Sorry for being MIA yesterday.

It was an incredibly busy day!

Not only have I been super busy training my replacement at work (yes… you read that correctly), but it’s National Nutrition Month AND yesterday was National Registered Dietitian Day!!!

There were lots of festivities that I organized at work and these high fiber treats were part of it.

For our Nutrition table I contacted numerous vendors for donations.

I’m pretty sure we got close to a thousand sample of fiber one

Along with this sample, I created and printed out this recipe for people to make.

These bars include Fiber One cereal, marshmallows, dried fruit, and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

The best thing about these bars is they contain 12 grams of fiber each!

Ingredients:

• 1 bag marshmallows
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 5 cups Fiber One Cereal
• 1/2 cup dried fruit. I like to use either dates or dried cherries.
• 1/2 cup chopped almonds
• 2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Directions:

Spray 13×9 pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Melt butter in a large saucepan at medium low heat.

Add marshmallows to melted butter.

Keep heat at medium low. Continuously stir marshmallows until completely melted. Be careful not to burn marshmallows.

Take marshmallows off heat. Add in cereal, dried fruit, and almonds. Gently fold in chocolate. Be careful not to over mix.

Spread in pan, allow to cool completely, then cut into 12 squares.

Enjoy!

As far as my job goes… today is my last day. I’m so excited about my new endeavor. I’m working on a post for tomorrow to explain it all.
Have a wonderful Thursday

I was talking to my brother on the phone the other night.

I told him I was making Irish Soda Bread for the first time.

The first thing out of his mouth was “Does this mean Tim’s gonna make you tamales for Cinco de Mayo?” LOL!!

My brother lives in Minneapolis, I live in DC, but both of us were born and raised in Texas.

Born in a Mexican American family… neither of us had heard of Irish Soda Bread until we got older.

I had never heard of it until I met my husband.

I always thought St. Patty’s day was just a day you wore something green so nobody would pinch you…

Tim and I started dating in January of 1999 (I know… I’m old). I was a senior in college then.

I remember that year St. Patrick’s Day fell on a Tuesday.

He ask me if I wanted to go the local pub and grab a beer with him.

All I was thinking to myself was “Why do we have to grab a beer just because it’s St. Patrick’s Day?”

I was so naive! I knew nothing!!

Tim is from New York… I’m from Texas… he’s Irish… I’m Mexican…

I felt like we grew up in different worlds.

For his family… St. Patty’s Day is one of the biggest holidays of the year!

For my family… we wore green so we wouldn’t get pinched at school

This recipe came from my Irish mother-in-law.

She grew up on this bread… her mom grew up on this bread… and Tim grew up on this bread.

So when Tim asked me to make him some Irish Soda Bread… I knew exactly who to go to for the recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup raisins
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 3 teaspoons melted butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Soak raisins in about 1 cup of water for 10 minutes to moisten.

Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar together… set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk, and melted butter. (Make sure melted butter has cooled a little… if its too hot, you’ll scramble the eggs.)

Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients. Stir together with a wooden spoon. Drain the raisins and gently fold into dough.

You can use either a loaf pan of a round 9 inch cake pan. Spray with non-stick cooking spray. Spread dough evenly into pan.

Bake for about 1 hour 10 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Enjoy!

I belong to this group of fantastic women. This group is a combo of stay at home and working mommies.

Each one of us lives within blocks of each other.

Here are the rules:

• We meet every Friday (except Holiday weekends) at 4pm.
• All mommies live in the same neighborhood so we can all walk.
• We rotate houses.
• The hosting mommy provides snacks and drinks for both the adults and the kiddos.
• The best part – The mommies attending do not have to bring a single thing. We work hard all week long and this is time to relax… kind of… we all know a mom is never off duty

Friday was my turn to host… I don’t know why, but my camera was really enjoying taking blurry pictures… so bear with me

.

Normally I would make my dips from scratch… but in typical Estela fashion… I didn’t plan… so I did the next best thing…

I went to Whole Foods and bought some tasty dips and the ingredients to make baked brie.

To go with the veggies I got some roasted veggie ranch dip. It was pretty tasty and surprisingly spicy!

If you haven’t gotten this dip… go buy some! This organic creamy spinach dip is a staple in my house!

Oh… and I got flowers… flowers make everything look pretty.

And a very blurry picture of smoked gouda. :~

What missing is the picture of my baked brie. I have a little story about that…

So I bought this great brie, cut it in half, and filled the middle with berry jam and toasted almonds.

I wrapped the entire brie with puffed pastry.

I put it in the oven at 4pm so it would be nice and hot when most of the mommies arrived.

Before I knew it… smoke was coming out of the oven… this is not a good thing when you have two toddlers and three 10 month olds in your house.

The cheese was oozing off the pan to the bottom of the oven causing the entire house to smoke up

Luckily my husband stepped in to help clean the oven and air out the house… Phew!

The baked brie was salvageable… but did not look pretty

Whole grain goldfish and Annie’s fruit snacks for the kids…

Booze for the mom’s…

Hydration for the kiddos….

Seven mom’s, three dads, and twelve children later… it looked like a tornado had hit my house….

It’s so worth it though to visit with all the mom’s, share stories, and most of all… see how happy the kids are to play with each other!

My baby girl slept for twelve hours that night!

Happy baby = happy mommy

There are certain things he does.

He hangs around the kitchen, talks a lot, and starts stirring or flipping whatever food I’m cooking.

I pretend to tolerate it… but it secretly gets on my nerves…

Our kitchen is pretty small… so with two people in it… its crowded.

He’s constantly behind me sampling and tasting all the food…

And then he does it…

He goes to the spice cabinet and grabs the same seasoning every time.

What is it about Old Bay that men love so much?

I mean, its a good seasoning and all… but does it HAVE to be added to EVERY meal I cook?!?!!

He puts Old Bay in his eggs, his tuna, his steaks, his chicken, his fish, his soup.

He even sprinkles a little in his turkey sandwiches.

I’m surprised he doesn’t put it in his cereal… because that would be gross.

So I make these roasted potatoes for him.

To him… it would be a sin NOT to add Old Bay to such a basic side dish.

I have to admit… Old Bay does make these potatoes pretty tasty!

Ingredients:

• 3 large Yukon Gold Potatoes cut into 1 inch chunks
• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons Old Bay Seasoning
• 2 teaspoons Garlic Powder

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine potatoes with olive oil.

Add Old Bay and garlic powder and mix until potatoes are coated.

Spread potatoes on a large cookie sheet.

Baked in oven for 20 minutes, then flip potatoes and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes or until potatoes are golden brown.

Enjoy!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have a great weekend

I swear when I was pregnant I forgot EVERYTHING! Someone would tell me something and I would forget it 5 minutes later.

When I was pregnant, I would wear my flip flops on my way to work and change into my fancy heels when I got to work. Well one morning I forgot to bring my heels and mindlessly walked in to work with dress slacks, a cardigan, and flip flops… classy… I know. Needless to say I learned my lesson and always kept a pair of heels in my car to make up for my pregnancy brain.

After I had my daughter I was really looking forward to getting my head back in order… and think straight again. Well my friends… I’m here to tell you that pregnancy brain is replaced by mommy brain.

Yesterday morning I packed my daughter’s bag, took her to daycare, then drove to work. I felt like something was a little off. Well… shortly after I got to work I remembered my daughter’s lunch bag was sitting on our kitchen counter! How could I do that?! How could I forget to send my 9 1/2 month old to daycare without lunch?!?!!!!

Luckily I have a very understanding boss who is a mom herself. She chuckled when I told her what I did. So I left work, picked up my babies lunch, and took it to daycare. Lesson learned! Now I have a mini-checklist right by my keys so I make sure not to forget anything… let’s hope it works

Phew! Glad I got that off my chest!

Over the weekend I made a batch of homemade pasta sauce minus the meat.

I like making big batches of things, especially sauces, and freezing them.

Now that I know how to make my own marinara sauce from scratch, I can’t imagine buying Ragu’ again.

I’ve mentioned before that I LOVE meals that have all the food groups in one meal. These stuffed shells are perfect for that!

These shells contain lean Italian turkey sausage, ricotta, and spinach. I know they make whole wheat jumbo pasta shells, but I couldn’t them in my grocery store, so I went with the regular shells.

This dish was so good! And it contained my husbands favorite ingredient… MEAT This dish makes plenty of food so it’s good for lots of leftovers for a quick and easy meal.

Ingredients:

• About 3 cups of homemade sauce – minus the meat
• One box of whole wheat pasta shells, whole wheat if you can find them
• 3 cups part-skim ricotta
• 1/2 parmesan cheese
• 3 links lean Italian turkey sausage (remove casein)
• 1 teaspoon onion salt
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• about 10 grinds of fresh cracked pepper
• One 10 oz box of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 1 egg yolk
• part-skim mozzarella

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Remove turkey sausage from casein and cook in saucepan until cooked through.

Cook pasta shells according to box directions.

Combine turkey sausage, ricotta, parmesan, onion salt, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, spinach, and egg yolk.

In a 13×9 baking dish, spread about 1 cup of sauce on the bottom of dish.

Fill each shell with about 2 tablespoons of filling.

Pour remaining sauce on top of shells.

Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.

Uncover and sprinkle with 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese and bake for additional 10 minutes or until cheese in bubbly.

Enjoy!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Question of the Day?

Have you every had a “mommy brain” moment… even if you’re not a mom

This week marks the beginning of MaryAnn’s new series:  Eating Disorder Prevention: 3 Things Every Parent Must Know.  The goal is to provide parents with the information we need to raise children who have a healthy relationship with food and their bodies.  I hope you will join me in reading along with this series and gain valuable information on raising a healthy eater.

This is week 9 of the 12 Weeks No Diets Series.

This week I wanted to talk about letting go of the cheat day.

There are thousands and thousands of diets out there that have a “cheat day”.  We are supposed to follow rigid guidelines all week and then have that one-day where we can eat whatever we want.  What this can do is eventually lead to an all out binge day (trust me, I’ve been there).  We feel we have to eat everything we can’t have during the week on that one-day.  This leads to a last supper mentality where we think to ourselves “tomorrow I’ll start over again”.  The problem is that this mentality can spread to days other than our “cheat day”.  If we go off our diet, it’s so easy to “just call it a cheat day”… which leads to a full on binge, which leads us back to the thinking “tomorrow I’ll start over again”.

Letting Go of the Cheat Day

Another common way of thinking is to eat healthy all week and “splurge” on the weekends.  I definitely went through a phase of thinking this way.  Don’t get me wrong… I enjoy a good splurge every now and again… it’s the quantity of the splurge that matters.  Eating healthy during the week and allowing ourselves to eat out more on the weekend is perfectly healthy, but what we need to watch is the amount of food we splurge on.  We still need to listen to our bodies, listen to our hunger, eat food we truly love, and stop eating when we’ve had enough.  Remember… it’s all about the portion sizes.   If it tastes so good you want to keep on eating, keep in mind that you can take the rest home to enjoy the next day. 

How to Splurge the Right Way

Be realistic in terms of the calorie content of your food.  I’m not going to encourage full on calorie counting, but think of calories in a very loose and realistic way. If we order a dish of fettuccine alfredo, we know that dish has upwards of 1,600 + calories.  Realistically, we do not need to be eating that much food.  Think about the bread, side salad, and wine we’ve already consumed prior to our dish arriving.  This can put us way over a 2,000-calorie dinner.  Have a game plan and assess the menu before you order.  If you really want the fettuccine, you can pass on the bread and/or wine, or, you can order it all and have a small taste of everything, but in reality, you’re not eating much food at all.  It’s the amount of food we eat that matters the most.

Never Deprive Yourself

If we let ourselves eat the foods we love whenever, we don’t need to have a designated day to enjoy them.  Eighty percent of your diet should be healthy, and 20% is whatever else you want (healthy or not).  As long as you are honoring your body, eating when you are truly physically hungry, and being mindful of your portion sizes, you can easily reach and maintain your healthy weight all while allowing yourself you daily “cheats”.

Don’t forget your workout of the week!

Click here for Jessica’s No More Resolutions Workout!

No More Resolutions will run for 12 weeks along with No Diets in the New Year

There are beginner, intermediate, and advanced workouts for everyone!

I have never in my life been so excited about the weather as I am today.

You see, this girl (me), was born and raised in South Texas where I met my super cool husband.

My husband took me from Texas to San Diego… I know… I’m spoiled…

Then, my husband took me from San Diego to Washington, DC.

Here in DC, I have experienced some of the most beautiful fall weather with gorgeous fall leaves.

We have a giant Cherry Blossom tree in our backyard, which when bloomed in the spring, looks like pink cotton candy flowers.

And here, in DC, this girl from Texas has experienced more snow then I have seen in my entire life. Thirty-seven inches to be exact!

I have never been more ready for spring!

And today, this first day of March, the weather is suppose to reach a high of just over 50 degrees!!!!!!!!

Spring is on its way! I may even bust out the jogging stroller today… who knows… the options are endless!

Okay… I’m done gloating

If you haven’t figured this out yet… chocolate chip cookies are my absolute favorite!

I have a few recipes that I love. One of them is this recipe. When I made these vegan cookies, people can’t even tell they’re vegan.

Well… they’re kinda vegan. I’m not a huge fan of carob, so I use regular semi-sweet chocolate chips

A couple of years ago I came across this recipe online from Dreena Burton of Eat Drink & Be Vegan.

Over time I’ve slightly altered the recipe. What I love about her recipe is the creative use of molasses.

The molasses combined with maple syrup makes this cookie taste like there’s tons of brown sugar in it… but there’s none at all!

My favorite part about baking chocolate chip cookies is eating the cookie dough!

The fact that there’s no eggs in this recipe makes me feel less guilty about indulging!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon blackstrap molasses
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (or carob chips)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Whisk until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk maple syrup, molasses, vanilla, and canola oil.

Combine wet ingredients with dry ingredients. Mix until well combined. Add in chocolate chips.

Drop by HEAPING tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet. Will make about 9 cookies.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven immediately. Let set on cookie sheet for 2 minutes, then carefully remove and place cookies on cooling rack.

Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have a great Monday!!!!

For some reason I always forget about this dish.

My mom use to make it a lot growing up and I remember liking it.

I basically love any dish that contains all three major food groups in one serving….

Oh, and taste. It has to taste good.

This dish has it all… lean protein, complex carbs, a little fat, and TASTE.

I had all the ingredients at home and decided to give it whirl.

I figured my husband would like it because it had his favorite ingredient… MEAT.

For some reason I don’t enjoy eating rice alone as a side dish, but when it’s mixed in a meal like this, I like it.

I used brown rice for this meal.

I precooked the 10 minute brown rice because it was quick and easy.

This turned out to be the perfect size meal for me my husband and I.

I had one pepper and he had two.

The best part of this meal took 45 minutes from start to finish!

Ingredients:

• 3-4 large bell peppers, stems and seeds removed
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• about 1 lb lean ground turkey
• 1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
• 1 1/2 cups crushed tomatoes (canned)
• 2 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• Texas Pete to taste
• Shredded cheddar cheese for topping.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Drizzle about 1 tablespoon of olive in pan. Saute onions and garlic until onions are translucent.

Add ground turkey and cook through.

Once turkey in cooked, add cooked rice, tomatoes, Italian seasoning, ketchup, Worcestershire, salt, pepper, and Texas Pete. Cook for additional 10 minutes.

Drizzle each pepper with a little olive oil. Fill each pepper with meat filling.

Bake in oven for 25 minutes. Remove from oven, top with a little cheese on top. Bake for additional 10 minutes.

ENJOY!

Have a great weekend!!

This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week.  Eating disorders are life-threatening illnesses, not choices. Prevention is key in the fight against eating disorders.  Although I’ve never had an eating disorder, I did go through a period of being a little too concerned with what I was eating.  Here is one of my favorite handouts from NEDA.  I love this message in particular.

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY:

Eat what you want, when you are truly hungry. 

Stop when you’re full. 

And eat exactly what appeals to you. 

Do this instead of any diet, and you’re likely to maintain a healthy weight, and avoid eating disorders.

This is where normal eating comes in.  Normal eating is basically eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re satisfied.  Do this and you will naturally control your weight while falling into your natural healthy weight.  For a more detailed definition we can go to Registered Dietitian Ellyn Satter:

• Normal eating is going to the table hungry and eating until you are satisfied.
• Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food.
• It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful.
• Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating.
• Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life
• In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food and your feelings.

This is a very good definition of normal eating and sounds relatively easy, but for some, it’s harder than you think.  An article in the New York Time’s Blog addressed normal eating with Ellyn Satter’s definition.  There were over 300 comments.  Everyone’s view of normal eating is different.  Someone’s view of normal eating could be eating fast food only once or twice per day.  It’s really important to clarify that it’s both quantity and quality that matters the most.  Eating healthy is very important, but how much you eat is even more important.  If you want fast food, eat fast food, just don’t order and consume the entire supersized value meal.  Normal eating as mentioned above is “going to the table hungry and eating until you are satisfied.”  This can be difficult for some, but it’s all about having the right attitude.  Food is fun, delicious, and satisfying.  Forget trying to lose weight… carry your head high and your attitude positive.  Let yourself eat what you want when you’re hungry and stop when you stomach isn’t hungry anymore.  Like Ellyn Satter says… “Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps it’s place as only one important area of your life.

I leave you with a question… “What is your description of Normal Eating?”  Let me know… I’d love to hear!

I did it! I finally figured out how to make good pizza crust! Well… good by my standards .

My poor husband has suffered through partially uncooked pizza crust, insanely thick and dense crust, and crust so thin it just falls apart.

In case you forgot… my husband loves pizza. You can read all about his love for pizza here.

A few weeks back I purchased some Fleischmann’s Pizza Crust Yeast.

I was hesitant to use it. I wanted to use the regular yeast because I wanted to do it right.

I prefer a whole wheat crust, but since I’d messed up so many times I decided to try it with regular flour first.

Even though the package says you don’t have to let the dough rise, I stuck in the fridge for a few hours… and boy did it rise!

When I presented this pizza to my husband he was a little worried.

After the first bite… he LOVED it!!

Not only did I score with the crust, but my neighbor gave me a great recipe for homemade pizza sauce.

This was my first time making pizza sauce from scratch…. it was so good!

I doubled the recipe to fit the massive pizza dough I had just made.

At first I thought it was a tad salty, but I trusted the recipe and left it as is.

I’m so glad I didn’t change the recipe! Aside from a great crust, the sauce really made the pizza!

Oh, and feta cheese. We love feta cheese in our house and a pizza wouldn’t be complete without it.

Pizza Crust:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 envelope Fleischmann’s PIzza Crust Yeast
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2/3 cup very warm water
• 3 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Combine flour, salt, and yeast in a mixer with the hook attachment.

Slowly add the water in, then the olive oil. Mix at low speed until a soft dough is formed. The dough will be sticky.

Let it knead in the mixer for about 4-5 minutes.

Take a medium sized bowl and drizzle about 1 tablespoon of olive oil so it coats the inside of the bowl.

Form the dough into a ball and place into the oiled bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge for at least 3 hours.

Once the dough is ready, just shape into whatever shape you like. This works great for a 12 inch round pizza or a big rectangle shape.

Add your sauce and toppings and bake for 12 – 15 minutes. Crust should be golden brown.

Pizza Sauce:

• 8 oz can tomato sauce
• 1 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp onion salt

Mix all ingredients and let stand for a while. I made this after I made the pizza dough. While the dough was rising in the fridge, I let the sauce sit. I also doubled this recipe to fit my pizza crust.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Question of the Day?

What are your favorite pizza toppings? My favorite is a greek pizza with red onion, kalamata olives, feta, and banana peppers! YUM!