What happened to the flavor?

Yesterday was a bit crazy. I've been trying to start making dinner around 3 or 4 in the afternoon so that by the time my mom comes over at 5 and the girls are getting hungry, we can eat. Some days this works, some days it does not. Life at home with three kids ages 3, 2 and 6 months sometimes does not allow me to tend to anything but the kids. So when my mom arrived yesterday at 5pm, I started cooking dinner then. I had found a pin on Pinterest that included 75 very yummy looking healthy casseroles. I had decided to first test out the Mexican dish, except my mom and I are not too into the spicy things so when gathering the ingredients I purposely left out the hot stuff. 

For details and recipe view:

Pinterest Post 

or

Website Recipe

I was excited to try the vegan crumble. As I venture into the world of the healthy I have discovered that cooking vegan friendly meals is much healthier. I still love my meat and eggs, but I am slowly integrating the animal friendly recipes into our diets. 

 

I had so many questions and hesitations about the crumble, but my main concern was if the taste and texture would be too much of a change for my picky taste buds.

First I crumbled the tortilla chips in the dish and then added the crumble, onion and garlic mixture on top.

 Usually a Mexican dish that requires pinto beans calls for refried beans. I do have to say that even though I was in a rush to make the meal, I did enjoy squishing my own beans. And it is probably much healthier this way. I don't honestly know, I could be making that up.

I added the squished beans and tomatoes to the dish and then topped it off with the remaining chips and cheese. Apparently I forgot to add lime juice and cilantro to the grocery list. This was probably a big mistake in making this dish without those two ingredients AND leaving out the hot stuff.

 

The casserole went into the oven for 13 minutes and we were all eager to dive our forks into it as soon as it came out. 

 

I'm not exactly sure how to describe the end result. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. The chips had a stale texture after being baked and the overall taste of the casserole was very plain. I felt like it needed taco seasoning. Or salt. Or something. Evalyn of course devoured her plate and my mom and I both found ourselves going back for seconds, but I probably wouldn't make this again. It's my own fault as I have discovered now that I have not yet acquired the skills to start chopping up recipes and making them my own. Surprisingly the crumble really did not make a difference in taste and texture with the exception of not leaving a greasy and heavy feeling after being eaten. That I will consider to be a good thing and will be looking to find more recipes to use the crumble with.

 

Pizzzzaaaaaahhhhh

     When my husband and I worked together on the 1-10 shift, we would come home and every night we would devour a plethora of bad things. Pizza was one of our faves. We would come home after a morning spent of me getting sick (morning sickness) and trying to rangle our two-year old and one-year old together and an afternoon and evening working at an extremely stressful job and we would just binge. An entire pizza just for us. No sharing with kids, relieving our stress through the awesome taste of grease and all things fattening. I'm happy to report that in the last six months we have cut out our late night snack of all things unhealthy as we slowly progress on our journey to a healthier lifestyle. Today I took things a step further and thanks to the wonderful tool called Pinterest, I discovered the SPINACH PIZZA.

For details and recipe view:

Pinterest Post

or

Blogged Recipe

  

     First things first, I needed a helper. My sweet just turned two year old daughter Evalyn Rae was happy to fill the position.

 

      Next, the ingredients.

 

And then we began.

 

Evalyn was not very thrilled about using the blender at the beginning. My 5 month old didn't seem phased, but Evalyn clung to me for dear life. And then we were left with this not so appealing mixture...

 

which thankfully looked much more appetizing once it came out of the oven.

 

 (Side note- the recipe says to use parchment paper so that the crust does not stick to the pan. When I asked my husband where the parchment paper was, he told me to just use wax paper because, "it is basically the same thing." In his defense I didn't tell him what I needed the paper for. Lesson learned... wax paper does NOT go in the oven. My first attempt at the crust did not look like the above picture. Oops. Thank you to my mom for showing up with parchment paper which may be used in the oven!)

And now the toppings!

Sauce: grape tomatoes and garlic! How simple! And here is Evie after shoving 5 grape tomatoes in her mouth and giving me that classic look of, "what?"

 

One thing I have learned from my husband is when making pizza, it is always best to put toppings on right after the sauce and THEN sprinkle on the cheese. You can't see it, but the onions and Canadian bacon the recipe calls for is all under there.

I must say I was pretty nervous about this one. I don't ever use a blender. In fact I don't think I've taken the blender out since we moved into our house four years ago and bought it to make mixed drinks. I don't ever eat spinach. This is part of what I need to change in my lifestyle. The main reason for not eating it was fear of the unknown, but now I know it CAN be good!  My daughter and mom both agreed that this is definitely a new must have and I am so happy that this all came together and was HEALTHY!! No more box pizzas for us!

Introduction

    
       Hi! My name is Corinne and I am a 27 year old stay at home wife and mother of three children. I am starting this blog so that I can track and share my journey as I lose weight and integrate a healthier way of living into my everyday life. In the past five years I have gained weight, dieted, experienced pregnancy, gained weight, experienced pregnancy, dieted, experienced pregnancy again and then dieted. I have not seen a number below 200 when I step on the scale in almost exactly five years. At 5'4" and 27 years old this puts me over the obese line to the... dare I say it... morbidly obese range.

       I have tried Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, a special diet written by a body builder, the dreaded Lemonade diet and many other lose weight quick methods. All of these methods work in their own way and the most beneficial method I have found so far has been Weight Watchers. Everything these days is all about having your cake and eating it too, about being skinny and looking good but eating all of the things that are so bad for us. Most diets teach you that all you need is moderation. Eat half or even a quarter of the serving size you normally eat and you will lose weight. Well, duh. Eat six tiny meals a day of stuff that has absolutely no flavor but is strategically timed to what your body needs during the day and you will lose weight. Then you find yourself going stir crazy over the smell of peanut butter when making your kids a classic pb&j, and eventually you cave and binge.

      Instead of just focusing on losing weight quick or trying to lose weight while still eating all of the bad things, I've uncovered the answer to what I've been missing. I feel that it's as if I've uncovered the holy grail when really I've just opened my eyes to what was always in front of me. I need to stop concentrating on how to lose the next 5 pounds and start concentrating on how to be HEALTHY. To be healthy has so many different meanings to different people. We all want to be the "proper" weight, be able to run around with our children and live long lives, but how do we do that? I've struggled with this thought for the last five years and it has always seemed so overwhelming. Where to begin has always been the biggest question.

      Almost a year ago I was introduced to an amazing group of people. We call ourselves Beeps. If you don't know why, you don't need to know. The Beeps are the most incredible people I will ever know. In the last 10 months we have shared the deepest, darkest, funniest and brightest times together. Among the topics we discuss, we often speak about our daily meals and overall diets (as in the way we eat). My eyes were opened to a new world when vegetarians and vegans began to share information. It was suggested that I check out a documentary on Netflix called, "Fat, Sick Nearly Dead." I did just that and it is as if a light bulb went off in my head.

      And with that being said, I begin my journey to a healthier me. Little by little I'll share more about my past as I uncover my future. I'm really excited about this. Thanks for reading. :)