I've been on such a cooking kick lately in the best way possible.
Don't get me wrong, I always cook. We're not eating frozen pizzas and chicken nuggets every night. Well ok, maybe my kids are... but that's neither here nor there.
I hit a patch back in December when I felt like all I was doing was spending my evenings in the kitchens- and not spending time with my family- when we got home from work/gym/daycare. I don't always feel like that, it just comes and goes in phases and this time I hit that phase and decided to be intentional about remedying it.
Some of this motivation comes from being in a really good health swing. I'm in a sweet spot of having almost daily gym classes that I love, having an awesome group of workout buddies to hold me accountable, and of course, feeling great just makes you want to continue on that path.
Over the past year or so, I've lost some weight due to some easy dietary changes. Just gradual things and nothing hard. We've made a focused effort to reduce our meat intake and have developed all new loves for beans and lentils. I have genetically high cholesterol (yes, I still eat way too much cheese) and it's been fun challenging myself to find alternative food options to supplement a healthy lifestyle. It becomes so easy to eat the "right" stuff when you focus on getting in those food items instead of lamenting over the ones you may be trying to limit/avoid.
I've been meal planning, prepping, and most importantly- not grocery shopping hungry! ha Seriously, it's making a big difference in self control and I've loved all the fresh healthy ingredients pouring out of my fridge. It makes it harder to make a "bad" decision.
Same for packing work food. If I have a plethora of healthy options with me, it's much easier to pass up the leftover cupcakes/donuts/etc. brought it by co-workers.
I got sectioned glass prep containers for Christmas and have really been enjoying them. They have utensils built right in, help with portion control and the lids snap on so I'm not dealing with the drippage in my lunch bag that was always an issue with my plastic compartment containers! I also just got a bigger set of non-compartment snap glass lid containers. They're so convenient to be able to pop right into microwave/oven.
I have been wildly in love with soup for a few months now. So easy and good, healthy, and one "dish" that serves several meals? Yes please! (and my freezer stash is looking great!) We do lots of bean soups- chilis (traditional, white bean chicken, turkey taco, sweet potato/black bean), and then I've tried some new ones lately we've been loving- tuscan chicken soup, chick pea and sweet potato stew, spicy thai chicken coconut, curried carrot and coconut, and just this weekend, buffalo chicken chowder.
Skinnytaste is one of my go-to's. I love that she posts weekly menu plans. I always do a quick check of it to see if anything piques my interest when doing my own meal planning. Pinch of Yum is a favorite as well.
Ok, onto hastily snapped, poorly lit iPhone food pics!
Italian Chicken Sausage and Quinoa Skillet
Our standard fish tacos with whatever-fruit-is-already-on-hand-plus-cilantro salsa, and avocado crema.
Black bean tostada with avocado crema (make with Greek yogurt).
One of my fave quick easy weeknight meals.
Delicious, and Lawter approved.
Love throwing together quick work week lunches with beans, feta, cilantro, spices, lime juice, etc.
Blue cheese-spinach portobellos
I also make a crustless quich every Sunday to have for breakfasts (or lunch) during the work week. Usually some combo of roasted veggies (broc and sweet potato is a favorite combo) plus eggs and a little cheese. My current is shredded sweet potato crust (prebaked) topped with egg, cheese, spinach, and Trader Joe's Everything but the bagel seasoning (which goes on about 75% of the things I eat in a day).
Turkey taco quinoa bowls
Ok this is one of the unsung heroes of this recipe round up.
There is nothing sexy sounding about
Chickpea and Sweet Potato Stew HOWEVER, I want to say this has become one of my FAVORITES! Husband approves also. I should've never doubted Skinny Taste.
It got better each time I ate it because the sweet potato was further breaking down and thickening up and making it more "stewy", and the small batch I took out of the freezer last week was a perfect consistency upon reheating. The not so secret addition recommendation I make for this dish: add red curry paste. Kicks it up fantastically.
Super healthy, crock pot easy and can you get much more inexpensive than some cans of beans, a sweet potato or two and some broth?
I can't be bothered to put pics in an orderly fashion, it'd be another 2 months before I posted. This is what one of my several containers I pack for the day looks like. Sometimes I eat the contents all for breakfast. Other times I mix and match sides with other meals/snacks throughout the day.
I had a nice little streak of delicious stuffed squash/zucchini boats. Some weeks I was just winging it and using up things in my fridge (those were the best, in my opinion), and I've always liked one of Skinny Taste's
Sausage Stuffed Zucchini Boats recipes. On the winging it nights, I didn't use meat and didn't miss it. Mushrooms, peppers, onions, etc.- top it with some cheese and it's all good.
Or marinara.
Give me all the roasted cauliflower.
To mix it up, add buffalo sauce. Yum.
Completely delicious. Anthony was surprised by his love for this and devoured the majority of it for lunch one day : )
It doesn't go very far- next time I'll double.
Using up a pack of brown rice noodles I've had in my pantry for forever and made a nice little veggie stir fry. I love recreating take out favorites and feeling way less guilt knowing all the ingredients that went into it.
More squash boats. Veggies with cheese and bread crumb topping.
More work week breakfast/lunch.
My husband is awesomely open minded hah. He did say this wasn't his favorite though, he's not into roasty/blistery tomatoes. I totally am.
Also on my lunch menu rotation- veggies in a whole wheat pita with tzatziki.
Oh yall, this one was so fun and I felt so good about it!
If you're like me and everyone else on the planet, you know Trader Joe's mandarin chicken is amaaaazzzzing. It's also pretty unhealthy. Doesn't stop me from devouring it alongside some TJ's fried rice though. So we'd already done that once during the month and had the other half of the chicken left in the freezer, so we accompanied the TJ's chicken with some fantastic cauliflower fried "rice". I've made cauliflower rice before but this was really SUCH an awesome recreation of fried rice and I could feel that much less guilty over the nutrition facts on the chicken package.
Loving these little bites.
I'm two batches down and still loving them for afternoon snacks.
Ok Skinnytaste. I feel like it's probably not you, it's me.
These
Chicken Sausage Santa Fe peppers were okkkaayyyy.
A little bland, wasn't digging the texture, just meh.
Italian sausage and cheese stuffed shells, because #cold #winter #redwine
Had a great Kale Caesar salad in Nashville and now I'm on a kick.
This was pretty good however I do have some comments. I appreciated trying something new- this recipe was part of Pinch of Yum's no sugar January so instead of using refined sugar for the sauce, she called for pureed dates for sweetness. Nice touch.
For the sake of texture, I would say to forgo the sheet pan for the chicken and sear in a skillet instead, and I split my veggies up into their own sheet pan so they could crisp up and not "steam" in the sauce in the oven anyways, so the sheet pan factor turned out to not be very important to me at all!
This is one of our oldest house favorites. Shrimp linguine with lemon oil.
{whole wheat linguini, shrimp, grape tomatoes, red onion, spinach, garlic, lemon juice and zest, evoo, parm}
Loved those portobellos so much we've already repeated.
A tip: sub balsamic glaze for the finish in place of the vinegar if you have it on hand.
Prebaked shredded sweet potato crust. Mixed in an egg white on this batch as well.
I couldn't have been more surprised when LAWTER - who hates all things "spicy" whether they're actually spicy or not- liked this!
A final note- when doing my meal planning, I've discovered a whole new love for the Notes app on my phone. I add recipe links directly to my Notes app and I love having the visual, as well as the direct link to the recipe so handy. I know that's what Pinterest does but honestly I just don't use it/keep it organized for daily use.
I now understand how to save recipes directly to the Notes header that I dedicate to a running list of recipes I want to look at later and/or save them to my "Meal Plan" header that I update weekly to have a visual of what our weeks look like and what meals are needed. Maybe I'm late to the game on this but I'm really loving my Notes app now.
Also, a recent
Emily Ley post (I've copied and posted info below) taught me how to make my Notes app pretty and user friendly (as opposed to typing random things in there and then never remembering they're there or what they mean...).
From Emily Ley post:
iPhone: Use the Notes app to keep track of lists and important information. Type three applicable emojis, then go down the next line, and type your list title. Then begin your list. Your notes app will be beautifully organized!
