HEALTHY muffins for nurses

Breads and Muffins

As I mentioned before, my eldest daughter is battling Cancer. While her recent scans were NEGATIVE(!!!!!), she is still battling serious lung issues. She was in the PICU for over a month, but now she is back in Aflac, the cancer and blood disorder wing, starting her rehabilitation. The other 2 girls and I are going to have a visit tomorrow, so we thought we would bake up some goodies. We have done this a couple of times; sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, brownies. While they all seem to appreciate the baked goods, I know how getting lots of baked goodies and food in the break room can add pounds on the hips or extra time on the treadmill; so I made them some healthy, but still yummy muffins.muffins

Healthier muffins- preheat oven to 375
Cream together your wet ingredients-
3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon vanilla
3/4 cup lite sour cream
1/2 stick of butter
1/4 cup applesauce
2 eggs
Mix your dry ingredients together, then add them slowly in the mixer to your wet ingredients
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups of berries
Cook for 25-30 min

Tip: Gently fold in your berries- I Used half blueberries and half raspberries in different batches. My daughters added them on top to the muffins after I added the batter to the tins. One LOVES blueberries, while the other LOVES raspberries. Normally, I would just pick one and add them all the mix, but when you cook with kids, anything goes!

Dinner for one

Seafood

No, I didn’t get the night off, but I did have a craving for salmon and spinach. Weird? Does anyone else get weird cravings like this?
So much of a craving that I decided to trek to the store for the ingredients.

salmon

Salmon in a pouch, or Salmon en papillote (which really means parchment, but aluminum works just as well), as the French call it. You can add anything you like. I took 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 tablespoons olive oil, juice from one lemon, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, and liberally put salt and pepper into a bowl to mix together. This was the marinade for my salmon. I let it sit for about 5 min (you don’t want any ingredients to overpower the fish) then used my hands to massage the fish. Then I put it in its “papillote” and in a 400 oven for 5-10 min. And viola! Magnifique!

Tip: When buying salmon, get the good stuff. This time, I got sockeye. If you are confused, check out the sustainability of fish at http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx

On to the spinach, but not just any spinach, creamed spinach. I bought a bag of organic pre-washed spinach. I took a med. size pot and heated up some oil and garlic on low-med. heat. You don’t want to burn the garlic then I added a bit of mozzarella cheese, parm cheese, and of course cream. In all honesty, I just kinda eye-balled the cheese and the cream to my liking. Just add a pinch of each until you get the right consistency. You will know when you get the right combo.

creamed spinach

R and K ate Applegate turkey dogs and Alexis waffle fries. They pretty much cleaned their plates. I offered my meal to the girls. R tried and liked the spinach. K tried and liked the salmon. I consider that a success for now!

Sunny-side Up Leftovers

Asian, Eggs, Leftovers/ Freezer Meals

My girls LOVE runny eggs, sunny-side up is their favorite. So when I was trying to sell the leftover Chinese food we had in the fridge, I knew I had to top it with these beautiful eggs. B is an egg drop soup fanatic, so when I topped her beloved soup with an extra egg, she thought she had hit the jackpot. For my dinner, I defrosted some homemade chicken stock, added lo mien noodles, broccoli, and chicken. Of course, I love runny eggs as much, if not more than the girls, so I topped my faux pho with an egg as well. For K, my 4 year-old?  Well, she is going through a bit of a phase where she doesn’t want her food to be combined. So her chicken, rice, and egg were all on her plate, but not combined. It was still pretty, but before I could snap a pic, she had already almost finished her entire egg.

For a perfect sunny-side up egg…heat your pan to med. heat Melt a pat of butter and crack the egg. Once you see the egg start setting, take some melted butter and put on top of the whites. Delish. If you don’t want to add butter, use a non-stick cooking spray, and once the egg white is almost cooked, take it off the burner and cover with a lid for just a few seconds. This will cook the egg without cooking the yolk. Don’t leave the lid on too long!

Tip: Invest in farm fresh eggs;  they are so worth the extra money. In the summer months, the chickens eat the bugs in the soil, and this diet makes the eggs taste extra rich and earthy. Even if you just buy them when you are making the eggs the star in a dish, you will thank me!

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Top 10

Misc. stuff

My top 10 good eats
1. Mussels in White Wine Sauce
2. Bacon
3. Runny eggs and crusty bread to soak up all the rich yolk
4. Pasta carbonara
5. Any kind of shellfish dipped in garlic butter
6. Tomato sandwich
7. Almost rare filet and a glass of Cabernet
8. Brie and baguette (and wine, of course)
9. Tacos
10. Blueberry pancakes

What would be on your top ten list?

My first post

Misc. stuff

Hey all! This is my first official post, and I am super excited!  I actually have been thinking about creating a blog for quite sometime, but I wasn’t really sure how to go about it or what I wanted to write. I decided to look at myself and my life and search for a topic that I can have fun with and people might enjoy. I didn’t want it to be a downer, boring, or something that people might not be able to relate to.

In my personal life, I am a mom of 3 girls E is 8, R is 6, and K is 4. My oldest  has had cancer since she was 4 1/2. It has been a rough road, but we are managing to create a happy and loving life full of fun, nonetheless. I do not want to have a mommy blog or a ” I have a kid with cancer” blog. 

I am also a teacher. I LOVE my job, but I do not want a teacher blog.

I love fitness. BORING…Who wants to listen to me go on and on about how many lunges I did or how many minutes I ran on the treadmill? No one, not even me. The main reasons I do workout are so I can have alone time and so I can eat what I want and still fit in my pants. True Story

I LOVE, no, I am OBSESSED with food. Eating it, researching it, cooking it; I love it all. So, there you have it. I am going to write about all things food. Fun Foodie Family… But I can’t promise I won’t ever write about my life as a cancer mom, tell you adorable stories of my kids, share with you my fulfilling days as a teacher, or inform you that I just had an amazing Zumba class. It is my blog after all, so I can write what I want! =)

So on to the food. Tonight, R and I had mushroom quesadillas. K had some leftover Chinese food and a tantrum over sauce on her broccoli.

Tip: Always use a pizza cutter to cut up your quesadillas.
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