Beautiful foods to try

Homemade Meatloaf

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Good Morning Everyone,

I hope everyone is well. I have been in the office all this week filling in for my friend and co-worker. It has been pleasant so far. Very quiet and I have been able to get quite a bit of work done. I hope it continues….
In my post today I wanted to share this quick family-friendly recipe that I decided to try. Now I have made meatloaf in the past but not like this. I have never put veggies in my meatloaf. This tasted so good!

This is the classic meatloaf recipe from Martha Stewart. It was very simple to make and did not take much time at all. I used my Vitamix to cut all of the veggies down to small chunks. It worked perfectly. 

I put in carrots, onions, parsley, garlic, wheat bread, and seasonings. It was the best meatloaf I have ever made! Also, the ketchup with the brown sugar was so delish!

The meatloaf was complemented by homemade mashed potatoes and green beans. It was a wonderful Sunday meal and a great way to spend the evening. You should definitely try it! Your family will remember it.  Have a great evening! 




(photos via Mrs. Shockley)



Scrumptious Salads for Me

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Hello Friday Morning and Happy Valentines Day,


It’s a three day weekend again. I am thinking about going to see a friend. She had a massive stroke in July of last year and has not been the same. Her birthday is coming up and I want to take her some flowers and spend some time with her. 


In Wednesday’s post, I talked about my recent decision to take probiotics. I wanted to share in this post the recent salads that I have been making for lunch. 


This is my little Kate Spade Lunch Bag that I found on Poshmark brand new. It is really small so I would not encourage you to buy it if you plan on having large meals. I love it because I can pack small items and they will be protected in my tote. 

I have been buying bags of spinach and veggies. I like to place my salads in large zip-lock bags because I like to fix my salads together when I get in the office. I don’t want everything being in the bowl and getting soggy. So here I have my spinach and shredded cheese in one bag and my cucumber and tomato in the other. 

Here I have some crispy chicken tenders chopped up. I placed these in the oven and let them cool off. Once I go to the office, I place them in the microwave to warm them and put them in my salad. 



I can’t forget my favorite salad dressing. If you love the salads at Olive Garden then that means you love their Italian dressing. You can buy this at the store now and I love it on my salads! So good!

All finished now time to pack everything up. 
It all fits including the cinnamon almonds that I have for a snack. 



In this photo, I am at the office and have put my beautiful salad together. It is so good and I have a green tea to drink with it and my lovely cinnamon almonds as a snack.


Simple pleasures in life and make it wonderful sometimes. I hope you all have a great weekend and share in the comments section below your favorite salad ingredients. I would love to know!

Thanks for reading!
(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

My Spinach Scrambled Eggs

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I love my scrambled eggs on the weekend. I always look forward to them but this past week I saw one of my favorite Youtuber’s Lisa Bryan create a wonderful scramble egg dish.

So I went to the store and purchased a container of spinach to add to my scrambled eggs. Now when you watch her video she adds a lot more ingredients but I know for me I just wanted to take it easy this time and keep it simple.

I sauteed my spinach with extra virgin olive oil and it did not take long. 
In a separate bowl I mixed my eggs (brown, I love brown eggs), butter, salt and pepper. Then I just added it to the spinach and let it cook for a few minutes. 
I kept a close eye on them and once they were done I plated them and it just looked delicious and yummy!
It was a breakfast that I truly enjoyed this past weekend and look forward to making it again. I also had some wonderful blueberries (they were on sale too), my teapot full of warm ginger and chamomile tea. This tea is turning out to be one of my favorites! I also used my tea cup and saucer from my mother in law. She purchased it from the Biltmore a few years ago for me. 
I do enjoy my breakfasts on the weekends. My husband and daughter are not big breakfast eaters and I have just given up on trying to convert them so now I just make my wonderful breakfast and enjoy it. 
If your family is like mine and doesn’t like eating breakfast, don’t worry about it anymore. Just make a wonderful breakfast for yourself and believe that you are setting an example. They will join in soon. Also, here is Lisa’s video below if you wish to watch it. She has a wonderful Youtube channel full of healthy recipes and whole living ideas. Enjoy!
(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

Cheese Plate ~ 2019

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We are starting the third week of 2019 already. These years are going by so fast. I was checking past posts on the blog and I made my first cheese plate in 2017. I loved that one. I felt like a “grown up” that year.

My second cheese board in 2018 was delicious also. I loved the sweet french bread with the fig spread and brie.

This year I picked out my own cheeses with a little help from one of the reps. He showed me that they had a section with cheese for $5 and below. Great!

I love the dried apricots. I don’t feel as guilty nibbling on these. They are so good and add just enough sweetness to the board. 
The other suggestion that he made was getting some nuts. So I ended up purchasing some honey roasted nuts. Also really good!
I grabbed a bag of green grapes and crispy crackers and we were ready to bring in the New Year!

We popped open our wine and sat and enjoyed the evening. 

Everything was so good and our daughter loves the smoked gouda. I couldn’t get enough of the brie cheese with the fig spread together. Goodness, that was good! 
I hope that you all enjoyed your New Year and are looking forward to 2019! Cheers!
(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

Learning How to Shop for Produce

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As most of you know I have been on this “health quest” for a while now. One thing that I have decided to learn about recently is seasonal foods. Here in Indiana, I have been learning that there are some things that just don’t taste as well and I could not figure out why.

I was watching an episode of Shannon Able’s cooking show from her blog The Simply Luxurious Life and she kept talking about seasonal ingredients. So that got me thinking maybe I need to pay more attention to what fruits and veggies are in season.


Photo by Vanessa Bucceri on Unsplash

I found this great website called Seasonal Food Guide.org and this site will let you select your state and learn about what products in what month is good for your area. 



For instance, I learned that carrots, collard greens, kale, mushrooms, and rosemary are some of the produce items that are in season here in early November. 

Photo by Dilyara Garifullina on Unsplash

I learned a lot about produce. I plugged in strawberries and saw that for here in Indiana they are NOT good around this time which explains why I have not been enjoying them on the weekends for breakfast. 


The same for blueberries. I LOVE blueberries but I purchased a carton last week and oh my gosh were they awful! I did learn that pears and apples are good around this time. So I have been eating those in the mornings with my tea at the office. 


I hope that you find this site useful and use it to help plan your meals and to learn more about your region. Tasting beautiful food is so important when you are on a healthy quest. 




Enjoy!

My Easy Veggie Spaghetti

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Coming home from work and starting your “home” job is never an easy task. Sometimes I work harder at home than at the office.

Most nights I just want an excellent meal with limited fuss and honestly I believe that most moms and wives are like that now. We want good meals with less ingredients (but good ingredients) and limited work. Once a week I make this easy veggie spaghetti.

Now my husband is not big on vegetables. In fact he HATES them but I am trying to get him to give them a taste. This has been one of the recipes that has worked.

My absolute favorite spaghetti sauce is Prego. I love it! They have a wonderful selection and I have tried most of their flavors and adore them without fail. I have been using whole wheat pasta lately and I love adding this McCormick spaghetti seasoning to my meat. It gives it more flavor. 

I brown my meat. I am enamored with the ground beef at Costco. It is the best. I also normally add some garlic salt or powder to my ground beef. 

I now add in the McCormick seasoning. 
Once it has finished cooking I add in my spaghetti sauce. This has mushrooms and green peppers in it. It is really good!

You can see chucks of mushrooms and green peppers. 
I normally have my pasta cooking while I am browning my meat. And voila, there you have it a nice dinner in about 30 minutes. I also normally have a french bread or wheat loaf in the oven cooking. Honestly, spaghetti night is one of my favorite nights because I know that the dinner will take me no time, my family will be happy and I can nibble on a warm piece of french bread with a glass of wine. 
I hope that you find this post useful and try out those veggie spaghetti sauces from Prego!
Enjoy!

(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

A Frozen Banana Treat

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Another great and quick recipe that I saw on Youtube….

This is great for that Friday evening that you will be spending at home. I put some bananas in the freezer and left them in there for about 3 days. I took them out and let them thaw a little. Then I cut them in halves and poured chocolate syrup on them and added a few sliced almonds. 
It was delicious and very simple. Honestly you can add any kind of toppings that you want and it still will be healthier than most desserts. I hope that you enjoy this recipe and let me know if you try it. 
Enjoy!
(photo via Mrs. Shockley)