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Search Results for: nachos

Mediterranean Nachos

August 6, 2015 · by Ari ·

Mediterranean Nachos: Taking comfort food to the next level with this Mediterranean inspired twist!


Mediterranean nachos take the ultimate comfort food and gives it a new, mediterranean twist. So gooey and comforting, no one will ever know these nachos have less than half the calories of traditional nachos with a protein boost that makes them healthy enough to call dinner!

Mediterranean Nachos: Taking comfort food to the next level with this Mediterranean inspired twist!

So I have this thing about nachos. Like a serious love, can’t get enough type of thing. But they always seem to be on that unofficial list of foods I don’t eat. My husband will order them at a restaurant in a heartbeat, and I always just sit there with food envy.

Mediterranean Nachos: Taking comfort food to the next level with this Mediterranean inspired twist!

Some of my very favorite nachos (I of course have to taste test every time her orders 😉 ) are at Pita Jungle. It’s ironic because Pita Jungle is supposed to be “healthy” then they have these bomb nachos and now whenever I go there, that’s all I want to order. I mean, at least they’re made from real ingredients? No funky processed cheese or weirdness.

 

Mediterranean Nachos: Taking comfort food to the next level with this Mediterranean inspired twist!

I’ve been dying to make some nachos of my own and I wanted to play a little off theirs, but give it more of a Mediterranean twist. You know hummus, tzatziki, feta, marinated chicken, and of course California Ripe Olives. California olives are a great piece of the Mediterranean diet, and I’m not one for “diets”, but I think we can all agree that those Mediterraneans are doing things right. Lean protein, olives, olive oil…the good stuff.

Mediterranean Nachos: Taking comfort food to the next level with this Mediterranean inspired twist!

They were so dreamy and decadent tasting that Steve and I gobbled up a good portion of the batch pretty darn quick. So many of my favorite flavors, tons of textures and a generous drizzle of Sriracha for spice makes these babies pretty irresistible.

Mediterranean Nachos
Recipe Type: Appetizer
Author: Ari Ziskin
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 3 mins
Total time: 8 mins
Serves: 2-4
Mediterranean nachos take the ultimate comfort food and gives it a new, mediterranean twist. So gooey and comforting, no one will ever know these nachos have less than half the calories of traditional nachos with a protein boost that makes them healthy enough to call dinner!
Ingredients
  • 4 ounces blue corn chips*
  • 1/3 cup hummus (I used cilantro jalapeno)**
  • 1/4 cup black beans, drained
  • 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 2-3 tablespoons finely chopped red onion
  • 8 ounces grilled chicken breast, sliced
  • 2 ounces freshly crumbled feta cheese
  • 1/4 cup tzatziki
  • 2 tablespoons sliced California Black Ripe Olives
  • Fresh cilantro
  • Sriracha
Instructions
  1. Lay chips out in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle hummus over the chips then add black beans, tomatoes, onion, chicken and feta. Broil until cheese softens, about 2-3 minutes. Watch carefully because food can quickly go from cooked to burnt.
  2. Top with a generous scoop of tzatziki, olives a pinch of fresh cilantro and a drizzle of Sriracha. Serve immediately.
Notes
*To lower the calories, bake your own corn chips with corn tortillas, a little olive oil and salt until crispy.[br]**I recommend gently warming the hummus before topping to make it easier to drizzle over the chips.
3.3.3077

 

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Filed Under: Appetizers, Chicken, Dinner, Gluten-free, savory, Snacks · Tagged: greek nachos, healthy chicken nachos, healthy nachos, healthy nachos recipe, recipe for nachos

HLS13 Recap

September 17, 2013 · by Ari ·

Hi friends! I’ve just returned from one of the greatest weekends of my life, and I honestly have no idea where to even begin, or how the heck I’m going to fit this all into one post, but I’m not really a multiple post kind of girl (I get bored, and never finish what I actually wanted to talk about), so here we go…

Thursday:

Nicole and I got into Minneapolis around noon, headed to the hotel to check in, and then grabbed lunch at The Local.

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After lunch we met up with Kristi and went to a fro-yo mini mingle, followed by probably my favorite meal of the trip at Chino Latino. All of their food is served family style, so Nicole, Alex, Steph and I ordered a few dishes to share.

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Nicole & Alex putting the enormous spoons to use

After dinner, we headed up to drinks on a rooftop bar. I don’t really remember where, but as we walked back up to our room that night, Nicole and I began our gushing session about how much we already loved the summit, the mini mingles, and basically every single person we had met.

Friday:

The next morning we started off with a tour with Wild Harvest. The highlights were definitely learning about product sampling (such a big process!) and my favorite (obviously), the recipe development. There was tons of food to taste, and it was all great. The turkey burger sliders were my favorite.

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After the tour, we headed back to the hotel and met our 4th roommate. We had found Katie on the HLS facebook page and we literally had no idea how it would go when we met her. Well, after 5 minutes, we were all in friendship love. Seriously, this girl is amazing, and I feel like I am leaving the summit with a new life-long friend.

My roommates, Emily Relishments and I all walked down  to Fulton Brewery for some beer tasting.

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Katie & Nicole. And beer.

Most of the breweries around there don’t serve food, but they do have food trucks hanging around! We ordered some nachos to split.

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The highlight was definitely the beer + ginger ale combo. I would highly recommend trying it next time you’re at a place that has both!

That evening, I went to a mini mingle at Hell’s Kitchen for dinner. It was kind of love at first site when I checked out the drink menu and saw that they infused their own liquors including a blackberry whiskey and a vanilla-cinnamon whiskey. Talk about the way to my heart. 😉

After dinner, we all headed over to the cocktail party. One of my favorite parts (aside from the photo booth which was obviously my very  favorite part) was that when we walked in, we were given a note card with part of a famous duo or trio, and we were supposed to find out counter part and take a picture in the photo booth together. I was really nervous about going up and talking to new people, but this made it so much easier! Not to mention, I got jelly and spent the first few minutes looking for my peanut almond butter. How perfect for me, right?

photo courtesy of Amanda

Amanda was the AB to my J, and she is awesome!

Once all of my roommates had found their counter part, we spent the rest of the evening taking as many photo booth pictures as possible.

photobooth

 

photo courtesy of Katie

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#2208!!! Yes, we did create a hashtag for our room number.

The view from The Guthrie was absolutely gorgeous.

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On the way back, it was beautiful and foggy–we never see things like this in Arizona!

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Saturday:

Saturday was a total blur. I know we woke up, and went to other presentations, and spoke, and then went to more presentations, but I was a bundle of nerves and couldn’t focus on much other than making it through our presentation.

Ready????

Ready????

Luckily, I felt like it did go pretty well, and by the time it was over, I actually wanted to do it again! I love working with Nicole because working with a good friend eases the nerves, and helps me to be myself. We balance each other out, and it makes almost everything in life better. PS, if you missed our session, check out Kristin’s live blog recap!

After the sessions, I went out with my roomies and new BFF Kammie to find dinner. We had a hard time deciding, and it was raining, so we ended up going back to The Local because it was so close, and the food was realllly good. Then we went back to Hell’s Kitchen for drinks because I couldn’t live without trying the cinnamon-vanilla whiskey. It.was.awesome.

Sunday:

Nicole, Katie and I got up to meet most of the girls for the 5k fun run. The weather was gorgeous–cloudy, drizzly, crisp and cool. We ran down to a local park and I spent most of the time chatting with Nicole, Katie, Heather and Steph. It was so beautiful out, and I was beyond thrilled to be running with such a great group! We stopped at the park for some pictures.

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Jumping picture? I failed.

Jumping picture? I failed.

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After we said goodbye to all of our new friends (umm, this was SO SAD!), Nicole and I headed off to find lunch, and then ended the trip on a super high note: the cronut.

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Have you heard of these yet?? It’s a croissant donut, and I’ve been wanting to try one for months! I was sure there was no way it could be as good as I imagined, but it was BETTER! Not dry at all like some donuts can be. It really was the best of both worlds.

Final thoughts:

Honestly, it was absolutely incredibly what Heather, Julie and the rest of the planning committee created. Everything was so well organized, and I was the most impressed with what a comfortable and open environment they created. Meeting new people is scary, but the second I met Heather and Julie, I instantly felt at ease, and like I belonged, and isn’t that why we all go to these things? To feel like we’re a part of something, and feel included? I am beyond grateful to these ladies for all of their hard work, and I can’t wait to be a part of this again next year in Madison!

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized · Tagged: blogging, healthy living summit

Healthy living blogs

August 10, 2011 · by Ari ·

Confession: I have recently become mildly obsessed with reading healthy living blogs. Doesn’t that seem like the coolest thing ever to have your job be writing about your food and work outs? I would love that! Anyway, I’ve gotten tons of great recipes and tips from them, and I wanted to share in case anyone else was as nerdy as me and wanted to check them out. I follow an embarrassing amount but my favs are

Carrots N Cake for many reasons including the fact that Tina is super funny and has the cutest little pug in the world and if there is anything I’m more obsessed with than food, it’s puppies!

Kath Eats because she works at a Great Harvest Bread Co!! If you haven’t been, you must. So delicious.

Food Fitness Fashion because in addition to her food and work outs, she takes pictures of her outfits and says where she got everything! Also, pretty much all her basics are from places like Old Navy which makes me inner thrifty Jew self happy :O)

Healthy Food For Living This one is purely for recipes. She doesn’t post much about her life and I find most of what she writes even about her cooking process not the most interesting, but her recipes are amazing.

So for several reasons I decided to delete what was formerly my “personal life” blog. Mostly because I started to feel a little ridiculous having more than one and was having way more fun writing in this one, but I am hoping to change this one up a little bit to be more of a whole life blog with an emphasis on recipes (isn’t that what my life basically is–life with an emphasis on food? haha)

Today after the gym I made a trip to the second happiest place on earth (obviously Disney Land cannot be beat) Whole Foods! Yes you can judge me for how excited I get about Whole Foods, but it’s expensive and I don’t get to buy things there all that often. It’s like the Anthropologie of grocery stores! And I stocked up on some things for a few culinary experiments I’m hoping to try!

1) Chia seeds! Everyone is talking about them. They’re supposed to be really good in oatmeal, and I have been on a total oatmeal kick lately ever since trying oats in a jar! I can’t wait for breakfast tomorrow!

2) Nutritional yeast. Ok, I’m a little skeptical about this one. I’ll be honest, it does not smell appetizing. But nutritionally it has a lot going for it. Before the end of the week I plan on baking my own tortilla chips, cooking up some ground turkey breast with taco seasoning and some black beans and making this sauce with the nutritional yeast for some skinnified nachos. I hope it doesn’t suck.

3) Red fat goats milk. Inspired by one of my favorite people on earth (John Moum!) I am going to make my own goat cheese! Steve is excited for this adventure too :O)

That is definitely enough to keep me busy through the weekend. Along with creating lesson plans for Mesa Arts Academy, reading Dreyfus in Rehearsal, seeing the preview of Glee 3D tonight (judge away!), family din on Friday, Wet and Wild on Sat, and some time fitting in 4 hours to watch the finale of SYTYCD!

Lastly, now that I have my mornings free again, I am taking full advantage of the classes at my gym! I am still sore today from Monday’s Body Works and tomorrow I’m getting my butt back into Spin!! The goal is a Body Works, Spin and Yoga class every week, 3 days of my own thing focusing especially on my wimpy biceps and shoulders, and one rest day. I am back to feeling pumped and motivated! I hope it lasts!

Filed Under: Uncategorized ·

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