RECIPE: Mexican Tortilla Soup

In my world, soup is a main food group. I stockpile it, order it at restaurants, and lately I make it myself! Soup recipes are great because you can change little things to cater to your specific tastes and also great if you have a busy schedule because you can start it in the crockpot and let it sit or make a big batch on Sunday night and have throughout the week!

This soup is made using Swanson 100% natural Mexican Tortilla flavor infused broth.

Below is the Swanson recipe/instructions, but I can't do spicy so I substituted jalapeno peppers for 1/2 green, 1/2 red, 1/2 yellow, and 1/2 orange peppers all chopped. I cut fresh tomatoes and used some sunburst. I used canned shredded chicken but before I have grabbed a rotisserie chicken, pulled the white meat off for the soup and put the rest in gladware for other meals, so easy!

I sprinkled a tiny bit of Mexican cheese on my bowl and ate with corn tortilla chips.

INGREDIENTS

1 teaspoon canola oil
1 large onion, diced (about 1 cup)
2 large jalapeño peppers, seeded and chopped (about 1/2 cup)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 cup frozen whole kernel corn
1 cup black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained or 3 small tomatoes, diced
1 carton (32 ounces) Swanson® Mexican Tortilla Flavor Infused Broth
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
Tortilla chips or strips 

INSTRUCTIONS

1 . Heat the oil in a 6-quart saucepot over medium-high heat.  Add the onion and peppers and cook for 2 minutes or until tender-crisp, stirring occasionally.

2 . Stir in the tomato paste, corn, beans, tomatoes, broth and chicken and heat to a boil.  Reduce the heat to low.  Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Serve topped with the crushed tortilla chips or strips. 

Drinks On A Diet

Read this today with some helpful drink recipes when trying to limit sugar/calories. Remember, try to eat your calories, not DRINK them!! Calories and sugars in beverages add up way more than you think

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/low-calorie-cocktails?page=1

Advocare Order!!

I am about to place an Advocare order for some friends/family so if anyone needs anything just let me know!!

You can do a 10 day cleanse, 24 day challenge, get minerals, vitamins that are hard to obtain through diet alone, muscle building supplements, work out enhancers, appetite suppressants, metabolism accelerators, carb blockers, all kinds of meal replacement options and of course SPARK which is their version of an energy drink and it's amazing! Everything is created by a team of doctors and scientists and is safe, they use a lot of tea extracts, minerals, herbs, super fruits and other natural elements to create their products.

A Few Reasons to take the 24 Day Challenge: (I just finished mine and feel great!)

- The challenge is a great way to get out of an unhealthy eating cycle and cleanse your body of all the built up toxins and fat.

- The supplements make you feel great, curb your appetite, and are great for your metabolism, skin, hair nails etc.

- There isn't really a strict diet, just guidelines and suggestions for healthy eating. Avoid sugar and fatty/fried foods. Eat lots of protein with fruits, veggies, and whole grains. Eat small portions throughout the day so that your body is always burning cals. Best part about ordering through me is that I have been testing out all kinds of recipes to figure out which ones to recommend, how to eat healthy in a hurry, etc. 

- I have done all different kinds of cleanses and diets but this one is my favorite because it focuses the most on long term results, lifestyle changes, and health! The cleanse is especially good for gluten free lifestyles

Browse through some products:

For weight loss: https://www.advocare.com/products/trim.aspx

For working out: https://www.advocare.com/products/performance_elite.aspx

https://www.advocare.com/products/active.aspx

For health: https://www.advocare.com/products/well.aspx

Place an order through my site: https://www.advocare.com/140159981

feel free to email with any questions cillafaye@gmail.com 

RECIPE: Quick & Delicious Mexican Dinner!

Grilled chicken with peppers and onions in a McCormick's Grill Mates Mexican Fiesta marinade packet. I made some Mexican rice on the side and added peas, carrots, and corn to it and tossed everything together, ate with some blue corn chips.
My fiance Jesse used the veggies and the marinade but grilled strips of steak and put everything in corn tortillas with queso, salsa, and hot sauce for homemade spicy tacos!

RECIPE: Northstar Sweet Basil Burrito Inspired Dish!

MMM this was delicious! Grilled chicken and peppers in basil infused oil, made some brown rice, added pesto and voila! So good, my homemade version of the sweet basil burrito from Northstar. 

Fresh Herbs Forever!

Keep your favorite herbs fresh by cutting them, fill an empty ice cube tray with them and fill with extra virgin olive oil and freeze! Whenever you are cooking drop a cube in and voila oil & herbs, I used basil and oregano.

RECIPE: Zucchini "Pizza" Bites!

Soo I have been avoiding gluten to the best of my ability since July 2013 and the search for pizza options is always on my mind. If you live in Columbus, Harvest Pizzeria and Spagio have awesome gf pizza. I’ve also made my own dough before and was pretty successful. When I came across this recipe for pizza toppings on grilled zucchini slices I could not wait to try it!

The recipe called for an 8-ball round zucchini to have larger slices for the base, but as I mentioned I was eager and couldn’t find one at the store so I just picked the biggest zucchini I could. The recipe is really simple and flexible, I cut up the zucchini, sprayed a skillet with olive oil and grilled the slices on one side. Transferred the slices to a sprayed cookie sheet grilled side up. I added Prego to half and Kirkland (Costco brand-the best pesto oddly enough) Basil Pesto on half. Sprinkled a little mixed Italian cheese, put a piece of turkey pepperoni on the prego ones and  cut up small slices of cherry tomatoes and onion for the pesto pieces.

Baked it for about 7 minutes and that’s it!

The recipe I was working off of put the slices on an actual grill, grilled one side, flipped them, added the toppings and continued to grill. I liked the idea of baking them more and the topping/sauce options are endless! Be creative!

The Brain Game

I’ve struggled with weight my whole life, much like most girls. Never been really been fat but never been as skinny as I wanted to be either. I wasn’t raised with the best eating habits, so I when I was old enough to realize I didn’t like my body I freaked out. In middle school my best friend and I (now my Maid of Honor), decided we could only eat a snack size bag of pretzels with either a banana or an apple cinnamon nutrigrain bar every single day for lunch, not quite a balanced meal. In high school I did the crash diets and all of the other lifetime movie shit because I couldn’t find the balance I was looking for and I reaally hated to exercise. 

I basically had to re train myself how to eat on everything from portions to timing to food selection. Kind of like how in high school I had insomnia and would never be able to sleep so then I would just pass out random places like one time on the steps up to my room (what? Yes that happened ask my friends). ANYWAY my doctor said that beds are for sleeping, not texting talking internet browsing eating tv watching etc. So when I would do all of those things in my bedroom on my bed without a night routine, my brain didn’t associate my bed or anything specific really with sleeping. I started doing the same few things every night around 11 and then going to my room, turning everything off and lying in bed. I still struggled and it took a while but things got SO much better. I had to train my brain how to turn off at a certain time of day.

The same is true with eating. Girls who eat one meal a day or skip dinner aren’t really doing themselves any big favor. If you only eat once every day, during the time in between your body freaks out and thinks it’s starving. So, when you finally eat something it IMMEDIATELY sends it to storage in case it’s the only food it will get. But, if you eat small meals all throughout the day, your body trains itself based on that, knows more food is coming and will start to burn and trash way more than it stores. Bonus, you aren’t starving, most of your small meals can be healthy but if you throw in some chocolate or a piece of pizza here or there it’s not as harmful.

What's For Dinner?

I have been engaged since July 2013 and my wedding is June 6th 2014 in Dublin, Ohio. It’s January, so a little over halfway there!!

I am the worst procrastinator and even though I have managed to put that nasty habit away to plan this wedding, it has affected my diet/workout regimen. The thing is I’m a pretty healthy eater unless I’ve been drinking, then all hell breaks loose.

I started having lots of health problems last June and ending up finding that avoiding gluten solved a LOT of my problems. I lost some weight, wasn’t as lethargic all of the time, almost all of my stomach problems went away, it was great. Except for the part where I couldn’t eat so many of my favorite foods. This is where Advocare came into my life!

I realized the diet for Advocare was really similar to what I was trying to eat for my gluten free lifestyle, but there were supplements and recipes and all kinds of things to help me. I did the 24 day cleanse in June and felt so amazing. But then I got engaged and moved, twice, and had so much going on that I completely lost track of the program. 

This is my 4^th day of the 1^st phase of the cleanse and I am feeling so motivated this time around. Part of the reason I’m doing this blog is to share the things I’ve learned, but also to keep myself accountable on here and stay on track not just until my wedding day, but long after! Especially because we are waiting until October for our honeymoon to save $$ so I can’t just balloon up once I’ve locked him in.