Homemade Meal Challenge

I was talking to someone the other night about eating healthy. As in not eating so many pre-packaged processed foods. Mark and I were at the home group that we go to every other Friday night, and the husband and wife that hosts the home group were telling me about a book they read.

This book called Animal, Vegetable, Mineral was about a family that decided they would only eat food that they grew themselves or bought/traded from local farmers. They wouldn't buy anything from the grocery store.

We were talking about how appealing it is to eat healthier, but how our lifestyles make it almost impossible to do what they did. How the prices of organic produce, meats and dairy are much more expensive (especially where we're at in the city) and how its more time consuming to shop for and prepare meals when eating that way.

They gave me the book to borrow, so I am going to add that to my reading list for this year. But even before I open that book, I want to start trying to eat better. When I say eat better, I don't mean in the sense of eating only fruits, veggies and not eating sugar etc. But Mark and I are a big fan of Hamburger Helpers and frozen pasta dinners. Not because we just love how good they make us feel *cough* sarcasm *cough*. But because they make a decent meal fairly quickly. This is especially helpful when I don't get home until 7:30 or even 8:30 at night depending on my work schedule.

But I'm going to challenge myself to do something different for the next 2 weeks. I am going to go grocery shopping here shortly and I am going to shop for only 2 weeks instead of a month at a time like I can do when buying boxed and frozen dinners. I'm also going to buy healthy snacks for me to take to work and for eating on my lunch break. And I'm going to make home-made meals every night.

It's going to be slightly difficult. Especially on the nights that I don't get home until 8:30, but I've planned to try some new crock pot meals so Mark can eat a fresh meal rather than pop some frozen buffalo wings on our pizazz for his dinner.

Here's what the menu is looking like:

Monday: Chicken Alfredo
Tuesday: No Bake Mac n Cheese with broccoli
Wednesday: Crockpot Chicken - marinated with Sweet Baby Rays
Thursday: Chicken Ranch Pasta
Friday: Philly Cheese Steak Sloppy Joes (Okay, so this one is still going to be home-made, but definitely not on the healthy side! I'm only making this because I showed this recipe to the husband last week and promised I would make it since he LOVES Philly Cheese Steak)
Saturday: Dinner Out
Sunday: Caesar Salad with grilled chicken
**Can you see I'm trying to stick with mostly lean meat???**
Monday: Home-made Pizza
Tuesday: Baked Chicken with sides of green beans and mashed potatoes
Wednesday: Crockpot Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti
Thursday: Tuna Noodle Casserole
Friday: Baked Chicken with sides of corn and scalloped potatoes
Saturday: Dinner out
Sunday: Home-made subs - right now I'm thinking meatball but we'll see :)

Like I said, right now this isn't healthier as in low carbs, low fat, more fruits/veggies kind of healthier. It's healthier as in home-made, no cream of soup crap, no boxed/frozen dinners, no processed cheese mess, more chicken less red meat kind of healthier.

It's going to be a process and I have to take baby steps people. And that first step will be getting into a habit of actually putting ingredients together to make a meal!

We'll see how this goes. :)