Like creating a nail salon on the kitchen counter.

What can I tell you… the girl is OBSESSED with nail polish and who I am to stand in her little girl way?

Besides, she’s not all that good at it and it takes her a reeeaally long time to finish and that my dear readers is how I get to work on OUR recipes!  Well that and some nanny help of course, but who’s counting?!

And then there’s this guy.

This one promises to eat me out of house and home (8 and 1/2 months already and just 3 lbs lighter than his big sister!).

Oh my Lord, this boy has an appetite.  Clearly, my son.

All the more reason I need to practice my big-fat-one-pot-meals.

So in a nut shell, this chili is quick, it’s easy and absolutely delicious.  It’s the perfect meal for anyone looking for a warm pot of nutritious yum to fuel your belly (and your body) on these chilly (or not-so-chilly) winter days.

Lots  of protein and lots of fiber,  just the way I like it!

Hope you enjoy this one as much as we did… now go watch the video:)!

A rich, creamy, decadent Chocolate Mousse that is NOT packed with saturated fats!!

I’ll even go one step further.

How about a rich, creamy, chcolate mousse that IS PACKED with healthy fats. You know the ones… the ‘oh-so-glorified-monounsaturated-fats’. The fats that actually help lower bad cholesterol (LDL) and raise good cholesterol (HDL).

So what is it that makes this mousse so magical? So ‘fit friendly’? SO unbelievably good?

drumroll please…..

AVOCADO!

An avocado is unbelievably capable of bringing the same level of body, richness, and depth to this mousse that you would normally seek from cream. But instead of getting bombarded with the ‘not-so-coveted-saturated-fats’ we get to enjoy this little bit of heaven while loading up on the ‘oh-so-desired-monounsaturated-fats’.

Dare I say that this mousse can actually be nutritious?!

This recipe also escapes the addition of refined sugar by using agave nectar instead of white sugar. Leaving us with a “clean-eating” friendly chocolate mousse!

NOW FOR A FRIENDLY REMINDER…

If you are anything like me, you may sometimes find yourself confusing the terms “feel-good- fit-friendly-food” with “feel-free-to-fat-as-much-as-you-want-food” (it’s a common mistake)!

Now don’t go being too hard on yourself, it happens! SO I just wanted to gently remind us (that would be you and ME) that although nutritious, this decadent dessert is energy dense (meaning it still has plenty of fat and calories) so try and skip the desire to polish it all off yourself AND for goodness sakes SHARE with your Valentine!!

Feel free to experiment with the consistency by adding more or less soy milk to the mix. This recipe could easily go from mousse to pudding to fondue just by playing with the amount of milk added. Enjoy!

PS – This mousse oddly makes a delicious breakfast as well… yum scrum!

you could easily prep and season the wings the night before so come Super Bowl Sunday all you have to do is pop them in the oven.  This is especially helpful if you are having some friends over and don’t want to miss all the socializing cause you’re stuck in the kitchen!

And if wings aren’t you’re thing, have no worries because here are 10 more recipes that would be sure to please any Super Bowl crowd:

• Spicy Buffalo Chicken Meatballs (VIDEO)
• Buffalo Chicken Butter Lettuce Cups (VIDEO) (Em’s fave;))
• Roasted Chickpeas (VIDEO)
• Guacamole
• Bacon Studded Potato Skins
• Broccoli and Chicken Quesadillas (VIDEO)
• BBQ Pork Strips
• Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
• Clean Eating Turkey Chili
• Super Simple Shrimp Tacos

Lots of quick and simple options up there… hope you find something you like!

Do you have any plans for Sunday?  Do you plan on cooking?  Would drove to hear some of your Super Bowl Sunday faves!!

OH!  And if you are interested in making some Clean&Delish Blue Cheese Dressing to go with your wings, you can find my recipe here!

This recipe could not be any easier… basically all you have to do is cut your sweet potato into strips, season them and pop them in the oven for about 20 minutes. I love how the heat from the cumin partners with the sweetness of potatoes… SO GOOD!

I must warn you though, although these fries are delicious, they don’t get very crispy or crunchy. They’re firm, but not super crispy.

I am playing with a few ideas to see if I can come up with a way to make them crunchier. I tried dipping them in egg first, but then they tasted like mini potato omletes. The egg flavor was too strong. I’m gonna try egg whites next… I think that may do the job.

(I can’t lie, taste testing sweet potato fries is a pretty fun job, so I don’t mind experimenting one bit;)).

Do you guys have any secrets behind crispy sweet potato fries?? If so, I’d love to hear about them… maybe together we can come up with the world’s most delicious baked sweet potato fries!!

UPDATE:  My conclusion – I prefer the wired rack over dipping my fries in egg whites.  It’s quick and simple and while still not super crispy, they are the perfect clean and delish weeknight fry!

Back in October of 2007 I posted my original Knife Skills video, and although the production was pretty good, apparently my knife skills were not.

I received lots of comments and some pretty critical feedback (especially on YouTube) which I was able to take from and learn from.

So here I am nearly 5 years later (and in HD), sharing my updated version of how to save time in the kitchen by knowing how to use your knife!

I hope you find it helpful and as always, I would LOVE to hear your feedback (and yes, that means the good, the bad and the ugly)!

P.S. For a  detailed explanation on sharpening or honing your knife, check out this video by Alton Brown…it’s great!

If I showed you the easiest and quickest way to cut up a pineapple then perhaps I could:

1. Save you a few bucks (b/c you would no longer be tempted to buy them pre-cut)
2. Encourage you to buy and eat this scrumpdilyicious fruit more often!

And I promise you that the technique I use in this video really is just about as quick and simple as it gets (and you don’t need any silly gadgets!).

Pineapples are super refreshing and great in smoothies!  I also love them with breakfast (especially with eggs for some reason). You can also add them to salsas, salads, and grain dishes for a sweet surprise.

What do you like to do with pineapples?  Do you have a favorite dish to use them?

PS – We shot this video nearly a year ago when I was still pregnant with Jachs!  So just in case your were curious, NO… I am not preggo again;).

which is of course why I am a huge advocate of ‘pre-preppin’ (but that’s a whole other story!)

After spending three (fun-filled!) weeks on the east coast being over-tired, under-prepared, and swollen from eating one too many bagels, cookies, pasta dishes, glasses of wine, etc… I was ready to get back to my routine and lighten things up a bit.

And where do I always turn for a simple and nutritious recipe that I know I can rely on? Good ol’ Kalyn from Kalyn’s Kitchen… yep, I know you know her because I’ve raved about her many times before.  She focuses on South Beach Diet friendly recipes, but at the end of the day she simply has a blog jam-packed with easy and nutritious meals (and this one could not get much easier!)

For starters, I always forget that you can roast shrimp.  I don’t know why… it’s just one of those things I learned later in my ‘cooking’ life that doesn’t seem to stick in my brain.  And what could be easier than adding a few dried seasonings to some green beans and shrimp and tossing it all in the oven for a quick roast?

For me, roasting sings winter.  But since it’s been like 70 and sunny in LA lately this dish was a perfect way to marry lighter ingredients with a cozy-cooking-technique.

I pretty much used Kalyn’s recipe verbatim, but this is one of those dishes you could take a million different ways just by changing up your seasonings.

Serve this over some quinoa or brown rice and you’ve got your self a super-quick, super-easy, clean & delish meal!

BUT I just had to sneak on real quick to share this extremely simple, amazingly delicious, coincidentally nutritious, holiday treat!

Remember how I mentioned that I had joined a CSA a month or so back?  Well there was a while there when I would have 4-5 pomegranates on my counter at a time.  This is when I decided to master my ‘How-To Seed A Pomegranate‘ technique and would open and deseed a few poms at a time, leaving me with bowls of Pomegranate seeds in my fridge and plenty of thoughts on how to use them.  (Because it does take a little effort to get the seeds out a Pomegranate, pre-prepping them is definitely the way to go!).

Once you have these plump, juicy, sweet, and tart little gems ready to go you will find yourself tossing them into almost any dish your cooking (both sweet and savory!).  They love to be added to pancakes, oatmeal, muffins, yogurt, cottage cheese, chicken dishes, salads, beans, etc….  It is surprising how much you can do with them.

The one thing that I highly recommend NOT doing is putting them in a bowl for your 2 year old to snack on!!  I thought this was a good idea until Katie stuck one way up her nose and I had to use this technique that I found by googling ‘pomegranante seed up toddlers nose‘ to get it out.

True story.  But I digress…

I’ve always been a fan of chocolate bark.  It’s beautiful, it’s delicious, and it’s deceptively easy to make.  I was initially going to make Pomegranate Chocolate Bark but could not resist the temptation to simply dump all the seeds right into my pot of melted chocolate (yum scrum)!  I did however top each drop with a few extra seeds just for the pretty factor (do these not just scream holiday?!).

The key to making this ‘recipe’ a success is being sure that your pomegranate seeds are dry, dry, dry!  If there is to much moisture on the seeds your chocolate will seize, and your drops will be  a flop!  I left my seeds out on the counter between two dish towels for a few hours before I made this to be sure thy were nice and dry.

Biting into these little Chocolate Covered Pomegranate drops is pure heaven.  The Pom seeds burst in your mouth and the rich, dark chocolate melts all around them… simply divine!

They would make the perfect pair to a glass of champagne… lots of bubbles popping all around… a little party in your mouth!

So here’s to YOU (and bubbles)!

Enjoy the rest of the year!

Enjoy the holidays!

Enjoy your friends and family (even when they are driving you crazy)!

And most of all, enjoy yourself (you deserve it after all)!!

Happy holidays and lots of love! xo

There was a time when I felt the need to add some form of green veggie into nearly everything dish I cooked.  It didn’t much matter what the dish was, I would find one way or another to get in those greens (proof)!

I was also a bit obsessed with balancing the macronutrients of my meals (carbs, proteins, and fats…).  And while eating lots of greens and balancing your macronutrients can both be key components of a nutritious diet, stressing over these details is not!

Striving for (and not attaining) ‘perfection’ at every meal, more times than not, led me to feeling like a failure.  And feeling like I was never going to get this ‘healthy eating thing‘ was often reason enough to not even try.

So these days I try to focus more on balancing my days and sometimes even my weeks rather than any one meal or snack.  I practice what I call ‘Macro-Balancing’ opposed to the stress-inducing “Micro-Balancing” I once focused on.

Now that’s not to say that I don’t think about balancing my meals and eating my veggies because I do.  I just no longer freak out when it doesn’t happen and I know that my next meal will provide my body an opportunity to get all the nutrients it needs.

This simple and classic chili was inspired by the Queen of simple…. Rachel Ray.  I didn’t change much from the original recipe other than cutting back on the oil a bit.  I used a lean version of ground turkey but you can cut back the fat even more if you opt for extra lean.

This chili is smokey, warm, and comforting; I highly recommend it for your next rainy day!

I have began to realize that a huge obstacle standing in the way of people cooking nutritious, delicious meals for themselves is that they simply don’t know how to select, store, and prepare the ingredients!

So I thought it would be a great idea to start making some How-To videos showing you guys the basic steps you need to know to get cookin’. I know for myself, once I actually see something done, it gives me more confidence to attempt it. So I’m hoping watching these videos will encourage you to try some more Clean & Delish ingredients!

And since we’re sticking to the basics, my husband suggested calling these videos “101’s”, which I thought was a pretty good name. What do you guys think…it works, right?