Two Quick and Easy Recipes

As promised, here are two simple recipes I tried out (successfully) this week:

1. Skillet Salmon and Parmesan Potatoes
I love salmon. I like it with all different kinds of flavors, sauces, and sides. I stumbled across a list of 20 easy salmon recipes, and I decided it was time for me to experiment cooking salmon myself (I always make Josh do it). I picked this specific recipe because I already had all the ingredients on hand.

Ingredients
-Salmon fillets (I cooked 4 for my family)
-Cooking Spray (I used an awesome Tuscan Italian Herb flavored Extra Virgin Olive Oil from a local shop in the pan instead)
-2 medium potatoes
-Parmesan cheese (I used the shaker stuff because I didn't have any fresh Parmesan on hand)
-Salad greens (Just romaine for us)
-Tomatoes (I substituted chopped carrots and celery)
-Low-fat balsamic vinaigrette
-1 Lemon
-Salt and pepper

Directions
1. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat and add Olive Oil to pan. Add fish to pan and cook for 6 minutes on each side.
2. While fish is cooking, pierce potatoes with a fork and microwave for 5 minutes. Rearrange potatoes and microwave for another 3-5 minutes. Then let stand for another 5 minutes.
3. Cut cooked potatoes in half and season with cheese, salt, and pepper.
4. Add chopped carrots and celery to lettuce and toss with vinaigrette.
5. Squeeze lemon juice over salmon and serve. I also added a touch of butter.

Source

Nutritional Information (per serving, according to health.com)
410 Calories
12 g of Fat
30 g of Protein
49 g of Carbohydrates
7 g of Fiber
50 mg of Cholesterol
800 mg of Sodium

Yum! This is the perfect recipe to make when time is short (I made almost the whole meal during half-time of a soccer game on tv) because you can easily do the prep work while the salmon is cooking. It only takes about 15 minutes and it is simple and healthy!

2. Triple Berry Banana Yogurt Smoothie
Josh surprised me this week with a single-serving blender! I had to try it out right away. I searched for a recipe that included yogurt (I had a big container I needed to use up) and fresh/frozen fruit.

Source

 

 

Ingredients
-8 oz. frozen mixed berries
-2 small bananas, peeled, frozen and cut into pieces
-6 oz. vanilla yogurt (I used Fit & Active Non-fat vanilla yogurt, but you could easily substitute Greek yogurt or a flavored yogurt)
-1 cup milk (Although the recipe calls for whole milk, I used skim milk and it was great)
-1 to 2 tbsp. honey (I added some honey, but not that much. It really doesn't need the added sugar)

This smoothie was SUPER creamy and thick. It tasted really great, and it has pretty good ingredients. I know there's some sugar and fat in it, but it's better than eating ice cream (which would be my normal choice). The thing I didn't like about it was that it was crazy seedy. I know, I know, what did I expect when it's full of raspberries and blackberries? Anyway, I think next time I might try to strain out some of the seeds.

I'm still keeping up with trying out new workout routines. I've also been doing Cassey Ho's Bikini Blasters every few days and I am loving those. My mom had mentioned that she is wanting to start toning up, so I am going to start making up short and easy routines that she can do in our living room. Super excited about that!

The other thing I'm super excited about? My new shoes! My best friend and her fiance are in town this weekend, and we all went shopping at the outlet mall. We went to Nine West because she was looking for shoes to wear to a wedding. The whole store was BOGO, so she forced me to get something. These are so summery, so cute, and so perfect for the 4th of July (and only ended up being 10 bucks)!

(Sorry about the lame cell phone picture, I couldn't find a pic online)

Lots more to chatter on about, but I will save it for another post. Have a great weekend!