I wanted an all veg spaghetti sauce to use whenever I make spaghetti so this is what I have come up with…

Ingredients:
1 purple onion diced
1/2 yellow pepper diced
1/2 green pepper diced
1/2 red pepper diced
4 vine ripened tomatoes diced
2 tbsp olivia (olive oil butter)
1 can of organic diced tomatoes
1 can of tomato paste
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp chili powder
2 tbsp organic brown sugar

Directions:
Combine vine ripened tomatoes, onion, peppers, and olivia in a sauce pot. Cook until onions are translucent and peppers are soft. Add the rest of the ingredients. Cover and simmer for 2-3 hours on low-medium heat.

If you do not like chunky sauces you can puree the sauce in a blender or with a stick blender once cooking is complete.

I typically pair this sauce with Ronzoni Smart Taste Thin Spaghetti Noodles.

We often times get frozen pizzas and make them at home on a Friday night. We make them ourselves because it is cheaper than delivery. So this is what we do to your typical frozen pizza to make it “more better”.

Spinach Pizza
1 Frozen Cheese Pizza
1 Tsp Olive Oil
1 Tsp butter
1 Tbsp Minced Organic Garlic
1/2 cup Frozen Spinach
2 Tbsp Feta Cheese

In a small pan, cook spinach, garlic, olive oil, and butter together until spinach is thaw. Spread spinach mixture on top of frozen cheese pizza. Top with Feta Cheese and back according to package directions.

Basically the idea of this recipe is that you can take an ordinary frozen cheese pizza and turn it into something that you will totally love with fresh ingredients that you have on hand at your house.

Pancakes are a favorite breakfast food in the Diva household but for me personally I hate the taste of a boxed mix. It is just so plain and boring so here are a few tips to turn the boring box pancake mix into fluffy, delicious circles of pancake heaven that your family can’t resist.

Here is the recipe I made for the pancakes you see in the photo

1 cup Aunt Jemima pancake mix
3/4 cup water
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp organic sugar

Whip it up and cook pancakes like you normally would. You can adapt this recipe to any of your favorite boxed pancake mixes. Follow the directions on any box of pancake mix and add the last 3 ingredients (egg, vanilla extract, and sugar) to make your pancakes awesome!

Let me know what you think if you make this recipe. What do you do to make your pancakes special? Do you add fresh fruit or chocolate chips? Do you make funny shapes, like mickey mouse? Do you make HUGE pancakes or little silver dollar pancakes? What is your flap jack preference?

One fun fact about the way that I eat my pancakes: I don’t eat pancakes with butter and my syrup has to be on the side for dipping. A soggy pancake is not a good pancake, in my opinion anyway.

I am so not the type of person that is into waking up early or doing anything in the morning that is for sure, which is probably why you never see my face in this video. Some of you have wanted to know what I do with all that organic stuff that I bought the other day and here is one of the recipes that I use all that organic fruit for.

What went into it….

1 banana
lots of frozen strawberries
2 organic carrots
organic pomegranate/ acai juice
organic acai juice
orange juice (couldn’t find an organic version so I had to go with the normal stuff)
veg/fruit juice (also not organic, its a kids drink…something harvest)
organic frozen blueberries, raspberries, mangos, blackberries, peaches
organic flax seed (it helps you poop)
organic sugar (I have a sweet tooth, plus it enhances the fruits sweetness)

That is pretty much it, I hope I didn’t forget anything. One thing you will notice in this recipe is that there are no measurements that is because you basically put as little or as much as you want into this smoothie. If you like more peaches than strawberries then add more peaches. One thing to remember is that you need about half as much liquid as you have frozen fruit or it isn’t going to blend well. I also make as much smoothie as possible to yield me two days worth of wake up smoothie goodness. Just put the remainder in the fridge or freezer and drink the next morning. Again this is a lazy trick of mine since mornings are so awful for me.

Also you may notice that this is a non-dairy smoothie, meaning no yogurt or milk products. I am not one that likes the yogurty (is that a word?) tasting smoothies. I want fruit, and I want lots of it.

Got any questions? I’ve got answers.

Special shout out to Plain Jane Mom on inspiring me to make my own smoothie video. She talks in hers, but me not so much…hey I said I didn’t do mornings and I’m sticking to it.

Also, shout out to Brandice for pimping me on Viddler’s Community Spotlight Blog. Many thanks, Chica, You Rock!

I saw the book, Skinny Bitch, mentioned on the Ellen Show last week while helping my family clean up from the tornado damage. I knew this was a book that I wanted to get based on the rave reviews that Ellen herself gave. She talked about how the book changed her life and also helped her lose weight.

Immediately I ran out to the local bookstore and picked myself up a copy. I have never in my life read a book so quickly. It took only a day to read the book cover to cover. I just simply could not put this book down. The book talks mainly about how it is important to go vegan. If you can’t quit meat or dairy totally, it encourages you to buy all things organic. Organic I can definitely do! I am not saying that I will cut meat out of my diet all together, because I love me some roast beef and mashed potatoes but I am definitely looking at the whole meat thing in a totally different light.

So once I got back home, I was off to go shopping. I went through all the aisles of the grocery store and picked up everything organic that I could find. My main focus was to get as much fresh fruits and vegetables that I could find. I could live off of smoothies so I got a bunch of organic frozen fruit to make those in the morning. One of my main struggles will be giving up white pasta and cheese. I love white pasta and literally eat it every day of the week. I picked up some whole grain alternatives but I know those don’t taste the same. It is all a matter of retraining the way I look at food.

My transition to vegetarianism will be a gradual one. It starts with drinking nothing but water and adding more fruits and vegetables into my diet. One website that has helped me a lot in making the transition into becoming a vegetarian is Go Veg!.

Milk Sucks is another website worth looking at if you want to know the scary truth about our milk. One word….PUSS! That is all I have to say on that matter….EWWW!

I really hope that you will pick this book up as well. If anything you really need to know about what goes into our meats and how important it is to buy organic if at all possible. Oh and don’t get me started on how awful sodas are (diet and regular). I am totally switching to straight water or juice.

Skinny Bitch is a GREAT book. It is very cheeky by giving the information to you straight forward. Honestly, if you don’t want to hear the truth then you might want to get out of the kitchen because this book is as honest as it gets.

In honor of my attempt at vegetarianism, I will be sharing some of my smoothie recipes later on in the week so stay tuned for that. Now it is time to ask you…

Do you think you could ever turn into a vegetarian or even vegan?

Have you ever tried a vegetarian diet?

What do you think about Organic Foods?