My husband and I have started dieting.  To ease us into our first week dieting I was previously trying to cook at home.  Every night.  I’d scour recipes online and pick out the ones that sounded interesting and pick up everything at the grocery store in one trip so we’d have almost a week’s worth of dinners ready to be made.  I mentioned ‘ease us into’ dieting.  We do a lot of fast food.  Too much.  So I figured why not try to cook at home as much as I could before the diet.  Even though some of the things you cook at home are fattening, they are NOT that processed, greasy fast food.  I actually LIKE cooking.  Once upon a time when I first got married I really wasn’t into it, and I never really had my mom teach me.  She would have, but I was stubborn.  So, when I got really into cooking I basically had to teach myself…with multiple phone calls to mom asking questions about ingredients, cook times, etc.

So… here’s some of the recipes I made last week to ease us into dieting and eating at home five days a week and then allowing the weekends for ‘cheating’.

Spaghetti With Zesty Bolognese – this was a HIT.  A slam dunk.  We loved this one.  Although the recipe didn’t seem to contain enough spices to really give the sauce a kick.  I added some oregano, basil, and garlic.  It does have you cook the meat in Kraft’s Zesty Italian dressing, which is actually REALLY zesty if you haven’t tried it.  But it just didn’t hold on to that ‘zest’…hence adding a few more spices on my part.  I suggest that if you’re really used to jarred spaghetti sauce, to get some of that and just forget about the regular can of tomato sauce and just add in a jar of store bought sauce….but include everything else they list in the recipe.

Bruschetta Chicken Bake –  This was ok.  It needed something, more spices?  Definitely more chicken or at least not chicken cut into small bit size pieces like I did.  But the topping of the stuffing was really great, I loved that.  I also added extra mozzarella cheese on the top of it after it was finished cooking.  This one is a super simple, no brainer one to cook.

Chicken And Broccoli Alfredo –  this was another excellent and easy recipe!   Just like you’d get at a restaurant.  This called for 1/2 pkg. of cream cheese.  I already had that on hand from using two tablespoons of it for the Zesty Bolognese (listed above), so I just used the rest of it that was left over…I’d say maybe 3/4 pkg cream cheese.  My husband likes anything that calls for sauce to be extra saucy, and that extra cream cheese worked out well.  I wasn’t going to use it for anything else so I figured I’d just use it up.

Cheddar Macaroni Beef Casserole – this one sounded so odd that it might actually be good.  And it was!  And talk about super duper simple to make!  My husband doesn’t like the Kraft Macaroni And Cheese that comes with the ‘powdered cheese’, so we bought the other kind that comes with the actual soft cheese in the packet.  Worked out great!

Apple Cider Beef Stew – Don’t let the ‘apple cider’ in the title scare you off, this turned out FABULOUS!  I purposely didn’t tell my husband that apple cider vinegar went into this recipe because I knew he’d balk at it.  It sounded so different (than our usual stew we’d make) that I had to try this one.  First off, if you’re not a huge fan of vinegar, then I’d maybe start with adding just a 1/2 cup or 3/4 cup of the apple cider vinegar.  I added the full 1 1/4 cup that the recipe called for and it was excellent, but I was thinking for other people who aren’t crazy about vinegar that they should go easy on adding it.  I also left out the water chestnuts, we’re not fans of those.  But I added everything else and I highly recommend this one!!!

I’ll try to continue to list the recipes of the dinners we make.  I know how hard it is to find good recipes online that actually TASTE good or have someone reviewing them.

I just cook for two, we don’t have kids and our dogs don’t eat people food (much to their dismay), so we’ve always got plenty left over for another meal, which makes eating at home even easier if all you’ve got to do is re-heat!

Bon Appetit!

I figured since my husband is making our homemade salsa today that I’d post it as the ‘photo of the day’…. recipe is below photo:

Ingredients:

2 tomatoes – diced
2 tomatoes – cut in chunks and blended in the blender
2 jalapenos – diced (we leave out the seeds, if you add the seeds it will be much hotter)
1/4 onion – diced
2 tbsp diced garlic
cilantro (add to taste)
Lime Juice – a few squirts
2 tbsp salt (or less, add 1 tbsp first and try it, then add the second if you think it needs it, I like mine salty)
2 tbsp vinegar
crushed pepper (four to five turns of a pepper mill, or add more depending on your taste)

We basically add all ingredients together and chill in the fridge several hours (a few hours will do it, but the longer it chills, the tastier). This should give you a nice medium salsa. If you want it hotter, add in some seeds from the jalapenos, if not…just be sure to leave the seeds out.