Make these. Trust Me.

Some people are gifted in the kitchen.  They can just walk in, throw some ingredients together and whip up a delicious meal.  I have a couple of friends that are like that.

I am not one of them.

I'm a recipe girl.

Don't get me wrong... I can follow a recipe with the best of them.  But when it comes to instinctively knowing what will go well with what, I'm lost.

Thankfully, the internet and Pinterest keep me filled with plenty of instructions.  However, not all Pinterest and internet recipes are winners.

Have no fear.  These recipes are DELICIOUS!  So much so that I am chronicling them here so that I can look them up at a later date.

-  Which is exactly what I did with these Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I have made these the last 2 autumns and they are always a hit.  I couldn't remember where the recipe was the other day, so I googled my own blog reference and found them.  I make them with whole wheat flour so I can pretend like that are healthy.

--Henry's daycare has a policy that for lunch you have to send at least 4 food groups.  If you don't, they can write you up and I don't know what the ultimate punishment would be.  I'm a rule follower so I have ZERO intention of finding out.

It was pretty easy when Henry was on an all breastmilk diet.  And it was still fairly simple when he ate baby food.  But now that he is 100% on people food (baby-led weaning and all that jazz), he has turned into a bit of a picky eater.

Mainly, he doesn't really eat meat or vegetables.  There's where the next 2 recipes came in:  Pumpkin Pancakes and Black Bean and Quinoa Casserole.

The pumpkin pancakes are a feeble attempt to sneak in my veggies (I count squash as a vegetable not a fruit).  Again, I use whole wheat flour to throw in some extra nutrition.  These things take FOREVER to cook.  I make a batch on the weekends and we put them in the fridge to heat up for his breakfast all week long.

The black bean casserole is so easy and pretty darn good.  In an effort to make it not too spicy for Henry, I used about 1/3 of the chili powder it called for.  And because I am lazy and hate chopping up cilantro, I used way less of that as well.  Plus I only had 1 can of enchilada sauce.  It was still a hit with Henry.

-  I have a small obsession with buffalo wings which is why this recipe for Popcorn Buffalo Bites was right up my ally.  They are pretty easy to make (although time consuming when making them popcorn size) and WAY healthier than traditional buffalo wings because they are made with chicken breasts and baked, not fried.  I have made them again, making chicken strips instead of popcorn bites (because I am lazy).

What's not healthy is the amount of bleu cheese dressing I dipped them into but we just won't talk about that.

-  Fall just wouldn't be fall without pumpkin bread, right?  My mom makes THE BEST pumpkin bread.  But I am pretty sure the 2 main ingredients are sugar and butter (read: NOT PUMPKIN).  I just can't eat very much of that, so I found this Low-Fat Pumpkin Bread recipe.  I omitted the pumpkin seeds.

My coworker brought me a piece of Starbuck's Pumpkin Bread and we had a taste test one day.  No joke, there was almost ZERO DIFFERENCE between the two.  And I doubt the Starbuck's version was only 100 calories a serving.

-  Zucchini is almost out of season, I know but while you still have some in your garden make this Zucchini Casserole.  Trust me.  I found this recipe a couple of years ago and we loved it so much we ate it about once a week for a month.

-  Even though it is still in the 80's here (and sometimes in the 90s), I am breaking out the crockpot.  Throw in the fact that I have been hankering for Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana and we have a Google search on our hands.  After looking at several different recipes, I was not at all surprised at the amount of whipping cream required.

Gross.

I like to operate under the "ignorance is bliss" camp when it comes to my food sometimes.

So my Google search got modified.  HEALTHY crock pot Zuppa Toscana.

That's how I found THIS recipe.  It is currently in my crock pot so I have no idea how it will turn out.   But I am optimistic and will keep you posted.



So there you have it!  Some relatively healthy recipes that have been a success in the Janney household as of late.  If you have any wonderful recipes, I am all ears (or eyes).  I really don't like being in a food rut.  For some reason when I don't have a plan for what to cook I can only ever think of spaghetti.  And you can only have so much spaghetti.

{Don't be fooled... He threw a lot of it on the floor} 

Cooking Instead of Writing

{Totally unrelated photo, but I think it is hilarious that Cotton keeps sitting like a person}

So there are just a couple of days left to get my novel fairly wrapped up and exceeding 50,000 words.  There's no way it will be a finished novel by the end of November.  It was never my intention for it to be a completed first draft because I kind of wanted it to be more than 175 pages (which is what 50,000 words kind of ends up being).  But I figure I will have the basic plot laid out, with just some holes needing to be filled in.

As of yesterday when I got home, I had 7,930 words left.  I wasn't too worried about running out of plot for the remaining words because I still had some major plot elements I needed to wrap up.  I am feeling pretty confident it will take more than 8,000 words to get there and I already know how I want it to go.

But then I was hit with a sudden need to make Cheese and Spinach Stuffed Shells that JD mentioned.  And then a massive chocolate craving hit.  But it wasn't something that a piece of chocolate would satisfy.  It needed to be like a cake type of thing.  So I decided to make the Bob's Red Mill Fudge and Sour Cream Cupcakes.  So I spent like an hour and a half in the kitchen, cooking.  In reality, it wasn't that bad because I was able to multi-task and do both at the same time.  And I managed to not put chocolate in my cheese shells, so it was a success.

Both were excellent, by the way.

And then after we ate, it was 8 o'clock and I had just started writing.  And the instead of working on my novel, I wrote a blog post.  :)

The whole evening was proof that I am excellent at procrastination.

Cooking Crazy

For some reason I am still not totally aware of, I got it in my head that I wanted to cook enough meals for two weeks this last Sunday.

I think it started when one of my coworkers brought me a bag full of teeny tiny green bell peppers.  There were a ton of them.  And I didn't want them to go to waste.  But I also didn't want to eat nothing by bell pepper food for an entire week.  So I decided to make some things and freeze them.

But while I was at it, I should just make the food for the week too, right?  Totally.  And since it had been nice and rainy in the Willamette Valley lately, I should totally make some soup from scratch, right?  Oh of course.

So after some recipe research, a trip to the store and an encounter with the rudest check-out person EVER at Safeway (B!*%# tried to charge me for sweet onions when I bought yellow onions and for two red onions when I only bought one and then argued with me when I politely pointed it out), I was finally ready to cook.

I made Roasted Corn and Potato Chowder for lunch.  The recipe is from HERE and it was SO GOOD!!!  Easy and definitely worth it.  Trust me.

Then I made Stuffed Pepper Casserole (aka I chopped up some the bell peppers and mixed them with the filling, put it in a casserole dish and covered it with cheese).  It's in the freezer.

Then I made a tray and a half of chicken enchiladas.  In the freezer for both of those.

Then it was time for some Philly Cheese Steak Casserole.  That recipe is from HERE.  I doubled the recipe so we could eat some Sunday night and freeze the rest.  It was pretty dang tasty.  And according to the recipe, only 260 calories per serving.

What I didn't do?  Make my mom's Swedish Meatballs (even though she's Norwegian).  I also curiously didn't have any sweet items on the baking agenda but that's probably because I bought out Mrs. Field's the other night.  Oh yum.  And I plan to make some of Danielle's Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies and some Lemon Bars this week.

Fatty party of one?  Yup that's me.

But seriously I make some good Lemon Bars.

Of course it will take me a few days to recover.  My feet are still killing me.  It probably wasn't the best idea to cook for like 6 hours straight.

Recipe: Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients5 Peppers (Yellow, Red, Orange, or Green)

1 lb Ground meat (we like to use bison)

1 cup uncooked brown rice or quinoa

2 cups water (for cooking rice)

1 small onion chopped

1 or 2 garlic cloves minced

24 ounces no salt added tomato sauce

garlic powder

dried oregano

pepper

salt

cheese

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2.  Cooked the rice/quinoa.  We have a rice cooker, so I like to use that.
3.  Put onion in a pan on medium heat.  Cook onions for about 5 minutes and then add the meat and brown it.  Season meat with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
4.  Cut the tops off the peppers, set aside,  Clean the peppers and place in a microwave safe dish.  Put a little water in the bottom of the dish and microwave peppers for about 5 minutes.
5.  Once the meat is cooked, add the tomato sauce and garlic.  Add rice/quinoa when it is cooked.  Season a little if you'd like.  Stir together.  Remove from heat.
6.  Spoon stuffing into the microwaved peppers to the top. 
7.  Place thing slices of cheese on the top.  Put peppers in the oven.  Cook until the cheese bubbles, approximately 20 minutes.
8.  Turn broiler on HI and cook for an additional few minutes, until the cheese crisps up.

ENJOY!

If you have any leftover stuffing, I like to cut up the tops of the peppers and put those with the extra stuffing with a little cheese.  It makes a really yummy lunch.

I don't know how many calories are in these, but it can't be that bad.  You get your meat, grain, veggie, and a little dairy all in one.  They are gluten-free and you could make them vegetarian by using black beans instead of meat.

Stupid pants

I took my neck scar shopping this weekend.

Almost all of my work clothes come from The Limited.  All of my suits, dress pants, and blazers are from there.  Last week, The Limited sent me 3 different e-mails with information about sales and coupons.  One of the coupons was for 50% off up to 3 regular prices items.  That was enough to entice me to drive an hour to the mall.

So off to the mall I went Saturday morning.  I was really in the market for some ankle length work pants.  I must have tried on at least 5 different pairs of pants and only 1 didn't make me look like a fat cow.  One pair fit great and looked really good on, so I tried on another pair in a different color.  They didn't fit at all!!  The sales associate told me it was probably because the pair I had tried on first was probably stretched out from having so many other people try them on.  Thanks and gross.

My only option for getting more pants was to buy a bigger size, which meant I would have to get a size I had never worn before.  The larget size of clothes I have ever had to buy.

Not happening.  My pity party was about to start in the dressing room.

Really, I need to cut myself some slack.  I wasn't super happy with my lower-half before I found out about my nodules.  When you are trying to get pregnant, you aren't supposed to exercise a ton or restrict your calories so I hadn't been able to lose weight last year.  And then after I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, I really didn't exercise any more.  I was busy, ya know, healing.  And even with losing the gland that controls your metabolism, I only gained about 3 pounds.  Not too shabby.

However, I also need to get my big butt back into the gym.  Sure there is a good reason for why I have gained weight.  But that is over know.  As far as I know, I am done with thyroid cancer treatment and am just in the monitoring phase (for hopefully forever).  It's time to put on my big girl (pun intended) pants and trim the fat.  Plus I need to be as healthy as possible, not only to help keep cancer from coming back but also for fertility treatments.  And if (God forbid) I were to get cancer again, being as healthy as possible can only help.

Stupid pants.  I should have known better than to try on pants.  It never ends well.

Jeffrey and the Food Pyramid

We were hanging out with Jeffrey last week, getting dinner.  I asked him what he was going to have as a side dish (we were at Applebee's) and OF COURSE he said french fries.  His reasoning (or perhaps rationalization) for choosing fries was pretty interesting:

"That way I can get my oils."

Huh?

Jeffrey saw my look of confusion and continued, "We learned about the new food pyramid in school and oils are a part of the food pyramid."

{kidshealth.org}

"Aren't oils a small portion of the food pyramid?" I asked.

Jeffrey replied, "Yeah.  But your body needs them to function.  Sugar too."

"Jeffrey, you also need fruits and vegetables.  How many servings of fruits are you supposed to have a day?" my mom asked.

"11 cups."

Yeah I don't think so.

Then Jeffrey said, "I may have had selective hearing when they were talking about fruits and vegetables.

Ya think?!?!

But what he definitely did learn from the lesson on the food pyramid:

Sugars and Oils are essential.

Hopefully his teacher will set him straight on this before he starts thinking french fries and lollipops are vitamins.

I cooked FANCY

After longer than I really care to admit, *cough* like a month *cough*, I finally cooked again.  I have made a few smallish meals, but Monday night I went for it.

Beef Daube Provencal
from Cooking Light

2 teaspoons olive oil
12 garlic cloves, crushed
1 (2-pound) boneless chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 2-inch cubes
1 1/2 teaspoons salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
1 cup red wine (I used 1 cup + a splash or two)
2 cups chopped carrots
1 1/2 chopped onion
1/2 cup less-sodium beef broth
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon chipped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
Dash of ground cloves (which I completely forgot to put in)
1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 bay leaf
1 bag of egg noodles

1.  Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

2.  Heat oil in a small Dutch oven over low heat.  Add garlic; cook 5 minutes or until garlic is fragrant, stirring occasionally.  Remove garlic with a slotted spoon, and set aside.  Increase heat to medium-high.  Add the beef to the pan; sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper.  Cook for 5 minutes, browning all sides of the beef.  Remove the beef from the pan.  Add the wine to the pan; bring to a boil, scraping the pan to loosen any remaning beef.  Add garlic, beef, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, carrot, onion, broth, tomato paste, canned tomatoes, cloves (assuming you don't forget like I did), bay leaf, thyme, rosemary.  Bring to a boil.

3.  Cover and bake for 2 1/2 hours or until the beef is tender.  Take out bay leaf.  Serve over noodles.

Total calories: 367 per serving

It was SO GOOD!  Seriously...

I served it with a mixed green salad with walnuts and balsamic vinegrette and my mom's garlic toast (butter bread, sprinkle with grated parmesean cheese and garlic powder.  Then toast).

We were both silent the entire time we ate because we were too busy shoving food into our mouths.

Don't be fooled... it took FOREVER to cook.  We were both starving by the time it was ready.  But it was definitely worth the wait.  It is normal to eat at 9 o'clock at night, right?

Busy Beaver

My attitude change Saturday night seriously shaped my Sunday.  I am pretty sure I did more stuff Sunday than I did in the last month combined.  I don't know what the deal was, if it was because it was the last weekend before Christmas (and therefore the last weekend before my in-laws came and I had surgery) but it was a crazy successful day.

I have done this in the past, but I decided Saturday night that I didn't want to have to cook at all this coming week, but I did want us to eat healthy, homemade foods.  That meant I needed to prepare all of our dinners for this week on Sunday.  Since we have plans for Thursday on, I needed to make 4 dinners.

So here is how the day went:

6:45  Get up

7:45  Breakfast with my dad and Jeffrey

9:00  Church.  The musical group my mom is in was doing their Christmas program.  They did such a good job.  They even went to the Oregon State Penitentiary Sunday night and sang for some inmates.  That gave me a great opportunity to tell people my mom was going to jail.

11:00  Finished our Christmas Shopping

11:30  Gym.  Ran 3 miles.  Since I haven't worked out in a while, this was much harder than it should have been.

12:30  Lunch

1:30  Grocery Store

2:00  Cleaned the entire house.  Dust, vacuumed, mopped, gave the dog a bath, cleaned the bathroom, laundry, and cleaned our bedroom.

3:30  Ran some errands

4:30  Phil calls his parents, I started cooking.  I prepped a healthy chicken and rice casserole in the crock pot (which wasn't good, we got a pizza), a healthy pizza casserole, my wonderful shepards pie, turkey breast sloppy joes, and healthy biscuits.

7:00  Eat dinner.  Since Phil and I were watching The Next Iron Chef, I told him dinner was a ground turkey breast served in a Manwich reduction.  He totally went with it.

8:00  Finish and fold laundry

9:00  Talk to my mom.  She wasn't shanked while in jail. 

The most successful day I have had at home in a while.  It might have been smart to spend the day relaxing, but I think I have a week of lying around ahead of me.  I am not going to lie, it felt super duper superb to be so productive.

Woohoo!

Ok... done bragging.

Busy Day

{My in-laws sent us this ornament in a care package this last week. 

They said we needed some Southern on our tree.  :) 

I am Southern you know... by marriage.}

I actually have a pretty busy week ahead of me (or at least for me).  I have quite a few appointments on my calendar, which I am really thankful for.  Christmas always seems to take forever to get here.  Add to that the fact that I really want to get my surgery over with and I think time has purposefully slowed down.  I am hoping the busy schedule will help distract me for waiting.

Today, I went to a Soils Mechanics and Slope Stability Seminar up in Portland.  It was an entire day of listening to an instructor talk about soil and I had to get up early.  What is it about knowing you have to get up early that makes it almost impossible to get a good night's sleep?  I don't like it.

I had every intention of going to the gym after we got home, but I was pretty tired .  I just wanted to come home, eat, and go to bed.  Since I didn't have the energy to go to the gym, I made a healthy dinner.  I thought it was a good compromise.

I made Cheeseburger Pie Casserole. 

It is made with ground turkey breast, heart healthy Bisquick, and then we used low-fat Sharp Cheddar and Omega-3 eggs.  It was super good.  The recipe says you are supposed to get 8 servings out of it.  Maybe that would be true if you made a ton of other side dishes with it.  I made no other side dishes.  I was going to heat up a can of corn but opening the can was more than I could handle.  Even if you take twice the suggested portion size (like I did), it is still only 422 calories.  Not bad for dinner.

I am amazed with myself that I actually made dinner.

Ok I am going to bed now.  At 8:30.

Nutella HoCho

I have seen this recipe floating around on my Pinterest for a while now, so I thought I would give it a shot.

Nutella Hot Chocolate

It is so easy.  You put a cup of milk (per serving) into a saucepan and heat it gently on the stove, while melting a couple of spoonful (teaspoons) of nutella into the milk.  Then you wisk the milk until it gets frothy.

I doubled the "recipe" since I was making some for both Phil and myself.  It is really good.  It is also kosher and gluten-free.  Try it.  It is hot chocolate with a hint of hazelnut flavor. 

And it is another way I tricked Phil into drinking milk.  :)

Roasted Garlic Potato Soup

Casey is throwing a Fall Follower's FEST and I have decided to give it a try and link up.  So HELLO to any new readers from The Wiegand's!!!

Since it is definitely getting chilly here in the Willamette Valley (we actually had frost), I decided it was time to make some soup.  I tend to not like brothy soups very much but since I am also trying to eat healthy and drop my "Newlywed 9," I needed a hearty soup recipe that was also low-cal and healthy.

So I saw THIS beauty on my Pinterest and Jenni's blog.  This soup is Gluten-free and could be made vegetarian if you are into that kind of thing.  And each serving is just 199 calories with minimal sodium.

Roasted Garlic Potato Soup

I didn't need the 5 heads of garlic the recipe called for.  3 heads of garlic seemed like plenty.  And just an FYI... Roasted Garlic is sticky!!

It took about 5 potatoes to get 6 cups needed for the soup.  And the soup took a while to cook.  Give it a try!  It was yummy.

Buffalo Wings

Recently, I have discovered a love for Buffalo Wings (no, I am not pregnant).  This recent food addition has been surprising to my husband since my spicy food palette wasn't real diverse.  Nevertheless, I am now fan of the spicy buffalo wing.

In an effort to control calories, I searched for a healthier recipe to make these at home.  I found one HERE  (from Gina's Skinny Recipes) and gave it a try, using drumsticks instead of wings.  It was delicious.  Kind of beyong delicious.  So I made them again the other night using boneless skinless chicken breast tenders.

They weren't as good as the drumsticks (probably because they weren't dark meat and didn't have any skin on them.  Yeah... I am good at stating the obvious), but they were still YUMMY.

Try the recipe.  It is good.

The BEST Fruit Salad

In my efforts to eat healthy, fruits and vegetables have been very important. Last week I over did it with zucchini to the point where Phil and I both don't even use the word in our house. Never knew you could overdo on that one but it turns out you can. I was actually a little concerned we were eating so much that it was unhealthy.

But I digress...

Here is a fruit salad recipe you just have to try. It is pretty easy to prepare and has so many good things in it. The best part: the fruit is in season which makes it relatively inexpensive.

At Safeway,

Mangos are $1.49 each

Kiwis are 3/$1.00

Blueberries are buy one, get one free

Mango, Kiwi, and Blueberry Salad

It is pretty simple: 2 mangos, 3 medium kiwis, and 12 oz. of blueberries.

Mangos

Skin the mangos with a peeler. Cut off the top and the bottom of the mango and cut as much of the mango of the core as possible. It is pretty easy to tell which part is fruit and which part is core. The fruit slices off, but when you hit core you can hear it cutting. That is a horrible description, but you will know it when you hear it. Then just cut the mango fruit into small pieces.

Kiwis

Take off the skin. Slice the kiwi into small pieces.

Blueberries

Wash the blueberries.

Just mix it all together. You don't need to add any sweetener. I am not sure, but I think the sugar from the kiwis sweetens the rest of the fruit.

The fruit in this salad is SO GOOD for you. Mangos are anti-inflammatory, rich in vitamins A and C and fiber. Kiwis are rich in vitamin C and fiber. Blueberries have TONS of anti-oxidents.

The other day, I put some Vanilla non-fat Greek Yogurt in with it and it was SO YUMMY and super filling.

I usually like to use foods that are locally grown. I don't really buy into the organic food craze, but local food I can really get behind. (Locally grown foods are better for the environment than organically grown foods that aren't local.) While Oregon does grow some AMAZING fruit, absolutely none of it is in season right now. Once the Farmer's market gets started again, I think I will use local fruit again.


Love, Mrs. Janney

I'm hooked!

So this last Sunday, I went on a cooking spree. I made all of our meals for the week, basically totally from scratch. That included prepping veggies to be steamed all week and making a fruit salad. It was awesome. It took me about 3 hours to do all the prep work and cooking AND clean it up.

So that has meant that every night when we get home, there is NO COOKING needed. Pop something in the oven and steam some veggies (that are already cut)! That is it!!

And all the meals have been healthy/low calorie thanks mostly to Gina's Skinny Recipes (click to open link). We had her light tuna noodle casserole last night and it was SO GOOD! The portions are HUGE and only about 300 something calories.

Last weekend I also went on a cleaning spree. Cleaned up most of the house. I LOVE having a clean house!! Got caught up on laundry and everything. So last night I threw a couple of loads in after I got home from the gym.

Did you read that? The GYM.

That's right, I went to the gym last night. I went to Group Ride. It was hard but awesome. I remembered why I liked it so much. I want to go again (maybe tomorrow morning? We will see).

I have nothing against the gym, but as I have mentioned before I have struggled with motivation since my exam in October. Basically waiting for the results had me super depressed. I know it shouldn't have, since there was nothing I could do about the results at that time. But even the thought of having to study again (and study even harder) made me want to burst into tears. This was about 12x worse than college or grad school. And I went to engineering school which is notoriously hard (we are talking homework 24/7). It was bad.

After I got the results, I still had a hard time with motivation. I was really hoping seeing Karla and going to Boston would snap me out of my funk. And I think it did!!! I am so relieved. Especially since Phil is really having to kick his research into high gear. I need to take over basically all of the household duties to make sure he can just work.

So...

Saturday Phil will be in the lab ALL DAY (we are talking 7 in the morning to 7 at night) doing scientist stuff. MY GOAL is to get the house cleaned, laundry done, grocery shopping finished, and meals for the week prepared Saturday. That way Phil and I can just spend Sunday together.

I am pumped. So glad to be out of my lack-of-motiviation-itis.

YAY!

Love, Mrs. Janney

PS- How awesome is this picture of my brother Nick, my dad, and me?

Healthy Cooking

Feeling a little blue today. Let's just say that it is pouring down rain and the weather reflects how I feel. Today would be the perfect day to be at home, on the couch covered in blankets with movies and a good book. But I do enjoy being able to pay my rent, so I guess I have to work. And I saw I had a couple of comments from people I didn't know and that helped to cheer me up a bit.



But I digress.



After I got engaged, I really started trying to lose some weight to prepare for the wedding. Plus, I needed to lose some weight anyway. I feel like I looked swollen (but it was just chubbiness). So after LOTS of running and little change, my doctor gave me this advice:

"It's all about diet, not exercise. It takes an hour to burn off what you eat in minutes."

Man... those words are true. I think a lot of people overestimate the number of calories they burn working out. Not to mention, I think eating bad food does more than just add calories. I think it messes with the whole balance of your system.



When I lived in England, Karla used to have me over for dinner. I may have mentioned this, but Karla is a health nut and just happens to be an AWESOME chef. Seriously. She just whips up super nutritous and healthy stuff without much effort. Watching her cook has shown me how easy it is to make some healthy swaps when cooking.

Between Karla and some healthy cooking blogs, mainly THIS one, I have made some pretty good and healthy dishes. Of course, cooking things from scratch takes longer than making pre-made processed foods. And it is hard to keep things balanced between work, the house, the husbands Ph. D stuff, and exercising. So I decided that this week I was going to make pretty much all of our meals for the week on Sunday. So that is what I did.



I made a turkey breast, zucchini casserole, and steamed vegetables for dinner last night. And then I made a healthy Shepard's Pie and Skinny Tuna Noodle Casserole for dinners this week. I also made a fruit salad with strawberries, kiwi, and blueberries.



That may not seem like a ton of food, but with just 2 of us eating at home, I think this will be enough for lunches and leftovers this week! So other than cutting up some more veggies to steam, I am pretty much done cooking and all of our meals were made from scratch with little to no processed food.



I haven't been able to really exercise much lately, I have been able to eat as much as I want and my weight has managed to go down a little. :)



I think I am going to start sharing some of my cooking stuff on here a little more. Now, I am fully aware that not that many people read this (other than my husband). But who knows. For clarification, I am not really good at creating recipes myself. Mostly, I follow recipes and make some changes to them. For the most part, things I put on here will be someone else's creation and I will give them the credit.



P.S. - The zucchini casserole is SO GOOD!! Phil and I couldnt' figure out why it was so amazing, but it really was. It is going to become a staple for my house I think.







Love, Mrs. Janney