What I Am Giving Up For Lent 2015

As a Catholic, I honor Lent each year and do my best to give up something that could be considered a 'bad habit.' Now, this post is not to debate religious beliefs, nor for me to preach. I am simply giving up something that is an unhealthy habit for me, and Lent is the reason why.

Last year I decided to give up chocolate, and I did really well. I passed on many desserts and treats. The only drawback was that I had to pass on some dishes that had chocolate in them, like a chili that everyone enjoyed at a cook off.

This year I decided to change it up a little bit. I decided to give up candy and ice cream. Yes, ice cream. I drink chocolate Shakeology every morning, so giving up chocolate was not really an option unless I wanted to order another bag of Shakeology and pay for it. But last year, I found myself substituting other candies, like Twizzlers, for the chocolate I gave up. I also LOVE ice cream and probably eat too much, so by giving it up for a month and a half, I can hopefully cut back my ice cream intake as we go into summer.

Have you decided to give anything up for Lent? Please let me know below, and why you decided to give up what you did.

Meal Plan Monday - Week of February 16th

One of the best ways to ensure that you eat healthy meals is to plan your meals for the week. At one point I tried to plan all of our meals, but we usually eat the same thing for breakfast every day and my son eats lunch at school, so no reason for me to plan his lunches.

Here is our meal plan for dinner this week:

Monday - lettuce wraps with turkey tacos

Tuesday - Jambalaya rice with andouille sausage

Wednesday - frozen pizza (we will be going to church, so we need a quick meal)

Thursday - Baked Chicken with sweet potatoes 

Friday - Bean and rice burritos

Saturday - Chicken Parmesan

Sunday - Dinner out

These are all pretty simple meals, as I'm trying to work my way into cooking more often. As I continue doing these posts, I will post links to my recipes for each meal.

I like to join orgjunkie.com's Meal Plan Monday!

Have a great week!

Easy Beef Stroganoff

This is a take on classic beef stroganoff. My family enjoyed it, hopefully yours will too!

INGREDIENTS

1 pound ground beef (lowest fat content you can find, I used 85/15, that was all my local store had)

1/2 sweet onion, diced into fairly large pieces

10 oz sliced mushrooms

2 cans of Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom soup

1/2 box of fettuccine   

1. Start by sautéing your onions and mushrooms in a skillet, while browning your meat in another pan. (This is because we do not want the fat from the meat in the finished meal.)

2. Once your meat has finished browning, drain the grease from the pan. If your mushrooms and onions are almost finished, go ahead and add the meat to the mixture.

3. Start your pasta water. Once the water is boiling, add your pasta.

4. While waiting for the water to boil, add both cans of soup to the meat, onion and mushrooms. DO NOT add any water.

5. Combine thoroughly, and put on low heat to simmer until pasta is done cooking. 

6. Add some pasta to your plate and the mixture on top and enjoy!

I do not normally use ground beef for my meals, as I try to limit my intake of red meat. However, sometimes there are foods that just taste better with ground beef and this is one of them.

If you decide to try this meal, please let me know in the comments below. 

Thanks!

Turkey Chili

One of my go-to meals, especially on weekends, it turkey chili. I keep the essentials, ground turkey and canned beans, in stock at all times, but often I will throw in whatever else we have, like frozen veggies.

Now, I know some people are EXTREMELY particular when it comes to chili. Some people believe that chili should not have beans in it, some believe you should use only certain spices and others believe you should only use a certain type of meat. I am constantly varying the way I make chili, always looking for a different recipe. But this is my go-to recipe.

INGREDIENTS

1 lb ground turkey

1/2 yellow onion (I do not like onions, however use it to cook for flavor)

Chili powder

Ground Cumin

Paprika

Ground Nutmeg

Ground Cloves

Cinnamon

Garlic Powder

16 oz (2 small cans) tomato sauce

14.5 oz (1 can) diced tomatoes

15.5 oz (1 can) spicy chili beans (I use the Publix store brand)

15.5 oz (1 can) dark red kidney beans

15.5 oz (1 can) pinto beans

15.25 oz (1 can) black beans

1. Spray some cooking spray into a skillet, dice half a yellow onion

2. Put the onion in pan, let sit for a few minutes, add ground turkey.

3. Add chili powder, cumin and paprika to turkey and onions. Although I don't use specific measurements, I add these three in the greatest amount. Then I add smaller amounts, less than a teaspoons worth of the nutmeg, cloves cinnamon and garlic. The adding of seasoning is not an exact science, I vary the amounts.

4. Once the ground turkey and onions are pretty much completely cooked, I get out my crock pot and put the beans and tomatoes in it. 

5. Then I add the ground turkey mixture to the crockpot. The first time I made my chili this way I actually drained the turkey, but realized how much flavor I was losing by not using the liquid that can from the turkey.

6. Mix and let sit for about 6 hours on high. One of the great things about chili in the crock pot, the longer it sits, the better the flavor.

I put out cheese, sour cream, onion and crackers to top the chili with. If I remember to buy and make it, I will make corn bread. But that doesn't always happen.

Please let me know below if you try my recipe or if you have a go-to recipe.

Thanks!

Creamy Crockpot Chicken

I love using my Crockpot to make dinner, especially on the weekends. It's nice to be able to throw everything in it, and pretty much forget about it for the day. (I'm a bit nervous about using it during the week while I'm at work. The idea of leaving something cooking for 8 hours with no one home makes me nervous.) 

I came across this recipe on a YouTube Channel I follow MattnKayleigh. It looked delicious and pretty easy to make.

Ingredients:

4 Chicken Breasts

2 Cans of Cream of Chicken soup (I used the Healthy Request one by Campbells)

1 stick of salted butter

1 TBSP of Mrs Dash seasoning

I cut each of the chicken breasts in half, so I had 8 pieces of chicken. Put them into the crock pot

Dumped both cans of cream of chicken into the crock pot

Melted the stick of butter, put that into the crock pot

Added the one tablespoon of Mrs. Dash into the crock pot.

Put the lid on and turned it on high. I let it cook for about 4 hours, checking the chicken at 3.5 hours to confirm it was cooked.

As you can seen in the last picture, I cooked brown rice and broccoli with it.

Please let me know if you try this recipe and how you like it.

Thanks!