Cilantro Lime Tilapia Tacos

Another new recipe! This one thanks to skinnytaste.com. Two of these tacos with 1/4 c. of meat is 7 points, add the avocado and it's 9 Weight Watchers Points Plus points. :-) I didn't add the avocado, because when I cut into mine, they were spoiled. :-( I think they'd definitely be better with the avocado. But, they were delicious. I love cilantro, so I added more to my individual tacos and we also added a hot sauce to ours. We left out the tomatoes, because Jared thinks they will kill him, but I didn't mind these without. I'm not a huge fan of cooked tomatoes. I'd definitely make these again. 


What you will need: 

1 lb tilapia fillets, rinsed and pat dried

1 tsp olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely minced

2 jalapeño peppers, chopped (seeds removed for less heat)

2 cups diced tomatoes

1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

3 tbsp lime juice

salt and pepper to taste

8 5-inch white corn tortillas (I used La Tortilla Factory Fiber & Flax)

1 medium haas avocado, sliced

lime wedges and cilantro for garnish

What you will do:

• Heat olive oil in a skillet. Sauté onion until translucent, then add garlic. Mix well.
• Place tilapia on the skillet and cook until the flesh starts to flake. Add jalapeño peppers, tomatoes, cilantro and lime juice. Sauté over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, breaking up the fish with the spoon to get everything mixed well; season to taste with salt and pepper.
• Meanwhile, heat tortillas on a skillet a few minutes on each side to warm (no oil needed). Or you can just heat them in the microwave for 15 seconds. Serve a little over 1/4 cup of fish on each warmed tortillas with a slice or 2 of avocado and enjoy!

Italian Style Stuffed Red Peppers

Another new recipe we tried thanks to Dashingdish.com! :-) These were absolutely delicious and they are only 6 Weight Watchers Points Plus Points! I thought I'd want to have two, but one with some asparagus on the side, was plenty to fill me! Enjoy!

What you will need: 

• 1 lb lean ground turkey (Or lean ground beef)
• 3 red bell peppers
• 2 cups spaghetti sauce- I used a garlic and herb flavored one.
• 1 tsp basil/oregano seasoning (or any blend of italian herbs)
• 1tsp garlic powder (or 1 garlic clove, pressed)
• 1/2 tsp salt/pepper
• 1/2 cup fresh spinich
• 2 tbs grated parmesan cheese + 6 tbs to garnish over the top of each pepper

What you will do:

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees and cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil (I'd double wrap it if you wanna save your pan, these are drippy little buggers). This makes for easy clean up. Spray with non-stick spray.
• Brown Turkey
• Wash peppers and gut the middle of the seeds. Cut in halves the long way. Set aside.
• Once turkey is all browned, add spices and spaghetti sauce. Stir until well mixed. Add in spinach. Mix well. 
• Sprinkle two TBSP of parmesan cheese into mixture, mix well.
• Filly pepper halves with meat mixture. 
• Top with 1 TBSP of parmesan cheese or mozzarella cheese on each pepper.
• Bake for 20-30 minutes
• Let set for 10 minutes
• Enjoy!

Pretzel Crusted Honey Mustard Chicken Strips

I tried a new one from Dashing Dish.com and it was a huge hit with my hubs. I liked it too and it was super easy. Only 8 PointsPlus from Weight Watchers per serving. Serves 4. Each serving is approximately, 3-4 strips. I also served mine with steamed, fresh green beans. Which of course add zero points.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb chicken, cut into strips
• 3 tbs honey
• 2 tbs mustard
• 1 cup pretzels, finely crushed (I prefer whole wheat pretzels, or Newman’s Own protein pretzels)
• 1/8 tsp salt, pepper, and garlic powder
• Optional: 1 packet stevia (or sweetener of choice) for an extra touch of sweetness

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees, spray baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray.

2. Mix together honey and mustard in one small bowl. Mix together crushed pretzels and seasonings, and place in another small bowl.

3. Place chicken in honey mustard mix, then toss in pretzel mix making sure it is coated on both sides. 

4. Lay chicken strips on baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, flip, then bake for an additional 5-10 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through.

5. You can serve with mustard or honey or a combo of the two for a dipping sauce, but I didn't think it needed to be dipped. 

Enjoy!

Per Popular Request...ASIAN LETTUCE WRAPS.

Alright, since so many of you have requested me to give you this recipe via facebook, I've decided to just put it on there for the sake of ease! And so that any time anyone else asks me for it, I can direct them here instead of having to forward it on to them. This is one of my new favorites. I make it with 2lbs of Ground Turkey so there are more than enough leftovers. Each wrap is 3 Points Plus Weight Watchers Points. What you will need:

• Boston bib or Romaine Lettuce Leaves (they come in a huge bag at Target)
• 2 lbs ground turkey
• 1 medium onion
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp of soy sauce
• 4 tbsp of minced ginger
• 2 tsp rice wine vinegar
• Asian Chille Pepper (optional, add to taste for spice)
• 2 8oz cans of water chestnuts, drained and finely chopped
• 2 tsp Asian (dark) sesame oil
• 1/2 c.Hoisen Sauce
• Chow Mein Noodles
• Optional: Cashews, but you'd have to add more points to your wrap if you use these.

Directions:
Rinse lettuce leaves, pat dry, set aside
In a medium skillet ( I use a wok) over high heat, brown ground turkey. Stirring often and reduce heat to medium if necessary. Drain and set aside.
Using the same pan, cook chopped up onion, stirring frequently. Add the garlic, soy sauce, Hoisen sauce, ginger, vingar, and chile pepper sauce and stir.
Then stir in chopped water chestnuts and sesame oil and continue cooking until onions just begin to wilt, approximately 2 minutes.
Stir in meat and mix well.
Serve in lettuce cups and top with chow mein noodles and cashews (optional). I also add more soy sauce to each wrap. It does not add more points. Enjoy!

Here I Go Again...

This is it people...I'm going to start blogging again, really! I love to share stories of my life and making those my status updates on facebook is no doubt annoying to some viewers. So here I am, giving you a "play by play" of my life. I'm not sure how often I'll get on here to update it, but my goal is at LEAST once a week. I'm guessing my mother is the only one who will read them religiously, but hey...at least I'm talking to someone, right ma?
Well, let's see now. Until a few months a go I was MIA on this blog for a couple of years. My last post was the story of our Philippines trip, which by the way, is a fun read if you haven't done so. Interesting place to say the least.
Before that, I hadn't spoken to you since I took on a new position at St Lukes. This was my transition from ER nurse to L&D nurse...well, not much has changed. I'm still an L&D nurse, but now instead of St Lukes in Sioux City, I am working at the U of M Fairview in downtown Minneapolis. Yes, quite the change. What happened in between?
Well, I lied in the previous paragraph when I say not much has changed. A LOT has. So since we last spoke, I have gotten married!! :-) It was the best day of my life and I long to go back to that day often. So long story short (I have no idea why I didn't blog about our wedding, sad), we had a destination wedding in Riviera Maya, Mexico!! Jared and I, with 35 other guests made the journey south to party our asses off and tie the knot. Since I never blogged, I better at least add a few photos:

 The Whole Gag...Minus 3 who were MIA at the time, however, there is one you can't see. Little Miss Callie. She was conceived on this trip. So the running joke is we left with 35 and came back with 36. :-)

 One of my favorites...

 The first time we saw eachother

 Our fabulous wedding party

The bride and groom :-)

I tried to add our wedding video from the whole two weeks we were there, but it's not working :( It's so fabulous, I wish I could share. But if you are friends with my on facebook, part of it is on my page under my videos. It's just missing the childhood portion! :-)

So, we're married, now what? Well, why not have a baby?!?! So we got pregnant the first time we tried. :-) However, that tragically ended 11 weeks later. I was rushed into an emergency surgery for a D&C. Although, it's still hard to swallow, God apparently needed our little angel more than we did. So we're still trying...I can't wait to blog about that when the day comes!

Next? Well we traveled a bit after our marriage...Arizona, Denver, NYC, and The Philippines. Busy busy year. But all fun travels none the less. Still kicking myself for not blogging about those either. Ugh...I'm glad I'm back! :-)

So after the loss, we sold our house and moved to the cities. Well, that's the story in a nutshell. So here we are. Like I said, I'm at the U of M and Jared....well, Jared decided engineering just wasn't floating his boat anymore and decided to give his side job a full go. He's now the proud owner of Duncan Homes. He completed his first full home as the owner of Duncan Homes in 2011 before moving here to the cities. He now plans to pursue his dream here and give the business a go. First on the agenda? Our home!!! We are soon to break ground on our new home here in Burnsville, MN. It's been a long process getting it all going, but we are finally in the clear and will break ground in the next few weeks. I will be blogging about the process often! :-) ...we'll get to that in a minute.

So, since we've moved to the cities and sold our house, we've been living in a tiny, little one bedroom apartment in Burnsville. It's not the end of the world, but when you go from a 3000sq foot home that you own, to an 800 sq ft apartment that you can smell your neighbors supper in, it's a bit of an adjustment. There are no words to describe how excited I am to get settled into our new place! 

One more update...we've added to our family. Now we are the proud parents of not one, but two four legged daughters!! :-) Jared FINALLY agreed to let us get a big dog. 

Not so big here, eh? Well, she's a pure bread lab. She was born on February 12, 2012. Our little Valentine. :-) She will come home to us sometime in April. I can't say I'm terribly excited about training a dog in this tiny apartment, but I must admit it makes more sense to do it here rather than our brand new house and flooring!! Her kennel is going to clutter up my apt living room and I'm trying to come to terms with that now. If you know me, you know that me and clutter do not get along very well. Oh well, it'll be worth it. I've wanted a big dog for many years! So since I finally got Jared to agree, I also had to let him pick the name. Introducing Miss Mila!! Yes, as in Mila Kunas. My hubs is obsessed, but whatever, it's a cute name none the less. I'm sure our little Sophie won't be her biggest fan, but they will grow to love each other. Now, let's see if we can add more to our plate and add a baby to the mix....

I have found a new love...pinterest.com. I made my first project from there last night. Had I been thinking, I would have taken pics step by step and shared, but I didn't so I'll just share this one pic with you. 

It's a magnetic Make up Board! I use a lot of powders from Bare Minerals, so my make up bag was pretty messy and more times that not, my hands were black by the time I was done. No more messy hands for me! Thanks Pinterest. I'll be stealing (well already have) many new ideas from there for our new home.

One more update that I'm sure I'll be blogging about is that I am once again on the weight watchers train!! I've been at it for 11 days now and I'm down 9.4lbs!! :-) Jared has been such a support for me. He cooks healthy meals for me and has them ready when I get off work. We cook a lot more at home now thanks to this diet and skinnytaste.com and dashingdish.com!! Makes me a little sad I am not sharing all these recipes with you, it's just not feasible in this tiny little kitchen I have now...Maybe I'll blog a few with just instructions and a final pic. We'll see. 

Well, I think I put you on the fast track to catching you up with my life in the past two years. I promise to blog more and more. 

Until next time...Keep Wondering!