Turkey Burger with Lettuce Wrap - Recipe

If your looking for a healthy recipe for making a delicious burger, here it is. I made these last night and they were quite good if I do say so myself. The prep time requires a little elbow grease and patience, but with a few tunes made for a really relaxing Saturday night.

Things you will need:

1 large carrot

Lettuce
Spinach
Black beans (or any additional types you'd like to use to add)
Lean ground turkey breast (important to get the breast so that your not getting filler)
1 egg

This recipe makes 4 large patties.

Prep:

First you will want to peel the carrot and then use a cheese grater to shred the carrot into little slices. You want to use about 1/2 cup total. Put the carrot into a large bowl.

Next, measure 1/2 cup beans and put them onto a cutting board and use a sharp knife to cut the beans until they become almost mushy but you don't want to puree them but you could if you have a Magic Bullet or Blender and want that kind of texture.  Add the beans to the carrots.

You will repeat this step with the spinach. To measure I just took a large hand full of spinach and put it on the cutting board and used a sharp knife to cut the spinach up into small pieces. Once the spinach is extremely fine (texture up to you), add it to the carrot and bean mixture.

Now that you have your main ingredients add 1 egg to the mixture and one package of lean ground turkey. Use your hands to mix the ingredients up.

Once you have all the ingredients mixed together, head to your spice cupboard and pick spices to add. I used Paprika, Ground Ginger and a little Herbes de Provence.  I used a little too much Provence in mine or it wasn't mixed well enough because some patties had more flavour than others.

The trick part is making the patties. Take a round cookie cutter or Tupper Wear container and line it with a piece of saran wrap.  Take a handful of the mixture and fill the cookie cutter until it is around 1 cm. The thicker the pattie the longer you will have to cook it for. Personally, I put the patties in the oven for 5 minutes before I put them on the BBQ.

While you are making the patties, turn the oven on to 350 and line a cookie sheet with Tinfoil and spray it with a little Pam so that the patties don't stick. Place the patties one by one onto the cookie sheet. Once the oven is up to temperature pop them into the oven. While the patties are baking turn the BBQ on and get it up to temperature.

Once the the patties are done in the oven, I placed them on the BBQ (around 300 at temperature) for 5 minutes each side to get some nice grill marks and to ensure the turkey is cooked.

Since I didn't want to use a bun I made a lettuce wrap for my burg.  Add avocado, mustard and a little pepper as needed and enjoy!

Let me know what you thought of this recipe and if it was easy to follow!

Yours in health and fitness,

Nic xoxo

Make Time. Not excuses.

So my road trip began early yesterday morning. I was up at 6 am, picked up my rental (Snowflake - a white Mazda 3), hit the show room to stock my ride and en route to Kamloops I was. After a long drive and a much needed pit stop in Merritt, I arrived.  I got right to work and visited my first few accounts, I even stopped in Chilliwack at 9:30 on the dot for the mall opening hours and did a product knowledge session with Shoe Warehouse. After working back to back accounts, I decided to wrap it up around 5:30 and go find a hotel. After calling around I found my nest and unpacked. I promised myself a workout at a Gold's Gym I scoped out before I made dinner with my pre-packed chicken.

I got to the gym and was surrounded by some fine looking peeps. It was like I had walked into a Hollister clothing casting call with a bunch of male models. I started with my cardio and moved on to do legs and shoulders. My legs are so sore today which was expected considering I haven't seen the inside of an acutal gym consecutively in 3 or so weeks...After my workout I headed back to my hotel for some much needed food and wrapped up some work and went to bed.

My alarm went off at 6 am this morning so that I could get back to the gym and do my cardio and a little bit of weights before I hit the road for Salmon Arm, Vernon and Kelowna where I am currently staying. I arrived at this gym around 6:30 and got my 45 minutes of cardio underway. It took me almost 15 minutes for my legs, more specifically my hams to warm up because they were still tight from the day before. I had planned on doing cardio tonight as well but my body was tired and sore so I made a good dinner and plan on getting up and hitting the World Gym here in Kelowna early tomorrow morning. After my workout I went to Cora's for breakfast and I wasn't as impressed as I have been in my previous visits to other locations and find it over priced for what you get. Tomorrow I am treating myself to White Spot breakfast after my workout. All I want are some eggs and fruit!

The best part of my trip is my sweet new cooler. Its mint! The worst part is driving past "Homemade Fresh Fruit Pie" signs every 5 km's. If you know me, you know how much I love my pie. So yummy. Every time I'd pass the exit, I'd close my eyes so that I would veer off course. Ironically enough that has two meanings. My cooler I picked up before I left at Canadian Tire so it could hold all my pre-cooked chicken and asparagus. It plugs into the cigarette lighter and had an attachment so you can pull it into the wall = money.

My food so far this trip has been good. I felt really prepared and I have gotten pretty creative. I've stopped at Save On or Wal Mart and picked up a bag of salad and then cut up some of the avocado I brought and a piece of chicken and it makes a pretty good salad. I've also had rice cakes with peanut butter, rice cakes with hummus, apple and peanut butter etc. The norm for me and if I can make food in the car, anything is possible...aka - making your lunch and taking it to work.

The trip has been really good but finding a hotel that's under $120 is hard, but I'm responsible and so I've taken one for the team and decided to stay at the Super 8 tonight in Kelowna and will probably be here tomorrow night too. It doesn't have a gym, but the staff are awesome and it has a full continental breakfast. I actually got their last room but the downside is that it's next to the highway, a construction site (I'll be up early - motivation to go to the gym and my room is on ground level so I hear everything. Anyways, I'm pretty pooped so I'm sure I'll pass out when my head hits the pillow.

Anyways, I have an early date with the gym. Do you?

Oh! And one last thing. I saw a great sign at the gym and it read "Make Time. Not Excuses" Sleep on that one. :)

Yours in health and fitness,

Nic Out.

Deadlifts were what the doctor ordered.

It's exactly what I needed, an early morning workout to get my mind back on track. I got up this morning (Sunday) made my regular meal plan breakfast and left for the gym. I focussed on weights today since I would have the whole week to do cardio. I did back and cheat today and warmed up with a set of deadlifts and I feel like that's what the doctor ordered. A switch went off in my body and mind and I am ready to ease back into training.

The one thing I am worried about right now is this annoying pain I've had in my left shoulder for almost 3 weeks now. Another thing is that I'm on the hunt for a new trainer. I can gp back to my original trainer, Pepe or try someone new. The only reason I want a trainer is for a weekly ass kicking, the rest I am confident I can do on my own. I'm excited to get back on the road because it's a challenge and I'm always up for a challenge. The challenge will be finding gyms and making time to train or do cardio everyday while I'm gone. I prepped all my food for the week and just need to weigh it into baggies.

Thats all for now, yours in health and fitness.

Nic xoxo

Road-wich anyone...

I made on of the best sandwiches, now coined *roadwiches* this past week during my travels on the island. My cousin, Gemma is working at a bakery in Campbell River and gave me a delicious olive loaf and that combined with some ingredients in my handy dandy cooler equals a delicious chicken avocado sandwich.  I literally made this roadwich* on the hood of my car.

My trip to the Island was a very successful work trip. I covered a lot of territory in the week that I was there and for that I would give myself a 9 out of 10. With regards to my food, I would give myself a 3. I packed food and eat really well the first few days until I passed Pink Sugar on Fort St. in Victoria were they make dairy free cupcakes aka. my Kyrptonite and I paid 16.95 for half a dozen cupcakes.

I had an Elvis cupcake for lunch that day. Banana cake with peanut butter frosting rolled in peanuts. Can you see what I mean about being a bad example. Later that night Jessica, her mom Laura and I polished off the other 5 cupcakes as we cut them into quarters. They were delicious to say the least. Check them out if your in Victoria, http://www.pinksugarcupcakery.com/. They make the worlds best CUPCAKES!

In terms of workouts, I would give myself a 3 as well. All the hotels I stayed at had "gyms" which I think should be call treadmill rooms because that's all they'd have in there and some had a random set of weights. This is really no excuse because I could easily Google map a gym close to my hotel and get up an hour earlier and go. Note to self: find a gym this next trip and use it - remember the skinny shorts! When I got home on Saturday I went to bed at 9 and slept for a solid 12 hours. I was exhausted to say the least.
After resting up, unpacking, paying bills, catching up on work and cleaning my apartment I got on my bike and went for a very, very long bike ride. Unfortunately that didn't do the trick and I am still waddling in my "skinny shorts." I'm not worried about this because I have a goal and I am going to work really hard over the next few weeks to get back into a groove so that I am prepared for when training starts August 15th.

In addition to my roadwich* I managed to make a meal salad in my car with a few things from Safeway. A blueberry, avocado, chicken salad. Having pre-cooked chicken makes a huge difference when yo

ur on the road. You don't even have to think about what your going to eat you just think of how your going to make it.

Speaking of eating healthy, my mom just made a fresh blackberry crisp.....crap!  Temptations suck.

Yours in health (ish) and fitness (kind of)...lol

Nic xoxo