A month of real, simple cooking

I think -- *THINK* -- my life is about to return to normal just a smidge. I survived the chaos at work, and Godwilling I will have some peace and quiet this coming weekend in the form of a three-day weekend (I did not have a three-day weekend like many of the rest of you. I've only had two days off this entire month).

One of the goals as part of my New Year's Mantra (ahem, kindness) was to treat my body more kindly. I've wanted to do more cooking for myself, and I don't mean sticking a Weight Watchers meal in the microwave. I want to know what ingredients are going into my meals, and I want those ingredients to be as fresh as possible.

Before work knocked me off my rocker, the Modern Love Machine and I were trying out a week of new recipes courtesy of an old issue of Real Simple. The magazine did an article on a month's worth of new recipes complete with grocery shopping lists. Here's Week One, Week Two, Week Three and Week Four.

We made it through four days, and let me tell you these recipes are AWESOME. The hardest part was finding all the fresh veggies at my woefully understocked Kroger. The cooking was simple. Easy directions and every recipe took no longer than 30 minutes as best as I can remember. Everything was tasty, and the MLM and I edited a few of the recipes to add our own touch (like substituting the brown rice I had in the pantry for the white rice that was called for). The cooking methods seem healthy enough: mostly sauteing in olive oil or baking in the oven. And if you need to edit portion size, it's not hard to cut most of the recipes in half.

Now, go forth and cook.