It’s January, and I’m so very tempted to make allllll sorts of goals and resolutions, but I’m going to rein it in and hopefully ease into 2016 in a somewhat calm and collected manner.
That said, I do have two long-term goals for 2016:
Read a little every day. This year-long goal worked so well and was so enjoyable for me in 2015 that I’m repeating it! I’ve already got a new goal tracker posted next to my bed and have read every day so far.
Participate in the One Little Word workshop. Another one I’m repeating from last year because I enjoyed it so much. I picked my word a few days ago. More soon!
And for January:
Get back on track with Couch to 5K. I was rocking it while on maternity leave but fell off the wagon — heck, the wagon ran me over and left me crumpled in the dust — in December. I’m going to start all over with Week 1, but the silver lining is that it will be much easier to find a good local 5K in March than it was in January.
Make one meatless meal each week. Jose and I have been talking about upping our game in the healthy cooking department since we both would like to lose some weight. (I’ve got 15 remaining pounds of pregnancy weight to shed; he’s got some sympathy weight.) One thing we both want to try is cutting back on our meat intake, so I suggested planning one vegetarian meal each week. If you’ve got any recipes to recommend, I’m all ears!
Make a mug rug. I signed up for the current round of the Starbucks mug rug swap that I’ve participated in a couple times before and the shipping deadline is mid-February. I have several other things on my “to make” list at the moment (such as the curtains and crib skirt mentioned above), but this is the only one that absolutely has to be done this month.
I have lots of veggie recipes. But honestly most are cheese and pasta combinations of unhealthy awesomeness, so I am not sure it would serve your purposes.
This is a favorite (also can be pre-prepared and served a couple days in a row or as leftovers):
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/09/couscous-and-feta-stuffed-peppers/
Maybe easier/faster, grilled vegetable fajitas (use carrots and mushrooms to add “meat”)
Oooh also grilled vegetable panzella salad. Lots of recipes on the Internet. (Those my favorite one has you mix bacon in with the vegetables for the grilling process).
Squash and leak soup in a bread bowl. (Really bake squash, mix with leak, a little vegetable stock, garlic, salt, pepper, cumin, blend. Summer in a pot for a while).
This is a reasonably healthy option we do frequently:
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/09/baked-orzo-with-eggplant-and-mozzarella/
Obviously, watch the mozzarella. It calls for 4 oz which is not crazy, but you could reduce it if you wanted to. My problem is that I’m tempted to eat the other 4 oz from the 8 oz package while I’m cooking.
Love this one:
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2014/08/cold-noodles-with-miso-lime-and-ginger/
We do it a lot in the warmer months. Tasty, healthy and easy to make. What more could you want? I usually just use cucumber and carrots for the veg. Daikon radish is too huge.