Loaded ‘Cheese, Chives & Bacon Baked Potato’ salad - low carb version

 Who loves potato salad? It is the one comfort 'grain' based food that I miss but thankfully there is always ways to adapt one's favorite recipes to a healthier low carb alternative! 

Meet the 'Faux' Loaded Cheese, Chives and Bacon Baked Potato!

Now the original recipe I found that inspired this said to 'steam' the cauliflower however I found the texture of that method less than desirable - not a fan of steamed cauliflower! 

So I roast mine! Cut them into bite size pieces. Toss with some extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and black pepper and roast for 20-30 minutes on 400F until they are tender and start to get some caramelized edges. Let cool.

While the cauliflower is cooling chop up your favorite veggies - either traditional potato salad veggies or I like a lot of colour so to mine I have added 1/4 cup each of onion, chives, celery, shredded carrots, red pepper from my garden and radish. I have also chopped up 4 slices of crispy bacon!

Now for my potato salad sauce I love the quick and easy spice blend from Epicure ...just need 2 tablespoons and add in 1/2 cup of mayo and 1/2 cup of plain Greek Yogurt! Mix well!

It looks and tastes AMAZING!!!! And swapping out the Potatoes for Cauliflower lowers the carb count and insulin reaction considerable so I can enjoy this tonight with a nice BBQ pork chop guilty free!

 

Come on over to our Facebook community for more conversations about healthy eating, living and self care!

Bon Appetite 

Margaret 

Live, Laugh, Love 

Be Totallyawake

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Lizard manicure! Yes please!

 How cool is this nail art??? 

 

I am so enjoying my Totallyawake4-life & Nailin' It! journey so far! Come join me on Facebook if you are into pretty nails and nail art cause I am so addicted myself! 

Ebony created a really cool tutorial video for it! I cannot wait to try this out! 

 

 Want to buy the supplies to create cool nails like this - shop online here!

Happy creating - if you recreate this look please come join my nail community and share!

Take Care

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

Keeping Your Glass top clean

 Ok I cannot be the only one who has members of the household who do not wipe the glass top down before turning it on? Or they attempt to wipe it down but do not use a clean cloth so end up leaving it like this with nasty watermarks baked into it?

 Thank goodness for Enjo and the smallest of elbow grease! The awesomeness of Enjo is that the fibres do most of the work so you just need to provide the motion for them cause they have yet to develop a self cleaning Enjo fibre - but one can hope! Wet your Kitchen scrub with water, scoop out some marble paste because this is baked on mess so a little helper is needed, and than spray the surface with extra water and than swirl around the paste adding more as needed! Water is the magic ingredient here if you feel somethings stuck add more spritzs of water!

When you are confident all the mess is loose and ready to be wiped up switch over to the green fibre side and wash off all the marble paste with cool water - rinse as needed until stove top is clear. Dry behind with your kitchen Enjofil and whola!

 It works amazing! Shiny mess free glass top again!

 

Happy cleaning! If you need an Enjo representative please contact Lynn she is amazingly knowledgeable!

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

Have you heard of Ketones?

Inspired by Lynn after attending one of her Keto 101 cooking classes back before Covid hit I took the 10 Day Challenge just the see if it could help improve my blood sugar  to avoid the pressure from my family dr to take prescriptions and balance some of my inflammation and pain by reducing the sugar/carbs from my diet!

I am SO HOOKED!

I personally swap this product out for my breakfast cause I have never been  a breakfast eater and always forced myself to eat it cause we are told breakfast is the most important meal of the day - however 'break fast' actually means the first meal you choose to eat after a fast NOT necassrily that you have to eat it the minute you wake up - I personally have choose to do an intermitent fasting window of 18:6. So I have 18 hours of fasting and than a 6 hour window where I eat. I do not eat my first meal until around 3pm and than I have a light snack to hold me over to dinner, dinner and than a light snack while watching movies! Some times I do only the dinner and evening snack. Keytones first thing helps me get my morning off to an energetic start! I also end my day with a Keto Calm tea or a Keto Broth to help promote a good night sleep! Also because they are so packed full of vitamins and minerals i don’t have to choke down a multi vitamin so the savings from that is directed to investing in this! 

 I have so much more energy, less pain and am able to work out more often and harder and my blood sugar levels have been AMAZING! The doctor rolled her eyes at me when I said I wanted to try this for 3 months and run my blood work again before filling her prescription - boy did I show her roll your eyes at me will ya  🤣 

Do you want to take the Challenge too? Click here for more information.

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live, Laugh. Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

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Faux Hamburger Helper!

I made my own healthy grain free version of  faux 'hamburger helper' tonight thanks to Epicure! Nom nom nom ... way better than anything that comes out of a box and way healthier!

 

 

From Epicure you will need the following ... Mac and Cheese seasoning. This stuff is way better than Kraft dinner crap! As well as Fajita Seasoning - again this is so much healthier with no fillers and low sodium.

 

I browned a pound of ground turkey with onions, peppers and homemade salsa and fajita seasoning. I then  tossed couple cups of cauliflower florets with the dry Mac and cheese seasoning pack and 1/2 cup cream in my rectangle steamer than added the fajita meat mix and 2 cups spinach. Topped with some shredded cheese. Baked 350F for 30 minutes!

So tasty 😋

Bon Appetite

Margaret

Live, laugh, love

Be Totallyawake4-life

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Happy Childcare Worker and ECE Appreciation Day!

 

Tomorrow Thursday October 22nd is Childcare Appreciation Day in Ontario ... during the pandemic so many of my peers have risen to the challenge of taking on yet more risk and responsibility due to the pandemic and have done so with little to no additional resources or support provided to them by the government that deemed them 'essential' but than put in policies that once again ripped the rug out from underneath them by create diminishing their resources and making empty promises of support like PPE and so forth which 3 weeks into October many have still not recieved this months allotment of PPE and yet they are at work making due with either providing their own or reusing what should be expired PPE.

They rise like this because not only because they KNOW that working parents rely on their services but because sadly for so many of them they have NO CHOICE but to yet again being asked to rise and do more with less because they are working pay cheque to pay cheque, often multiple jobs, because despite the cost of childcare to family's that money does not roll over to them much of that goes to 'overhead' of operating so they are so under paid that missing even one day of work can mean a bill goes past due or they cannot make their rent! They rise because if they do not they risk drowning!

My hat is off and my heart is so full for all those who are out on the front line now giving it their all and with a smile and happy demeanor for the children in their care despite the burdens upon their shoulders - because early childhood educators and childcare providers are SUPER HEROES! They should be valued and appreciated EVERY DAY and our government should do MORE to show that they are valued!

To all my peers - you ROCK!

 

Margaret

Live, Laugh,Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

Who loves an unboxing?

 Who doesn't love a good unboxing?

I love being a part of the Scrapbook Nerd Design team - choosing our quarterly goodies to showcase is so much fun! Check out all the goodies in my unboxing video! Make sure to head on over to Scrapbook Nerd's & Friends on Facebook and join in the on fun weekly challenges to help jump start creative juices and for chances to win free stuff!

 So what do you think I should play with first?

Happy Stampin'

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life