Category: Dinner

Dallas, Y’all!

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Howdy! (sorry, I had to!) Sorry for being a little MIA this week (I tried to keep you entertained with some facebook updates, photo’s and workouts, though), but from the time my alarm went off at 5am on Tuesday from the time I walked in the door Thursday night at 10:15pm, I had literally zero free time.  It’s a good thing that I like my coworkers so much:)

I am not going to recap everything, but I will say that there were some very funny videos, terrific speakers and lots of laughs!  I kept Tuesday night fairly low-key since I knew I had to be at the hotel for my professional photo at 7am on Wednesday morning.  I lead a very small boot camp workout (big thanks to JP and Doan for showing up!) before meeting up with the crew for a Mexican dinner. Check out the size of this gym!!! Amazing. I was in fitness heaven:)

004 003We just did a quick 25 minute workout- 5 minute warm up & 2 10 minute circuits of 10 moves done for 60 seconds each. I did a similar workout in my hotel room on Wednesday morning, too. Even though I had to get up so early, I knew I wouldn’t regret the workout!

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Wednesday night was the awards dinner. I knew I might be in trouble when we had a happy hour that lasted, ohhh like 2 hours. Whoops! (note to self, there is really no need to double fist when it’s an open bar all night.)

009 010 011Post dinner, more drinks and socializing, we managed to round up the troops and head to Sfuzzi’s. Enter: more drinks, loads of dancing, and a push-up contest. Yes, you read that correctly.

PushupSonja took a video, but it was too dark and blurry. I will say, though, that I won the contest haha

Anyway, I love that I have lots of fun work friends, it’s just a shame that we work in offices across the country.  Maybe that’s why things get so messy when we get together?

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SO, that about sums it up! Thursday was definitely a ROUGH day, but every now and again it feels good to let loose and have fun!

Questions for you: Work trips- fun or not fun? Ever been to Dallas?

Shrimp & Veggie Scampi

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I wasn’t sure what I wanted to make for my “Sunday Dinner” this week. I am traveling to Dallas Tuesday through Thursday and knew I didn’t want any leftovers;  I needed something where I could throw some stuff together and add as much or as little as I wanted.  Enter: a veggie dish… veggie scampi dish. I have been craving seafood lately and the grocery store just happened to have some jumbo shrimp on sale- perfect!

Healthy Shrimp & Veggie Scampi

Ingredients (rough estimates- I never measure anything!)

  • 1/4 lb. of jumbo shrimp (this was just for me- recipe for 1, remember:) )
  • 1/2 cup (ish) of white wine
  • 2-3 tbsp. EVOO
  • 1 tsp butter
  • 1 tbsp. garlic (minced)
  • 1/4-1/2 cup of sliced onions
  • 1/4 cup of sliced green pepper
  • 1/4 cup chopped broccoli
  • 1/4 cup sliced summer squash
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • Whole wheat angel hair spaghetti (1 serving)

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Directions:

1. Start the water for the spaghetti. Sautee onions, garlic, EVOO, butter, wine and the juice of 1 lemon for 3-5 minutes. Add in the other veggies & reduce the heat.  I also added some lemon zest which was a great addition!

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2. Once the spaghetti is added to the boiling water, add the shrimp to the wine & veggies.  The shrimp was pre-cooked, so all I wanted to do was heat it up and not actually cook it anymore.

3. Add some spaghetti to a bowl, top with the scampi mixture, sprinkle with a little parmesan cheese and voila! Dinner is served!

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(Please note: I had some extra scampi mixture leftover… hoping that it reheats well tomorrow!)

I was pleasantly surprised with how delicious this dish turned out to be.  Scampi dishes are usually laden with loads of butter and oil, leaving you feeling a little greasy when you finish eating (right? my lips are always so soft after I eat a restaurant scampi dish, and I know it’s from the oil and butter coating them!), but this meal left me feeling full and satisfied, but not greasy in the least bit! I think the meal took me maybe a half hour from start to finish (probably even less), so this is a great week night meal to add to your rotation!

Bon appetit!

Questions for you: What is your favorite meal to “healthify”? Guilty pleasure meal? Do share:)

A New Take to Leftovers

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Ugh. What a miserably cold, windy and rainy day! I am still not sure why I decided to wear tights and straighten my hair today (really, I had no real reason to do either of these things… except I didn’t wash my hair yesterday since I didn’t work out, so straightening it was the best option I had… shhh it’s not that gross!).  At least I had my cute Sperry Rubber Slip On’s on (does that make sense? I hate when 2 of the same words are next to each other in a sentence):

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That’s really all I had going for me this morning, though. The T was delayed and the masses of people ON the T was horrific. I don’t plan on going outside for the rest of the day:)

Anyway, I need to tell you about my dinner last night! Tuesday’s are my “rest” days from the gym, so last night I went home, did 30 minutes of self-practice yoga in my room and then thought about what I could have for dinner.  I wasn’t really in the mood for stuffed peppers or taco salad, but I did want to use some of the leftover pepper stuffing.  Enter: a “Taco” Quesadilla! This week, I ended up buying these wraps. They are the perfect size (most are so big!) and really low in calories so it’s a great way to get a little carb fix in without feeling too guilty about it!

All I did was layer a little shredded cheese on half of it, some of the taco mixture from Sunday and then a little more cheese.

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And, voila! A delicious and relatively healthy weeknight meal.  I didn’t even feel like I was eating leftovers- that’s the best part!

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Now, if only I had something a little more exciting for lunch… This week I have been getting back to the basics with healthy salads, greek yogurt and fruit. My coworker and I call this “Moe’s Leaning Tower Lunch”.

001It’s quite the struggle carrying all those containers from the kitchen to the lunch room (it’s a much farther walk than you would think!).  Broken down, it’s a salad with veggies, quinoa and goat cheese, dressing, greek yogurt (really liked the Hannaford “Inspirations” brand!) and strawberries. Yum, yum, yum! (and, when I have a salad for lunch, I feel like I don’t have to worry about eating as many vegetables at dinner time… please tell me I am not the only one who uses that type of rationalization…)

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I am excited to teach UXF Burn tonight- Hoping I have a huge turnout like last week.  I am feeling MUCH better and I am ready to kick people’s butts tonight:)

Hope you’re all staying warm and try!

Questions for you: Leftovers: love ’em or hate ’em? How is your week going?

Stuffed Peppers and Taco Salad

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Hi there! I teased all of you with some pretty tasty looking pictures from our dinner last night, so I thought it was only fair to share the recipes with you!  Per usual, I did not follow a recipe and did not measure anything out, but hopefully you can follow along from the pictures and “make it your own” with some of my suggestions!

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Stuffed Peppers

I chose to use 3 peppers today.  I washed them, cut the tops off and cleared out the seeds. I decided to steam the peppers tonight, versus baking them or using the crock pot. I steamed them for about 10-12 minutes (I just went until they seemed to be getting soft… use your judgement!)

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While the peppers were steaming, I cut up the veggies.  Tonight, I decided to use peppers (didn’t want the top part to go to waste!), onions, broccoli and mushrooms. I sauteed these with a little EVOO, salt & pepper… and wine 😉

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017Once the veggies were 95% cooked, I added in some frozen corn.  After all of the veggies were cooked, I moved them to a bowl and started to cook the ground chicken (1 lb).  We found low sodium taco seasoning which helps to make this meal even a little healthier than it already was!

019Adding in some black beans is a great way to get in some extra protein! Once the chicken, beans and taco seasoning are finished cooking, add this mixture to the bowl with the veggies and mix everything together.

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At this point, you’re all ready to stuff your peppers! I topped mine with a little cheese and baked for about 15 minutes at 350*, finishing up with a little broil action to get the nice, toasted cheese on the top!

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Don’t they look so delicious?!  You’ll notice that the one on the left looks a little different… that is because instead of using the taco chicken and veggie mixture, I simply used some of the veggies (before I mixed in the taco chicken and beans), quinoa, goat cheese and marinara.  Lately, I have been making a batch of quinoa on Sundays so I can have it handy throughout the week to add to salads and other things, so I thought I would use some in a stuffed pepper.  I have to say, my sister and I both really liked this vegetarian version of the stuffed peppers!

Taco Salad

Simply take the veggie, chicken and beans taco mixture that you made for the stuffed peppers and serve atop a bed of lettuce. Top with some salsa and tortilla chips and you’ve got yourself a tasty, healthy taco salad!

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So, there ya go! This meal did not take long at all to put together and the cleanup was also minimal- loved it! Let me know if you make it, and feel free to shoot me an email if you want more specifics on anything! Enjoy:)

Friday Night=Homemade Pizza Night!

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Hello again! Two posts in one day… how fun! I teased you in my post earlier today when I mentioned homemade pizza night, so I thought it was only fair to blog about it as soon as we finished eating.  For those of you who are Facebook friends and follow me on Instagram (Mgagnon85 if you want to follow me!), you’ve seen LOTS of pizza pictures.  Guilty as charged: we LOVE making pizza. In fact, on Christmas Eve, we have a bunch of family friends over for a BIG pizza party… few pics from this past Christmas Eve:

Cooking at the Gagnon's is NEVER done without wine in hand!

Cooking at the Gagnon’s is NEVER done without wine in hand!

Mahoney boys and Gagnon girls. Wouldn't be Christmas Eve without this crew!

Mahoney boys and Gagnon girls. Wouldn’t be Christmas Eve without this crew!

While I was home in Maine last weekend, I went grocery shopping with my mom. Hannaford carries Portland Pie Company pizza dough, which is by far the BEST pizza dough (unless my dad makes his pizza dough because, really, nothing beats homemade pizza dough), so I grabbed the Garlic one to bring back to MA with me.

If you don’t have access to this delicious dough, you can usually find a store brand dough in the deli section at the grocery store… they work juuuust fine.

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 450*. Sprinkle some flour onto your clean working surface and start to spread out the dough. I do this by hand to start and then use a rolling-pin if I need to.

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2. We have a pizza stone, which is one of my favorite kitchen items! I usually cook the dough a little before adding toppings.  This isn’t necessary, but it helps to eliminate soggy pizza:)

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3. Top with sauce, cheese and any toppings of your choice! We always add a little oregano to the sauce… it really makes a difference! If we top with veggies, we usually sautee those a little before putting them on the pizza.  Tonight we went simple and just put peppers on one half, and turkey pepperoni on the other half.

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4. Pop into the oven and cook for 10-15 minutes, or until the cheese has browned up a little.

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Make sure your cat doesn’t get stuck in the fridge since you’re in and out of it so much (my sister had the camera and caught this- I was not happy about it!)…

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Personally, I like to enjoy my pizza with some veggies or a salad, pita chips and hummus, and wine- of course! Enjoy!