Summer Favorites

Now that summer's coming to an end (waaaaaa) and I've been a blog slacker, I'll catch up on sharing some of my favorite recipes we've tried.  Our favorite tried and true recipes are always Tex-Mex it seems so read on Tex-Mex fans.

Through the awesomeness that is Pinterest, I accidentally stumbled upon this blog, Eighty-Twenty.  It's written with the belief that 80% of the food we eat should be real, nutritious, and good for you and the other 20% of what we eat should be the fun stuff that tastes yummy.  I think this is a realistic way to eat real food so you don't feel deprived. However I would stay away from all things highly processed which means if you want the cookies - you should make them from scratch in your very own kitchen.  She's got a lot of recipes I'm interested in trying, but we started with these Mexican Stuffed Peppers, and they were really good.  In the future, I would cut the brown sugar down by at least 1 Tbl and maybe add a few dashes of Sriracha to give a little sweet and spicy flavor (the recipe as is is on the sweet side).

A Couple Cooks is another favorite blog. We are a breakfast-for-dinner kind of family, so mix eggs with salsa and tortillas and we've got a winner with Scrambled Egg Tacos With Heirloom Tomato Salsa!  This was a really easy and quick dinner plus I was able to use some tomatoes from my CSA box to make the salsa.

I made the granola recipe on 100 Days of Real Food and it was good, but I really wanted something that was a bar instead of crumbles. So back to my good friend, Pinterest. I pinned several bars to try that had real food ingredients and used some of the ingredients from the 1st batch of granola (oats, raw sunflower seeds, raw pumpkin seeds, sliced raw almonds).  I've only made one recipe so far, but I really like it because it uses natural peanut butter (mmmmmm).  Grab-and-Go Granola Bars were easy to make and make a perfect healthy snack.  I used whole wheat flour instead of wheat germ and grape seed oil instead of flax oil because that's what I had on hand.

A few things I have on my list to try in the coming months: pastured eggs (from free roaming chickens), grass-fed beef, and PB2 (my sister-in-law's recommendation).

Here's to mindful eating!