Zucchini Pizzette

See Baked Breaded Zucchini for Instructions!

Baked Breaded Zucchini

A healthy, tasty and low carb way to bread zucchini & anything else!

Sliced Zucchini

1 cup of grated parmesan or romano cheese

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup almond flour

2 tbsp Italian seasonings

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp red pepper flakes *optional

1 egg

3 tbsp Italian dressing                  

1/2 cup water                            

I like to grease a cookie sheet for this recipe & place it in the oven at 400 degrees while I am preparing the ingredients. I find placing the breaded zucchini on a hot greased sheet keeps them from sticking & helps brown the slices better. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl large enough to submerge your zucchini slices in seasonings. Combine egg, Italian dressing & water & whisk together in a separate bowl. Submerge each slice of zucchini in the egg mixture & then press into your dry breading bowl. Be sure to press the dry seasonings on all sides of your zucchini slice. Once each zucchini slice is coated in breading, gently place on a plate.

TIP: always keep one hand wet and one hand dry while breading foods. This will prevent caked up fingers that you end up touching your food with and creating finger prints with!

Transfer each zucchini slice to your hot cookie sheet making sure each slice lays flat. Bake for 25 minutes until bottom is brown & then broil so the tops may brown to your desire if necessary. I personally do not like to flip my zucchini because I find that's how I end up losing some of my breading!

For an extra YUM factor, serve each zucchini slice with a spoonful of tomato sauce, cheese & pepperoni or whatever pizza topping you love!

 

Grazing... Great? or God-awful?

"Grazing" is a term that can refer to snacking all day or eating several smaller meals throughout your days rather than three traditional meals such as breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Mindless Grazing:
What I am about to say should be common sense, but sometimes we all need to step back and take an honest look at our actions to see if they are conducive to the goals we are trying to obtain... Grazing on crap will lead to crappy results! It is easy to tell yourself "a small piece, a little bite, just a few chips or a few fries won't hurt me!" but if you had to add up all of those small grazing allowances, I wonder how many extra calories they would account for on your day, or even your week! You may have heard before that "1 pound = 3,500 calories". So, in order to gain weight, all you have to do is intake an extra 500 calories per day from what you are already burning. That task can be a lot easier than you would think if you are taking into account the mindless grazing you may be doing. The extra coffee creamer or sugar in the morning + the minty candies at work + the extra soda/energy drink/coffee w/ cream & sugar because you are tired + just a couple of your co-worker's chips or fries + a bite of your kid's dinner they did not finish or your mate's dessert =  Weight gain accomplished!!! If your grazing looks similar to this, you are setting yourself up to gain a pound a week & that's assuming the rest of your meals are healthy & setting you up to expend more calories than you intake! When I first had thoughts about healthy eating & my calorie intake vs. expenditure I had to do things the difficult way. I had a little food journal that I would bring everywhere with me & every time a substance of any kind went into my mouth I would write it down. Then I would calculate how many total calories I consumed during my days. Doing this can be quite surprising when you are convinced that you only ate once, or are only snacking occasionally or snacking healthy and should be losing weight. Nowadays keeping track of your grazing is much simpler with apps for your phone such as MyFitnessPal which allow you to scan bar codes & have most foods along with their calories immediately accessible.

How Many Times a Day Should I Eat?:
There are so many studies out there that claim to prove that grazing is either the corner stone of a healthy diet & metabolism or the wrong thing to do while trying to lose weight. If you visit Dailymail,  USnews, or  Prevention.com you will find very convincing articles that state eating smaller and more frequent meals daily to lose weight is not the way to go.  Jillianmichaels.com claims "if you keep eating small amounts of food throughout the day, you'll never burn any fat." Confusingly contradicting those thoughts and those articles, Webmd.com  while listing "10 Ways to Boost Your Metabolism" states "Eating more often can help you lose weight. When you eat large meals with many hours in between, your metabolism slows down between meals." In the popular, Menshealth.com you will find an article titled "Eat More Food, Lose More Fat" in which Katherine Tallmadge, R.D., author of Diet Simple states "Your body can metabolize only so much protein at one time...  Protein is metabolized better when it's divided evenly."

The point is, I can only testify to what has worked for me thus far. When I began my healthy living journey, I knew that my metabolism needed a jolt. Everything I read at that point was telling me that I should eat healthier & more frequently throughout the day which was a stark contrast from what I had been doing & what was definitely not working for me! I did not have much energy & because I was more sedentary I did not have the desire to eat more meals nor did I think "more meals" could possibly stop me from plunging further down the rabbit hole of obesity. I tried this "more meals = more weight loss" concept & it worked for me! Clearly, not just any meals will do the trick! You can not eat what comes out of a drive through window 5-6 times a day & possibly expect improvements! Whether you decide to watch your carbs like I do, or not, I wholeheartedly believe in a principle that I originally learned from The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss - You should start your day with protein & every meal should have a source of protein in it! (The 4-Hour Body is an excellent read with so many tips if you are serious about this weight loss journey & if you are like me & would enjoy knowing the specifics & the science behind why certain practices work.) In my opinion, healthy grazing is an excellent way to at least start your journey if you have a significant amount of weight to lose because it helps you omit temptation & the desire to cheat yourself. If you are already eating a healthy meal or a snack that you personally took time to prepare every 2-3 hours, not only is that box of donuts at lunch going to look less desirable, but your hunger for it will have already been fulfilled with something more nutritious. If you usually experience a slump in energy after eating, partaking in smaller more frequent feedings throughout the day that require less energy to digest all at once can give you a more sustainable energy source all day & eventually even lead to enough energy to workout during a time you are usually exhausted! Lastly, if you are like me & trying to healthy eat on a budget or hate to waste things in general, when you are setting yourself up for success in the beginning of the week by preparing all of these meals for each of your days, you are certainly not going to want to waste them and make an unhealthy choice therefore spending more money on food & letting your prepared snacks go to waste!

In conclusion, if you are out of options & want so desperately to start moving in the right direction, why not take an honest look at your grazing behaviors & then try something new? See if eating more healthy & prepped meals throughout your day gives you the same boost in energy & jump start on weight loss that it did for me! At very minimum it will definitely shrink your appetite & help you start some very healthy habits that you can continue whether you believe in all day grazing or not!

Here are some great articles that will make you think twice about mindless grazing!

The Seattle Times : Think Twice Before You Nibble On Just One

Everydayhealth.com: Quiz: How Many Calories Do You Mindlessly Eat?


This post is a part of Bri's Keys: Daily Improvements with Ease
look for other posts like it!

Honey Walnut Zucchini Beer Bread *Cheat Days*

 A rich, savory sweet bread that I love to serve warm with butter along with dinner!

Ingredients:                                                  

12 oz beer

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup wheat flour

2 cups shredded zucchini

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 cup honey

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 tbsp vanilla extract

This is an easy one you indulgent cheaters you!
 Just mix all the dry & wet ingredients separately
& then combine together, pour batter into a
greased 9x13 baking dish/casserole dish & bake
at 350 for 50-60 minutes!

Spicy Lemon Pepper Chicken & Noodles A quick one pot meal

Sometimes you just need to make a quick meal without heading to the market & without dirtying too many dishes! That's what this meal was for me! I simply used what I had in my fridge and in my pantry, I pulled out my pot & I got to cookin! (It just so happened this was delicious enough to be blog-worthy!)

Ingredients:
4 Pre-seasoned chicken thighs
1 jalapeno, diced
2 garlic cloves, finely diced
2 tomatoes, chopped with juices
2 scallions, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 tsp lemon zest
the juice of one large lemon
2 cups of broth

So I had these chicken thighs sitting in my fridge, tightly sealed & soaking in the delicious flavors of a dry rub until I could figure out what to do with them. The dry rub consisted of salt, lemon zest, garlic powder, onion powder, parsley, oregano & pepper.



I browned my chicken thighs on all sides on medium high heat in a pan of oil. I then asked myself "what else do I have that will make this delicious?" I grabbed my jalapeno, garlic, onion & scallions & threw them in with the chicken! I then added my 2 cups of beef broth, that I had remaining from a previous recipe! YES! I used beef even though this is a chicken recipe because that's what I had & waste not, want not! I then added the extra lemon zest & juice along with 2 chopped tomatoes & their juices, covered my pot & let the whole concoction of flavors marry one another while my chicken continued to cook & become tender for about 20 minutes in this delicious bath!

Next it was time to figure out what in the world I would serve this delicious meal with. Aha! I had just purchased a box of black bean spaghetti to try! Perfect! I had 4 chicken thighs, so I measured out a little more than 4 servings of pasta, transferred my chicken to a
plate & threw the pasta right in my simmering bath of deliciousness! At this point I could tell that my dish would need a little more liquid, so I added about a half cup of water & a little extra salt and pepper & then proceeded to cook my pasta for the time indicated on the box with a closed lid so I wouldn't lose any of my broth by evaporation to the heavens! (If the angels tasted this dish they might want to call me home a little earlier than my time & I have more cooking & blogging to do!)

15 g carbs - 11g fiber = 4 net carbs

Once my pasta was done cooking, I simply plated this dish with a
little of the liquids & kept some aside for serving! The black bean
spaghetti was a wonderful choice. Not only did my pasta hold the spicy lemon flavors of the broth, making a thicker sauce unnecessary, it also maintained the perfect al dente texture & it is actually a low carb option. I will definitely be using this pasta again!