Coach Kirstin

The struggle is real.  Between working and them finding time to eat some thing other than takeout pizza, do my physical therapy, spend time with the baby and the husband it is seriously hard to fit it all in. Oh and sleep.  The older I get, the more sleep becomes non negotiable. We are also trying to eat with McKenna so she sees us eat and follows suit. It also allows me to give her things off my plate, which she definitely is more interested by.  This has actually been a huge struggle as our window in the evening is so limited with her, I don't want to spend it cooking and not spending time with her.  So the goal is to keep our meals simple and do as much ahead of time as possible. The downside to this is the Husband and I usually spend time chatting and relaxing during our meals as it’s always been our alone time together. But sleep. So I came up with a plan for the week and cooked the majority of our food on Sunday.  I really only made salsa because my freez...

So dinner tonight came about because one night I had chicken and I really didn't have a very good plan.  I decided to scan my cabinets and see what I had.  Diced tomatoes and tomato paste it was.  Here is what I ended up using 3 cans diced tomatoes (I'm a nerd and had organic) 1 can tomato sauce (because I'm paranoid its going to burn while I'm gone) 1 small can tomato paste 4 cloves garlic ~ 1 tbsp basil ~1  tbsp oregano few dash's of salt, I prefer to add this after I tossed it all in the crock pot the night before and went to bed.  Not pretty but this was my masterpiece. Plugged it in and went to work.  Of course the can of tomato sauce was completely unnecessary but I'm paranoid.  Came home and all I had to do was cook a veggie.  I was really craving Kale with Bacon and with my boyfriend out of town, I can cook it with even more apple cider vinegar than usual.  Its my favorite side to cook because its easy and quick. ...

So I have a recent affair to confess to...my crockpot. It has made my life exponentially simpler. I come home and he has a hot meal prepared and waiting, what's not to love? Except every recipe I google is cook this and that and then put it in the crock pot....I'm using the crock pot so I can just dump it in an forget it, why would I want to cook anything before I put it in the crock pot. I get it, you can make some pretty amazing stuff. But lets think about my life...its planned out in 15 minute increments still and I'm not even fighting anymore, the prep work involved in that is not my style. Sooo I am working on a new section of my blog of no prep crock pot recipes. I am sure to have a few fails. So this was my first experiment. We were short on time and had a lot of chicken thighs in the freezer. So into the bottom of the crock pot went 6 chicken thighs On top of that I added: 2, 14 oz cans of diced tomatoes 6 oz can tomato paste 1/2 onion coarsely chopped ...

About three years ago I was in NM visiting for a friends wedding and my dad convinced me to eat tomatoes.  I had protested prior to this for texture reasons.  But these were from his garden.  And honestly, Ill do pretty much anything my dad asks me to.  They were pretty fantastic but that spoiled me, there are few things as good as tomatoes picked when they are ripe from a garden in your back yard.  Though I still eat them almost every day.  They are a staple to my diet, even in winter when they don't taste that good, I just put more salt on.  Or in this case, add a little balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic and mozzarella and put it on top of chicken for a little grilled chicken bruschetta .  Im always looking for ways to make chicken because lets be honest, it gets really quite boring.  There is only so much that spices can do.  The hard part is keeping it within the diet.  This is a pretty good combo and has now been added to the...

I have had a cold pretty much since I came back from Vegas.  I thought I had turned the corner but this weekend it got worse.  I spent most of the weekend coughing and because of that not sleeping so much.  I always find it ironic that the thing you need most when you are sick is the hardest thing to do.  Being a little more than fed up with this, I went to the dr this morning.  Sinus infection.  And a chest x-ray just for fun because Im now a sinus infection regular.  So wanting something a little easy and warm today, I decided to make my first soup...how hard can it be right.  I love soups with veggies but every soup has corn in it.  And I have a mild allergy to corn.  Trying not to agitate my sore (sore really doesn't describe, its more like raw) throat anymore I wanted to make my own soup.  So into the crockpot went chicken broth, 2 cans of diced tomatoes and 3 chicken breasts.  I found potatoes, a red pepper and broccoli i...