Category: Food

The other night we made these Mexican Stuffed Peppers. They were really easy and really tasty. We had them for dinner, I had them for lunch and then we had some with dinner tonight. And we still have a couple left (I know what I’m having for lunch tomorrow!).

First you cook the onions and quinoa.

While the onion/quinoa cooks, add the enchilada sauce to a pan, cut and prep the peppers and prep your other ingredients.

Then mix everything together.

Then stuff the peppers with your tasty stuffing mix.

Then add cheese, cover and put into the oven to bake.

After they are done, uncover and enjoy!

Chuck thought they needed a little more spice, but I thought they were perfect. I would love to make this for dinner for people that like Mexican food. I know we will be making these again!

I’ve been in a bit of an eating rut and decided to look up some new recipes to get me motivated. When I found this, it was FREEZING outside (today we got up to 40*!!!!!) and I was hankering for some soup. 

Here is the recipe I found and used.

It was really easy to make. First you chop up the onions (I added carrots and celery, so I chopped those up, too).

Then you chop up the mushrooms. I used two portabellas and one package of baby bellas. We had a second container, but that looked like WAY too many mushrooms. I was already freaking out at the amount I was adding.

Then you add the butter and vegetables to the pan and cook until tender, add the garlic and cook for a little bit, then add the mushrooms and let them all cook together a little.

Then you add the rice, seasoning packets (we used Uncle Bens mushroom flavor wild/brown rice packages) and broth and let it simmer.

Then add the cream, stir around until it gets heated through and then eat up!

It wasn’t as soupy as I was expecting, but it was really good. Chuck said he preferred it this way. I ate mine with some crackers because I was still thinking of it as soup. I will say I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it. The recipe made a ton of food, so we ate it for dinner, I had it for lunch for two days, Chuck had some with lunch one day and we still have a bag we froze in the freezer.

Overall, we will definitely make this again. I am glad I started looking for some new recipes. Next up to try is a stuffed pepper recipe. And Chuck found a sloppy joe recipe that doesn’t use meat!

I had been looking for a crockpot vegetable soup that didn’t have meat in it and I came across this recipe. I think I found it on Pinterest. There were a lot of ingredients, but it was really simple to make. You just need to give yourself enough time to chop all the veggies.

First you sauté the veggies a little.

Then you let your toddler help stir the vegetables because she insists on doing so.

Then dump the rest of the ingredients into the crockpot.

Then move your toddler to a different location to do more stirring and keep them busy by having them name all the vegetables she can find on the spoon.

The soup tasted really good. I was very pleased. This time I added some frozen corn, a can of white beans, a can of peas and half the amount of green beans. I also used petite diced tomatoes because I don’t like big chunks of tomato in my soup (or in general) and vegetable broth to make it vegetarian. The recipe said to add the pasta right away. This made the pasta a bit mushy and I would either cook it first and add it at the end or skip it all together. It didn’t add a whole lot to the soup for us.

Modifications I will make the next time I make this:

• use sweet potatoes instead of red potatoes
• make my onions and peppers a little bigger (Chuck likes more variety in size and texture in the soup)
• omit the pasta
• stick with adding white beans, corn, peas, petite tomatoes, veggie broth and half the green beans
• invite a small army over to help us eat it all

It was also very good frozen and then reheated. Overall, I highly recommend this for a yummy veggie soup. Let me know if you make it and if you make any notable changes I should consider the next time I make it. Mmmmm….now I’m hungry!

A few people have been asking what we’ve been eating since we overhauled our diet a number of months back. I sent a long email of ideas to a friend and thought some of you might be interested as well. Maybe this will help some of you get some new meal ideas.

Zucchini Chips

Onion Rings

Lettuce Wraps – we have added carrots and have even made them without meat before.

Szechuan Green Beans

General Tso Chicken Love this one with brown rice. We ate it last week without the rice and just had sautéed veggies with it.

Turkey Burgers – we made a twist on these and froze them for Maddie. But Chuck and I loved them. We used ground chicken and added shredded zucchini and shredded carrots. So yummy! We splurged once and had them on pretzel rolls! 

Wild Rice Burgers – my new favorite!

Kabobs – we make kabobs a lot when guests come over. If you have time to prep them the night before, you would save time when you get home from work. We add cherry tomatoes, peppers, onions, and sometimes chicken that was marinated in a teriyaki sauce. But usually the chicken is left off for us and we eat the veggies. I will sometimes make some wild rice to go with it.

Quesadillas Chuck used to make quesadillas when we first started eating this way, but we started making tacos instead because it was faster. But for lunch, I will take a whole wheat tortilla, add peppers and onions, some salsa and cheese and microwave it. If we have been to the farmers market, I will add some black bean hummus to it. 🙂 Very fast, really tasty.

We make veggie tacos a lot. Cut up peppers and onions, sauté in a little olive oil until tender and add taco seasoning. Then use toppings as usual.

Veggie pizza – whole wheat Boboli pizza crust (in pizza isle), sauté some peppers and onions until slightly tender, add pizza sauce (or salsa) to the pizza, top with veggies and cheeses and bake until lightly brown. Chuck has also learned to make his own pizza crust…yum!!

We also sauté peppers and onions and add some soy sauce to season as they are cooking. Then we eat them with salmon (which we bake on a cookie sheet for the package’s suggested time, brushed with a little olive oil and a little cayenne pepper).

Some useful tips: cut up a bunch of peppers and onions when you have time and keep them in a container it the fridge ready to use. 

We use yellow and red onions and all colors of bell peppers almost every day. 

Soy sauce makes veggies yummy! Yes, there’s some salt, but get low sodium and don’t worry too much about it. 

We also eat a ton of fruit, strawberries, pineapple, apples, berries, watermelon…anything you want. We have a fruit with all our meals. 

We buy Annie’s food for Maddie. And there are a bunch of soups by Amy’s that I really like. They are a good lunch. 

We eat a bunch of nuts for protein.

Mostly, look for products with a very short list of ingredients. Triscuits have only three ingredients. At least look for ingredients that you can pronounce. 

I have been taking lots of pictures of my meals. Here are some of the pictures from my phone of meals we have eaten. I apologize for the poor quality. And these have been taken over many months. For instance, we don’t have rice in our tacos anymore.

Veggie tacos.

Veggie quesadilla. I have these many days for lunch since there are usually chopped veggies in the fridge already. Today I added my Black Bean and Chioptle Hummus to it! YUM!

More veggie tacos. Chuck will add zucchini into the cooked veggies, too.

Amy’s Vegetable Barley soup. I have bought it at Target by the soups and Cub in the Organic section. It comes in a green can and I LOVE IT!

Soup and salad.

More quesadillas.

Salad, fruit and nut crackers that I brought to a picnic lunch. On our last picnic, I filled the large section with chips, the small section with our homemade salsa and the medium one with fruit. That is my favorite picnic lunch!

Turkey burgers. We froze these in hopes of Maddie eating them, but she didn’t like them that much. We ended up eating them one night on a splurge of pretzel buns. It was delicious!

Sautéed veggies, pineapple, onion rings and turkey burger on a pretzel bun.

My favorite onion rings. I really like them dipped in BBQ sauce! I could eat these every night!

Another quesadilla.

My favorite pizza! This was a crust that Chuck made. It was delicious and so filling. I like using salsa instead of tomato sauce and I like pepperjack cheese.

Zucchini chips. Yum! They have a little spicy kick to them.

Lettuce wraps with lettuce from our garden. This was made with chicken, but we have made it with tofu and just veggies, too. Did you know that Noodles has an amazing order of lettuce wraps? I get them every time….with some potstickers!

Szechuan green beans. So flavorful and the only way I will eat green beans.

Szechuan green beans, pineapple and pan fried walleye. I at lots more walleye than this!