September in October: Getting Creative with Healthy Eating

So in the past month I've gotten a lot more serious about eating healthier and losing weight and all that good stuff, and I will be writing an update about that soon. But one of the things that I've really been focusing on in order to keep myself excited is trying out new recipes. I've been doing a lot of experimenting with pins, and also improvising out of my own fridge. I figured I'd share some of the things I've made in the past month (...these are all taken from instagram).

Standard tomato soup and grilled cheese, but I added some fresh basil and parmesan to the soup to get some more flavor. Not too impressive, and it's not something I would have considered to be "healthy"...but if you get a little crafty, it's really not bad for you at all (310 calories if we're talking specifics). Plus the meal itself is super filling! And I enjoyed the HECK out of it. HECK.

You may remember this recipe that I posted when it was actually September. Well..this counts. So I'm putting it in! You can find out what I did in this post. SO GOOD.

One of my improvised recipes: Buffalo chicken pizza! Omg I literally died over this pizza. I used a whole wheat Boboli brand pizza crust, shredded up some chicken breast with buffalo sauce and laid that on top of the crust, and then covered that with low fat blue cheese crumbles and part skim mozzarella. I cooked it according to the pizza crust package instructions, which worked out pretty well. I also drizzled on some low-fat ranch to cool down some of the spice. It was a big hit among my friends, and I'm pretty excited to try it again!

Yet another improvised recipe: Dumpling squash soup and baked cornflake chicken tenders. I bought this cute little dumpling squash on sale when I went apple picking with my friends, and I decided to make it into soup. It was very simple. I halved the squash and oven roasted it until tender, then scooped out the meat into a blender with some skim milk and pureed it until it was a smooth and creamy soup. Then I put it back into a pot and added some salt, pepper, and nutmeg. It was a little bit stuck between savory and sweet, so I might try to go more towards an extreme the next time I make it, but it was super delicious!

To make the chicken tenders, I mixed together a tablespoon of dijon mustard and a tablespoon of honey, then dipped the raw chicken breast pieces in it (instead of dredging in egg and flour) before dipping it into some crushed up corn flakes. I baked them in the oven for about 20 minutes (at 350? I don't even remember) and I flipped them halfway through. So crunchy!!

I had leftover ricotta from making baked ziti for a potluck, so I used it to make these ricotta and spinach stuffed portobello mushrooms from a recipe I found on Pinterest. These made my entire apartment smell amazing, and they tasted DE LI CIOUS. Plus, they were so low-cal that I didn't feel guilty about eating a side of pasta.

This one was actually 1.) not healthy and 2.) a failure, but I figured I would put it here anyways. I made this supposedly fool-proof bread recipe, and wound up with sad, flat, beige bread that only tasted good on the first day. I've been desperately trying to get good at making bread, but this recipe was just a no-go for me. In fact, I was so disappointed that I'm not even going to POST the recipe. SORRY THAT I AM NOT SORRY. Anyways, I tweaked the bread recipe by adding some rosemary to the dough, because I was making it to go with my roommate Nicole's delicious beef stew that has a ton of rosemary in it.

I don't think I ever talk about how much I love beef stew. I'm obsessed. The ratio of times when I am craving beef stew versus the number of times that it is socially appropriate to eat beef stew is seriously skewed. I want to try every beef stew recipe that exists. Nicole's is great because it uses squash (or sweet potatoes!) and vegetable broth, so it's a lighter spin. Plus I'm obsessed with all the rosemary and thyme and parsley that goes into it. HAVE I MENTIONED THAT I LOVE BEEF STEW??

...sorry. Anyways, I made this bread to go with the stew and it wound up being delicious straight out of the oven, but way too dense after it cooled down. It was a no-knead bread, but I think it probably could have used more kneading. And proofing. And...time. Basically, it was just a dud recipe. Also, I tried to make another recipe that following weekend (I WILL NEVER GIVE UP ON MY DREAMS OF BREAD) which rose more, but was BLAND AS HELL. Seriously. I didn't know that bread and hot water could have the same flavor, but they did. It was HORRIBLE. Just HORRIBLE. I've decided to stop trying no-knead recipes and just put off all bread baking until I am back in a place that has a stand mixer with a dough hook, because no-knead means NO GOOD. #breadrage

The last recipe I want to talk about (...mainly to redeem myself for the horrible bread rant) is my current breakfast obsession, the breakfast burrito. I found these 80 calorie tortillas, and I've just been going nuts with them. I scramble up one egg with a chopped up colby cheese stick (Sargento makes low fat ones!) and then plop it onto the burrito with some salsa and plain greek yogurt (because my stomach can no longer handle sour cream in the morning..sad times). It's one of my favorite ways to start the day.

Part of my struggle with weight loss has always been that I'm basically obsessed with food. It's really easy to associate healthy eating with like...misery. But it definitely doesn't have to be that way. Getting creative with healthy recipes makes me really excited, and it gives me an outlet to express my love of food. I've got lots of recipes pinned, and tons more ideas to come so look out for those in the future!