A few more Flat Belly Diet Meals

Tuscan Chicken - I found this surprisingly good served over greens, normally it would be pasta or some type of grain. The MUFA was the almonds.Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breast - this was a big hit and also the first time I've attempted a stuffed chicken breast (any tips appreciated) the spinach was sauteed with onion and sundried tomatoes, plus it had a little bit of grated parm in it. As you can see the pine nuts were the MUFA.

Leftover Ham & Cheese Strata

Here's a really simple and delicious meal to help use up leftover ham. It's from the Rachel Ray show so you can get the recipe here. Basically, the only things I changed were, I used frozen asaparagus (defrosted), I used shredded cheddar (pretty cheap) and used my own bread machine bread.

Don't make my mistake, I forgot to grease the dish which made it very hard to get out:)

Simply pour the beaten eggs over the broken bread and then top with ham, asparagus and cheese. Then bake.

Mmmm

Pretzel Crusted Chicken

I had made this a while ago and forgot to post but I just ran across the picture. Anyway, this is one of my absolute favorites (my family's too) so I had to share.

Original recipe is from Rachel Ray but I just ad lib now. Really simple.

Chicken tenderloins (buy frozen, they're so much more affordable) dipped in egg, then ground pretzels (I use the food processor) and a second round of egg and pretzel (keep your cost down and buy the no name store brand pretzel, no one will tell the difference), then simply fry till done.

They're topped with a mustard cheese sauce. Easy route, just melt some shredded cheddar and mix in spicy brown mustard, longer route, but still easy, make a rue with butter and flower, add some chicken broth and milk and then add cheese and mustard.

Then top with chopped dill pickles. To me you can't get any better than that!

BTW - the side is Trader Joe's frozen marinated and grilled eggplant and zucchini.

Make your own Peanut Butter

Just got this link from my friend Robin, It's on Homemade Peanut Butter - "Peanut butter recalls got you scared? Play it safe and make your own PB instead"

Ok so this is awesome in so many ways from recalls, to saving money to less plastic peanut butter jars. I'm going to try it, how about you?

Anyone tried this before, how did it come out?

I'm still baking bread and now add making my own peanut butter, need to get one of those bread machines that you can make jam in (mine just makes bread, but I saw some at Goodwill) and my kids lunches are totally set:)

Winter White Lasagna (from Rachel Ray's new book)

I used Trader Joe's spicy Italian chicken sausage

White sauce, this was really good but I'll make double next time.

Loading up on those no-boil lasagna noodles (also at Trader Joe's), which I love but they seem to take more sauce.

So good. No this was not a flat belly diet meal, actually made it before and forgot to post, however I did add flax seeds (you can see some peeking out) so there's a MUFA

For my no cheese eaters I just swapped the white sauce for marinara and they loved it.

Recipe pg 236

Eating really local with a home garden

So I was reading Robin's post about planning her home garden and I have to admit to doing a lot of dreaming about mine as well.

I made some great eggplant and tomato dishes last year and hope to expand my green thumb for more variety this summer.

How about you all, anyone have big (or little) plans for their garden's? I'd love to hear tips and tricks especially from my Jersey girls.

Here's something I just learned, you can plant cabbage in Spring and it's done by June for you to plant something else. Got any good cabbage recipes?

Anybody try The Grocery Game

I'm trying out thegrocerygame.com. I've had some savings so far, even got a couple items for free. Has anyone tried it or tried another grocery saving system that they recommend?

The grocery game keeps track of sales and sales trends and then combines them with coupons to get you the most savings. Seems to make sense.