Avocado – Sweet T and a Honey B

Sweet T and a Honey B November 29, 2017

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Protein Bowl

Hey, remember me? It’s unbelievable how fast time can slip away from you and before you know it, the holidays you thought were ‘not for a couple of months’ are fast approaching. If that wasn’t evident by my Christmas tree standing tall in my living room, it’s certainly evident by the amount of 30/40/50% off, Free Shipping, and holiday shopping reminder e-mail subjects I have clogging my inbox. Just a constant reminder that no matter how far ahead I think I am in my shopping, I’m not.

So, long story short, it’s been a crazy couple of months. Let’s get back to some healthy foods, shall we?

This one is goooood. I mean, really gooood. It was one of those ‘I have XYZ ingredients in the house so let’s do something with them’ meals. Once it dropped even a hair below 50 degrees last month, I was ready to cook up some of those feel-good meals and hibernate under a blanket. See ya in March.

This sweet potato bowl is really filling and easy to customize based on various proteins and vegetables you like. What makes it extra yummy is the avocado cream I drizzled on top. This cooks in very little time and like all of my other recipes, it’s easy to make a bunch and keep for the week. You can even add the sweet potatoes, beans, and ground beef on top of a bed of lettuce and pack it for lunch using the avo-cream as a dressing.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Protein Bowl

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 medium-sized sweet potatoes
1 lb grass-fed ground beef
1 16 oz can of black beans, drained and rinsed
2 tbs EVOO or avocado oil
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
1/2 medium-sized avocado
1/2 cup light sour cream
fresh lime juice
cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Rinse and dice sweet potatoes into approx 1-inch cubes. In a large bowl, mix oil, sea salt, garlic powder, and paprika, with the sweet potato cubes until fully coated.
Lightly spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and lay sweet potatoes in a single layer on the sheet. Set timer for 20 minutes. Turn potatoes over halfway through.
While sweet potatoes are cooking, fully cook ground beef over medium-high heat, breaking up as it browns.
Using a blender or food processor, blend avocado, sour cream, and lime juice. Add the lime juice gradually until you get desired consistency/taste. Note, if you are using on a salad, you may need a little more lime juice to make a dressing-like consistency.
Add 1/4 of the ground beef, 1/4 of the sweet potatoes, and 1/4 of the black beans to a bowl and top with 2 tbs of the avocado cream. Sprinkle with a little sea salt and pepper.

Have a Happy Hump Day!

Sweet T and a Honey B October 23, 2017

Avocado Arugula Pesto Pasta

It’s pretty evident I haven’t had a lot of time in the kitchen lately based on my hiatus from any blogging. We’re still kind of finding our new groove over here based of Bryan’s grad school and my dance schedules. As a result, this last week I was looking a lot to other bloggers for some fall appropriate meals to cook for hubs and I while still requiring little time to actually prep it. My first go-to when it comes to AH-MAZING feel good/clean recipes is Rachel from RachLMansfield. A ton of my “must make” bookmarks include her recipes.

This pasta is chocked full of deliciousness and is a solid choice for a dreary fall evening. We added a little chicken sausage for some additional bulk/protein and the combo was a winner.

Avoacado Arugula Pesto Pasta

(serves 3)

Ingredients

1 ripe avocado, peeled and pitted
1 cup (packed) arugula
⅓ cup raw walnuts
¼ cup pine nuts
3 cloves garlic
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons avocado oil
Water as needed
1 box pasta of choice (I used Banza Chickpea pasta. I love the taste of this pasta and the array of shapes!)
Optional: 1 lb Organic Chicken Sausage, cooked and sliced

Cook pasta as directed.

Combine all sauce ingredients in a blender or food processor. Add water as needed to get desired consistency (I added about 1/3 cup).

Pour sauce over hot pasta. Top with chicken sausage, a little Parmesan cheese, or red pepper flakes. Enjoy!

(Note: my obsession with avocado is very real so next time I make I might try adding a little more avocado and a tiny bit less arugula to give it more of an avocado taste. Add a little more water if this is the case)

Sweet T and a Honey B July 13, 2017

Sweet Barbecue Chicken Tacos

It’s Thursday morning y’all and that means we’re over the hump of this gloomy workweek. Also, holy humidity. Did anyone else feel like they needed a shower immediately upon opening their front door this week? Did anyone else’s hair look as unruly as mine?

I’ll admit, the humidity made me feel pretty lazy this week. This, combined with the amount of time I’ve spent at the hospital with my mom, has made it virtually impossible to stick to a routine or retain enough energy at the end of the evening to cook a healthy meal. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought my breakfast and/or lunch on the go in the past month. And let’s talk about my lack of time at the gym or sticking to my training plan for the Chicago Rock and Roll 10K this coming weekend.. urgh, yes. THIS. Weekend.

But Monday always rolls around and it’s always a good opportunity to begin the week off on the right foot. Moms on the up and up and I’m finally feeling like myself again so I was eager to spend some time in my kitchen and make some dinners for the week. Full disclosure, I had a taste for barbecue and Mexican this past weekend. As I’ve expressed many times before, your favorite meals don’t have to require an abundant amount of ingredients or take a ton of time to throw together. My lack of grocery shopping in the past ten days or so led me to dig through what I already had and I’m thrilled I did because we’ve been eating these Sweet Barbecue Chicken Tacos for the past few nights. We wanted enough leftover shredded chicken to have these for 2-3 dinners as well as extra for topping salads and sandwiches this week but you could always use half of the chicken if you don’t want as much.

They’re a little sweet and a little tangy and combines some fresh lime juice, veggies, and blue cheese for a pretty awesome flavor. I’ve been using this Wholesome Organic Coconut Sugar in a few recipes recently and been pretty pleased. The flavor is just as sweet as brown sugar, but coconut sugar contains nutrients like zinc and iron and also contains insulin- which acts as a prebiotic – aka gut health! It’s also easy to replace brown sugar in your recipes because it’s a 1:1 ratio. 1 cup of brown sugar = 1 cup coconut sugar.

We had some fruit with our tacos but would also be pretty tasty to serve with some black beans or rice.

What flavor combos do you enjoy? What else would you add to your barbecue tacos?

Sweet Barbecue Chicken Tacos

2 tacos per serving

1 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce
1/4 cup coconut sugar
4 large chicken breasts
1 cup frozen baby corn
1 small onion – diced
1 roma tomato – diced
1 avocado
2 tbs fresh lime juice
Blue cheese crumbles to top
Corn tortillas

Whisk barbecue sauce and coconut sugar together until sugar is fully incorporated.
Place chicken breasts in large crockpot and pour sauce evenly over the chicken. Cook on high for four hours. Once chicken is cooked, shred with a fork and turn crockpot to ‘warm’ until ready to serve.
Combine corn, diced onion, diced tomato, and lime juice in a large bowl. Set aside.
Warm your corn tortillas. Top each taco with a little shredded chicken, corn ‘salsa’, a couple avocado slices, and 1 tbs of blue cheese crumbles.

Sweet T and a Honey B May 5, 2017

Taco Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Happy Friday! This upcoming weekend is a very welcomed one. With two wedding showers, a baby shower, and a bachelorette party, these next couple days are going to be filled with lots of celebration for some very special people in my life. It will certainly be busy, but I am excited to spend some time with some great friends, enjoy the sunshine (it’s about time – is Chicago the new Seattle?), and eat some yummy treats. Whatever your plans are, I hope they are filled with your own special people this weekend!

Before my long weekend ahead, I wanted to share a delicious meal hubs and I made this week. Admittedly we were a little thrown off by the rain and chilly temperatures as we covered our grill back up again after the 70-degree weather a couple short weeks ago. I was looking for something warm to fill us up and nothing does that better than sweet potatoes. A few other blogs I’ve read recently combine sweet potatoes with other meals in such a creative way so I thought I could do the same. With some leftover shredded chicken and a never-ending supply of taco toppings in the house, it was super easy to whip up some taco stuffed sweet potatoes.

Taco Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Makes 2 servings – 1 potato per serving. 9 WW Sps per serving

Ingredients:

2 medium sized sweet potatoes
6 oz. shredded chicken
- I had a lot of shredded chicken leftover so that’s what I used. At the beginning of the week I threw 1 lb. of chicken in to the crockpot and cooked on high for four hours with a little olive oil, cumin, chipotle chili powder, and a pinch of garlic powder. It makes for your own taco seasoning 🙂
4 tbs salsa
1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
1/2 medium sized avocado – sliced
1/2 cup shredded lettuce

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
After rinsing off potatoes, puncture holes all over each potato using a fork. Wrap lightly in tin foil and place in oven. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until potatoes are soft.
Slice an ‘X’ in the top of each potato and ‘smush’ (a technical term) each side to form a pocket perfect for toppings.
Top potato with chicken first, and then toppings.
Enjoy!

Happy Weekend’ing!

Sweet T and a Honey B January 17, 2017

Avocado Chicken Salad

One of the hardest things about working in an office is the constant temptation to go out to lunch with coworkers and the endless supply of leftover Christmas candy that people dump in the communal basket. I know I am not the only one that experiences this and it’s so easy to give in to the temptation of pitching in for the pizza being ordered for lunch or walking across the street for an order of McDonalds french fries. What’s not always so easy is coming up with healthy lunch ideas that keep you interested (you can only take the same turkey sandwich so many times), feeling full, and away from the extra junk food.

Because Bryan and I make the effort to pack a lunch every day and sometimes have very little time to heat meals up, we had to find some more cold lunch ideas. I knew we had a new favorite when I found that you could use avocado and plain greek yogurt as a chicken salad base instead of mayonnaise. There’s many delicious versions of chicken salad using these ingredients but I experimented with ours a few times to get it to our liking. It’s easy to play around with the amount of lime, salt, and yogurt to make your perfect salad.

I often pair this with Sweet Potato Chips. ‘Food Should Taste Good’ is my favorite brand of these and add a perfect crunch to this very simple meal. Some other ideas include pita bread, cucumber slices, baby carrots, or a slice of wheat toast. I have also made this as an appetizer for a group and served with small crackers.