Marinated Chicken & Veggies

Hello friends!! How are you?! I am BEYOND excited, I am one week away from my favorite event of the year, Coach Summit. NashVegas better be ready for us again! 

Anyways, speaking of Coach Summit, I have been TRYING to keep myself in check with my food prior to us leaving but I have also been on the lookout for new ideas for my meal plan. I was very good about my meal plan while I did Hammer & Chisel, I had no issues sticking to pretty much the same foods throughout the entire program but I am ready for a change.

One thing that came to mind yesterday while meal planning was chicken kabobs with veggies over brown rice.  When we BBQ with my parents, we used to always do skewers marinated in Italian dressing with this amazing brown mushroom rice my mom makes (full of BUTTER baby, but oh so good), sooooo, I wanted to make something similar but Fix approved, of course! 

So here it is! My marinated chicken & veggie recipe, I made plenty extra for meals throughout the week too. Keep in mind, I feed Aaron and myself, if you are prepping for just 1, you could cut back on the ingredients.

What you need (makes about 6 servings):
2 Bell Peppers (I did red/ orange), cut  
Small Container of Whole Mushrooms, cleaned
3 small-medium Zucchini (you can do Squash too), sliced
Onion (optional, I don't like onion but many do), sliced
2lb (or a little over) chicken, cut into chunks
1/2-3/4 C Bolthouse Farms Classic Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing
3 C cooked brown rice (or quinoa, etc.) 

Preparation: 
1. Grab a ziploc bag, open it and pour in about 1/3 cup of the dressing. Place your cut up chicken in the ziploc, seal it and make sure all the chicken is covered before placing back in the fridge to marinate. Leave in there for at least 2 hours.
2. Do the same for the cut up veggies! Place in fridge for at least 2 hours. 
3. Heat up indoor/outdoor grill (if using an outdoor grill, make sure to cook on some type of pan that is grill safe so you don't lose the food in the grill!).  I used an indoor grill. 
4. Place veggies on grill, grill until desired tenderness.  (I also cooked mine separately because I didn't have space to cook both at the same time)
5. While those cook, measure out your cooked brown rice into separate containers. 1/2 cup per container. 
6. Measure veggies out (about 1 cup) and place into containers.
7. Place chicken on the grill, grill until no longer pink and fully cooked. 
8. Measure out chicken (about 3/4 cup) and place on top of veggies in containers.

You can add 1-2 tsp more of the dressing if you want/need when you eat or cook it but I did not need it. I personally had two servings of veggies today with my lunch and it was a TON of food.  

Caprese Chicken

What do you do when you have leftover basil and fresh mozzarella from your Margherita Pizza? You make Fix approved Caprese Chicken, of course!

This is one of my favorites and it is beyond simple but taste like it took hours to prepare...sometimes literally depending on if you are good at cooking chicken or not, mine sometimes tastes a little chewy and overcooked but I don't mind. ;) 

What you need for the top:
Pesto (2 tsp per chicken breast)
Tomato (I use 1 roma per chicken breast & eat any extra that doesn't fit) 
Basil Leaves (about 4 leaves per piece of chicken breast)
Fresh Mozzarella (1oz per chicken breast)
Salt & Pepper, just a dash will do

What you need for the chicken: 
Chicken Breast (4oz piece per person)
Dash of pepper
Olive Oil Spray

1. Spray a pan with olive oil spray and turn on medium heat. 
2. Season your chicken with some pepper and add to the pan. 
3. Cook your chicken about 4 minutes per side or until no longer pink in the middle (I use thinly sliced chicken breast so they cook quicker).
4. Place 2 tsp of pesto on top of your chicken breast, then layer it with 1oz mozzarella and 1 small roma tomato, alternating between the two.  
5. Cover and cook on low for about 2 minutes or until cheese starts to melt and tomatoes are soft. 
6. Take out of pan, place on a plate and top with fresh basil!   

I ate mine with a side of leftover tomatoes and broccoli with leftover cheese from my blue container melted on it...I mean, everything is better with cheese, right?! 

Margherita Pizza (Fix Approved)

Update: When I originally posted this pizza, I had mentioned I was having issues with it being watery in the end...I think I have perfected it! Not only that but I used a new crust from Golden Home that has 16g of protein which is perfect for this recipe in particular since it doesn't have any meat on it! So here it is, new and improved....and so pretty I didn't really want to eat it.  Oh, who I am kidding, I cut that "ish" up and devoured it! 

I am loving finding new pizzas to make each week. I had my standing meat and veggie, then I went for buffalo chicken...now on to the Margherita! We love pizza in our house so it is in a weekly rotation. And it is approved for pretty much every program I have done (21 Day Fix, Hammer and Chisel, 22 Minute Hard Corps, Insanity Max: 30).

Serves 1

This was from my original post, see new pictures below! 

What You Need: 
(Updated info is in parenthesis!)
1 Whole Grain Ultra Thin Pizza Crust from Golden Home  or their amazing protein crust (pictured below)! 
1/4 C Sauce - I use just enough Marinara or Pizza Sauce from Trader Joe's to cover the bottom.
1 small tomato sliced (preferably romo)
3 slices precut mozzarella (pictured), broken up
4-6 pieces of basil (sliced into strips)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 
2. Place pizza crust on foil, top with sauce.
3. Place in oven for 5 minutes.
4. Take your 3 slices of mozzarella and dab with a paper towel to get rid of the extra water.
5. At the 5 minute mark, top your pizza evenly with your cheese. 
6. While the pizza, sauce and cheese are cooking, cut up your tomato, take out the middle seeds, etc. and place in a paper towel to remove excess moisture. 
7. With 3 minutes left, top your pizza with the tomatoes and finish cooking (cooks for 10 minutes total).
8. Take your pizza out and top with your cut up basil. Slice and enjoy! 

Tips: When you buy a sauce, make sure it is natural, has no added sugars or other artificial crap! If you can only find a sauce WITH sugar, it will count as a purple on the Fix meal plan versus a green if you can find one without the sugars! Which I know you can. ;) 

BBQ Chicken & Sweet Potato

I have totally been MIA but summer is busy! My main focus has been my kids and my challengers, so the blog has definitely seen better days but I did want to share a new recipe with you all that was SUPER simple and yummy!! Next time I make this, I want to top it with a slaw of some sort! I love an extra crunch in my food! 

Serves: 2 servings, 1 sweet potato and about ¾ cup chicken each

Ingredients

• 2 small sweet potatoes, washed, pierced several times with a fork

• 1½ cups shredded cooked chicken breast, boneless, skinless, warm (I cheated and used a rotisseree chicken & peeled off the skin)

• ¼ cup barbecue sauce (they always call for reduced sugar, I can't find one, so I use Trader Joe's or you can make your own)

• ¼ cup Quick Pickled Red Onions (or 2 Tbsp. chopped red onions) (optional, I skipped this step)

Instructions

1. Place sweet potatoes on a plate. Pierce each sweet potato 3 to 4 times with a fork. Microwave 4-6 minutes or until tender. 

2. While sweet potato is cooking, combine chicken and barbecue sauce in a small bowl; mix well. Set aside.

3. Cut sweet potatoes in half lengthwise.

4. Top sweet potatoes evenly Quick Pickled Red Onions and chicken mixture. Serve and enjoy! 

Tips:

1. Look for barbecue sauce that has an ingredient list that does not contain artificial sweeteners, additives, or preservatives. There are many brands on the market that are sweetened with small amounts of honey, maple syrup, or molasses.

2. Use Healthy Barbecue Sauce as a homemade alternative to store-bought barbecue sauce.

3. UPDATED (2025): USE WHATEVER BBQ SAUCE YOU LIKE!!!!

Throwback Thursday!

Ahhh...‪#‎tbt‬ memories! I will take that tan back any day...minus the actual tanning bed that it took to get it.

Honestly, the couple on the left was on a path to an unhealthy lifestyle, hell we were the epitome of an unhealthy lifestyle. We were newly married, we loved to eat anywhere that had pizza, nachos, cheese sticks, wings and beer. There were lots of trips to chain restaurants for nasty food as well as fast food on the daily. Those were our staples. That was our life.

I got pregnant SHORTLY after that cruise and continued on the path of destruction. I only wanted greasy fried food and I fed those cravings for 9 months, gaining almost 60 pounds. Any guess what my sons favorite foods are now?!

I bought Pregnancy DVDs that got dusty.

Then after Mason was born, I went through many attempts to lose weight and keep it off. I spent $1000s on trainers and boot camps but my food was never on point, which is 80% of the battle. I tried diet systems and couldn't get myself to stick to them. I was overwhelmed with the whole points system and I felt like it took too much effort to stick to it each day. I had an at home DVD program but the nutrition plan was strict and I just couldn't get myself to do it. I had no support system either. So again, I quit.

The only time in between having Mason and Maren were I was at a healthy weight was because of a birth control I took that helped me lose weight, once I changed birth controls, it started coming back....

Fast forward to after I had Maren. Something had to change. I attempted some workout DVDs from a few years earlier but kept quitting. I didn't have anyone to hold me accountable so it was easy to throw in the towel. I went back to the beloved points system...again, didn't stick.

Finally after her 1st birthday, I knew it was time to get serious. We had two kids and something needed to change. For good.

I had a coach. She had been inviting me to her groups but after I told her I recently tried and quit T25 (and couldn't stick to the meal plan)...she told me try this new program. I decided to take the plunge and I was going to do a program that was so far out of my comfort zone, that I was SCARED! It was this program that had 30 minute workouts and these color coded containers that signified what you could eat and how much of it. I didn't know much about it. I thought it meant I would be limited to the foods I could eat, I thought I would be giving up things I loved and be hangry for 21 days.

Instead what I got last March was a lifestyle change, from a simple 21 day program. It takes 21 days to break old habits and form new ones, so in the first 21 days, I vowed to give it 100% and I did. I wasn't hangry. I wasn't deprived. I ate foods I loved like burgers (from home), baked potatoes, tacos, chocolate and even though I could have wine, I opted to skip it for the first round. I didn't have to spend hours at the gym and I checked in every day with my new friends in my coaches online accountability group. It was amazing how that combination finally made something click for me! The support I had from the group was amazing. I had people depending on me each day to show up and check in and if I felt like skipping a workout, they were there to tell me to press play.

What was even better, once I said I was it was time to make a change, Aaron was right there with me. And he has been ever since. We have instilled new positive, healthy habits in our life that are the kind of things I want my kids to see and learn from. Working out, eating right but still enjoying ourselves when we want without overdoing it plus we drink our superfoods every damn day.

That couple on the left had no clue they would be the ‪#‎fitfam‬ they are today, but I would hate to think where "that couple" would be if they would have continued with their unhealthy habits.

But that couple on the right...they are happier, healthier, more confident and they can't imagine their life being any other way right now!