I've been prepping my moms meals for over a year now with the goal to just help improve her overall health and quality of life. Well just like in my own nutrition journey, once you find your groove with one thing you never stop and live there satisfied. Instead, this is a point where you ask yourself, "how can I make this better?". Now I'm not looking for something drastic to implement, but rather just find one small thing to improve on. With my mom, it's easy to pack her lunch and dinner with vegetables, but breakfast is more difficult. I mean really, how many vegetables can I pack into egg muffins? I decided a Super Greens supplement was worth the try to get more nutrients into her diet. I personally enjoy the original version, but I purchased the berry one to hopefully mask the "green" taste. Unfortunately, even the flavored ones are super strong tasting, so I came up with the smoothie recipe below to help mask the taste and make it a delicious smoothie she enjoys each morning. Side note, I never tell her when I implement these nutrition changes (err experiments), so she has no idea I did this, and she didn't complain once! My mom is not one to hide her distaste for foods either, so this was a huge success and indicator that the smoothie was indeed delicious!
I'll probably continue to experiment with adding other nutritious ingredients like chia seeds, berries, spinach, or even some avocado. Just use the recipe below as an outline and swap ingredients for ones you know you enjoy! I love the Vanilla Nut Paleo Protein because it has a probiotic blend in it, but I have used both the Vanilla Nut and Double Chocolate in these smoothies. Note, the chocolate flavor does cover up the green color of the smoothie better, so I might do a combination of half and half in the future. As for the Amazing Grass Super Greens, the product is organic, vegan, and free of soy and sugar. The main ingredients include wheat grass, barley grass, spirulina, a blend of antioxidants, and a blend of digestive enzymes and probiotics. For the quality and price, I prefer using this brand, but there are a ton of other super green products out there to choose from. I typically will prep the recipe below and store in mason jars in the freezer. I recommend taking one out of the freezer and leaving in the refrigerator the night before to thaw out, or you can defrost it in the microwave for 5 minutes the morning of. For those interested, I also included a snapshot of the nutrition facts below with the ingredients that I used and indicated. Let me know if you try a version of this out and what you think! Super Green Strawberry Banana Smoothie (Servings: 5) Ingredients:
**Canned coconut milk is more rich in flavor, but you can also use boxed coconut or almond milk if you prefer, just check the ingredient label for one with no unwanted additives and sweeteners.
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Showing you guys how simple and easy it is to make a nutritious and delicious breakfast casserole for your week with very little prep on your part! My good friend makes these casseroles like every week for breakfast, and I never realized how much easier it was to just use pre-prepared frozen vegetables, so I am spreading the word. All you need to do is go to the store, pick out 1 lb of your favorite ground meat (I chose 365 Pork Breakfast Sausage), 2 bags of your favorite pre-prepared frozen vegetables (I chose Stahlbush Sweet Potatoes and Cascadian Farm Riced Cauliflower Blend - Bell Peppers & Onions), a carton of eggs, and unsweetened coconut or almond milk (I used So Delicious Coconut Milk Sugar Free Original). Only 5 ingredients, plus some spices! Next, take your frozen veggies out in the morning to thaw, or let them thaw out while you make your lunches for the week. When you're ready to make the casserole, just cook your 1 lb of meat on the stove top until done. Then, oil your casserole dish, and throw in your cooked meat with your frozen veggies. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, and spices together, then pour over the meat and veggie mixture. Last, bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, and done! This casserole makes 6 servings, and with the specific ingredients that I used (mentioned above), each serving had 17g Fat, 13g Carbs, and 23g Protein.
Unsure about where to start with changing your health and lifestyle around? Setting aside 20 minutes of prep time to make a super easy breakfast casserole (like this one) is all I recommend for now! You now have a pre-made delicious and satisfying breakfast full of whole food sources to start your days for the next week. Pick ONE daily habit (or meal) to change, and implement! Only ONE! No need to do anything more until you have consistently implemented that ONE daily change overtime, and are confident you secured it's spot into your life. Focusing on less helps you achieve more. Reach out if you need help or have any questions! Easy Paleo Breakfast Casserole Ingredients:
Inspired by this recipe here Another breakfast casserole for my mom to enjoy all week long! This recipe was originally for egg muffins, but I changed it up some to make sure my mom was eating enough for breakfast. Plus, she is not a huge kale fan, so I added spinach and kale together, and even ran it all through the food processor to make it real tiny, so I can get her to eat more vegetables. It's like I am feeding a child or something ;-) just kidding, sort of, love you mom! Anyways, I followed the directions below, but instead of using a muffin pan, I filled the casserole dish. I greased the dish down with some ghee too, just to make sure that spinach and kale mixture tasted even yummier. This came out looking and smelling delicious, as these casseroles always do! I snuck a couple bites too and it really did taste some good.
Sausage, Spinach, and Kale Breakfast Casserole Ingredients:
Original recipe found here This looked like a delicious and fun new casserole recipe to try out! This is a serving size for 6 per the original recipe, but I used a larger 9x13-inch casserole dish and increased the sauce some, which then gave me 8 servings. Since I used a larger casserole dish I used 10 eggs instead of 6 and also threw in a tiny bit of coconut milk to make sure the sauce covered the entire casserole. Other then that though, I made the recipe below as is and only had to bake it for 30 minutes since I used a larger dish. If you don't see white sweet potatoes at your local store you can just use a regular sweet potato. Also, I prefer to throw cubed sweet potatoes in the food processor to "shred" instead of using a shredder. That is just mush easier, in my opinion, and it doesn't leave my forearms sore. I made this for my mom's breakfast meal prep, so I only taste-tested a couple tiny bites, but those bites were tasty and sure made me wish I was eating this for breakfast all week! Let me know what you think if you give this one a try!
Whole30 Breakfast Lasagna Ingredients: Base
Original recipe found here This came out tasting amazing! Don't be scared away by the list of ingredients and long winded directions. Whole Foods has sugar free bacon, pre-cut sweet potato cubes, and chopped Brussels, which will make your life in the kitchen easier. Actually, most grocery stores these days sell the pre-cut vegetables if you want to save some time in the kitchen, but spend a little more money. I didn't end up adding the nutritional yeast simply because I've never bought it before and didn't think I would use it enough if I did purchase it. That ingredient would give the casserole a cheesy flavor though without using cheese. As for the directions, I just used them as a guide and ended up baking the bacon on a sheet pan in the oven for 10-12 minutes. I then removed and set the cooked bacon aside, and poured half the bacon grease into the casserole dish (leaving the other half on the sheet pan). I then put the sweet potatoes and onions in the casserole dish and the Brussels on the sheet pan, mixing both around with the bacon grease. I then cooked both in the oven for 20 minutes, and mixed everything around at the 10 minute mark. Since baking everything in the oven does not require a lot of attention, I preferred preparing everything this way instead of closely following the directions below. Plus, I was able to meal prep my Instant Pot meal at the same time while everything was being prepared in the oven. After the sweet potatoes and Brussels were done in the oven, I followed the rest of the directions below as is. I accidentally used majority of the can of coconut milk though, which actually turned out working pretty well, so that makes me think you can add more coconut milk if you want to. Anyways, I just wanted to detail how I made this for those who looked at the recipe below and thought it was was too much for them. This was a delicious meal to mix up the breakfast meal prep!
Paleo Breakfast Casserole Ingredients:
Notes: *If you want to use a different cooking fat to caramelize the onions, coconut oil or ghee are your best bets! **Melted coconut oil, ghee, or light-flavored olive oil will work well here ***If you wish to freeze this casserole to make ahead of time, cover tightly and freeze before the final baking step. Original recipe found here Anyone else notice that Birch Benders came out with a couple new paleo pancake and waffle mixes!? Along with their original Paleo version that I use pretty frequently to make these Paleo Blueberry Pancake Muffins, they now have a Paleo Banana and Pumpkin Spice mix! The Birch Benders website lists that both new products can be found at Whole Foods, and after looking at my local Whole Foods store all month I finally found the Banana Paleo Pancake & Waffle Mix! These mixes only require adding water, but I also always add a scoop of Paleo Protein to get some more protein in the meal, 1 egg (though I have experimented with 2 as well) to make the muffins more fluffy, and some fruit. Since this was a banana mix I figured I'd stick with the banana theme and add a few slices of banana on top of each muffin. This is a super easy meal prep recipe to throw together and they came out smelling and looking amazing! I unfortunately didn't make enough to taste test them myself, but my mom enjoyed them for breakfast and my mother's approval is not easy to get haha! Let me know if you try this new mix out and what you think.
Paleo Pancake Muffins Serves: 10-12 muffins Ingredients:
o Enjoy Life Dairy-Free Mini Chocolate Chips o Chopped nuts Instructions:
One of my very first blog posts was my Protein Pancake recipe that I used to make every week for breakfast. I seriously loved eating those every morning, but after I started prepping my mom's breakfasts and lunches along with my own, I unfortunately didn't have much time anymore to prep my pancakes too. Anyways, I decided to bring it back for my mom to try and I experimented with this muffin version. The only additional ingredient I used was Flaxseed and that was solely to sneak in some extra nutrients into this meal for her. The recipe below makes 9 muffins and if you are enjoying this as a meal I recommend having at least 3, which puts the meal at 20g Carbs, 8g Fat, and 19g Protein. I personally like using the single serve blade assembly on my Ninja blender because it's easier to clean up, so I ended up just making two batches of the recipe below to get 18 muffins for the week. If you are using a bigger blender though you can easily double the ingredients below. Of note, I ended up filling the muffin tins a little above 2/3 of the way full and although they alarmingly rise in the oven, once they were out of the oven and cooled down they shrunk back down. The bottoms actually shrunk in a lot more then the top, so they turned out looking a little odd, but they still tasted delicious! I'm curious if I need to add more oats of flaxseed to prevent that issue, so I'll most likely be experimenting with this one again. Anyways, this was not only an extremely easy recipe to prep for breakfast, but now my mom is enjoying chocolate muffins all week for breakfast. Happy mom, happy life! Let me know if you try these out please!
Protein Pancake Muffins Servings: 3 muffins = 20C/8F/19P (Makes 9 muffins) Ingredients:
A Nom Nom Paleo recipe! My sister has made this a couple times and loved it, so she suggested I make it for our mom too. This batch ended up making me 14 muffins, and after talking with my sister we both agreed that the extra 1/3 cup of sweet potato was definitely too much. Other then that though, this recipe as-is turned out pretty tasty! Since I didn't actually eat this though, I am going off my sister's opinion, who doesn't even like sweet potatoes, and my picky mom who devoured these every morning without complaint despite the visible "green things." Anyways though, I asked my sister for her review, and this is what she had to say... "The tuna cakes were the perfect lunch. They were easy to make and they had a sweet-spicy combination. I am not a fan of sweet potatoes at all, but in this recipe they were the perfect combination with the tuna." Let me know if you give them a try and what you think!
Spicy Tuna Cakes Ingredients:
Original recipe found here I am currently running our spring nutrition challenge at the gym and we had a potluck this past weekend, so this is what I made for it! A potluck full of delicious Paleo friendly foods... what more could you ask for!? Alright maybe that's just my kind of potluck, but for once I didn't get made fun of for bringing the Paleo dish to the party. Anyways, I selfishly made this one because I've been wanting to try it for a while and it's highest in carbs, which I am always in need of. Not only was this a really simple recipe to make, but it turned out so freakin' delicious! It had more of the consistency of bread rather then a mashed sweet potato and those warm blueberries on top... oh my gosh, just amazing!! The 9x5 loaf pan is small, so I ended up making two loafs for the potluck. I cut each loaf into 8 bars, which put each bar at 13g Carbs, 5g Fat, and 4g Protein (using the measurements I indicated below). I don't know if I would call this breakfast since one bar is definitely not a substantial amount of food, but this was a great snack or post-meal treat. If you think this looks even a little bit yummy, then I definitely recommend you give this one a try! I will for sure be making it again soon.
Paleo Sweet Potato Blueberry Breakfast Bars Ingredients:
Original recipe found here This is the same exact egg muffin recipe I made about a month ago, I just swapped out the ham for some breakfast sausage. The only prep for this one is cooking up the sausage and heating up the riced veggies in the same pan. Easy! While that is on the frying pan and you are waiting for the oven to preheat, you can prepare the egg mixture and oil your muffin pan. I filled my muffin cups pretty much to the top and this recipe ended up making me 14 muffins. The classic egg muffin is such an easy on-the-go breakfast meal prep to prepare and you can simply swap out a couple ingredients for whatever ones you enjoy. I especially like using the frozen riced veggies lately because not only do I get some more veggies into the meal, but they are also already diced up. This is a quick, simple, and delicious recipe that makes meal prep efficient and painless!
Egg Muffins with Sausage, and Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Rice Ingredients:
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Erika CopelandSharing the recipes I prepare to help others eat more nutritious food and begin their journey to a healthier life. categories
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