Ingredients for Chicken and Zoodle Recipe

1 carrot, spiralized
2 zucchinis, spiralized
2 chicken breasts, cooked and cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 of a red or white onion, sliced
Opt: 8oz of shitake mushrooms, rinsed
1/4 cup reduced sodium soy sauce
1 clove of garlic, minced or crushed
2 tsp fresh grated ginger
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 tablespoon of cornstarch
Opt: Sprinkle of chili flakes, sesame seeds or crushed peanuts

*See below for a paleo friendly version of this teriyaki sauce.

Cooking Directions

Step 1: Cook chicken over medium-high heat. Season with salt, pepper and garlic powder towards the end of cooking. Spriralize the carrot and zucchinis while the chicken cooks. Cut up chicken after it’s cooked.

Step 2: In a saute pan over medium heat, add a few teaspoons of olive oil and then add the spiralized zucchini and onion. Cook stirring constantly till zucchini becomes loose and begins to lose its stiff shape. Add the shitake mushrooms and any other veggies you would like to add (this meal is very versatile). Meanwhile, mix the soy sauce, ginger, garlic, honey and cornstarch together. Feel free to add the chili flakes if you like spice.

Step 3: Once the veggies are cooked (only 3 minutes or so), add the chicken back into the pan along with the teriyaki sauce you just made. Stir till the sauce gets thick and evenly coats everything. Top with sesame seeds, crushed peanuts and the spiralized carrots.

Paleo Friendly Zoodle Recipes

My husband and I just finished the Paleo diet. (I include myself in this statement out of default, I did the Paleo diet only because I was too lazy to cook different food for myself every night while my husband was on it.)

For those who don’t know, the Paleo diet is based off of eating like cave men who were hunters and gatherers. This means you only eat vegetables, meat, beans, nuts and seeds. You can’t eat dairy, fruit (though this is really based on our version of Paleo), sugar, wheat and anything processed.

Now before you freak out and call me a hypocrite for using the word paleo in an article that uses soy sauce as an ingredient. This section is to revise the above recipe to be paleo friendly.

It’s really quite simple, just switch out soy sauce for coconut amino and instead of cornstarch use tapioca flour. 

Side note, I love teriyaki sauce. As a kid, I would go to this Japanese steak house and get a big bowl of pineapple doused in teriyaki sauce. Yeah, I was a weird kid.

But teriyaki is very versatile and making it the paleo friendly way cuts out the unhealthy aspects of it. So go ahead! Eat your teriyaki chicken and zoodles guilt-free!

Note: Some of the links below are to Amazon. When you purchase the product I receive a small compensation at no extra cost to you. The money I receive goes to helping me keep this blog live and filled with helpful DIY information. Thanks for your support!

My husband’s and mine dating relationship consisted of dining out, mini golf and Settlers of Catan.

When we got married, we decided to make it a tradition to buy a Catan game every year. We usually wait till after Christmas because the local board game shop would have a huge discount on all games.

Our collection now consists of Settlers of Catan (expansion pack!), Seafarers, Cities and Knights and Trails to Rails (which is the board shaped like America–how cool is that!)

For my birthday last year, he ordered this crazy delicious blueberry velvet 3 layer cake that was decorated with a mini Doctor Who and Tardis…so a lot of pressure on me to give him a dessert he would love! (yes, we are geeks :P)

So I partnered with Whoopie Bakery in Chambersburg PA to create the ultimate Settlers of Catan whoopie pie bar!

So here’s what we did. I ordered 2 dozen deconstructed whoopie pies and here’s what it came with:

• Dozen pumpkin cake
• Dozen chocolate cake
• Cinnamon coffee frosting
• Cream cheese frosting
• Caramel glaze (which was our ‘gold’)
• Toasted coconut topping (sheep resource)
• Crushed chocolate espresso beans topping (coal resource)

First off, crazy that I got all that for $40 and they had these adorable labels too! In order to complete the whoopie pie bar, I added a few additional toppings that I had around the house:

• Baked bacon pieces (brick resource)
• Pretzels (wheat resource)
• Crushed Oreos (ore resource)
• Pecans (wood resource)
• Maple syrup (more gold!)

Seriously, how perfect did these toppings relate to the resources in Catan!

So when our friends came over, we told them they could build their own city! The cake was the house, the frosting the roads, the caramel glaze or maple syrup was gold and then all the toppings as resources. Proud nerd moment! My husband LOVED it!! Not only was this such a creative dessert but the whoopie pies were unbelievably delicious!! My friends could not stop raving about it!

Here are a few of our favorite ‘cities’ we put together:

• The Ultimate City: Chocolate cake, caramel glaze, cream cheese frosting, pretzels and Oreos (get it..you need wheat and ore to make a city!)
• Hit the Road, Jack: Pumpkin, cream cheese frosting, bacon and pecans (cus ya gotta have wood and brick to make them roads…)
• The Brick Port: Pumpkin cake, maple syrup, cream cheese frosting and bacon
• The Wild West: Chocolate cake, caramel glaze, cinnamon coffee frosting, pecans and chocolate covered espresso beans (if you haven’t played Trails to Rails, you won’t get it)
• The Secret Victory Point: Chocolate cake, caramel glaze, cream cheese frosting, coconut, pretzels and Oreos (sheep, wheat and ore is needed to buy a development card)

Are you setting up your own Settlers of Catan whoopie pie bar? Let me know in the comments your favorite combinations!

There’s a bunch of different ways to make veggie noodles. If you don’t have a spiralizer you can still make zoodles by using a spiral slicer, julienne peeler (cheapest option), or mandoline slicer. Here’s the spiralizer I have but here is another good option that my sisters has.

This irresistible zucchini noodle recipe has become one of my favorites!! It’s so simple and all together takes less than 30 minutes to prepare and cook. Healthy+Fast+Cheap=Awesome Recipe (That’s the extent of my math skills.)

You might think cooking fish and zoodles can be tricky. Other foodies sometimes make it look really difficult and time intensive. But it’s not. For example, some bloggers say you have to let your zoodles ‘sweat’ by putting salt on them and letting them sit for awhile and then rinsing them off (yada yada). I’ve done that jazz and I don’t taste the difference.

In regards to fish, the secret is buying good fish. I go to Giant Food Store and buy their fresh wild-caught sockeye salmon from Alaska in their seafood section by the deli. (I might be slightly picky with fish since I was born and raised in Alaska.) Prices for this salmon vary from $6.99/lb to $29.99/lb. (CRAZY!). The key is to just keep your eye on the price when you go grocery shopping. When the price goes on sale (anything under $14/lb, I like to buy several vacuum-packed frozen filets. Keep them frozen until you are ready to use them. Otherwise, you can buy them fresh and thawed from the seafood department.

Yes, they should have skin on one side. And yes, they might have bones. The day before you cook the fish, put the filet in the fridge to thaw. When you take it out to cook the next day, feel along the flesh of the fish for any spiky bones (they are tiny about an inch long and white) and pull them out using tweezers (be sure to clean your tweezers before and after!) like you would an eyebrow hair.

If you don’t get all the bones out and accidentally eat one, don’t worry I’ve eaten several in the past and I’m still alive!

Spicy Salmon Recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar or white vinegar
2 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped
1 tsp freshly grated ginger root
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
Dash of salt

*The Sweet Chili Sauce above is based off of  iFoodReal’s recipe here.

Directions: 
Step 1: Mix all ingredients together. Lay the fish skin side down on an oven safe dish. Brush half the mixture over de-boned fish.

Step 2: Place in a preheated oven at 350. Cook for 15-20 minutes depending on thickness and size of fish.

Tip: Put foil down on your oven safe dish and place the fish on top to make clean up easy! Just fold up the foil with the fish skin inside. If you don’t plan to take the trash out in 48 hrs, place the foil with the fish skin in a clear plastic produce bag (like the one’s you put your zucchini in at the store to take home) and tie up so the smell won’t sneak out.

Step 3: You’ll know the fish is cooked when you start to see the white protein ooze out of your fish– that’s nature’s sauce and it’s good for you! When you take the fish out of the oven, the flesh should easily flake and pull away from the skin. The gray stuff between the skin and the fish is fat…the good kind filled with omega 3 and it’s perfectly safe to eat as long as you bought wild caught fish. If you purchased farm raised then it could contain some harmful PCBs so you might want to scrap it off then.

Thai Zoodles Recipe

While your fish is in the oven, it’s time to whip up your thai zoodles!

Ingredients:
1 zucchini, spiralized
1 yellow squash, spiralized
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped
1/4 cup teriyaki sauce or the thai sweet chili sauce you made above
Optional garnishes: Chopped peanuts, chopped green onions or sesame seeds

Directions: 
Step 1: Heat the pan over medium-high and add your olive oil, onion and garlic.

Step 2: Saute for 5-8 minutes till onions start to turn translucent and then add your spiralized veggie noodles. Stir the zoodles around so they get covered with oil and they begin to loosen.

Step 3: Add your thai or teriyaki sauce to the zoodles and continue to stir till everything is thoroughly coated and the zoodles are soft to your liking. Typically it takes around 10 minutes to cook the zoodles.

Step 4: Spoon out your zoodles with the sauce onto two plates. Split the salmon and add the filet on top of the zoodles. If you want to make it fancy, you can choose to add the optional garnishes. Enjoy!

Have a suggestion? I’m always open to improving my recipes or even doing spins off of them! Let me hear about your creations below!

Trust me, these healthy breakfast cookies will change the way your family starts their day.

Packed with fruit and healthy grains that will give you energy without crashing later. I felt like I could tackle anything after having these for breakfast! Okay, slight exaggeration. But seriously, they are oh-so-good!!

It all started when my blueberries were going bad and I was having some serious cookie cravings. After experimenting a few times, I was able to develop the best breakfast cookie recipe that I’ve tried to date (visit my blog later as I try to out-do myself again).

Don’t have time to read the full post or if you want to save this for later, pin this recipe.

Blueberry Banana Breakfast Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup all-purpose flour (also can use almond flour or coconut flour)
1/2 cup flaxseed
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp melted coconut oil or almond oil
4 tbsp buttermilk
3 tbsp raw honey
Opt: 1/2 cup chocolate chips
Opt: 1/2 cup sliced almonds or other nut

NOTE: I highly suggest you double this batch and freeze half of it to make future breakfast cookies easy to make.

Directions:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Then in a mixing bowl, combone the oats, flour, flaxseed, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas and then mix in the oil, egg, butter, vanilla and buttermilk.

Step 2: Stir the wet ingredients into the dry mix. Wash the blueberries if you haven’t already and then add to the mix. At this time, you can also add the nuts and chocolate chips if you so desire.

Step 3: Scoop the dough out like you would regular cookies and place about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes.

Personally, I think these breakfast cookies taste best the day after…and the day after that…and the day after that!

Note: Some of the links below are to Amazon. When you purchase the product I receive a small compensation at no extra cost to you. The money I receive goes to helping me keep this blog live and filled with healthy recipes. Thanks for your support!

I’ve been touting the benefits of bone broth to my friends and family for almost a year now, but it’s been only recently that my sisters have been taking fetish seriously.

I stumbled upon bone broth when I was struggling with some digestive issues, which the doctors still don’t know quite what was wrong with me but more on that later!

Health Benefits of Bone Broth

Bone broth is chalk (or should I say “stock”) full of amino acids, gelatin, calcium, magnesium and other minerals.

Gelatin is known for it’s ability to attract and hold liquids, such as digestive juices. That’s why bone broth is a stable for many who suffer from IBS, leaky gut or those following the GAPS diet. There are a bunch of theories on the web about how gelatin could help with building up your joints too but those haven’t been proven yet. However, bone broth can reduce joint pain and inflammation because of some really fancy worded nutrients like chondroitin sulfates and glucosamine, which comes from boiling bones. The calcium and magnesium also helps in strong bones and overall health.

While bone broth can be made from any type of bones, I make mine from free-range chickens. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that chicken soup can help cure colds, there is some truth to this. A study published years ago found that chicken broth does have medicinal qualities in that it can inhibit infections caused by the cold or flu.

Besides these health benefits, having broth on hand is convenient for whenever you need some for a recipe. Not to mention it is relatively easy to make (once you find out where to buy the bones) and is cheap for how much you get from it. Since you make it in large quantities, I usually separate the broth into several quart-sized jars or freezer bags and then save them in the freezer for easy access.

Where can I buy bones for bone broth?

It depends. I usually get my from our year-round farmer’s market. They have an Amish family there that sells grass-fed meat and free-range chicken. I simply asked him what bones I should get for bone broth. I ended up with two chicken ‘backs’ (basically a chicken without the breasts or thighs) and a bag of chicken feet. Most butcher shops will also sell their own bone broth.

If you plan far enough ahead, you can also just save the bones after cooking full chickens. Keep a Ziploc bag in your freezer with the bones till you are ready to use them.

The great thing about bone broth is it’s so versatile. You don’t have to use chicken bones. You can use turkey bones, fish bones, veal bones (which have the most gelatin, actually). Just make sure you get a good combination of feet, joints and bones.

Best Chicken Bone Broth Recipe

Ingredients:

2 pounds of bones, joints and feet

1 onion, quartered

4 carrots, washed and roughly chopped

4 stalks of celery, washed and roughly chopped

1 head of garlic, cut horizontally

3 tablespoons of organic apple cider vinegar with the mother

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

4 sprigs of fresh thyme

Directions:

Step 1: If using raw bones, roast them at 350 for 30 minutes.

Step 2: Place bones in a stock pot (you can also use a crock pot but I suggest you still bring your bones and water to a boil before adding to your crock pot to simmer the rest of the time) and add filtered water just so it covers the bones in the pot. Also add your apple cider vinegar.

Step 3: Bring the bones, water and vinegar to a boil and then turn down to simmer. If you start to see scum float to the top, you can skim that off the top. Make sure you add additional water to that water is always covering all the bones. Supposedly the scum is impurities but I’ve skipped this process once and never noticed the difference so up to you and your OCD

Step 4: After 15 hours (closer to 30 hours if you are using beef bones), add in your vegetables but not the herbs.

Step 5: After an additional 9 hours (total of 24 hours simmering), add the parsley and thyme and let simmer for 30 more minutes before straining the chunks out of the broth. You can choose to keep some of the meat, veggies or herbs in the broth in you plan on just turning it into soup afterwards.

Enjoy! The first time I tried chicken bone broth I thought it tasted like pizza–I know, crazy, right?! Let me know in the comments what you think it tastes like or let us know your tips to making amazing and nutritious bone broth!

Learn more about the health benefits of apple cider vinegar!

Note: Some of the links below are to Amazon. When you purchase the product I receive a small compensation at no extra cost to you. The money I receive goes to helping me keep this blog live and filled with healthy recipes. Thanks for your support!

My earliest memories of apple cider vinegar still leave me with a nasty look on my face but I can’t deny the amazing health benefits that comes from drinking apple cider vinegar. I’ve never been one for wine either so I shouldn’t be surprised at my strong aversion (the word ‘vinegar’ means ‘sour wine’).

However, a few months ago I was going through a tough digestion issue and seeing how vinegar would be my best attempt at natural healing I decided to give it a go. But I couldn’t for the life of me force vinegar down without gagging afterwards.

I started to experiment with different recipes and stumbled upon an easy apple cider vinegar detox recipe that I would like to share with you today before plowing into the five benefits of apple cider vinegar.

Apple Cider Vinegar Detox Drink Recipe

Ingredients:
1 cup hot water
1 tablespoon Bragg Organic Apple Cider Vinegar
Dash of cinnamon and nutmeg (to your liking)
1 teaspoon of raw honey

Directions: Heat the water then add all the ingredients into it. Tastes just like apple cider (without the vinegar)!!

Apple Cider Vinegar Benefits

Apple cider vinegar supposedly helps with dozens of ailments from diabetes to infections. While I’ve seen it work in my own life for an infection in the gut, I’m not a nutritionist so please use this information with caution and at your own risk.

1. Apple Cider Vinegar Helps with Weight Loss and Diabetes

There have been studies done that shows drinking apple cider vinegar can aid in weight loss when you are eating healthy and exercising. It does this by promoting satiety and lowering insulin and glucose levels. This is also why it is great for people with diabetes. Not to mention, those with diabetes usually struggle with their weight.

Since diabetes runs on my mom’s side of the family, I will continue to drink apple cider vinegar for this reason, even though I don’t have diabetes (nor do I know if I will ever get it).

2. Doing an Apple Cider Vinegar Detox Will Help Balance Your Body

Our bodies are constantly trying to reach a state of equilibrium. Research has shown that apple cider vinegar can help clean the liver and regulate cardiovascular circulation. In addition, it helps your body maintain a healthy pH level.

3. Apple Cider Vinegar Can Help Alleviate Allergies.

Another benefit for me is the effect it has on managing allergies. I knew of this benefit years ago when I was interning at a non-profit and spent some time with a women who would swear by the healing powers of apple cider vinegar. She had more allergies than fingers and toes. The only thing she had found to work was taking apple cider vinegar in a glass of cold ice water every morning.

Apple cider vinegar can clean your lymph nodes and help break up mucous. This helps those with allergies stave off sinus infections, headaches and sore throats.

4. Take Away Infections with Apple Cider Vinegar

Earlier in the post I mentioned I forced apple cider vinegar down for a digestive issue. I believe I had some sort of infection or imbalance in my intestines and stomach. Apple cider vinegar in general is great for your digestion since it is packed with enzymes to aid the stomach. It can also help prevent indigestion and heartburn if taken 30 minutes before eating.

Apple cider vinegar’s acidic nature is what helps kill bacteria and keep it from growing (that’s why it’s used in preserving food). It has been shown to help those with candida and skin infections.

5. Get Natural Beauty from Apple Cider Vinegar

I can’t end a list about apple cider vinegar without mentioning its beauty applications. Apple cider vinegar can naturally whiten your teeth, clean your hair (though I totally think it still smells like vinegar after washing it with the no-poo method!), reduce acne and lighten scars.

I hope this tease of benefits from drinking and using apple cider vinegar will encourage you to buy a bottle (they can usually be found in the organic aisle at any store for around $6). Be sure to get organic with the mother still in the bottle!

Have a question? Ask me in the comments below or find me on Facebook!