January Blues...

Busy mommies have little time for cooking. They need prepackaged, ready made meals and canned items. If you are going to have a baby, you might as well have many canned items ready to go. Can I tell you how many times I have heard this "advice" and how much I want to throw it out the window?

Now that my son is three months old, I can see the logic in their statements, but not the wisdom. How can I bring myself to eat prepackaged items when I would never feed them to my own family? How can a can of chili (ick!) make me really enjoy my lunch and satisfy me? Yes, it will fill my belly and take away the hunger, but no, it will not satisfy my appetite. I want food. Real, nutritious, mouth pleasing, sigh-at-the-end-of-your-meal food. I want to look at that plate and love what I've created, even if it is simple and easy and fast.

I have found the answer to my quest: frozen vegetables and fruits! I recently discovered this when I was looking for a way to make our food budget stretch while adding more fruits and vegetables to it. I, like very other new mommy, want to lose the baby weight, but I, like every other mommy, do not have the budget to spend ridiculous amounts of money on expensive, out of season food.

I love fruits and vegetables. I love them more than cookies, more than most other items. But the price for fresh veggies is incredibly high especially when you live in Oregon and the only local, seasonal item in January is kale. You can only eat so much kale. So I found my grocer's arsenal of frozen vegetables and am in heaven. When I need a lunch that is fast and healthy, I can use some roasted chicken and sautee up some frozen blend of veggies. Boom ~ lunch is done and I have no guilt.

But the fruit issue is another thing, not all fruit is created equal nor is it able to freeze perfectly. I wanted smoothies and fruit for my yogurts that were not doused in corn syrup and sugars, just plain ole natural fruit. I found my answer with the berries. I now use fabulous blue, black and rasp berries at my liking and am quite the happy camper for it. My smoothies taste like summer, my pounds have started to drop and I am feeling much better.

Well, the pounds have only dropped by a few, but its a start right? So far, I am at 236. Thats three pounds! I think its a decent start for January, the month of broken resolutions.