Food, glorious food

I love food. I love it so much. Right now I am at a point in my pregnancy where I just want to eat. Good food, bad (as in bad for you) food, it doesn't matter. As long as it tastes good, I want to eat it. I am trying to eat balanced meals, though I will admit that doesn't always happen. Last week I ate a lot of ice cream. Ben & Jerry's, Snickers ice cream bars... at the rate I am going I will need to be air lifted to the hospital to have this baby! I better slow down on the naughty treats.

When I have healthy meals, or meals that I want to remember for another time I take pictures. I want to share with you some of the food I have had recently.  I have recipes for some, and for others I didn't really follow a recipe but I will tell you what I put in it. Let me show you what I've been eating lately.

Here we have the classic Corned Beef and Cabbage. This is a must have every St. Patrick's Day in my house. I love corned beef! And I save it just for this one occasion, though it is so easy to make that I really should make it more often.

One thing I love about the recipe I used is that it was really flavorful but really easy. That doesn't happen too often that you get flavor without having to do a whole lot.  Here's the recipe:

Crockpot Corned Beef and Cabbage
3 lb corned beef, with seasoning packet
4 cups water
1 onion, cut up
1 bag baby carrots
5 potatoes, quartered
1 med cabbage, quartered

Place the meat in the crockpot and add 4 cups of water.  Rub contents of seasoning packet on meat.  Cook on high 1 hour, then cook on low for 3-4 hours. After that, add the veggies (except for cabbage). Continue cooking on low for 2 hours. Add in cabbage and cook for 1.5-2 hours. It was delicious!

The other day I was craving funeral potatoes. They are not healthy. At all. But they ARE really yummy! So after hitting up my FB friends for advice, I decided to serve the potatoes with pork chops, asparagus, and salad. I had a little bit of a romaine salad mix left I needed to eat up, and i added some carrots to it and drizzled some ranch dressing on it. I also love pork chops and applesauce, so I had applesauce on mine. It was so tasty. I won't share the funeral potato recipe with you because it was too naughty, but I will share with you how I cooked the asparagus. My sister-in-law taught me and it is the only way I cook it.

Balsamic Asparagus

1/2 lb Asparagus

1 T Balsamic vinegar

1 t lemon juice

1 t minced garlic

salt and pepper to taste

Heat a pan on medium/high.  Spray the pan with nonstick spray and toss in the asparagus.  Pour the vinegar and lemon on asparagus and cook for 2-3 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook another 2 minutes. Add salt and pepper if desired and serve warm. Using balsamic vinegar instead of olive oil keeps the calories down while still adding flavor.

There are days when my husband has the car but I am really wanting take out. There happens to be a really good Greek/Italian restaurant nearby that delivers. One thing that is really yummy on their menu is their greek bread. It's not just bread. It's heaven in my mouth. It has pesto, tomatoes, mozarella and feta cheese on it.  They give you a lot of it! So after eating some for lunch I decided to come up with a dinner that could incorporate it.

I cut up onions, zucchini, and mushrooms and sauteed them in a pan.  I added some spinach to that towards the end.  I served the veggies on some pasta and topped it with homemade spaghetti sauce. It was a really good dinner.

This next one is one I just threw together with what I had in my fridge. I cooked bowtie noodles in chicken broth. When they had about 3 minutes left to cook, I added some grape tomatoes to the pan.   I drained them and added chicken, sauteed onions, mushrooms, pine nuts, and green onions.  It tasted good, and was filling.  I hardly add salt and pepper to my food, especially something like this that used chicken broth. That is usually high in sodium.

Here is another recipe using stuff I had around.  Mexican pizza!

I had leftover spaghetti sauce I needed to use up. I sauteed some onion. I put a tortilla on a baking sheet and layered it with the following: Spaghetti sauce, onions, black beans, corn, olives, cheddar cheese, tomatoes.  I put it in the broiler for a few minutes. I topped it with some avocado, and ta da! Dinner's done.  You can put whatever you want on it. If I had ground meat I would have used it.  You can also add salsa if you'd like.

If avocados are ever a good price (ie .29-.33 each) we buy a ton of them! The problem is that they all ripen at the same time and we need to eat them fast. I kept seeing on recipes on Pinterest for baked egg avocados, and so I decided to try it out.

As you can see it turned out delicious. All I did was cut an avocado in half and pit it. I removed a little bit of meat from each half (don't worry, I saved it for later!) and cracked an egg into each half. I put it in a pan and cooked it in the oven (sorry, I can't remember for how long or what temp). In the last few minutes I shredded some cheese on top.  I cut up some tomatoes. I topped the avocado egg with the rest of the avocado meat, tomatoes, and green pepper. I accidentally cooked the egg a little too long but overall it was really good. When avocados next go on sale I will have to make this again!

Have any healthy/healthy-ish recipes that you want to share? I would love to try them! Let me know! Also let me know if you get a chance to try any of these out and let me know what you thought.

Kate

20 weeks down, 20 to go!

The last few weeks I have been meaning to post a lot of recipes of what I have been eating, but you know how it goes... Procrastination has been my very dear friend this pregnancy. I have taken pictures and still plan on sharing... eventually.

Folks, I am halfway there! I am 20 weeks now! How time flies!  According to this pregnancy app I have, the baby is about 10 inches long and weighs about 8 1/2 ounces.  The last few weeks have been really neat because I have been able to feel her move. That is such an amazing feeling, I can't even describe it. But it's incredible and I am enjoying every movement she makes.

I have only gained 8 pounds so far this pregnancy, but I know I have lost a lot of muscle because I haven't been working out. Now that I am feeling better I am ready to get in shape! If only the weather would get its act together!  The other day I went online to find a website that would show me how my weight gain is going. When I put in my starting weight, it told me I started out this pregnancy obese. I just wanna say that is a load of crock! Overweight, yes, but obese? Who is in charge of making the guidelines for being at the right weight for your height? It is a sad day when wearing size medium shirts and large pants makes you obese.

Even at my skinniest (as an adult not an adolescent) I was considered overweight but I think I was looking pretty good. I have a lot of body fat for sure, but obese makes me think I am a lot bigger that I actually am. You can be the judge. I have pictures for you today. If I am obese than whatever, because I am happy with my body. I am feeling good.

I got some prenatal videos from the library and bought some maternity fitness clothes. I am starting off easy and will work my way up to a higher fitness level. For now my plan is to exercise 3 days a week, walking if the weather is nice and doing some prenatal videos if it isn't.  After that I would like to work out 5-6 days a week. I am hoping by next month I will be able to participate in 5ks again.

This morning I tried out a prenatal yoga dvd. It was mostly stretches, but it felt really good.  My body has been so mad at me lately for not keeping up with exercising.  These stretches will help me loosen up a bit.
The kids even joined in and it was really fun.

Have you been exercising? If not, you can always start today! We all have our ups and downs. Nobody is perfect, I can attest to that. But I am ready to get back in the game! I am ready to be healthier. Being healthy makes me happy!

-Kate