Back to Business

Today marks the first day of being alone with G again. Time to get back to my job as housewife extraordinaire. It's amazing how much better I feel since the surgery. Unfortunately my appetite came back with a vengeance and I've been eating every thing in sight, but with the start of this new week and new chapter in our lives, I feel inspired to be good with the food. Example of my goodness: Last night I willingly ate a salad for a snack. Yes, I followed with that last final late night bowl of macaroni and ketchup, but I swear it was the last one!!

We recently got cable in our apartment - apparently it was free in our complex but no one ever told us...jeeze - and so that means I've been living on the Food Network and that in turn means that I've been inspired to cook! And more than just pasta! Amazing, I know. Here are some of the things I made last week:

This is...well I guess you'd call it a hash? Anyways, I was craving eggs and I had leftover potatoes from the night before so I tossed them together in the pan with some pureed spinach, onion powder, salt, pepper, and a few chunks of chicken. It was insanely delicious, and all three of us really enjoyed it.

This is baked chicken topped with asiago cheese (soo yummy), cheesy ranch dressing, and Frank's Red Hot Buffalo sauce (I would drink it straight from the bottle if I could). It turned out to be probably the most delicious chicken dish I have ever made. Can't wait to make it again!

Cheesy mashed potatoes, with corn and pureed spinach mixed in. I'm loving spinach lately and am really having a great time experimenting, trying to figure out new things to add it to. 

This week I also made an AMAZING spinach dip and a fantastic 'southwest' salad but I forgot to take pictures. 

Spinach dip: 

1 'thing' of cream cheese. I can't remember how big it was, haha. Just that it was a container, not the blocks.

1/4 of red pepper. I love the taste, hate the texture so I'm stingy.

Grated cheddar cheese (LOTS)

Pureed Spinach. Typically I chop the spinach, but I found that pureeing it gave the dip a much creamier texture.

Asiago cheese sprinkled on top.

Onion powder/Cayenne. Just a bit.

Because I didn't use block cheese, I could mix this dip by hand instead of bothering with the mixer which is a pain and extremely messy. This was very fast to prepare (though it would have been faster if a certain small someone hadn't been crying because Daddy ran out to buy Tostitos). Once everything was mixed together, I tossed it in the oven 375 for about 45 minutes, until the top was golden. I will absolutely be making this again, as much as I can because it was so darn good, and made for delicious leftovers as well. 

Salad:

Lettuce

Grated cheddar cheese

Asiago (grated)

Crushed Tostitos

Corn

Sprinkling of Red Hot

Seriously, for something so simple it was SO delicious. It made me fall in love with salad for the first time like, ever. I want to eat it all the freaking time. 

I wish I could continue writing right now, but I put G down for a nap almost an hour ago and she is still in there chatting away and singing. Round two of nap time now, I guess. Ugh. I may be healing fast, but lugging a fat baby around is still taxing.