The Big Kahuna Tuna

My mother, sister and I invented this tuna steak sandwich three years ago: The Big Kahuna Tuna! We call it this, because it is packed high with thick tuna steak, sauteed onions and tomatoes, wasabi, soy sauce and avocado all piled on a hamburger bun or Hawaiian sweet bun.

This has turned into one of our favorite meals. But, since we're dieting we can't have our Big Kahuna Tuna and avocado fries. Instead, we made this low-calorie, delicious option:

 

 

For under 500 calories,  you can enjoy baked (skinless) sweet potato fries and a bread-less Big Kahuna Tuna! Here's how we did it:

1. Cover your thawed or fresh tuna steaks with salt and pepper and allow them to marinate in soy sauce and wasabi while you prep the rest of the meal.
2. Preheat your oven to 375.
3. Peel the skin off of one sweet potato and dice the potato into very thin, long strips.
4. Toss these strips in a bowl with olive oil and other seasonings of choice. We use: black pepper, garlic salt, cayenne and smoke seasoning.
5. Cover a pan with aluminum foil, spray with pam and spread the fries out.
6. Place fries in the oven and allow to bake for 30 minutes.
7. After 15 minutes of baking, start working on your sandwich. Chop 1 onion, 1 tomato and 1 avocado. Place onions and tomatoes in a skillet on med-high and saute with olive oil and soy sauce. After the onions are translucent (approximately 5 minutes) add in your Tuna Steaks.
8. Cook tuna steaks for 2 minutes on each side for rare and up to 3 minutes and 30 seconds on each side for well-done.
9. Plate your food by first putting down your tuna steaks then topping with cooked veggies, avocadom fresh wasabi and more soy sauce. Add a side of fries and you are good to go!
10. ENJOY!

Under 500 Calorie Meal

Here's what I'm enjoying for dinner tonight at work (going out so having an early dinner):

 

 

This delicious meal is incredibly healthy and super easy to make! Follow these step-by-step directions for a 20 minute meal that is diet approved:

 

1. Thaw Shrimp if Frozen or Peel/Devein if Fresh (Roughly 30 Shrimp)
2. Chop 1x Onion
3. Saute Onion in Olive Oil on Med-High
4. Chop 1x Squash and 1x Zucchini
5. Once the Onions Start to Get Translucent, Reduce Heat to Low 
6. Add Zucchini and Squash--Cook for Roughly 10 Minutes on Low
7. Add Shrimp, Stir Continuously for 5 More Minutes or till Shrimp Turn Orange (as pictured)
8. Top with Pepper and the Juice of 1x Lemon

 

This entire meal cost less than $10 and serves 4-6 depending on portion control. You can easily make this meal go further for cheap by doubling the veggies. It is great as a main dish or easily paired with other healthy sides. Enjoy!

Post Holiday Diet

I'm Southern aka my family cooks great and I like to eat. I ALWAYS gain weight during the holidays and I'm okay with that, but I'm ready to be 'normal-sized' again. Exactly one week ago today my boyfriend and I started dieting. We're focusing on low-calories, smarter choices and working out. Proud to announce it's working! I've lost 5lbs in one week. I realize this is a lot, but this is pretty normal for my post-holiday self. I'm excited to keep going and hopefully continue to lose 1lb a week. Here's some menu samples of what I've been eating the past week:

BREAKFAST

• Bakery Bread Piece of Toast with Almond Butter and Bananas
• Plain, Non-fat Greek Yogurt with Strawberries
• 1 Tortilla with 1 Cup of Chopped Bell Peppers and 6 Tbsps of Egg Whites, Topped with 1/4 Cup of Cheese and Tobasco
• Strawberries
• Banana

LUNCH

• Grilled Tilapia Salad with Corn/Beans
• Stuffed Poblano Peppers
• Avocado, Tomato, Mustard and Salmon Sandwich

DINNER

• Spaghetti Squash with Shrimp, Broccolli and Rotel
• Grilled Tilapia Salad
• Brussels Sprouts with Fish Sauce

SNACKS

• Bananas
• Bananas with Almond Butter
• Strawberries
• Celery and Almond Butter
• Celery and Hummus
• Cucumbers and Hummus
• Almonds

Leave a comment if you're interested in any of the recipes. Everything has been home-made. We cooked on Sunday for all week. It made dieting super easy, because you didn't have to put any thought into your meals all week. We've been tracking our calories with the application MyFitnessPal It has a barcode scanner and remembers recent meals, which makes updating super simple.

Hope your New Year's Resolutions are going great, as well!

Spaghetti Squash

If you're like me, you've heard of spaghetti squash, but have no real clue as to what it is, how to cook it or what it taste like. Well, since I'm not eating pasta for dinners (or really lunch either), I decided to give it a try. First, I researched what is spaghetti squash. Foolishly, I thought it was regular, yellow-squash that people somehow carved with a fork to make noodle-looking shapes. Wrong.

Spaghetti squash it's a type of squash, much larger than normal squash. Think the size of a cantaloupe or small watermelon. It is yellow and oblong. I purchased mine at HEB. There are several ways to cook it, but I cooked it by cutting it in half, length wise. (Okay, okay, my boyfriend cut it for me because this is a BIG boy!) Next, I scrapped all the goop out of there. Originally, I thought you were supposed to eat this goop, but after some trial and error and more reading, I found out it's not even the good stuff! Which, I was very thankful to read since it barely had anything in it and I thought I paid money for 1/5 cup of fake noodles!

Anyway, after you remove the strings and seeds. Place the two halves, open side up in the oven and bake at 375 for approximately 20-25 minutes. Remove it, let it cool and then begin using your fork to scrape the edges width wide. (You can do it length wise, but your noodles will be pieces vs. longer 4 inch-ish strands.). Here's what mine looked like when I started scraping it:

 

 

 After I scraped out approximately 4cups, I baked them for about 15-20 minute longer with olive oil on it. They were delicious in my shrimp spaghetti (rotel, shrimp, onion and broccoli mixture). Here's my final dinner:

 

 

 

1 cup of spaghetti squash + 1 cup of my shrimp spaghetti made a delicious and filling meal for only 292 calories! You cannot beat that. Enjoy:) 



Healthy, Cheap Lunch!

Like everyone else in the New Year, my boyfriend and I are trying to eat healthier. We don't need to lose a ton of weight, so we thought of a few guidelines to help us slim down  and lose the holiday weight (vs. doing a drastic diet). We definitely didn't want anything that would eliminate an entire food group. We also wanted to do something realistic that we could stick with since we both work full time and have a ton of extracurricular activities. Here's a few guidelines we set for ourselves (at least for the first week or two):

• No Crap (Sodas, Alcohol, Coffee, Chips, Junk Food, Etc.)
• I'm sure you're thinking coffee isn't 'crap', well you haven't seen mine! I love sugar and creamer in mind (or a fatty Starbucks drink) and by the time I'm done with it my drink is over 150 calories! I'm trying to replace my morning coffee with a glass of water or hot, green tea-both are 0 calories! So far, so good!
• Have a Healthy Breakfast/AM Snack
• Aiming to have some sort of fruit every morning
• Healthy Lunch (No Fried Foods, Limit the Pasta, Etc.)
• Veggie PM Snack 
• Edamame orVeggies with Hummus or Almond Butter 
• No Dairy or Pasta/Grains for Dinner
• Pasta is quick and easy and cheese makes everything better! We're trying to eliminate these two things for the first week or two so that we lose our holiday weight.  

After a week or two, we will probably just focus on low calorie/healthier options. We're bothing using MyFitnessPal app and website right now and love it. It alows you to scan products to calculate daily nutrition. According to it, my lunch today was only 405 calories. We added ground meat and taco seasoning to Andy's which made his 576 calories. Here's what I had:

 

The above photo is one stuffed serrano pepper. It doesn't look too pretty but it taste amazing! This is probably one of the most delicious healthy meals I make! It is very filling, low cost and taste like it's unhealthy! Here's a few easy steps to make your own (Serves 4):

1. Toast 4 Serrano Peppers on an open flame or burner on low. Be sure to rotate them frequently to ensure that they cook on all sides. While they're cooking go ahead and pre-heat your oven to 375 and proceed to step 2.  

 
2. While your peppers are roasting, go ahead and chop 1 whole yellow onion and place it in a large pot sprayed with Pam on Med-Low heat. While they are cooking be sure to check on your peppers and rotate them. Once onions are slighlty cooked add 1 large can of whole black beans and 1 small can of whole corn. Stir every few minutes.  
 
3. At this time, your peppers should be nice and toasted on every side (hopefully you rotated!). If they are  pretty black on every side, place them in a ziplock bag to cool. This will cause them to "sweat" and make their skin come off a little easier.  
 
4. While your peppers sweat, go ahead and cut 1/4 of an avocado per serving and 1 oz of cheese per saving. I used Calbot habanero cheddar cheese. Be sure to continue to watch your pot of veggies and stir them.  
 
5. Get your bag of serrano peppers and run cold water in it. Rub them together (still in the bag) then drain the water. Now using a knife slighly scrape off all remaining black residue. You will see a smoother skin appear. Once all black has been scrapped off, cut the stem off of the pepper and remove most of the seeds (or all of the seeds if you don't want it too spicy). Instead of trying to stuff mine, I cut them open to wear I have a flat sheet of pepper. I think serrano peppers are too skinny to stuff.
 
6. Top your pepper with your pot of veggies (2 scoops/cups) and top with 1 oz of cheese. Place in the oven until the cheese melts. (Roughly 3-5 minutes).
 
7.  Once cheese has melted, top with 1/4 avocado and 2 table spoons of salsa (I used Hernandez).
 

Tips:

• If you need to cut calories, you could easily eliminate the cheese, salsa and avocado. This would save you 200 calories). It would be great without these, but it's even better with them!
 
• If you need to add calories, you can add beef and taco seasoning like Andy did. You could also add more veggies in pot like eggplant or tomatoes. I've made this same recipe with rice too, which will add calories.
 

However you make it, I hope you enjoy it! Leave me a comment if you changed the recipe. I'd love to hear from you!

New Year's Resolution

Do people still do these? They seem to becoming increasingly unpopular. I still do! This year, I made a realistic resolution of writing in a journal 365 days. Like my healthy eating resolution with my boyfriend, I planned to start this task on Jan. 02, 2014 (you know, after the hangover settles); however, I was so excited to start a journal that I started a day early on December 31, 2013.

Three days down and I'm already enjoying reflecting and growing from listenting to my own feelings. I, honestly, think this will make me exercise more and eat healthier because I'm noting how I felt that day.

Here's the setup I'm using:

• General Thoughts/Entry
• How I Felt Today
• Highlight(s)
• Low Point(s)
• Goal for Tomorrow
• Bible Verse
• Read
• New Word (English or Another Language)
• What I Ate
• Exercise Completed
• Any Takeaways/Motivational Words for Tomorrow

I hope this entry helps inspire you. You don't have to wait till next New Year's to make yourself a better person. Every day is a new day! Enjoy it!

Soup Weather

Earlier this week, I made homemade French onion soup for the first time. It was a simple and delicious recipe that I fell in love with last fall in Alaska. And I love any excuse to use my new bakeware, which was perfect for seving this great soup:

 

 

I love cooking and think great home cooked meals come from the heart. With that being said, I did not follow this recipe exactly. I rarely do!: 

 

 Instead of brandy, I used one cup of red wind (and drank the rest!). Instead of beef stock, I used veggie stock. I only needed  8 oz of cheese (or less). I used four, yellow onions and thought it was the pefect amount. I chopped them in 1 inch to 2 inch rectangles. I added garlic and pepper. I did not simmer for nearly as long as it recommends and I definitely did not broil anywhere near the length noted. Any time you broil, you have to keep an eye on it; it will burn very easily.

 

This recipe made four, healthy servings and reheated perfectly. If you're currently enjoying soup weather, I'd like to recommed this recipe. Please provide feedback if you added or changed anything else; I'd love to hear from you!