Nothing brings people together like good food. You could say that my husband and I fell in love over a bowl of the yummiest, comfort-food meat and pasta dish in his family’s recipe box – Tallarina. Bringing all the ingredients to my BYU apartment, he swept me off of my feet with his cooking skills.  What this dish lacks in looks, it makes up for in taste! Especially with ingredients like Monterey Jack Cheese, minced garlic, savory tomato sauce, and grass-fed Jones Creek beef.

Check out this picture from our dating years! We’re just babies.

Ten years later, we are still cooking up tallarina for our now family of five. It’s one of my favorite meals to make for other families as well.  Earlier this year I received ground beef from Jones Creek Beef – a leading all-natural, grass-fed beef company based just up the road in Springville, Utah. I knew that I had to try their grass-fed beef in our favorite recipe!

Here are a few reasons that I am excited to cook with grass-fed beef from Jones Creek this year:

• higher in beta-carotene
• higher in Vitamin E
• higher in B-Vitamins
• higher in minerals: calcium, magnesium, and potassium
• higher in total Omega-3
• higher in healthy ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids (1.65 vs. 4.84)
• higher in Vaccenic Acid
• lower in those saturated fats commonly linked with heart disease
• lower in fat

I’ve got plenty of healthy recipes in the works for the rest of my ground beef, but I love being able to add all-natural beef to our favorite comfort foods as well. I hope you love it as much as we do!

You can find Jones Creek beef at Wal-mart or search for a store near you here. 

What are your FAVORITE family recipes?
Which recipes bring back the best memories?

Thank you to Jones Creek for providing me with the yummy grass-fed beef to create these recipes. 

The post Comfort Food Tallarina with Jones Creek Grass-Fed Beef appeared first on KeepMovingForwardWithMe.

A favorite Easter tradition at the Parker house is the baking of  “Resurrection rolls” to tell the story of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection.

Delicious rolls for Easter have been a family tradition since I was a child. My grandmother would wake up at 4 a.m. to start baking for the family. I can still remember the inviting smell. A few years ago when I had three children under the age of 4, I discovered a disappearing marshmallow roll recipe in the Friend Magazine that I knew would be a fun and delicious way to continue the tradition of Easter rolls.

Each step of the recipe is an opportunity to teach part of the Resurrection story. My children always get excited when they discover the crescent roll is empty and the marshmallow has disappeared. It’s a beautiful reminder that the tomb was empty and that Jesus Christ lives.

My daughter has added singing songs about the Savior to our Easter tradition. Hearing her sweetly sing, ‘Now I am here in a beautiful place, Learning the teachings of Jesus,’ as we bake is the perfect addition to our tradition that began long ago with my grandmother’s rolls.

This year we will be watching new Easter messages from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while the rolls bake. This web-site has more beautiful videos that I can’t wait to share with my family as well. It’s a lovely reminder of why we celebrate Easter presented in a way that is easy for my children to understand.

This post was featured in the Deseret News.

I love that Easter and General Conference are so close together in the Spring. Here are some of the fun ways that we are getting ready!

The post Resurrection Rolls – a Favorite Family Easter Tradition appeared first on KeepMovingForwardWithMe.

We are a group of bloggers who love to blog about food!  Each month we decide on an all-famous National Monthly Food Holiday to will base our recipes around. This month’s the ingredient is oatmeal.  Yes, January is National Oatmeal Month along with a whole array of other delightful things!! Get excited!

We hope you all enjoy our delicious oatmeal treats this month and come back to see what we bring for you next month.  If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook page Foodie Extravaganza.  We would love to have you! If you’re a spectator looking for delicious tid-bits check out our Foodie Extravaganza Pinterest Board! Looking for our previous parties? Check them out HERE. Be sure to enter the rafflecopter giveaway below for the fabulous Oatrageous Oatmeal cookbook by Kathy Hester!

Without further adieu, here is my twist on oats!

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. So many yummy possibilities. This Blueberry Oatmeal Super Smoothie is fun way to get some extra nutrients into my kiddos before school. Oats are a staple at our house and so I loved discovering that they make a great smoothie ingredient. The blender chops up the oats very finely so you get the nutrition of oatmeal – in a smoothie!

Blueberry Oatmeal Super Smoothie
Yields 4 cups

1/2 cup ice cubes
2 very ripe frozen bananas
4 ounces fresh or frozen blackberries (or substitute with berries of choice!)
2 tablespoons natural peanut butter
1/3 cup old fashioned oats
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup coconut water

Place all the ingredients into a blender and blitz on high speed for a few minutes. Serve with optional garnish of banana slices and a drizzle of honey.

As you can see – this smoothie was a success at our house and is an old family favorite. Using frozen bananas and berries vs. fresh definitely gives it more of the smoothie texture. I love that the smoothie contains so many ingredients that I can feel good about giving my children. The oats and peanut butter fill their tummies and the fruits load them up with vitamins and minerals for the day. There aren’t huge amounts of each of the ingredients in the smoothie, but it sure beats a bowl of sugary cereal! Plus they think they are getting a treat for breakfast – can’t beat that.

Here are some of the benefits:

Calcium, from the milk

Vitamin D

Fiber, from the banana, blackberries, and oats

Protein, from the milk and peanut butter

Vitamin C, from the blackberries

In addition, you get all the health benefits from coconut water, too! Coconut water raises your metabolism, boosts your immune system, fights viruses, and aids in digestion!

Another of my favorite oatmeal breakfast recipes is my super easy Overnight Baked Oatmeal. I love that it uses fruit as a natural sweetener instead of a lot of extra sugar.And if you are looking for more berry recipes – the Quinoa Blueberry Breakfast is uber healthy! You can indulge and still be healthy with my Healthier Blueberry Crepes, too.

Be sure to check out these other yummy oatmeal recipes and enter the giveaway below!

Mushroom Ginger Congee / Culinary Adventures with Camilla
Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies / Making Miracles
Southwestern Oatmeal Cakes / A Day in the Life on the Farm
Oatmeal Pancakes / Sew You Think You Can Cook
Savory Ginger Lemon Oat Porridge / The Joyful Foodie
Chickpea Veggie Soup / Food Lust People Love
Salted Vanilla Oatmeal Cookies / Baking in Pyjamas
Berry Oatmeal Super Smoothie / Keep Moving Forward With Me
Bacon Whole Grain Granola Bars / Pantry Friendly Cooking
Apple Pie Overnight Oats / Wallflour Girl
Homemade Cranberry Almond Granola / Rhubarb and Honey
Mango Poppyseed Oat Muffins / The Sweet {Tooth} Life
Brown Sugar Barbecue Meatballs / Fearlessly Creative Mammas
Oat Cinnamon Rolls / Passion Kneaded
Peanut Butter Oat Snack Balls / Mrs. Penguin
Mini Oatmeal Meatballs / The Freshman Cook
Monster Cookie Granola / From Gate to Plate

The oat-guru Kathy Hester has been so generous in donating one of her books to one of our lucky Foodie Extravaganza readers. With her book OATrageous Oatmeals: Delicious & Surprising Plant-Based Dishes From This Humble, Heart-Healthy Grain (affiliate link), you will learn how to use heart-healthy oatmeal in new and exciting ways! You can find recipes such as Steel-cut Oat Sausage Crumbles, Chickpea Veggie Soup, and Blackberry Mojito Overnight Oats. Now go enter this awesome giveaway because I’m super jealous that I can’t enter! If you don’t win, feel free to grab the link from above to purchase your own! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms & Conditions: This giveaway is open to residents of the United States and Canada only, age 18 and older. The OATragous Oatmeals Cookbook giveaway runs from Wednesday, January 7, 2015 12:00am ET through Thursday, January 15, 2015 12:00am ET. Winners will be randomly chosen and announced on January 16, 2015. Winners will also be contacted by email and will have 24 hours to respond to the email. If a winner does not respond in that time a new winner will be chosen. 

What is your favorite oat recipe?

What breakfast disappears fastest at your house?

Did you make a healthy resolution this year?

The post Berry Oatmeal Super Smoothie + Giveaway #FoodieExtravaganza appeared first on KeepMovingForwardWithMe.

Where did the summer go? This month we are wrapping up our summer adventures with one last trip to Bear Lake (pictured above!) and getting Lily ready to start second grade at her new charter school. With so many exciting things going on, I need fast, healthy, and easy snacks to keep me and the kiddos going! Apples and grapes are always a hit at our house so my littles couldn’t wait to dive into this yummy package from Chiquita Snacking.

As a busy mom, I love that Chiquita Bites are:

• Washed and ready to eat
• 30–80 calories
• A half-cup of fruit or vegetables per serving
• A great source of nutrition

They come in  single-serve bags, multipacks, and family packs – whatever size suits your family best! They are perfect for grabbing from the fridge when you are on your way to a dance lesson or – better yet – when it is your time to bring team treats for sports!

My family enjoyed eating them as is, but it was fun searching the Chiquita site for yummy and creative recipes! My little ones love it when their snacks are fun! We made these simple fruit cars for a birthday get together with cousins. They were a hit!

Apple Cars – healthy, easy and fun snacks!

We served the apple cars along with princess wands made from the grapes! Pair that with crown-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and you have happy kiddos!

To go along with the apple cars, I made our favorite fruit dip! Every time I serve it to company, I always get asked multiple times for the recipe. People are shocked when I tell them it is only two easy ingredients – honey greek yogurt and peanut butter! You can substitute any nut butter as well as different flavors of greek yogurt to change the taste. It is a protein-packed snack dip that I can feel good about my kids indulging in. Perfect to serve with the apple and grapes!

I am excited to try a few more of the recipes from the Chiquita web-site for our after school snacks! Don’t these look delicious?

Love that back to school snacks just got a little easier and healthier at our house! The Chiquita Snacking company loves making life easier for moms! T

What is a favorite after school snack at your house?

How do you get ready to go back to school?

I received this product for free from the manufacturer. I agreed to use this product and post my opinion on my blog. My opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the manufacturer of the product.

The post Healthy and Easy Back to School Snacks appeared first on KeepMovingForwardWithMe.

Just wrapped an incredibly inspiring weekend at a blog conference in Salt Lake City. I stayed at my mom’s house to lessen the commute and got to enjoy some great breakfast chats with her over this yummy dish – Breakfast Quinoa with Blueberries. We are both a few weeks into the The Fast Metabolism Diet (see how I lost 5 lbs in a week!). During Phase 1 grains and fruits are important – making this breakfast the perfect way to start your day! Quinoa definitely makes an appearance in our dinner and snack menu plans. Quinoa and Parmesan Cheese-Stuffed Tomatoes – yes, please! But I have yet to try quinoa for breakfast so I was intrigued when my mom shared this dish with me.

The dish is so simple to make!

Arrowhead Mills Organic Gluten-Free Quinoa Rice & Shine Hot Cereal

1 cup of rinsed blueberries
Stevia
Cinnamon

Prepare according to the box instructions. Just add water – it’s super simple! Mix with fresh blueberries and top with sprinkles of cinnamon and Stevia. Enjoy!

I love recipes like this for Phase 1 of Haylie Pomeroy’s Fast Metabolism Diet. The quinoa adds a slightly nutty taste and the protein keeps you full for much longer.

You can find the Quinoa Rice and Shine at Harmon’s or also on Amazon.com at the link below. Love free shipping and you get 5 percent off when you add it to your subscribe and save order!

I am still loving this book and the results I am seeing from it! I took a mini-break while I was at the blogging conference, but now I am back on board!

This post contains affiliate links to Amazon.com. I love getting my groceries delivered right to my order so I am happy to share!

Linking up with Nomday Monday!

What are your favorite healthy breakfast recipes?

The post Breakfast Quinoa with Blueberries appeared first on KeepMovingForwardWithMe.

This month we are swapping greens into our meals thanks to Green Moms Meet and Fresh Express! From breakfast, to snack, to lunch, to dinner … I am excited to transform some of our favorite meals into healthier salads. We started our week with this delicious Tex Mex Salad! All you need is:

Fresh Express Tex Mex Salad

Fresh Express 50/50 Mix

Lake Country Asiago Cheese from Costco

Grape Tomatoes

Black Beans (drained)

Corn

Southwest Tortilla Chips

Lime for squeezing

Add all the ingredients together and enjoy! Simple, right?

Now I need to find 29 days more worth of salad swaps! Luckily, I am not alone in this endeavor. Fresh Express has made it uber easy for me and has even created an app to help me add greens to my daily meal plan.

I’ve been playing with it all morning and I love the suggestions! Once you sign in, you can select certain meals that you crave – from Chicken Alfredo to Grilled Cheese – and Fresh Express will provide you with a healthier green alternative. Know what my guilty pleasure is? Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers from Wendy’s! Clicked on it in the app and I was immediately directed to a yummy recipe! Try it here.

The app also helps you track your calories and exercise – perfect for me because I am headed to Florida in six weeks and getting in shape! Now for my favorite part, you can input the codes from your Fresh Express salad bags and they will send you valuable coupons. Win – win!

To prepare for my month of salad swaps I headed to Target to stock up on Fresh Express salads. Holy salads! I was greeted with a wall of options – more than even fit in my picture! Loved the variety from Baby Kale to Spinach to Spring mixes and more. These salads are all table ready. Fresh Express salads are thoroughly washed, rinsed, and gently dried, then sealed in patented “Keep-Crisp®” breathable bags to keep their just-picked freshness, without preservatives.

Yesterday we began our salad swap! One of my favorite ways to add veggies to breakfast is by adding them to eggs. I sauteed onions, grape tomatoes, and Fresh Express spinach before adding my eggs in to scramble. So simple and so delicious.

I’ve also been known to sneak greens into smoothies. So easy to add a handful of spinach or baby kale – especially when Fresh Express does the prewashing and drying for you!. Here is one of my favorite green smoothies – this recipe has lots of yummy mix and match options! My Berry Oatmeal Smoothie would also be delicious with some baby kale thrown in – I am excited to try it.

And if you are looking for a delicious seafood salad – check out my Grilled Tilapia Salad that can be made with Fresh Express baby kale. It is one of our family favorites!

Do I have you seeing green yet? Join in on the 30-day Salad Swap challenge and be sure to download your free app to help get you started!

Be sure to LIKE Fresh Express on Facebook to stay up to date on their latest offers! You can also follow Fresh Express on Pinterest for a plethora of salad recipes and ideas! They have a board for every month of they year – check it out!

You can stock up on your own Fresh Express salad kits with coupons available from Green Moms Meet.
I received this product for free from the sponsor of the Moms MeetSM program, May Media Group LLC, who received it directly from the manufacturer. As a Moms MeetSM blogger, I agreed to use this product and post my opinion on my blog. My opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of May Media Group LLC. or the manufacturer of the product.

What is your favorite salad?

How do you get greens into your family’s diet?

The post Fresh Express Tex Mex Salad + Coupons and a free app! appeared first on KeepMovingForwardWithMe.

Now that my family is feeling better, we have jumped into the fun of February with full force. The first week and a half has been  packed with yummy food and activities leading up to two fabulous events – the Olympics and Valentines Day! 

For Valentines Day we love splurging on decadent desserts. Driscoll’s Berries was kind enough to send me some coupons for berries so I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect berry dessert. As luck would have it, I came across this recipe for Cheese Crepes from Natasha’s Kitchen when I was searching for Russian foods to make my family for the Olympics. I knew by substituting blueberries that the crepes would be the perfect treat for the Sochi 2014 Opening Ceremonies and then the perfect breakfast for Valentines Day!

To make these to-die-for crepes, I followed the recipe from Natasha’s Kitchen with a few alternations. One healthy substitution that Natasha makes is to use 1/2 whole wheat flour and 1/2 white flour instead of entirely white flour. You can also use low-fat cream cheese as well as fat-free cottage cheese to make it even healthier! By making the healthiest version of the recipe, I can still spoil my little family for special days like Valentines Day, but know we are on track when it comes to our health. My favorite substitution is the blueberries for the raisins.

Why? Because blueberries are a super food! February is American Heart Month and these sweet little berries will help keep your heart healthy in the following ways:

• Blueberries are an antioxidant rich super food. Antioxidants can help reverse and prevent health disease.
• Because blueberries are high in fiber, they help keep your cholesterol low which helps out your heart!
• Blueberries are high in Vitamin C and help boost your immune system.

Do I have you craving blueberries yet? If not, check out this yummy Raspberry and Blueberry Kale Salad!

I’ve teamed up with my blogger friends, The Bloggerettes, to bring you even more yummy recipes and heart-healthy activities this month. This post is the first collection of recipes and crafts brought to you by The Bloggerettes. Each month we are going to bring you a themed party post that will have all sorts of goodies in it.

Along side myself, I have seven other wonderful ladies. I think I should give them all an introduction… this is our first collective post and you need to know where you can find my awesome blogger friends! So here they are…

Amber, the creative mind and busy mom of a 1-year-old behind Rick-A-Bam-Boo
Christina from It’s a Keeper
Alexis, a lover of crafts, recipes, family fun and the busy mom of 3 under 3 at We Like to Learn as We Go
Summer, the cook, crafter and dessert lover behind Summer Scraps
Taralyn, the traveler, mother, and life-time learner behind Keep Moving Forward with Me
Kaylin, the messy cook behind Keep it Simple Sweetie where she shares how to keep meals simple and fun
Lauren, the aggie enthused chef behind From Gate to Plate
Aimee from Aims Creations

Now lets get to the rest of the fun…

As I mentioned above, February is National Heart Month and Valentine’s Day. We have brought you a collection of some of our favorite heart-healthy and heart-shaped recipes to spoil your family with this Valentines. If you choose one of our heart-shaped recipes, be sure to get outside and be active with your family!

Also, let us help you begin your journey to better heart health, by keeping these simple steps in mind:

Don’t go it alone. The journey is more fun when you have company. Ask loved ones to join you. 
Don’t get discouraged. You may not be able to finish all the steps at one time; take a break and come back to them later.
Don’t become overwhelmed. With each it step brings you closer to a healthier heart.
Reward yourself. Enjoy your hobbies, decrease your stress.

**************

Now that you’ve seen my healthier blueberry crepes, why don’t you take a look at what the others are sharing. Driscoll’s berries would be perfect in so many of these recipes!

Raspberry Angel Dessert by Summer Scraps
Iced Oatmeal Cookies {Heart-Shaped} by From Gate to Plate
Love Bug Sandwiches by It’s a Keeper
Healthier Heart Pancakes by We Like to Learn as We Go
Heart Healthy Easy Strawberry Citrus Salad by Keep it Simple, Sweetie
Chia Seed Pudding by Rick-A-Bam-Boo

Be sure to check back the last week of February for another themed party! {I know we said only one a month, but hey it’s a Double Dose February!}

What are your favorite foods for Valentines Day?

What is your favorite berry?

** Driscoll Berries provided me with coupons for this post. Thank you! Check out the Berry Community at their web-site for coupons of your own! 

The post I love you berry much – healthier blueberry crepes appeared first on KeepMovingForwardWithMe.

One of my favorite places to visit is the Oregon coast. Whenever we go, we always stop at quaint restaurants and enjoy the local seafood. It is to-die-for scrumptious. For some reason, I never thought I could recreate the same mouth-watering tastes at home. Too hard to do in a land-locked state like Utah! That is until I discovered Gorton’s Seafood.

To my surprise, Wal-mart had an entire freezer dedicated to Gorton’s. I was seriously wowed by my choices! I snapped up some fish sticks for my kiddos, but checked out the grilled selections for myself.

P.S. Every member of my family devoured the fish sticks. That has not happened at a meal in way to long. Mommy & Gorton’s Seafood for the win!

I selected the Roasted Garlic and Butter Grilled Tilapia for my delicious salad (recipe below!). Usually, I am a breaded gal when it comes to fish, but Gorton’s makes grilled look easy so I thought I would give it a try! Here are the other yummy ingredients I picked up for the salad:

 The salad was so easy to whip up with my husband! While my husband chopped the onions and apples, I tossed the tilapia in the oven. It came out just a little bit later looking like this. Hello Gorgeous!

The tilapia was perfectly seasoned and incredibly flakey – just how I like it! The best part is – I just had to put it in the oven and then put it on top my salad! Love it! Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

Gorton’s Roasted Garlic & Butter Grilled Tilapia
Baby Kale Blend with Garden Veggiees (or your favorite greens!)
Dried Mixed Berries
Chopped Walnuts
Feta Cheese
2 small Apples
Lemon Juice
Red Onion
2 slices of bacon
Poppyseed Dressing

Instructions

Prepare Gorton’s Roasted Garlic & Butter Grilled Tilapia as directed.
Cook 2 slices of bacon and crumble them.
Core and chop apples into bite sized pieces. Sprinkle with lemon juice to keep from turning brown
Chop red onion into your size of preference

Now comes the easy part! Load your plate with the yummy kale blend and then layer all of the ingredients on top. So yummy!

I love that this salad contains so many super foods! From the Omega-3s in the tilapia to the antioxidants in the berries. Everything I need to end my day right.

Now my readers are in luck because Gorton’s has a $1 coupon that you can print and one of my lucky readers will win a Gorton’s prize pack of their own to try! Enter on the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

After you’ve entered my giveaway, head on over to enter Gorton’s Real Fabulous Sweepstakes where you can win a $1000 makeover! After adding the delicious 80-calorie grilled tilapia to your dinners, you may need a new wardrobe to match your healthy lifestyle!

Gorton’s also has some delicious recipes on their web-site. We have the Grilled Tilapia Tacos on our menu plan for next week. And the Gorton’s Wicked Good Fish and Chips is going to make an appearance on our Super Bowl menu. So yummy – I cannot wait!

*I received free product to conduct my review. I only share products that my family has loved!

The post Grilled Tilapia Kale Salad appeared first on KeepMovingForwardWithMe.

Call me crazy, the brussel sprout is one of my favorite vegetables. Not just any brussel sprouts, brussel sprouts roasted in coconut oil and sea salt. I pop these yummy morsels in my mouth like candy. I seriously hesitate to share with my children and my husband’s fingers better move fast if he wants any.

When I was asked to try out Tropical Traditions Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil, I just knew it was perfect for my favorite brussel sprouts recipe. The Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil is certified organic and traditionally made. The taste is pure and delicious!

Ready to try out the infamous brussel sprouts? They are beyond easy to make. Most of the time, I guesstimate my ingredients for this recipe according to taste, but I’ve written out some estimations just for you. My sister in law shared this recipe with me and I’ve been a fan ever since!

Roasted Coconut Brussel Sprouts

Ingredients:

Brussell Sprouts – a bowlful

Sea Salt – 1/2 teaspoon

Tropical Traditions Organic Virgin Coconut Oil – 2 tablespoons

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400. Line a baking sheet or pan with foil (all about avoiding messes!) Cut the stem off of each brussel sprout and then cut in half vertically. Gently rinse brussel sprouts. Place brussel sprouts with melted coconut oil and sea salt in a sealed plastic bag and shake. Pour onto baking sheet. Roast approximately 30-45 minutes. Be sure to check on them often during the last minutes to make sure they don’t burn! I love mine with just a little crisp!

Tropical Traditions has kindly agreed to give one of my readers their own 1 quart jar of Tropical Traditions Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil. I hope you love it as much as I do. You can find out more about the product in this video or at this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h6eycjf29M

My family has been using coconut oil for about three years. It’s a fantastic addition to our pantry and has so many uses! You can check out more ways to use coconut oil here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

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