Zucchini Bread

I wanted to post this recipe a when I fist started getting zucchini from my garden, but then remote learning started at home and next thing I knew, my youngest was using my computer full time during the day and then when school was over, I was just exhausted!

But, I'm here now and I think that you will really love this recipe. It's very easy to make and, in my own opinion, is better than banana bread!

Cucumber Sandwiches

 

This is seriously the easiest thing you may ever make for an appetizer for tea parties, potlucks, or random get togethers. It's also great when you are looking for ways to use your garden cucumbers. (Seriously, I have so many cucumbers!)

Ingredients

Party Entertainment Bread

8 oz Cream Cheese

1/2 cup Mayo or Miracle Whip

1 tsp Garlic Salt

1 tsp Dill Weed

Cucumbers

Instructions

This is easiest if you have a mixer, but if not, microwave cream cheese for a minute to make it soft.

1. With a mixer, mix together cream cheese, Mayo/Miracle Whip, garlic salt, and dill weed.
2. Spread as much or as little mixture that you want over party bread. For my sandwiches, I used Jewish Rye and Pumpernickel cocktail size bread. If you can't find the small square loaves, you can cute regulars into squares.
3. Place Cucumber slice on top. 

Great alternative to cucumber slices are tomatoes, cheeses, and peppers! 

You can also use left over mix as a dip for your favorite veggies, veggie pizza, or even place into some jalapenos for a popper. The dip is very versatile.

Conclusion

This great and easy to make snack is perfect for any entertainment that you'd like to host. It's a light, cool treat, and is a crowd pleaser.

The last time I made up this tray was for a game night with me and four grown men and all but three sandwiches were eaten and that was just one of the many things I served that night. 

Lasagna Frittas

I first discovered lasagna frittas when my husband and I were celebrating an anniversary or was it a birthday? Well whatever it was, we were celebrating something, so we decided to splurge and order an appetizer tray and we both fell in love the frittas so much, I had to find a recipe to try it myself. 

But, enough about me! I know that what you really want is the recipe that I've adapted over time and it's super easy to make too!

Corn Bread Casserole

The holidays are near and even if they aren't at this time, people still enjoy comfort food that's easy to make. Corn Bread Casserole can really be made any time of the year whether you're eating chili, sausage and potatoes, or you just feel like eating something with corn bread.

Since it's so easy to make and you can make it with ingredients that you most likely already have, this is the perfect dish to take to a potluck or to eat at Thanksgiving time.

Everything pictured are just the ingredients I already had on hand. I am
not making any money by promoting, I probably just got them on a good sale.

Ingredients

1 Box of Corn Bread mix- I used Jiffy
1 cup sour cream
1 can of creamed corn
1 can of regular canned corn (drained)
1 stick of butter or a half cup

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350.
Melt the butter in microwave.
In an oven safe casserole dish, mix all ingredients together. Stir well.
Pop into the oven for 40 minutes or until top is starting to brown.

For, what I hope are obvious reasons, don't eat until the casserole has cooled down and isn't mouth blistering hot. A nice warm will do fine.

Easy Peasy! It's ridiculous how easy it is to make this dish and it's sure to be a hit!

Green Stuff-Jello Salad

Several months ago, I was trying out the macro diet, which was something I had only just learned about the week I started doing it. Long story short, the macro diet consists of trying to reach your daily fat, fiber, carb and protein intake. I was easily getting in my carbs and fats, but was having a difficult time reaching my protein goals.

One day I looked up foods with high protein and found out that cottage cheese was one of them. I like cottage cheese alright, but I was having a difficult time eating it plain. I was glad when I remembered something that my grandma always makes for Thanksgiving that I absolutely loved. Green stuff!

What exactly is Green Stuff, you ask? I'm not really sure what the official name of it is, we've just always called it Green Stuff, but it's kind of like a Sea Foam salad, but much easier to make. For this recipe, we usually use lime Jello and add canned pears or pineapple, but today, I've changed the recipe up a bit in the pictures. 

Ingredients:

1 24 oz container of cottage cheese

1 8 oz container of whipped topping (It has to be from a tub or it won't set right.)

1 3oz packet of lime flavored gelatin

1 can crushed pineapples or pears (drained)(optional)

1/2 cup of crushed pecans or walnuts (optional)

Instructions:

Mix container of cottage cheese with flavored geletin until.

Once mixed, fold in whipped topping.

Mix in fruit and nuts.

You can either eat it as is or put it into the fridge for it to solidify and then serve that way.

This recipe is so versatile, too. For the pictures, I used strawberry jello, pecans, and sliced strawberries. You can make your jello salad with any flavor and still find a good combination.

So what do you think? Is this something that you think you'd want to try? I know that it seems weird, especially since it's a sweet dessert with cottage cheese, but many good desserts and salads are made with cream cheese and really, the only difference is that the cottage cheese is in curds instead of blended smoothly.

I Want to Get Back In Shape - A Fitness Plan That's Sure to Work?

     How did I let myself get this way? When I look in the mirror, I don't think that I look that bad, but my pictures tell me a different story. My scale says the same thing and my clothes protest a little whenever I get dressed.

I'm the tanned one on the left. 

   

      Does this story feel similar to you? I used to be in very good shape. I was a very outgoing, competitive, hyper child. I would always participate in P.E. and whenever we did races or some sort of game for church activities, I tried to always win. If I weighed more than I was supposed to, it never showed because I was strong and toned.

We dressed up for Halloween at our Fall Retreat. I'm in the middle. 

   


 Somewhere in time, I stopped moving so much. I calmed down. I really didn't eat any different, because, well, ice cream. I know how to diet because I've dieted my whole life. My mom has done every diet and so my sisters and I did every diet with her. (within normalcy for a teenager- no diet pills or extreme food loss.) My biggest problem has been inactivity.

      Did you know that when you have a low metabolism, your body temperature is lower than the average? My body temperature stays around 95 or 96 degrees. I've told my doctor that, so she did a thyroid test on me. It came back normal. I have no other health issues that cause me to be heavier, so it comes down to inactivity. There are all sorts of websites you can check out regarding this. Just type in, "Why is my body temperature low" and first you'll see, "Are you outside in the winter with no coat?" and then you'll see something about low metabolism.

     Do you know what helps raise metabolism? Exercise. Movement. Muscles. In the very first article I found when I typed in, "How to raise your metabolism", they give 10 different ways to increase it. This is what it says:

Here are 10 easy ways to increase your metabolism.

1. Eat Plenty of Protein at Every Meal...
2. Drink More Cold Water. ...
3. Do a High-Intensity Workout. ...
4. Lift Heavy Things. ...
5. Stand up More. ...
6. Drink Green Tea or Oolong Tea. ...
7. Eat Spicy Foods. ...
8. Get a Good Night's Sleep....
9. Drink Coffee...
10. Replace Cooking Fats With Coconut Oil...

If you read the article that's highlighted above, it will give you more explanation to why these work. In case you want to see more proof- although, who's to say that it's really proof if found on the Internet? I found this article from the Men's Journal, but many of the points are similar from the first list I showed you.

The 17 Best Ways to Fire up Your Metabolism

1. Pump iron
2. Move around more
3. Eat a variety of whole foods
4. Don’t go too low in calories or carbs
5. Use cheat meals strategically
6. Make sure you're not starving yourself
7. Do the right kind of cardio
8. Load up on water
9. Maintain lean muscle mass
10. Utilize HIIT training
11. Eat protein, especially at breakfast
12. Consider supplements
13. Eat, then sweat
14. Eat frequently
15. Consider drinking coffee
16. Spice things up
17. Get quality sleep

There's obviously more to these points, so please, click the link above to read through all of them. I know that when they say to eat more, they really mean to eat about six smaller calorie meals a day. I've done one diet that it seemed like most of my town had been doing. The idea is to eat one small 100 or 200 calorie meal in the morning. Three hours later, eat a 400 calorie meal, then alternate. The diet would change based on your height, weight, build, and gender because regardless of what the world is saying today, there is still a HUGE difference between men and women's anatomy so things are a little different.

      One of the easiest diets that I've ever done has been the macro diet. If you want to figure out how figure out your macros, I wrote a blog post all about it, but one of the bloggers from the support group I'm in talks about all of the time! I'm going to do a shout out here. If you're interested, visit her page at https://patienceconsistency.com/ . She has different recipes that are macro friendly and delicious listed out and she can help you go farther than I can. The only reason why I didn't stick with this one is because I vacationed and just sort of stopped doing it, but I will restart again, someday. If you want a life style change where you can eat pretty much anything, this is a good one for you.

     So what does all of this have to do with me? I'm not a fitness or diet writer, I write about mom things and what is going on with me. I've noticed that my attention isn't what it should be. I've also noticed that I'm not as strong as I was before. My eight and four year old are getting harder to wrestle with when we play so I know that I'm getting weaker. I need to get back into shape so that one day, my kids won't discover my weakness and tie me to the chair and run the house like they're the boss. I want to be able to play with them without getting tired out or losing interest.

My husband took some pictures of me and the kids 

for mother's day and I hated every single one of them. 

I tried my hardest to hide behind them,but that didn't

 cover up my arms or my double chin. 

      My  daughter, who is only six, is really starting to notice body image. She asked me one day if she was going to get fat. Then the next day, she asked me if I used to be small like her. That is a HUGE eye opener. I want to be able to model to her that with hard work and dedication, she doesn't have to worry about getting overweight. We can't keep telling ourselves that it's ok if someone is heavier, because it's not. There are so many people with health problems related to obesity and it CAN negatively affect your family. If I take any pictures with my kids, I want it with just our faces. Anything below the neck reminds me of how big I've gotten. I don't feel bad about myself and don't have pity parties, I've just accepted my weight as who I am, but that's where I'm wrong.

       It's time for me to take action, again. I made that promise to myself last year, but this year is different. This year, I have you. Accountability is so important when it comes to maintaining a healthy body and more importantly when trying to start up a healthier life style. Can you help me with that? It's out in the open now, I can't not do what I said I will do without looking stupid.

      This is my plan: For now, I'm going to try walking at least 10,000 steps a day and add a little bit of strength training. Nothing too drastic because if I start out with too much to do, I'm going to get burned out quickly. I'm not going to post about my results every day, but I will make a quick update at the end of the week to tell you how I'm doing. This is the year that I get back on track-even if the year is already more than half over.

     So what do you say? Will you help keep me accountable? Would anyone else like to join in?

Appetizers and Sweet Ideas for the Super Bowl or any Pot Luck

Sports are played all year round and many people like to get together to root for opposing teams in a friendly rivalry. If you are like me, you don't really care who wins so you root for the team opposite of those you care about just to get some competition in, or you mostly come for the appetizers.

If you've ever been to a potluck or have had to bring a dish to pass, chances are, you have a go-to snack that you like to bring that's easy to make. If you have hosted an event, you may go one step further and provide a meat dish.