Healthier Jalapeno Poppers

If you're ever look for a good crowd pleasing recipe, this is the one. I love making this dish whenever a friend is having a get together or when we plan on having a few people over. This recipe is especially good during football season.

A typical jalapeno popper is breaded and deep fried. While I don't mind indulging every once in a while, I don't quite enjoy the feeling I get after eating greasy fried foods. Because of this, I take my favorite things about a dish and lighten them up without depriving myself of the good stuff too much. The best part about these jalapenos is that you can actually taste the jalapeno itself. Most jalapeno poppers taste like fried breading and either cheddar or cream cheese only. They never truly taste like a jalapeno! These poppers are SO addicting thanks to a little secret ingredient you'd never expect in a dish like this.

Yield: 30 jalapeno poppers

• 15 fresh medium/large jalapeno peppers
• 8 ounces reduced fat cream cheese (room temperature)
• 1/4 cup Hormel Real Bacon Pieces
• 1/4 cup reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp Old Bay seafood seasoning
• 1/2 cup Panko breadcrumbs
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 400°. Cut the tops off the jalapenos then slice the peppers in half lengthwise. Using a small knife, remove the insides of the pepper (seeds and veins). 

In a small bowl, add cream cheese, bacon, cheddar cheese, garlic powder, onion powder, and Old Bay and mix until thoroughly combined. Spoon filling into each jalapeno half equally. I like to use a butter knife so I can press the filling into the jalapeno while also running the knife along the top so there is no excess filling spilling over top. 

Place jalapenos on a baking sheet lined with foil and bake for 15 minutes. While the jalapeno poppers are baking, mix together the Panko and olive oil in a small bowl. You want the olive oil to just barely moisten the Panko. When the poppers are done cooking, remove from oven and top with the Panko mixture. This step requires some time - sprinkling the Panko mixture on top quite doesn't work. The cream cheese mixture cooks so the Panko just slides falls off the top if you don't take your time to gently spoon it on top. 

Once each jalapeno half has been topped with the Panko, place back in oven and bake for 10 more minutes. After 10 minutes, turn on the broiler for no more than 2 minutes just to brown the topping. 

Taco Stuffed Shells

Every Friday, I spend about 20 minutes planning out my meals for the next week and making my grocery list. I like to plan what I will make for dinner Monday thru Friday and use the leftovers from each dinner as my lunch throughout the week. This helps me to make sure no food is wasted and that I don't have to buy any extra food for lunch!

A big part of my meal planning is coming up with meals that keep my budget in check. I love to cook but that doesn't mean I need to spend a lot of money doing it. I've been trying really hard lately to thing of budget meals that are not only healthy, but also fill me up. While strolling through foodgawker.com, I found a recipe for Mexican stuffed shells that not only sounded amazing, but looked super easy to make. The ingredient list was small and required little money to buy - two things I look for now when cooking during the week. I made a few healthy swaps of course and now find myself making this meal at least twice a month.

• 1 lb 93% lean ground turkey 
• 2 tbsp taco seasoning
• 4 ounces reduced fat cream cheese
• 1/2 box jumbo pasta shells (16-18 shells total)
• 16 ounce jar salsa
• 1 1/4 cup reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese
• Taco toppings: sour cream, green onions, black olives, diced tomatoes, etc.

Preheat oven to 350°. In a pan, brown the ground turkey and add taco seasoning. Once cooked through, remove from heat and mix in the cream cheese, allowing it to melt. Set aside and allow meat mixture to cool. 

While the meat is cooling, cook pasta according to package directions. Once shells are done, drain and set shells on a cutting board to cool. While the shells are cooling, add salsa to the bowl of a food processor and pulse until smooth. 

In a medium bowl, mix 1/3 of the salsa with the meat/cream cheese mixture, and shredded cheddar cheese. Pour remaining salsa on the bottom of a 9x13 glass baking dish. Stuff each shell with 1-2 tbsp of the meat mixture and place in the dish (open side up). Cover dish with foil and bake 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove foil and sprinkle with remaining shredded cheddar cheese. Continue to bake for 5 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly. Top with your favorite taco toppings. 

Recipe adapted from: The Girl Who Ate Everything

Ranch Chicken & Hasselback Potatoes

One of my all time favorite foods is the potato. I love potato soups, baked potatoes, oven roasted potatoes, breakfast potatoes, you name it. Every year for Christmas Eve, my aunt makes mini hasselback potatoes and I count down the minutes on the oven timer until they're done and I can dig in. Seeing the amount of time my aunt put into making them, I quickly realized that they required a lot of patience to make but for some reason I never told myself to just give it a try. 

If there's one thing I hate about baked potatoes, it's the time it takes for them to bake. One weekend, while craving potatoes, I finally sucked it up and gave hasselbacks a try and I was SO pleased with how they turned out - they are well worth the wait I promise you.

Along with the potatoes I decided to make baked ranch chicken. Now I'm not the best when it comes to cooking meat; it's hard for me to get it just right. Somehow though, I managed to get it right this time around. The chicken turned out so juicy that I had to take a picture just to prove it. 

Yield: 4 servings

• 4 medium or 6 small russet potatoes
• Olive oil for drizzling
• Sea salt
• 4 chicken breasts
• 1 tbsp from a single packet Hidden Valley Greek Yogurt Ranch powder
• 1 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 sleeve whole wheat Ritz crackers
• 2 tbsp butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 425°. Wash and dry the potatoes. Slice a small piece off the bottom of each potato to prevent the potato from rolling as you cut. Take two wooden skewers, wooden spoons, or anything you don't mind getting nicked with the knife as you cut the potatoes, and set on each side of the potato.

Cut small slits in the potatoes stopping before you slice all the way through - this is where the skewers/wooden spoons come in handy. Each slice should be about 1/8-1/4 inch apart. Place potatoes on a baking sheet (lined with foil), drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for 30 minutes.

While potatoes are baking for their first 30 minutes, prepare the chicken. In a freezer Ziploc bag, add the Ritz crackers and crush with a rolling pin. Once crushed to the size of bread crumbs, add the ranch powder and Parmesan cheese. Empty contents into a shallow dish (you want something big enough to dredge the chicken in).

Brush each chicken breast with melted butter then dredge in the ranch mix. After each chicken breast is well coated, lay in a glass baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray. Sprinkle any remaining ranch mix on top of the chicken and lightly spray with cooking spray. 

Once the potatoes have cooked for 30 minutes, remove from the oven and drizzle with a little more olive oil. Put the potatoes back in the oven along with the chicken and continue to bake for 25 minutes. Remove the chicken and cover with foil; bake covered for another 10-15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through and topping is golden brown. 

Mini Turkey Meatloaf

I wasn't one of those kids who grew up eating meatloaf - in fact, I don't think I ever had meatloaf as a kid period. It wasn't until high school that I even tried it for the first time at a friends house and still didn't understand what the big deal about it was. Now that I am older and on my own, I try really hard to come up with meals that are not only healthy and easy for portion control but can feed me for more than just one meal. I finally decided to give meatloaf a try and was pretty pleased with the outcome.

This meatloaf was so easy to make and smelled so amazing as it baked (it somehow smelled like BBQ chicken cooking on the grill which I'm not going to complain about). It's such a perfect meal for meal prep - mini meatloaves make it easy to control portion sizes and also makes it easier to store in the fridge. Luckily for me, I had everything I needed to make these on hand and was able to cook them quickly.

These would also be perfect for kids or even for when you have friends over - everyone gets their own little meatloaf so no one fights over the end or middle pieces. Plus, they're much more appealing as a mini loaf than a slice of cooked ground meat...

Yield: 4-6 mini meatloaves

• 2/3 cup chopped yellow onion
• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 lb ground turkey (I use 93% lean)
• 1/2 cup Panko
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 cup reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese
• BBQ sauce for brushing

Preheat oven to 375°. In a small pan, saute onions in butter for 10-20 minutes until translucent and cooked to your liking (I don't like crunchy onions so I saute mine until almost caramelized). Once onions are nearly finished, add the garlic and saute for 30 seconds.

While onions are cooking, whisk egg, milk, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Add panko to wet ingredients. Allow Panko to soak in wet mixture while onions cook (this step is important - soaking the Panko helps to keep the meatloaves moist, especially when using really lean meat). Allow onions to slightly cool then add to wet ingredients along with meat and cheddar cheese. Form into mini loaves and brush tops with BBQ sauce (I used about 1/2 tbsp per loaf to start). 

Place meatloaves on a lightly oiled baking sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes. Halfway through cooking, you can brush on more BBQ sauce. Serve with mashed potatoes. 

* This recipe is great for football season - you can form the loaves into football shapes and top with slices of cheese to resemble the laces after the loaves have finished cooking. 

Lightened Up Carrot Cake Scones with Cream Cheese Frosting

Disclaimer: I'm going to be optimistic for a moment and say "now that winter is officially over" even though I live in the Midwest and we all know how untrue that may be....

Now that winter is over, I'm ready to make the switch to lighter spring time foods. This means I can safely tuck my trusty Crockpot back into its home right above the fridge and start planning for meals with fresh ingredients instead of canned ones. April starts in just a few short days and I am beyond ready to step my cooking and baking game up. With that said, I decided to finally take the plunge and make something I have been talking about for at least a year: scones. I'm not exactly sure why I thought that making scones would be such a tedious process but it was actually quite easy. I let this thought stop me from trying time and time again....but not today! Today was the day I finally faced my baking fears and made scones, healthier ones at that.

I'm not going to lie, I enjoy a good scone. I am quite picky about my scones though, so I thought I would make something that I hadn't tried before so I could A) force myself to try something new and B) finally make scones! Plus, who doesn't love a good carrot cake? For those of you who do, you're welcome. For those of you who don't, try again, you're still welcome.

Yield: 8 scones

Scones

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 light brown sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp ground all spice
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup grated carrot (about 3 large carrots)
• 4 tbsp cold, unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
• 2 oz chopped walnuts
• 3/4 cup low fat buttermilk
• 1 egg white
• sugar in the raw for sprinkling

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 3 oz fat free cream cheese
• 4 tbsp powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions
Preheat oven to 375° and line a large baking sheet with parchment or wax paper.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add both flours, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg, and salt. (If you do not have a stand mixer, feel free to use a whisk or hand mixer). Mix until combined. Add the grated carrot and mix again - you may need to mix this a little with your hands to ensure that the carrots do not clump together. Add the cold butter and mix until the butter becomes the size of a pea. 

Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold in the chopped walnuts. Make a well in the center of the mixture and add the buttermilk. Using your hands, stir the milk into the dry ingredients until the dough comes together. Place dough onto a floured surface and knead until just combined - this should only take about 10 seconds. Be careful not to over knead the dough - this can cause the butter to melt. Form the dough into a 10" circle, about 3/4" thick. Using a pastry cutter, or a knife, cut the dough into 8 equal sized triangles.

Brush each scone with the egg white and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until golden, about 20-22 minutes. Allow scones to cool completely. Once cooled, begin making the cream cheese frosting. Either in a small bowl or a small food processor, add all frosting ingredients and mix until smooth. Transfer to a Ziploc bag. Cut a small piece off the corner of the bag and use to pipe the frosting on the scones.

Chicken Bruschetta Burgers

As usual, it's been a while since I've posted anything but now that I have morning hours, I'm going to try my best to at least post once a week. Almost every weekend for the past month, I have gotten most of my meals from restaurants and lost most of my motivation to make new things. Eating out all the time obviously isn't good for my health or my wallet so it's time to make a change and what better way to do that then with an American favorite turned clean eating.

I found this recipe a while ago on Skinny Taste and was dying to try it but of course it ended up in the back of my mind and I forgot all about it. Today however, I finally remembered and luckily for me, I had a pound of ground chicken in my fridge waiting to get used up. This recipe is also great for those who are trying to sneak some extra veggies into their meals.

Now, I am the kind of person who likes to make a lot of extra toppings and sides so that I can use them throughout the week for different recipes. In this case, I made a ton of bruschetta so that Adam could toss some on his omelettes and I could put it on chicken and in wraps. If you do not want a lot of leftover bruschetta, feel free to cut that portion of the recipe in half.

Yield: 4 burgers, 3 cups bruschetta

Bruschetta

• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp white Balsamic vinegar
• 5 medium vine ripe tomatoes, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, diced
• 2 tbsp fresh basil, roughly chopped
• 4 sticks reduced fat mozzarella string cheese, cut into small cubes
• salt and pepper to taste

Burgers

• 1 lb 90% lean ground chicken (I like Gold'n Plump)
• 1/2 large zucchini, grated (about 1 cup)
• 1/3 cup plain whole wheat bread crumbs
• 1 clove garlic, diced
• 1 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
• pinch of salt and pepper
• 4 cups organic spring mix salad (for serving)

In a medium bowl, combine the red onion, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, tomatoes, garlic, and basil. Stir and season with salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until ready to use. When ready to serve, stir in the mozzarella cheese. 

While bruschetta is chilling in the refrigerator, begin the burgers. Grate the zucchini then squeeze the excess moisture from it using a paper towel. It is important to get as much moisture out of the zucchini as possible so it does not cause the burgers to be too wet. In a large bowl, combine the zucchini, ground chicken, bread crumbs, garlic, Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Form into 4 equal sized patties.

Heat a skillet over medium high heat and lightly spray with cooking spray. Add patties and cook for 3 minutes on each side. To serve, place 1 cup spring mix on plate, add burger then top with bruschetta (make sure to add the cheese to the bruschetta before topping).

Recipe adapted from: Skinny Taste