Family Friday Dinner

Something about Italian food just makes it feel like "family" night!

You like da sausage??? In creepy Italian man voice...

Don't know why but couldn't get that out of my head the whole time I was making this!

In an effort to cook something different, I made sausage and peppers for dinner.

I used an aidells all natural chicken and cheese sausage. First browned the sausage, then added 1vidalia onion, 4 Roma tomatoes quartered, 1 green pepper and 1yellow pepper and seasoned with salt, garlic powder, lemon pepper, red pepper and oregano. Covered and just let it cook down.

Served over pasta with a side of roasted broccoli.

It was a winner in our family!

Veggie filled Rice

My girls love rice and we eat way too much chicken and rice so I made up this veggie filled rice dish to spice things up!

Start by sauteeing whatever veggies you want to sneak in-

I did carrots, zucchini, squash 

Seasoned with salt, garlic powder, red pepper, oregano and basil

After those vegetables soften I added some cherry tomatoes

Let them cook a minute or two.

Add however much rice you want to use then stir in chicken stock.

2cups chicken stock to 1cup rice

Put lid cracked open, cook on medium low letting chicken stock cook out slowly.

Stir occasionally so it doesn't stick.

Comes out creamy yummy and full of veggies!

Enjoy!

Food for Thought

Just something that was on my mind today and thought I would share...and enjoy any thoughts/feedback!
Just a lil' food for thought....
In a quest in raising up my girls as best I can, I strive to give them the best nutrition...most of the time but also like it at the same time.  I like to think we live a healthy lifestyle. Jerry and I are both very active and workout usually 5 times a week, our girls see us and know what exercise is. Jacquelyn sees kids at our gym doing classes (our gym has training for young athletes) and she tells me she wants to do that when she gets bigger! We play outside a lot, I cook most of our meals and strive for them to be healthy. However, I am not where I want to be physically but I consiously strive not to have "negative body talk" around my girls! I do not want them growing up like I did, always worried about my weight. As long as I can remember, I have always been wanting to loose weight. Granted, I would like to be as "fat" as I was back in high school now! But vanity aside, health is my main focus.
Have ya'll ever read Eat Right for you Blood Type. I read this probably in high school. I always had an interest in health and nutrition and my mom's local health food store got it in, along with blood kits to see what blood type you were, so we all did it. Whether its true or not it is pretty interesting.
While it is not something I 100% implemented, I have always kept the recomendations and ideas in the back of my mind. Lately, I have been thinking more about it-especially now that I have kids who are 2 different blood types and have 2 different taste buds....which raised the question in my head today...
Are we innately born with desire to eat the foods that are best for us and over time, environment and other factors change those taste buds? One thing I remember from my nutrition classes, is that we loose the ability to know when we are "full" by the time we are 5. Our bodies, naturally tell our brain when we are full but growing up, environmental factors numb that sensor and we loose that sense by the age of 5.  So are we also born knowing what foods are best for us but loose this sense too?
Example-
My 3 year old daughter, Jacquelyn,  is type A-those should stick to a more vegan diet
My 18 month old daughter, Giuliana, is type 0-those should stick to a heavy protein diet
Tonight at dinner we had chicken breasts, sweet potates, broccoli and humus.
Jacquelyn ate all of her humus first, using chicken to scoop up as much humus as she could...this girl will eat beans over ANYTHING!!!! and she had some sweet potate again scooping up the humus!
Giuliana ate and ate and ate chicken like it was her last meal and almost all her broccoli and skipped the sweet potatoes

As each of them were babies and I started introducing foods, I noticed their tendencies always swayed to their bloodtypes. Giulilana refused all baby purees I made her, that Jacquelyn always loved. It wasn't until I started pureeing full meals with meat and adding chicken stock that she ate them.

Yall might think I am crazy, but just some observances I have seen in my kids...
Just some food for thought....
What do you think?

Tahini Salad Dressing

Tonight my family came over and momma fried fish and Becca made a kale salad with a tahini dressing and it was beyond good!!

My father in law had given fresh king fish he caught and it's a darker meat fish so we fried it up using our mustard and Tabasco recipe I've posted before...it was good-nothing like fresh fish from the Gulf!

Beccas Kale Salad

Chopped Kale

Sliced baby heirloom tomatoes

Sunflower seeds

Dressing- in a food processor mix tahini, lemon juice, olive oil and fresh garlic 

You really have to use your own judgement on amounts and adjust accordingly to get the right texture. We used just enough oil to make it creamy but not too oily!

Seriously I'm obsessed with this dressing! It was beyond good and the combination of all the ingredients, esp the crunch of sunflower seeds made it extra delish!

Jerry and I used to love nuts in our salad but since jacq is allergic to nuts we pretty much don't have nuts in our salad but now we are gonna start using sunflower seeds!

Gonna be some new recipes coming with more uses of tahini, like tahini crusted fish!