Just a little background on me...

I haven't always been such a busy woman. I was just a college student and recently got a full-time job. So now I'm balancing going to college full-time, working full-time, and cooking healthy! I starting a diet, which is more like a lifestyle change, in June 2011. I have since lost 46.8 pounds on the Dukan Diet. I still have 30 more pounds to lose but I love this diet!! The only thing that's missing is fruits, nuts, and sweets! I could care less about carbs!
I love the energy I have with eating fresh made foods everyday! Some people might think that its just eating meat and salads. The trick is to use the foods you can eat and make amazing foods out of it! Like my cauliflower pizza I posted earlier!
Its amazing!! I'll even be posting healthy sweets! I can never say no to PBJ but since I can't have any on this diet, I'm going to try Walden Farms Peanut Butter and Jelly :) They have no sugar, no carbs, nothing!! I think I'll do that this weekend! And make some healthy homemade bread that's super easy and fast to make :) Look for it this weekend :).
I'll put my picture up soon, it just needs to be a good hair day :) Hope you are all enjoying my super healthy recipes!!

Pizza!!! w/o the dough

Chicken BBQ pizza with cauliflower crust!

So today I was aiming to just buy salad for lunch today then I remembered that I have most of the ingredients for pizza! I just needed cauliflower! Here's the recipe:

Crust:

1 whole head of cauliflower, cut into small small pieces

1 red pepper, thinly sliced

2 eggs

1 handful of shredded cheese (I use mozarella)

That's what my crust looked like after I put BBQ sauce on it.

Bake that at 450 degrees F for about 30-40 min

While that is baking, prepare the toppings you would like to use (I used onions and grilled chicken)

When the crust is ready, put the sauce of your liking on top (I used BBQ sauce) and put the toppings on. Bake that at 450 for 20 minutes or until the cheese is to your liking. 

I like my pizza with the cheese stringy but if you like it more crunchy, just bake it longer.

I love love love this pizza!! If I add more cauliflower then it turns out being like rice, without the carbs!

Fast and Easy Grilled Chicken!!!

So I decided to make some grilled chicken breast for lunch today. It usually takes me forever to grill whole chicken breasts so I decided to save some time and tenderized the chicken. After tenderizing it, I put it in a Ziploc bag to marinate.

For the marinate: 1/4 cup teriyaki marinate, about 3-4 TBSP low sodium soy sauce, pepper, and 1 large clove or garlic. I wanted to add some ginger but couldn't find it until after I put the chicken on the grill.
I marinated it for about 20-30 minutes and grilled it on low. It grilled pretty quickly and its yummy :) It would be amazing with a salad.
Here's the outcome:

Unlimited pasta..? who knew..

I love pasta!! Its amazing but also not so healthy.. so I've been using Shirataki Noodles instead. They are just pretty much tofu noodles. Alone, they are not so great so I just rinse them, boil them, then fry them with low sodium soy sauce. These are the ones I buy. I usually get them at Fred Meyers or at the Asian Market.

There is so much you can make with them and they don't take too much time. I love making chow mein with it!! While the noodles are boiling, I quickly cut and fry some chicken (or shrimp or whatever other meat you want to use) and fry some veggies separately. After the noodles are done boiling, I just fry them with some soy sauce and add everything together. It turns out great!!

There is still so much I want to try with them! Next on my list is pesto pasta with chicken. :)

My crock pot is ah-mazing!!

The other day I was stressing with how busy I was going to be this weekend. I was originally going to make pork chops but since that would take too much time I didn't have, I decided to make pork pot roast. So after work on Friday night, (I usually get home by midnight) I just chopped up the pork and threw in some cut carrots, asparagus, and onions with some beef broth. I put it on low to cook for 10 hours and in the morning it was all done!! I love my crock pot!! I can just throw stuff in there and not have to take too much time. Sorry I don't have a picture but I will be posting much more recipes that are crazy good and super healthy :).

The picture below is something I made earlier in the crock pot. Its actually lettuce wraps, that didn't work out as well. I also substituted the rice for lettuce inside the wraps and added cut chicken breast and ground chicken. Here's what I did:
1. I sliced the chicken breast (about 2-3 of them) in very small pieces and fried them in a bit of EVOO. After that, I added in and fried the ground chicken. As I was cooking everything, I was adding it into a bowl.
2. Make sure you are boiling a head of lettuce with the stem thingy cut out. You will want it to be a bit firm and kind of soft. But not too soft, which was my mistake. It should boil about 20-30 minutes.
3. Shred about 3 carrots, depending on how many you want, and fry them.
4. Cut up half a head of lettuce and chop it thinly and fry it as well.
5. You can add more veggies if you would like but I mainly stick to these. Mix everything together and add spices (just the basics, salt and pepper).
6. Once the lettuce is done boiling, you can cut it in half, depending on how big you want the lettuce wraps to be. I like to cut them in half.
7. Put some of the "stuffing" on a corner of the cut and boiled lettuce and just start wrapping it, making sure there isn't any stuffing coming out and piling them in the crock pot.
8. Once you have used all the stuffing, you can put the remaining lettuce on top.
9. Add some boiled water, but not too much, to make sure it doesn't dry out. I usually add about 1-2 cups.
10. Turn the crock pot on to low or high. I added mine to high to cook in four hours. I love it with fat free sour cream on the side. yummo :)