What's Cooking

In case you didn't know, I love food. I love preparing it, cooking it, and of course, gorging on it. I don't even mind doing the dishes afterwards!

Since getting hitched I have full-reign of my kitchen and grocery shopping list, something that was on-hold for a while when I was completing school. It is exciting...and nerve-wracking. With a hard-working Hubs, there's definitely a standard that has to be met. This man needs meat and carbs and even vegetables (shout-out to Momma Pincock for always making her kids eat veggies!) So Ramen wasn't going to cut it, and the choice between chicken or ground beef every day got old fast.

So it was time to take a hard look at recipes and figure out what was feasible for me to do. Many times I will drool over recipes and then read what's in them and realize I don't know what half those things are, or that they are way out of my price-range. Time to get smart about cooking.

My two favorite food blogs are:

Skinny Taste    : offering healthy recipes that are still loaded with flavor. Her food always looks delicious, partially because she's a big fan of food photography (my skills in that area are pathetic). She also provides WW Point values for everything so that's a plus to those who keep track. 

Budget Bytes   : her slogan is "My stomach is full and my wallet is too." Great recipes that don't cost a fortune with excellent tips on how to cut costs with food. She notes the price of every recipe (and price per portion) and let's you know which ingredients cost what, all in a nifty little spreadsheet along with step-by-step photos and instructions.

So with these two blogs in my bag of tricks, I soon had stacks of recipes that I wanted to try out. I have tried to make a point of including at least a few recipes in my Monthly Menu, and it has been a lot of fun.

Tonight's Trial: Spinach Lasagna Roll-Ups

I made a few changes:

• I cooked 16 lasagna noodles because the blog make 14, but I only managed to fill 11. It was still plenty for the two of us and leftovers, I managed to eat 2 roll-ups and Jordi stuffed himself with 3 (with Caesar salad). My dish would have only fit 12 anyway, so it worked out great!
• I put in 3 TBSP of stuffing per noodle, and that seemed to be a nice noodle-to-stuffing-ratio.
• Instead of using homemade marinara sauce, I bought a bottle of Prego Marinara from the store, it was a bit more than she used of her homemade stuff (23 oz bottle compared to 2.5 C), but it wasn't too saucy, so go for it!
• I also added a bit of garlic powder and some chopped-up mushrooms to the cheese mix, just because I like both of those things...and of course you can tweak that however you like!

Bon Appetit!

But it was super simple, super easy and really, really yummy. I dare you to try it. Double. Doggy. Dare. 

If you are a fan of lasagna but wish it was simpler, with less layers, this is for you!