It's "Tasty Tuesday"!  On a Thursday!

So I decided to post next week's Tasty Tuesday a little early since we had a couple requests for this recipe! The one isn't all that super creative but we have to say this is one that our kids love, and it's a little better for us parents since it's not just the standard chicken fingers with ketchup meal. We love this one to because it goes with tons of different healthy side dishes and it's quick! 

This recipe is another good one that you can use the leftovers for lunch the next day and make a pretty good healthy salad with! PLUS, we almost always have all the ingredients (outside of the cornflakes) at home already!

Crunchy Chicken Fingers w/Tangy Dipping Sauce

One of the reasons why we love this one is that we can convince our kids its just regular chicken fingers. But little do they know it's the healthier version. This is also another one of our go-to dinners when Wes and I don't feel like eating "kids food", but still need something super easy (but with a little bit of excitement). Both Emma and Jack love to get involved with making this one too. They always help with the mixing of the flour mixture and crunching up the cork flakes. Although I usually have to watch them like a hawk because they will tend to EAT most of the corn flakes while crunching them up.

The first time we made it we kept to the recipe 100%, but now we tend to up the crab seasoning (Old Bay of course) because we couldn't taste it much. Keeping in mind that will change your sodium levels but it's still such a small amount that you don't go overboard.

What You'll Need for The Chicken

• 1/2 teaspoon reduced sodium crab seasoning (or 1/4 teaspoon paprika and 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder for a sodium free option)
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon of whole wheat flour
• 12 ounce of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 12 strips
• 2 tablespoons fat-free (skim) milk
• 1 egg white
• 3 cups of cornflake cereal, crushed (i.e. man-handled by little children)

What You'll Need for The Sauce 

• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup 100% orange juice
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 teaspoons deli mustard
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Directions
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Mix the crab seasoning, pepper and flour in a bowl and then toss the chicken in, coating each one evenly. Combine the milk and egg white in a separate bowl, and mix well. Then pour that over the chicken and give it a toss.

Crush up your cornflakes and add those to a separate bowl. Dip each chicken strip into the cornflakes and coat well. Place chicken on a nonstick baking sheet (and be sure to throw out any remaining cornflake mixture). Bake the chicken strips for 10 - 12 minutes (to an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees).

While your chicken is cooking, prepare the sauce by mixing all of the sauce ingredients above and mixing well. And then enjoy!

PS: Our kids love to be involved in this one. Since they are still pretty little, we let them handle the crushing of the cornflakes but not the chicken dipping part. If your kids are older, that's something that they could do as well!

Nutrition Facts Per Serving: (Serving Size 3 Chicken Strips)
Calories: 248, Total Fat: 2 g, Saturated Fat: 1 g, Total Fiber: 1 g, Protein: 30 g, Carbohydrates: 36 g, Potassium: 303 mg, Vitamin A: 4%, Vitamin C: 16%, Calcium: 6%, Iron: 4%

Help Us Choose A Front Door Color!

We need YOUR help!

Although the sellers of our "new" (meaning new to us - built in 1989) house put on a new roof, the exterior of the house needs some sprucing up, much like every inch of the interior. The brick exterior is in pretty good shape, shutters aren't terrible but could probably use a fresh coat of paint, but the exterior wood molding and gutters need some love for sure. And although the landscaping leaves a little something to be desired (I seriously can't help but think of Cousin It every time I look at that random bushy-thing in the middle of two garage windows), we will probably wait to do anything major with that until next year.

One project that I would like to do pretty soon though is spruce up our front door. There are some small rotten sections of wood at the base of the trim and we know all about that from our old home, so that's on the top of the list to get fixed. I also painted our exterior molding in our old home and it made a world of difference, so it's an easy project that we can tackle ourselves. And this is something I'd like to do before winter and the snow piles up and makes the door molding any worse.

But the problem is, that we can't decide what color to go with!

I've been stalking researching some brick homes with black shutters for a little while now and checking out their front doors, and I think we have it narrowed down to black, red or white.

So of course, I whipped up a little something using my trusty PowerPoint skills to try to envision what our home would look like with each of the color combinations. For fun, I added a few bushes and flowers to the front as well.

Here's a shot of our current "cream" front door and molding....

Here's what a new black front door would look like, along with some updated true-white molding around the door frame. Eventually, we would paint all the above wood molding the same true-white as well.

 Here's what a new red front door would look like. Again, with some spruced up true-white molding.

And last but not least, here's what a new white front door with white molding would look like.

I know. You are seriously impressed with my PowerPoint skills. You don't have to tell me.

Right now, I'm leaning towards either the black or the red, but I'm slightly afraid the black door will get too hot in the sun (at least in the summer).

So we need your help! 

If you don't mind...head on over to the poll on the left hand side of the blog (at the top) and let us know which color you think is the best fit! OR feel free to leave a comment with what you think! Maybe a different color we haven't considered?! Thanks so much!!

My Why to Becoming a Beachbody Coach! (From Wes!)

My Why to Becoming a Beachbody Coach! (Hint, it will have a running theme from Laura's!)

What is Beachbody Coaching?  Is it a Pyramid Scheme? Is it some ridiculous sales pitch to get people in hopes to make a few bucks? Is it some fad that will pass in the coming months? As Laura and I have come to find out, it truly is none of these things. All the people we have encountered when we decided to start this journey all had remarkable stories and reason's for joining as a Beachbody coach. And as Laura pointed out, not one of them was financial (which can be a nice side bonus if you are DEDICATED to making it happen.)

Everyone we came across had very personal "why's" and when Laura first brought this opportunity to my attention I was skeptical of the coaching aspect.  However, the more and more I started watching these folks videos and reading their posts about their passions and wants, I started to realize that they all have some very common wants and desires that I have. 

My why started out with the desire for accountability in my workouts and a more healthy eating routine. I am a runner, but I never was truly pushing myself. I always said, "we need to eat more healthy!" Which we would for a week or two then it would tail off. So I saw this is a good opportunity to hold myself more accountable.  How was I going to help or motivate someone to eat well and exercise, if I wasn't really doing it myself?? So, Laura and I did a lot of research, and talked and we ultimately decided to join. And we admit, somewhat still skeptical.

As the next week or so went buy and the more and more video's I watched, everyone always stressed to find your "why" for wanting to coach, which I thought I had.  But as I slowly started to realize that my original "why" was only the surface of my real "why."

I am a federal contractor by day, so the nature of my business is fluid and always changing.  However, over the last five years, I have been blessed with being on a long term contract and have not had to worry about job security.  However, over the past 3 or 4 months, I was in job limbo. I was told by my current contract that I could only stay onboard until the end of July (it dragged to the end of August in the end). So, I began looking at the current openings my company had. I started looking in Mid-March....by the end of July, after sending out over 200 resumes, I didn't get one call back or have one interview lined up. I was told that if July 31st came and I had no job lined up, I would be let go. We had just bought a new house (which we love!), I have two kids to help support, and my wife just had finished cancer treatment. I was trying to hide my stress and fear from the kids and Laura, because God knows we have had enough of that over the last few months. I wanted to be the "strong" one that kept things moving along and didn't want to add to the day to day stress on Laura or the kids. I started to think about what the most important thing to me was, and obviously the first thing that jumped out at me was my family. I had spent so much time over the last 4-5 months worrying over losing my job, I forgot to step back and realize, my family is more important that any corporate job. I wanted to be the Dad who dropped his kids off at the bus stop and was there to see them when they were dropped off in the afternoon. I wanted to be the Dad that was able to be at all the practices, recitals, soccer games, gymnastic practices....I didn't want to miss a second of any of it. Like Laura said, with my job being Federal Contracting I was afraid I was going to wake up one day and realize, I spent the last 10-12 years commuting 4.5 + hours a day to and from work and I got home too late to see Jack pitch in a game or I got home to late to watch Emma score her first goal.

My FAMILY is my why. I still want to be held accountable for my workouts, but the big reason I am so excited about this opportunity is because it could give me the chance to LIVE A LIFE OF DESIGN, own my own time, at all hours, not just between the hours of 7:00pm - 6:00am (giving me a whooping 45 minutes with the kids in the evenings.) To be able to help Emma and Jack establish healthy eating habits, by showing them Mommy and Daddy are doing it too. I want to be there to be the loudest most obnoxious parent cheering when Emma scores a goal or Jack strikes out the side (of course when they are pre-teen and teens, I will need to tone that down a bit or they will disown me for embarrassing them!) With the understanding that I am going to need to WORK to accomplish that, that's ok, because its something that I feel strongly about.

So if this sounds familiar to you, and you are interested in joining our team, or even if you are just looking to start writing a new story for you or your family, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to have you join us in our journey.

Tasty Tuesday: Lemon Chicken w/ Avocado-Corn Salsa

It's "Tasty Tuesday"! 

This Tasty Tuesday's recipe comes from one of our new favorite cook books, "Power Foods." We love this cook book as every recipes has at least one or two "power foods". These power foods are things such as berries, nuts, lean protein's and whole grains. The power food in this recipe is the AVOCADO!!  The avocado is full of "good" fats.

This is one of Laura's favorite recipes. It combines avocado, lemon, black beans and chicken. Its light, full of fresh veggies, and has a ton of flavor. This recipes does involve a little more chopping and prep, so make sure to give yourself plenty of time.We usually save this one for one of our weekend dinners since we have some more time.

Now I have to say that this isn't exactly one of the kid's favorite meals. They will eat the chicken because it's pretty simple but our picky eaters won't usually touch the salsa part. This is a great recipe that you can change based on how you like it. For example, we love black beans, so we usually double the black beans and add some extra tomatoes. To make it easier, we also will just bake the chicken sometimes too. We will also use a spring mix instead of arugula sometimes, based on what other meals we have planned for that week (that way we are only buying one type of lettuce for that week).

I usually like to eat this with a side of brown rice where the meal itself is usually enough for Laura. The meal has a very mexican feel, so a side of brown rice rounds out the meal nicely.  I hope you enjoy this as much as we do!!

Lemon Chicken with Avocado - Corn Salsa

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Avocados in the salsa supply a generous portion of monosaturated fat and fiber. If fresh corn is not in season, opt for frozen; it will taste better and have more nutrients than any "fresh" corn in the grocery store.

What You'll Need

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (6-8 ounces a piece)
• 1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice (from 1-2 lemons)
• 2 ears of corn, husks and silks removed (or 1 cup frozen corn kernels)
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped red jalapeno chiles (ribs and seeds removed for less heat, we have also used green jalapenos)
• 2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1/2 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 red onion, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice (from 3-4 limes)
• 10 cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 2 firm, ripe avocados, halved lengthwise, pitted, peeled, and diced
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
• 4 ounces baby arugula

Directions

Combine chicken with 2 tablespoons each of oil and lemon juice in a shallow baking dish. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for 1 - 3 hours, turning once.

Working in a large bowl, stand each ear of corn on its flat end; shave off kernels with a serated knife (to yield about 1 cup total).Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add corn kernels, chiles, and ginger; cook, stirring frequently, until softened, 3-4 mins. Let it cool.

Heat a grill (or grill pan) to medium heat. Grill chicken until lightly browned and cooked through.

Stir together black beans, onion, corn mixture, lime juice, and 1 tablespoon oil. Add tomatoes, avocados, and 1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste); season with pepper, and stir gently to combine.

Toss the arugula with remaining 2 teaspoons each of oil and lemon juice. Divide evenly among plates, and top with chicken and avocado-corn salsa. And enjoy!

To give you an idea of the health side of this dish, a serving breaks down as:

524 calories; 5 g saturated fat; 4 g unsaturated fat; 68 mg cholestrol; 29 g carbohydrates; 34 g protein; 244 mg sodium; 11 g fiber.