So boot camp is cancelled tonight due to a bad storm they are predicting. Now I sit here eating dinner deciding what to do with my life for the night. There is probably some laundry or straightening up I could be doing but I decided to come make a entry on here. Procrastination at its finest!
I'm very excited because this past week I have tried some new ideas I would like to share .. even if no one reads this thing. So a few weeks ago I had an incident with my chicken that was cooked and packed for the week. I don't know if it was bad but it was funkyyyyy! Needless to say all those chicken breasts made it into the trash verrry quickly. I wasn't to upset because it gave me a reason to switch things up a bit. I love chicken but I also love ground turkey and I wasn't able to cook it for a while because I was over loaded on chicken. ANYWHO! I then started craving a change in my salad dressing. I was using different packaged dressings which I knew weren't on my diet but in the back of my mind I told myself it was ok. LOL. Tuesday rolls around and I come up with a great idea with the help of a friend and decide to try and make my own paleo friendly salad dressings! So here I am in the supermarket googling different recipes to see what I needed to pick up while I was there. I decided on two different recipes to start out with.
The first one is a Balsamic Vinaigrette. I wanted to give this a shot because I love balsamic and even though I was sick of my other balsamic I was bringing for lunch this had different spices in it so I knew it would be a different flavor. The best part is how easy it is to make. I conveniently had some empty mason jars in the garage so I went ahead and mixed/stored the dressings in the mason jars.
I will post the original recipe and I will tell you what I did differently. The recipe calls for:
- 3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1 crushed clove of garlic
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard, optional
- 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
.... Easy enough?
I wanted to double this recipe but I ran out of balsamic (LOL) so I just went with it and I was pleased any way because I feel the balsamic vinegar has such a powerful taste it didn't hurt to cut back on it. So what I used was :
- 1 cup balsamic vinegar
- 2 crushed cloves of fresh garlic
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 4 tsp Inglehoffer Mustard - Stone Ground
- 1 1/2 cups extra-virgin olive oil
- sea salt and black pepper to taste
With this balsamic all you do is add the ingredients into a container with a lid and shake! SO EASY! So delicious as well!
The other recipe I tried was "The classic lemon vinaigrette":
- 3 tbsp fresh lime or lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp dijon mustard (optional)
- 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
and again... easy enough?
I can't really give you the exact amount I used for this recipe because I did what they said and then just kept adding more to taste but I did use:
- Lemon juice
- 1 crushed garlic clove
- Inglehoffer Mustard - Stone Ground
- 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- Salt and Pepper
Now for this recipe you are supposed to mix all ingredients except the olive oil and then whisk the olive oil in separately. I felt that it tasted very olive oil-y and I wasn't a fan. I started adding and whisking away. I did not have lime juice handy which I think would have helped and I literally just realized as I type this out that the mustard I bought ISN'T even Dijon (hahaha I amaze myself sometimes) so I'm not sure if that affects the taste! The lemon vinaigrette isn't bad but I definitely want to have another go at it. The more I let it sit the more the lemon started to come through. So if you try this please try to be patient!
Just changing up my salad dressings has made a huge impact on my salads and it's kind of exciting knowing you have something new! They are very simple to make so I will definitely be experimenting more often!
Another new treat I made for myself this week (by accident of course) that I just have to share is my frozen banana, chocolate protein and almond butter "ice cream"! Holy goodness! I have always been an ice cream fanatic! So, now that it's warm out and I have only had my favorite treat once (during my Memorial Day cheat weekend) I'm super excited to know I could make this in place of ice cream. Something about the cold ice cream consistency on a hot summer day! YUM! My protein shakes I make in the morning for breakfast/post workout have 5 or so ice cubes, 4 oz water mixed with 1 scoop chocolate whey isolate protein powder, 2 tbsp all natural chunky almond butter, either 1 or 2 peeled frozen bananas (I peel anywhere from 8-10 bananas in the beginning of the week and break them in half put them in a container and keep them in the freezer for the week) and water or unsweetened almond milk to. Now, I honestly wasn't too sure as to why I was adding almond milk in my smoothies but it sounded like a good idea. I then had a debate with myself while at the grocery store over the empty calories because I didn't feel like it made a difference in taste. Well the next day when I went to make my breakfast I didn't add water or almond milk and I ended up with a think ice cream like texture protein smoothie and everything just clicked! I just add a wee bit of water to my breakfast to make it a shake and now I can add an extra frozen banana and leave out the water to create a healthy thick sweet ice cream like treat!
That's all I have for now! Time to get some things done so I can get my butt to bed at a decent time. Hope everyone has an awesome rest of the week / weekend! I will be busy running 5k's and doing bootcamp classes. Wish me luck! Something about this fit lifestyle that just keeps me going!
Stay positive .. Stay motivated .. Stay beautiful!
xoxox
