Awakening....

So the other day I got a big awakening!  Someone we recently met was surprised to hear that I liked to cook and bake and that I was actually good at it...they said since we eat out so much they just assumed neither of us liked to cook....

Needless to say it stopped me dead in my tracks, they were right!  Why do I pay someone else to cook for me so often!  It is so much healthier, cost efficient, and less time consuming to just cook at home...I guess since we live in the city now and actually have good healthy eat out options we got a little obsessed.

So this week I have made a huge effort to try to cook.  Most of you reading this know exactly what I mean when I say...I forgot how much up front work it is!  Planning what to make all week, finding recipes, shopping ect....ahhhh and add in our crazy diet (click here for more info on our diet)!  But I got into a grove and I hope I stay here!

I found some great new healthy recipe sites with whole food recipes and although it doesn't look nearly as good as it tasted, Monday night we had vegetarian chili with wholesome wholewheat corn bread. (So glad it is finally cold enough to start eating chili!)

These are the links to the recipes:

Vegetarian Chili

Wholesome Corn Bread

This dinner is less than 300 calories and is hearty to boot!  It filled us up! And is full of great nutrients, vitamins and antioxidants.  

This chili doesn't have that typical chili taste, it is a little sweeter since it has bell peppers and cinnamon but it was really good.  It was about a medium in preparation and time, but then I let it sit in the crock pot after it was done until Ted got home.

The cornbread was pretty good and super easy to make!  This one is a repeat for sure!

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Last night for dinner I made an easy one that I adapted from a few recipes.  We call it Lemon Pasta in our house, and it is super easy!  When I am cooking during the week I try to put a hard recipe one night  (or a new recipe I don't know) and then the next night I put a much easier one so it doesn't overwhelm me :) Here is the recipe:


Easy Lemon Pasta

Ingredients:
~ Any whole wheat pasta - I use rigatoni
   (this recipe uses half of a box since there is just 2 of us, but you can easily double it)
~ One individual container 12 oz. of greek plain or vanilla yogurt - we eat Okios at our house
~ I fresh lemon, or lemon juice
~ Fresh parmesan cheese (I only add this if I have it on hand), about 1/4 cup

Directions:
Cook noodles and drain.  Combine noodles, parmesan cheese and yogurt together.  Zest the outside of the lemon into the noodle mixture (if using a fresh lemon, if not just add lemon juice to the pasta to your preference), then squeeze the juice from the lemon over the noodles...ENJOY!

It is that easy!!

PS - don't worry we haven't given up on eating out all together, but are saving it for weekends and busy nights :)  I will never be able to give up my restaurant obsession completely....but I guess you have to cook at home some times....