Link Love

I know with the new year, we start thinking about being healthier, and while I don’t have any concrete goals, you all know I am all about recipes and cooking in general.  I was looking through my Pinterest Page and some other blogs where I have actually written down recipes I’ve wanted to try, but still haven’t yet.  So I thought I’d put them in one spot for quick reference, and hope that by seeing them again, I’ll actually make them!

If anyone needs inspiration on losing weight – check out Lisa’s blog at 110 pounds down and counting.  She’s going on YEARS of maintenance, and is totally inspiring.  You can check out here “Best of” link page here – lots of good motivational reading there!  I book marked this baked buffalo chicken dish, and for the life of me haven’t made it yet. Well, maybe because Tony hated anything really with buffalo sauce, I puffy heart it.   Look at all this gorgeous buffalo sauce!

Courtney makes this barbocoa beef brisket all the time, and now that I have meat eaters in the house (well, Hannah is half on the fence on that one) I would definitely love to make her slow cooker beef barbocoa brisket.  I am thinking tacos one night, enchiladas another and then making French dip sandwiches with the leftovers. 

I have some bloggers I used to follow all the time, but due to work constraints, kids, general life getting in the way, their blog had to take a back burner.  Katie has some great recipes on her site, but I pinned this a long time ago, but then Tony didn’t like pork all that much anymore, and it didn’t make sense for me to make it just for me.  Thankfully, Jacob likes pork – and maybe, just maybe I could get Hannah to try it.  This recipe for a stuffed pork tenderloin screams me – stuffed with goat cheese and baby spinach!  I love that its seared in a pan to get that crispy edge, then finished off in the oven.  Yum!

Helen doesn’t post a whole lot of recipes on her blog, but when she does, I take note!  A couple months ago she posted this Crockpot Beef Curry dish, that again, screams me, but would leave Tony yelling “what smells like ass!” from the living room if I dared make it.  I couldn’t copy the picture on her site, but this stolen internet picture will give you an idea.  I imagine the broth would be awesome over brown rice.

I think if Nicole and I were next door neighbors, we’d be swapping dishes back and forth to each other.  First, her husband loves buffalo anything, and that’s me and second, she’s a registered dietician – specializing in diabetes no less, and she tries to lighten up dishes so they still taste awesome and don’t taste like ass.  She made a lightened up version of Buffalo Chicken Mac N Cheese – she used 1 cup skim milk to one cup 1/2 and 1/2 and used Cabot’s reduced fat cheese.  If you haven’t tried the reduced fat cheese from Cabot, find it – it melts really well and tastes amazing.  Even their 75% reduced fat one is amazeballs!

Michelle is another blogger that I miss, but I pinned this honey mustard slaw a long time ago, and well, never made it either.  You see, while I adore all things mustard, Tony wasn’t much of a fan – a little Dijon went a long way for him.  I liked this slaw immediately because there is no mayo – and I would probably sub out the grape tomatoes with red pepper, but this could be a great side dish to burgers instead of fries.

And for my once in a while indulgence, I am definitely going to make Ally’s deep dish Reuben pizza.  I actually need to post my Reuben pizza that I submitted to the Sebastiani pizza contest, but they picked my Chicago Style Italian beef pizza over the Reuben one. 

And the mother of all healthy links is Jessica’s sixteen weeks of healthy meals!    I normally think of this dish in the summer time with fresh grilled steak, but I have to say this chimichurri sauce is calling my name!

As these weeks move forward, I am hoping I’ll find inspiration in the kitchen again.  I made bread over the last two days – Hannah LOVES my bread.  Last nights was sesame seed and it went delicious with the beef stew I made.  We probably went through 2/3 of the loaf just at dinner (and I only had one piece!) and I am sure it will be gone by the end of today.  Best part is the bread makes killer French toast!

Today marks 30 days that Tony passed away.  It’s hard for me to even type those words “passed away.”  How crazy has my life been since then?  Spending time with my brother and his family, my PIL driving up from Florida, my Mom cancelling her trip to Cambodia, my daughter and her fiance getting engaged, then moving in with me on Christmas Eve with their two dogs.  Hosting Tony’s sisters family for Christmas dinner and having a 3 year old sleep over on New Years Eve.   Looking back I realize the distractions helped me a lot to get through each day, but I am hoping as this new year progresses, life will slow down just a little bit.  So I can actually breathe, you know?

I actually have to work today.  Which is weird because it feels like Monday, but it’s Friday.  I also have my quarterly diabetes check up at lunch today too.  Have a great weekend!