Cayman Bound

Hi everyone!

I will unfortunately not be blogging til next saturday!

I am going on vacation to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean! I could not be more excited!

I am going with my amazing boyfriend Kenny, my brother Dan, and his girlfriend Christi.

Sun, beautiful water, and lots of explore!

I will have lots of pictures when I get back! :)

Avocado toast

One of my favorite breakfasts is avocado toast. It is so easy, so yummy, and healthy too.

Although avocados may be higher in calories, they are extremely healthy calories.

Avocados provide you with vitamin A, C, E, K, and B6 and are a natural fat burner for your body.

The biggest plus side to avocados is that by adding avocado to certain foods, you can improve the amount of nutrients your body absorbs. When you combine other fat burning foods with avocado you can improve your nutrient absorption up to 400%.
Avocados can also provide oral cancer and breast cancer protection, eye health, help lower cholesterol, heart heath, stroke prevention, and can help fight disease. 

In the morning I like to just simply take avocado and spread it on either whole wheat or rye toast (my preference, you can use any bread) and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper.

It is delicious, I promise!

cranberry walnut biscotti

So I have been really in the mood for biscotti. But the biscotti you get at the store is so rock hard I hate it.

So I found a recipe that has the same taste and little to no calories of biscotti but is a little on the softer side. it has a crunch, but not break your teeth hard!

What you'll need:

2 cups of all purpose flour

1/2 cup of granulated sugar

1/4 cup of brown sugar

1 tsp of baking soda

1/4 tsp of salt

3 eggs

1 tbs of vanilla extract

2 tablespoons of butter

1 tbs of vegetable oil

1 cup of crasins (dried cranberries)

3/4 cup of chopped walnuts

What to do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix flour, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a bowl

In a small bowl mix, eggs, vanilla, butter, and oil.

Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until combined and dough like texture

Fold in walnuts and cranberries

Spray baking sheet

Shape dough into a log like figure, similar to a long rectangle (like below)

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

Take out and let cool for 10 minutes.

Then, cut biscotti into 1 inch strips and place back on baking sheet

Bake for 10 minutes, flip side, and bake another 10.

Take out to cool completely.. ENJOY!

Greek Style Chicken

Today I made a new recipe that was sort of a play on greek salad or any kind of "greek style" meal.

It was chicken topped with tomatoes, basil, and feta. It was delicious!

What you'll need:

6 skinless boneless chicken breasts

3/4 cup of red wine vinegar

3-4 tbs of extra virgin olive oil

2 tbs of fresh basil or oregano (I used basil, but some prefer oregano)

salt and pepper

1/2 tsp of sugar

1 pound of small cherry or grape tomatoes halved

1 1/2 ounces of feta cheese

What to do:

Mix together red wine vinegar, olive oil, 1/2 of the fresh basil chopped, salt and pepper and 1/2 tsp of sugar together to make the marinade.

Pound out chicken breasts thin and put in a dish and marinate with half of the red wine vinegar marinade, set aside the other half. Let marinade sit for 1 hour.

Remove chicken from marinade and grill chicken, until cooked through. Side aside and keep warm.

Meanwhile, toss halved tomatoes into the other half of the marinade.

Lower grill pan temperature to medium (I used a grill pan instead of the grill because of the size of the tomatoes)

Take tomatoes out of the marinade (reserve some for the end) and sear tomatoes on both sides for 2 minutes or until they just start to look tender, but you don't want them to be mushy.

Transfer chicken to platter and spoon tomatoes on top of each chicken breast. 

Crumble feta cheese on top of the chicken breasts and finish with fresh basil.

On the top, spoon some of the red wine marinade left over. and serve.

Enjoy!

Backyard

We are in the process of getting our little herb garden and flowers planted in the backyard!

I love seeing all the plants and flowers everyday. They are so colorful and beautiful. I just love them.

A couple of my herb pots. We like to mix our herbs with a couple flowers to give it a little pop of color besides green. Also the yellow ones in the back are edible flowers and they can be be put in salads or as garnish!

Chicory lettuce!

Edible flowers!

My strawberry plant in a beehive! 

with little strawberries!

 New Rose bushes! My favorite :)

Pretty :)

Marigolds!

More to come when its all finished :)

Mothers Day Breakfast

 Woke up this morning and made my mom a really good breakfast!

Good food, good company <3

LOVE MY MAMA

Hope you had a good day mom!

Happy Mothers Day

Hope everyone has a Happy Mothers Day!

Make sure to tell your mom how much she means to you!

I happen to have an amazing mom who does everything for me.

She is my best friend and I am so lucky to have her!

We are basically the same person, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

LOVE YOU MOM <3

Asbury Park, NJ

Asbury Park, NJ is about 10 minutes from my home and one of my favorite places around me.

I love everything about it. I think it has such an aclectic feel to it. It is right on the ocean, and it just beautiful. And my absolute favorite street in Asbury is Cookman Ave.

I would love to live there one day. It has adorable shops, yummy restaurants, and lots of art galleries which I love!

What I think is the best part, is the history in asbury park. I love the old buildings and old feel that they revamped to be gorgeous. They took old buildings like banks, and warehouses, and instead of knocking them down and building a modern resturant, they used the buildings as it and worked with the building to make the restaurants and shops even more special.

If you have never been to Asbury Park, NJ you should definitely check it out.