Breakfast Egg Cups #LiAR Style

Breakfast Egg Cups #LiAR Style

We will be honest, in some ways we use our own blog as a cookbook for ourselves.  It’s a great resource when we are out grocery shopping without an exact plan for meals for the week.

We have been making egg cups for quite some time now since they are a perfect breakfast item on the Advocare Ten Day Cleanse. So really these are the easiest recipes ever for a healthy protein packed breakfast with the least amount of clean up possible especially now that we’ve found the perfect cooking utensil when making egg cups. We can’t rave enough about how easy they are and we pretty much promise you can’t mess them up.

Here is a general formula to use and then we gave some examples about what we use the most.

– 12 eggs (use all 12 whole eggs or any combination of whole eggs and egg whites with the 12)

– A veggie or two

– A meat if you want

How too: Crack eggs in a large bowl, dice veggies pretty small, cook or brown any meat that you are going to use. Mix all ingredients together. Bake your cups at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until the eggs are no longer runny.

No measuring necessary. No need to worry about a long drawn out recipe. Just add what you want in the 12 egg mixture and you are good to go.

Are you ready for our secret to the least amount of annoying clean up?

If you are like us you probably have bake ware that is horrible with eggs and everything gets stuck and you have to soak the pan forever and half the time the eggs are still stuck on there, we hate that! In comes silicon baking cups to the rescue!

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silicon baking cups from Amazon

The eggs do not stick, you don’t have to use any non-stick sprays or oil, and they are super easy to clean, plus they are only like $5-6 on Amazon. We have seen them for $12-14, but DO NOT PAY THAT. And the egg cups keep in the refrigerator all week and heat up what amount we want each morning for breakfast.

Sometimes it’s easy to get stuck in a rut, so if you have found yourself in one we have put together some of favorite egg cup recipes:

Spinach/tomato

12 eggs

Handful of spinach

1 Diced tomato

½ Diced red onion

6oz chopped up bacon

Southwest style

12 eggs

1 Diced tomatoes

Ground beef with taco seasoning (about a cup)

1 Bell pepper

½ Red onion

Denver omelet style

12 eggs

Cup of chopped ham

1 green bell pepper

½ onion

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There you have it! Go forth and make all of the egg cups! Another bonus to owning the silicon baking cups is that when your kids are old enough for you to make lunches for them to take to school if you use the bento box method they are great in there as well!

Advocare for the New Year {2015}

Advocare for the New Year {2015}

Happy New Year! We know it’s already several days into the new year, but now that everyone is getting back into a schedule we just wanted to put a reminder out there that we do sell Advocare.  If you are looking for a way to jump start your fitness goals this year then why not checkout the Advocare 10 Day Cleanse?

We’ve both done the cleanse several times and have tried to put together as much info as we possibly could to make it easier for you!

If you are looking for some recipes that we have used during the cleanse, well, those can also be found within our Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner posts.

If you’re looking for what days you should drink the fiber drink? When you should take catalyst? Well, those types of questions can also be found throughout the Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner posts.

Survival Tips – are you looking for how to survive those 10 days on the cleanse? Look no further than our survival tips post with tips like – Do the cleanse with a buddy to keep yourself accountable! Don’t worry there are more tips than just that! :)

We have also come up with our own list of Dos and Don’ts while on the cleanse. For instance DO eat all the water and DON’T drink alcohol! So sorry!

To bring this post to an end here are in list form important Advocare posts we have done that might be useful to you:

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: Breakfast

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: Lunch

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: Dinner

Our Survival Tips

Dos and Don’ts on the Advocare Cleanse

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: What We Are Eating

Please remember that mistakes do happen if you happen to eat something you shouldn’t, well, just don’t keep eating it. Once you realize that you ate something not approved for the cleanse then stop eating it and waiting until the cleanse is over to have it again.

It is hard to be 100% accurate with these types of things so we normally suggest using the 80/20 rule which means you need to make sure your eating is on point 80% of the time and if you mess up well don’t let that percentage be more than 20% of the time.

Now, what questions have we left unanswered?

All Things Advocare Cleanse

All Things Advocare Cleanse

We get a TON of questions about the 10 day Advocare cleanse and we love it! Hopefully we are being super helpful to you as that is our ultimate goal!

One way we thought we could REALLY help out is by bringing all of our Advocare 10 Day Cleanse posts together into one post as an easier tool for you to utilize as you prepare for the cleanse and/or participate in the cleanse!

Maybe you’re looking for the basics like what your schedule should look like throughout the day and we have that in our Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner posts.

Are you looking for some recipes that we have used during the cleanse? Those can also be found within our Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner posts.

If you’re looking for what days do I drink the fiber drink? When do I take catalyst? Well, those types of questions can also be found throughout the Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner posts.

Survival Tips – are you looking for how to survive those 10 days on the cleanse? Look no further than our survival tips post with tips like – Do the cleanse with a buddy to keep yourself accountable! Don’t worry there are more tips than just that! 🙂

We have also come up with our own list of Dos and Don’ts while on the cleanse. For instance DO eat all the water and DON’T drink alcohol! So sorry!

To bring this post to an end here are in list form important Advocare posts we have done that might be useful to you:

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: Breakfast

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: Lunch

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: Dinner

Our Survival Tips

Dos and Don’ts on the Advocare Cleanse

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: What We Are Eating

Now, what other questions do you have for us?!

Friday Food Finds {3}

Friday Food Finds {3}

If you’re still looking for some options for the big Superbowl game on Sunday perhaps we can help you out a little bit.

Running to the Kitchen‘s Buffalo Chicken Broccoli Cheddar Bites

Who doesn’t love buffalo chicken?!  This sounds like the perfect appetizer for a big football weekend!

Buffalo chicken broccoli cheddar bites

100 Day’s of Real Food‘s The Best Pulled Pork in a Crock Pot!

Not only does this recipe look delish, but it is #LiAR husband approved!  Have yourself some sliders or a whole sandwich – this recipe does not disappoint!

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Fit for Success‘ Quinoa Pizza Bites

Ok, pizza is absolutely another game day food!  With this recipe you can make it healthier and not worry about the calories as much!

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Kate O Lynch‘s Roasted Garlic & Jalapeno Sweet Corn Hummus

Every good football party as some sort of dip otherwise it’s just not a real party, amirite?!  Kate has actually made this dip for us and therefore it is #LiAR approved. 🙂

Happy Super Bowl weekend! Who are you cheering for?

Tasty Tuesday: Slow Cooker Teriyaki Pork

Tasty Tuesday: Slow Cooker Teriyaki Pork

We’ve had this recipe multiple times and it is definitely husband approved.  Such a good recipe for when you need a break from cooking chicken this and chicken that.

There is a slaw recipe that goes right along with the pork and I like to make that the night before since it requires a bit of chopping.

Ingredients:

2-twelve ounce pork tenderloins

1/2 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce

1/4 cup rice vinegar

3 Tablespoons packed brown sugar

2 Tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Toasted sesame seeds (optional)

 

Directions:

In a small bowl mix together soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, oil, ginger and garlic.  Place the pork tenderloins in your slow cooker and pour the sauce you just mixed together over the meat.

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Cover your slow cooker and let cook for 2 1/2 – 3 hours on high-heat or 5 – 6 hours on low-heat.

Once your pork is finished transfer to a cutting board and leave the cooking liquid in the slow cooker for now.  Cut the meat into 1/2 inch thick slices.

Serve with Asian Slaw (recipe below) and drizzle meat with cooking liquid. (Optional – sprinkle with sesame seeds)

 

ASIAN SLAW

Ingredients:

5 cups shredded napa cabbage

1 medium yellow bell pepper (cut into strips)

1/2 cup shredded carrot

1/2 cup of snow peas w/pods sliced lengthwise

1/4 cup sliced green onion

3 Tablespoons rice vinegar

2 Tablespoons of olive oil

1 Tablespoon of toasted sesame seed oil

1 Tablespoon of reduced-sodium soy sauce

Pinch of salt

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Directions:

In a large bowl you’ll combine all of the vegetables that have been cut up.

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In small mason jar (or similar jar with a screw top lid) combine the rice vinegar, olive oil, toasted sesame oil, soy sauce and salt.  After screw the lid on shake up the mixture.  Pour the mixture over the vegetables in your bowl and toss to coat.

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Ok, as you can see I didn’t actually cut my meat into 1/2 inch slices and it’s so tender so it works this way as well!

For a print out of the entire recipe please click here.

 

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Breakfast

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Breakfast

We get tons of questions about how exactly to do the Advocare 10 day Cleanse and typically it is just about the food choices one should or should not be making.

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It seems to range from What the heck can I eat? to Can I actually eat anything? as well as timing and really anything else you can think of we’ve probably been asked it! 🙂  Trust us we’ve been asked some crazy questions which we actually love!  It has helped us learn a lot more and get that much more knowledgeable!  In an effort to help YOU we wanted to share this information and perhaps make the cleanse easier.

Over the next week or so we will be breaking down each meal for you so that we can clear some things up for everyone and again, make it SO much easier!

Naturally, we thought we’d kick things off with breakfast – that makes sense right??

When you wake up:

  • Take the Fiber Drink (days 1 – 3 and 8 – 10) and Probiotic Restore (days 4 – 10) – drink a large glass of water
  • Optional: Drink a Spark for energy and take catalyst before eating
  • Thirty minutes later (don’t freak out – you will not ruin it if you do eat in that range of time) eat breakfast.

Timing:

Wake up, immediately take the fiber drink, wait 30 minutes (or just get ready for work), eat your first meal after the 30 minutes, wait approximately 2 hours and then eat your second meal of the day.

What to eat:

This can get a little confusing because the Cleanse says to eat 5 to 6 small meals a day.  The first two small meals I like to just refer to as “breakfast” and will often times swap the order out depending on how I feel so the options below would work for your first two meals of the day (Advocare refers to this as “breakfast” and “mid-morning snack”).  These are in order of preference on the Cleanse for weight loss:

1. Bowl of fruit of your choice (about a cup to a cup and a half)

  • the lower on the glycemic index the better! Think berries, cherries, apples, pears, grapefruit, apricots – these are all lower in sugar.  If you go with melons, mangoes, papayas, pineapples – these are all higher in sugar.  They won’t ruin your cleanse at all and they are obviously healthy, but if you think about it go less sugar for the 10 days.

2. Meal replacement shake.

  • Advocare has a replacement shake, but if you have a favorite you already use then you can use that.

meal rep shake

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  • Be creative! We do protein with a mixture of fruits and veggies with water.  Sometimes we use a little bit of unsweetened almond milk, but this is not the *best* as some people stall with weight loss using milks so it’s not ideal.
  • Spinach, celery and kale all lose their flavors when mixed with fruit! 🙂

3. Three eggs (cooked however you want, but try not to add to them with any oil or butter and do not be afraid of the yolk!)

  • Omelet with veggies (spinach, peppers, mushrooms, onion, tomatoes – it’s all OK!)
  • Pouched
  • Scrambled
  • Hard-boiled
  • Make egg cups with veggies

4. Plain oatmeal (limit carbs like this to 1 time per day)

  • Do NOT go to Starbucks or the drive through at McDonald’s because they have convinced you this is a healthy choice – it’s fully of sugar!  We are talking PLAIN oatmeal with an emphasis on the PPPLLLAIN.  This means made at home, you control the intake, plain oatmeal.  If you must add things stick to fruit, stevia or cinnamon.

5. Nuts (2 ounces, we would also say stick with tree nuts, i.e., macadamia nuts, brazil nuts, cashews, almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, chestnuts, beechnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, gingko nuts and hickory nuts)

pine nuts in cup in the shape of heart on sack cloth

 

Tips:

Do NOT over think this!

Eliminate all processed foods

Think protein before carbs

If it is not real food do not eat it

Drink TONS of fluids

Get a friend to join you!

It is only 10 days.  You will NOT die and you can add things back later that you might have missed so do not think we took all dairy from you for life or bread for that matter! Neither are the best for you, but you can have some back later.

Happy Cleansing!

Friday Food Finds {2}

Labor Day weekend is upon us!  We are totally bummed that we aren’t yet again make a trek out to Anaheim to race the Disneyland Half that we LOVE like we last year and the year before that!

Anyway for us this weekend makes us think of pool parties, BBQs, college football……so in case you are still searching for your perfect side dish to bring to  a Labor Day party look no further.  #LiAR has got you covered!

Peas & Crayons – Chipotle Sweet Potato Salad:  Why make your normal potato salad when you can put a healthy and spicy spin on it?! Our mouths are watering just looking at this picture!

Happy Healthy Mama – Fruit Salsa and Cinnamon Chips: Down hurre in Texas we pretty much break out the chips and salsa for any and every occasion.  This weekend instead we’re sweetening it up with this fruit dish and homemade cinnamon chips! Another mouth watering recipe!

Kate O Lynch – Best Ever Guacamole Recipe: This recipe truly lives up to it’s name! We can both attest to that as we both have made and enjoyed it many a-times when Kate’s brought it over for a celebration of some sort!

Pinch of Yum – Southwestern Quinoa and Black Bean Casserole: If you are a 7 layer dip loving person THIS is the dish you need to try for this weekend!  You can thank us later! 🙂

A Hint of Honey – Tomato and Fresh Corn Quiche: Maybe since it’s a long weekend you’re wanting to have brunch at home with your roommate or husband or your neighbor.  Here is the breakfast must make dish!

Happy Labor Day {weekend} to you all!  Be sure and let us know what you make! 🙂

Friday Food Finds {1}

We are so fortunate these days with how readily available information is to us especially with blogs! From our own blog posts about the times we’ve done the Advocare cleanse to providing you with healthy recipes we think y’all know we are always on the look out for doing what’s best for our bodies.  Blogging, twitter and instagram have all played an awesome part in connecting our blog with other bloggers and finding food bloggers that share delicious and healthy recipes.  Delicious and healthy recipes that we love! So we wanted to periodically share some of the foods we find elsewhere and are constantly making at home with you!  So without further ado let’s really get to what this post is all about:

Fit Foodie Sam – Wonton Tacos: These are delicious and a fun twist to turkey taco meat!  This dish has become a regular at our house and they are easy to put together and don’t take long to bake at all.  I’ve also heard Sam has done a pizza spin on this recipe as well, which will be tried soon!

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Peas & Crayons – Confetti Pasta Salad: If you are look for a dish to bring to your next potluck, to a pool party, to a 4th of July party or if you happen to already be looking for dishes for Labor Day Weekend – look no farther!  This is your dish!  I have made Jenn’s dish multiple times in the past couple of months and have heard nothing but good things from everyone who has gotten to have a serving!

Happy Friday! And happy cooking! 🙂

Bulletproof Coffee Review

Butter in your coffee huh? Sounds gross, right? That is what we thought and really it just reminds us of that Friend’s episode when Ross was going to drink the fat for Rachel because she was mad at him! Anyone remember that?

bulletproof coffee 1

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Basically this idea of “drinking the fat” is up in the fitness world and really big with those who try to intermittently fast. Not sure what that is? Go here.

Although neither of us actually fast, we do understand the need for good fats in your body. Good fat is OK and is nothing to be afraid of and many of us do not get enough good clean fat. Plenty of us get the crappy stuff, especially those that might go through the drive through window, but for those of us that eat clean and eat our veggies it is good to have a wide range of good fats.  Just one of the ways you are getting good fat through Bulletproof coffee is by incorporating Kerrygold grass-fed butter.

You may know that good fats can come from multiple sources like cold water fish, plant oils, nuts, seeds and avocados.  Bulletproof coffee is another way to get those good fats in your system as well as actually put in good coffee. We have definitely had our fair share of coffee but Bulletproof is different.  Bulletproof claims to be the “cleanest” coffee in the world and has been cleared of toxins that often give people the caffeine jitters or the crash later on.

This website has tons of information about the effects of Bulletproof coffee and just exactly how it works. You can even find the recipe here as well as how to make this coffee. You should definitely check it out! We buy the big pack of coffee because it ends up saving tons of money. Plus he usually sends a coupon for a second order!

Also the recipe calls for MCT oil or coconut oil. We have tried both! We really like the pure MCT from the website and will add a dash of their pure vanilla. It’s a dried form of vanilla but mixed with the coffee it is reeally good, very vanilla latte like.

Reading all kinds of iiinteresting things about food and learning more about what we put into our bodies!

or you know if you can’t find Kerrygold butter this was our alternative at Sprouts

Advice: We try not to look at it. It definitely does not look gross but we have all had science class and know that oil and water do not mix. It will start to separate and kind of looks greasy! But have no fear – it’s fine!

Also, if you have a small blender we recommending using  that to make the coffee more frothy like. It’s much better that way and allows for everything to mix in perfectly!  Additionally you’ll want to use a glass blender to do the blending as you will be blending a very hot liquid.

Bulletproof coffee!

Ta da!

bulletproof coffee 2

frothy!

Are you already drinking Bulletproof Coffee? Or do you just think we are crazy for drinking it? 🙂

Note: We are not getting paid to write this review rather we both drink this coffee, dig it and wanted the world to know!

Finding the Real Amongst the Fake

Recently we have been reading a ton of stuff about food and just exactly what is in it and frankly we find most of it downright SCARY.  We didn’t really understand the full extent of the issue and the more we read the more we have realized we have to make a change ourselves, and try to not put crap and other fake food products into our bodies. Now we definitely are not over here thinking we are the picture of perfection when it comes to eating. We definitely eat things we shouldn’t (ahem, goldfish for example) and we know we shouldn’t but we have recently decided we would make a HUGE effort to reduce the crap in our life and really get more educated about what we are eating. You are what you eat right? We don’t want to be fake!

This is really unfortunately harder than it seems because everything it is HOLY CONFUSING or we have been tricked or even worse, had information withheld from us! We are not scientists and we don’t really understand the truth behind things like soy protein isolate, BHA, Potassium Benzoate… We have no clue what they really are or at least we didn’t before. We also found out that the FDA does some awesome trickery and says that some things are GRAS (generally recognized as safe) GENERALLY?!? Really, does that mean sometimes it’s not? Who is going to tell us this?

We kind of enter a little freak out mode sometimes when it comes to thinking about all of it. It seems overwhelming. How in the world will we ever remember all the things we should know and avoid? We have used the trick that many say “Look for as few ingredients as possible and make sure you can pronounce all the words.” We think that that works most of the time but then enter Genetically Modified Foods, which P.S. they don’t tell you about the majority of the time.  GMO’s can be hidden in even the simplest of words making it easy to fail that “short as possible, readable words trick.” Overwhelming right?? We think so.

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Enter our saving grace. We recently found the app FOODUCATE, which is downloadable for free on your smart phone. It is very easy to use and super convenient at the grocery store. On one of our recent road trip weekends we scanned EVERYTHING with a label in the car just so see how it worked and we loved it! You can find either one of us often on a trip to the grocery store scanning away! You can also visit Fooducate online and sign up there!

Here is what it looks like:

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Once you are in the store you just press scan and hold your phone over the barcode label. It searches its data base and immediately gives your food a score. HINT: Make sure when you set up your account that you ask it to tell you if a product has GMO’s.

You will get a screen like this with what is in your food that you should avoid.

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Once you see that you can decide if it is good or bad for you and if it is bad it will even give you alternatives to try. And as you can see from the picture above there’s a “fun facts” part where they actually give  you random tidbits about food.

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BONUS! Remember how we told you it’s all confusing and we can’t keep track of how everything is made or produced or what it actually means. Fooducate lives up to its name and actually educates you as to exactly why to avoid that food.

We thought that we would pass this along because it is one of the easiest ways we have seen to help keep us informed and hopefully healthy.

What are some of your favorite food or exercise apps?? We would love to hear about them. And P.S. we are not being paid by Fooducate we just seriously LOVE it!!

get fooducated