health starts in your kitchen

Well, Happy New Year! I am looking forward to this new year.

I have talked about how we aim to eat healthy and how I mostly cook homemade meals so I thought I would share with you what I actually get on a grocery trip.

We rarely eat out and try to eat organic, unprocessed food and keep the food as whole as it can be. We also try to limit our sugar.  I do usually have some dark chocolate around to satisfy any sweet craving, though. :) Every year it seems we add some additional healthy practice. I am thinking this year is going to be about limiting wheat. Last year we added more vegetarian or vegan meals. If you are looking to overhaul your eating habits, but it seems so overwhelming, just pick one thing to focus on for a couple months and then add another and so on…

We get our weekly groceries at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods and buy organic meat from Costco once a month. If I need a specialty meat or fish, I also get that at Whole Foods. I love having that store so close!

I really try to buy alot of produce! I used to find winter to be challenging for what veggies to eat, but am finding more and more that I really enjoy. I discovered kale last year and just love it!

Recently, my new find was broccolini (or baby broccoli). I had heard of it, but just  tried it when we went out for our anniversary this past month (it was a belated date with having a baby and all). It tastes similar but softer and the floret is different. It’s great sauteed. Have you ever tried it?

This week I was able to get most everything I needed at Trader Joe’s. I prefer to purchase more from there since frankly their prices are better than Whole Foods’, but sometimes their produce selection is hit or miss and they don’t carry all the special dietary items I need for Reed.

I try to find recipes that will use up ingredients I already have in the fridge before it goes bad. The meals I planned are winter minestrone, chicken gyros, tacos, garlic rosemary breaded chicken and maybe a pizza or pasta where I just ‘get creative’ and use up what I have to create a dish and then just pair a vegetable we have with what entree I made.

I always do some type of meal planning each week and then just decide what I am going to make on the given night. I only cook about 3-4 nights a week thanks to leftovers! I love leftovers!!! ha ha

Saturday was cold and rainy so I decided to make the winter minestrone. I chose that recipe because it called for butternut squash and white wine. Both of which I already had from recent recipes I made and it needed to get used up before it went bad. I used to throw so much spoiled food out…I hated that! So now before I meal plan, I go through our fridge/freezer and pantry and make a list of what we have to use first.

Here is how the winter minestrone turned out-delicious and soooo comforting when it's cold! (I substituted kale ilo spinach since we just had spinach on Christmas)