Trying a New Recipe Tonight

My own recipe for Mexican Stuffed Peppers.

Watch for it and a few pictures later (if it’s a success).  🙂

CJ

 

Thinking of Going Gluten-Free?

Thinking of going Gluten-Free?

I thought this morning I would share a good article from the Mayo Clinic that clearly outlines what going gluten-free is all about. Additionally, it lists the foods you can eat as well as those to avoid when on a G-F diet.

Many are reporting significant weight loss by changing their diets in this manner but it does require discipline and very likely a significant change to ones eating habits.

Today, I will be adding several more tasty gluten-free recipes for you to try. I think you will find by looking at these recipes that you don’t have to give up flavor by giving up the gluten. Check out the Gluten-Free recipes on CJ’s Kitchen Facebook Page and my blog.

Click this link for the facts on gluten-free diets.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/gluten-free-diet/art-20048530

CJ

Writing a New Life Chapter Today

  This is an exciting day for me and my family!

I have decided to start my own Personal Chef business (CJ’s Kitchen), catering to those with hectic lives, who burn the candle at both ends juggling stress-filled jobs and family responsibilities. The MANY people who sacrifice their health by choosing the fast, convenient meal over a more healthy, fresh, homemade option.

That’s where I come in.

Check out more information in the “Personal Chef Services” page of my blog or just click the link attached below.

For those of you in the Chicago area that may be interested, email, message or call me and let’s chat for more details.

https://cjskitchen.wordpress.com/cjs-kitchen-personal-chef-services/

Warm Regards,

CJ

Need a Menu Idea for Mardi Gras?

Friday, February 28, 2014

Good Morning, Foodies!

This week I’ve focused on healthy eating.  Some 20 great healthy recipes have been added to my blog as a result.  I will continue to add more in the future as my recipe blog leans toward a more healthy direction.

However….

Today’s feature is not one of them.  No, today I’m talking about Mardi Gras, which happens this coming Tuesday.  Are you planning on attending this annual blow out in New Orleans?  If not, maybe you could bring a little of “The Big Easy” to your home by way of your kitchen!

I am planning on making a big batch of my “French Quarter Jambalaya” over the weekend and I am featuring it today as the “Recipe of the Day” in case any of you wish to do the same.  (https://cjskitchen.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/cjs-french-quarter-jambalaya/)

This great Jambalaya recipe has virtually the kitchen sink in it regarding ingredients but all of those flavors come together to form a fabulously tasting dish.  It’s chock full of chicken, shrimp, andouille sausage, bacon and many other tasty ingredients and seasonings.

If you’re hosting a party over the weekend or on the actual day itself, (March 4), try this recipe out on your guests.  It has a kick to it, but not overpowering and you can control the “heat” based on your individual tastes.

Give it a try and if you do, by all means, leave a comment on my blog (good or bad) on how you and your family or guests liked it.  Cast a vote in the “poll” I also included at the bottom of the recipe.

Regardless, I hope you have a fun Mardi Gras, however you celebrate it!

CJ

Low-Sodium Doesn’t Mean Low Taste!

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Good Morning, Foodies,

Today, we continue our week-long venture into healthier eating.  Today’s focus: Low Sodium meals.

What’s a four letter word beginning with “S” for many of us?   S A L T!

Count me among the millions of us on this planet who need to watch the amount of sodium we ingest over the course of each day.  I would also suggest even if you don’t currently have to watch your salt intake now, you likely will at some stage of your life.

Too much sodium is a direct contributor to high blood pressure, which can lead to stroke and heart disease. Even if you’re perfectly healthy, it makes sense to take precautions now by eating right and hopefully avoid those kind of issues later in life.

Sodium is seemingly in everything!

Some foods are obvious culprits.  “Fast food” and most processed foods are loaded with it.  Many canned foods with preservatives are full of sodium.  But did you know that other foods, many we’ve been told are “healthy” can also be full of sodium and would be what I would call “wasted milligrams” for those of use who watch how much we take in each day.  Foods like bran cereal and breads can be loaded with sodium.

Many people think a low salt diet means a no taste diet.  Not true!

I have provided 5 VERY tasty examples… meals that are both simple to make and VERY low in sodium, in my blog today.  Check them out.  Better yet, try them out for dinner for you and your family.  I’ll bet you’ll get rave reviews tonight at the dinner table.

Check out these and more than 80 other recipes found on my blog page and start eating healthier WITHOUT giving up flavor or satisfaction.

That’s it for today.  I hope you enjoy these great new recipe additions!

Bon Appetit!

CJ

Low Carb Eating

Tags

Low Carb Eating

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Happy Hump Day, Foodies!

As you know, this week the focus of my writings and recipe postings have been healthier eating.  I’ve been busy searching for some excellent choices and variety, which is a key to sustaining a successful healthy eating regimen, and have found some winners.

Today’s recipes focus on Low Carb eating.

The advantages to low carb eating are many. Low carb diets often lead to a reduction in the body’s insulin production, resulting in fat and protein (muscle) stores being used as its main energy source.  The aim of low carbohydrate diets is to force the body to use fat as its main energy source.

I’ve also attached a link from Authority Nutrition that offers up 10 benefits to a low carbohydrate diet that I hope you’ll check out.

http://authoritynutrition.com/10-benefits-of-low-carb-ketogenic-diets/

Earlier this morning, I shared on my blog page five (5) new Low-Carbohydrate meals that are easy and not time consuming to make and are sure to please almost any palate.

Whether you’re purposely eating a low carb diet or the recipes just sound good to you, I hope you’ll give these recipes a try and, by all means, let me know what you think by voting on the recipe and commenting about it on my blog page (https://cjskitchen.wordpress.com/).

I also hope you’ll consider “following” me by scrolling all the way down to the bottom right corner, click FOLLOW and add your email address.  You’ll receive an email that will ask you to verify.

I look forward to seeing you there.  In the meantime, watch for new recipes being added each day.  That’s all for today.  I’ll chat again with you tomorrow.

CJ

The Key To Getting Healthy – Mind Over Matter

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014

Good Morning, Foodies,

This week’s topic is dedicated to eating healthier.  I’ve written about it in this space and all recipes posted this week will be of the healthier variety….low carbohydrate, vegetarian, gluten-free, and so on.

When it comes to healthy eating and weight loss, I can’t stand it when someone “lectures” me about it.  Maybe you’re like me in that regard.

It’s not always a case of not knowing what to eat.  Usually it involves mustering the desire or motivation to get out of the “comfortable rut” we find ourselves in, to do what it takes.  Or maybe it is a lack of knowledge or a misunderstanding of what is “good” for us and what isn’t.

It’s a vicious world out there when it comes to the advertising of food products that portray an item as “healthy” only to discover it’s the last thing we ought to be eating! Or maybe, if you’re like me, there have been times when I’ve thought “I’ll just stop eating or skip a few meals” to lose weight.  

While not consuming calories, on the surface, may seem like a logical step to losing weight, starvation has the opposite desired effect as fat is stored instead of burned.

Enter this week’s theme.

I’m not preaching at anyone.  I’m a card-carrying member of the obese crowd and struggling to take off those pesky extra pounds.  Maybe we are alike in that regard.

The intent of this blog is to take a “team approach” to this.  We’re in the same boat together and maybe together – as opposed to going it alone – we can accomplish our goal… better health, leaner bodies and a more productive and enjoyable life.

Ultimately, isn’t that what all of us desire?

To that end, I discovered an excellent article that speaks of BALANCE in ones diet. Not just a list of don’ts but also a list of “DO’s.  I want to share that with you this morning.

http://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-eating/food/lists/14-keys-to-a-healthy-diet/slideid_190

I hope these tips, the recipes I post and this blog speaks to balance in our diets versus a a crash diet or the latest fad diet to come along.

It is my hope this blog offers help for people (it helps me to write about it) in the form of encouragement and healthy recipes that will actually help one lose weight and get healthier.  Let’s do this together!

CJ

Healthy Eating Doesn’t Mean Boring Meals

Hello Foodie Friends,

This week’s focus is on healthy eating.  All recipes added to this blog this week will be of the healthy variety, either with ingredients that are gluten free and low (or no) carbohydrates (check out categories “Lighter Fare” and “Gluten Free” out to the side).

If you’re like me, when I would hear the term “healthy eating”, my mind used to immediately conger up images of drab, boring, tasteless food that was totally uninteresting, unappealing and unappetizing.  Nothing could be further from the truth!

Just so you know, I am not posting these recipes with the intent of “pushing” some kind of special fad diet.  These recipes do focus on foods that are lower in carbohydrates or are gluten free.  Foods that don’t process into sugar… one of the main causes of weight gain in our diets.

The other key area of healthy eating and weight loss is portion control.  In addition to eating foods that don’t help us from a healthy or weight perspective, we eat way too much of it in the form of excess portions.  To that end, I will do my best to provide portion size information in these healthy eating recipes as well.

As I need to drop some excess “baggage” myself, I intend to follow this regimen personally.  For those of you who could do with a “little less of you” too, maybe this is a voyage we can take together.

I hope you will check these recipes out this week and give them a try.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.  

CJ

Overcoming Adversity – More Than Just a Phrase

Sunday, February 23, 2014

A Happy Sunday to you, Friends,

Sherrilyn Kenyon writes…“Sometimes things have to go wrong in order to go right.”  

Prior to November 7, 2013, I would have viewed that quote as something encouraging to say to someone else who is going through adversity in their lives.  For the past three and a half months, I find myself applying that phrase to my life and that of my family.

As many of you know, I lost my job back in November and, for the first time in nearly forty years, I found myself unemployed.  I joined the millions who have been, and continue to be, out of work and searching for economic stability and a sense of meaning and purpose in this very tough economic climate we’re in today.

During these past few months, I’ve been torn as to what path to follow.  The natural and more comfortable path would be to continue looking in the field I’ve worked in for the past 18 years.  I continue to look at available opportunities in that field today.

But I’ve also had this little voice in my head telling me to look down another path. One that provides more of a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.  One that performs a valued service to someone else.  One that enables me to pursue what I LOVE doing in life versus something that just pays the bills and maintains a certain standard of living I’ve become accustomed to.

Now paying the bills and earning an income high enough to support a reasonably comfortable lifestyle is no small item and I don’t wish to come off sounding cavalier about it.  After all I do have a family to support with a child in her early high school years, but there are other things to consider too.  

The benefit of good health, peace in one’s heart, reduced stress from the “rat race” and a true joy in life.  Those are equally important as I see it, even though they may not be measured in dollars and cents.

The fact is, I love to cook!

Cooking brings me joy.  It brings me satisfaction in pleasing another human being through the art of creating a scrumptious meal for them.  It stirs my creative juices and I frequently have ideas of new dishes and combinations running through my head.

My love of cooking is what lead me to recently create this blog.  It’s what has lead me to investigate things such as becoming a personal chef, becoming a professional blogger about cooking or maybe even opening my own restaurant.

I’m clearly in a state of transition and the path is not yet clear (my wife would say it had better become clear pretty soon) but I am moving forward, even if the destination hasn’t yet been determined.  

But this much I do know.  As I approach 60 years of age, I prefer to invest my time and energy into things that bring happiness to others, my family and myself.  If that means rearranging existing priorities and financial realities, so be it.

Life is too short to spend it stressed out to the max doing something we don’t enjoy and that others don’t appreciate and constantly live in a “what have you done for me lately” world.

I don’t yet know what my future niche is but I do believe it will become clear if I remain open and watchful to all the possibilities.  This much I do know.  We only go around once in this life. When it’s all said and done, I want to be remembered for the kind of person I was more than what I did for a living.

CJ

Come on Spring!

Tags

grill, grilling, lobster, outdoor cooking, patio, Steak, surf and turf

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Good Morning, Foodies,

I don’t know about the rest of you but I’ve had it with winter!

This winter has been the most brutal in my memory.  If we aren’t getting a seemingly regular 6″ snowfall, temperatures sink well into the below zero category.  I believe we’ve had a few days this winter, here in Oswego, IL, where the mercury dipped to 18 below zero, ACTUAL TEMPERATURE, not wind chill.  Enough!

I miss grilling!

Oh I know, there are you diehards out there who don’t let a little thing like weather get in the way of firing up that grill.  I’m not one of them.  I draw the line at wading through 2 and 3 foot snow drifts and enduring bone chilling temperatures.  I’m a wuss.  I’ll admit it.

But this week, we were treated to temperatures that hit 40 DEGREES!  The tease card has been played.  And, as if right on cue, the weather forecast for the next few days calls for MORE SNOW, followed by single digit temperatures as we ring in March.

Alas, I know the worst is behind us.  The majority of winter is over.  Spring awaits, despite what that rodent out in Pennsylvania might say.  And just this morning, as I looked out the back patio door, a sure sign things are turning in the right direction.  I can see my grill, completely void of any snow.

Let the grilling begin!

CJ