Consolidating

I have decided to consolidate all of my blogs into one.

My new all-in-one blog is called We Live After the Manner of Happiness, and on it I will frequently write short and sweet posts about a variety of topics, including Self Education, Motherhood, Homeschooling, the Gospel, and Healthy Eating.

I may still post here on occasion, particularly if I have a longer post I wish to write, but I hope you'll follow me there, since my new format allows me to be far more consistent in my posting and more flexible in my topics.

See you there!

weliveafterthemannerofhappiness.blogspot.com

Approachable Healthy Eating

I don't believe in all or nothing health. I believe this type of thinking holds us back from potentially eating far better than we currently are. That's the whole purpose of this blog, to help highlight how we can eat better without going to extremes.

To be clear, I highly admire those who are able to invest time, energy, and money in what I have (possibly inaccurately) labeled as extreme healthy eating.  I think that if you have the interest and can afford to do so it's a positive thing.

But for the rest of us, those of us who desire to feed our families well but feel overwhelmed by the prospect of everything homemade, hard-to-pronounce-foods type of healthy eating, I propose a more middle-of-the-road, improving-by-degrees kind of healthy eating.

Case in point:

Cheesy Broccoli Rice-a-Roni

I could have added chicken, I could have just eaten the rice plain.  Instead, in my efforts towards healthier eating, I added in a ton of broccoli.  And you know what?  It tastes amazing!  :D

Here's what I did:

1.  Washed and trimmed about a pound of broccoli  (no need to be precise.)

2.  Cooked the Cheesy Broccoli Rice-a-Roni according to the box

3.  Added the broccoli to the rice during the last five minutes of cooking time  (lid on so it could steam)

It's that simple!  Let me know if you have any other quick and easy healthy (or rather, healthier) recipes.

Happy Cooking!

Cheesy Vegetable Chowder

I love soup season!  I feel like it is so much easier to eat healthy when you can makes soups loaded with vegetables.  And aren't they beautiful too?  I love all the colors.  This soup turned out wonderful.  I took it to a church party and I was simultaneously pleased and disappointed that it got all eaten up.  (I really wanted some leftovers; soups make the best leftovers in my opinion.)

The recipe can be found here: http://luluthebaker.blogspot.com/2011/09/cheesy-vegetable-chowder.html?m=1

Cheesy Vegetable Chowder

I love soup season!  I feel like it is so much easier to eat healthy when you can makes soups loaded with vegetables.  And aren't they beautiful too?  I love all the colors.  This soup turned out wonderful.  I took it to a church party and I was simultaneously pleased and disappointed that it got all eaten up.  (I really wanted some leftovers; soups make the best leftovers in my opinion.)

The recipe can be found here: http://luluthebaker.blogspot.com/2011/09/cheesy-vegetable-chowder.html?m=1

Back on the wagon!

So... this summer wasn't too good to me when it came to healthy eating and weight management.  Granted, I'm supposed to be gaining weight now that I'm pregnant, but I'm pretty sure I'm gaining more than I should be each week.  In light of this, I have rediscovered my motivation to eat better and start exercising again!

As I've mentioned on this blog before, eating well is all relative, so please don't scoff if you consider my "healthy" meals to be far below your standard.  I'm just trying to make progress, however small and steady it may be.  :)  My goals are pretty simple:  more vegetables and less meat generally, as well as more variety and more moderation in our servings.

Since I don't have any particular meals to post about from recently, I figured I would share a little bit about my newest meal planning efforts.  I used to plan around the type of meat we were having each night of the week.  (Beef, chicken, pork, etc.)  But as I am attempting to decrease our meat consumption, and at the very least not have it be the main event in our meals, I decided to mix things up.

In the Word of Wisdom it says, "All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the staff of life"  (D&C 89:14). So I thought we would try framing our meals around different types of grain.  Here's how our weekly themes turned out:

Monday:     Leftovers
Tuesday:    Tortilla
Wednesday:  Pizza Night
Thursday:  Bread
Friday:     Date Night
Saturday:  Beans/Rice
Sunday:   Pasta

I make it pretty easy on myself, only having four nights a week that I have to cook, since we have leftovers, pizza, and date nights.  (And honestly, I think it ends up being even less the four times per week since we end up having dinner with family or so much food in the fridge that we have more than one leftovers night per week.)

After I decided on the themes, I took my list of go-to meals and divided them into these different themes.  I'll share my lists, but please forgive any mistakes since I'm just copying and pasting out of my Evernote account.  If any of these meals sound good to you and you'd like to see a picture or get the recipe, just let me know!  (Feel free to ignore the asterisks; they just let me know what my husband prefers to eat.)

 Pasta

Spaghetti
**Alfredo
Pesto
Lasagna
Stuffed shells
*Mac & cheese
**Tuna casserole
Chicken noodle soup
Minestrone

Dressed up Mac and cheese

*Carbonara

Tortilla
Chicken burritos
*Enchiladas
?Turkey casserole
Taco soup
Fajitas
**Meatless burritos
Quesadillas
Pitas
Travelling Tacos

Beans/rice
**Cowboy beans
*Stir-fry
*Chicken curry
**Chili
Soup
**stew
Spanish rice bake
Risotto
Lentil soup
Hawaiian Haystacks
Ham fried rice

Bread
Panini's
Italian chicken sandwich
Zuppa Toscana
Meatball sub
Soup/stew
*Burgers
Salad entrée
Homemade pizza
**Frittata
**Veggie burger
Grown-up grilled cheese
*Vegetable chowder
*Tomato soup (special)
**Cheese and broccoli soup
*Bisquick bake

*Tomato basil soup

At this point it was super easy to just file them into slots during the week.  The first time I did this I ended up planning about five weeks in advance since it was so simple.  Here's how it turned out:

Saturday:  ward function

Sunday:  Sundried Tomato Ravioli 

Monday:  leftovers     
Tuesday:  Gyros
Wednesday:  Pizza
Thursday:  Chicken Fiesta Salad
Friday:  Date Night       

Saturday:  Spanish Rice Bake       

Sunday:  Lasagna       

Monday: leftovers       

Tuesday:  Enchiladas       

Wednesday:  pizza       

Thursday:  Paninis       

Friday:  date night       

Saturday:  Stirfry       

Sunday:  Minestrone 

Monday:  leftovers       

Tuesday:   Beef and Bean Tortilla Bak

Wednesday:  pizza       

Thursday:  Grown up Grilled Cheese       

Friday:  date night       

Saturday:  Southwestern Bean Skillet       

Sunday:  Stuffed Shells       

Monday:  leftovers       

Tuesday:  Taco Soup       

Wednesday:  pizza       

Thursday:  Meatball Sub       

Friday:  date night       

Saturday:  Risotto       

Sunday: Macaroni and Cheese       

Monday:  leftovers       

Tuesday:  Chicken Burritos       

Wednesday:  pizza       

Thursday:  Vegetable Chowder       

Friday:  date night

Saturday:  Chicken Curry     

   

Now when I go shopping for the week, I just look at the upcoming meals and buy all the ingredients I'll need for those recipes.  I really enjoy meal planning a lot more this way.  I try to attempt at least one new meal per week, some weeks it turns out to be more just because I get so excited about new recipes.  The first new recipe I tried this fall was homemade gyros.  They were a great success!  Definitely going onto my go-to list.  ;)

Breakfast Ideas

Here are some pictures of ways we like to mix things up for breakfast.  Enjoy!

Soups

Soup is a great way to get lots of vegetables in a meal. They're usually low cost and low calories too while still being very filling and feeding a crowd. Two of my favorites are chicken noodle soup and creamy vegetable soup.