I’ve tried just about everything out there to lose weight but could never stick with anything long enough to lose that weight. Then a year and a half ago, I started what I thought was a weight-loss program, but ended up being something that changed my life.
Every year we try to grow basil. I have dreams of jars and jars of homemade pesto and Caprese salad. I plan to spend the summer sprinkling basil on everything. I’ll look like the cover of a magazine, smiling as I harvest my basil surrounded by my perfectly dressed children who never fight and always obey me. Sadly, I generally kill everything I plant. Luckily, jarred pesto is getting healthier and tastier than it once was.
I love to use pesto for salad dressing, veggie dip, mixed with mayonnaise for a spread and a topping for chicken. This pesto chicken is one of my favorite uses for pesto. And it comes together in the slow cooker, which just makes life better in general.
Just drizzles avocado oil in the bottom of your slow cooker, top with chicken breasts and top each breast with jarred pesto and cook on low 4-6 hours. It’s hard to think of a recipe that’s easier.
The oil keeps the chicken moist and cooking it slowly allows the pesto to really penetrate into the chicken and give it lots of flavor. Maybe one day I’ll make this with my pesto made with home-grown basil. Then when I serve it to company and they “ooh” and “aah,” I can tell them I grew the basil myself and act like it’s no big deal. Yeah. I want to be that person.
If you’re making the shift toward healthy eating, consider adding these supplies to your kitchen.
Few things are as comforting on a busy day as coming home to the smell of a roast in the crock pot. Throw some whole wheat bread in the bread maker as well and the comforting smells are right up there with world peace. Plus, using a slow cooker always makes me feel like someone else made me dinner. Life doesn’t get much better.
In my opinion, the best roast for a slow cooker is a chuck roast. They’re not as thick as other roasts so they cook more evenly.
The secret to cooking tender beef is to brown the meat before putting it in a slow cooker and to cook it low and slow.
Before you brown your meat, rub it down with a spice mixture.
Then place the browned meat on a bed of root vegetables. I use carrots and sweet potatoes. If you don’t like sweet potatoes, russet potatoes are fine. I just like the flavor and health benefits that come from sweet potatoes.
Then top the meat with sliced onions and a can of diced tomatoes and cook the whole thing in a flavorful broth for eight hours.
Cooking it this way makes the meat just fall apart. This is perfect on a cold night. Or a warm night. Or a Tuesday. Whatever. There’s no reason not to make this for dinner.
My kids hate grocery shopping with me. Why? Because I can’t just walk through the isles and pick up a bottle of mayonnaise or a box of cereal and be on my merry way. I have to thoroughly read the labels and ingredients before picking. I like to think I’m being a good example to […]
Every morning my son’s breakfast includes a mini muffin. This is my way of cramming a bit more protein and nutrients into him in an unprocessed way before sending him off to second grade to solve the world’s great problems. I always look for muffin recipes heavy on nuts and/or eggs and low on sugar. We generally stick to banana muffins, but to keep things interesting, I’m always trying to find something else. I found this recipe from Yummy Mummy. It looked delicious, but since I was giving it to my son every morning for breakfast, I wanted something without added sugar or sugar substitutes and without chocolate chips. So using Yummy Mummy’s recipe as my base, I came up with a version without sugar. We’re all very pleased with the results and I can continue to give my son a muffin every morning without feeling guilty. Luckily as a mom, there are still plenty of other things I get to feel guilty about every day.
When people ask me the number one thing I’ve done to make myself healthier I always respond with, “give up sugar.” The automatic response is, “I could NEVER do that. You just don’t understand how much I love sugar.” Oh believe me. I get it! I get it more than most people. I LOVE […]
This weekend we made some delicious pulled pork for a luncheon after my son’s baptism. The next day after everyone left, I was craving comfort food. In the past, that meant crappy, processed food that made me feel guilty and emotional for eating. Food shouldn’t do that to people. We should feel happy after we […]
In just a few days, we begin 2016. Is it just me, or do the years seem to be going by faster and faster?! I feel like I just got over mourning the end of Christmas season and here we are again! I have to admit, while I am not a fan of January as […]
Merry Christmas! Watch this video as a family and have a great day!
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