Welcome 2011!!

I can't believe its already a new year, how exciting! Hope everyone enjoyed a (safe) and fun New Year's Eve. Greg and I had a great evening, relaxing and watching Psych on netflix.

We had lunch w/ Greg's family today (minus Chris, who was out of town), ate my black-eyed peas so I'll have a good year! Also had some great fresh pineapple and strawberries (w/ shortcake tehe) at lunch. Had taco beuno for dinner- a muchaco w/ some fresh avocado slices and a cheesecake chimichanga. We went and saw Voyage of the Dawn Treader- by far the best Narnia movie, absolutely love it! I can't actually remember much of the book, except it was my favorite when I read them several years ago. Maybe after grad school I'll read the series again.

Isn't fruit magnificant? I just ate an orange (instead of a biscotti, I might add) and I just marveled at how wonderful God's creation is. And yummy too.

Yesterday Greg and I braved the crowds and went grocery shopping at HEB. One of my new year's resolutions (among losing weight) is to cook healthy and budget friendly meals. I still haven't gotten my weight watcher book, but I have gotten two cookbooks so Greg and I perused them and picked out several recipes for this week. Heres whats on the menu....

1. Sweet and sour shrimp w/ rice (4 servings, so enough for leftovers since Greg doesn't eat shrimp, he'll substitute chicken)
2. Tex-mex pepper steak w/ rice
3. Tuscan chicken and beans w/ garlic bread (spaghetti on the side for Greg, the chicken dish is not very caloric)
4. Onion minestra w/ garlic bread (sloppy joe or leftovers on the side for Greg)
5. Sausage and black bean soup w/ quesadillas

I feel like we're going to be cooking two dinners on some nights, since some of the dishes aren't things that Greg likes or enough to fill him up. He is trying to gain one pound a week, and needs about 3000-3500 calories a day. Hopefully we can settle on a few dishes that suit both are needs, are cheap, and don't take a million ingredients or dishes to make. I like to get in and get out of the kitchen on most nights very quickly, though I do enjoy cooking a big fresh meal occasionally. I just want a simple menu that can be interchanged so that we can easily prepare meals w/o a lot of waste. Some recipes I try are not very practical. For instance, I love Rachel Ray and have two of her recipe books. But, a lot of her stuff calls for quite a bit of fresh ingredients, which I like, but it can be pricey and we can never finish it all so quite a bit goes to waste. I've given up on buying fresh herbs, and try to avoid recipes that call for condiments I don't typically use. I've also switched to buying frozen chicken, and defrosting it in the fridge as we need it. I also gave up on baking/buying desserts (I know, big surprise since I have such a sweet tooth!) b/c we never finish more than a quarter of it. I do keep our freezer fairly stocked w/ frozen treats though.

Speaking of frozen treats, I bought these weight watcher ice cream candy bars and they are delicious!!! They are 3 points, and taste better than a snickers! I had to exercise great control to only eat one yesterday by reminding myself that a "diet" dessert isn't "diet" when you eat 5!

List for tomorrow: weight training workout in the morning, church, lunch, tend to the yard, applications for professionals abroad, informed consent for IRB. Ready.....break!