Meatless Monday Featuring The Produce Box: Vegetarian Lasagna

Meatless Monday Featuring The Produce Box: Vegetarian Lasagna

The past few months have been extremely busy with after school activities and work, so we have eaten A LOT of convenience foods. Boxed or frozen dinners that tend to be high in sodium and preservatives and low in nutrients. So, like most everyone in January, I decided it’s time to get healthy and eat better. This time I decided I’m not doing it by myself, but will also include the whole family. It’s so much easier to stick to a healthy meal plan when you only have to prepare one meal for everyone. The Produce Box One thing that has made this decision much easier in my very busy life is The Produce Box. The Produce Box is a wonderful service here in North Carolina that brings fresh produce, meats, dairy, and …

These Easy Chicken Dinners Will Help Make Your Weekly Meal Plan a Snap!

These Easy Chicken Dinners Will Help Make Your Weekly Meal Plan a Snap!

I am the worst at meal planning. I have great intentions. I’ll make a shopping list, pick up what I need, keep the fridge stocked. The problem is by the time I’m ready to break away from work, or whatever I happen to be doing, to start cooking everyone is starving and wants something right now! It doesn’t help that I’m usually not in the mood to cook whatever it is I planned to make for dinner that night anyhow. The week before Christmas I knew was going to be especially busy with afternoon meetings, conference calls, school functions, appointments, and driving my oldest to/from her job. With a little of that “work smarter, not harder” ingenuity, I came up with the perfect menu to help me survive until Saturday. Using …

Pomegranate Chicken with Halloumi, Tomatoes, and Peppers

Pomegranate Chicken with Halloumi Cheese, Tomatoes, and Peppers

NOTE: I’m super excited to announce that I was picked the winner of the Sassool Grocery Challenge! Read the official announcement here. A big “Thank you!” to Mounir Saleh and the Sassool team for choosing my dish to be featured in both Sassool locations for the month of January! UPDATE: My dish was so popular Sassool has decided to keep it on the menu! Back in November I was invited to Sassool Mediterranean Cafe in Cary, North Carolina to visit their new grocery and retail section, and pick out a few items using a complimentary $25 gift card. Then using at least three items from the Sassool market, develop a delicious recipe to be entered in the Sassool Grocery Challenge, where I will be competing against eight other Triangle-area bloggers. Mounir Saleh (the …

Peppermint Hot Chocolate Whoopie Pies

Peppermint Hot Chocolate Whoopie Pies

The birth of Holiday Baking day and how Peppermint Hot Chocolate Whoopie Pies came to be. Over the past five years, due to my husband’s job, we have moved four times and lived in four different states. Four years ago my girls had a particularly hard time over winter break. We hadn’t lived in Alabama very long. There were no visits from family, no friends to have over for hot chocolate, no holiday parties to attend, no secret Santa exchanges… all of the fun things that most people participate in during winter break. My husband was out of work and we didn’t have the extra money for the girls to buy gifts for each other, something they looked forward to every year. After thinking about what we could do that would be fun AND allow …

Southern Comfort Food for the Holidays Featuring The Produce Box

Southern Comfort Food for the Holidays Featuring The Produce Box

My family and I have lived in the South now for nearly six years. We started off moving to Virginia, then Alabama, and finally North Carolina, where we have lived for the past four years. The South is a truly unique place. People have their own way of doing things (if someone is using a turn signal, they are most-likely NOT born in the South), their own way of talking, and their own way of cooking. I’ve run across so many–almost foreign to me–recipes and ingredients native to the South I’ve been a little intimidated to try something new. Especially in the grocery store. I’d hate to buy a giant bag of something, like kale or collard greens, and then have them go to waste because I didn’t know what …

School Lunches Made Easy

School Lunches Made Easy

The one thing I dread every school year, aside from the early mornings, is the battle of the back to school lunches. Don’t laugh, the struggle is REAL!! My kids refused to eat school lunches (unless it was pizza day). So every day I would pack five lunches. Trying to remember which kid liked peanut butter and jelly this week, or which kid would only eat veggies if they were drenched in balsamic vinegar. After having one too many uneaten lunches return home, I announced to my kids that I was DONE. If they didn’t want hot lunch, they were responsible for making their own lunches from now on. This system has been working out for the past two years, and now the only complaints I get is when we run out …