Day Eighteen

Dinner: Chicken Tetrazzini (crockpot) over egg noodles, lima beans, and fruit salad.

Day Seventeen

Dinner: Turkey meatloaf (with shredded zucchini- thanks to Karen S. for the zucchini!!) with brown gravy, roasted potatoes in olive oil and fresh rosemary, roasted cauliflower, and cantaloupe. Usually I like do to green beans w/meatloaf, but we were out.

Day Sixteen

Dinner: Chinese chicken and vegetables (broccoli, zucchini, carrots, and mushrooms) in a brown sauce over rice, and sliced apples.

Day Fifteen

Breakfast: Whole wheat banana sweet potato waffles (recipe: Sneaky Chef) and fruit salad.

Dinner: Pizza (from Sam's Club) enhanced with fresh broccoli and mushrooms, a side salad (thanks to Karen S. for the cucumber from her garden!!), and sliced apples.

Dessert: White chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies (recipe: Annabel Karmel). My daughter wanted to have a "birthday party" for her hedgehog puppet.

Day Fourteen

Breakfast: Whole wheat mini-bagels and fruit salad. My daughter wanted a smiley face. :)

Breakfast: Smoothies. Homemade yogurt, nectarines, blueberries, and bananas, with a splash of honey.


Dinner: A beautiful basil-sundried tomato-parmesan orzo salad, which my husband made for us to bring to a BBQ at a friend's, but forgot to photograph. I'l leave it to the imagination ;)

Day Thirteen

Dinner: Whole wheat french bread. The dough is a bread machine recipe- pretty easy.

Dinner: Farmer's market lasagna (recipe: Parents magazine). Whole wheat lasagna noodles, part-skim ricotta and mozzarella, spinach, diced zucchini, yellow squash, red peppers, and shredded carrot. This made enough for two nights' worth of dinner... hooray!

Dinner: Mango chunks and blueberries.

Day Twelve

Vanilla yogurt. Very easy to make, using the Frugal Girl's cooler method.

Dinner: Big Salad. Romaine lettuce, chickpeas, sliced egg, zucchini, cucumber, carrots, and red peppers.

Day Eleven

Whole wheat rolls. I'll forever be indebted to my friend Sarah H. for this recipe. The dough is a bread machine recipe; very easy.

Dinner: Pulled Chicken (crockpot) in a homemade BBQ sauce (Sneaky Chef- pureed sweet potato), whole wheat rolls, steamed broccoli, and sliced pears.

Day Ten

Dinner: Salmon in a Japanese glaze, spinach salad, rosemary olive oil bread, and a three-cheese sauce.

Day Nine

Dinner: Turkey cheeseburgers with shredded yellow squash and zucchini mixed in, steamed cauliflower, tortellini with vodka sauce, and fruit salad.

Day Eight

Apparently taking pictures of our food has become a way of life around here. After dinner tonight, the girls were fooling around with the camera, and pretending to take pictures of imaginary dinners. Lol.

Dinner: Broccoli and cheese quiche in a whole wheat crust, whole wheat yogurt strawberry muffins, and cantaloupe.

Day Seven

Dinner: Turkey Veggie Bolagnese (recipe: Annabel Karmel; ground turkey, and diced tomatoes, onions, zucchini, carrots, and red peppers, over fettuccine).

Dinner: Honeydew trains

Day Six

I did not take into account that when my younger daughter looked at her teddy bear burger, her first reaction would be, "don't cut off his ears!!!" Oops. But, she went on to finish the whole burger, which is quite unusual for her.

Dinner: Chicken apple teddy bear burgers, homemade whole wheat mac & cheese (with pureed cauliflower), steamed mini broccoli and carrots, sliced strawberries.

Teddy bear burger recipe from Family Favorite Meals (Annabel Karmel)

Mac & cheese recipe from Sneaky Chef to the Rescue (Missy Chase Lapin)

Day Five

Dinner: Hungarian turkey goulash over egg noodles (crockpot), Parmesan spinach, and fruit salad.

Day Four

A ridiculously simple day-- we were out at a birthday party at lunchtime, and had last night's leftovers for dinner, so there was virtually no cooking. For once, my kitchen stayed clean! Love that.

Breakfast: A massive fruit salad, which I made into kabobs for the girls.

Breakfast: Egg McMuffin. Whole grain English muffin, low-fat cheddar, and scrambled egg. Giving credit where credit is due, this was made by my husband. In our house, he is the Eggman. That, and BBQ, are his two cooking domains.

Day Three

Dinner: Cooked by Terry. My only contribution was the fruit. BBQed turkey legs for the carnivores, grilled chicken for those of us who don't want to touch animals' bones (aka- me), corn, steamed carrots, and watermelon.

Pear & apple applesauce: Before

Pear and apple applesauce: After

Day Two

Breakfast: Oatmeal muesli. Oatmeal, homemade yogurt, chopped apple, and cinnamon.

Lunch: Grilled cheese and apples, and butternut squash soup.

Dinner: Eggplant parm, whole wheat sourdough bread, and steamed broccoli.

Not pictured: Watermelon.

A year in the life of a kitchen

I love to cook; in fact, I grew up cooking. I was my mom's sous chef (and as she pointed out, still am), and could be found at her elbow chopping or mixing on any occasion that involved food (and come on, what occasion didn't?) Once on my own, I began to find my own cooking voice. In college, it was mostly mac and cheese made in the microwave hidden under my dorm bed, since a) the microwave was the only appliance I owned, and b) microwaves were not technically allowed in dorms and therefore had to be hidden.

Fast forward to the present. With a pre-diabetic husband and two little girls to cook for, our eating habits are way different than mine were in college. As a psychologist with a dissertation on eating disorders under my belt, I try to use my knowledge of nutrition, healthy food environments, and family meal time as my motivator to enhance my family's health and food experience. My intent is to cook low fat, low sugar, whole grain meals from whole, organic foods, as much as possible. That means no mixes, nothing from a can (except things like beans or tomatoes), and virtually no white flour. Although both girls are amazing in their willingness to try and like most anything, I do have a husband who loves red meat (whereas I feed the family only poultry and occasionally fish), as well as craves variety. As a rule, I make two vegetarian meals a week, and put extra thought into those so as not to receive flack for "non-meat," aka, boring, meals). So, my aim becomes to cook meals that satisfy everyone, and are full of flavor. And, as are so many of us in this day and age, we're on a budget. Basically, I try to cook with whatever produce is on sale each week, and often shop in bulk, and in season. I pre-plan about two to three weeks worth of meals at a time, then grocery shop and adjust the menus as needed. I don't always stick to what I've chosen, but I try pretty hard. I consider myself a recipe scavenger. Over the years, I have compiled a pretty hefty collection of recipes. I'm frequently checking new cookbooks out of the library (and copying recipes to add to our repertoire), as well as ripping recipes out of magazines, or asking friends (and even restaurants) for the recipe when we eat something we love. One other thing... I'll often cook a meal in bulk, portion out dinner for that night, and freeze the rest for a future meal.

So, with that said... I began a year in the life of a kitchen. As you'll see, my kitchen gets a lot of action.

I hope to document, via photo, each meal that I make, and make new meals as often as possible. I won't bother documenting meals such as cereal with milk, or PB&J, but anything that involves the stove, oven, crockpot, bread machine, or griddle is game. I'll be happy to share recipes anytime.

Happy eating!

DAY ONE:

Dinner: Oriental Chicken Stir-Fry (chicken, egg, broccoli, cauliflower, red peppers, water chestnuts, carrots, zucchini, and mushrooms, in a soy-sake-broth sauce).

School snack: Granola bars. My little one helped me cut this one, which is why it has a bit of an unusual shape. I'll portion them out, and freeze them.

Purees for the freezer: Cauliflower. I puree lots of fruits and vegs and add them to recipes. Cauliflower often ends up in homemade mac and cheese. I credit this to the Sneaky Chef, whose cookbooks feature this method of cooking.

By way of full disclosure, I should also mention that we made whole wheat peach-strawberry pancakes this morning... they came out kind of flat, and someone (ahem) threw the leftovers in the compost. No photos here.