Greek Yogurt All Day

Believe it or not, it took me foEVAH to hop on the greek yogurt train.

1) I'm a HUGE texture person.. so this "gunky" stuff seemed gross.

2) I heard the it was really sour & that seemed odd to me being that I get my sour fix from Sour Patch Kids.

3) I'm the type of personal that refuses to do something just because it seems popular. I thought greek yogurt was some pinteresty fad that people would get over soon enough..

 Chobani is LAUGHING hysterically at their success as I type.

1) Greek yogurt is now a protein STAPLE in our house. If you go with Chobani, as opposed to many off brands, you can get the original flavor with very little sugar added and as much as 16+ grams of protein in each serving!!

2) There are SO many ways to down play the sour/tart factor. Original greek yogurt is super tasty with honey, stevia or agave! 

3) Greek yogurt is WAY more dynamic than traditional yogurt.

Point #3 brings me to the reason for my post today. Greek yogurt can be used ALL.DAY.LONG. Seriously let me just show you.

Breakfast:

My favorite ways to have greek yogurt with my breakfast is to make a bowl with crunchy granola and cold fruit OR with hot steel cut oats and warm cinnamon apples (can you say fall, y'all!?).

Baking Substitute:

-> for butter or oil!

Check out the recipe for Blueberry Yogurt Muffins HERE ,where I substituted half of the butter the recipe called for and ALL the oil with plain greek yogurt!

Lunch:

Use greek yogurt in place of mayo -> I love making tuna salad with a dollop of yogurt, hard boiled egg, diced apple and a little pickle then serving it with a toasted pita or tortilla. {YUM} It's quick, simple, delicious, healthy AND 21 day fix approved!

I also use greek yogurt in my famous chicken salad that has lemon juice, tarragon, diced grapes, celery and occasionally red onion! You're welcome :)

Dinner:

Swap our your sour cream and top your tacos, salad and burritos with yogurt!! It was such a mental road block for me initially, but I can now EASILY swap out sour cream in just about any dish, dressing or DIP with chobani. I hope that just blew your mind a bit. Think about that for a second. Greek yogurt ranch dressing. Greek yogurt in your mexican layered dip. Greek yogurt mashed potatoes. The list goes on! Now I'm drooling..

Snack or Dessert:

During a strict meal plan, this stuff is like CRACK, but I promise you'll love this concoction any time! Mix up some peanut butter (or PB2) with honey, greek yogurt and cinnamon for a DECADENT fruit dip that you can make in bulk to keep in your fridge!

I might not have told you anything that you haven't heard before, but maybe I reminded you to actually use it more! If you have any other suggestions for me, please share them below! We're always looking for ways to make our snacks and meals healthier.

Happy Wednesday, friends!!

Tiny Kitchen Diaries: Food Prep Sneak Peek

So my hubby and I have been in a mega state of transition the past couple of months. Let me paint a picture for you::

He came home from a 7 month deployment

We renovated for a week straight (after spending only one day together)

Listed our home for sale- under contract in 3 days.

Traveled for about 2.5 weeks+ to see family

House contract fell through

Hubby left for another month on the day our AC broke (womp womp- typical murphy's law)

I showed house alone (with two giant pups) for 3 weeks before getting another contract on it

Hubby came home and we packed/moved out in a week

whirlwind..--> PHEW. glad that's over!

welllllll almost.

We then moved into a hotel room where we are currently residing for 27 days, while my hubby completes a month long, strenuous & extremely time consuming work process; however, it's over next Wednesday and we get to FINALLY move to the sunshine state.

#hallelujah 

We have been waiting 6 years for the chance to be closer to my family, soak up some beach rays and just relax down south for a few years of deployment-free bliss!

Reminding myself of ^^^ makes this temporary madness all worth it. Plus, I know that one day, these will be stories we share with laughter and maybe a fond memory or two. Oh and honey, there's no one I would rather be doing this all with {insert smoochey face here}.

In the mean time, it's mega entertaining for people to partake in our shenanigans. SO, today I bring you a food prepping sneak peek from my teenie weenie kitchen.

Here's what I've decided is totally doable with two baby burners, one microwave, a couple of super sticky pans & one whacked out spatula!

Breakfasts:

Shakeology /or/ coconut greek yogurt + granola

Lunch:

Shakeology /or/ plain greek yogurt tuna salad with sliced peppers /or/ pre-assembled green salads

Dinner:

Quinoa // Turkey Sausages // Chicken Burgers // Sweet Potatoes // sautéed kale // zucchini + onion stir-fry // steamed broccoli 

Snacks:

cubed pineapple /or/ hard boiled eggs /or/ sliced peppers

Not too shabby, right?

I also snagged strawberries, nectarines, cheese sticks, unsweetened almond milk, fig newtons, KIND bars, granola, pop chips, wheat thins & frozen yogurt + chocolate covered pretzels.

All things considered, we have pretty darn healthy choices for a whole week with a few tasty treats thrown in the mix. And this whole order took me about an hour (had to wash pans in between uses!).

Btw, I spent like $7 on baggies + minimal tupperware to use for our month here. 

__________________________________________________________________________

I hope this inspires you to stay health & grounded in your routine while you're on the go. Hotel living isn't always easy and it's certainly not the most convenient. BUT -> It's totally possible if your goals are important to you!

Need more tips? I'd love to chat!

Find me on Facebook.com/LindseyKollarGhoens

/or/

email me at lindseykollar@yahoo.com

Let me share with you the food guide that rocked my nutritional world.

If you've never heard of shakeology before & want to know why I love to drink it every.single.day for breakfast or lunch, check out my experience HERE. 

For all you beachbody lovers out there:: yes, everything prepped above is 21 Day Fix approved! 

Can't believe I cooked in this kitchen for the last time. Time for a mini glass of wine to celebrate :)

Cheers!

XO

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21 Day Fixed Approved: Chocolate, Peanut Butter OATS

Today's recipe is a special one, folks. This tasty treat is straight out of Autumn Calabrese's new cookbook called Fixate; for those of you who don't know who Autumn is, she's the creator of the 21 Day Fix that gave me these results in 3 weeks. Yeah, she's one of my heroes. Ha!

ANYWAYS, this recipe is an awesome breakfast option for the days I save my shake for a quick lunch or on the weekends when Nate and I want to eat a yummy, guilt free breakfast together! 

So let's start with the main ingredient: Steel Cut Oats.

For those of you who aren't familiar with anything other than instant, old fashioned or rolled oats:

"Whole grain oats provide a healthy start to your day. Steel-cut oats, also known as Irish oats, are a type of whole grain oat cut from the center portion, or kernel of the oat, called the groat. Although steel-cut oats undergo less processing than rolled oats or instant oatmeal, all whole-grain oats have essentially the same nutritional value, as long as the finished product contains no added sugars. Steel-cut oats do take longer to cook than rolled or instant oats and have a chewier consistency."

Personally, I prefer steel cut oats because I'm a texture gal! Take the extra time to try them, I bet you'll like them! Go ahead and make these bad boys start to finish before you move onto the other ingredients.

Next, you're going to need some shakeology. This is going to give your oats a CREAMY sauce to bathe in & that desert-like chocolatey taste! PS, the shakeology is also adding a protein element to this meal.

If you aren't sure what Shakeology is, check out my blog post about it here; it's a nutrient dense shake that costs about $4 a day to drink and replaces a meal, vitamins and supplements. It's a game changer in healthy eating and the pursuit of fitness goal, I highly recommend you try it risk free for 30 days.

Now you need to stir in some all-natural peanut butter! My household is 100% crunchy, but you could of course go the creamy route.

SO this is where my rendition of this recipe gets comical. My hubby and I moved on Friday.. who cares, you just want the recipe.. WELL, most of my food items were either packed, discarded or misplaced. A few lucky ingredients made it over here to my two burner, no oven kitchen. SO, when the cook book says himalayan sea salt, caramel extract and cinnamon- I say no biggie!

All I had here was vanilla extract, so I used that and went without the cinnamon and sea salt. You know what? This stuff still turned out to be AMAZING! I can only imagine how much richer the other ingredients would make it.

Okay, so here's the recipe!

4 Cups Water

1 Cup Steel Cut Oats

1.5 Scoops of Chocolate Shakeology

4 TBSP All Natural Peanut Butter

Dash of Cinnamon (omitted above)

Dash of Pink Himalayan Sea Salt (omitted above)

1/2 TSP Caramel Extract (substituted pure vanilla!)

Optional: Mixed Berries for Topping (or in my case- I had like 2 strawberries left in my mini fridge) 

Top this treat with some mixed berries & you're SET!

Bon Appetit, My Friends!

xo, Lindsey