My First Home Cooked Meal in a While

I don't cook as often as i'd like to. A) Adrian's the chef. He's good at it… really good…. so I don't tend to do much cooking. B) Adrian's more often than not working through dinner, so I end up eating noodle soup or perogies or something similarly as easy and unhealthy. This is something i'm really wanting to change, however. I personally want to start eating better, but it's also more convenient as Jaxson's appetite grows and he can start eating what we are.

I was recently shown a blog that has tons of easy to make crock pot meals. This lady has actually done an excellent job of laying it out! She's got a couple of posts, so I took recipes from a couple of them, but she also writes up master shopping lists to go along with the blog post about her recipes! It's a lot of work, and it's pretty impressive. I wasn't a huge fan of all of the recipes, so I just chose a few that looked good to me. I also tried to make them a bit more healthy by using homemade or fresh ingredients where I could (she uses a lot of soy sauce, bbq sauce, packaged apple sauce etc). The other great thing about this is you make up a few recipes all at once and freeze them to be pulled out and defrosted as you need them! It's awesome for a stay at home mum! I got Adrian's help and made 8 of them.

Tonight, I put one of these recipes in the crock pot around noon - the Honey Garlic Chicken. It's one of the easiest ones, and after about 3 hours, it smelled so good I almost couldn't wait till Adrian got home! I served this with some leftover Mexican rice from earlier this week. I know, I know, very different taste profiles, but that's how we ro'!

Honey Garlic Chicken:

Chicken - I used 6 thighs, and for this recipe, I probably should have used more!
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp oregano
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
1/2 cup bbq sauce
1/3 cup honey
salt
pepper

Throw everything in the crock pot!

Source: Who Needs a Cape

I had him text me when he was on his way so that I could get broccoli going, so we had a green. This is another problem with our diet at the moment. We just do not eat enough fruit and veggies, so i'm trying hard to incorporate this into our meals. Jaxson, on the other hand, eats unbelievably well and balanced!

Adrian surprised me by coming home with some sparkling wine, just for fun!

For desert, I made an almost vegan chocolate avocado pudding! This turned out surprisingly well! I didn't know what to expect, because i've never done this before, but the avocados actually do make it pudding-y! The original recipe wasn't sweet enough for my (or, I knew, Adrian's taste), so I added an extra 2 tbsp of honey (hence almost vegan), and that was all it needed!

Chocolate-Avocado Pudding:

2 ripe avocados
6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa power
5 tbsp maple syrup
1/4 to 1/3 cup liquid (I used coconut milk)
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of sea salt

Throw everything in a food processor and blend until smooth.

Source: Janet and Greta

I didn't tell Adrian what this pudding was, and it was pretty funny having him try to guess. He didn't get it, but he sure tried! I know it wasn't as sweet as he would have liked it (he's got the biggest sweet tooth i've ever seen!), but I loved it!