Food

EASY & TASTY MAHI & POTATO DINNER

With busy 12 hour nursing shifts, easy, tasty and quick dinners are our favorite! Today was a day off but definitely cooked up a lovely dinner that was quick and easy enough to do on a day coming home from work. Going into work at 7 in the morning and leaving work 730pm the earliest while driving for another 25mins home doesn’t usually leave us with enough time to get home and cook a gourmet meal, but we have managed. Today, I had a sweet day off and I made it a point to cook a nice healthy and balanced meal. I usually start missing a nice home hearty meal, so today I had to satisfy that craving. Like I said, quick and easy is our friend most days, so I think naturally I’m getting into the habit of quick and easy meals even on days off. Todays menu consisted of: Pan seared lemon pepper Mahi Mahi topped with a mango Salsa and oven roasted potatoes and carrots. Sounds fancy right?? lol. I must admit it wasn’t rocket science! I usually like to experiment with meals or simply just reminisce on previous flavors I have tried in the past and try to make my version of them at home, it works for me. So If you’re anything like us with busy schedules, little time and simply want a fancy sounding dish without the complicated ingredients and instructions..I think this dish is for you! I hope you try it and love it as much as we do! It’s now become a favorite! Bona petite!

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

– 4 Mahi Mahi Fillets (or any fish to your liking)

– 3/4 of a cup of chopped cilantro (for both potatoes and mango salsa)

– 1/2 cup of baby carrots (cut in half)

– 1/2 lb of honey gold potatoes (cut in 1/4)

– 1 medium sliced onion (1/4 for mango salsa, the rest for the potatoes)

-1 mango ripened, chopped in small dices

– 2 limes

– 3/4 of medium-sized tomato chopped in small dices

– olive oil

– lemon pepper season (1 tbs)

– sea salt and pepper to liking

Instructions:

Pre heat oven to 450, in a bowl or baking pan ( I mixed my ingredients in the same baking pan) mix in potatoes sliced in halves along with baby carrots also sliced in halves, 3/4 of the sliced onion, half of your chopped cilantro, sea salt and pepper to liking, along with a tablespoon of olive oil and mix together until all your ingredients are well coated with the olive oil. Place in oven for 25 mins, or until potatoes are soft.

While your potatoes and carrots are cooking, time to make the Mango Salsa. In a small bowl, combine together 1/4 of the onions.. chopped up small and thin, the rest of your cilantro, 3/4 of your small diced tomatoes, entire mango diced small and the lime juice of one full lime. Let sit in the refrigerator to keep cool.

Meanwhile, gather your cleaned Mahi Mahi fillets. Pre heat a non-stick pan with a tablespoon of olive oil, and the juice of one full lime along with a teaspoon of the lemon pepper seasoning, when pan is warm enough, place your fillets of Mahi in pan and on the side up season with sea salt to your liking along with lemon pepper seasoning. Place lid on pan and let Fillets cook throughly for about 5 mins on low-medium heat. Once Fillets are cooking and color is changing, open lid slightly and turn up the heat to medium-high heat until Fillets start turning a golden crispy color. Once one side has achieved the golden color, do the same to other side. Once this is done your fish is complete!

Once your potatoes and fish are done, its time to plate your yummy food and eat!! Hope you enjoy! Like our recipe? We would love to hear how your version turned out!

-Jen ❤

*All images are property of LaVida, life as it comes..

OUR HEALTHY CHALLENGE UPDATE

We finally have an update for you all on our fitness/healthy challenge! In the beginning of August we shared with you all that our lifestyle was slacking a bit in regards to being healthy and challenging our bodies to be better and healthy for us! Well, I think we are happy to share with you all that we have pretty much stuck to our goals. We are so very proud of ourselves that we have been working towards a better us, a better lifestyle and healthier choices. In August, we shared with you all a handful of specific goals Here to get us started on our journey.

Since then, we definitely have been trying to meet all of them on our list to our best capabilities. We have been very successful at cooking more at home and eating out less. Eating out lately has been more of a treat for us from time to time, rather than an everyday thing. It really has been better, not only for our health but also financially and for our relationship. We get to work together more often in the kitchen and do things together. One of our most exciting things now come dinner time is to GRILL! Yes! we bought a grill and it was so exciting for us lol. We grill just about anything we can find and can go in our lovely grill! The food taste so much better and we get more excited to eat at home. Plus, it makes food so much healthier! Goals one and two of eating cleaner and eating in more are getting checked off the list for sure!

Goals; three, four and five were more for us outside of our home and they all have been just as successful. Some are more limiting at times, like including more outdoor activities into our schedule. But for the most part, the chances we have had, we have taken the opportunities to do so ( like our kayaking adventures mentioned here and here.) Going to the gym was also a main priority for us, especially since it had been such a big part of who we were before we started slacking. We have been very good in keeping up with the gym for sure. After work we make it a priority to make it to cross-fit at 8pm, which is the last class. At the beginning it was definitely challenging, taking into consideration we are so tired from our 12 hour shifts. But we fought through it and now it’s a lot easier to actually make it to class.

All in all, I am proud of our efforts in sticking to our challenge. October is right around the corner, which was our original beginning goal, and I am certain we will have our goals met. We are on the right path and its keeping us motivated. This challenge was not to be hard-core organic or hardcore body builders. But it was most certainly to be more healthier and to get us out of falling into a sedentary lifestyle. We feel healthier, our clothes are fitting us better and we are seeing the results. It feels great! ..Don’t get me wrong, due to our jobs inconsistent schedules, we at times run late and don’t make it to our workouts, but we make sure to go another day in the week. We also treat ourselves to some good comfort foods from time to time and enjoy a good dessert! We just don’t do it as often! Or.. we make up for it in another way by cutting some other foods out.

Our Fitness/Healthy challenge has been a journey for sure, but a journey we are making sure stays in our lives until we can’t anymore. We are loving the idea of creating new foods, or at least trying new foods and incorporating them into our daily menus. We feel better, we are getting results, and we are still motivated to keep going. That’s really all I could wish for or even ask for in order for us to keep going. We will keep updating you all from time to time on our healthy challenges! Again, any questions and or suggestions are always welcome! Motivation from others is always helpful!

Thanks for the support always!

❤ Jen and X.

Below are some our favorite dishes lately, whether we created or re-created and our new grill and cross-fit gym! (p.s Im not a cross fit junky lol) Enjoy!

blog3 — My handsome, his Tshirt and our grill! lol

PIZZA NIGHTS IN!

Sometimes, we all just need a Night in! In this household, we have many ‘nights in,’ and that is quite okay with us! This past weekend, I was out-of-town for a Disney getaway with some of my closest friends and the kiddos ( My kiddo, was my little sister Sofia, lol) and to celebrate our friends birthday. We had so much fun and can’t wait to share with you all that adventure soon enough! Needless to say, while it was a fun weekend.. it was also very tiring! Disney is not all fun and games people! It’s hours of walking, the killer heat or RAIN!- of Florida (yes, even is September the sun melts us away!) Standing in lines for a while, while the sun is melting you away, oh and did I mention A LOT of walking in the sun!? lol I think you guys get my point.

So today, I caught up on some much needed sleep, ran some errands. And after a quick gym session the last thing we wanted to do was cook a four coarse meal nor get dressed to go out! So we called it a night in! And a night in calls for some good ol’ comfort food that’s quick and easy! Thank goodness for some great publix (our grocery store) finds tonight! We get so excited when we know we can add a healthier twist to some of our favorite comfort foods! Especially since starting our healthy challenge. We really don’t know exactly how many calories are in each slice, nor do I know how much healthier this turkey pepperoni is for xavier, nor how much healthier this version of pizza is. But what really matters at this point is that we tried! lol

Tonight’s menu read: PIZZA a la Jen and X. One pizza, two ways. When we went to our grocery store, we found something that was very appealing to our eyes and our bellies! Boboli Whole Wheat Pizza Dough! It’s already semi-pre cooked and makes it so easy to just add your favorite toppings! We went light on some traditional pizza sauce, some 2% mozzarella light cheese and tried to choose some healthier toppings! For Xavier that included some turkey pepperoni with some thinly sliced onions. I tried to keep it a little lighter and went for some tomatoes, mint leaves, cilantro and thinly sliced onions too. After assembling our master piece, in it went into the oven for just 8-9 minutes and WALA! Dinner was served, along with a glass of red wine for Xavier and a glass of some light Sangria for me.

Our night in turned out to be just what we needed! Some yummy food, pleasant drinks, our feet up on the couch and some much needed relaxation.. You can’t beat that! What are your favorite Pizza toppings?? Do you all have your favorite easy and quick healthy recipes too? We would love to hear all about them! Xavier and I appreciate some good food whenever presented to us! Hope you all had a great Monday!

Jen ❤