatics weren’t going to be there because their plane had gotten delayed in Atlanta. Luckily, they found another band to play, the Metal Shop. This band was a hair band and they were so much fun. They had choreography and didn’t take themselves too serious. It was funny watching all the ladies rush the stage and dance to the 80’s hair band music. It ended up being a lot of fun, and the Arboretum said they would refund the money, so it was a fun-filled free evening for me!
This week, I decided to make a taco salad for dinner. It turned out pretty good and I think it’s pretty healthy.
Ingredients:
Lettuce
Hamburger Meat
Taco Seasoning
Cheese
Sour Cream
Salsa
Tomatoes
Onions
Italian Dressing
Brown the ground beef and add taco seasoning and water. Make sure to follow the directions on the back of the packet. 
Put Lettuce on a plate.
Chop the onions and tomatoes
Put meat on the lettuce.
Add sour cream, cheese, tomatoes and onions to the salad. Put Italian dressing on it for extra flavor.
Balsamic Chicken Salad
When you are making one meal to last for the entire week, you might start to get sick of what you made, unless you are a little creative! I found that putting things in a tortilla with cheese seems to help break up the week and not make the food taste so boring. Today, I didn’t have any tortillas, so I had to be a little more creative.
Ingredients:
Balsamic Chicken and Broccoli meal
Spinach
Mozzarella Cheese
I cut up the Balsamic Chicken, added the tomatoes and broccoli mixture to it and microwaved it for about a minute. Then I put all that on top of a bed of spinach. I finished it off with Mozzarella Cheese and I had a GREAT salad for dinner!
Fabulous after FIFTY 