Here I go again with honey...and barbecue sauce...and shrimp! haha I seriously cannot get enough of these three ingredients and I love using them in so many ways. So let's get to it shall we?!


Let's start with the Honey BBQ Salad Dressing...what is so nice about it? It is mayo free and  low in  fat!

Prep time: 10 minutes

(I added milk to make it thinner so that is not pictured here...sorry!)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup plain or vanilla Greek yogurt
1/2 cup low fat milk
1/2 cup your favorite Barbecue sauce
1 tbsp.honey
1/4 tsp. pepper


Instructions:

1. Mix all together!

Now I used this dressing to go over my shrimp and avocado salad. So let me tell you how I cooked my shrimp without any butter and  also kept it low in fat!

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 6 minutes
Yields: 30 shrimp


Ingredients:

1 tsp. olive oil
1/3 cup chicken broth
1 tbsp. lime juice
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. cilantro flakes


Instructions:

1. The prep time comes from getting your shrimp ready. Make sure you de-shell and de-vein your shrimp.

2. In a pan, heat the olive oil on medium heat.

3. Then add your shrimp.

4. Then add the rest of the ingredients and cook about 3 minutes on both sides of the shrimp until they are pink.

Cooking it this way gives the shrimp enough flavor but doesn't drown the shrimp in tons of flavors and washes away the light fresh taste. It's perfect!

To create the salad I used fresh chopped Romaine lettuce, 10 pieces of shrimp, avocado, and red bell pepper. Yum Yum Yum! Then top with a little bit of the Honey BBQ Salad dressing and you have a healthy light dinner :)

Lately I have been craving my whole grain bread toasted with some nice peanut butter or almond butter on it for breakfast or after a workout. Sometimes I just get stuck in a little grove and I eat the same thing over and over again for a while. Well my toast wasn't cutting it for me anymore haha so I moved on to a little dessert. I decided to turn my favorite little pick-me-up snack into a delicious sandwich cookie! Peanut butter cookies with jam frosting spread in between....yum!

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 8 minutes
Yields: 10 sandwich cookies

Ingredients:

1/4 cup unsalted butter (half a stick)
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 & 1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp. milk
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1 & 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tsp. baking powder


Instructions:

1. In a bowl combine the unsalted butter, coconut oil, brown sugar, milk, and vanilla extract. Mix on medium until the butter and coconut oil is blended and there are no large pieces.

2. Next add the egg and peanut butter. Mix well.

3. In a separate bowl combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Shift until the ingredients are blended.

4. Slowly add the flour mixture to the peanut butter mixture and again blend until there is no dry flour and the mixture is smooth.

5. I always love to chill my cookie dough for at least 30-60 minutes so feel free to do so as well. During that time I made the jelly mixture to go in-between the cookies when they are done. But to save space on this post I will tell you how to finish the cookies right now...


6. After the dough has chilled preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

7. Scoop the dough into balls and place on a non-stick cookie sheet. Then flatten the balls with the back of a spoon.

8. Then do the criss-cross thing we always seem to do with peanut butter cookies...and not any other type of cookie....who even thought to do this anyways?! haha but it looks good so do it!

9. Bake at 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes (mine were perfect right at 8 minutes)

Now with the delicious jam frosting to go in the middle of two of these amazing cookies!

Prep time: 5 minutes
Yields: about 2 cups


Ingredients:

10.6 oz. container of cool whip
1/2 cup of jam or jelly (you choose the flavor!)


Instructions:

1. Combine both ingredients in a bowl and mix well!

Place a nice amount of the jam mixture in between two cookies and enjoy :)

(Note: since the frosting was made up of cool whip, I kept my cookies in the fridge on a plate with just plastic wrap over the top. They stayed soft, fresh, and lasted a week and a half! Now I know some of you are thinking that cookies in your house never even make it through a day but it's just me and my husband and we don't eat dessert everyday.)

Alright! It's getting warm outside people and that means cooking meals regularly outside on the barbecue...or my husband cooks outside on the barbecue haha I just prep the food! So of course the go-to-food to throw on the good ol' barbecue is beef, beef, beef, and more beef....don't get me wrong, I'm sure it is good...if I ate beef, but I bet that even my beef loving husband gets tired of eating it over and over again. So out comes the ground turkey and ground chicken!

Ground chicken has such an unique taste to it. To me it tastes very earthy and it can be very bland if you don't season it or dress it up correctly. So I decided to make me a chicken burger that was more towards a veggie burger with a tropical twist to it...and  the result...light, healthy, and delicious!

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 pounds ground chicken
1/2 large red pepper, diced
1 large ripe mango, peeled and diced
5 green onions
1 Serrano or jalapeno pepper, finely diced
1 egg
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup parsley
1 tsp. pepper


Instructions:

1. Mix all ingredients in bowl and combine really well.

2. Form into patties. My batch formed 10 patties.

3. Cook on barbecue for about 30 minutes on medium heat. Serve on whole wheat buns and enjoy!

Oh this dip....how do I even start describing this dip? It is AMAZING! During football season this past year, I of course had to start making a wide variety of finger foods and snacks. There are so many options out there and I have heard or cooked a lot of them. So I had to start being creative and start mixing recipes and trying new things. It was then  that I just kept it simple and added seven common ingredients to make a dip that just explodes in your mouth. It is so addicting and you just can't stop! It is cheesy, spicy, and meaty...three things my man and all guys love :)

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 2 hours
Servings: a ton!


Ingredients:

2 pounds ground turkey
2 cans corn, drained
2 can Rotel diced tomatoes
2 eight oz. packages of cream cheese
1 sixteen oz. package of Velveeta cheese (I prefer using Mexican or Jalapeno flavored)
1 finely diced jalapeno
1 tsp. chili powder


Instructions:

1. Cook the ground turkey first. Cook it until no longer pink and I just seasoned it with pepper.

2. Place the cream cheese and Velveeta cheese in the crock pot first.

3. Then add the drained corn and tomatoes.

4. Add the finely diced jalapeno!

5. Then put the cooked ground turkey on top! Cover and cook on high for 1 hour and then low for the second hour. Stirring occasionally.

6. After the cheese has melted then add the chili powder.

7. And it's done! Try not to eat too much ;)

My second dessert post! I am finding it hard to post on desserts because my main focus is to find and post on healthy, unique, meals and snacks people may not have heard before. But when it comes to desserts they all kind of fall in the same 3 categories: cookies, cakes, and brownies....and you can't forget about pumpkin! haha I love making fun of all the pumpkin recipes! It just seems like someone will take one of the cookie, cake, and brownie recipes and add pumpkin to it and then act all proud that they just come up with something so new and so great! lol No don't get me wrong, I applaud anyone who cooks and comes up with their own recipes. It is a hard and scary thing to do.

So what have I come up with this time? 4 things that I love all put together in one jar: cake, chocolate mousse, cool whip, and berries! This is so easy and light that it won't even seem like you are ruining your diet by eating this.

Here is what I used:

Ingredients:

1 box of cake mix
1 box of Jell-o Chocolate Mousse
Frozen Berries
Cool Whip
Mason Jar


Instructions:

1. Cook the cake mix as instructed on box.

2. Cook the Jell-o Chocolate Mousse as instructed on box.

3. Layer all 4 ingredients in any order!

I made this for 3 people and all three jars were layered completely different. That's what makes this fun!

One example of layering that I liked was: cake, chocolate mousse, cool whip, berries, cake, chocolate mousse, and berries!

I hope everyone had a great Easter! We sure did :) Remembering our Lord Jesus Christ and everything that he did for us sure is an amazing blessing!

The one and only thing I truly love about holidays is that it brings families together and being able to spend a day with our loved ones. And enjoying FOOD of course :)

So what did I make this Easter holiday? The most best meatloaf I love too cook formed in a cupcake pan with mashed potatoes and gravy and corn on the cob and asparagus! It was a meal of all meals.

On this page I will give you the recipes for the meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and gravy!

(I forgot the egg in the picture!)

Meatloaf Ingredients:

1 tsp. olive oil
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
1/3 cup chopped red pepper
1/3 cup chopped mushrooms
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. garlic
1 lb. ground turkey
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 tbsp. mustard
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp. ground pepper
1 large egg


Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a skillet, heat the olive oil on medium heat. Add the chopped onion, chopped red pepper, chopped mushrooms, oregano, and garlic. Saute for about 3-5 minutes or when the onion is transparent and then turn off heat. Let it cool while you mix the other ingredients.

3. In a bowl combine the turkey, ketchup, breadcrumbs, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, egg, and then the onion mixture from the stove.

4. Spray your cupcake pan with non-stick spray. I used a jumbo sized cupcake pan which is like 2 normal cupcakes as one. I was able to fill 5 of them up, so if you used a normal cupcake pan you should be able to fill 10!

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes if you use a jumbo pan or 30-35 minutes for a regular pan or until a thermometer reaches 160 degrees. Let stand for 5 minutes before you take them out and serve.

While the meatloaf is in the oven you can start your gravy!

(Note: this is NOT a healthy gravy recipe but it is so dang good and you only use a little bit of it so it is not that bad)

Gravy Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter (one stick)
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp. garlic
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
4 cups (1 qt.) chicken broth
1 tsp. pepper

(notice a lot of the same ingredients as the meatloaf....it ties the dish in perfectly)

Instructions:

1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the flour and stir for 5 minutes. The flour will start to smell like pie crust. Then add the garlic.

2. Then stir in the rest of the ingredients: chicken broth first, ketchup, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and pepper.

3. Bring to a simmer and then reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Now the mashed potatoes. I do these last because if the meatloaf gets done before you finish the mashed potatoes they are perfectly fine just sitting there. Same as the gravy. You can just turn off the heat and it will stay warm!

Ingredients:

4 cups chopped golden potatoes
1/2 cup low fat milk
1/2 cup low fat sour cream
1 tsp. pepper

Instructions:

1. Start a large pot of water on the stove. You can get it to start boiling while you peel and cut the potatoes.

2. Peel and cut the potatoes into halves and then half again to get 4 cups.

3. Dump the cut potatoes into the pot of water and cover. If the water is not boiling yet wait to set the timer until it starts to boil. After the water is boiling let them boil for 10 minutes.

4. Drain into a strainer and then move the potatoes to a bowl. Mash them using a potato masher and then add the milk, sour cream, and pepper. Mix a little bit more and then your done!

Now combine all three parts of this meal and you get something pretty incredible!