Day #25

Today was a wonderfully long day of strawberry picking, grocery shopping, cleaning and putting away strawberries, etc. This supper is brought to you from a recipe from Hallee the Homemaker's blog. It is Root Beer BBQ beef. You brown the roast, and pretty much throw it in the crock pot with BBQ sauce and a cup of root beer. I really thought it was going to be sweet, but it wasn't nearly as sweet as I feared. On the side is the last of my salad from Longhorn. I will say, I did not finish my sandwich. I was stuffed. We made them on Kaiser rolls, and they were enormous.

Day #24

We went to Longhorn tonight. I really wanted a Pomegranate Margarita <3. Now, let me tell you, this salad...is awesome! It tastes kind of like pizza! It is mixed greens, tomato, purple onions, pepperoncini, some type of white cheese (mozzarella??), feta, and a grilled chicken breast with balsalmic vinaigarette. You will see it again on tomorrow's supper, as it was huge and I ended up eating it for 3 meals.

Day #23

I was really wanting Chinese food. It is not hard to get Josh to agree to it. Besides, you have to love a buffet, where you can get a little of everything instead of a lot of one thing. This plate has fried rick (that I picked the pork out of...), beef & peppers, some sort of veggie combo in a light sauce, pepper chicken and of course a crab rangoon (which, by the way, are not meant to be split and shared!!)

Day #22

Oh, lovely, Pizza! Josh is really upset that I have stopped eating pork again. It especially rears its ugly head on pizza night. This actually came from a pizza chain in the gas station near my house. It is thin crust and has ground beef, black olives, mushrooms, and banana peppers. Pretty good combo.

Day #21

This is what we did with our grain-fed, hormone-free, antibiotic-free ground beef. They were really good burgers. This week, I showed up at the Farmers' Market earlier in the day, and got ground beef with a lower fat content. That was our only complaint about this pack of meat...how much the burgers cooked down, but they were still tasty! We paired it with leftover potato salad from our NY Strip meal over the weekend.

Day #20

Oh yes, I am famous for serving breakfast for dinner. Turkey sausage, scrambled eggs with cheese, and pancakes with strawberries. The kids loved it.

Day #19

Salisbury steak, brown rice (with gravy) and green beans. Josh over-salted the rice. That is really all that I remember about this meal. Oh, and the green beans were mushy on the outside, and some of the peas were still raw.

Day #18

I must remind myself that not every meal will be spectacular, lol. We picked up burgers from BK, and 1 order of fries to split. Jade seems to prefer burgers from Burger King over McDonald's.

Day # 17

yum, I am drooling remembering this meal. This is the day I discovered that a local farm sells "grain-fed, hormone-free, antibiotic-free" beef at the local Farmers' Market, and we picked up NY Strips, which is my *favorite* cut of beef. Oh, it is so fabulous! I also made potato salad and steamed broccoli to go with it.

Day #16

OK, so I am throwing about 2 weeks worth of suppers up all at once. Pictures I have been taking, but I just sat down to upload them, so lets see what we have. Ah yes, a very sloppy taco salad from Taco Bell. It is supposed to be a "Fiesta Chicken Taco Salad", which has reduced-fat sour cream and (naturally non-fat) salsa instead of a salad dressing. Yummy!

Day #15

I am kinda slacking tonight. Jame has been here all week, and has pretty much sat around the house, because, although he is on Spring Break, ours was 2 weeks ago, so we all had school, work, etc. So, I let him pick what he wanted for dinner, and we went out. He chose Popeye's and I forgot to take my camera. The family got a 12-piece box with a side (mashed potatoes and gravy) and 6 biscuits. I bought a 3 piece strip meal (with mashed potatoes and gravy) so Jade could have easy-to-eat chicken (no bones, no skin), and I ate 2 of her strips, a good bit of her potatoes, and a biscuit.

Day #14

Nothing fancy tonight. We had cheeseburgers with homemade, skin-on fries. I was going to oil and bake the fries, but Josh had the pan of oil already hot when I got home from work.

By the way, this is the "correct" way to eat a burger...mayo and mustard...NO ketchup!! Ketchup is for french fries and hot dogs without chili.

Day #13

Today I left work at 4, picked Jade up, ran home to change, and went to the playground for an hour! I was tempted to drive though somewhere, and honestly, if there were anything close to drive through, I probably would have, but I came home. I threw Gorton's Potato Crunch Fish Fillets in the oven and gave Jade a bath. Got her out of the tub, flipped the fish sticks, cleaned and put green beans on to steam and then got her dressed. I thought it was pretty good for something quick and low-maintenance. It was tasty!

Day #12

Now, *this* is more like it. This is how I love to eat. It is diced chicken, pan fried, with fresh mushrooms and green beans in an oriental~inspired sauce over brown rice. I was going to cook my version of this last night, but Josh insisted on pizza, so he cooked it tonight. We would usually just eat this the way it is, but yesterday I bought a box of Wheatables with Almonds, and they were so yummy, and I thought the almond flavor would complement this meal nicely. We had them instead of fried noodles.

Day #11

Sunday has unofficially become "pizza night". Tonight we ordered from Papa Murphy's. The make your pizza, and you bring it home and cook it yourself. It was thin crust, beef, mushrooms and black olives. Jade ate almost 3 slices!!

Day #10

Double digits :)

Today, Ed was still in town, and we met at 8:30 for breakfast at the local IHOP. We went to Wal*mart to let the kids pick out their "Christmas" gift from him, and then went to the zoo. Afterwards, we went to Chili's. It is really hard to eat healthy at Chili's. I opted for the new "mini" tacos, and didn't care for them. I ate one of each taco, and picked the shrimp off the 2nd shrimp taco. I ate about 3 bites of the beans, which were probably the best part of the plate.

Day #9

My ex-father-in-law is stateside for a week or 2, and he came to town to visit us this weekend. I love when he visits. The kids get spoiled for a little while, and so does mommy! We always go out to eat. I usually get to pick the place. Josh was in a foul mood tonight, so it was just me, the kids, and Ed. Good food, good drinks, good company, and good conversation. Everyone ordered something different of course, but I had a salad with lite Italian, grilled salmon on rice, and asparagus. Oh, it was fabulous. I gave Jade about half my asparagus because she loves it, and I brought home half the salmon and rice. The pomegranate margarita...yeah, I finished that, and 2 others (not pictured) because it was a shaker, and a glass of water and 2 cups of coffee with Splenda.

Day #8

OK, so even though we have eaten a bunch of unhealthy crap over the past week, I have stuck to blogging it, and I am proud of that fact. Tonight we had Taco Bell. Josh's first suggestion was going to Burger King to get a sack full of Double Cheeseburgers...seriously? we look like we need to eat 2 or 3 of them each....so I vetoed it. At least at Taco Bell I can pretend to be semi-healthy. A lot of the tacos and burritos have lettuce and tomato...right? Have you seen the magazine cover story where the woman lost like 60 pounds or so eating Taco Bell?!?

Anyway, I ate both burritos, and I was absolutely stuffed to the gills. But, on the bright side, I was so full that there was no 9pm snack, even though we ate at 6...which is my own personal demon that I am trying to fight.

Day #7

I told Josh as we were sitting down to another spaghetti supper tonight, that next week he needs to make stuffed manicotti. It is delicious, and I'd like to put it on the blog. And he accused me of starting to blog to manipulate him into cooking certain things *sigh*. Like he *wouldn't* cook it at some point over the next 173 days anyway. He is an *excellent* cook when he wants to be, but I think the blog is making him rebellious.

I have seen from looking through the last week worth of suppers why he and I have gained weight since we have been together. We truly don't eat this way all of the time, but, I will admit that it probably goes through cycles of healthy, followed by cycles of unhealthy...which is where we seem to be now ~ in a cycle of unhealthy. We shouldn't be. It is Spring! There are fresh fruits and veggies everywhere! I live in Louisiana for goodness sakes!!

I want to also add that I have decided to give up pork again. I am sure that will make Josh want to buy all pork on our next grocery trip. I gave up pork when I was about 11, and stuck to it for about 5 years. I will admit ~ I have a weakness for bacon. Oh, and tenderloin. Oops, can't forget ham. I prefer to have ham over turkey for Thanksgiving. I prefer to have ham at every holiday celebration. I guess this year I will have to think outside the box. Maybe lamb for Thanksgiving? (I really just don't like turkey). We will see. I know that Josh will be as unsupportive of this as he can, and he will try to push pork on me at every opportunity.

Day #6

Tonight we had everyone's favorite...Breakfast tacos. They look disgusting, lol

Truly, it's not *my* favorite, because Josh claims he "can't" cook it, so I end up cooking it every. single. time. we have it. And, it's a pain in the rear. It's not "hard", it's just time consuming.

Scramble eggs:

• butter pan
  
• 8-10 large eggs
• about 1/4 cup of milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• lots of cheese. seriously. 4-5 slices of American, plus I use about 1/4 of a bag of shredded cheese

while I am scrambling the eggs, I am also cooking loose breakfast sausage, and cutting up onions and bell peppers and heating oil for hash browns, then cooking all that, and heating tortillas (usually wrapped in foil, throw in the oven at 250* for..however long it takes me to get everything cooked. I use diced frozen potatoes, and I cook the bell peppers and onions with them. When everything is cooked, I drain the meat and potatoes, and mix it into the scrambled eggs. I put it on the tortillas (I use white corn, we prefer the flavor), and serve with Picante Sauce (if you like that...which I don't).

It's not *hard*. But, getting the timing right takes a little practice. It is probably the fattiest, most unhealthy meal that I cook. And, it is, far and away, everyone's favorite.

Day #5

Another not-so-great night. I think that Josh doesn't care about impressing you as much as I do. He grabbed a lot of "fast and easy" things while grocery shopping this weekend. There has been a LOT going on around here. There was a chemical fire across the street from our daycare last week. The daycare has still not opened. So, we are scrambling trying to find sitters, I am frantically searching for a new daycare. Add on top of that the trip to New Orleans, Easter weekend, finally getting back to work today. And don't get me started about my morning. This is a food blog, so I will keep my morning to myself so as not to nauseate you.

So, tonight we had Chicken Pot Pies. We did discuss making them ourselves, and how the sauce is made, and what we would put in them if we were to do it ourselves, so, homemade Pot Pies may be on the menu in the near future. I cannot believe that Kitana ate 2 pot pies! I expect that from Josh. Sometimes I will eat about 1.5, but usually not a full 2. I wonder if she's going to hit another growth spurt soon? I want a "shrinking" spurt, so I stopped at 1 (I was stuffed anyway).

On a totally unrelated note ~ I got an e-mail reminder that today is my 3 month anniversary since I quit smoking! YAY me!! (I am very proud!)

Day #4

I am definitely noticing that we tend to eat out often on the weekend! Tonight we met up with friends and had pizza and cinnamon sticks. I'm kicking myself for not photographing lunch, when I made my famous fried rice. It could have been a "double" day. But, we didn't do a big Easter spread. To be honest, I forgot that Easter was an "eating" holiday aside from the candy, so pizza it was. If you are interested, the pizza has Pepperoni, double beef, black olives, mushrooms and banana peppers.

Day #3

I did better tonight than I expected. After the fast-food greasiness that was last nights supper for 2, Kitana never ate, and I ate a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles, I couldn't let you (or us) down for the 2nd night in a row. Today, we did go spend the day with the in-laws, and had fresh hamburgers. And, I mean *fresh*. 2 weeks ago, it was a living, breathing cow on Josh's aunts land. Josh had one of the burgers "to go" at like 3:30, so I knew he wouldn't be very hungry (if at all), so I wanted to make something light and cool.

I stopped at the grocery store and bought a "Suddenly Salad" pasta salad. I mixed in halved cucumber slices and sliced black olives, and served it with a side of broccoli. I know, not spectacular, but, I am interested in making cool pasta salads one day, and I needed to know what all in entailed. Now, I have the basis to create my own, healthier, homemade pasta salads.

PS: Please ignore my "fancy" dinner plates tonight, lol

Day #2

Ok, every day won't be impressive. Today I went to New Orleans, which is about 1.5 hours from my house, and I got home around 6. I wasn't hungry, and neither was Kitana. Josh asked for Raisin' Cane's, so he and Jade had chicken fingers for dinner. I may eat a bowl of cereal later. Yeah, no veggies, fried, starchy...I know. Jade and I split 1/4 of a muffaletta and a salad at lunch, and she had a banana for breakfast, so she did have something that came from a tree and from the ground today...

better things tomorrow night?? Probably not, tomorrow is lunch at the in-laws.

Day #1

Day 1 of the blog, and already I am cheating. Tonight, we are having left-overs from last night, which is when I took this picture. It is a homemade version of Spaghetti.

The noodles are whole wheat linguine

The sauce is made from:

90/10 ground beef (we tried turkey for a while, but in the grand scheme of things, we really prefer the beef)
a large can of diced tomatoes
small can of black olives
Fresh:
onion
green, red, and orange bell peppers
zucchini
herbs and spices

The bread is Roasted Garlic Italian bread that I picked up from the grocery store (buttered) it was fabulous!

I maybe should work on presentation a tad...that stuff all over the edge of the plate is just sloppy, lol

Welcome!

Starting today I am going to do a version of "Project 365", but instead of photographing random stuff in my life, I am going to photograph supper everyday in the hopes of encouraging accountability, creativity, and healthier eating habits. In theory, this will be Project 180 (6 months), and near the end, I will decide how I feel its going and whether or not to continue.

I will share a little about me: I am a 33 year old mom of 3. My son, James (who I call 'Jame') is 15 and lives with my ex-husband. Due to distance, I don't get to see him nearly as much as I'd like. I also have a 10 year old daughter, Kitana, and a 2 year old daughter, Jade. Both of the girls live with me and my husband of 5.5 years, Josh.

Josh has gained about 60 pounds since we have been married. It doesn't look bad on him, I am more concerned that his eating habits have become terrible. He will eat high-fat over low-fat at every opportunity. I have gained about 25 pounds since we've been married, almost exclusively since pregnancy with Jade. I work for a software company, and I sit on my rear all day. I need to not "graze" so much, get more exercise, and learn to say "no" to chocolate. Josh and I have talked about how important it is to live "healthy lifestyles" instead of going on diets. I don't want my girls to grow up with body-image issues. I want them to be happy with themselves, I want them to make healthy choices when I am not there to guide them, I want them to limit junk themselves. Everything in moderation.

As far as this photo blog, I have to admit that I do *not* cook every day. In fact, most nights, Josh cooks. You will most likely notice throughout this 6 months, that Josh is *way* more creative than I am. I grew up eating what I like to call "southern". Batter and fried everything, heavy on the starch, but also lots of fresh veggies. I also tend to cook that way, and, although I have gotten a lot better about not frying everything, my imagination is lacking.

Thank you for your interest in my blog.