Mexican flavors galore

food

I don’t know about you but I am one of those people obsessed with Mexican food! I think we eat a full Mexican feast in our home at least once a week! Usually a Mexican feast consisting of tacos, enchiladas, fajitas…..can really throw away your new clean and healthy eating habits! I know it did for me when I moved here and I was probably consuming a 2000 calorie meal filled with zero nutrition and not even realizing it!

After a month long holiday of going crazy and not sticking to my new lifestyle, I woke up this week with a new agenda to healthy-fy all my favorite foods so I don’t derail again.

Firstly, I made batches of this Mexican seasoning that you can use however you want! Just a tablespoon of this as a dry rub and you can grill or stir fry any protein you like.

Mexican flavors galore

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp red chilli flakes

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

Mix together in a bowl, this should yield about 2 tablespoons but I made like a cup full and stored it in an airtight jar.

Having made this, I wanted to try and see if I could create Fajitas at home and boy did it work! yay!

Fabulous Fajitas

With any fajitas there are a couple of components; chicken strips (or any other protein of your choice), guacamole, tortilla, pepper/onion stir fry, grated cheese and salsa.

For the chicken strips:

3 chicken breasts cut in thin strips

2 tbsp seasoning mix (from above)

Handful of chopped cilantro

1 Lime

Salt to taste

Mix together the strips, seasoning and cilantro and set aside for 15 minutes.

In a non stick pan or grill cook the trips about a minute to minute and a half on each side giving a squeeze of lime all over each time. Set aside covered with foil.

For the guacamole:

1 avocado; mashed

1 tsp chopped onions

1 tbsp lime

1/2 tsp of cumin (add more to your liking)

1/2 tsp of salt

1 tbsp of chopped cilantro

Mix together and serve. You can of course adjust the above to your liking!

For the tortilla:

You can buy flour tortillas from the store but I just used regular durum wheat ‘atta roti.’ Its a lighter and much healthier option.

Salsa:

Since I made this dinner completely unplanned, I used a store bought salsa but you can definitely make your own!

12 small-medium tomatoes chopped

1/2 large white onion chopped

1 clove of garlic

1-2 green chillies chopped and deseeded

1 handful cilantro

1 tbsp lime juice

dash of sweetener either stevia or brown sugar

salt to taste

In a food processor, pulse all the above together to desired smoothness. I kept mine chunky and of course you can adjust each ingredient to your liking. Adding some roasted red chili is also delicious!

Lastly, I cut some onions and yellow pepper lengthwise and grilled till soft and fragrant! I also served some grated cheddar cheese on the side!

Serve each item separately and allow everyone to make their own fajitas or have some hard shell tacos if you are treating yourself! Another great way to enjoy this is to create a fajita on a bed of lettuce! That’s what I’m taking for lunch tomorrow with the leftovers!

Enjoy!

Simply simple: Roasted tomato and garlic soup in many ways!

food

I used to think I had to make every meal on the day until I discovered the art of freezing! Especially with soups and sauces, you can use them interchangeably and voila! you have a fresh and healthy meal too!

I made a huge batch of roasted tomato soup and had it as a soup the first evening with shredded chicken! Protein overload! Next afternoon, I used that same ‘soup’ and turned it into a pasta sauce with whole wheat pasta!

You can do countless meals with this versatile sauce, I am even thinking of baking chicken with it as a healthier version of chicken parm…hmmmm!

Not only is this recipe useful, tomatoes are packed with nutrients! They are known to support heart health, bone health and has anti-cancer benefits while being backed with anti-oxidants! Tomato-containing diets have also been linked in a few studies with reduced risk of obesity. Convinced?

So, this recipe should yield about 4 cups of soup but honestly it depends on how soupy you want it!

Roasted tomato and garlic soup with poached/stir fried chicken!

Here we go:

Ingredients: 6 tomatoes, 12 plum tomatoes, 12 vine tomatoes
1/2 cup of celery
1/2 cup of white onions
1 whole garlic to roast and 2/3 cloves chopped
1/2 cup kidney beans
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp brown sugar
2 cups of water
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Place half the tomatoes and whole garlic cut through the middle in a roasting pan with a tablespoon of olive oil and salt. Roast till blackened and roasted. Depending in size of tomatoes.

2. Steam the remaining tomatoes and place into blender to purée.

3. Take roasted tomatoes and roasted garlic and purée them together and mix with purée from step 2. Set aside.

4. Take the juices from the roasting tray and blend together with basil leaves. Mix this to the tomato purée.

5. Sauté chopped celery, onions and garlic with olive oil until softened. Add salt and pepper to taste and chili flakes for heat (optional).

6. Add in the tomato and basil mixture into the sautéed mixture. Add in the water and let this simmer under low heat.

7. Add the cinnamon, sugar and kidney beans and stir occasionally until desired consistency is reached.

8. I didn’t do this as I like a hearty soup, you can choose to mash the veggies and put the soup through a sieve for a smooth consistency.

9. To make the chicken: Poach chicken breast in water and salt. Shred the chicken and stir fry in a non stick pan with cilantro for flavor.

So this afternoon, I turned this soup into a delicious pasta dish. I wish I had some mushrooms in hand; there’s next time!

1. Sauté any protein/veg of your choice. I would use mushrooms!

2. Add in a cup and half of leftover tomato soup to the sauté.

3. Add in 3 tbsp of starchy water from the pasta.

4. Simmer till warm and add in the pasta!

Its simple, low calorie and you know every single ingredient in your meal! No excuses to buy store bought pasta sauce anymore!!

Enjoy!

I almost gave up!

Lifestyle

The past two weeks were incredibly difficult for me. It’s safe to say you know what I mean when I say I was so close to falling off the wagon yet again.

My trainer, Gary measures our weight loss in terms of fat loss rather than overall weight loss on a scale. This is especially important because most of us are obsessed with the scale which takes into account muscle mass, fat mass, water mass etc! Who wants to lose muscle or water? Now I know I don’t!

Anyway, coming from DC I had lost 2kg of fat while I was on my ‘holiday!’ Every second of being cautious and calculated during that holiday had paid off!
That week we started training outdoors and I couldn’t wait to see how much I had lost at the end of that week! By we, I mean my husband and I, a male and a female. I lost 0.5kg and he lost 1.7kg!!!!!!!! I felt like my whole plan was crumbling down and I played every action, every meal in my head over and over again. What did I do wrong? I was stricter than he was, I pushed harder…what did I do wrong?

At that moment, I didn’t know but today I know that the answer is nothing. I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m a woman and he’s a man, we are built to function differently.

Women naturally store more fat whereas men are inclined to forming more lean muscle. Men have a faster metabolism than women. Read more!

It has been the best experience doing this with my husband, changing our lives together but that day I was shellshocked! I was this close to saying bye bye to all the hard work. I broke down and felt there was nothing more I could physically do. I know many of you are nodding along to this oh too familiar feeling but this time my mind was stronger. After that scan, I did my session! I killed it! No scale in this world can take away how you feel! I had never felt better in my life and I wasn’t going to throw it away because some electronic equipment generated some shocking result!

Two things pushed me through:
1. I wasn’t gaining weight or plateauing, I had lost 0.5kg which is better than nothing! I was becoming too greedy!
2. Only I am the judge of how I used to feel and how I feel today. I choose today’s feeling!

So ditch that scale and listen to your body. Follow your progress by measuring your body or trying on clothes that didn’t fit you, if you really need to visualize it. You know yourself better than anyone else and you should be the judge of your progress!

At my last scan, I had lost a total of 7kg of fat in 3 months. I felt great but not as great as I did when I crossed that finish line completing my first 5k at under 39 minutes! That was the real measure of how far I had come! From a couch potato to running a 5k!

As I head to Bangladesh today for my brother’s wedding, I know another test is ahead of me. This time I actually get to test out my new lifestyle in the place where I will eventually live! Of course it will be challenging but it is so unbelievably worth it!

Set yourself realistic goals, listen to your body and remember this is your journey, when you give up you end up back to square one, instead push yourself on the hardest days because those small steps are the ones that really matter. Everyday you come out stronger, empowered and happier with who you really are! You owe that to yourself!

Whole wheat banana pancakes and fruit platter

food

I made this for my husband’s birthday! I have to admit that it doesn’t taste like buttermilk IHOP pancakes but they are light, delicious and good for you! No guilt!

What do you need?

1/2 cup wholewheat flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 ripe bananas

2 eggs

1/2 cup skim milk or almond milk

Oil spray

Fresh fruits

Honey

Unsweetened fat free greek yoghurt

Mix the eggs, milk, banana, flour, baking soda and salt in a blender

Under medium to low heat, spray pan and place 3 tablespoons of the mix in pan. Let the bottom set and then turn the pancake and cook the other side.

Spray the pan in between each pancake.

Do not try to do this on hight heat! Trust me! I had to throw about 4 away! 😦

Place fruits and yoghurt in between layers and drizzle with honey! I served this with a fruit platter with pretty much everything I had at home! Mix together honey and yoghurt for a delicious dip!

Enjoy!

Celebrating our birthdays!

Lifestyle

This week was extra special! It was my birthday followed by my husbands. The person that I am I had to celebrate it to the fullest!

It’s really easy to dread any upcoming celebration when you are trying to lead a new lifestyle. I was brainstorming for weeks trying to figure out what to do for our birthdays, the healthier way!

I had a lunch party for my cousins and really also a way for me to show them that healthy foods can be just as delicious!

The menu:

Honey Dijon citrus whole roast chicken

Seafood salad with chili, lime and coriander dressing

(I simply cooked the seafood with the sweet chili sauce and added in lime and coriander. Tossed that with salad greens!)

Cilantro brown rice

( Warm brown rice + 1 tbsp olive oil + salt + coriander + lime)

Sweet and spicy ground beef lettuce wraps

Fresh salsa and guacamole ( one of my friends made this!)

Cheese platter and flavored waters

Brownies ( I will add this recipe at a later date as it did not turn out exactly as I wanted, some liked it some didn’t so…..)

Every dish was wiped clean! YAY! I also gave the sweet chili sauces as birthday party favors 😀

Since our birthdays were on a weekday, well mine was, I had the lunch party on a Sunday before. I felt so pleased being able to feed my family what I was eating on a daily basis and what was making us feel so good! It wasn’t a no carb thing nor was it a huge table full of death warrants, it was something I could feed my guests, guilt-free!

Moving onto the mandatory midnight cake cutting ritual, I was really hell bent on not eating a cake at midnight!! I mean I know it was my birthday but c’mon it just didn’t make sense! I have recently discovered my love for unsweetened fat free greek yoghurt and I thought why not a parfait? My husband and I put it together and it looked as great as it tasted!! We scrapped it off! It was full of goodness rather than refined sugars and butter. I didn’t think it would do the job but it clearly did as I repeated the same parfait for Zayed’s birthday, candles and all!

You can layer is however YOU want! Add any fruits YOU want! So no sieving through prepackaged yoghurt bowls of the things you don’t like! It is also a great mid day snack!

What do you need?

Unsweetened fat free greek yoghurt, you can also use natural yoghurt

Sugar free granola or any sugar free muesli or cereal

Fruits of choice

Acacia honey or any good quality honey

Easy to make, full of nutrients and great for your body!

I know this is getting quite long but here’s the last part of the ‘homemade’ birthday celebration! I made my husband brunch in bed!

Whole wheat banana pancakes and fruit platter!

It was the perfect weekend brunch and it allowed us to ‘cheat’ without feeling devastated about it! I mean if you call 1/2 cup of flour cheating! 😉 He was ecstatic saying that he wanted to eat really slowly as he was afraid to finish it! Success!

There’s no reason to be scared about falling of the wagon during a celebration nor is there a reason to make yourself believe that it is okay to fall of the wagon because it’s your birthday! I worked out twice on my birthday and went to my favorite japanese restaurant for the the miso black cod! I couldn’t be happier with the way I felt, this isn’t a fad diet or a crash diet, this is my life!

Happy birthday to us!

Dinner: Sweet and spicy ground beef lettuce wraps

food

Lunch is always slightly easier than dinner as you have the whole day to burn it off incase you eat something extra. Dinner on the other hand is less forgiving which is why by 7:30 pm, I eat the proteins and vegetables!

I cross a Chinese restaurant almost everyday and today I woke up determined to eat a healthy version of my most favorite dish! Lettuce wraps without the excessive fats, sugars or MSG and I did it!

I also served it to some guests I had over today and they loved it! I was so happy to have served something healthy and fresh! You can easily make the filling ahead and put it together when your guests have arrived! Very versatile!

What do you need?

1 whole lettuce bulb

450 gram lean ground beef ( I used 5% fat ones)

(you could also use chicken or turkey mince)

1 cup diced peppers

1 cup diced carrots

2 tablespoons of good quality honey

2 tablespoons of chili sauce or to make it even healthier use chili flakes/paste

2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard

2 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro

3/4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

3 sprays of your oil of choice

salt and pepper to taste

You will make enough for 3 dinners! 😀

In a bowl, mix together the honey, mustard and chili sauce with 2 tablespoons of water and set aside

Spray on the oil into the pan on high heat

Add in the garlic, peppers and carrot with a dash of water to soften and sauté

After sautéing for 2-3 minutes add in the ground beef and salt/pepper

Stir the beef and break it up and you will notice the ‘fatty juice’ collecting

Put the lid on and drain that liquid out, it is the fats from the ground beef and its gotta go!! Ech!

Return the pot onto the heat and stir in 2/3 of the mixture of honey/mustard/chili sauce that you had set aside.

Close the lid and let it cook for about 10 -12 minutes more. Make sure to stir occasionally during that time. You will notice the char on the beef and peppers and then add in that remaining honey/mustard/chili sauce mixture and the cilantro.

Keep tasting the beef as you cook! Thats just standard operating procedure 😀

Take it off the heat, arrange the lettuce and fill them in!

Enjoy while warm! I had it with a side of steamed mixed vegetables!

* You can also add in sweet and sour chili sauce in which case leave out the honey and chili sauce however I would highly recommend using a chili sauce and honey mixture as you eliminate the high amounts of sugar in those sweet and sour sauces.

* A great alternative would be to use a freshly made chili paste! That would be ideal especially if you used a mixture of fresh red chili and roasted chili. YUM! I will surely do that next time!

Also I do apologize for not including the calories, thats because I don’t calorie count and you shouldn’t either especially when you are eating clean and healthy!

fklifestyle

Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tip toe if you must, but take the step!

clean eating

Mexican flavors galore

Simply simple: Roasted tomato and garlic soup in many ways!

I almost gave up!

Whole wheat banana pancakes and fruit platter

Celebrating our birthdays!

Dinner: Sweet and spicy ground beef lettuce wraps