Slow Cooker Chicken Fajitas

There are few things better in a busy woman's life than the aroma of a cooked dinner wafting through the house when she finally makes it home at the end of a long day.

One of my favorite ways to cook during the week is with my slow cooker. The food is always moist, delicious, and (usually) easy to prepare.

Since it is the middle of the week, I thought you could all use a fresh and easy spin on dinner tonight.

Slow Cooker Fajitas

Ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 jalapeno
1 sweet onion
1 jar of salsa
taco seasoning

Add all ingredients to slow cooker with chicken on the bottom. Sprinkle taco seasoning on top. I usually add about half a cup of water as well to ensure nothing burns or dries out. Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4-6. It really all depends on your crockpot. Shred chicken and serve with your favorite Mexican toppings.

Let me know how it turns out!

<3 K.E.

P.S. I really need to share a disclaimer here...this is a delicious recipe- no doubt. However, I have an even better fajita recipe that takes much, much more work. I will share it with you eventually. Just today. Carry on. ;)

Weekly Meal Plan and Groceries

I know I've shared about meal planning before, but I want to elaborate as my meal planning style has changed over the last few months. As long as I can remember, I have loved everything about grocery shopping. Growing up, I went grocery shopping with my mom every week. If I wasn't able to go, I always felt like I missed out on something special. I also quickly became the coupon clipper/list maker for our family. I've may have grown from a little girl to a married woman, but I haven't lost my love for planning meals, writing a list, and perusing the aisles of a grocery store.

I've started to notice that we rarely cook on Fridays. We're so exhausted after a week at work that we just want to veg and end up chilling on the couch watching Lost and eating take out. I've incorporated that into our weekly meal plan so we don't end up with spoiled food.

I planned simple meals around the items on hand. I was lucky because we had quite a bit of chicken left in the freezer. Next week will require a bigger haul from Costco of staples like organic chicken breast and maple syrup. This week was a little different for me, I set a very strict food budget and actually came in well under budget at the register!

My meal plan:

Saturday- Hamburgers (on our new grill!)
Sunday- Crock Pot Chicken and Black Bean Tacos
Monday- Balsamic Chicken (from the April issue of Clean Eating Magazine)
Tuesday- Leftovers or Egg Sandwiches
Wednesday- Grilled Salsa Drumsticks (from the May/June issue of Whole Deal)
Thursday- Crock Pot Chickpea, Butternut Squash, and Red Lentil Stew (from Eat, Live, Run)
Friday- Salmon or Take Out (anything goes on a Friday night!)

The first half of my grocery haul. See the Cap'n Crunch in the background? haha!

I've found the shopping list from Simply Sugar and Gluten-Free to be a very useful tool. Amy created two lists depending on how you shop, a list for one grocery store and a list for four grocery store. This was actually my first week ever using the list for one store! I've been shopping at four store every week (no lie) and decided it was for the birds. So this week I only went to Publix and found grocery shopping was much more enjoyable. Click here for the the downloadable PDF lists from SS&GF.
My list looked like this:

almond milk
creamer
Greek yogurt
eggs
chicken drumsticks
Ben & Jerry's ice cream
Cap'n Crunch (by special request)
BBQ Popchips
salsa
canned black beans
canned chick peas
garam masala
diced tomatoes
carrots
butternut squash
tomato
jalapeno
baby spinach
bananas
sweet onions
3 sweet potatoes
2 Eat Smart veggie packs
Florida oranges
green pepper
blueberries

Grocery Haul Take 2

I made another run yesterday to buy more fruit- grapes, blueberries, and a huge watermelon. We had a quarter of a melon in the fridge and I didn't want to buy more until it was finished, but we devoured it Saturday night with our burgers. It was amazing and still on sale at Publix! Oh, and I still came in under budget!

How do you plan your meals and grocery shop? I'm always looking for great ideas!

<3 K.E.

Happy Holy Week and Goals Revisited

First of all, let me apologize for neglecting you for the past week and a half! Yet again, I was traveling for business. These business trips are not typical by any means...the only two I'll go on all year, just happened to fall within two weeks of each other. Go figure! But now I am back and doing my best to cope...more on that later.

I haven't been making any special meals lately. It's clean out the fridge and pantry time over at my place. We have a lot of food already and I'm trying to eat it up instead of buying more. This means oatmeal, chicken, quinoa, tuna...you get the idea. Using the food I already have is one of my April goals. So far so good!

I will be getting a break from the boring food this weekend for Easter! I'm so excited! Not just for the food, sillies, but also because I will be spending the whole day with family. Breakfast-Dinner. And it will be wonderful. I have a few recipes up my sleeve to try out. If they are yummy I'll share them with you complete with photos and all- I promise.

I wanted to revisit my 2012 Goals as it is the beginning of April and three months have already passed us by far too quickly. If you remember, I shared five goals with you in January. Let's see how I'm doing...

2012 Goals Recap

1.  Practice yoga weekly. Although I dearly love yoga, it hasn't made it into my weekly rotation yet this year. I started strong that first month, but then between trying out a few new group exercise classes at the YMCA and getting back into running, Yoga fell by the way side. My plan is to start doing yoga Friday nights during April and see if that works well for me.

2.  Adhere to a monthly budget. The budget is always a work in progress. However, I think I am progressing! Eating the food already in my pantry comes directly back to this goal. I've been a little off track with my food budget (I get excited when I grocery shop, what can I say?!) and trying to cook and eat the food I've already purchased is really helping curb food spending. It isn't very exciting and I don't necessarily love the food I've been eating lately (which is probably why its been sitting in my freezer/pantry for so long), but I do love not spending money on food! First step, completed!

3.  Eat Clean 80% of the time.  I don't know for sure that I've met this goal, but I think I have come pretty close. Aside from the occasional dirty binge, I've been either making clean foods or eating at places that have relatively clean options (like the Hummus House!). So I'll go ahead a say I'm on track for goal number three. To ensure progress, I'm limiting eating out to once a week for the month of April.

4.  Move my body 4x week.  Now this took some time, but I gradually built up to it. With few exceptions (last week's travel being one of them- and even then I ran once and walked miles and miles all over DC) I'm doing pretty well with goal number four. Some things I've been doing- although incosistently- in March to meet this goal include Spinning, Pilates, running, and strength training. I'm amping it up a notch for April. Here is my workout plan for this month:

Sunday- Run 4-6 miles (I'm training for a 10k on May 12th so this will be increasing from 4 to 6 miles over the next few weeks.)
Monday- Core Performance (My strength training of choice.  Not too intense, but I always notice such a difference on it. It also really helps with my posture.)
Tuesday- Spinning and Pilates at the YMCA (LOVE LOVE LOVE the instructor! She's awesome!)
Wednesday- Run 5k
Thursday- Core Performance
Friday- Run 5k AM and Yoga PM
Saturday- Off

It is kind of intense to have a significant workout every day of the week and two on Tuesday nights, but I have some extra time right now and I really want to amp it up. If it gets to be too much, I have a back up plan that also gives me Wednesday as an off day.

And finally...

5.  Spend an hour each week doing something that is personally enriching.  I have been making a conscious effort to spend time doing things I enjoy. Mostly that has been fitting in my workout time...so maybe I haven't fully grasped the purpose of this goal. Some of my enriching activites in the last few months include, hosting a Baseball Draft party, trying local restaurants in Indianapolis and D.C. while traveling, reading the Hunger Games trilogy, subscribing to Clean Eating magazine, movie dates with my hubby,and last Sunday I went to dinner and a movie with my mom and sister. I have more reading on the agenda for April (finishing up the last Hunger Games novel), there are a few movies I want to see, and lunch dates to plan with friends. I'd also like to fit in a beach trip if possible. :)

As you can see, I haven't been 100% with any of my goals so far this year. However, I really think that is the point of a "goal." It is something you are striving for. As long as I am making steady progress I'm happy, because that means I'll get there. Its the stagnant times you have watch out for!

<3 K.E.

My First Flop & Meal Planning

After two months of married- and food- bliss, I finally met a recipe I didn't like: French Onion Soup. I followed the recipe exactly, but the end result was nothing like the photo in my cookbook and we ended up eating fresco Taco Bell. Oh well. I guess that is how it goes- you win some food battles and you lose some. Needless to say, I will be steering clear of onion soup in the future.

On a brighter note: it is Friday, which means it is time to plan meals, make a grocery list, and go grocery shopping- three things that I love doing. My meal planning usually starts by checking the weekly sales online for Publix and Whole Foods. Then I browse through clean eating blogs and my cookbooks to see if anything strikes my fancy and correlates to items on sale. 

Tip:  I always make a recipe that serves at least 4, leaving enough leftovers for lunch the next day.  This saves prep time in the morning and you end up with a more nutritious midday meal.

Just for fun, here is my meal plan from this week. I haven't developed next week's yet- I get to play with that goodness tonight! (Which I will share this weekend along with a few of the recipes!)

Monday- Shrimp Scampi
Tuesday- Grilled Flank Steak with Jicama Relish
Wednesday- Chicken Pot Pie
Thursday- French Onion Soup (Yes, this was the great idea turned total flop.)
Friday- Black-eyed Pea Stew

I know this coming week will have at least one dish with shrimp because wild caught shrimp is onsale for $5.99/lb at Whole Foods! What a great price! 

How do you plan your meals? What are you having for dinner this week?

<3 K.E.