Mandy and Jace

This week we are having healthy meals to try to get over all of the amazing but fattening food from Thanksgiving. I couldn’t help myself! It was all so good that I ate way too much.

Here’s the plan for this week.
Monday: grilled chicken with zucchini cream sauce and rice on the side
Tuesday: roasted pork loin with mashed potatoes and green beans
Wednesday: breakfast for dinner
Thursday: take out
Friday: date night!

Here are a couple of tips on how we make our meals healthier:
*Use canola oil instead of butter and if you must use butter use half butter and half oil.
*Veggies, veggies, veggies. Put them in everything!
*Leave the food in the kitchen and fill your plate in there. You are less likely to overeat if it’s not right in front of you.
*Eat smaller portions. I’m a firm believer that you can eat what you want just in very small amounts.
*Bake instead of frying. We do baked fries all the time and they are just as good.

Happy eating!

Since we are going to Georgia this week I won’t be doing a meal plan, but I wanted to give you a sneak peek of what we will be making next week.

It is grilled chicken in a zucchini and bell pepper cream sauce. This has to be one of my favorite dishes that we’ve made.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I found this recipe on a food blog that I love called The Pioneer Woman. I never dreamed making refried beans could be so easy. It literally took me 10 minutes. No joke!

I started by heating some leftover beans over medium heat. I had made beans and cornbread a couple days before and the leftovers were perfect for making refried beans.

Throw in some diced jalapenos or any pepper you would like.

Get your handy-dandy potato masher out and start mashing…

…keep mashing

Now, no one panic… add a table spoon of lard. Yes, I said it, lard. It’s only a tablespoon and its not like you are going to eat the whole pot of beans by yourself. I promise it will make them so much better.

Mash them up some more.

And now you have refried beans.

I’m hoping this week will be a little more gentle on me because last week beat me up. We found out Wednesday that my grandpa in Tulsa had to go into the hospital for pneumonia and heart issues. So Friday we loaded up the “big mama van” and headed out for one of the longest but quickest weekends of my life. We hurried to Tulsa just to sit in the hospital all day Saturday and half of Sunday, then hurried back home to get to work this morning. Needless to say I am a little exhausted today. Thankfully he is doing somewhat better. They have the pneumonia cleared up and now they are trying to get the right medication to control his heart rate and blood pressure.

This week I trying something I have never tried before. Asparagus. I’m not sure how I’m going to cook it yet, but I’m sure I can find something either on the food network website or somewhere in the food blogosphere. If anyone has any good recipes let me know.

Here is my meal plan for this week.
Monday: pork chops with fingerling potatoes and asparagus.
Tuesday: biscuits and gravy with scrambled eggs
Wednesday: chicken patties stuffed inside the leftover biscuits and sweet potato fries.
Thursday: take out before praise and worship practice.
Friday: date night! I’m making Jace take me to The Bar downtown for a good burger and fries.

This week, along with some of these recipes, I will post my recipe from last week for refried beans. They are not authentic refried beans but they were so fast and tasty I didn’t care.

Happy eating!

I only have a couple of meals planned for this week because its going to be a little crazy. We are getting ready for a big Thanksgiving meal Sunday at church, so we will be getting prepared for that. Unfortunately, starting this week the chaos of the holidays will begin. Brace yourselves everyone. Is it me or has the Christmas commercials started early this year? I love them but I’m just not ready for all the madness that comes with the holidays. Ready or not they are here!

Here’s what little I have planed.
Tonight: Italian baked chicken and pastina. I’ve made this once before and it is really tasty and easy. The only thing I change is I use whole wheat pasta instead of the pastina.
Tuesday: Beef fajita burritos and refried beans made from the leftover beans I made Saturday.

The rest of the week is a toss up. Probably quite a few more take out meals than I normally do but it will be alright for a week.

Happy eating!