Rotisserie chicken, quinoa and roasted butternut squash

The new addition here is the butternut squash roasted with red onion.  Until I came across the acorn squash with red onion recipe (see earlier post), I never new that winter squashes and red onion paired so well, but the red onion with the butternut squash was excellent, too.  Just slice the onion, add cubed butternut squash, coat them with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast them.

Update on my progress

Since starting this blog, I have felt much better than I did before the lifestyle change.  I no longer get headaches from sugar overdoses, and I have been surprised at how much more energy I have had since I started eating healthier food.  In addition, my mood has been more stable.  And, even though losing weight wasn’t my main intent, I went pants shopping before Thanksgiving to buy my first pairs of non-maternity dress pants and jeans and found that I had lost 6 pounds and dropped 2 pant sizes since starting this blog.  This was such a blessing, as before no non-gym pants had fit no matter the size and we were heading to Chicago for Thanksgiving, so I really needed some pants to keep from freezing.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I controlled my eating better than I had before during a vacation, but I still backslid and had one episode of binging on sugar.  I am thankful for the blessing of my mother-in-law’s cooking and getting to eat the delicious home-cooked food that she prepared for us, as her food made me feel better, helped give balance to the other processed food I was eating, and helped keep me in my lifestyle change (except her amazing cherry cheesecake that I ate way too much of =).  However, when you’re at a hotel and not in your own home, it’s easier to be tempted and harder to eat healthily.  After over a week of eating more sugary and fast-food items than usual, my body literally hurt.  I had pain in my side and back and did not feel as energetic.  This taught and showed me that the unhealthy way I ate before was not a better way to live, and I realized that I never wanted to go back to that unhealthy way of eating again.  Therefore, this past Monday I began eating healthy again and exercising and am feeling much better already.  Thank you all for reading my posts and helping to continue encouraging me!

Holiday season meal

This meal for us was like a post-Thanksgiving/early Christmas/Holiday season-kind-of-meal.  We even had appetizers beforehand of dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) and fire hot hummus which I bought from the little Greek stand at the Farmer's Market, and we ate them with pita chips and Trader Joe's Turkish apricots, which we tried for the first time today and have to say are the best dried apricots we have eaten.

For the main meal, we bought a pre-cooked 1/4 spiral ham from Trader Joe's that has no nitrates, nitrites or phosphates.  We then followed the directions to bake and glaze it.  It was yummy.  I then made a green bean casserole from scratch using a recipe from the 100 days of real food website.  I had seen one of my Facebook friends make this, and she said it was really good, so I had to try it.  It *was* really good!  I made it using fresh green beans, onions and garlic all from the Farmer's Market.  The prep for making a green bean casserole this way takes at least 10 times longer than your traditional Campbell's/French's Fried Onions green bean casserole, but if you have the time, it is worth it, and I feel so much better after eating a meal that is less-processed.

Green bean casserole recipe:

 http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2013/11/12/recipe-green-bean-casserole-french-fried-onions/#more-12244

Macaroni and Cheese

 

This is another homemade macaroni and cheese recipe from the 100 days of real food website.  I like this one more than the previous recipe I tried.  The other recipe tastes more like an alfredo sauce, as the creator of that recipe adapted the sauce from an alfredo sauce she had.  However, this mac and cheese tastes like traditional mac and cheese only so much better.  To me this recipe is like a comfort food, and I could eat the entire batch in one sitting.  Nico liked it better, too, than the previous recipe.  Honestly, it's one of the best things I've eaten in a long time.

 

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2010/12/31/recipe-whole-wheat-macaroni-and-cheese/

Greek Yogurt Parfait

The parfait includes Greek yogurt, quick-cooking oats (see one of my previous posts), blackberries, and honey.  Mix all together and let them sit in the fridge for at least 8 hours.

Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Breakfast Sandwich

My mom makes these for me whenever we get the opportunity to visit each other.  I love them, and finally made them myself.  I used a 100% whole wheat English muffin, a little cheddar cheese, one scrambled egg, and two slices of pre-cooked turkey bacon.  I offered little bites of the sandwich to Nico.  He ate the first few bites whole but then proceeded to deconstruct each of the following bites and dig the bacon out of them, leaving the rest of the sandwich ingredients on his tray.  I guess I can’t blame the guy for loving bacon.

Chicken, cucumber, and egg salad

If you are running short on time, Trader Joe’s sells packages of sliced and fully-cooked poached chicken called ‘Just Chicken’, which is what I used for this salad.  I also topped it with hard-boiled eggs and Persian cucumbers (also found at TJs).

Macaroni and Cheese, Creamy Whole-Wheat

This recipe also came from the 100 days of real food website.  My son loves Kraft Mac ‘N Cheese, but it is pretty processed (which won’t hurt once-in-awhile), but if I'm going to give my son mac ‘n cheese often, I want to give him a home-cooked version at least part of the time.  It was not hard or time-consuming at all to make (it truly only took me just a little more time than the boxed version), and it tasted great!  I loved it, but unfortunately I could only get my son to eat a little of it here and there.  However, at the time he was going through a teething phase where he wasn’t eating much of anything, so I will definitely make this again now that my son is back to eating well.

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2013/04/08/recipe-creamy-whole-wheat-mac-and-cheese/

Vegetable pancakes

I found this recipe on the 100 days of real food website and thought, wow, what a great way to get your child to eat vegetables.  It sounded like a good idea, but it didn’t end up working well for me.  I may give it another try in the future, but it was very time-consuming to grate all the vegetables and fry the pancakes, they didn’t end up tasting very flavorful, and my son didn’t care for them, but it was worth a try.

 http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2011/09/12/recipe-vegetable-pancakes/