Yumm-O!

Diet. Diet is an aweful word. Its a FOUR letter word in our house, if you catch my drift. 😉  But diet in terms of what you eat, not necessarily being on a diet, is a huge part of a weight loss journey. At least it really should be. If you are not making a conscious decision to eat healthy(er) then, in my opinion, you are eating yourself to death.

I know that I was personally eatting myself to death. If I kept going the way that I was going I would die much sooner than I wanted to. For me, I make a consious decision to eat healthier every day. Its not easy in any way, in fact its Fucking difficult. Its hard. I dont always eat healthy 100% of the time. I still eat crap that I crave or just really want, but I make a consious choice of putting something into my body instead of doing it absent mindedly like I use to.

I track my calories EVERY DAY, even on my bad days where I just cant seem to fill up.  I have weeks (usually the week before my monthly visitor) where I just want to eat everything in site…and yes it happens. I dont feel too bad about it though because I still have to live my life. I dont want to feel like I’ve deprived myself everyday from things that I want. At the end of the day I still want to feel like I lived a life and really, truely ENJOYED it and that includes eating yummy food!

Anyways, I thought I would post one of my favourite recipes that I am in love with right now. If you know me, then you know that I am addicted to Pinterest! and I have a few boards dedicated to Healthy meals, healthy lunches, healthy snacks etc. Well I found this recipe at Home Cooked Memories and it is to die for! Baked Turkey Meatballs with Spinache.  They are so moist and flavourful that you would not even know that they are under 55 calories each!

I made a big batch and I froze them in a large ziploc bag. Now I just go in when I’m prepping my lunches and grab a few to throw in as my protein. They are amazing when you reheat them, they didn’t seem to dry out at all. This was my lunch today. I used 3 meatballs, 1 cup of Uncle Bens rice and 2 cups of steamed broccoli and cauliflower. You can make your rice or grain however you want, I just choose Uncle Bens for convenience.

Well here is the recipe and a link to the blog where I found them:

Baked Turkey Meatballs with Spinach

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon dried thyme leaves
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• ¼ – ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional – adjust to your preference)
• 16 oz frozen chopped spinach (defrosted, drained, and squeezed to remove excess water)
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• ⅓ cup chicken broth
• 2½ lbs lean ground turkey
• ¾ cup bread crumbs
• 2 large eggs

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare a large baking sheet by spraying with cooking spray. I actually line my baking sheet with foil and then spray with cooking spray.
2. In a frying pan on medium heat, heat olive oil until hot. Then add onion, garlic, salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Sauté until onion is tender (about 5-6 minutes total time).
3. Add spinach to pan and combine with onion mixture. Add Worcestershire sauce and chicken broth and mix well to combine. Cook until most of the liquid has cooked out (evaporated). I don’t have much liquid in my pan after I combine all these, but it will depend on how well you drained your spinach. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
4. In a large bowl, combine the turkey, bread crumbs, and egg. Add cooled onion/spinach mixture to the meat. I do all of this step with my hands, but you can use a spoon if you prefer.
5. 5. With your hands, create meatballs that are about 1 – 1½ inches in diameter and place them on the baking sheet. Leave a little bit of space between each meatball. When you are done shaping your meatballs, you will probably have about 40-42 meatballs from this recipe. Don’t need that many? Freeze them after baking or cut this recipe in half (but I say freeze them and then you’ve done the work only once and have a future meal).
6. Bake until your meatballs are cooked through with an internal temperature of 160 degrees F – which was about 20 minutes for my oven. Remove from oven and serve as desired.