The Recipes

Welcome to Mind, Body & Soul fitness Recipes! All the recipes you find are on your plan and over the years loved by many! The recipes are uncomplicated and family-friendly. There are endless ways to cook your food. If you have a recipe that you would like to try, text it to Lesia at 215-804-7975.

Why be creative with your food? I have found over the years that 80% of clients do not like to eat the same thing. They like variety and different tastes and textures. So, recipes assist you with getting out of that feeling. Recipes are also easy for families. If there is only time to cook one meal, this is a great way to feed the family and stay losing weight. For some of our clients, they prepare a weeks’ worth of dinners and freeze for the week.

Meal planning is essential for success. Why? Because if you do not know where you are going, you will never arrive. Meal planning is your road map to success. You must understand how you are eating for the day or the week you are in. I have found that a sense of peace washes over the clients who plan their meals. Before long, this becomes a habit. Meal planning also sets parameters. It gives you clear expectations and it provides you routine. Routine is something most people need.

Meal Planning success

Meal planning also saves you time and money. It is also less stressful. Planning will keep you calm and avoid feeling out of control. Most clients do not do well with unknow or last-minute decisions. It raises their stress levels and they feel out of control, so that leads to eating off-plan, the standard response to handling stress. That is why you are here! To deal with this take time! Plan your eating day and week! You can do it!!

The benefits of spending 15 minutes planning your week are: feeling acommplished, feeling fantastic, feeling in control and loving weight loss !

Give some recipes a try!!

Chicken CurryBy Kevin PetrizioThere are many different recipes for Garam Masala. This is a basic one that I have used for years. It is not uncommon for recipes to use this and add additional spices to it to highlight different flavors. This is a great place to start. Keep in mind that this is very strong stuff, especially when grinding your own spices. Start out slowly with your spices and taste it before serving. Often at the end of cooking I will give my pan another hit of the spices mix just to freshen up the flavors. I didn’t add any hot peppers to this spice mix, but I usually do for myself. I add 4-6 birds’ eye chili peppers for some heat. I don’t recommend that you do unless you have experience with curries. And yes, your house will smell like an Indian restaurant for a few days. Most of these spices are available in seed or pod form. If possible, buy them that way. They will last much longer than the pre-ground stuff.

Stuffed CabbageBy Kevin PetrizioI have never been great at rolling stuffed cabbage rolls. In fact, I have always been pretty terrible at it. They tasted great, but the rolling part eluded me. So I watched a few videos and I liked the idea of thinning out the spine with a paring knife. Turns out this made a huge difference. I realized that I didn't make this dish much because I hated making the rolls. But this trick made it much easier and less time consuming. And it looked great on the plate! I used a 50/50 mix of ground beef and pork in this recipe, but feel free to experiment with other proteins. Ground chicken or turkey will work, and you could even skip the meat and go with beans or legumes and make it vegetarian. The only limit is your imagination, and your food plan!

Chicken and Spinach Soup with LemonBy Kevin PetrizioI'm a soup lover from way back. Even as a child I would crack open a can of soup, pop it in the microwave and in 5 minutes lunch was ready. As I got older I realized that these cans were loaded with sodium. Sometimes over 1000mg of sodium! I soon learned that soup was one of the easiest meals to make myself. This one is no different. A few veggies, some chicken, and some rice and before you know it, SOUPS ON! This one is great on those cold days.

Butternut and Turkey SoupBy Kevin PetrizioA shout-out to my niece who made butternut squash soup on Thanksgiving as an appetizer. It was so good I new I had to adapt it to our Program. You can make it on the stove top if you want, just go low and slow. But the slow cooker really shines with this recipe. Either way, you can use turkey or chicken, and leftovers are perfect for this meal. Just portion out your serving size of the protein, and add it to 1½ cups of the soup. Here is another easy to make meal that freezes well. You can make several serving worth and freeze each 1½ cup portion. When you need a quick meal, just defrost some frozen, cooked turkey or chicken and microwave the soup. This is great for those cold winter night dinners.

Cauliflower Mashed PotatoesBy Kevin PetrizioMashed cauliflower tastes just like mashed potatoes! No, not really. Mashed cauliflower tastes just like, well, mashed cauliflower! And that's okay. Because we can make it a delicious side dish to almost any main course. Serve it with fish, chicken, beef or pork. There are countless dishes you can prepare that this will compliment!

Green Bean CasseroleBy Kevin PetrizioThis is a request from one of my clients and I thought it would be a great Thanksgiving Day side dish. This is a completely new recipe for me and I am pleased with the way it came out. The onions were crunchy, the sauce was creamy and you can taste the green beans! This one is a keeper!

Squash and Chickpea SoupBy Kevin PetrizioThe cold weather is coming! There's frost on the pumpkins(almost)! It's time for some soup! This is a new recipe for me and I will say I enjoyed it. The bitter greens play well off of the sweet butternut squash. Feel free to try other winter squashes as well as kale or spinach. Soups and stews are my go to foods this time of year. One of the best things about them is they can be frozen and stored for later. There are days that I just don't feel like cooking, so I pop into the freezer and pull out a pre-made meal. Into the microwave and in no time I have a hot, delicious meal ready to eat. And this one is meatless!

Spaghetti Squash in Garlic ButterBy Kevin PetrizioThis is a simple recipe that pairs spaghetti squash with a nice steak. Throw in a half cup of potato and you have a great, delicious meal. The trick to this recipe is to have the spaghetti squash made in advance. Grill your favorite steak however you like it and this becomes a 20 minute middle of the week meal. I wanted to find another use for spaghetti squash. Some people are afraid to cook it because they don’t know how they will use it all. It is such a healthy vegetable that there must be more ways to cook it.

Grilled Tuna SteakBy Kevin PetrizioWhen cooking a tuna steak it helps to think of it as a beef steak. Cook it over high heat, go easy on the seasoning, and cook it rare! Some people will not be comfortable eating fish that is basically raw in the middle. This is understandable. If you are one of them, just let the fish cook for another minute or two on each side until you see the grey band rise completely on the side. Let it rest for 10 minutes and it should be fully cooked. Temp at 145° to be sure. The texture will be somewhat different, but still delicious. Note: Be aware that indoor grilling can cause a fair amount of smoke. If cooking indoors, you may want to open your windows for ventilation. This is another terrific fish dish that can be mixed and matched with a variety of different veggies and starches. Also, feel free to try some of the other dressings with it as well. Grilling fish is a fast and easy way of cooking and can be done right on your outdoor barbecue. And if you have never had a tuna steak, be aware that it tastes nothing like canned tuna fish. A tuna steak is much more subtle and sweet.

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The Recipes

Meal Planning success