If you are like me then you love anything that has broccoli in it! I guess my mom had it easy with me when I was growing up because I never had a hard time eating my vegetables and especially broccoli. There is just something about them that when you eat them you feel super healthy...until you pour cheese over it! haha but who cares right?

This meal is sort of just like macaroni and cheese with broccoli in it but making your own mac-n-cheese instead of buying the box stuff is still a little bit healthier because you aren't dealing with all the preservatives. This is just a perfect meal when you need something fast, you probably have all the ingredients, and you need a yummy dinner that includes some vegetables for the little ones.

1. The first thing you need to do is cut your broccoli and onion because once you get things rolling, the meal goes pretty fast. So cut 1 large crown of broccoli, I had about 3 cups, and 1/3 cup of onion. I only had a red onion but any will do!

Now you will have two pans going at once:

2. Get a large pot of water boiling. When ready pour 8 oz. of shells in and cook according to box. 8 oz. is about 3 cups and you cook for around 10 minutes. When you have cooked your noodles for 8 minutes, throw your broccoli in and they will become soft in the last two minutes. I had a pot that allows me to steam while I have something cooking underneath so I put the broccoli in to steam for about 6 minutes while the shells where cooking. When the shells and broccoli are cooked, drain and pour in strainer and then wait to combine with other pan.

3. While your noodles and broccoli are cooking, in a pan heat 1 tbsp. of olive oil and then cook your chopped onion until transparent.

4. Next, add 2 tbsp. of flour and mix well.

5. Then add your 2 cups of milk and make sure all the flour is blended and there are no chunks. Let the milk get warm and barely start to simmer before you add the cheese. You need the milk to be warm enough to melt the cheese but you don't want it to start boiling. The heat should be on medium low. Add 8 oz. of shredded cheese.

6. After the cheese has melted, turn off the heat and add your spices and the shells and broccoli. I added 1 tsp. of pepper and 2 tsp. of hot sauce.

And there you have it! Super easy right? And most people never think about adding a vegetable to the classic macaroni and cheese.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Serving Size: 6 servings

Ingredients:

8 oz. or 3 cups of shells
1 large crown of broccoli or 3 cups chopped
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/3 chopped onion
2 tbsp. flour
2 cups of milk
8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
1 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. hot sauce

Folks....we are getting close to summer, I can feel it! Okay no I can't. But my internal clock is just telling me that warm weather is coming soon. And when I start thinking about summer time and warm summer nights all I think about is heating up the good ol' barbecue! What else to cook on your barbecue then some plump, juicy, flavorful burgers. Turkey burgers that is! I have successfully convinced my husband that turkey burgers are just as good as a hamburger. They taste the same people, it's all in your head! haha

Okay, so I am not doing a post on how to make "The juiciest turkey burger ever," I am here to bring you a NEW type of burger all together. One with unusual ingredients that make it a thousand times better. I saw two ideas and brought them together. I hate eating turkey burgers on dry, flavorless, nutrition-less buns. They are disgusting. Seriously you can ruin the best cooked burger by putting it in between garbage. So what do you use then, lettuce? Sure if you want to cut out some carbs you would have gotten from the bun. But the lettuce is suppose to be a condiment, not the main component. We are going to be putting our turkey burger in between spaghetti noodle buns!!!

Here is all you need to make a bun out of spaghetti noodles.

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1/2 box of angel hair pasta

1 egg

1/4 cup milk

1/4 tsp. basil

1/4 tsp. parsley

1/4 tsp. garlic salt

1 cup of mozzarella cheese, divided in half

about 6 oz. of your favorite spaghetti sauce - I had Sun Dried Tomato Pesto mmmmmm!

Steps:

1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

2. Cook the angel hair pasta according to box, about 10-12 minutes, or until soft. Do not break the noodles in half! It is important to leave them long.

3. While the noodles are cooking, in a small bowl mix together: milk, egg, and seasonings.

4. When the noodles are done, drain and add them to your milk and egg mixture. Mix really well until all the noodles are covered and there in no more liquid left at the bottom of the bowl. Then add 1/2 cup of your shredded cheese. Mix well.

5. Dump the noodles into a greased baking dish. I used a 9x9 dish and it fit perfectly. You want the whole pan to be covered and to be about 1/2 inch thick. Place in oven and bake for 15 minutes.

6. After the 15 minutes, reduce the oven to 375 degrees. Remove the pan from the oven and spread a thin amount of your spaghetti or pesto sauce on top and then cover with the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese. Return to oven for 20 minutes.

7. After the 20 minutes, turn off oven and remove. Let the noodles cool for about 5 minutes before you cut and serve.

Some people serve and eat as is. It is a very good baked noodle dish. You can serve with a nice salad. But I turned this spaghetti square into a burger bun!

Here are my layers:

Spaghetti square

lettuce

fried egg - a little runny

turkey burger

spaghetti square

DELICIOUS!!!!!!

First of all.....HAPPY PI DAY!!!!  Today is March 14th or in the math world we say 3.14

So in honor of pi day, I baked something in the shape of a circle and in honor of St. Patrick's day coming up, I baked something green...see what I did there...now that's called killing two birds with one stone!

Celebrating Pi day is a great way to get involved in math and start enjoying it. Calculating or finding the number pi (3.14...) is not hard and you can find it on anything that is in the shape of a circle (just not a 3D object like a ball because it would be hard to find the diameter). So before you make these amazing cookies, go and do a little bit of research on the number Pi. I'm sure you will be intrigued. (Can you tell I am a math teacher yet? haha) I can drive my students crazy by being this excited about math! It's awesome!!!

Okay so back to these delicious cookies.

The name of these cookie are a mouthful right?! Mint Green Tea Chocolate Chip Cookies. And that's also what you will be doing with them as well....enjoying mouthfuls of cookies ;)

So the inspiration for these cookies came from way back when I first posted about my Green Tea Shake. There is nothing more frustrating to me as a person who loves to cook than to go and purchase a "special" ingredient and then using it once or just being able to use it in one recipe. I like to use all of the ingredients I have in multiple ways so that I feel like I am getting my money's worth. So bust out your Matcha Green Tea powder people because this recipe is going to keep you coming back for more!

So here are all of the ingredients....

Ingredients:

2 cups flour (white or wheat)
2 tbsp. Matcha Green Tea Powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter (a stick and a half)
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. mint extract
1 cup chocolate chips (I always use dark cacao bittersweet chocolate)


Milk chocolate chips just don't do anything for me. You will find that dark chocolate is better for you and you can start small if you aren't a huge dark chocolate lover. My husband is everything milk chocolate but when I use dark chocolate chips in my desserts he loves them!

Instructions:

1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a small bowl: flour, green tea powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix really well and then set aside.

2. Make sure your butter is room temperature and really soft. It helps blending the rest of the ingredients together and cuts back on the blending time.

3. In a separate bowl from your dry ingredients start with blending the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Blend until mixed well. Less than one minute.

4. Next, blend in the vanilla extract, mint extract, and eggs. Blend really well for 1-2 minutes.

5. Now add the dry ingredients until all the flour has been absorbed and the whole mixture is "wet." About another minute of blending.

6. Lastly, add the chocolate chips and either blend for a very short amount of time with your hand mixer or mix in with a wooden spoon.

Now this is how I do the last part of my cookies. I don't set my oven until I am completely done mixing my ingredients because I like to let the dough chill in the fridge while the oven is heating and then it gives me time to clean some dishes.

7. Pre-heat your oven to 325 degrees and set dough in fridge to chill. When the oven is done heating then line a baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly spray with non-stick cooking spray. Spoon out the dough in small balls. I like to flatten the dough balls with the back of my spoon so that my cookies aren't piled high in the middle. I then have an even, flat cookie when it is done baking.

8. Bake for 10 minutes and then try to save some for your kids!!!

This cookie recipe is a great one to get hooked on because it uses less sugar than your normal typical cookie recipe. It is still sweet and packs a ton of flavor. A typical cookie recipe calls for 2 sticks of butter and 2 cups or more of sugar. This recipe only contains one cup of sugar!

My husband is always my true critic. He tells me exactly how it tastes. And he actually loves them! I said that they tasted like mint chocolate chip ice cream and he said they tasted like a fluffy and soft version of the Girl Scouts Thin Mint Cookie. Either one is fine to me because I love them both :)

One of our favorite meals to make in my house are tacos! And making them a seafood taco makes them even better :) So here are 2 different recipes for some healthy shrimp tacos. I did one sweet and the other spicy. Mine are the sweet ones and my husbands are the spicy ones...even though I ate both kinds because they were so delicious!

First start with your rice since that takes the longest in this meal. I always use my rice cooker and it takes about 30 minutes for white rice.

1. For two people I usually just cook 1 cup of rice because it doubles. So start with a cup of rice, cilantro, and a lime.

2. Just put all the ingredients in your rice cooker and let it do the rest! I always leave half of a lime in the rice cooker just so it can soak up more of the lime juice.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Yields: 2 cups of cooked rice

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked white rice
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
1 lime squeezed, juice


Now with the shrimp! Shrimp cooks really fast and it is important to not over cook it. All they need is to be cooked for one to two minutes per side.

1. De-shell and de-vein the shrimp.

2. In 2 different pans heat them on medium heat and add a tiny bit of olive oil. These recipes are suppose to be healthy and NOT loaded with oil and butter.

3. After the pan and oil are hot, add your shrimp and wait one to two minutes and then flip. They are done on one side when they turn white and red.

4. After they are done cooking, turn off the heat and then add your sauce!


So here are the two flavors I did:


Honey-Mustard Shrimp

Ingredients:

1 tbsp. honey
1/2 tbsp. cider vinegar
1/4 tsp. dry mustard
pepper



Note: I took a pound of jumbo shrimp and divided them in half for both recipes. Each sauce covered 10 shrimp.

Chipotle-Lime Shrimp

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. lime juice (about 2 whole limes)
1/4 - 1/2 tsp chipotle seasoning
pepper

I added 1/2 tsp chipotle seasoning and they were really spicy but really good! My husband loves his spicy foods.




Note: I took a pound of jumbo shrimp and divided them in half for both recipes. Each sauce covered 10 shrimp.

Here is the final result! I put mine in lettuce leaves to cut back on some carbs but how you decide to load your taco's up is completely up to you :)

Oh lasagna.....you come in so many forms. But I'm tired of the same tomato based, marinara lasagna. It's time for something new!!! So I created my very own lasagna that includes 3 vegetables; spinach, artichokes, and mushrooms, and chicken in a rich creamy white sauce. It's kind of like spinach artichoke dip on steroids and as a nutritious dinner :)

Since this was a creation of multiple recipes, bare with me as I try to unfold it in the easiest way. It wasn't hard to make at all but writing it down and putting it together in a nice form so all of you can understand, now that's the tricky part!

There are only 2 pans involved for this recipe; one for the sauce and one to cook the noodles.

1. Go ahead and get that large pot of water started. When it comes to a boil you will add half of the lasagna noodles from the box. I baked this dish  in a 9x9 pan and did 3 layers. If you want to use a larger pan then just cook more noodles! It is better to cook more than less. You don't want to get to the end of the recipe and start putting it together and then run out of noodles and have to boil some more :(

2. While the noodles are doing their thing, let's start on the sauce. In a hot pan add 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/3 cup chopped white onion, and 1 teaspoon garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are transparent. About 3-4 minutes.

3. When the onions are done, whisk in 3 tablespoons flour. Stir until all onions are covered.

4. Gradually add 1 cup of chicken broth and 2 cups of milk. Whisk constantly until all ingredients are blended well. Bring to a simmer.

5. Add 1 cup of mushrooms (if you use fresh mushrooms then steam first so they become soft), 1 cups of spinach (again if you use fresh spinach, steam first and drain), and 2 cups of chopped artichoke hearts.

6. Bring the pan to a simmer again and then add 2 cups of shredded chicken. You can choose to leave this out if you want to make it meat-less! I didn't show me cooking any shredded chicken because I always buy a large rotisserie chicken at the beginning of the week and shred it immediately and place in the fridge and then use it in all of my meals for that week. It makes life so much easier. But if you didn't have any pre-shredded chicken then dice and cook 1 pound of chicken and add.

7. Lastly, add 1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese and 1 cup of Parmesan cheese. Stir everything until melted and blended well. About 5 minutes.

8. Now it's the assembly time! Spray your baking pan with non-stick spray and then lay down three rows of lasagna noodles and cover well with your mixture.

9. Repeat 3 times, meaning you should lay down 3 layers of noodles or 9 all together. When you get to the top, leave a little bit of mixture and spread out evenly on top and then cover with 1/2 cup of pepper jack cheese and 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese. Place in the oven at 375 degrees for 35 minutes!

See not that bad!

Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 35 minutes
Servings: 6

Ingredients:

1/2 box of cooked lasagna noodles
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/3 cup chopped white onion
1 tsp. garlic
3 tbsp. flour
1 cup chicken broth
2 cup  milk
1 cup mushrooms
1 cup cooked spinach or (one 10 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained)
2 cups chopped artichoke hearts (that is one 14 oz. can)
2 cups shredded chicken (remember rotisserie chicken is a life saver)
1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

on top-
1/2 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese