Garbanzo Turkey Chili

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Here’s a quick-fix meal I prepared a big pot of for myself this past Sunday.  I have been packing myself leftovers of it for lunch this week.  It’s high in protein, low in fat and super delicious and easy to make. Things like this make it easy to continue to eat healthy despite not getting home until past 8:30pm most nights.  🙂
Ingredients:
  • 1 lb of ground turkey. You can use either 94% lean/ 6% fat blend or ground turkey breast which is 99% lean/ 1% fat.  The turkey breast will be good but dryer.
  • ½ onion chopped, 2 cloves of garlic minced
  • ½ cup of diced carrots
  • ½ cup of diced sweet peppers (optional)
  • 1, 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes ( I used a “zesty jalapeno” blend)
  • 1, 15.5 oz can of garbanzos drained and rinsed, 1+ cups of chicken broth
  • 1 bay leaf
  • ¼ tsp. garlic powder
  • ¼ tsp. smoked paprika
  • 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper.
Directions:
  1. In large skillet, heat up 2 tbsps of olive oil.
  2. Saute onions, garlic, carrots and peppers until tender.
  3. Throw in ground turkey and break apart with spoon as it cooks.
  4. Once all the meat is broken apart and cooking, add bay leaf, can of garbanzos and can of diced tomatoes.
  5. Add chicken broth to moisten mixture and to keep ingredients submerged in sauce.
  6. Simmer on low heat for 15-20 minutes to allow seasoning to marry.

Enjoy alone or with some brown rice or tortilla chips! 🙂

Chicken Fajita Salad

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Check out what I made from yesterday’s left-overs.  I made chicken fajitas last night and decided that, for lunch, I didn’t want to eat the left-overs wrapped in a tortilla.  Instead, I placed the meat and veggies over lettuce and tomato, used salsa as the dressing and voila!  A healthy, low-fat and super nutritious lunch was served.

Here’s how I made yesterday’s fajitas.

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb chicken tenderloins cut into cubes
  • 1/2 large onion sliced
  • 1 green bell pepper sliced
  • 1 orange, yellow or red bell pepper sliced
  • garlic powder
  • cumin
  • Sazon Goya Complete Latin Seasoning Mix with Saffron
  • cayenne pepper
  • olive oil

Suggested garnish ingredients:

  • 2% milk cheese (Mexican blend)
  • low fat sour cream
  • salsa
  • guacamole
  • shredded lettuce
  • diced tomato
  • whole wheat soft tortillas

Directions:

  1. heat a drizzle of olive oil in large skillet and toss onions and peppers along with desired amount of seasoning until veggies are slightly tender and are a bit charred.
  2. transfer to a plate
  3. using same skillet, heat up another drizzle of oil and cook the cubed chicken tenderloins with desired amount of seasoning
  4. throw both veggies and chicken together in skillet and heat through

Serve family style.  Let everyone fill their whole wheat tortillas as they wish with chicken/veggie mixture and garnishes.

 

Why Oreos are as Addictive as Cocaine

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Eating sugary, fatty, crunchy or salty junk foods stimulate the same parts of the brain as taking drugs! The study referenced in this http://www.Forbes.com article (click on the link below) specifically talks about Oreos but there have been similar studies with other foods that give similar results… Doesn’t it make that potato chip slogan “bet you can’t eat just one” a little disturbing?…

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2013/10/16/why-your-brain-treats-oreos-like-a-drug/