Healthy Carribean Fried Rice

Ingredients:

2 TBL. fat-free or country crock butter
1 1/2 cups white or whole-grain brown minute rice (cooked according to package directions)
1 Lemon
1/2 tsp. pepper

Cook the minute rice according to package directions. Next, heat butter in a skillet. Add your rice, squeeze the lemon juice over the rice, stirring it into the rice well.

Next add your pepper and sitr rice well. This is the quickest, easiest rice recipe that has a lot of good flavor to add as a healthy side to your meal! :)

Healthy Fried Fish Fillets

These fish fillets taste deep fried, but they are really not fattening or unhealthy like ordinary deep fried fish. They have an excellent flavor and my family loves it! At only 100 calories per 4 oz. serving of fish, this meal is a huge hit with our family!

• 
  
• Ingredients:
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (salt is totally optional, it isn't necessary)
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 pound tilapia, haddock, catfish or other white-fish fillets
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil (you may need more if you are making a bigger batch of fish)
• 1 lemon (juiced)
• 1 tsp. lemon pepper seasoning (if desired)

1. Pour or squeeze lemon juice over fish fillets in a medium bowl. Refrigerate or let sit for 30 minutes, soaking in the lemon juice, while you prepare a pan with the olive oil and prep the flour mixture.
2. Combine flour, salt and pepper in a shallow dish. Thoroughly dredge fillets; discard any leftover flour.
3. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the fish, and cook on medium- medium high until lightly browned and just opaque in the center, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Serve immediately.

I make this fish a lot with my steamed cheesy broccoli and rice side. :) I hope you all enjoy it! 

Pumpkin Picking at the pumpkin farm!

Each year, it's our tradition to go to the farm on the 1st of October and let the kids' pick out pumpkins for Halloween (Samhain).

Once we get the pumpkins home, I use a spell on each of them for our home. If you are looking for a good protection spell for your pumpkins, maybe you will find this useful.

It's very easy. It's a simple enchantment spell you can use and I like to do it every year:

Pick out your pumpkin or pumpkins, and place it near your front door, but not on concrete as that will destroy your pumpkin and rot it out. If you have to, then place a board underneath the pumpkin to prevent this and protect it.

With a black permanent marker, draw a small pentagram on the bottom of the pumpkin(s). When the moon rises, hold your pumpkin (or one by one, if you have more than one pumpkin) in your arms, and repeat the following:

Precious pumpkin,
watch over my home

Protecting from bane,
all you behold,

By the power of this fruit
in the pale moonlight

Shield us from harm
both day and night.

Leave your enchanted pumpkin(s) as a watchful guardian(s). You may carve it no more than one day before Halloween (Samhain), and when you do, save some seeds for magic in the future.

You can also use the seeds for runes, which is something I like to do besides roasting them. ;)

Happy Autumn everyone! :)

Healthy Chicken and Rice Broccoli Dinner

Ingredients:

1 bag cheesy broccoli

2 pnds. Boneless chicken

1 1/2 cups white minute rice

1/4 cup Colby jack shredded cheese

Dash of ground cumin

Salt and pepper to taste

1/8 cup skim milk
1 TBL. olive oil (or coat your pan with a little cooking spray)

Directions:

Warm the white rice according to package directions (I do mine for 5-6 minutes in the microwave).

Meanwhile, saute the chicken in 1 Tablespoon olive oil or cooking spray until cooked through well, adding dashes of cumin, salt and pepper to taste.

Steam the cheesy broccoli in microwave according to package directions.

Next, add the cooked rice. Stir.

Add cheesy broccoli, stir once more. Add your milk, stir, add your shredded cheese, stir until thoroughly mixed well.

Serve warm.

I will keep updating more healthy recipes here when I get a chance! This was a discovery I made the other night when I was in a pinch and a big rush to throw dinner together with two cranky kids.

NOTE: You can also add 1 packet of cheese from a package of gluten-free mac n' cheese, if you want a cheesier flavor or creamier texture. If you do use the packet of cheese, I recommend using half n' half cream in place of milk, but either one will work great! This is just a way to tweak the recipe, it's not necessary. I think it tastes great just the way it is. My family really loved this one, too! :)

Coin Toss Game

Supplies needed:

Construction paper (black, purple, green, orange, any Halloween color)

Goblets or glasses (preferably unbreakable material)

4-6 pennies (depending on how long you want to stretch the game time out, you can use more or less coins if you wish)

Any color tape or regular masking tape

Cooking oil (optional)

Napkins

To start, cut Halloween shapes of your choice---such as bats, ghosts, spiders etc.---out of the construction paper.

Tape or glue the shapes to the goblets/glasses and line them up on a desk, table or dresser (any solid, flat surface will work), in the shape of a bat, a witch's hat, a ghost or a spider. You can really personalize this if you want to. If you want to really get creative, go for it! We made Frankenstein's head last year and it was fun.

Once you have figured out where the kids will stand to toss the coins into the goblets, mark that spot with the tape.

The object of this game is to toss the pennies into the goblets and have them stay inside. You could use small cauldrons if you wanted as well, but I think the goblets or glasses make this more challenging.

Another way you can make it more difficult if your kids are older, you can move the line back further, and you can also use the cooking oil to rub on the goblets/glasses to make it more challenging for the coins to stick.

Fitness Update - Workouts

So I have finally gotten the chance I've been waiting for to write about everything I've been doing over the past two months to achieve my goals in weight loss and toning, and am seeing even more definition and a tighter core since my last fitness update.

I thought I would share my routine here:

Ab crunches, arm workouts, heel touches, bicycle crunches, leg lift crunches, for 20 minutes a day, 3 days a week. I do a lot of ab workouts, because that's the main part that was a problem area for me at first because I was toning after a second pregnancy, I was doing ab workouts every day along with my walks which were 3-5 miles a day, 5 days a week.

I now do walks: 3-4 or 5 miles a day, 3 days a week. Butt/glutes, thighs and legs workouts such as squats etc.

I use 1 day in between that week to rest, 

and give my body a break. I don't have "cheat days" because Im not dieting, I'm just eating clean and healthy. I take prenatal vitamins but no diet supplements or pills.

I've also been incorporating a morning cardio workout into my routine, that goes like either of the two below: 

These workouts do really work! I highly recommend them! I found these pins oin Pinterest and startyed doing them the day I got the OK from my doctor to get active again. I love them! The workout feels so good and gives me energy for my morning. :)

Some more workouts I do:

The above are the main ab workouts I've been doing consistently for the past three months. I incorporate other ab workotus in between but these ones give me more of the burn than any others, especially the planking!

This is a planking routine I follow (also found on Pinterest):

I have more to post but my kids are both up so I will do this at another time. But this is the main stuff, what I typically do each and every day that has given me the results I have now.

Halloween and Autumn Home Decor

Every change of season, I decorate our home in the festive season's decor. Here are some of my favorites I have collected over the past year, and I am still accumulating more this year.

The platter and place mats came from Walmart. I absolutely love them, I bought a beautiful tablecloth for Thanksgiving last week that goes perfectly with the place mats and the platter. 

You won't believe where I got the Scarecrow from! Dollar Tree! I love love LOVE shopping Dollar Tree for holiday decor. The sign, the glass ghost globe and the small pumpkin decorations are all from Dollar Tree. 

The Trick or Treat pumpkin was from Walmart last year, and those adorable ghosts are from Savers. :)

I picked up these signs from Dollar Tree last year. I love them! You can really find a lot of amazing stuff at your dollar store, and your thrift stores, too!

The hanging pumpkins are from Goodwill. I love to shop for holiday decor at both Savers and Goodwill when the season rolls around. You can find really great stuff for real cheap!

So I used to have a crashing witch decoration like this one a few yaers back, but it was put outside and we had really rough Fall weather that year, and it bascally just got ruined and I had to throw it away. I was kind of sad :(, and for two years I didn't see another one of these. 

Tim was at Shopko the other day after work and he surprised me with this witch! He knew I really wanted one :). I am so happy, I've finally got a new one! I love these witches, I think they are so comical.

Well, I will definitely add more pictures later in the week! I am hoping to pick up some other things before Halloween rolls around, and Tim and I have to shop for our costumes yet. We got the kids theirs last weekend, and cannot wait to dress them up, they are going to be so adorable! :)