Taco Tuesday: Clean & Simple Chicken Tacos

Clean eating doesn't need to be complicated. Here is a super easy clean recipe that only takes a few minutes of prep work in the morning and is ready as soon as you get home from work.

Clean chicken tacos. I serve mine with shredded lettuce, homemade bean & corn salsa and avocado.

Ingredients:

1/2 C chopped onion
1 can organic diced tomatoes
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Clean Homemade Taco Seasoning:
1 T chili powder
1 t ground cumin
1 t paprika
1 t garlic powder
1/2 t oregano
1/2 t onion powder
1/4 t salt
1/4 black pepper
dash of crushed red pepper

Directions:

• Spread chopped onion on the bottom of crockpot/slow cooker
• Place chicken breast over onions
• Sprinkle Taco Seasoning on top of chicken
• Pour can of tomatoes over the top
• Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours (or longer)
• Before serving stir to shred up chicken
• Serve on clean corn tortillas like these ones from Trader Joe's 

These are a good choice because they only contain 3 ingredients: corn, water and lime

Hard work, dedication & the desire to succeed!

It's true, if you want something bad enough you will find a way, if not you'll find excuses! I'm not going to lie, I work very hard to stay fit but for me it's one of my priorities. I work a very demanding and stressful full time job, I volunteer, I help manage a household and I still find time to workout myself and exercise my 3 dogs!

I realize that not everyone wants fitness and exercise to be as high a priority as I do and that is fine. You don't need to dedicate hours a day but you do need to put in some time if you want to see results. Start by making small changes to incorporate exercise into your daily life. Maybe get up a half hour early and go for a walk or jog, or give up an hour of television or the internet and replace it with exercise. If you're not willing to give up TV then do push-ups and planks during commercials. If it's important to you, you'll make time for it. Seriously, if you can't make 30 minutes a day for something then you don't want it!

This post isn't just about fitness either, these rules apply to any goal you may have. There are no tricks or shortcuts for achieving your goals and dreams. It takes hard work, dedication and the desire to succeed!

Running makes me crave pizza!

I couldn't stop thinking about pizza on my long run this morning so there was no way I was getting through today without eating some! My zucchini pizza crust last week turned out really good so I thought I would try a cauliflower version today. There are dozens of recipes out there, this is the one that I mostly followed with just a few slight alterations.

Ingredients:

1 large head of cauliflower
1/2 C grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 C grated mozzarella cheese
1 egg + 1 egg white
2 T ground flax seed
1 t Italian Seasoning
1/2 t garlic powder

Directions:

• Place baking stone in the oven & pre-heat to 450 degrees
• Wash & dry cauliflower, then break off into florets
• Pulse cauliflower in a food processor for 30-60 seconds until rice like texture
• Transfer cauliflower to a microwave safe bowl, cover and cook 4 minutes
• Pour cauliflower onto clean white dishtowel and allow to cool
• Once cool enough to touch, ring out to remove as much water as possible, then transfer to a mixing bowl 
• Add remaining ingredients to the cauliflower then mix together using hands
• Place the "dough" on a sheet of aluminum foil sprayed with olive oil and press into a round crust
• Place the crust still on the aluminum foil on the preheated baking stone
• Bake for 8-10 minutes
• Flip crust over and bake an additional 3-4 minutes, or until browned on both sides
• Remove from oven & add your toppings 
• Return to oven & bake another 8-10 minutes or to your liking

This is what the cauliflower will look like after microwaving

 

Rung out cauliflower

Pressed out into crust

Baked crust

Tomato, Basil & Mozzarella ~ my favorite!

Obviously I'm a fan of margarita pizza, especially in the summer when I have fresh tomatoes & basil, but you can top yours any way you like. If you top with meat just be sure it is pre-cooked. I liked this enough to eat over half of it myself (I did run almost 20 miles earlier today!) However I think I preferred the zucchini version I made last week.

Motivational Monday & how I spent my day off

I took today off work just to burn up some vacation time that I never get to use. I didn't have any exciting plans, I was just going to get up at my normal time, catch up on my long training run and then volunteer for a couple hours. I didn't do my 17 mile run over the weekend because my knee was bothering me so I decided to rest it. For the record I didn't hurt my knee running, I actually over-extended it trying to do a yoga pose several weeks ago. Contrary to popular belief of most non-runners, running doesn't wreck your knees.
When I woke up I had no motivation. I didn't sleep very well and my stomach was a bit upset... I could list a dozen more excuses, but I hate excuses so I'll spare you. Let's just say I didn't get right up and go for my run like I intended, but I still planned on running at some point during the day. I had also committed to helping out with some rescue dogs mid-morning and when I say I will do something, I do it, so I got myself out of bed and off I went.

This is Chance, one of 3 pitbulls that Ruff Start Rescue saved from death row last week. I had fun exercising him and 3 other dogs today.

After spending a couple hours exercising and trying to wear out the rescue I dogs I felt like I needed a nap! But I still had that long run looming over my head. It was after 1:00 and pretty hot out so I figured I'd at least shoot for 12 miles and call it good. I parked my car at a mid point on a trail so I could stop back for water a couple times. My run was tough, but I ended up doing the full 17 miles, because that's what my training schedule said I needed to do and I can't not do what I commit myself to do!

I didn't have a nice relaxing day off like I maybe should have, but I lived up to my commitments and I have no regrets!

Zucchini Take 2

As I mentioned yesterday, I wanted to try making a zucchini pizza crust with all the left overs I had after making my bread. I found a recipe labeled "The best zucchini recipe ever" so I decided to give that one a try. In my case it turned out to be the worst ever, most likely due to the fact that I failed to squeeze enough of the water out of the shredded zucchini. Needless to say, we did not enjoy pizza for dinner last night.

Zucchini pizza crust recipes seem to be all over Pinterest lately so I knew it could be successfully done and I had to give it another try. Today I tried a recipe based off this one I found on Recipe Girl. I made a few modifications based on what I had on hand. I must say it turned out great!

Zucchini Pizza Crust
makes one small crust

Ingredients: 

2 C shredded & chopped zucchini 

2 eggs, beaten 

½ T Olive Oil

1 C finely grated Parmesan cheese  

1/3 – ½ C Flour - I used Namaste Gluten Free Flour Blend

½ tsp dry oregano

½ tsp dry basil

Directions: 

• Place a baking stone in the oven and preheat to 450 degrees
• Shred then chop the zucchini and place in a colander
• Press as much of the water out of the zucchini as you can
• Place the shredded zucchini in the center of a clean white dishtowel then ring to squeeze out even more water.Getting as much of the liquid removed is key to the success of this recipe
• Place zucchini in a mixing bowl with all other ingredients & mix well
• Pat the mixture into a thin round crust on aluminum foil sprayed with olive oil or non-stick cooking spray 
• Transfer the crust, still on the aluminum foil, onto the preheated stone in the oven
• Bake for 8-10 minutes or until browned
• Remove from oven and flip onto a new sheet of foil sprayed with oil 
• Return to oven to cook other side for an additional 3-5 minutes or until browned
• Remove from oven and top with your favorite toppings then bake for another 7-10 minutes or to your liking

I brushed mine with a little bit of olive oil and garlic and topped with fresh buffalo mozzarella, sliced Roma tomatoes from my garden and fresh basil that I grow in my kitchen window. It was delicious! 

Lunch is served

One Big Zucchini!

Every summer I like to grow zucchini in my garden and it always does great so we eat a lot of grilled zucchini. I usually try to pick them before they get too big like this one:

I'm also training for a marathon so I have a big appetite and always feel like baking something so I thought I would try a clean zucchini bread recipe that I adapted from a couple different recipes.

Ingredients:

2 C 100% whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
2/3 C organic honey
1 1/2 C shredded zucchini
2 T organic coconut oil, melted
1/4 C organic, unsweetened apple sauce
1 whole egg 
1 egg white
3/4 C plain Greek yogurt
1/4 tsp almond extract

1 drop nutmeg essential oil (optional)

Directions: 

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Coat large loaf pan with coconut oil
• In medium mixing bowl, combine flour, baking soda & cinnamon
• In larger mixing bowl, combine all remaining ingredients
• Using wooden spoon, stir flour mixture into wet mixture & blend well
• Pour into loaf pan and bake 50-60 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean
• Cool before slicing

Results: 

My total baking time was 55 minutes and it turned out pretty good. It was pretty dense, but not too dry. It was not very sweet so next time I may add just a touch more honey or try using pure maple syrup instead. But overall for a clean version it was pretty darn good!

Since this recipe only called for 1.5 cup I still had a lot of zucchini left to use so I'm going to try a zucchini pizza crust later and if it turns out I'll share it too. 

And there was even some zucchini left to feed to the chickens! I love giving scraps to the chickens because it doesn't feel so wasteful plus it's extra nourishment so they can keep producing eggs for us.