Roasted Vegetables

You can't go wrong with roasted vegetables. They are an easy recipe to put together for the family. Simply cut up your favorite vegetables...maybe zucchini, carrots, peppers, cauliflower, etc. Place the cut up vegetables in a bowl, drizzle olive oil over them, add salt and pepper, as well as any other seasoning you enjoy...maybe an Italian seasoning. With your hands, mix the vegetables so that they get coated evenly. Spread the vegetables on a baking pan or sheet. Spread them out so they're not sitting on top of each other. This will help them cook evenly. Place the pan or sheet in a 400 degree oven and bake for about 30 minutes. Roasted vegetables go with any meal and the leftovers are delicious in a salad the next day. Hope you enjoy them!

Simple Salad

Summer is the time to eat light, but it can be difficult to make something that will be filling. We love salads in this family, and this is one of our favorites. It's simple...it's easy...and it's perfect to eat alone or with any meal. Simply dice up cherry tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and black olives. We've also made this with artichokes (from a jar). Add a little olive oil, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning. Done! Please share your favorite salad recipes with us! We would love to try them.

Cheesecake

I'm really getting addicted to Trisha Yearwood recipes from The Food Network. Today, my son and I made her cheesecake recipe, but substituted a few ingredients.  (I've linked her full recipe below for you.) We're trying to cut calories and follow the Keto diet, so Vincent and I used Stevia Sugar in place of regular sugar...and we used a lower fat cream cheese. We also made the crust by using almond flour, mixed with Stevia and melted butter, instead of a graham cracker crust. We followed her measurements exactly....and the cheesecake was a success! Hope you get a chance to try it...either Trisha's way or OUR way. We would love to hear from you!

Trisha Yearwood's Cheesecake Recipe

Zucchini Bread: Keto Style

So, my son and I are trying this Keto Diet thing. I've been searching the internet for recipes and putting my own twist to them. Below is the recipe for our zucchini bread. It's made with almond flour instead of all purpose flour. There is certainly a difference in taste, but I think we just need to get used to the new taste that many of the Keto recipes offer. Give it a try and let us know what you think. The hardest part of transitioning to the Keto lifestyle is getting used to foods made with almond flour and sweeteners. We would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with making Keto recipes.

Combine the following wet ingredients in a bowl:
3 large eggs, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1 tsp. vanilla extract.

Combine the following dry ingredients into a separate bowl:
2 1/2 cups of almond flour, 1 1/2 cups of Stevia Sugar, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. nutmeg, ground cinnamon and ginger.

You will need to measure 1 cup (or more) of grated zucchini. After grating the zucchini, place it in some paper towels and squeeze the excess water. Then add the zucchini to your bowl of wet ingredients.

Time to combine your wet and dry ingredients! We used our Kitchen-Aid. Start with your wet ingredients...and add your dry a little at a time until everything is mixed in.

We used a 9x5 loaf pan...and baked for 50-60 minutes at 350 degrees. Good Luck!

Thin and Lacy Pancakes

Another great Food Network recipe we tried was their Thin and Lacy Pancakes. We replace the milk with fat free half and half and the sugar with Stevia sugar. The boys loved it! Click on the link for the recipe.
Thin and Lacy Pancake Recipe

Trisha Yearwood's Lemon-Blueberry Bread

We just love watching The Food Network channel! I've become very addicted to Trisha Yearwood. Her show is fun and her recipes are very easy to follow. We tried making her Lemon-Blueberry Bread. We made a few adjustments...we replaced the sugar with Stevia Sugar and we replaced the whole milk with fat free half and half. It cut the calories down for us and it was delicious. The only problem...one bread was NOT enough for us...LOL...I will need to double up on the ingredients next time in order to make more than one bread. Click on the link for the recipe. Thanks!

 Trisha Yearwood's Lemon-Blueberry Bread

Turkey Burgers

We try to stay away from red meat, so we are always looking for ways to cook turkey and chicken. This turkey burger recipe is delicious and healthy! Hope you try it. It's simple and fast.

Ingredients:
3 lbs. of ground turkey
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. of poultry seasoning

After mixing all the ingredients, form whatever size patties you like...then grill! Remember, turkey is ready at 160 degrees. We always use a probe. I suggest that you buy one. It's always great to have that handy. Once the burger are cooked, melt your favorite cheese on top! For this recipe, we melted a vegetable Havarti cheese.

The best part of a burger is what you put on it...agree? Well, we decided not to have the buns (trying to go low carb), so we drizzled the burger with a lemon/mustard dressing.
Mix together 1/2 cup of Dijon mustard, 2 tbs. of honey, 2 tbs. of orange juice, juice and zest from one lemon and a pinch of salt and sugar. Mix thoroughly. We made this dressing ahead of time and let it sit in the fridge for 30 minutes. It was thick and perfect!

We served our burger with roasted cauliflower and breaded zucchini with goat cheese rolled inside.