Posts Tagged by macros
Mexican Cornbread Casserole
| March 1, 2016 |
Ok, so I realize this is my second Mexican dish in a row but what can I say? I’m Mexican. And I’ve always preached you can’t be on a diet eating food you don’t like. So made something I LOVE. I’ve had it planned in my meal prep for 3 weeks straight. I’m hooked! If a tamale and an enchilada had a baby, this is it.
Mexican Cornbread Casserole
Macros per serving: 12g Fat, 36g Carbs, 26g Protein (Serves 7)*
- 1 (8.5 oz) box of corn muffin mix
- 1 can of cream style corn
- 4 oz can of diced green chilies
- 1/3 cup fat free milk
- 4 tbsp liquid egg whites
- 1 tbsp taco seasoning
- 1 1/3 pounds (21 oz) of skinless boneless chicken breast – cooked and diced or shredded
- 10 oz can of red enchilada sauce
- 1 sweet onion
- 1 cup of shredded cheese
- sliced black olives
*Macros were calculated off Jiffy corn muffin mix, Del Monte corn, La Preferida green chilies, Fairlife milk (my favorite!), All Whites 100% egg whites, Las Palmas enchilada sauce, 220g onion, Kraft Mexican Four Cheese blend, and 32 grams of Pearls sliced black olives.
Directions
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
Combine the first 6 ingredients in a bowl (muffin mix, corn, green chilies, milk, egg whites, and taco seasoning). Mix until well combined. Pour into a glass casserole dish coated with cooking spray and bake for about 35 minutes. ~ This time will vary based on your casserole dish size, glass depth, oven, etc.
While that’s baking, slice (or dice) your onion and sauté or grill to your liking. If you grill in slices it will be like veggie fajitas. If you dice and sauté, it will act more as flavoring. Once cooked, mix the onion, chicken and red enchilada sauce in a bowl until everything is evenly coated and set aside.
Now your corn bread base may be ready to pull out of the oven. You’ll know it’s ready when the edges are golden. Use a fork and poke into the center of the corn bread base to allow for little pockets of space for the enchilada sauce to seep into.
Note: The mixture is raw if it is runny. If its solid enough that it sticks to the fork, its ready. It should be somewhat sticky and thick.
Pour the chicken mixture evenly over the top of the corn bread base. Top with cheese and olives. Place it back in the oven for another 10 minutes.
Slice and serve.
Meal Prepping tip! Since 7 servings is hard to cut a dish into, I slice it into 8 pieces. Then I weigh 7 slices and add bits and pieces from the last slice into my tupperwares until all 7 tupperwares weigh no more than 0.1 oz from each other so each serving is nearly identical.
- 1 (8.5 oz) box of corn muffin mix
- 1 can of cream style corn
- 4 oz can of diced green chilies
- 1/3 cup fat free milk
- 4 tbsp liquid egg whites
- 1 tbsp taco seasoning
- 1 1/3 pounds (21 oz) of skinless boneless chicken breast - cooked and diced or shredded
- 10 oz can of red enchilada sauce
- 1 sweet onion
- 1 cup of shredded cheese
- sliced black olives
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
- Combine the first 6 ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Pour into a casserole dish coated with cooking spray and bake for about 35 minutes.
- Slice (or dice) your onion and sauté or grill to your liking. Mix the onion, chicken and red enchilada sauce in a bowl until everything is evenly coated and set aside.
- When you're corn bread base is done, using a fork, poke holes into the corn bread base to allow for little pockets of space for the enchilada sauce to seep into.
- Pour the chicken mixture evenly over the top of the corn bread base. Top with cheese and olives. Place it back in the oven for another 10 minutes.
- Macros were calculated using Jiffy corn muffin mix, Del Monte corn, La Preferida green chilies, Fairlife milk (my favorite!), All Whites 100% egg whites, Las Palmas enchilada sauce, 220g onion, Kraft Mexican Four Cheese blend, and 32 grams of Pearls sliced black olives.
Easy Mexican Corn Salad
| November 9, 2015 |
People used to tell me all the time that saying you “don’t have time” was an excuse. But I really believed I didn’t have time. And I used to look at those fit people who’d be at the gym every day and have these healthy looking meals packed with envy. I wished I had the time to meal prep they way they did.
I started a #90DayChallenge with my gym and since I started, I learned I DO have time. I spend one day over the weekend making all the food for the week. Then the rest of the week, I don’t have to slave over the stove every night trying to make something healthy, because I already did it already!
I had a few outings last week that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get to a microwave. But I didn’t want a normal salad so I came up with this spicy Mexican corn salad. It’s a great option for a packed lunch because it’s a no-heat dish! (It’s also a no-cook dish so it’s super easy to prepare!) I just added a side of cold cocktail shrimp to add some protein to my meal and I’m ready for a healthy week.
Note: Notice my serving size is divided by 7 for easy meal prep. You’ll start to see a lot of my future recipes also divided by 7.
Mexican Corn Salad
Macros: 11.1g Fat, 33.1g Carbs, 7.5g Protein (Serves 7)*
- 3 cans of corn, no salt added
- 1 can of black beans
- 4 roma tomatoes, diced
- 1 red onion, diced
- 1/2 bundle of cilantro, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 habanero pepper
- 1 tbsp coconut oil (in liquid form)
- 3 tbsp mayo
- Optional: cotija cheese
Directions
Gently toss the corn, black beans, tomato, onion, and cilantro together. (You can chop up some of the stem too. I’m lazy and don’t pluck off the leaves. I just chop the whole thing up.)
Next, put the habanero and garlic in a small food processor with the coconut oil and mayo and puree into a sauce (you definitely don’t want big chunks of habanero all in one bite). Then mix the sauce into the salad.
Top with some crumbled cotija cheese and serve with your choice of protein.
Spicy Note: if opting not to use a habanero pepper, feel free to use a garlic press and stir in the pressed garlic, coconut oil, and mayo – skipping any need for the food processor.
*Macros were calculated off Del Monte brand corn (5 cups), Sun Vista black beans (1.5 cups), 12 oz tomato, 10 oz onion, Hain organic brand coconut oil, Kraft mayo, and 3 oz cheese.
Skinny Mac & Cheese
| March 6, 2014 |
Mac & cheese is definitely one of my favorite guilty comfort foods. It’s a funny story though, because generally a lot of comfort foods come from when you grew up with, but when I was little I LOVED the blue box mac & cheese and wasn’t the biggest fan of the home-made stuff.
When I was a kid, my Grandma would pick my sister and I up from school every Friday and we’d all have dinner together. When it first became a weekly thing, she asked my mom what my sister and I liked to eat. My mom said macaroni. My Grandma, being the AMAZING cook she is, made it from scratch. And of course, me being the child I was, I said it wasn’t the same as having the blue box mac and I liked “my mom’s” better. Although we all know “my mom’s” was really my way of saying I liked the boxed kind. To this day, I still feel a little ashamed because the next time my grandma made mac & cheese for us, she made it out of the box. Sure I loved it at the time, but looking back on it … I was young and ignorant … what can you do?
I can confidently say that my palate has gotten a lot better (and I no longer prefer boxed foods, haha). But either mac & cheese recipe, blue box or from scratch, can put a damper on the diet.
Mac & cheese is full of fat and carbs. But I wanted to make a skinny version that didn’t just replace everything with fat-free labels. Can anyone honestly say that fat-free cheese is better than the real thing? No.
I wanted to keep the essence of mac & cheese intact by not touching those two ingredients. I used full fat cheeses and normal pasta (because I’m also not a fan of wheat pasta) but just replaced the heavy cream and butter with cauliflower. With the added fiber, it’s definitely more filling than the heavy buttered up mac. Not to say this is an every day “healthy” meal, but it’s certainly better than the traditional recipe, twice-baked with bread crumbs on top.
The serving size is for a full bowl of mac, so if you want to indulge without using this as a cheat meal, eat it as a side dish with some chicken and spinach. Who says macaroni has to be a main dish?
Side note: This recipe passed the boyfriend test. I gave it to him and didn’t tell him it was cauliflower. About half way through, I asked him what his opinion was and told him it was cauliflower. He didn’t taste it until I told him. #winning 🙂
Skinny Mac & Cheese
Makes 4 Servings ~ Macros per serving: 28g Fat, 68g Carbs, 34g Protein
- 3 cups uncooked pasta of choice
- 1 small/medium head of cauliflower
- 2 whole garlic cloves
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 2 cups grated extra sharp cheddar cheese
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper to tast
Directions
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Pour in your favorite pasta and cook until al dente according to package directions. Personally, I like to go for the fun kind like fusille (spiral) or farfalle (bow-tie, although it technically means butterfly in Italian). Radiatore pasta is what can be seen in the photos.
While the pasta is cooking, cut cauliflower into florets. Place cauliflower, garlic cloves, and chicken stock into a covered pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and let steam build in the pot. Cook until cauliflower is tender (about 5 minutes depending on the size of florets).
Drain pasta and set aside.
Pour cauliflower, garlic cloves, and chicken stock into a high-speed blender or food processor. Puree until smooth. Pour back into the pot used to cook the cauliflower. At medium heat, slowly stir in the cheese until melted smooth to create a sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Gently stir sauce and pasta together. Depending on your pasta and how well it absorbs the sauce, you might have extra cheese sauce. Add it in slowly and put any extra sauce in a tupperware. (You can use it as a sauce for veggies, chicken, etc.) Serve immediately.
I topped mine with a little cayenne (optional!) for an extra kick, but feel free to add your favorite topping. Some tasty ideas: bacon, green onions, jalapeño, diced ham (probably not all these ingredients at the same time)
Play around with different cheese options. They all have different nutritional value to them so have fun experimenting. For instance, the parmesan was lower in fat and higher in protein than the cheddar. I added it to balance out the fat content so there would be more protein than fat per serving.
