Mom Life in the PNW

Strawberry Banana Protein Smoothie Recipe

Strawberry Banana Protein Smoothie Recipe

We all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, or you should! Lately though, I have been cutting back on having fatty breakfast meals (sigh, bacon how I love you) and replacing them with Strawberry Banana Protein Smoothies or Peanut Butter/Banana, whatever suits my fancy that morning. It’s quick and easy and it’s helping me work towards losing that little bit of weight I have gained back over the past year after stopping Nutrisystem. I stayed at the same weight for over a year until recently. Not sure what it is now, but it’s annoying me, so I’m trying to get it off now before it tries to live here permanently!

strawberry banana protein smoothie

Strawberry Banana Protein Smoothie Recipe:

What you’ll need

  • 1 Banana
  • 6 Strawberries (more if you desire more of a strawberry taste). I get the large bag of frozen strawberries at Costco. It’s lasted me quite a bit and they taste just as good as they do fresh.
  • A scoop of vanilla or strawberry flavored protein powder. If you get the packaged protein powders that you can find just about anywhere, they have a scooper inside of them. Use the full scoop. I actually still have some of my Nutrisystem protein shake powders left so I’ve been using those until I run out.
  • 1/2 cup of nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt, or any flavor you prefer. I have purchased plain Greek yogurt before and it’s the nastiest stuff ever and may throw the entire shake off, so that’s why I stick with vanilla or honey flavors.
  • 1/2 cup of soy milk. Add more if not blending well or for your desired consistency.

 

This recipe is quick and simple, so there should be no excuses for skipping breakfast!

Enjoy.

Best Buy: Where you Can Catch It All Now!

Best Buy: Where you Can Catch It All Now!

Some of you may be big fans of the current NCAA March Madness games that have been going on as of late. I know when we’re watching NFL, we always have the laptop open, my tablet on, sometimes even our phones so we can stay up to date on other games to see where everyone stands. There’s always multiple games on at the same time and this makes it easy for us to catch it all so we don’t miss a thing! I’m just glad we live in a world where we’re so technologically advanced. Back in the day, we had 1 bulky TV and we could only watch 1 program. How did we survive? LOL I have no clue!

 

CatchItAll_Twitter_Image_Post

Best Buy makes it easy for you to catch it all now with their smart HDTVs, cellphones, tablets, laptops and more! Head over to their website and check out how you can stay connected with multi-screen madness.

The one device that I cannot go without is probably my tablet. I usually have this near me at all times, especially if I am downstairs watching TV, that way I can stay connected with family, friends, and my blog. It’s less bulky than my laptop and it works fast and efficiently. Except when I need to type up a blog post, then I switch to the laptop. But if I am just replying to a comment or concern, then tablet it is! My family and friends know I probably won’t answer my cell phone since I hate typing on the small screen with the tiny buttons and actually talking on it. I definitely need to start liking the phone more, but maybe once I upgrade from my dinosaur to a smart phone, I’ll enjoy it a bit more. But until then, my tablet is my go to for most of my needs.

What is your go to device to stay connected?

 

The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free

Spicy Southwestern Chicken Chili Slow Cooker Recipe

Spicy Southwestern Chicken Chili Slow Cooker Recipe

This is probably one of the best chili recipes I’ve ever tasted and super easy to prep for dinner since you throw everything in the slow cooker. It’s not super spicy, but spicy enough to give it a slight kick! I can’t remember where I got it from, but I am glad I found it, because it’s now my go to recipe for any time I get the craving for chili. Perfect for leftovers too since there will be plenty left over, at least there is when only my husband and I are eating it.

 

spicy southwestern chicken chili slow cooker recipe

Spicy Southwestern Chicken Chili Slow Cooker Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup chopped onion
  • 1 medium green bell pepper chopped
  • 3 cloves of minced garlic
  • 2 TBS of chili powder
  • 3 tsp of dried oregano leaves
  • 1 tsp of ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp of salt
  • 1.5  lb boneless, skinless chicken breast cut into 1 inch pieces or smaller
  • 1 jar (16 oz) medium picante sauce
  • 3 cans (15-16 oz) pinto beans, kidney beans, black beans or whichever beans you prefer, undrained
  • 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
  • Sliced green onion if desired

Directions:

  1. In 3-4 quart slow cooker, mix onions, bell pepper and garlic.
  2. In large bowl, mix chili powder, oregano, cumin and salt. Add chicken; toss to coat. Add the chicken and any remaining seasoning mixture to vegetables in slow cooker. Gently stir in picante sauce, beans and tomatoes.
  3. Cover; cook on low setting for 6 – 8 hours. Sprinkle with green onion when finished.

 

spicy southwestern chicken chili recipe

If you decide to try it, let me know how it turned out in the comments! 🙂

Day 4: Don’t Eat at Villa Italia Restaurante in Mazatlan

Today was another day of sitting at the beach after we had breakfast at a decent, not perfect, but decent little spot called Mary’s. I wanted to get in as much beach time as possible because we don’t get the luxuries of warm weather and warm water here in the Pacific Northwest.

And no, the previous days pushy sellers didn’t interfere with my decision either. I basically put my sunglasses on my face, laid my chair back and acted like I was sleeping when they passed by. They usually just walked on without bothering me.

So nothing too exciting happened today other than just relaxing.

After we had enough sun and salty water, we went back to the hotel, changed and waited around until it was dinner time. We didn’t have any ideas of where we were going this night so our group decided upon Italian food. Unfortunately, Villa Italia Restaurante ended up being a bad decision. The place had a lot of business inside, mostly tourists, so we assumed if they were all here, it must be okay. Nope, wrong! All of the dishes we had sucked, lacked flavor and were most likely made with pasta-roni or hamburger helper prepackaged boxes of crap! I had salmon lasagna just because I was curious. They seem to use the same sauce you get in a tuna helper. TUNA FREAKING CASSEROLE, seriously? It didn’t taste like salmon at all. My husbands chicken fettuccine had no flavor at all. I mean, I know this is not Italy, but you would expect the food to taste somewhat like Italian right and not bland nothingness? I guess we should have ordered a pizza, it may have been the safer option.

Just remember, if you’re in Mazatlan, avoid Villa Italia Restaurante like the plague… unless you have no taste buds!

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Day 3: Public Beaches in Mazatlan

Day 3: Public Beaches in Mazatlan

Today, we pretty much decided we wanted to spend some time relaxing out on the beach that was across the marina. We had to take a shuttle boat over there but it was very quick since it was basically 500 feet across from the resort.

What I didn’t expect when I got there was to be hounded by the sales people trying to sell stuff to you. It’s a public beach so they’re allowed to do this. It’s all new to me since this was my first time in Mexico. Kind of left a bad taste in my mouth because I just wanted to enjoy my day relaxing on a beach chair, enjoying a margarita or 3 and playing in the ocean, not telling multiple sellers, multiple times no thanks every time they made their rounds every 5 minutes.

Other than that, I did enjoy my time there with Federico, the greatest beach server ever! He liked us so much, he said he would give us all-day happy hour prices if we came back the next day. The margaritas were a bit on the salty side, but we started ordering them on the rocks with no salt which helped. We also brought our flasks full of Tequila so that we could add more if they were a little too weak.

After I had had enough of the pushy sellers annoying me, I decided I was going to grab my bag and head to the ocean. My husband and friends decided to go out towards the waves. I, however, stayed to about my hips since I’m not a very good swimmer and I didn’t trust that I could swim very well if a wave crashed into me and pulled me under or out further. The water wasn’t as clear or as blue as I thought it would be, so having no vision of what’s in the water is kind of scary too. We’ve all seen Jaws! LOL, Yes, I am silly.

When we got back from playing in the ocean, I go to sit down and realize a bird had crapped on my towel I had left behind. Not anyone else’s; just mine! So I decided to take a pic of the possible culprit. Yep, that beady eyed bird was eyeing me like he wanted to gouge my eyes out. I swear these birds are racist. I had multiple birds trying to dive bomb me at the pool yesterday. Then today, shitting on my towel. They really dislike gingers in Mexico. lol

After we were finished at the beach, we went back to our rooms, showered and got ready to go find some dinner. We didn’t really know where we wanted to go, so we decided to just randomly pick a spot. We ended up deciding upon El Parador since it had a nice outdoor seating area which seemed to be empty.

My husband and I shared a seafood pasta plate which was decent, and our friends had some Americanized food which one didn’t really care for. I mean, we’re in Mexico after all. The seafood so far had been great, so that’s what we stuck with since we’re on the coast.

We paid the bill and expected them to return with the change. Nope. No one came back for at least 10-15 minutes so we assumed they thought they were going to keep the rest as a tip. Mazatlan tourism places seem to be lacking in professionalism and courtesy.  We tip you on your service, not what you think you should keep from the bill tab!

After that, we ventured off to find a good margarita and unfortunately didn’t really find one.

This is supposed to be Mexico, the land of good margaritas yo! Where they at!?

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