Happy New Year! That wonderful time of year to dwell on your past mistakes, swear you’ll do better this year, set nearly unattainable goals and then feel bad about it again next year! Wrong! Now is not the time to scrutinize your past mistakes but accept what you could do better. And for me, that has to do with food. No, I’m not trying to lose weight or eliminate certain foods all together but rather, I want to learn how to cook a few more things at home. Cooking at home is cheaper than eating out and you know exactly what ingredients are going into your meal. However, I tend to fall into food ruts and just make the same meals over and over - do you do this as well? Let’s break that cycle! Here are a few meals I want to tackle in the New Year.
Roasted chicken: check out this step-by-step guide from Eating Well for roasting a chicken, I can’t wait to try it.
A healthier pasta dish: I love alfredo sauce so I lightened it up with this recipe from SparkPeople.
Ingredients:
1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups skim milk
1 cup chicken broth
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Directions:
In a medium saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add garlic and sauté until golden brown.
In a small saucepan, stir together milk, chicken broth, flour, salt and pepper over low heat until smooth and thick. Stir into garlic. Continue to cook over medium low heat, stirring frequently, until the sauce is thick. Stir in Parmesan cheese. (8 servings)
Then I plan on adding only half the noodles and throwing in 2 cups of steamed broccoli to increase my vegetable intake.
The perfect quiche: this breakfast favorite is a great make-ahead meal for those mornings where you don’t have any time to cook. Eatingwell.com has a great mini quiche recipe that is on my to-do list.
So instead of holding on to the past (in my case, boring meals), learn and grow from it! I plan to learn more recipe options that may someday turn me into a culinary genius - one could only hope! What resolutions have you made? Do you have any recipe resolutions for the New Year that you could share?