Grilled Cilantro Lime Shrimp Kebabs

Grilled shrimp on skewers seasoned with cumin, garlic and finished with fresh squeezed lime juice and cilantro.  

I use my grill all summer long, and since we LOVE Cilantro Lime Shrimp, I adapted for the grill. This would be perfect for back yard parties as an appetizer, or you can serve this for dinner for 4 people with cilantro lime rice, fiesta bean salad, a big garden salad with avocado, or whatever you desire.

Since making the salmon kebabs last week, I loved how the lemon wedges looked between the salmon chunks, so I thought it would be pretty to do the same with the lime here. Completely optional but if you decide to do this, keep in mind that the lime juice will begin to cook the shrimp if you prep these too far in advance.

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Easy Grilled Fish Fillet in Foil Packets

 

This super easy method for grilling fish is pretty foolproof, and you can use any fresh fish that's available to you in your area. It's almost 90 degrees today, which means I'm grilling tonight. In fact I use my outdoor grill just about every night in the summer to make quick, easy, healthy dinners.

Living on the east coast, I love to take full advantage of the fresh caught local fish available to me here on Long Island. Nothing is quite better than eating fish that came out of the ocean the same day! My local fishmonger suggested the Long Island porgy that was caught early that morning – delish! I asked him to fillet it for me, and I kept the skin on, just my personal  preference. Oh, the possibilities are endless when making fish in foil, you can add any fresh herbs you like, wine, garlic, shallots, whatever you like! I also do this in a 400 degree oven in the Fall and winter months.

When I do this outside on the gas grill, I cook the foil on indirect heat, which basically means I heat up one side of the grill with the cover closed so it gets good and hot, and keep the burners off on the other side. You can also do this with a charcoal grill with a cover, by leaving the coals on one side. The fish goes on the indirect side of the grill so that it cooks from the steam created in the foil. In about 10 minutes, the fish cooked to perfection. My whole family enjoys this, even my three year old.


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Peaches and Cream Popsicles

There's nothing like eating a sweet, juicy, ripe peach on a hot summer day – but these peaches and cream popsicles made with yogurt, almond milk and almond extract make a wonderful treat on a hot day like today.

It's in the nineties today, the kind of day where you want to either sit in front of the air conditioner and never leave the house, or swim in the pool all day – we opted for the latter.

I've been thinking about making a peach dessert combined with almond extract – because I love the smell of my peach-almond facial scrub, so I came up with this easy dessert using really ripe sweet peaches, unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze almond milk and almond extract – delish! And by the way, Almond Breeze now comes in single size servings and is hosting a giveaway on Skinny Bits. Click here for a chance to win.

I used raw sugar to sweeten these, but you could sweeten them with stevia or whichever sweetener you prefer. My star shaped ice pop mold, which you can find on Amazon makes 4 oz popsicles, so depending on the size of your popsicle mold, you may get different amounts. 

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Grilled Pesto Chicken and Tomato Kebabs

These chicken kebobs just SCREAM summer, made with my skinny basil pesto and grape tomatoes. Serve this as an appetizer at your next backyard bash, or have them for dinner any night of the week with a great big salad or over pasta.

We grow sooo much basil in my garden all summer long, so I make a lot of pesto and use it so many ways. This is super easy and can be made a day ahead, in fact the longer it marinates the better! Doubling the skewers helps keep everything in place while grilling, and makes them easier to turn. I love how the tomatoes taste after they are grilled, and they smell just divine when they come off the grill. To make my pesto skinny, I use less oil and make it without the pine nuts – but it's still so flavorful you won't miss them! If you're having this for dinner, I would serve 2 skewers, rather than one with salad or grilled veggies on the side.

These are gluten free, inexpensive, low-carb, clean and simple. If you want to make them paleo, you can leave out the parmesan and swap it for pine nuts. If you love pesto as much as we do, you may also love Skinny Chicken Pesto Bake, Grilled Pesto Shrimp Skewers, or this delicious Eggplant Panini with Pesto – so good!!

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Grilled Salmon Kebabs

These lovely grilled salmon and lemon kabobs are delicious and easy to make – with mega omegas in every bite! Seasoned with fresh herbs, lemon, and spices and grilled to perfection.

This was last night's supper, it was a beautiful night and we ate outdoors, oh how I love summer! I served this with a great big garden salad and everyone loved them – including my 3 year old which was a happy surprise for me.

I have so much oregano growing in my garden and I'm always looking for ways to use it. I came across this recipe on Bon Appetit and was intrigued because I would never think to combine cumin and oregano with sesame seeds. I also loved how the lemon sliced looked between each cube of salmon. This was fantastic and I plan on making lots of variations of this all summer long.


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Roasted Strawberry Banana Bread

 

This banana bread is moist and delicious, made with white whole wheat flour, sweet roasted strawberries and ripe bananas, with just a smidgen of butter, so you can enjoy a slice without the guilt!

I had some bananas that were getting brown and I was really in the mood for banana bread, so I combined the two for a delicious quick bread. You can turn these into muffins if you prefer. In the past I attempted this recipe, but the strawberries released too much liquid which made the bread a little too moist. Roasting the strawberries is the perfect solution, most of the liquid dries out from roasting so you get the flavor of the strawberries in every bite.

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Spicy Chipotle Ketchup

Homemade ketchup made with clean ingredients you can feel good about eating. Last summer I made my own homemade ketchup which turned out so GOOD, I made it again this year... with a twist! I added some chipotle paste to give it some heat, it goes great with turkey burgers or grilled sweet potato fries!

Finally someone came up with a chipotle paste in a tube, perfect since I never use the whole can. The brand is Olo's which I found on Amazon, but of course canned chipotle sauce will work fine here, you'll have to mince the chipotles. 

This is so EASY to make, just put a few ingredients in the sauce pan and let it simmer for 20 minutes. If you are planning on grilling this weekend and you like things a little spicy, give this a try!

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Roast Beef Sandwich with Melted Cheese and Caramelized Onions

I wish this photo could capture how delicious this sandwich is. I made a few attempts at photographing this, but the photo can't capture how sweet these caramelized onions are and how perfect they taste with yesterday's leftover garlic infused roast beef and melted Swiss cheese.

Father's Day is coming up and I'm trying to think of dishes that would make Dad happy. For those of you who are Pinterest obsessed, I made a Skinny Father's Day board and pinned recipes I think Dads would love. My husband loves caramelized onions, I can't say I blame him. I never knew just how good they were until I met him; he makes them all the time. The onions shrink to about half their size when the slowly cook down, and as they turn golden in color they turn sweet and delicious. They are great over burgers too, I make them with a lot less oil than he does with great results.

I don't east sandwiches often, maybe once a week. But when I do eat a sandwich, my bread of choice is a fresh baked whole wheat French or Italian bread from the bakery because it's generally made with no fat and I love a crispy fresh baked loaf.


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Garlic Lover's Roast Beef

Vampires beware, there's garlic in every bite! And if that's not enough garlic, I like to serve this with roasted broccoli with smashed garlic and skinny mashed potatoes... in my house, there's never too much garlic.

With Father's Day right around the corner, I thought it was time to re-shoot this recipe which means this is what's for dinner tonight. I make roast beef quite often in my house because it's pretty simple to make and we all love it. Roast beef is really hard to mess up as long as you have a meat thermometer and you let it rest before slicing.

For lunch today I made a delicious carved roast beef sandwich with melted cheese and sweet caramelized onions that I will be sharing tomorrow here, it was sooo good!

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Tropical Fruit Salad Recipe

This tropical fruit salad, made with fresh papaya, mango, pineapple, bananas and grated coconut is the best tasting fruit salad... EVER!!

It makes a great big bowl, big enough to feed a crowd so it's perfect to bring to a picnic, potluck or to serve at a backyard BBQ. This is easy enough for anyone to make – if you can use a knife, you can make this salad. The bananas are added just before serving so they don't turn brown.

Fruit salad always makes me think of my Dad, when I was younger he made a great big bowl of fresh fruit salad just about every night. It's the perfect dessert because it's all natural, made with nothing but fruit – it doesn't get cleaner than that!

In my past life I must have lived on a tropical island somewhere; the climate, blue oceans, palm trees, and sweet tropical fruit are my idea of a perfect world. Thank goodness we can get papayas, mangoes, coconut and pineapples here in the states, but there are still so many tropical fruits I'd love to see a lot more tropical fruit imported here one day such as fresh guanabana (sour sop) guava or passion fruit (maybe I need to get on a plane to somewhere tropical really soon).

Fruit salad is naturally low-fat, low-sodium, gluten-free, vegan, paleo friendly, clean-eating dish you can serve for brunch, snack or dessert. Yes, there is sugar in fruit, but it's natural and unprocessed, and loaded with vitamins, antioxidants, phytonutrients and fiber. Unless you have to watch your sugar for health reason, the USDA suggests you eat about 1-1/2 to 2 cups of fruit a day.

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Grilled Chicken and Zucchini Yakitori

I love these Japanese inspired grilled chicken and zucchini skewers marinated with yakitori sauce and threaded onto bamboo sticks with green onions. They are perfect as an appetizer if you're having a backyard bash this summer, or you can turn it into a meal any night of the week served with rice, salad or more vegetables.

Yakitori reminds me of my college days in Soho living on a student budget. Me and my BFF Gabbie used to meet 3 to 4 times a week after class at this cute little Japanese restaurant in the Village where paper origami birds hung from the ceiling and Japanese music played in the background. I didn't have much money then, so I usually ordered the chicken yakitori off the appetizer menu which always came with white rice... a perfectly good meal when you're broke.

Now days I can make it myself, and although this could certainly serve a crowd as an appetizer, I still like to eat them for dinner like I did back in my college days. I also like to add some zucchini to my skewers so I'm grilling my veggies at the same time. As for the chicken, I prefer dark meat to white so I use Perdue Fit & Easy thighs, which calculates to a lot less points in recipe builder than generic thighs (I'm assuming because the generic isn't trimmed of all fat? Not sure!) You could also use chicken breast if you prefer white meat. Only one tiny issue I had was it makes 14 chicken skewers, so to divide that in 4 servings, you are going to get 3 1/2 skewers. Oh well, you'll just have to share!! There's plenty of marinade left if you want to make more chicken or zucchini.

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Just Peachy Green Smoothie

At least 3 to 4 days a week, I start my morning with a green smoothie because it's a quick way to enjoy a nutritious breakfast without having to cook a thing. Just throw everything in the blender and breakfast is ready in less than a minute. I especially love this time of year when stone fruits are in season, especially sweet juicy peaches.

Which is the perfect time to make this delicious smoothie, because frozen peaches just aren't the same. For this protein packed liquid breakfast, I combined the peaches (skin and all) with a frozen ripe banana, some hemp seeds for extra protein, almond milk and baby spinach (you can't taste it, I promise!) My toddler loves green smoothies and always reminds me to buy spinach when I'm out (cracks me up!).

I often get asked about my blender, and I can't say enough good things about my Blendtec Total Blender. I never really knew what I was missing until I owned it, and now I'm not sure I could ever live without it. It's so powerful, perfect for whipping up smoothies and so much more. If you don't have one, no worries, I used to use my magic bullet and it worked just fine.

And just one note about counting points in smoothies, as per Weight Watchers the official answer is yes, you should count the fruit when you calculate the recipe in recipe builder when making smoothies. That being said, I've been told many WW leaders don't. One WW leader mentioned on my Facebook page: "you should let your weight loss be your guide. If you're doing smoothies within reason, I wouldn't count the points". So it's really up to you, if you don't count the fruit, this smoothie is 3 points plus.
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Quinoa and Spinach Patties

 

Happy Monday! These quinoa patties are a delicious meatless dish, they almost make me think I'm eating a chicken cutlet or meatball, without the meat of course yet they are packed with protein and nutrients from quinoa and spinach.

I'm really excited about this recipe adapted from Heidi Swanson's cookbook Super Natural Every Day. Her original recipe calls for kale, but since I made them on a whim, all I had was spinach and that worked out just fine. My (meat-loving) husband even thought they were great.

These actually made enough for several meals, so I had one topped mine with a poached egg for breakfast which was super yummy, and the rest I served as a main course for dinner with a big avocado salad and quite felt satisfied. I can't help thinking how good this would be with melted cheese on top in place of a burger to make it more of a veggie-quinoa burger. May have to try that soon! These patties are inexpensive to make, can be adapted for gluten-free diets, they are vegetarian which is also perfect for Meatless Mondays and are made with clean ingredients. Hope you enjoy!!

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