Okay, I’ll be honest.  When I was picking recipes this week, this is what I wanted to cook:

• Nachos
• Cheesy Broccoli and Shells
• Calzones
• Carbs, cheese, and more carbs
• Cake for dinner, anyone?

Yup, that’s about it.  But Grown-up Hannah has a tiny bit of self-control (not a ton), and I’m pretty proud of how those desires turned into slightly healthier comfort food recipes.  I should be proud of the people who made the recipes, but I’ll pat myself on the back, too.

So here it is:

• Monday: Creamy Pumpkin Marinara with Chicken
  • New recipe to us, but I feel very optimistic about it.  So many veggies compared to most “creamy” pasta dishes!
  • When I say something like “with chicken” and you don’t see that in the recipe, it means it is really a vegetarian recipe that I’m planning to alter with a little bit of protein.  Just cook up some chicken in your favorite way or plunder some from a rotisserie chicken, and you’ve transformed a recipe from vegetarian to veggie-centric but meat-ful for your favorite omnivores.
• Tuesday: Black Bean Sweet Potato Enchilada
  • Sticking with the vegetarian theme on this one.  Oooh, aaah.  It’s hard to go wrong with any kind of enchiladas.
• Wednesday: Steak Salad with Crispy Shallots, Dried Cherries, Candied Pecans and Goat Cheese

  

  There are a whole lot of greens in this.  Does that make the crispy shallots and cheese and candied pecans any healthier?

  • This is a salad I’ve made before, and I remember thinking it was one of the best salads I’ve ever eaten.  Swoon-worthy, if not entirely healthy.  (Did you know you could get goat cheese really really inexpensively at ALDI?  I hope you have an ALDI near you.)
• Thursday: Spinach Bacon Quiche
  • Because we have chickens, and thus we will be eating eggs as a main course component at least once every other week.  Eggs are also a relatively cheap protein at the store, so everyone wins.
  • I’m going to combine a few recipes this week.  I found a new crust plan in the link above, and I’ll steal the mustard and sour cream ideas from that recipe as well.  But I’m going to stick with spinach and bacon as my fillings.  The normal recipe I use is pretty darn good as it is.
• Friday: Nachos (MyRecipes)
  • Because some things are worth going for.
  • I will not be making the suggested cheese sauce, because as tasty as processed cheese might be, I can’t bring myself to buy cheese from the non-refrigerated section of the grocery store.  (I’ll eat it at your house very happily, however.)  Anyway, I’ll throw some pepper jack in instead, add some browned ground venison with appropriate seasoning (cumin, chili powder, a pinch of cayenne pepper), switch jarred jalapenos out for fresh and call this delicious.  Mmm.
• Saturday: Leftovers
• Sunday: Australian Open Finals (What we’ll be watching, not eating.)
  • Nope, haven’t picked food for Sunday yet.  We might have friends over to watch the tennis championship, and my brain can only prepare so much.  Hopefully the food will be tasty and make-ahead-able.
• Miscellanious: Gluten Free Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake
  • Because baking sounds nice, and potential weekend guests are GF.
  • New recipe to me.  It’s tough to ruin lemons and blueberries and sugar… possible, but tough.

P.S.  Last week’s favorites ended up being the quinoa breakfast bars (stress-baked with love and eaten with even more love) and the sheet pan chicken.  Yum!