On Friday October 15th I officially launched my "Fit Cuisine" cooking class and gathering. I could not have asked for a better turn out and response. The evening was filled with good food, wine, and great company. We hosted at my mothers home which has an amazing Tuscan Kitchen. She was by far a great chef's assistant along with my sister. I was able to answer many questions on how I prepare healthy, quick meals, demonstrate how I do it, and then prove to everyone how delish it can taste. The response from the guests were nothing but great, and everyone got to go home with a card to host a part of their own as well as the menu form the evening class. It was truly a great start to what is about to be an amazing venture. I am working on the "Fit Cuisine" cooking manual now and hope to have it out as soon as possible. Listed below is the menu that we prepared. Started: Presentation Salad Ingredients: 1 small can Mandarin Oranges (drained) 1 English Cucumber sliced 1 package Mixed Greens 1 Endive sliced 2 TBSP dried Craisins 1 Small Fennel bulb chopped 1 TBSP toasted Pine Nuts This is a ‘toss in one bowl’ dish. Add your mixed greens, endive and fennel. Then toss in your cucumbers, pine nuts and craisins. Toss that all together and finally layer the mandarin oranges around the bowl for presentation. Serve with your favorite light vinegar or squeezed lemon. Main Course: Whole Wheat Orecchiette Pasta with Garlic Oil and Pine Nuts Ingredients: 1 Box Whole Wheat Pasta 1 Tbsp Toasted Pine Nuts 1 Garlic Bulb 2 Tbsp Olive Oil 2 Tbsp Grated Parmesan Cheese Cook pasta according to package. Take your pine nuts and toast them on low-heat in a small pot for about 4 minutes. In a saute pan, heat your olive oil and garlic bulb. You are not going to mash the garlic; it is going to be infused into the oil. (approximately 5 minutes). Drain your pasta and place into your bowl; pour the oil and garlic mixture on top and toss together. Add your pine nuts and grated parmesan cheese. Toss again and serve. Chicken with Tomato, Basil and Goat Cheese Ingredients: 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper 4 (6oz) Skinless, Boneless Chicken Breast halves 1 cup Grape Tomatoes sliced 16-20 pitted Kalamata or Black Olives halved ½ can Artichokes in water drained and sliced 2 TBSP Sun dried Tomatoes chopped in oil 3-4 Tbsp Light Balsamic Vinaigrette 3 Tbsp crumbled Goat or Mozzarella Cheese 2 Tbsp fresh Basil leaves chopped Preparation: 1. Sprinkle pepper over chicken. 2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add chicken to pan; cook 6 minutes or so on each side until it is done. Transfer chicken to a platter and keep it warm. 3. Combine tomatoes, artichokes, sun dried tomatoes, olives, and vinaigrette in a medium bowl. 4. Add tomato mixture to pan; cook 1 to 2 minutes or until tomatoes are soft. Spoon over chicken. Top evenly with cheese and basil. Dessert: Fresh Fruit with Yogurt Dressing and Angel Food Cake Ingredients: 1 Cup Fat Free Greek Yogurt 1 tsp Honey ½ tsp Cinnamon 1 Banana sliced in circles 4 Strawberries sliced in half 2 Tbsp of Raspberries 2 Tbsp Blueberries 1 Store bought Angel Food Cake sliced In a small bowl: combine yogurt, honey, and cinnamon. (Making sure all ingredients are well stirred). Place your Angel Food Cake on a dish and place your fruit on top. Drizzle with the yogurt sauce and serve. If you are interested in hosting a "Fit Cuisine" Class please feel free to contact me. fitness121@aol.com

Baked Apple Crisp

I love warm baked fruit, especially apples. It goes so well with gelato or ice cream. When Frank and I go to dinner he usually will say "if I get dessert what are you most likely to try or share?" I always say fruit pie or tart of some sort. I wanted to try something without all the calories and fat that the restaurants have so I came up with this.

Ingredients:

4-5 apples sliced (I used Gala)

1 TBSP Organic Raw Brown Sugar

1-2 packets of Instant Cinnamon Roll Oatmeal

1 tsp dried Cranberries

Cooking Spray

Preheat the oven to 375. Take a baking dish and spray it. Place your sliced apples on the dish and layer them all around, sprinkle your sugar, oatmeal packet, and cranberries on top. Place in the oven for 15 minutes and serve.

Tips:

This was a total look in the pantry surprise. It came out really good. I put it in my Greek yogurt for lunch yesterday and I was impressed with the flavors. It was not at all to sweet, but if you want to use low sugar oatmeal you can. I just don't enjoy stevia/splenda; it is garbage for the stomach. You can also serve this with frozen yogurt, or any ice cream of your choice.

Apple Sauce

I love apples, eat one everyday. So I was excited when a client of mine dropped of a huge bag of apples she picked at a friends orchard. The only problem was what to do with 3 lb of them. So I decided to make apples sauce and give it to my nieces to snack on, and of course Frank. It was so easy and the final product was excellent. I recommend you give it a try. So lets get started.

(The amount of apples is based on how many people you want to serve)

Ingredients:

5-8 apples of your liking (sliced)

1 TBSP Cinnamon

Take all your apples and slice them with the skin on (skin has all the nutrients). Place them in a pot of water and let it come to a boil until soft. It should be about 10 minutes. Drain your apples and place them back into your pot. Using a masher, blender or food processor, spoon your apples into the processor, sprinkle your Cinnamon, and pulse till smooth. Once you are done place into a container and refrigerate for and hour.

Tips:

I did this in two batches, so I don't overflow the processor. Apple sauce can also be frozen so if you want to make up a bunch and freeze it go right ahead. This is great in oatmeal, or you can use it to bake with in place of oil.

5 Nutritional Mistakes

This is from my friend out in Nevada, he sums up exactly what I preach about health and nutrition. Wanted to share it with you. Enjoy! Nutrition has often been recognized as the most effective way to improve immunity, increase longevity, decrease risk for chronic diseases, lose weight, gain lean muscle tissue, and feel well. With such an important aspect of life, why is it so confusing, and why don't most of us enjoy the benefits of a healthy diet? There are 5 key mistakes that I believe are limiting you from reaching all of the benefits provided by a healthy diet and what you can do to change these mistakes into learning experiences and get better. 1. Eating too much like everyone else The modern North American diet is composed of mostly what? Usually whatever people feel like eating, or whatever they are being sold or told to eat. There is no rhyme or reason behind the physiology of why they should eat certain foods. I have news for you, you are different than any other person you meet and thus you need to nourish your body differently than everyone else. Do you know someone that has had great results with one typical diet plan, and someone else that has completely failed with that same plan? The key to learning from this is to listen to your body and feed the body the most nutrient dense foods it deserves. If your body doesn't agree with a certain food or makes you feel sluggish or slow then you should limit your consumption. 2. Ignoring the importance of workout and post-workout nutrition Pre-workout, during workout and post-workout are the most important times of the day to eat if fat loss, and muscle gain/maintenance are your goal. Not to get too much into the physiology of it, but you must also listen to your body, monitor your energy levels before, during and after an exercise bout, and make some adjustments accordingly. 3. Not adding good fats There has been a lot of misinformation about fats in the media in the past few years, but it’s important to understand just how important they are to a healthy diet. Fats are great for maintaining hormonal balance, increasing the fluidity of cells, and forming the membranes of most cells. However, we must make sure to get our fats from good sources like avocados, nuts, olive oil, flax seeds, fatty fish,etc. These are the fats we need, not the fats found in fruit pastries and bakery rolls. 4. Poor breakfast habits Breakfast sets your metabolism up for the entire day, skip it and watch your metabolism stay in a FASTED state. Breakfast is the perfect time of the day to get some good, energy boosting and nutritious foods in. If you are new to eating breakfast then start small and make sure you eat some high quality whole foods. 5. Not getting enough protein, vegetables and/or water. Too many people get barely the recommended amount of protein per day. Since there is no storage of protein in the body, it is important that we get enough or our muscles and various other cells of the body will become degraded. Vegetables have phytonutrients in them that have shown to reduce the risks for chronic diseases, and improve health. In general it is safe to say we don't get anywhere close to the recommended amount of vegetables per day. 5-6 servings is recommended, and we usually only eat vegetables for dinner, and this has to change if improved health is a goal. Water is the most biologically important nutrient that we can get, you can go a few days without eating, but how many days can you go without water? Far less than you would think.

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

The other night Frank and I went to dinner at one of our favorite Montclair restaurant, 32 Church. We actually sat behind a Jonas Brother...don't know which one. Anyway the special soup was Butternut Squash with Apple. So I was intrigued to try it without using cream...I wanted a lightly spiced clean feeling. So here is what I did. Ingredients: 1 Batch of already cut butternut squash (or half of a whole one) 3 Honeycrisp Apples (skin removed and sliced) 1 small onion chopped 1 Container of Low Sodium Vegetable stock (organic) Dash of Thyme Dash of Black Pepper 1 Tbsp Olive Oil 1 Small Container of Fage 0% Yogurt Preheat Oven to 400 degrees. On a baking sheet place your squash, apples, and onions. Coat everything with the thyme, olive oil, and pepper. Place into the oven for about 30 minutes. In a pot place your vegetable stock and heat, once heated thru turn on low and simmer till vegetables are done. Take your vegetables/fruit from the oven place it in the pot of vegetable stock. Let it come to a boil for about 5 minutes so that everything is soft. Take a blender, food processor or emulsion blender and whip everything together. Remove from heat for and let it cool a bit before you place your yogurt. Once cooled add the yogurt and some more pepper to taste whip or stir on last time. Heat again and serve. Tips: I loved the way this came out. It sounds weird but it is so clean tasting and healthy that you can eat 2 bowls and not have all that salt and crazy spices. Plus you get added fiber from the apples, and protein from the yogurt. I used yogurt so that I can get a creamy texture without the fat.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

So fall has come and it is time to start using the great fruits and vegetables at the markets. So with that said I decided to try Acorn Squash. Never cooked it but hey how hard can it be. So I researched different ways to prepare it, but none strikes me as healthy. I didn't want to use butter or brown sugar (it's not dessert). I decided to stuff it, with something other than ground turkey. I must say it was delish and I got 5 stars from the bossman (he did eat all of this and 1/2 of mine again). Ingredients: 3 Acorn Squash (or use however many you are serving) 1 package of Sweet Turkey Sausage links (casing removed) 1/2 tsp Minced Garlic 1/2 tsp Olive Oil 1/2 tsp Pesto 4 Vine Tomatoes (chopped) 1 cup Chopped Spinach 3 Tbsp cooked Quinoa 3-4 Tbsp Marinara Sauce Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Take you acorn squash and slice the tops off, scooping out the seeds and taking the stringy flesh out. Place squash in the microwave for 3 minutes till slightly soft. Remove and let sit to the side to cool. Now take your saute pan and place your olive oil, garlic and sausage. Let the sausage cook till no longer pink. Put your pesto, spinach, quinoa, chopped tomatoes, and marinara to the mixture and stir together over medium heat. Let it blend together for about 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat and place your squash on a spray baking tray, scoop your mixture into the squash and place in the oven for about 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve. Tips: I served this with a roasted vegetable salad. It was really good and yes you can eat the skin. Make sure the squash is really soft, so that it is easy to eat with a spoon or fork. This is a great complete meal. You get protein, complete grain, and vegetable. Easy to serve for large party or group.

Chicken Roll with Goat Cheese and Asparagus

I love asparagus, I eat it just about every night. I actually go to Costco and buy 3 large bunches for myself and Frank for the week. I also like how quick easy and healthy chicken is, and to add some extra excitement I fell in love with goat cheese after eating a salad made with it and asparagus. I know that most people would say that goat cheese if fattening but NO. It has CLA in it which is a fat burning agent plus a little won't hurt....just don't tell my husband. It took me so long to get him into goat cheese; still working on Feta. So here is the recipe: Ingredients: 4 Thin Chicken Breasts 1 Small Roll or Herb Goat Cheese 5 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar 1 Tbsp Olive Oil 1 tsp Ms Dash Tomato Basil Garlic Seasoning 8 Asparagus Spears cut in half Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl combine your balsamic, olive oil, and seasoning, stir together. Take your chicken breast and place flat on the cutting board. Use your goat cheese roll and spread a layer along the top of the breast. Take your 2 spears of asparagus and place it to the top of the chicken and slowly start to roll the chicken breast down to the other end; wrapping the spear with it. Take a baking dish sprayed and place your chicken. Use your balsamic marinade and coat the top and sides of the chicken with a brush, making sure you get everything coated. Place in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and serve. I made this dish over the weekend for my client....So yummy. Tips: Serve with vegetable and quinoa, or salad and sweet potato.