Healthier

As Bailey is growing and becoming more aware of her surroundings we are doing our best to show her how to be a good person, have fun, explore, obey rules, and have patience {among other things}. One area that we are working on as a family is being healthier. She is now eating solid foods and we realize, now more than ever, that we need to set the best example of good food habits.

We have been making a big effort to plan our meals, eat more veggies, and be more aware of what we are putting into our bodies. For Christmas my parents gave us this cookbook and we have been using it to cook from.

I like to use THIS {from lifeinyellow.com} to plan out our dinners (we usually have leftovers for lunch). I put it on the fridge and it's really nice being able to see what is planned for the week, instead of trying to figure it out at the last minute. I usually go through the cookbook to make my dinner list, make my shopping list and fill my club card with ecoupons (vons.com) and only go to the market once a week.

So far here are the recipes I've we've made {we've actually liked all of them}:

Chicken With Mushroom Sauce

We added steamed carrots and baked potato

Savory pork roast (my first roast!) with special cauliflower

This was my favorite recipe so far, I ate the leftovers for a few days after!
The cauliflower has a great sauce that I will use as a dip for other veggies.

Three-meat spaghetti sauce

I didn't like this as much as other sauces, it probably would have been better without the pepperoni.

Fortunately, most of these are easy to make and all have lots of flavor. On the list this week: BBQ ranch salad,  Hamburger noodle casserole with bbq potato wedges, Italian chicken and penne, Slow cooked sweet & sour pork, and Easy chicken and dumplings.

I really enjoy these recipes because they are lighter versions of comfort food, so we don't feel that we are missing out or having to eat bland, boring diet food. Sometimes simple changes are easy to make and it makes me happy that we are setting good examples for Bailey.

Do you have any favorite new recipes?