Author: Meeshie Nguyen

Meeshie Nguyen is a 38 year-old single mommy of the cutest 3 year- old boy Maddox. She is a full time Senior Financial Analyst (by day ) who founded D-Lux Events in 2009 – an organization that creates events for non-profits and run by volunteers – her passion to #GiveBack in her “free time”. She is also the co-founder of The Live Well Project (www.thelivewellproject.org ) which empowers, inspires, and motivates young teenage girls to live a healthy lifestyle. Meeshie is a 7 year breast cancer survivor who underwent chemotherapy and radiation. This past February 2014, her mother passed away from a year long bout with lung cancer. Meeshie is an ambassador for the American Lung Association of Southern California. She blogs about her experiences with both diseases in hopes that it will give education and hope to those affected by cancer. Meeshie loves to stay active! She runs in half and full marathons, loves Crossfit, and in Septemer 2013, decided to train for a bikini fitness competition. She competed in her first competition in November 2013 and again this past May 2014 in her first NPC Bikini Fitness show. Healthy eating is a way of life for Meeshie and she is very excited to be the blogger for the No Excuse Mom’s “Quick & Easy Recipes”! “Your health and the health of your family should be the number one priority in your life. Without your health, you cannot thrive in life. Eating clean is essential for everyone! “ ~Meeshie
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Quickest Turkey Pasta Dish that the KIDS will LOVE!

NEMS!  Ever find that by the time you pick up the kids from school, run them to soccer, swim, and gymnastics it’s just about past dinner time?  Well, here’s a really quick, easy, and a pretty healthy dish that I promise the kids will LOVE!

 

 

 

Prep Time:  5 min.   Cook Time:  15 min.

What you’ll need:

  • Pasta noodles
  • CLASSICO “Sweet Tomato Basil” red sauce
  • 1lb. Lean ground turkey
  • Small can of Hunts garlic sauce
  • Garlic Salt
  • 2 pats of butter

How to make the quick din-din:

  • Empty the Classico & Hunts sauce in a sauce pan and simmer on low

sauce       hunts

  • Next boil water and add the pasta noodles and cook as instructed on the box

pasta noodles

  • While the pasta is cooking, place a pat of butter in a pan and cook the lean turkey (you can also use PAM or olive oil)  add some garlic salt

meat (1)

  •  Once the pasta is done, drain, but keep the noodles in the large pot,  add the turkey (you can drain the juice, but I leave it for added taste)
  • Stir the noodles and turkey together then add the sauce
  • Stir and let sit for 5-10 minutes
  • You can add a salad or a side of chopped fruit

final pasta

This will make 4-6 servings.  The leftovers make for a great school lunch the next day! 🙂

meeshie

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Sweet Potato Snack!

Eating “good carbs” is important when you are trying to #EatClean! Here’s an easy sweet potato recipe that has NO SALT added.  This is a GREAT snack for the kiddos too! 🙂

Prep time:  10 min    Cook time:  40 min

This is a quick and easy dinner, here’s what you’ll need:

  • 2 large sweet potatoes

  • olive oil

  • dried oregano

  • pepper

  • cinnamon

Prep: 

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Peel the sweet potatoes then cut into 1/2 inch rounds

  2. I’m LAZY! So place foil on a baking sheet for easy clean up 

  3. Place the rounds on foil and first add olive oil, sprinkle some oregano, pepper, then some cinnamon – YUM! 

  4. Cook for 40 minutes or until your fork-test gives you the firmness or softness you want. 

That’s it! Pretty easy stuff right?!?!? I’m no Betty Crocker, so I like quick prep, put in oven with timer and BAM!

meeshie

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4th of July Egg White Protein w/Oats Pancake!

Happy 4th NEMs!  What a better way to start out the morning of the 4th with some egg white protein powder w/oats pancakes!  (Try saying that three times really fast!!! LOL!)  I got this awesome recipe from my old high school friend Dimar Owens!  We actually JUST had our 20 year high school reunion last week!  I will say though, we are feeling way “younger” than we did back in the day. 😉

A little bit about our NEM  Dimar Owens….

dimar owens

1.  Tell me about your family

We are an active family of four who do our best to work hard so we can play hard. Married ten years with two sassy girls, 4 and 7 years old.

2.  What do you do for work?

I’m the proud owner and lead graphic designer at A Vibrant Wedding for over 12 years now. We are a full service custom invitation and stationery design studio located in San Diego, California that ships nationwide. A Vibrant Wedding specializes in designing all stationery including wedding invitations, save-the-dates, matching wedding day stationery, custom birthday invitations, birth announcements, baptism invitations and much more. (www.vibrantweddings.com)

3.  What motivated you to get into fitness and do a show?

I have always been an athlete from kinder to college so it was just a matter of time after having my babies, getting them potty trained and finally getting enough sleep through the night that I would get back into fitness. I saw a church member whom I barely new post her photos of her bikini competition in 2012 and I started inquiring about Body Building and the different levels. After getting the scoop on what it meant to compete in a Body Building competition and convincing my family, I hired an experienced trainer with body building experience and never looked back! Little did I know I would do so well in my first show. It was probably the hardest thing I have ever experienced in my life but well worth it. What made it so hard was trying to fit the training, meal prepping and eating in to my already busy life with my family, kids and my business. But I found a way, better yet… I MADE a way and till this day, this experience has changed my life in more ways than one.

” My healthy pancakes are by far my favorite meal of the day. I can literally eat Egg-white & Oats Pancakes for breakfast lunch and dinner. LOL!  (Note: this recipe still works great without the whey protein powder. Just substitute a little more oats for the protein powder.)”  ~ Dimar
 
 

What you’ll need:

~  1 cup Egg Whites
~  1/4 cup Rolled Oats
~  1/2 scoop of whey protein powder
~  Sugar Free MAple Syrup
~  1/3 cup of Berries
~  Pan Oil Spray

 

Mix the egg whites, whey protein powder and oats in a bowl.

1

 

Lightly spray pan with oil and then heat the small pan, pour pancake mixture into warm pan, cook pancake on low to med heat for 3 minutes than flip pancake when firm, cook for one more minute and serve.

2

Top with fresh berries and sugar-free syrup.  To be festive for the 4th, add some bananas (for the “white”)  🙂

3

Recipe makes one pancake. Delicious, healthy, and filling!

YUMMY!!!  Let us know how you like this recipe by leaving a comment below AND please SHARE on your social media!

HAPPY 4th OF JULY! 🙂

meeshie

 

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Filet Mignon Stir Fry

NEMS!  Do you love beef?  I DO!  Here is an easy, quick, healthy, and most importantly TASTY recipe!  (As always, you can substitute the beef with chicken, shrimp, or tofu)

 

 

What you need:

Notice that I don’t use the “name brand” items – every market has a comprable brand that is as good or even better and the best part is that it’s always CHEAPER! 😉

  • Mushrooms
  • Green beans
  • Sweet Yellow onion (1)
  • Carrots
  • Filet Mignon steak (or beef of choice)
  • Oyster Sauce
  • Brown Rice
  • Pat of butter or Olive oil

How to cook it:

  • Make your brown rice

rice

  • Chop up the sweet yellow onion
  • Slice the Filet Mignon (which I waited to buy until it was on sale) into medium thick slices

steak

  • Wash the mushrooms

mushrooms

  • Cut up the carrots
  • Trim the ends of the green beans and wash

green beans

  • In a pan, you can either use a pat of butter or olive oil and saute the onions and carrots
  • Next add the sliced filet mignon – I LOVE my filet cooked medium rare – but if you are serving children, medium-well is your best bet.  The meat will still be tender 🙂
  • Add your Oyster Sauce  don’t be shy with it.  Notice that we are not using salt at all in this recipe – it’s because the oyster sauce has enough salt in it for taste.  You can find the oyster sauce at any market in the Asian/Mexican aisle

oyster

  • Add your green beans and mushrooms

pan food

  • Stir until you get your desired tenderness of the filet and veggies
  • Serve on top of your brown rice and be sure to add some of the sauce

final dish

ENJOY!!!

If you have any questions about the recipe you can always contact me on Facebook! 🙂

~ Meeshie

meeshie

 

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Quinoa Chicken Salad – (served cold)

You are going to LOVE this Quinoa Chicken Salad!   Last week I went to my friend Izabella’s house for a play date and she made this dinner for us.  Of course, once I saw and tasted it I knew that this was the perfect recipe for NEMs!

Prep Time:  20 min

 

What you’ll need:

  • 2-3 chicken breasts
  • Package of Quinoa (the one shown here is from Trader Joe’s)
  • 1 red bell pepper
  • 1 cucumber
  • Bag of baby carrots
  • 1 can whole kernel corn
  • 1 can black beans
  • 1-2 lemons
  • Olive Oil
  • Lemon  Pepper
  • Balsamic Vinaigrette

Instructions:

  • First rinse and chop your chicken breasts bite size pieces or your choosing

chicken breasts

  • In a pan, add the olive oil, chicken, and season with lemon pepper and cook thoroughly, set aside to cool

cubed chicken

  • Make your Quinoa according to package instructions. For this recipe I just used 1 cup of the quinoa and saved the rest for another recipe 😉

quinoa

In a large bowl, combine the following:

  • Wash & chop into small pieces:  Red bell pepper

bell peppers chopped bell peppers

  • Wash & chop into small pieces:  Cucumber (with skin)

chopped cucumbers

  • Wash & chop into small pieces:  Baby carrots
  • Drain the canned corn and add
  • Drain the black beans and add

canned items

Now all you have to do is combine all the ingredients.  Cut up 1 lemon and squeeze over the bowl and stir.  This will help keep the salad fresh! 🙂

final quinoa

When you are ready to serve, add some balsamic vinaigrette, and ENJOY!

If you have leftovers, just plop that into the fridge.  The next time you are hungry and want something healthy and already made, just squeeze some lemon juice on your dish, stir, and ENJOY…AGAIN! 😉

meeshie

 

 

 

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Tomato Risotto – Vegan & Kid Friendly!

NEMs!

One of the new things I am bringing to you as your Recipe Blogger is a variety of meals for your family AND kids!  I recently found a wonderful mom Brandi who has her own blog on VEGAN dishes! 

The online interview…

Meeshie:  How many children do you have and how old?

Brandi:  Hi Meeshie! I have 1 little girl, she is 2 1/2 yrs old.

Meeshie:  What was the deciding factor to start The Healthy Flavor then move your blog to the Vegan 8?

logo - vegan8

I started The Healthy Flavor because I had to become really creative in the kitchen to come up with recipes because of my husband suffering severely from gout, a very painful form of arthritis. Through many years suffering and trials and research, I learned that the main causes of gout are animal products…dairy and meat. When I started The Healthy Flavor, we were vegetarian, but soon after that we went vegan after discovering how acidic dairy is to our bodies, and especially my husband’s. Once fully going vegan, he stopped having horrible gout flareups and was able to stop living on crutches. We have been able to control a lot of his gout by going vegan and of course my health has dramatically changed and my daughter has been raised vegan as well. I switched to The Vegan 8 after discovering the popularity of my recipes were all 8 ingredients or less (not neccessarily including salt & water) and I found that people made the recipes that were fewer ingredients, easier and those got the best feedback. I wanted to reach more people with my passion of living a vegan lifestyle, so I decided on that concept of 8 ingredients or less and to my amazement, it has really taken off! I’m very grateful and love getting feedback from so many readers who love my recipes and how it is helping them to eat vegan and be healthier. 🙂

 

TOMATO RISOTTO:  What you’ll need

tomatoes

  • 10 oz package grape or cherry tomatoes
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened apple juice
  • 11 oz arborio rice (1 1/2 cups) (I used a wild rice blend, but any arborio rice will work)
  • 4 1/2 cups low sodium vegetable broth
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 2 teaspoons onion powder
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder
  • 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
  • 2 teaspoons fine sea salt

tomatorisottocollage

If your little one is allergic to nuts, like my son Maddox is, then just exclude the walnuts on top.  What’s that you say?  There are 9 ingredients?  No no no, remember, salt doesn’t count – so there’s your “8“!  😉

tomatorisottosig

For recipe instructions:  CLICK HERE

Enjoy NEMs!

~  Meeshie

meeshie

 

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Quick Dinner: Shrimp Salad!

 

This is another Quick & Easy meal for the family (and if you are trying to stay healthy or are training for a fitness competition)!

Prep time:  10 min    Cook time:  5 min

This is a quick and easy dinner, here’s what you’ll need:

  • De-veined shrimp
  • Your favorite Ready Salad flavor ( I used Caesar for this recipe)
  • Olive Oil
  • Minced Garlic
  • Mushrooms

Prep:

  • Peel your shrimp

Raw shrimp

 

  • Wash your mushrooms (Yes, that’s my dog Kimo Sabe wondering if I’ll give him one)

mushrooms

 

 

  • Heat up the olive oil in a pan and add the minced garlic

garlic

 

 

  • Add your shrimp, generously season with the lemon pepper and sauté for about 5 minutes then add your mushrooms

shrimp pan with mushrooms

 

 

  • You want to cook your shrimp thoroughly but not too much where they are dried out
  • Prepare your salad including tossing it in the dressing

salad kit

 

 

  • For a healthier alternative, you can use a spring mix salad, light dressing, and cut up seasonal fruit like strawberries which goes really well with this dressing —>

balsamic

 

 

  • Place your salad on a plate then scoop up the shrimp and mushrooms on top
  • I like to add slices of avocado on the side 🙂

final pic of shrimp salad

 

ENJOY!

meeshie