Tag Archives: what’s for dinner

What’s For Dinner in Spring When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking

How did your no white sugar challenge go? I did fairly well. I was able to easily avoid and not feel sad about several sweets put before me. I did take my daughter out for ice cream on Sunday and while it was good I don’t know if it was quite worth feeling like a brick was sitting in my guts the rest of the evening. 🙂

This week my husband won’t be home for half the week for dinner time. I don’t know about you but for some reason when he’s not around I have zero desire to cook dinner even though there are still 3 of us that need to eat!

Here is the plan for the week. What are your favorite quick and easy dinners?

Bachelorette Macaroni (I ate this quite a bit in my early 20s. Mac and cheese with tuna, broccoli and spinach. One pot and you’re done.)

Skillet Gnocchi with Chard and White Beans (one of my favorite dinners)

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Fish Tacos with Kiwi Salsa

Potstickers with Rice, avocado and bok choy (we bake the pot stickers and mix the bok choy and avocado with the rice with a little soy sauce and gyoza sauce)

Kids choice (I’m sure this will end of being pancakes of some kind)

 

 

What’s for dinner in the spring

We ended up having a whole meatless week around here until Saturday when my daughter requested burgers on the grill and promptly ate 2! How is that for balance? Everything from last week was quite delicious I could almost do a redo. I can’t even choose a favorite it was all so good. 


We didn’t get to the baked chicken yet so that will be in queue this week for sure plus:

Cauliflower pizza 

Lemon chicken asparagus stir fry

Green lentil curry 

Palak paneer cheater dinner from Trader Joe’s 

I have another challenge for you this week if you would like to join me. In January I gave up white sugar as a way to reset after the holidays. I felt fantastic after the initial detox. Sugar is tough to kick! I’ve slowly fallen back into old habits and am looking forward to getting back to the lightness I felt when sugar didn’t have such a grip on me. The first few days are tough I won’t lie but it does get easier. I didn’t give up honey in my tea in the morning and things like that. Let me know if you’d like to join me! 🙂
Have a great week!

What’s for Dinner in Spring

I love how paying attention to what’s happening in our environment adds many levels of richness to my life. I was driving this morning to have breakfast with my brother and sister and along the side of the road almost hidden were tiny baby buds. It was so cool to see spring coming to life. It almost makes the gloomy rainy days worth it! 🙂 We started a row of onions, carrots and lettuce last week outside and I can’t wait to find some sprouts. Our indoor starts are looking happy so far too. 😉

This week we are going to have some meatless options and some sour dishes for spring. I hope you are feeling a little lighter this week now that we are officially in the spring season.

What’s for dinner:

Asian Style Fried Rice and Beans

One Pot Cheesey Mexican lentils, black beans and rice

Spinach and Lemon Soup with Orzo with a side salad

Italian Baked Chicken with Green Lentil Mash

Artichoke Spinach Ricotta Calzones

 

What’s for dinner: eat your greens

Tomorrow is officially the first day of spring! To celebrate I challenge you to eat some greens everyday this week and notice how you feel. I find if I buy a big bag of greens at Costco it makes me motivated to get through it before it goes bad. Greens don’t just have to be leafy- broccoli, asparagus, peppers, green beans count too! 

We are having a Green Day around here and started the day with a bed of sautéed greens for a left over bean burger, a little cheese, salsa and fried egg on top. 


After a quick hike we had a smoothie with a cup of spinach, strawberries, 1/2 banana, water and a scoop of powdered gelatin.


Lunch was leftover chili with green peppers and an avocado. 

Dinner is shredded chicken over Asian slaw salad. 

The nature of spring is to flourish. I hope you are feeling that way! 

Here’s what’s on the menu this week:

(Hubby requested) BLT with roasted pepper and tomatoes soup with a few handfuls of baby chard thrown into the soup

Kale salad with cilantro tuna

Surprise meatloaf (this has a hidden hard boiled egg inside I’ll post a picture and maybe recipe after my husband makes it) with a side of asparagus and a few veggies hidden in the loaf too.

Rice cakes (not the stale crunchy kind) with steamed broccoli 

What are your favorite green recipes? 

What’s for Dinner, Preparing for Spring

Sorry for the late posting I was trying to take a break from screens as much as I could after the time change to help with the transition. So far so good around here. I think the key was having everyone staying up too late on Saturday 🙂

Happy “worm” full moon last Friday also. My daughter and I started watching the moon just about a year ago and have really enjoyed learning what native cultures have named the full moons of each month and what they represent. The worm moon is so named because March is the month when the ground starts to thaw and soften allowing the worms to move to the surface and giving birds their food source back. It also means that garden planting is just around the corner! If you don’t have a garden or space for a garden I encourage you to try growing something even if its in a pot, the wonderment and deliciousness never cease to amaze us. I was just reading last week that traditionally peas are sown on St. Patrick’s day. We might give that a go.

sugar snow

Its a strange sight to see snow again, it was kind of nice believing that winter was over now that we had adjusted to warmer weather. These March snows actually help the sap move in the maple trees to give more maple syrup. I just recently found this granola recipe and its the best one I’ve tried out, super yummy and delicious, if you want to pay homage to the maple syrup season this is a great recipe for it! Are you feeling your body’s own internal movement of fluid? Anxious to be outside? That’s the liver qi rising up and out after our winter rest. You can learn more about what that all means and how to get the most out of Spring at Yogapuncture for Spring this Saturday afternoon 3-6p at OhmMother Yoga. I’d love to see you there!

Here’s what’s on the menu this week around here:

Beef Chili

Mushroom Raveoli with spinach and mushrooms

Black Bean burgers

Cod and almond green beans

What are you cooking?

What’s for Dinner Preparing for Spring

I didn’t make a shopping list last week because we had so many left overs from my daughter’s birthday party and extra odds and ends around the house. It was kind of fun to be creative with what we had, clean out the fridge and not waste food.

Sometimes dinner looks like this and that’s ok 🙂

left over garlic soup with a side of chicken quesadilla or cauliflower grilled cheese with shredded pork, rice and beans for the kids on a messy dinner table

left over garlic soup with a side of chicken quesadilla or cauliflower grilled cheese with shredded pork, rice and beans for the kids on a messy dinner table

I taught Yogapuncture for Spring in Crystal Lake Friday night over at Bonnie’s. It was, as usual a lovely evening and we talked a little about spring foods and how to keep a happy, healthy liver energy. (there’s two more opportunities for Spring yogapuncture this month at OhmMother Yoga  in West Dundee and Blu Rain Yoga in Antioch too)

Because we are in transition dinners will have some yellow foods to nourish the spleen energy (the spirit of transition) some warm foods since its technically still winter and some green and lighter foods of traditional spring.

What are you in the mood for, for dinner?

Crock pot spaghetti squash and meat balls (first time giving this recipe a go but I love the concept)

Almond crusted salmon with garlic mustard aoli on a bed of lemony creamed spinach (look for a recipe this week)

Pork Chops (they were on sale at the farmer’s market, I’ll be cooking them and serving them alongside some asparagus and mashed cauliflower)

Skillet Gnocchi with white beans and chard (one of my favorite dinners!)

Homemade Rueben sandwiches

What’s For Dinner Week 5

Am I the only one walking around in redundant awe of how warm and sunny it is in the middle of February?! Wow, its seriously blowing my mind in the best way. In tribute to this spring like weather I’ve included some springy dinners for this week balanced with some slow cooked shredded chicken burritos and pulled pork sandwiches. Enjoy that sunshine!

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What’s for dinner this week?

Pulled Pork Sandwiches with shredded cabbage

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Fish Tacos with Mango Kiwi Salsa

Chicken Burritos with Cilantro Lime Rice

lasagna

Spinach Artichoke Lasagna

 

 

 

What’s for Dinner Week 4

Have you ever woken up from a deep sleep and felt fuzzy or disoriented? That’s almost how the weather feels lately, doesn’t it? Some days the sun is shining and its warm and feels like spring and then the gloom and chill settles back in. It is almost like mother nature can’t decide, hit the snooze or go to the gym. This is the transition time from winter to spring. It takes awhile to wake back up and sometimes it might even feel like we are still dreaming.

In Chinese Medicine transition times are when the spleen/stomach system are most active. You can think of this as the core of our bodies, the center. Foods that are bland or mildly sweet (like wheat and sweet potatoes), and yellow and orange foods deeply nourish the spleen/stomach and digestion and help keep us grounded in times of transition.

I’ve included recipes this week for my family to help nourish the spleen system. Check back for a new chocolate chip recipe I’ve been playing with later this week too.

coconutsoup

Coconut Lime Butternut Squash Soup

Yellow Curry Chicken and Vegetables (basically crock pot chicken in trader joe’s curry with broccoli and peas over rice) 🙂

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili

Corned beef and cabbage

homemade pizza

 

What are you cooking up this week?

 

What’s For Dinner Week 3

I wasn’t going to post our meal plan for the week because quite frankly it felt at first glance full of super convenience  foods, which we typically don’t eat and doesn’t feel like I’m promoting health. But then I started to think about how easy it is to “appear” a certain way not just on the internets but in life also. This is life and balance is not static. We can’t always be building or tearing down we need a little of both. Rest is as important as movement. In order for anything to be sustainable it has to be fluid in my opinion not always perfect or the exact same. I’m learning this a lot right. So this is me giving you permission (if you need it) to take a break if you need one and don’t for one second feel bad about it! Also, as I revisited the list for the week the biggest convenience to most of these meals is that they don’t involve a whole lot of prep just more time cooking which is how we are supposed to be  eating in the winter any way! That ground hog said 6 more weeks of winter so hang on and enjoy that sun while its shining (or maybe go take a nap)!

Dinners

Chicken Quesadillas (premade from Costco)

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Beef Brisket (not sure yet what I’ll pair this with maybe some mashed potatoes and roasted Brussel sprouts)

Black Beans, Sausage and Rice (I will post a recipe of this sometime this week because its so good and I’ve never not been able to get a kid to not only eat this but ask for seconds, bonus you just dump everything in a crock pot)

Kale and White bean soup (this is super yummy, I’ve made it with both ground beef and chorizo so if you’re not a big fan of sausage you can skip it or add something else)

Leftovers

What’s for Dinner Week 2

Hey there, I was hoping to post these on Sundays in preparation for the week but got side tracked when we decided to paint a bedroom this weekend. It feels like a brand new house around here, amazing what a coat of paint will do. After 7 years we’ve finally made our mark on every room in our home.

Anyways, I was able to run out and grocery shop (with 2 kids in tow) yesterday. The marinated chicken from last week turned out to be a whole chicken, we shredded it and sautéed some shredded Brussel sprouts with a little lemon and parmesan added a avocado and made tacos last night that we shared with my mom. They were better than expected. I’m making stock with the bones today. We are heading in to Febuary which is a transitional time as we prepare for spring. I’m a ground hog baby so its especially fun to see what that ground hog says every year. I know spring is coming because my children aren’t hibernating like they were in November and December. The sun is even out today! So with that in mind this week reflects some of the changing of the guard so to speak even if right now it is just ever so subtle. There is a lot going on in the world. Sometimes its hard to know what to do. I challenge you to share a meal this week with someone, maybe an old friend, a lonely neighbor or even just turning the TV off and the cell phone down and being fully present for the meal with whoever you’re sharing it with.

Taco Soup  <— currently in the crock pot

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Chicken Stir Fry

Roasted Garlic Soup (new recipe I’ve been meaning to try for years!) that I’m pairing with butternut squash and feta savory muffins (also a new recipe)

Cheater meal: Frozen Indian

We have plans to be out a few nights this week and the meals we are making will make bountiful leftovers so that’s it folks. I’ll post some recipe adaptations throughout the week on the blog and pictures on Instagram/facebook.

Stay warm and healthy!