Eating Clean Recipes

The past couple weeks I have been really really lazy about menu planning, so when I get home from work I've been just hopping online and googling for recipes that include ingredients I have on hand. Here are some goodies I've found.

Creamy Salsa Chicken- The original recipe makes a TON of food and since it is just my husband and me I altered the recipe to be enough for dinner and a couple of leftover meals. I used about half of everything that was called for and only about 1/2 of ONE brick of cream cheese and it was still super super yummy!

Chicken and Veggie Stew

Beef and Mushroom Casserole- this I came up with on my own....it was a long day and I was like bleh and threw this together. It actually turned out really really yummy. Not the cleanest of recipes, but still tasty.

Ingredients:
- 1/2 lb. beef
- about 1 cup chopped mushrooms
- 1/2-1 onion
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1-2 cans of cream of mushroom (depending on how creamy you want your casserole)
- salt and pepper to taste
- Italian blend of spices
- Bisquick biscuit mix (mixed as directions say)

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 F.Start by browning the beef. While the beef is browning, chop your mushrooms, onion, and garlic. I don't really like mushrooms so I chopped mine up fairly small. Mix your chopped veggies in a bowl with the cream of mushroom, add salt and pepper and other spices, stir. Once the meat is sufficiently browned, stir it into your cream of mushroom and veggie mixture. Give everything a good stir and dump into a pan. Mix up your Bisquick mixture and plop on top of the meat mixture and spread to each side of the dish. Cook for 30-40 minutes or until your biscuit is cooked, once it is take out your casserole and let it set up and cool for a few minutes. Voila! Of course, if you have more people in your family you can adjust your ingredient amounts. As always, play around with it...add things you think might taste good...like celery, corn, or even some black beans.

Quinoa and Cilantro Salad - yum yum yum!

Quinoa Pancakes - I made these following the recipe, but I also made pancakes with about half quinoa and half pancake mix and both were really good! We made a big batch and froze them and have been having them in the morning for quick heat up and go breakfasts....they taste better and are healthier for you than Eggo!!

Greek Yogurt Biscuits

My Favorites Vol. I

Hi guys! For a few weeks now I've been stewing over what to blog about, mostly because my life is pretty boring and if I just posted about events in my life I would lose my reading population very quickly, so with that being said I have to tell you about my inspiration for this mini-series. Last week I went to a GREAT Christmas party hosted by some fabulous girls I go to church with, it was called a "Favorite Things" party. What we were told to do was go out and purchase five our favorite thing (I brought 5 hazelnut cream candles) and bring them to the party. At the party we put our name on 5 strips of paper and threw it in a fishbowl with everyone else's 5 names and then pick a number 1-30. Once everyone was at the party we started the main event. The person that picked #1 drew 5 names out of the fishbowl and gave those 5 people her favorite thing, #2 did the same and so on. I had never been to a gift exchange party like that before, but I thought it was so neat, because a majority of the favorite things brought were things I have never heard of and yet I found myself cheering when my name was called because I was so excited to try some new things!

After the party I was lying in bed thinking about all my favorite things and I decided I was going to share my favorites with all of my beautiful readers! I'm not quite sure where to start, but I figure no one has more favorites than in their bathroom/makeup bag so...here we go with my favorite beautifying products.

Bathroom Products:

1. Vitamin C Facial Lotion/Cream

This stuff is a miracle worker!! I've never been big on putting lotion on my face, but this stuff changed my outlook on facial moisturizing! Once you get out of the shower, put a pea-size amount of lotion on and continue with your make-up routine. Why is it a miracle worker? Any blemish I have will almost disappear the next morning if I have put this on! Wow. You can get this stuff at Walmart for $8-$14.

2. E.L.F. Essential All Over Color Stick

Okay, now I don't use this the way I'm sure it is intended. I use this stuff as an eye shadow primer. When I was a sophomore in high school going to my very first formal dance I let my sister do my makeup. She told me to close my eyes and next thing I knew she was putting sticky goop on my eyelids! I freaked out and asked her what the heck she was doing to me, she taught me that in order to have powerful and bold color stick and stay on your eyelids for hours and hours you need to have a base on which the shadow can stay, hence the sticky stuff, aka lip gloss. I have since advanced from ultra sticky lip gloss to this stuff that is not nearly as sticky, more functional (in the sense that I don't have to force my eyelids closed), and long lasting. You can get this stuff at Target or KMart for $1. ONE BUCK! That is pretty good!

3. Freeze-It Hairspray

Holy Crap! I will never use any other hairspray ever again. Now, I'm the kind of person that teases her hair and likes her bangs to stay in place once she leaves the bathroom....I don't do beach hair, I don't do loosey goosey hair, I just can't, my hair does not have the capability. My hair is very fine and has a hard time doing anything without a little product. This hairspray does just what it is named, FREEZE IT! It is a fine spray, but not as fine as Kenra or some of those other big names, but it DOES work! I think it smells like Diet Rockstar which is my energy drink of choice, so all in all I love the product. You can get this almost exclusively at Walmart for about $5 a can.

4. Three Row Comb

Okay, this is the bad boy of all combs! There are three rows of teeth on this comb. If you tease your hair or do any type of back-combing, YOU NEED THIS COMB! I'm not sure where you can get one of these because I somehow (cough cough) acquired this during my days of living with roommates! Haha! This comb will save you so much time and allows you to just power through your style session!

5. Mary Kay Eye Make-Up Remover
 

My mom got me hooked on this stuff. Just like I was never one to use a facial lotion, I was never one to use a special product just to get my excess mascara off after a shower, I just used some toilet paper, or my towel. Last winter while my mom came and visited us in Idaho she saw my "terrible habit of being rough on my precious soft eye skin." (Direct quote!) She told me she was going to get me some and I was really hesitant to accept because I'm not know for finishing a bottle of any type of product, but reluctantly I accepted. A couple of weeks later I got my pink bottle in the mail and I literally fell in love with my first use! This stuff isn't greasy, is very mild, gets everything extra off your eyes with one cotton ball, and quite honestly feels like silk. I would highly recommend this to anyone and everyone! You can get this through Mary Kay and is about $13-$15. With this stuff a little really does go a long way, it took me about 6 or 7 months to go through my first bottle, so worth the money!


That wraps up my favorites in the bathroom! Hope you enjoyed and if YOU have a favorite you'd like to recommend to me please please please do!!