St. Patricks Day Treat (Chocolate Bark part 2)

  T- minus 8 days till St. Patrick's Day.  Whether your Irish or not its a holiday to have fun with.  Wearing green more then usual or if for the first time this year, a special dinner of Corned Beef and Cabbage or looking for the pot of gold or a leprechaun!  I try to have a little extra special fun with the kids!

  Today we started out with bark.  Last year I bought gold sprinkles and spray and  made bark. See last years bark here. 

The ingredients are simple!

White melting chocolate
Green melting chocolate
Sprinkles
Chocolate pieces

  Lucky, for me I had quality control next to me in order to ensure everything was done correctly.

 
  With any bark it's the same steps.  Melt the chocolate first. For this process I use the double boiler method. Water boiling on the bottom, chocolate melting in a bowl on top.

I melted the white first and then the green.

Swirled the two colors together.

Next it was all about the sprinkles.

Green!

Gold!

Chocolate pieces!

After the sprinkles are all added to the bark it goes in the refrigerator for a few minutes to set.

So let the green fun begin.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Do you enjoy the Irish festivities?

Week 8 Goals

  Let's get ambitious this week and aim high!  No, don't we do that already? 

1.  Finish 2 books!

2.  Fitness: 25 miles, 4 classes

I like TRX I just struggle with the time.  I like all types of cardio but, to meet 25 miles of accountability I need to stick to machines because I don't have a fitbit, lol.  So if I choose to swim or even dancing those are free unaccounted for steps/miles 

3.  Cleaning: freezer

4.  Make a snack for the week.  I'm thinking granola this week! This is my favorite recipe.


  I'll stop at 4!   Anything after that will just be a freebie!

  Good luck on your new week. A new week is a clean slate!  Full of new opportunities and possibilities! Challenge yourself and be kind to yourself. 

Week 5 Goals

  I may not do a lot on Sundays but, I set time aside to set my goals for the week.  Last week I did pretty good in the fitness department having attended 6 different classes but missed the goal of 50 miles.  I will not be to hard on myself as I stayed active and discovered some great classes.

This week I would still like to shot for that 50 miles because with a little bit better planning on my part it can get done.

I can cycle 12 miles in 35 minutes so with a combination of other cardio or just 5 days of cycling I can do 50 miles! I can't get miles from swimming but enjoy that and rowing machine just requires me to calculate meters.  It is possible but I need to be focused.

I want to start focusing on setting that time aside to read.  I want to be done with book 3 that I'm still on and done with 4 this week.  So that I can at least start book 5 on week 5!

I did make fudge last week but would like to make a snack.  Something for everyone to munch on during the week.

  I wasn't planning meal prep this week but, I did pick up some spinach so I will plan on salads this week.

So we have:
1. Fitness
2. Book
3. Snack
4. Meal prep
5. I'll clean......the oven. Uggg!

Alright  I'm going to stop there. You know I like 5 things for 5 days!   Good luck with your new week.  I hope your goals are reasonable and you don't become overwhelmed with them and not enjoy life.

Have a good week!

Week 4 Recap

Well I did better in some areas then others but, sometimes goals don't always get met.  When that's the case things just get rolled to the next week.  Hopefully you catch up and eventually if nothing else.

    I attended 6 different classes this week so my miles goal were not met. I only made 38.02 miles for my cardio miles this week. 

I attended boxing, power, and kettle bells classes.  I also took a line dancing, Zumba, and Mixxedfit dancing classes as well.

I did slide in some time with weights and cardio but because I didn't physically get on machine I don't have the miles even though maybe some of those dance classes could have been miles by the time class was over.

I did pretty good with adding an extra water to my routine this week.  By the time summer gets here in should be in a good routine for keeping myself hydrated.

I did meal plan on Monday.  A chicken bowl with carrots, salsa, black beans, corn, couscous and some cheese.

I didn't style my daughters hair other then a braid.  So I'll give myself a half point for that.  I wanted to try something different.

I made a snack/dessert.  It can be eaten anytime so it falls into each category.

Chocolate Peanut butter Fudge!

I was happy picky eaters even liked it. P.S. it had banana in it too!

New recipe goes to the pork lion I made in the crockpot!

I did clean my fridge too. So I'm happy with that.  Now I need to find another spot to clean that I have neglected.

I hope everyone had a good week.  Take tomorrow off to prepare for a new week!

Weekly Meal 9/11-9/15

  Taking it easy this week.  Minimal recipes to share with you and actually only one is new to me.  Cheating with some meatballs that I received as a gift but, that's OK too.

Monday:
Crock pot
http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/recipe/2011/08/slow-cooker-bajio-chicken/

Tuesday:
Meatless
http://pinchofyum.com/garlic-butter-shrimp-quinoa

Wednesday:
Hotdogs, potato salad and baked beans

Thursday:
Spaghetti and meatballs (frozen from Omahasteaks.)

Friday:
Leftovers or everyone fend for themselves!

  Happy eating everyone.  As always feel free to share your favorite dish or what your eating this week!

Weekly menu 9/4-9/8

  As I made my menu this week I thought to myself what's my favorite food.  Can I eat that all week?  I mean beyond pizza.  Can I eat chicken everyday for a week even if I change the dish?  Meatless meal everyday?  No even with a different vegetable and starch, mushroom instead of pepperoni and meatless spaghetti and meatless chili I still like to taste something different the next day.

Monday
Chicken
http://chefsavvy.com/one-pan-italian-chicken-skillet/

Tuesday
Crockpot
https://life-in-the-lofthouse.com/crock-pot-cheeseburger-soup/

Wednesday
Vegetarian
https://yupitsvegan.com/one-pot-tandoori-quinoa/
(Diy Garam Masala spice)
https://www.google.com/amp/s/allrecipes.com/recipe/142967/easy-garam-masala/amp/

Thursday
Meatless
https://www.google.com/amp/s/allrecipes.com/recipe/82817/balsamic-glazed-salmon-fillets/amp/

Friday
Leftovers

  Two meatless, one crockpot with soup for a busy day and a carry over from last week.  I think I have made the soup recipe before but I don't know which recipe I used this recipe may or may not be new.  Otherwise all the other recipes are new for me! Is anyone eating out? What's your favorite meal?  Could you eat the same meal everyday?

Weekly Menu 8/21-8/24

  This shrimp plate was from a couple a weeks ago but, I may have to put it on the menu again soon.  Everyone liked it.

  This week I guess pasta is the word of the week.  Although one day I'm going to try to make the Zucchini pasta!  I did a run through of my pantry items think I have my ingredients organized for this week and next but, for some reason I'm second guessing myself so we shall see.  I'm not sure I'm feeling the days I have specified but that's ok. The menu is planned and I can switch the days around because the hard part is over.

Monday
Sausage and pasta
https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/cheesy-sausage-and-penne-casserole/cd8bd617-a2e6-489b-8794-b4a10292e8cc

Tuesday
Meatless
Zucchini pasta
http://www.inspiredtaste.net/29992/garlic-zucchini-pasta-recipe/

Wednesday
Chicken and pasta
http://www.lovebakesgoodcakes.com/2014/04/fiesta-ranch-chicken-pasta-bake.html?m=1

Thursday
http://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a53698/shrimp-fried-rice-recipe/

  Happy eating everyone! My dinners are planned now off to plan something else!

  If you could have your favorite meal tonight what would it be? Or where would it be?

Banana Peach Non-Dairy Frozen Treat

  Today we are going to try an edible delight! I had a peach last night that was the best piece of fruit I have had in a while. The first bite was so juicy that I knew I was about to enjoy the rest of the fruit for the next 15 minutes.  I dragged the consumption out!  I took a bite, sat it down, came back from another and sat it down until sadly it was gone. No worries though because there were 4 more in the bag and No one else knew how good they really were.

  I have made the infamous non-dairy ice cream with bananas before but today I raised the bar! I added peaches!

2 ingredients and a food processor is all I used in addition to the freezer.

1 frozen banana

1 ripe peach

1. Blend the frozen banana in the food processor until smooth and creamy.

2.  I then refroze the creamy banana for a half hour.

3. Slice up some of your peach!  After I sliced a side I actually only used a tablespoon of the peaches for my 1 banana.

4.   Add your spoonful of peaches to the creamy banana blend together again and add it back to freezer for a couple hours or until it's reached a texture to your liking.

  Your healthy 2 ingredient non-dairy frozen dessert is done! Grab a spoon and dig in.  Now this is only one serving so if you don't want to share eat it when the kids are in bed! Or double the recipe and offer a healthy treat to the kids too.

  How else do you stay cool in the summer if not with a frozen treat?

Chocolate Banana Smoothie with peanutbutter

  I am a breakfast person.  I wake up and I'm ready to eat.  Unlike my kids whom wake up ready to eat but sometimes it's because they skipped dinner based on personal preferences.

  I cook/prepare a variety of items for breakfast.  Sometimes the meal is cereal or oatmeal but I'm ok whipping up pancakes, waffles or muffins too.  I also like to make smoothies.

  Smoothies are hit or miss with the kids.  Sometimes I actually win getting fruits and vegetables in them this way sometimes the taste gets them straight out the gate.  I remember making a spinach one but my daughter had seen me put strawberries in prior to the spinach. She asked why is it was green?  I lied and said because strawberries turn green when blended sometimes. Hmmm. She has this hate with green things: broccoli specifically.  I will tell you what. She drank that green drink and it was good. Bye, bye spinach do your nutritional magic!

  Today was a banana smoothie with peanut butter.  This recipe was dairyfree but you could easily change milk in place of my substitute. Skipping the peanutbutter is not a big deal either.

1 frozen banana
1 cup of chocolate almond milk
1 T peanut butter

Blend it all together.   Depending on how many mouths are tempted to drink or try it, I may think it out with more milk.  I like thicker smoothies.

  I find it to be sweet enough based on the almond milk so I don't add any extra sweeter but you could add a tablespoon of syrup or honey.

 
Bottoms up! Try a glass of this to accompany your next breakfast or in place of eating if your in a rush!  Do you drink smoothies what's your favorite blend?
 

Meal Plan 9/26 - 9/30

  I have found that a meal plan works for so many reasons in my home.

1.  I know at 0800 what I'm eating and what time to start cooking because I will also know how long it will take me.

2.  Saves me an excuse of eating out as I already have a plan.

3.  Helps clear out my pantry.

4.  I can easily gauge groceries we need for the week or ahead of time based on meals.

5.  It does save money both with minimal or at least planned shopping.


  I surf the Internet and find new recipes as well as use some recipes from my favorite bloggers and tried and true recipes I have on hand.  The meals will vary weekly from slow cooker, vegetarian, seafood or good old breakfast for dinner.  I may have a random night out and a leftover night but for the most part everything will be done at home!


9/26 Tuna Casserole
http://wholesomemommy.com/real-food-remake-cheesy-mac-tuna-casserole/

9/27 Gnocchi Soup
http://therecipecritic.com/2016/09/creamy-chicken-gnocchi-soup-olive-garden-copycat/

9/28 Chili
http://mixandmatchmama.com/dinner-tonight-sweet-corn-chili/

9/29 Chicken
http://www.plainchicken.com/2013/05/chicken-lazone.html?m=1

9/30 Leftovers
It is every man and child for themselves!

  Ok there it is.  There are a couple things I still need to buy to make this work so we shall see how close I get this week.  After our grocery shopping I will plan for the month of  October.

Sticky Treats (review)

  I finally made a batch of popsicles with my new review product.  Find the recipe we tried here.  I can only vouch for a sample of it as the three that I made were gobbled up by 3 kids.  Thankfully I still have a fruit blend available.

  My take on these popsicle molds is its nice to have the ability to stand the mold and fill it.  The mold snaps into the base for easy filling as well as they can be placed on the counter.  The two bonus pushup pops  I place in a cup and fill then place in the freezer.  The pushup pops are definitely more kid friendly.  Less drops or atleast the drips are more contained.  Little hands can hold the popsicle sticks but there will be drips.

  The seal was great after the popsicles were frozen that I needed to run them under some water to loosen the tops and the mold to separate as well.

 I was provided this product for free for my honest review and all opinions are my own.

Find out more about this product here.

Silk Yogurt (review)

  I recently tried Silk Dairy-free Yogurt Alternative strawberry flavor.   

I picked it up easily at my local grocery store.  Also available that day was peach and mango but there are a variety of other flavors to choose from.

Upon opening the yogurt you can visibly see the chunks of berries blended into the creamy base.  Consistency is definitely the same as traditional yogurt.  Flavor is definitely not.  This is a soy-based yogurt and even if you didn't know you can tell something is different.

I thought the flavor was ok.  I would like to try a different flavor to see if maybe my favorite just wasn't strawberry this time.  However if I was looking for a quick, healthy snack the 5.3 oz portion would be fine.

I tried to have fun with it after initial tasting some of it and choose to add it as a base to a smoothie bowl.

I added a couple tablespoons of the yogurt with some frozen bananas into a blender along with a few splashes of

 Silk Nutchello Chocolate with walnuts and blended it all together.  

I ate this bowl and had a little left to pop in the freezer to see how that would turn out.

My goal is to maybe buy a little more and turn them into popsicles and feed them to the unsuspecting children if the taste tests go well with them.  

They don't have to avoid dairy but 9 grams of protein is a nice bonus to slide in them! 

I was provided a coupon to purchase these Silk products  from Crowdtap for review purposes and all opinions stated are my own.

Beans in the Brownies (pinterest challenge day 13)

  First off if your following me on Instagram you should have already seen my video if not jump over there for a short interrogation by my child.  She knew we were going to have brownies today but was not too sure about the use of beans.  I tried to tell her we had them before and all was well but she didn't remember probably because I didn't tell her about them.

  My challenge today was bean brownies!  Why not!  Do you think the more I actually let them know what's in their food the more likely they are to actually try it outside of what I cook it in?  Hmm, your probably right, probably not.  So until then I will randomly feed them goodies with veggies.  I look forward to the day one of them wakes up and says hey mom I'm feeling really healthy today what happened.

  There are so many options you can choose on Pinterest.  You can search just brownies but I selected bean brownies.  That was the easy part after that you have to scroll through dozens of option until your content with one.  Sometimes this is easy based on ingredients I have on hand, 3 ingredient recipes, no bake, or quick preps.  So many choices.  Lucky for you, you can always add them to a board or just like it so that it's saved for another day.

  Todays recipe was brownies with beans.
 

I added the batter to the pan and let the kids smell it before I put it in the oven.  I asked what it smelled like.  They could identify chocolate as they searched to see the beans.  Everything was run through the food processor so there was very little proof of them in the batter.

Brownies done and cooling.  They spent 18 minutes cooking and making the air smell delicious so when they were done, you couldn't help but want one.

Brownies are served better with a glass of milk

Supper easy recipe.  Everything goes in the food processor then poured in the pan.  The texture was the same as a traditional brownie.  The flavor was high in chocolate and no bean flavor at all.  The kids saw the whole process and still couldn't be stopped or slowed down with the beans. Chocolate trumps beans.  10 minutes of resting and I served up a piece to everyone.  The chocolate was still gooey and melted on your fingers.  2 kids loved these brownies and wanted more so you know what that means? #Pinterestwin!

  All my pinterest challenges can be found on my pinterest challenge board.

Pinterest Day 7

   Scouring Pinterest takes longer than some projects will take you to accomplish it.  There is so many things to look at and even if you go there with a plan; sometimes a wrong turn gets you sidetracked.   You cold organization your trips to strictly food one day maybe menu plan new meals for the upcoming week, challenge yourself to a new chocolate dessert for the weekend or one fun lunch idea as I decided today.

  My kids are on a strict we decide only diet.  I am not new to this menu.  I work around this sometimes.  Breakfast and lunch are the easiest meals here.  It's dinner when the army of 2 strong start mini attacks. First verbal, then offensive comments detest in their meals.  But that's another story.  Today I gave them lunch with a flair.

  4 items are necessary for this meal.  Toothpicks, pickles, hotdog and bun!

  Based on those items do you have any idea what you could make?

  Check this out!

  You can make these cute little vehicles. I have a little boy and if he gets a daily dose of cars everyday I am the best mom ever and he is as happy as can be! So I aim to please!

  These little cars came out great and they were super easy to make.  Let me tell you a secret though.  I didn't have toothpicks so I got a little creative and used grape stalks to keep the tires on.  Hey, don't judge it worked!

My daughter is getting crafty like her mom and thought I should have used food coloring to add numbers on the side. That was a good suggestion and I will do it next time!  

This was the first time I bought bread and butter pickles and oh my goodness! Have you had them?  Yum is one word that can describe them!  

Anyways thanks for reading and I declare the a #pinterestwin! 

Day 5 and 6 Pinterest Challenge (all about watermelons)

  Ok, I'm going to cheat and throw a few ideas at you today (this allows me to stay ahead of the game with other ideas that area already done, yeah).  I bought a watermelon the other day and so I am using it to be creative.  Chopping it up and eating
 a bowl of it is so boring compared to what you can do to it with a few extra minutes and some basic kitchen tools!

  I share with you the basic concept and end results but for more in depth directions you can find it under my pinterest challenge board on pinterest. Find me @meanroel.  Or go directly to it here.

  First easy watermelon idea is ice cubes. Chop some up put them in a bowl or cookie sheet (flat surface works easier) and freeze them.

                 

Then toss them in any of your drinks for an extra burst of sweetness and flavor.

  Next up 2nd easiest thing you can do to transform your watermelon is cutting it up.  Grab a cookie cutter

 and make some shapes.  Due to the present holiday.  The theme was stars!

Throw some extra fruit up there and make it a festive snack bowl. Red, white and blue anyone?

I think the stars make it even better than a wedge.  It just makes the dish prettier.

Last idea with the watermelon for today was using part of the shell.  Lol, because now I realize how valuable it is.  

Now let me be the first to tell you this is a vessel.  It is not garbage.  You can recycle your watermelon shell! Are you excited??

Add some jello! 

I used strawberry jello.  So of course it looks very realistic but you could have some fun and add a different color.  My daughter couldn't wait to try this treat out.  

  It was easy to make and I will make it again.  I used one packet and used the top cap of the watermelon.  I placed it in a bowl to set it in the fridge as it was not stableon it's own.  If I had cut it length wise it may sit better.  Slicing the watermelon was not a problem either.  It held its shape very nicely.

Ladies and gentlemen I would have to say it's a definite #pinterestwin!