healthy dessert - copycat samoas girl scout cookie pie recipe

Have you heard of Chocolate Covered Katie? 

C'mon. Surely you have. She has this amazingly indulgent looking blog that conjures up images of calorie overload just looking at it. 

And then you dig a little deeper and realize, it's all good. I mean, as in all good-for-you. 

Katie contacted me recently (a rather jaw dropping moment for me since she's like, super major big time blogger, and I'm just Regan) and asked if I would do a guest blog post for her blog about my Frozen Samoas Pie.

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a big announcement

No baby. No book. No impending move. 

I'm launching a new site. 

(Does this sound familiar? As I've said to more than one friend and colleague, I'm promising myself that we're closing in on the last of the sites that I'll launch. I'm going venture a bet that I own more URLs than any other RD in North America. I'm not saying that's necessarily something to boast about or even be terribly proud of, but it's a title I think I can claim... or at least hold runner-up status?) 

And with that I introduce you to

FitFramed.com 

Fit Framed is to the fitness blog world what Healthy Aperture is to the healthy food blogging world. It's a photo gallery site curating content submitted by users whose posts are focused on fitness.

And it's brand spanking new. Just launched today! 

It's no secret I spend most of my day entrenched in online communications - both for my sites & for the businesses I consult with as ReganMillerJones, Inc. And it occurred to me during a long run one day (I believe it was actually while I was on vacation in the Dominican Republic) that fitness bloggers are way under served in terms of syndication options for their content. I'm not sure why or how I became so dedicated to giving bloggers who publish healthful content - now both food & fitness - a bigger share of the online voice. But clearly, with The Recipe ReDux, Healthy Aperture and Fit Framed, I have made it a priority. There's A LOT of great content out there and sometimes, it's not always found on the biggest, most heavily trafficked blogs. My goal is to provide a platform where all good content - no matter what the size - can be found.

I hope you will check it out and help spread the word. It's awfully slim on content right now... that happens with a new site, you know? I remember when Healthy Aperture launched, we only had about 12 images and now there thousands upon thousands of images! And most importantly, I hope you will check the site often to take a look at the best fitness content the web has to offer.  

{the recipe redux} truffula tree fruity clafouti

With the Oscars just days away, the ReDux decided to pay homage this month to our favorite food-in-the-movie dishes. When we first decided on the theme, I immediately knew what movie I wanted to honor - a 1968 nominee for Best Picture, Funny Girl.

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my favorite menu planning tool + slow cooker rosemary roast

I recently mentioned my foodness for a new meal planning site called PlantoEat. Here's just one of the reasons why:

No, the site didn't deliver the dish, nor was it the source of the recipe. But it's wonderfully simple, yet powerful platform for recipe organization and integrated shopping lists have meant meals like this were easily planned and purchased without multiple trips to the grocery store, lost shopping lists or moments of "Oh, I forgot to get the carrots!)

(I learned about the site when Real Mom Nutrition mentioned it on Facebook. Thank you Sally!)

There are loads of good menu planning sites out there, some that will even offer you pre-planned menus (check out eMeals. The folks over there are super nice and they really do have a lot of good menu choices.) MyRecipes - one of my all time favorite sources for recipes - also offers a "Save to Shopping List Function", which helps if you're like me and like to have a digital record of what you need from the grocery store.

But the limitations with most sites are either that they don't have a powerful shopping list function that allows you to easily sort/add or they don't allow for you to add recipes from other sources not affiliated with their site.

PlantoEat does away with all of those obstacles. I'm still discovering all of the things it can do, but here are the things I like so far:

• I can plan my menu in a drag-and-drop calendar style format. I'm a very visual person and need to see things laid out by week & month, not just day and be able to move things around as I see how it's all shaping up.
• I can "clip" recipes from most anywhere on the Web into my own Recipe Queue or Planner, which is automatically in sync with my shopping list. (You know how you Pin all of those recipes and never go back and cook them? With PlantoEat you can basically import them into your Queue and they'll be at the ready for you to drag & drop into whatever month/day you want to cook them.)
• Once you plan out a week, you can save it as a "menu" and then slot that entire menu in for another week in the future. No more re-creating work over and over. And if you decide this week you actually don't want mashed potatoes with roast and you'd rather have rice instead, it's very easy to remove menu items and drag new ones in.
• When you get ready to access your shopping list, you can view (or print) it for whatever days you need (you can also view it on the go on their mobile site which works really well & allows you to check things off the list as you go.) So if you know you're going back to the store 2 or 3 days later and don't want the entire week's shopping list, it will generate a list just for what you need. Or if you shop 2 weeks at a time, you can pull the shopping list for that time, too. It's up to you.
• AND... you can add to the list all the odds & ends that don't show up on the menu. I use it to add all the "stuff" I need for business recipe testing, too. No more sticky notes & lists to lose. You can even add items to a "staples" list and drop them in whenever you need them.
• Lastly, you can customize the shopping list template for the way you shop or how your store is arranged. For instance, in my Publix, cheese is one of the first areas you access and it's separate from milk and yogurt. So I actually have a category for cheese and a category for milk and yogurt, rather than just a "dairy" category. And I have the cheese category much higher in the list order because that's where I access it in the store. 

So what's the catch?

Well, it's not free. But it's less than $40 for a year's membership... which is obviously less than $1 per day. 

Really organized people who have a little time to sit down and plan their own system probably could do all of this with a service like PlantoEat and do it for free. But I'm not a really organized person. And I'm busy, very busy. (Who isn't right? In fact, I've reached that busy point that you wakes up in the middle of the night wondering if you have clean underwear for the morning. But as my Dad reminds me, much of this is self-inflicted busyness, so I'll stop complaining.) 

Regardless of the origin of my busyness, the one thing I don't like to can't let suffer is my kitchen. I have mouths to feed and a business to run. Most of it happens in a concentric pattern around what's going on in this kitchen, really. And I think less than $1 a day is well worth the functionality it adds to my life.

Now, if you're wondering what kind of deal I've worked out with the folks over at PlantoEat to make such a strong recommendation, I haven't.

Seriously. Nothing.

I sent them an email just to say how much I liked the site and that I'd love to see an app version soon (which I believe may be in the works). But other than that, I have no connection with them. My opinions are 100% my own. 

If you're in need of a good kitchen/shopping/recipe management tool, please check it out. I think you will be very pleased. You can even try it out for 30 days before paying the fee. (I tried it for ~7 days and was hooked!)

Or, if you've already got a great system, let me know about it, too!

Oh... and enjoy the recipe :) 

Slow Cooker Rosemary Roast

by Regan @ The Professional Palate

based off Cooking Light's Beef with Carrots, Onions & Dried Plums

6041500

Ingredients

• 1 (2 1/2-pound) blade or chuck roast
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup baby carrots
• 2 rosemary sprigs
• 2 sage sprigs
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 cup pitted dried plums
• Garnish: Rosemary and Shredded Parmesan

Instructions

Turn slow cooker to HIGH.

Heat oil in large skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add roast; cook 10 minutes, browning on all sides. Remove roast from pan and place in slow cooker. Add onion and water to pan, scraping pan to loosen browned bits.

Pour onion and water over roast in slow cooker; add remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on HIGH 1 hour. Turn heat down to LOW and cook an additional 8 hours (or leave on HIGH and cook an additional 4 hours).

Remove roast from slow cooker and place onto a serving dish . Strain remaining contents of slow cooker into a fat separating measuring cup. Add strained vegetables mixture to serving platter. Let cooking juices stand 2 minutes (fat will rise to the top). Pour strained juice over roast and vegetables stopping before fat layer reaches opening; discard fat.

Slice roast; garnish with rosemary and Parmesan, if desired. Serve with carrot mixture and sauce.

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basic tools for success + a recipe for easy chicken and sausage stew

Image by Pasargad on Etsy

I see a lot written about what it takes to be successful in the nutrition communications & food blogging world - establishing your "brand", SEO optimization, creating an editorial calendar, quality food photography, etc. 

You know what's never listed? 

An optimally working dishwasher. 

Please allow me to suggest, after having lived with one that was sub-par to say the least, this is one of the most fundamental tools in my professional kitchen, personal life and overall path to sanity. 

I know that not all homes are equipped with a dishwasher and people make out just fine without them. My thoughts on that? No dishwasher is better than one that works like crap (Seriously folks... this thing was growing stuff college apartments would be afraid of).

The trouble is that when you have a dishwasher you're always tempted to load it up, turn the darn thing on and expect clean dishes. 

And then you find yourself at the sink re-washing them and cursing Bosch Appliances. Or at least that's what I've been doing. 

And who's to blame? 

Me. 

I wanted to blame Bosch for the longest time. I've tweeted about what crap I thought their dishwashers were.

(Like any of my followers care, but I guess that was my half-hearted approach to feeling like I was doing "something".)

And then I'd turn right back around and load the "piece of crap" right back up, turn it on and the cycle would start over again. Load, wash, curse, hand wash and express my general discontent.

You're familiar with the saying about the definition of insanity, right?

But the appliance gods smiled on me last weekend and broke my washing machine.

Yes, I said broke my washing machine.

How can that be a wonderful twist of fate? Well it landed me with an appliance repairman in my home who was able to tell me the name of the ONLY company in my area that repairs Bosch dishwashers. As it turns out a tiny little soldered connection on the internal control panel of the dishwasher responsible for the part of the dishwasher that heats the water was kaput. Basically, I've been running my dishwasher with tepid water. Ick. What makes it worse is that unlike conventional dishwashers, Bosch don't have heating elements to dry the dishes once they're washed (good for energy efficiency). They rely on a stainless steel lined interior of the washer + super hot water throughout the wash to create this super hot environment whereby the dishes dry just through the steam hitting the cool stainless steel and condensing ... or something sorta like that. (I'm frankly not concerned how my dishwasher works, just that it works.)

A side note:

I had searched & searched to find a Bosch-friendly repairman months ago to no avail. A lesson in SEO for them, perhaps?

Anyway, the washer repairman gave me the name of "Tom" who as of last night had me back in business! Hot, clean, dry dishes were being unloaded at 9pm last night. I've never been so anxious to open up a dishwasher and re-load it.

So what's the moral in this story?

Complaining about your circumstances probably falls on deaf ears and definitely doesn't move you farther along to your goals. Everyone measures success with a different ruler, but you certainly won't reach your goals by thinking about what you want to achieve or worse yet, thinking about what you haven't achieved. You have to be persistent in determining how to get there and keep moving forward. Giving up isn't an option... or else you'll have nothing but dirty dishes to show for your time.

And now, a recipe (because this is after all a food blog, and I'm certain recipes are a crucial part of success for a food blogger).

I adapted this gumbo-inspired dish from a recipe I found on my new favorite online tool - Plan to Eat. I plan to blog about it very soon, but for now let's just say it's quickly becoming another basic tool for success in managing all my shopping & planning for an in-home professional kitchen. Enjoy! 

Easy Chicken and Sausage Stew

by Regan @ The Professional Palate

6041068

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound lean smoked sausage, sliced
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3 cups water
• 1 (14.4-ounce) bag frozen pepper stir-fry (I used Birds Eye)
• 1 teaspoon chopped garlic
• 2 teaspoons Creole seasoning
• Shredded Pepper Jack (optional)

Instructions

Cook sausage in a Dutch oven over medium heat until browned (about 10 minutes). Remove sausage, reserving 1 tablespoon of drippings. Set sausage aside.

Add oil to pan and cook chicken until browned (about 5 minutes on each side). Remove chicken, reserving drippings and oil in pan.

Add flour to pan, and cook, stirring constantly, until roux is caramel colored (about 10 min).

Gradually stir in water; bring to a boil. Add sausage, chicken, frozen vegetables, garlic and Creole seasoning to pan. Simmer, uncovered 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove chicken from stew and shred with two forks. Stir into stew. Top with shredded Pepper Jack cheese, if desired.

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{the recipe redux} chai-infused lentil soup

In the food world, the New Year is always ripe with trend predictions - what's the next cupcake? Is bacon in or out? Is coconut oil still wearing a golden health halo?

I love reading these predictions and observing how they unfold on menus, blogs and in grocery stores across America. I also love seeing how a trend can play out in my own kitchen. 

Thanks to this month's Recipe ReDux (A Trend in Every Pot - a nod to not only trend predictions, but the popularity of soups this season), I was prompted to try a technique I'd never considered before - cooking with tea. 

Click to read more ...

So... how are those resolutions treatin' ya?

Our new gym opened just over a month ago. In the days following its grand opening, the parking lot was fairly empty. In the days around Christmas (when I could finally sneak in some gym time, having been otherwise subjected to an early December visit by the flu to virtually the entire Jones family) it was a ghost town. 

This week, however, I had to park 3 buildings away to grab a parking space. Then, I had to fight my way to snag the one remaining treadmill in the cardio theater (which by the way has to be the most brilliant addition to a gym runner's regimen). 

How much do you want to bet 30 days from now, I'll be parking by the front door? 

We are a nation of well-intentioned, diet-seeking, overnight change-desiring go-getters... until life happens. And then we're back where we started. 

Why all the starts and stops? I believe it's because we haven't embraced the idea that it's not about depriving and dieting, suffering and restricting... and so does Janet Helm, MS, RD of Nutrition Unplugged and my co-founder of Healthy Aperture. That's why she and the talented editors of Cooking Light Magazine recently published The Food Lover's Healthy Habits Cookbook: 

They really got it right with this one. Just consider the title:

"healthy habits" - changing your approach to wellness through liveable lifestyle changes

"food lovers" - celebrating the great taste of food and the important part it plays in a healthy life

What's cool about this book is that it's more than just a cookbook. It's full of useful nutrition information, instruction and inspiration. And how do I know these tips & tools are "livable"? Because of the 50+ nutrition experts and bloggers who offer their personal insights throughout the book on how they make these healthy habits a living reality.

So what are some of the "healthy habits"?

Cook at least three more meals per week

With recipes like this Pork Tenderloin with Red and Yellow Peppers, which is included in the book, who wouldn't want to cook more?

image courtesy of Cooking Light | Photo: John Autry | Styling: Leigh Ann Ross

Be active for 30 minutes a day, three times a week

The book even includes Janet's own personal account of how she went from not being able to run more than 3 blocks to completing a marathon. It's a great read and a reminder that it's not just about where you start, but how you finish.

Be mindful, purposeful, and joyful each time you eat

This one has to be my personal favorite. It's the concept of "mindful eating" that is really the cornerstone of adopting a better relationship with food. 

...and there are 9 more healthy habits you can read all about in the book.

2013 has only just begun. If you're looking for a way to make those resolutions stick, or better yet, adopt a healthier approach to daily living, grab a copy of this book today OR enter the giveaway below!  

Disclosure: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher, but was under no obligation to review. All opinions expressed are my own. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

{the recipe redux} orange-coconut pull-apart bread

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,

Jack Frost nipping on your nose, 

Yuletide charols being sung by a choir,

And your mom opening up a can of orange rolls... 

***

Or at least that's how Christmas sounded at my house growing up.

Those good ole crack-out-of-the-can orange rolls... ah, I can still taste 'em today. They were an absolute must for me at the holidays. Well, actually, on Christmas morning. Not a day before. Not a day later. If Santa was comin' so better be the Pillsbury dough boy. 

But over the years they have admittedly become less of a mainstay for me. There's still a little sentimental novelty to them, yes. Mom still serves them at Christmas even now, and I'm good with that. But in the spirit of ReDux'ing, I wanted to offer a recipe for this month's challenge that pulled from the memory I have, but put my own unique spin:

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