Protein-Packed Peppers

Peppers are amazing. Mexican food is amazing. When you stuff peppers with a Tex-Mex twist, it just doubles the amazingness factor. These stuffed peppers were so darn delicious, I just HAD to share the recipe for all of posterity. Also, this is healthy and packed with protein. Enjoy!!

Ingredients:

• ½ - 1 Tbs olive oil 
• ½ Spanish onion diced 
• 
• ½ pound lean ground turkey 
• 2 cans Rotel diced tomatoes (I used 1 can of original & 1 can of Mexican Style w/ lime & cilantro) 
• 14 oz. can of black beans drained & rinsed 
• 2 Tbs taco seasoning (I used reduced-sodium Old El Paso taco seasoning) 
• ½ cup Quinoa 
• ¾ cup water 
• 4 Bell Peppers halved, de-ribbed, & de-seeded 
• 
• Shredded Mozzarella to sprinkle on top

Directions:

•  Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan. Add onion & cook on medium-low for about 5 minutes or until onion is translucent. Add turkey & cook through.
• Add diced tomatoes, black beans, taco seasoning, quinoa, and water. Cover & bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low & simmer for 20-30 minutes or until quinoa has absorbed most/all of the water. While simmering, pre-heat oven to 375°.
•  Place peppers in a 13x9” baking dish. Fill peppers with quinoa mixture & top with Mozzarella. Cover pan with foil & bake for 45 minutes.
• *I had extra filling, which was a lovely dinner preview!

I am a slow onion dicer & pepper cutter, so this took me about 40 minutes of prep time, but I cut the peppers while the quinoa mix was cooking. Multitasking for the win! That being said, I could not recommend this for a night where you’re in a time crunch. The night before a time crunch would be ideal! Make dinner colorful!

Crockpot Carnitas

I made these pork carnitas a few days ago, and they were so amazing I feel the need to share the recipe! Keep in mind, cooking is more of an art than a science, so most of these measurements are approximate. :)

What you need:

• 1 pork tenderloin (mine was about 1.3 pounds)
• 1.5 oranges halved
• 1/2 onion finely diced
• 1 jalepeno pepper de-seeded & de-ribbed
• About 3 teaspoons of oregano
• About 2 tablespoons of cumin (awesome metabolism booster!)
• About 2 teaspoons of chili powder
• Salt & pepper
• 1 cup of water
• About 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• About 2 tablespoons of lime juice
• Chipotle sauce to taste
• Enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a large pan
• Tortillas
• Avocado
• I also think cilantro would be a nice addition, but I did not have any when I made this

What to do:

1. Rinse off the tenderloin. (I always get individually packaged tenderloins & I just feel like it's weird to have stuff in plastic for a while. I might just have OCD.)
2. Add onion & pepper into crockpot
3. Drizzle the olive oil over the tenderloin in your crockpot.
4. Sprinkle salt & pepper & other seasonings directly onto the tenderloin.
5. Squeeze juice out of oranges into the pot & leave the oranges in there.
6. Add water to crockpot.
7. Cook on low (for ~6.5 hours) or keep warm (for ~8 hours or more) or hot (for probably ~4 hours)
8. When you have about an hour (or a half hour) left in the crock pot, start to put the tenderloin apart with a fork.
9. Take out the orange peels. Add the chipotle sauce & stir
10. When the pulled pork has absorbed the water & seasonings to your liking, remove pork from the pot & put into oiled pan. Press pork into bottom of pan
11. Cook on medium until the bottom layer begins to get crispy. Or don't. This isn't totally necessary & hanger is a real emotion. :)
12. Put together tacos anyway you'd like & get your feast on!

Salsa Makes You Smarter

I have made one of my 2015 goals to try as many new things as possible! I want to have first hand experience with as many activities as possible, so I can have fun recommendations for my patients when I am a physical therapist.

I had the pleasure of attending a Salsa dancing lesson on Monday night. I was sure I was going to end up like Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly, but I pleasantly surprised myself. I learned some new steps, sweated up a storm, and had an amazing night out with some girl friends. It turned out to be an amazing aerobic workout! In addition to that, I looked up some of the other benefits to salsa dancing.

According to an article from Stanford, dancing has an antidepressant effect and reduces stress levels. It increases the level of serotonin, which improves mood. In contrast, a decreased level of serotonin can lead to depression. It can also increase mental sharpness for all ages! 

Dancing has proved to be extremely effective for seniors! A study done by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in NYC followed 488 seniors between the ages of 75 and 85 over the course of 21 years. They assessed several different self-reported leisure activities, and frequent dancing was the only physical activity that was associated with a lower risk of dementia. The brain is plastic, and rewires neural pathways when necessary. By engaging in new activities, we give our brain a workout. This allows us to foster the development of new neural pathways, thus combatting the degenerative nature of diseases such as dementia. 

Dancing, especially with a partner, requires quick decision making, so it is constantly challenging your brain to creating new pathways. By following a partner, you are actively interpreting their signals and responding, thus using active thinking. Leading is great too because that role also requires active attention to possibilities. Active thinking equals new pathways.

In moderation, everything is good, but challenging your brain to form new pathways often is great! This goes for every age. It's never to early to work out your brain in new ways. So grab your girlfriends, grab your grandparents, and enjoy a new class or a night out to get in some cardio and build some new neural pathways!

References:

Powers, R. (2010, July 30). Use It or Lose It: Dancing Makes You Smarter. Retrieved January 21, 2015, from Stanford Dance: http://socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/smarter.htm

Verghese, Joe et. al. (2003, June 19). Leisure Activities and the Risk of Dementia in the Elderly. The New England Journal of Medicine.