It is always fun to dress up your hamburgers other than the classic mayo, mustard, and ketchup routine. It seems that there is always something new to try. I saw this idea and thought I would give it a try and it was very juicy and good!

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Yield: 4 turkey burgers

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground turkey
few slices of onion
mushrooms
4 slices of green pepper
mozzarella cheese slices
marinara sauce
1 tsp. garlic (optional)

Instructions:

1. Cut a few slices of onion and then cut them in half. Also, cut your mushrooms.

2. In a pan over medium heat, add your onion and mushrooms and garlic (optional). Cook for about 5 minutes until the onions are transparent.

3. In a separate pan cook your burgers. Time will depend on what type of meat you use, how big your patties are, and how well done you like them.

4. When they are very close to being done, lay down a layer of cheese on top, then a green pepper ring, then put a spoonful of marinara sauce inside the green pepper ring.

5. Then place another slice of cheese on top. Lastly, put the onion and mushrooms on top. Turn off heat and cover for about 5 minutes to get the cheese to melt.

No build up to this recipe...let's just get started!

Ingredients:

8 oz. Spinach Noodles
1 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. garlic
1/2 zucchini, thinly sliced
1/2 yellow squash, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, sliced in strips
1/4 cup low-sodium, fat free chicken broth
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 tbsp. half & half
1/4 tsp. basil
Mozzarella cheese to top


Instructions:

1. Cook the pasta according to the package. Drain and set aside to add to vegetables.

2. While your noodles are cooking, in a pan over medium heat, add the olive oil and wait until warm. Then add the sliced vegetables and garlic. The way I sliced my zucchini and squash is by cutting off one of the ends and then using a vegetable peeler and peeling them on the circle part. The bell pepper I cut in half and cleaned out the seeds and then cut strips.

3. Cook the vegetables and garlic for about 5 minutes until they begin to soften.

4. Add the chicken broth and cook for another 3 minutes.

5. Turn off the heat and then add the half & half, yogurt, and basil. Stir really well until the yogurt is completely incorporated.

6. Lastly, add the spinach noodles and mix well. Serve with a little bit of mozzarella cheese on top!

I'll be honest here, I have NEVER liked chicken pot pie and I have no clue why. I like all the ingredients in the recipes I have seen, but the taste was just always off. In short they have always been nasty...and I don't care who made it. A restaurant, my mom, a family member...it was just not tasty to me. And I slowly starting figuring out why. First, I HATE pie crust. I will never eat it. If I am given a slice of chocolate pie there is no way I would ever pass up chocolate but I only eat the filling, leaving the crust behind. And second, I am pretty sure it is the base in chicken pot pie's that grosses me out. All of that flour, corn starch, and butter, ya I can feel my arteries clogging up now haha

But enough with all the negative feelings about chicken pot pies because I now LOVE them!!! I created my own and it is delicious. :)

Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Yields: 4 servings

Ingredients:

2 cups low-sodium, fat free chicken broth
1/2 cup half & half
2 cups cooked shredded chicken (shred a rotisserie chicken for fast prep)
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup diced celery
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 tbsp. parsley
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
pastry puff sheets, de-thawed


Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

2. In a large pot add all of the ingredients except pastry puff. Bring to a boil on medium heat and continue to boil for 8-10 minutes or until the carrots are soft.

3. After about 10 minutes, remove from heat and equally distribute the contents to four oven safe ramekins.

4. Cut the pastry puff into squares that will fit over the top of each dish with a little remaining around the edges. Make a small slit in the middle so that steam can escape.

5. Place in oven for 15 minutes.

I can't believe I am to my 50th post already. That's about 2 straight months of eating something new once a day! It feels so good to see something you have thought about and thought about actually take shape and turn into a great learning opportunity with lots of memories. Countless recipe fails...and I mean fails! haha but you can't learn if you don't make mistakes along the way. Just for fun let's look at some of the recipes that just didn't quite make the cut....yet!

Sweet Potato Bread...good for about a day then went downhill 

Cauliflower Cheesy Bread...wrong on so many levels. Note to self: don't include an ingredient that made you sick before. You remember it every time you eat it....yikes!

Healthy Pumpkin Waffles...something I added made them so bitter. Not even all the syrup in the world could fix it. Now you know why in my other posts I make fun of recipes with pumpkin in it haha

Horrible picture to go with horrible baked gooey whatever oatmeal. 

And the worst one to date was so BAD I didn't even take a picture of it. Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream. Seriously tasted like dirt.

My point is, DO NOT give up on something that you love to do just because you have had a few bad speed bumps. It happens to all of us. All you can do is just smile, laugh it off and try again or try something new :)

So today I bring you some homemade Corn Dogs but not made with a hot dog. They are made with ground turkey I rolled and cooked before dipping and frying them. Even though this is a fried food, it still tasted a whole lot better with real meat. (Please don't get me started on why hot dogs are not even real meat!)

 It looks good huh?

Prep time: I don't know haha I totally spaced on it but I would say around 45 minutes before actually dipping and frying

Cook time: 2 minutes

Yields: 6 Corn Dogs

Ingredients:

1 pound ground turkey meat
1 cup yellow corn meal
1 cup flour
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4 cup sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 egg
1.5 cups milk + 1/2 cup later on

Preparation
extra flour
vegetable oil for frying
wooden skewers cut in half


Instructions:

1. First we need to prepare the turkey dogs. I do not eat hot dogs, they are not meat, therefore I can't justify eating them haha

2. With your pound of meat, evenly (i tried to make it even) cut it into six sections. Then roll each piece of meat into a hot dog shape. It is the easiest to just roll it on the counter back and forth like you would play with play-doh and make worms....ya you get the point!

3. I know they look weird...come on...long pink pieces of meat...haha but place them in a pan with a little bit of olive oil over medium heat. Roll them after a while to cook all sides. Total probably about 10 minutes. Remove and let cool on a paper towel.

4. While the meat is cooling, mix the dipping batter. It was the rest of the ingredients: corn meal, flour, cayenne pepper, sugar, baking powder, egg, and milk. Mix really well so that there are no clumps.

5. Before we finish preparing our corn dogs, in a wide pan, add enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom and have it be about 1-2 inches deep. Turn on over medium heat and have it start getting hot. The oil has to be ready and hot enough before we stick the corn dogs in.

6. Now with the corn dogs. Take wooden skewers and cut them in half and then carefully slide them in the middle of the meat and stop about an inch to the top.

7. Roll the meat in flour so that the batter will stick to it better.

8. To test to see if the oil is hot enough, take a little bit of batter and drop it in the oil. It should start sizzling right away. If not let it heat up some more and then try again.

9. When the oil is hot enough, add the remaining 1/2 cup of milk to the batter to make it runny and then dip the skewered turkey dogs into the batter and make sure they are all the way covered.

10. Place them in your pan of oil being careful that it doesn't splash and burn you.

11. Now since we are laying them down in the oil and not straight up and down like restaurants do, the batter is going to spread out a little in an oval shape. That is perfectly fine...I mean come on these are homemade and most of us don't have a professional deep fryer!

12. The corn dogs should only take about 1 minute on each side until they are done. They cook pretty past so be careful they don't burn.

13. Remove and place on a paper towel to absorb some of the oil and you are good to go!

If you are like me then you love a chocolaty snack at night after dinner. It is so hard though because after you have worked out and eaten healthy you don't want to ruin it with some chocolate bomb. So try this smoothie that has a banana and spinach in it! It was very tasty and also helps that chocolate fix you have been needing all day.

(I made two smoothies in the picture, the ingredients given is enough for just one person, so I doubled it)

Ingredients:

15 ice cubes

3/4 cup coconut or almond milk

1 banana

1 cup spinach

1 tbsp. coco powder

1 tsp. pure vanilla

Instructions:

1. Mix all together!

As an extra bonus....

Here is a breakfast smoothie I mixed up the next morning!

Ingredients:

15 ice cubes
3/4 cup coconut or almond milk
12-15 strawberries
1 banana
1/2 cup granola

Instructions:

1. Blend the ice, milk, strawberries, and banana first until smooth. Then add your granola on top and blend for just a few seconds.

The granola gives your smoothie a little bit more of texture and helps you feel fuller without having to drink so much :)