Giveaway- Ninja Pro System

To promote my blog, and also my new healthy lifestyle, im giving away a brand new Ninja Pro System! This thing is amazing. I have one, and I also have the original Ninja system. This one I am giving away does all sorts of fun things- including making pizza dough!

Ive been using mine for a week now, the new one, and its just so fun to use. It comes with various containers so I dont have to stop and do the dishes when I use it ( unless its for a large amount of food) and it cleans up super easy.

Im excited to be able to give this one away. I purchased one that was a really good deal at a Wal-Mart that was really small and they were having a huge clearance event to get things out, and then found another one on sale and got it for super cheap , so I figured I would give it away!

All you have to do to win? Just join me on Google Friend Connect! Its free, fast and easy.

Id love to hear all about what you use yours for as well as any other tips, recipes, or weight loss tricks you might have. Im all about learning new things. And putting myself out there, with the world, to encourage and help people reach their goals.

So welcome to my blog, and good luck :)

-Stephanie

Do you feel like if you DONT eat, its wasteful from what you fix?

Thats a huge question that I have always had a problem with.

I feel like if I make something, order something, and I get full before im done, I feel obligated to finish it. Why? Because we have always been told to clean our plates. And thats not good for your body. Most portions in restaurants are 3-4 times the amount you are supposed to eat. And I know I could take it home, but then it usually sits in my fridge and gets gross, or I get home and 3 hours later, am tempted to eat it! Which is also a bad idea.

This is my biggest issue with dieting. Im taking a new approach to what I fix and how much I fix. And I have decided my new goal is whatever I cant eat, or is leftover, I will send it with my husband to work, or it will go in the trash. Unless its something good for me ( like i make salsa or something ) then it will be next nights dinner. I have to stop trying to clean my plate, and make sure my plate is only filled with as much as I SHOULD eat.

Challenge - Week 4

This week's challenge is very simple:

Replace one thing you eat, with a healthier version of it.

For instance, if you love to eat some sort of chips and dips, replace your dip with a fat free or light version, and the chips with a baked chip or a whole grain chip. Just cut out some calories, fat and sodium from something you love.

What are you going to try to switch out?

For me, I am going to be switching out my heavy sugared juices for water with lemon and crystal light.

Clean Eating- Salsa

Ive been looking into making my own recipes. And granted, salsa is not exactly a brain buster on changing some of the ingredients to make it "clean", but you gotta start somewhere, right????

My inspiration comes from The Gracious Pantry again! 

So here is my own personal salsa recipe. I am using this with homemade guacamole to eat up the rest of my Tostitos that I had bought up, before I start my new diet.

This is just for a small portion so if you want to make more, double the ingredients etc.

2 Vine Ripe Tomatoes - diced
1 cup onion (I use white) diced
1 pepper- cleaned out and diced ( i dont like a lot of heat, if you do add more)
1 lime- squeeze it and use the lime juice that remains
1 clove garlic ( if you like more stronger garlic flavor use two)
1 tsp sea salt

If you have a food chopper that will dice your vegges to a chunky consistency then use it. Otherwise it will get too mushy and be more runny salsa ( of course if you like this then go for it) Just dice and mix all items together and enjoy!

You can also use red onion, but i dont like the way red onion tastes, so I opted for white.

-Stephanie

Ugh

This has been a bad week. Thats all I have to say. But I start a new program this weekend, and I will be keeping up with results, and pictures. If this works, hold on to your swimsuits ladies, because you'll be lining up to purchase it.

Steph

Clean Eating Pizza Dough

Tonight I decided to give it a try ( yet again) at making my own homemade pizza dough. I am not too successful usually with these things. So far so good.

I used (and modified) a recipe from The Gracious Pantry. You can click on that and go right to her recipe. Mine is a tad bit different, but not much.

Instead of using oat flour, I used whole wheat flour. I also used wildflower honey and I think she used agave nectar.

I did notice that it was easier to blend by hand, and not with a spoon.


Here's the finished version:

And here's what our pizza looked like when done:

We had ground turkey, fresh mushrooms, and cheese with the homemade sauce on ours.

Move over Dominos, FRESH sauce coming through!

So, as you have probably realized by now, I am on a quest to eat better foods, more whole foods... in simpler terms more REAL FOOD. And I have been researching different things to come up with to fix me and my husband, that is not expensive, nor requires a whole lot of time.

I came across another wonderful recipe from The Gracious Pantry, and decided to give it a try. Here's my results: (we have not ate this yet, we are making the pizza dough tomorrow night and I'll have the recipe etc on that then)

First off- the recipe! Its super easy, super fast, and super cheap!

4 Vine Ripe tomatoes- diced
4 cloves of garlic ( I use my Pampered Chef garlic peeler and slicer for this)
15 oz of No Salt added tomato sauce
Salt to taste
Basil to taste ( we didn't use this as I did not have any on hand)
Instead I used onion powder, just a little, as real onions would have been too strong for us

You blend all but the sauce in a blender, then add the sauce in. I blended it all smooth ( looks like tomato juice but light pink lol) or you can just food process it just a few times to make it chunkier! Either way, it tasted yummy when I tried it, before putting it into a container to save for tomorrow night. Here's some photos and some video  :) Enjoy!