Nutella demands immediate cancellation of World Nutella Day
Nutella is essentially a perfect food -- delicious, no HFCS, delicious, full of natural ingredients, and fucking delicious. OK, yes, it has palm oil and is packed to the lid with (mostly unsaturated!) fat, but you make some compromises in the name of pure spreadable joy. Unfortunately, if you had any ideas about celebrating this superfood on World Nutella Day, Feb.
Scrumptious Taco Salad
Before I crash for the night I thought I would share my Taco Salad with y’all that I made for dinner tonight. It tasted every bit as good as it looked! It was just a perfect day out again today and this salad was a perfect choice on a warm sunny southern evening. I’m quite tired so I’m going to get to the point quickly and not ramble much, plus, I have to do just a small amount of reading before bed. My daughter and I several months back started reading the Harry Potter Series (I know, better late than never!) She is just starting book six and I am only halfway through book three! Having undiagnosed ADHD can be quite helpful in some situations yet challenging in others, such as sitting down to read a book or watch a movie:-) I make my family crazy at movie time because I am up down up down up down! But the love me anyways. While I was reading the second Harry Potter book I was also reading two other books. Oh boy! Anyhow, tonight my Jenni asked me what was happening at the point of the book I am at and it appears that I am mere pages away from something very exciting so I have been challenged to read tonight. I hope I can stay awake long enough to get to that so I can make her happy as she is bursting at the seams ready just blurt it out! But she’s a good girl and wouldn’t do that so she is patiently waiting! I said I wasn’t going to ramble and I just did, oops! So back to the recipe, here is my Taco Salad!
Ingredients:
1.25 lbs lean ground turkey
1 packet low sodium Taco seasoning
3/4 cup water
1/2 onion chopped
1 tomato chopped
1 avocado chopped
1/2 cucumber, sliced, then quarter the slices
1/2 cup taco mix cheese
1 bag (or head) of green, I mixed Italian blend with spinach
1/2 container of Chobani plain yogurt
Jar of Salsa ( I used Newmans own Black bean and corn because it’s our favorite! We used half the jar)
Cilantro
6 Tortilla chips (more if you wish)
In a frying/saute pan brown up the ground turkey until no longer pink. Drain grease then add the water and seasoning packet. When that is done set aside off of the heat. Rinse your greens and drain. When the greens are dry (or mostly so) plate them. Add the cumber, some of the onions, the tomato and the avocado. Add the meat to the center of the salad. Sprinkle with half the cheese (the other half is for the other salad, I made 2 plates) then add some more onions. Add a heaping tablespoon of the yogurt and sprinkle with cilantro. Take 3 of the tortilla chips and crush them and sprinkle them around the salad. Add salsa depending on how much you like. This salad is so pretty and delicious and with the yogurt and salsa you don’t even need salad dressing! Enjoy!
Lemon Broiled Salmon with Asparagus infused Brown Rice
Hello my Simple Heavenly Eats friends! I want to say “Smile, we are halfway through the week” but we should smile everyday no matter what day it is, every new day is a blessing! I want to share a simple Salmon recipe with you that we love in our house (let me rephrase, that my husband and I like!) Eating healthy can taste good with little effort too! We are getting back on the healthy bandwagon as a general rule in our house and I have lots of really yummy healthy recipes. We had this salmon last night and I planned on having asparagus and brown rice as sides and decided to combine them and make a yummy side verses just a blah boring side. This dinner was….what am I going to say? Yes, HEAVENLY! Here’s what you need to know, it’s easy as can be!
Salmon Directions:
1.25 lbs Fresh salmon fillets (you can do more or less depending on how many you feed)
2 lemons, sliced
Fresh Dill
Rice Ingredients:
2.5 cups of water
1 1/4 cups Brown rice
a bunch (literally the produce bunch it comes in) of asparagus washed, bottoms cut off then cut in half
1 red onion, diced (not too fine, you want larger diced pieces)
2 cloves of garlic
Parsley
3 tbsp Olive Oil
Ground black pepper
1 packet of no sodium chicken broth
First, you want to start the rice mixture since this takes longer! Boil the rice water with the packet of chicken broth mix, when it reaches a boil add the rice, lower the heat to low and cover simmering for about a half hour or until all the water is soaked up. When you cover the rice, then you want to start steaming the asparagus. In the meantime in a frying pan heat the olive oil. When the asparagus is done, place the diced onions and asparagus into the frying pan and saute for about 10 minutes or until the onions look cooked. (this is a good time to start cooking the salmon!) Add 2 garlic cloves, parsley and black pepper to taste. Remove from heat and mix in the cooked rice.
Line a broil pan with foil (trust me, it makes clean up a cinch!) place fillets skin side up. Turn broiler on low and place fillets under broiler. (Broiler rack should be at the top level) Broil like this for about 5 minutes or until you see the color start turning and looking partially cooked. Remove from oven and carefully flip the fillets to skin side down. Take a couple lemon slices and squeeze the juice over the fillets, add some dill (I do quite a bit) then place the remaining lemons on top of the fillets. Top with more dill and broil for about 15 minutes or so. If you’ve broiled salmon you know what to do! If not, watching closely is key, much more than timing so keep a close eye on them, I rotate the pan once in between for a nice even cook, and when they appear cooked and are nice and flaky to the fork you are done!
This morning, my poor kids were (literally) gagging when I reheated salmon and asparagus at 6:30 a.m. for breakfast, hehehe. I love leftovers for breakfast (one of my many weird quirks that has managed to gag most people who know me, except my husband who is just the same, we really are a match made in Heaven!) The kids survived and my daughter managed to finish her bowl of cereal and recover in time for school;-)
Enjoy this recipe and this beautiful day!
Smoked Chicken Salad on Greens
Good morning lovely people, I hope you are having a beautiful week as I am here in Alabama! This weather has been great and has really had me in a salad mood! I crave salad in the summers and we love to create different ones. I kind of look at salad as being similar to “cold casseroles”. Of course you don’t put your salad in the oven, but you take your base ingredient and just throw in all kinds of fun stuff and it turns into a delicious food art! This past weekend my husband smoked chickens, which I still have not posted our weekend dinner that was really good, but we ended up having a whole chicken left over. Awesome because I needed and easy Monday night dinner! I pulled all the meat off that delicious bird and chopped it up and made an amazing chicken salad that we had on greens. I have had several Facebook friends want the recipe and comment on the picture I put up on my page so here is my recipe!
Ingredients:
1 whole cooked chicken (rotisserie would work great!)
1 cup of Chobani Plain Yogurt
2 avocados chopped
Parsley ( Didn’t measure, but used quite a bit, you can adjust to your taste)
Ground black pepper (same as parsley)
1/2 bag of Italian blend lettuce (washed)
1/2 bag Spinach (washed)
1/4 red onion, sliced
1/2 cucumber, sliced, then half the slices
Newman’s Own Lite Lime dressing
In a large bowl mix the chopped chicken, avocados and yogurt together. Add Parsley and pepper to taste and of course it makes it look prettier too! Place washed and dried greens on plates, add onion and cucumbers. Scoop Chicken salad onto the middle of the salad. Place tortilla chips around the edges of the plate then drizzle the salad with the dressing.
This salad is very easy. The chicken had great flavor from being smoked. I have never made chicken salad without mayonnaise but we are trying to eat a little healthier and loose a little weight so I tried plain yogurt and crossed my fingers! It was really good! And the avocados, oh my, they speak for themselves, I just love avocados! Enjoy!
BLUEBERRY CINNAMON MONKEY BREAD
This Blueberry Cinnamon Monkey Bread is so good with your coffee in the mornings, with a tall glass of milk or as a snack anytime. I love monkey bread and love to experiment with making it in different ways. This is one of my favorites. I could make myself sick on it. You could make this using other berries and fruits, too.
This looks too delicious not to share, I think we should all make this!
Brownies with Peanut Butter Frosting
So first things first, I would love for all of you who read my blog and enjoy it to go and like my Facebook page Simple Heavenly Eats! Lets see how many likes I can get, please?! Ok, enough with that, but really, go like it!
I am so incredibly content right now! What a day of feasting and fun family time! I don’t even know where to begin with my blogging of all the food we made today! So while thinking about where to begin I decided to go with my favorite part, dessert! My daughter was supposed to have a play date that turned into an epic fail (neither felt like going to the others house which resulted in no play date, girls!) so once she got past being upset she said “mom, lets make a dessert!” Magic to my ears! She decided on brownies with peanut butter frosting and she got through making most of the brownies all on her own with little assistance from me! She did a great job, they were so moist and amazing! I could eat spoonfuls of the peanut butter frosting. Peanut butter and chocolate is one of my ultimate weaknesses. When she was done she said “there mom, this is once of your mothers day gifts early because I know how much you love peanut butter and chocolate and I wanted to make you something special.” Always a doll! We used my home made brownie recipe that I love and I just added peanut butter to my regular frosting recipe. Here it is!
Brownie Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups of unbleached all purpose flour
2 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cups baking cocoa
1 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease the bottom of your brownie pan. Melt butter in a large pan over medium heat. Add cocoa and baking soda and mix together. Stir in sugar and eggs one at a time. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend well. It thickens quick to it’s best to have all your ingredients at the ready before beginning:-) Pour mixture into your brownie pan and bake for about 30 minutes or until done. Cool and frost.
Frosting Ingredients:
2 cups confectioners sugar
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup soft butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp milk
Beat all ingredients until smooth, then frost!
These brownies are divine! My daughter was very proud of herself and I can’t blame her:-) Give them a try and let me know if you love them!
Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes and some Saturday family relaxation and fun!
Good Morning! I hope everyone is having a relaxing Saturday and spending it with the people you love! There is nothing more important in life than spending quality time with those you love and reminding them daily, or hourly as I like to do, how much you love them! Today my family and I are spending the day catching up still from my husbands crazy schedule he had for the past 2 months and getting to more of those little things we had to put off. We are planting 2 more crepe myrtles and 2 hydrangeas. We picked out a beautiful blue and a purple hydrangea, I know that they can change color depending on the acidity in the soil, or should I say clay, so I hope they stay the colors they are. Our back yard will be very pretty and colorful with the blues and purples and the bright pink crepe myrtles! And best of all today, my husband is using his smoker for the first time this year! He has some great grill and smoker talent! We are putting chickens on the smoker with some applewood, it’s always so yummy!
Saturday is the only morning we really have (until school vacation starts soon!) to get up and relax and make a big breakfast since we have church Sunday mornings. Sunday mornings at church are relaxing in their own way as well. Today I made Blueberry Buttermilk pancakes and bacon. I love buttermilk pancakes, as does my family! I’ve turned them into pancake snobs because now if I don’t have buttermilk and whip up a batch of box mix pancakes, they wrinkle their noses:-) Everytime I make these pancakes it reminds me of the times I spent with my Gram when I was little. She would always have me overnight and I loved those times so much, they made some great memories. She would always make me pancakes or whatever I wanted to have, but I always wanted her pancakes! She is a great cook. The smell of my house when I make these pancakes takes me back to those times, I can picture her kitchen and her making her way around it like it was nothing. She always made it seem like it was no big deal to make us what we wanted, she was always cooking and now that I am older and I cook so much and have a family to take care of I realize the work and effort she put into everything, all the while making us feel like it was easy and no work at all. She has that magical way in the kitchen. I take after her in so many ways and I love that because she is the sweetest lady. So here is my Buttermilk pancake recipe and I hope you try them, they won’t disappoint:-)
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups buttermilk
3/4 cups milk
3 eggs
4 tbsp melted butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 container of fresh blueberries
Heat an oiled skillet on medium heat. Mix all the ingredients together except blueberries, the mixture will be slightly lumpy. Fold in the blueberries until mixed well. Pour onto heated skillet, flip when browned. This makes a lot of pancakes:-) I topped ours with a few extra blueberries and sprinkled powdered sugar on them. We also had bacon that I cooked up before the pancakes, well my husband actually jumped in and took that over so I could work on the pancakes, he likes to help!
This is my wretched morning look:-)
Hawaiian Jalapeno Pizza and relaxing Friday nights!
Happy Friday everyone! Is it me or did this week just fly right on by? I love Friday nights because it’s the beginning of having 2 days of my family all to myself! I got a bonus day with my daughter today as she is on the mend with Strep (thank you God for anti-biotics and great Doctors). We had a very chill day, I think our most exciting part of the day was taking the Maggie our Shih Tzu to her much needed grooming appointment. It got us out of the house for a few minutes and gave us a reason to stop and get a Starbucks! I can’t go to Petco and be that close to Starbucks and not go! I had a delicious nonfat Caramel Macchiato and my girl enjoyed a vanilla bean frappucinno. It made me so happy to see her have life to her again and want to eat and drink! The pups turned out as cute as always, see…
Maggie is always happy when she can see again! One would think she would let me cut her hair, I did own a hair salon for 8 years and have been a hairdresser for 14 years, but she won’t have it and I love her too much for her to be scared of me, so she gets to get pampered at the doggie salon:-)
Tonight I made Pizzas and we have enjoyed a fun simple Friday night at home playing some Mario Kart and watching movies. My husband is a big kid at heart and loves to jump in and play games with the kids! I love that, they are so blessed to have such an amazing dad! The pizza I made was awesome. My husband and I agreed that Hawaiian pizza sounded good so that is what we had! Here is how I made it!
Ingredients:
1 package of Pillsbury refrigerated pizza dough
1/2 cup (approx.) traditional spaghetti sauce (we prefer that instead of pizza sauce)
Cheddar cheese (I didn’t measure)
1 package of Canadian bacon rounds, cut in half
Pizza mix cheese (again, I didn’t measure)
Fresh pineapple cubed (about 1.5 cups)
jalapenos
Italian seasoning
Preheat over to 400 degrees. Spread out and prep pizza dough onto your pizza stone or pan. Apply the spaghetti sauce then cover the sauce with about 3/4 cup of cheddar cheese. Add the Canadian bacon, pineapple and jalapenos. Top with about a cup of Pizza cheese and top with Italian seasoning. Cook about 20 minutes or until browned and crust is done. Simple! 
Five Keys to a Successful Marriage
Here is a great article on the five keys to a successful marriage. I agree with all of them.
