Healthy Egg Salad

Hello and welcome to my blog! So glad to have you stop by! My name is Stacy and Egg salad sandwiches and devilled eggs were one of my favorite things to make and eat when I was a kid. I am a super protein junkie and must have figured this out around this age. I made traditionally made egg salad all my life until I got into a health kick and realized mayo is not really good for you and that the egg salad tasted like mayo, which in all reality I am not the hugest fan of its flavor either. So in my attempts to bring you lower fat and better for you egg salad and devilled eggs I will warn you its not because we are using "low fat mayo" as the replacement for goodness.
If you like what you see I'd sure appreciate you to come back soon or follow my blog! Comments and questions are gladly appreciated!

Ingredients:

6 eggs hard boiled
1/8 cup pickle juice
1/2 plain yogurt
1/2 tsp of each: paprika, salt, pepper, dill, cayenne pepper

Directions:
1) Hard boil eggs, in 1 tsp of baking soda. Let eggs cool in water and break shells away carefully.

2) Next put eggs into mixing bowl and mash with potato masher.

 3) Add in pickle juice, yogurt and spices and continue mashing all together.

 4) Taste and add more seasonings if you like, I am addicted to dill so I added more.

3) Mix seasonings and other ingrediants into yolk and mash with fork til creamy, if not creamy enough add more pickle juice to soften up.

Enjoy and come back for more soon!!

Homemade Chocolate Popcorn

Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 5 mins

Ingredients:

Popcorn
1/8 cup of organic coconut oil
1/2 cup of organic popcorn kernels

Chocolate
1/2 cup of organic chocolate chips (any flavor you like butterscotch, semisweet, milk, white)
1/4 cup of  pure maple syrup
1/8 cup of coconut oil
1/2 tsp of butter (optional)
Salt to taste


Variations
1/2 tsp of apple pie spice or cardamom or a little kick
1/4 tsp of cayenne for a spicy sweet popcorn
1/4 cup peanut butter for a chocolate peanut butter cup
1/2 cup of peanuts for a nutty chocolate popcorn parfait

1) Start a small saucepan at low heat with your chocolate, maple, coconut oil and stir often!
2) If you have never popped popcorn at home on the stove, you don't know what your missing... first of all you going to heat up the coconut oil in a large pot that has a fitted lid. Med-high is a good temperature for making popcorn.

3) When oil gets hot add kernels to oil and put lid on pot... use potholders to shake the popcorn once every 30 seconds or so.
4) Alternate between stirring your chocolate and shuffling your popcorn ;)

5) Once chocolate is melted remove from heat, it will stay warm enough in pan to not set.

6) Dump popped kernels and chocolate into the pot and mix until popcorn is coated with chocolate, salt to taste.

Creamy Potato Leek Soup

Prep time: 40 mins Cook time: 10 mins Serves: 6

Ingredients:

4 organic leeks
4 organic carrots
8 large organic potatoes or 16 small
1 sausage, vegan or chicken
3 cloves of garlic
4 cups of organic milk or milk alt.
4 cups of water
1 tbls salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp basil
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp parsley
a few sprigs of rosemary


Directions:

1) Start potatoes in water on high.

2) Start saute pan on med-high with a coat of olive oil.
Cut leeks, carrots, garlic and sausage into small dices.

3) Saute leeks and carrots in olive oil in one regular sized saute pan on med-high. Cook garlic and sausage into smaller saute pan on medium.

This is what your stovetop should look like at this point! ;)

(Once leeks, carrots, sausage and garlic are browned, they can sit aside)

4) Start dicing the potatoes you put aside in cool water, careful they may still be very hot. Peel if you like, I peeled some but left some peels too ;)

5) The remaining potatoes in water are ready to mash, leave them in the pot, but put potato water aside for now. Mash the potatoes in the pot with milk until a very creamy mashed potato consistency at medium temperature.

6) Add back 4 cups of your potato water to mash, stir soup with large spoon, add in your leaks and other diced potatoes, carrots and garlic but do not mash anymore.





7) Add seasonings and salt to taste. Turn to low and stir often. Its ready to eat when hot throughout.

Enjoy with a little cheese on the top with fresh ground pepper, and a side of delicious artisan bread. ;)