New Year, New Recipes

Along with 90% of the rest of the world, Eric and I said we were going to eat healthier.  For the most part we do well in this department (during the week), but since I am not home in the evenings during basketball season we tend to fall off the band wagon....add in all of the goodies that come with the Christmas season and the train has been completely derailed.  There's still another month left in the season so cooking healthy meals at home is going to be a challenge, but I am willing to try. I received several new cookbooks for Christmas and have found a TON a delicious-sounding and (mostly) good-for-you recipes, plus there's a million and one healthy recipes popping up on my pinterest feed, so I and going to take advantage of both.

I tried out several new recipes this weekend.  My plan was to cook several things on Saturday/Sunday that we could eat on throughout the week.  With 4 games, late practice on the days we don't have games, dance class, and a late night for work, I won't have ANY time to cook.

I talked about my new favorite snack on Friday.....since the remaining balls were eaten by Eric's buddies who came over for a fish fry on Friday night I made another [double] batch this weekend so we could have healthy munchies for the week.

No Bake Energy Balls

In the South chicken salad is a summer time (all the time at our house) staple.  But I don't make it as often as I would like, mainly because of all of the mayo.  I know there are lots of alternatives, but it just doesn't taste the same without the full fat mayo.  I was perusing pinterest on Saturday morning (because that's what you do on a lazy Saturday morning, right?) and came across a chicken salad recipe made with avocado.  I LOVE guacamole and avocados on pretty much anything, so I figured I'd give it a whirl.  I was a bit concerned because by themselves avocado do not have a TON of flavor, and the only additions were a little bit of onion, some fresh cilantro, and a dash of salt and pepper.  I was banking on it being good and decided to make a double batch...brave I know.  When Eric came in from fishing I had him taste test it.  When it comes to food, he is brutally honest, so I was anxious when he tried it.  Much to my surprise, he started going on and on about how delicious it was, so much so I asked him if there was enough flavor to it.  He said there was a ton of flavor, so I tried it, and it was AMAZING!  The flavor was fantastic.  The onions and cilantro give it just enough flavor, and the avocado....oh man does it make it good! The texture freak in me was happy, because the avocado gave it a perfect chicken salad texture.

Avocado Chicken Salad

I pulled the crock pot out on Sunday so I could make a dinner we could eat on for a few nights.  I was planning on making a chicken with mushroom sauce.....until I read the recipe and saw where you had to cook the chicken in a skillet BEFORE putting it in the crock pot.....ummm I thought the while crock pot recipe meant I throw all of the ingredients in and it does the work for me.  I canned that recipe because defrosting chicken breasts and cooking them in the skillet was too much work for a Sunday and started flipping through pinterest boards.  I settled on a Beef Tips recipe that my Mom highly recommended.  We are usually a chicken and turkey household, but every blue moon I get a beef craving.  Plus lean stew meat  was on sale this week at Winn-Dixie, so I threw it together and and put some brown rice in the rice cooker (best invention ever), and we had a delicious meal!

I had a few more recipes that I was planning on making, but decided to take the puppies on walks instead, so hopefully I'll be able to make them soon...as in before the stuff I bought for them goes bad in my fridge!