No Crap Buffalo Chicken Salad

So my friend is a Beachbody Coach and got me doing her 21 Day Fix. If you know what it  is, you’re probably a fan. If you don’t know what it is, I’ll tell you. In brief, it is a way to learn clean eating and portion control. I’ve always been a fan of clean eating but the portion control thing was always my biggest problem. Since starting it, I’ve had some great results and it really is a great lifestyle change. It puts you in the habit of being conscientious of the foods you’re putting into your body. Once I really started looking at ingredients, I was shocked to see some of the junk that was listed. To get me on a better track without feeling I was stuck eating boring food, I started to put a healthy spin on my favorite recipes and editing other recipes I’ve found.

Here’s one that I really enjoy making for lunch. I once made it for my boyfriend who refused to eat it at first because I said there was yogurt in it and he was convinced it wouldn’t taste good, but after trying it he fell in love with it and now I make it all the time! So I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Ingredients -

1 Container of 6oz Fage 0% Plain Greek Yogurt

1/3 cup Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Sauce

½ tsp Garlic Powder

¼ tsp Fresh Ground Black Pepper

1 lb Cooked Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast (shredded or cut into tiny pieces)

4 Heart of Celery Stalks, Finley Chopped (or 2 regular stalks)

½ cup Cilantro

½ cup Crumbled Blue Cheese (due to sodium levels in blue cheese, I used an 2/3 cup Italian 4-cheese mix for 21DF recipe) 

1 cup Low Sodium Chicken Broth

Directions -

1 – Cook whole chicken breasts in broth by bringing to a rapid boil and then simmering until finished. If you have any broth left, drain it out. Once done, allow chicken to cool before shredding - to avoid burning any fingers! 

2 – In a large bowl, mix together the yogurt, buffalo sauce, garlic powder, and pepper. Then stir in chicken, celery, cilantro, and cheese.

3 – Serve on your choice of bread, wrap, or crackers!

This is good to be refrigerated for about 4-5 days.

As far as the 21DF is concerned, the way I measured this out was as follows:

Greek Yogurt = 1 Red

Chicken = Once shredded, I measured it out one red container at a time until all the chicken was in the bowl. 

Celery = Same process as the chicken, but using the green container

Cheese = 2 Blue

Bread = 1 Yellow

The number of red containers is how I separated the completed dish. My completed recipe had a total of four reds so I counted each serving as 1 R, 1/4 G +bringing a remaining green of celery sticks  to equal 1 G, 1/2B.I ate it with a  sandwich thin which counted as 1Y. I hope this makes sense, if not – please feel free to let me know or ask any questions that you have.

I hope you enjoy this recipe! If you find a new way to spice it up, let me know. I’d love to give it a shot!

I'm 25!

Ah - I'm officially 25, I can't believe it! (As if you can't tell from the title of this post and the image above) I'm normally not one to care about birthdays but this one was extremely special. It was by far one of the best birthdays I've had in a while and spent it with some amazing people. 

It started on Friday morning when I went to go get my hair done while I waited for my cousin to arrive from Charlotte. I was SO, SO excited that she came to spend my birthday with me! We spent the day just hanging out until the night hit when we went to dinner and World of Beer. We didn't want to do too much since Saturday was going to be a packed day.

Saturday morning and yay, it's my birthday! Saturday we spent the day at The Winery at Bull Run. One of my best friends got married there earlier this year and it really is such a nice space so I knew this was a great choice. Also, the fact that it wasn't ridiculously far from the city (like most wineries are) was a big factor so that a lot of my friends could make it out. For the evening we went out to dinner and had a night on the town - aka: partying in Arlington.

Sunday was just spent as a nice and relaxing day, unwinding from the hustle and bustle of Friday and Saturday night. Everyone knows I'm not the out all weekend type of girl, so Sunday was just perfect for me. Actually, the whole weekend was.

I am seriously so happy that so many of my friends made it out throughout the weekend to spend time with me on my birthday. I am hoping for an awesome 25th year, especially since I'm officially at the "I feel like I'm going to open my eyes and be 30" age.

Thank you for reading about my wonderful weekend and I hope everyone can have the same awesome feeling I had these past couple days during their birthday celebration, week, month!

Greek Orzo Pasta Salad

Hi All -

I was recently going through my Pinterest recipes, looking for something somewhat specific but yet not. I knew I wanted something Mediterranean so I went through using different words to find something that would catch my eye. I came across Joy the Baker's "It's Not Summer Yet Greek Pasta Salad." I liked the idea but knew I would want to change it up. So here's my take on it:

For the Dressing:

1/3 cup olive oil

1 1/2 lemons, juiced

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

For the Pasta Salad:

5 cups cooked (cooled) orzo pasta

3 chopped Persian cucumbers 

2 cups halved cherry tomatoes

1 cup crumbled feta cheese

1/2 cup chopped red onion

1/2 cup chopped heart of palm

1/2 cup kalamata olives, halved

sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Directions:

In a large bowl toss together orzo pasta, cucumbers, tomatoes, feta cheese, onion, heart of palm and olives.  Add olive oil, lemon juice and garlic powder. Mix well and add salt and pepper to taste. You can serve immediately or chill and then serve. Personally, I like it a bit chilled once all the ingredients have been mixed together. 

I would like to say that every time I make this, I base it off of taste. Some days I go with more lemon, some days more olives, more garlic (so I’ll add fresh crushed garlic on those days), or whatever else I might be craving. Being Middle Eastern, it’s REALLY hard for me to stick to any sort of recipe. 98% of the time I ask my mom or one of my aunts for directions on how to cook something, they never use measurements so that's also become a habit for me. I do recommend that you do that also every once in a while and listen to your taste buds when they're craving!

I hope you enjoy this recipe! And thank you to Joy the Baker for inspiring me. :) Enjoy and talk to you soon!