Review... Sunday Cooking !

I managed another cook-ahead morning!  Although it took considerably longer than last weekend because I did some baking in addition to the meals. 

Here's the view from my kitchen window... it makes staying inside and cooking much more appealing!

Healthy?

Someone recently asked in the comments if the recipes I make are healthy.  Most things I cook are healthy and if not I often modify them a bit.  However, I also enjoy making things once in a while that are a bit higher calorie and then I serve them with a huge salad and lots of veggies.  My theory is that anything you make at home is going to be healthier and lower-calorie than an equivalent restaurant version.  

I tend to serve most casserole-type meals with a lot of veggies (or fruit) to make sure we're getting our 7+ fruits/veggies daily.  I really enjoy the Sandi Richard series of books for meal-planning (Cooking for the Rushed series) and most of her meals are about 400-500 calories per serving.  Sometimes I skip the convenience items that she uses in her recipes and replace them with homemade/fresh ingredients, but not always.

Cooking Ahead
I wish I was dedicated enough to cook our weekday meals on the weekend more often, however, admittedly, I only do this sporadically.  It is sooo much easier if I can just throw something in the oven when we get home and start working on homework with Cam before he's too tired.  If our meal is done earlier in the evening, it means we have more time for everything else (including my workout!).

Even if meals are only ready for Mon to Wed, it makes a huge difference.  Usually by Thursday we have enough leftovers for Friday lunches so I can cook something easy that night and not worry about the next day's lunch.  

The Food!

A few of the morning's ingredients:

The plan?

• slow-cooker applesauce
• oatmeal cookies
• herb-cheese bread
• carrot-squash soup
• chicken gnocchi soup (today's lunch with fresh bread!)
• baked ziti
• chicken tetrazzini
• layered chicken bake

The pics!!

Herb-Cheese Bread (Kitchenaid bread recipe with the addition of sharp cheddar cheese and roasted red pepper spices).  Here's some kneading action:

Slow-cooker applesauce, all cooked and ready for lunches/freezer.  It's red because I tossed frozen strawberries and raspberries in with the apples:

Oops!  Forgot to take a picture of the layered chicken dish before it was wrapped and I didn't want to take off the tinfoil/cover for a pic.  This contains multiple layers of chicken, sauce (mushrooms, peppers, etc) and cheese.  I'll cook some rice or quinoa in the rice cooker to serve with it:

Baked Ziti (recipe found here).  I tend to cook extra pasta and use 2 cups of 1% cottage cheese to make a larger casserole that lasts longer.  We also like a little extra zip from a layer of pepperoni on top.  Apparently, this originated as a Weight Watchers recipe (obviously without the pepperoni!).  This recipe freezes well and I don't bake it before freezing, only after it's thawed, so it tastes freshly made:

Chicken Tetrazzini (subbed cooked chicken breast for the canned tuna, although this is an awesome tuna casserole):

I cooked extra pasta and added mushrooms and bell pepper to the chicken so that I could have a second, smaller casserole for the freezer.  This is another recipe that freezes really well before baking and when thawed/baked, it tastes freshly made:

 Carrot-Squash soup all ready for the freezer:

Next is a new recipe!!  I love chicken gnocchi soup from Olive Garden and I found a copycat recipe on the web.  I bought a package of gnocchi, but next time, I might try making it myself.  I subbed skim milk for the "heavy cream" and milk called for in the recipe and it was still a very thick soup:

Finally, it has been sooooo long since I baked cookies.  It had to be done.  Oatmeal cookies!  I tried this recipe but I reduced the margarine/butter by 1/4 cup:

 I got almost 5 dozen cookies from the recipe and threw 3 dozen in the freezer:

Sunday Run
After standing all morning in the kitchen, I was soooo tempted to have a nap after lunch and postpone my session with the treadmill until later.  I knew that would be a recipe for disaster though, so I forced myself to get it done.  I'm really looking forward to building up my mileage again.