Tonight is night two in our house and it feels SOOO good to be settling in. We are nowhere near fully unpacked, but we have made so much progress and it’s actually starting to feel like a home! A very, very empty home with no furniture haha. The very first thing we unpacked was the kitchen. Someone gave me the advice to unpack the kitchen first, for many reasons, and they were 100% right. After a couple days of unpacking, you start to loose your steam. I am so happy we tackled the kitchen first, because all of my unpacking energy went into it, so it is meticulously organized. The organization level in the rest of the house slowly declines as you leave the kitchen. So I basically want to spent my entire day in the kitchen, which is fine by me :).

My new kitchen it making me want to meal plan and cook all day. It is so homey, the perfect size and so functional. For me, the kitchen is the heart of any home, and it just feels good to be in it. And thank god because I NEED to get back to a healthy lifestyle. I was very spoiled at my parents, they both love to cook and we had delicious meals at our disposal the entire time we were living with them. While I will miss the service, I am excited to start cooking again.

I need to lighten things up, but it’s winter and I am craving homey, rich meals. So here is what’s on the docket this week:

thai peanut chicken ramen

I feel like everyone was posting about this insta pot recipe a couple months ago. I was drooling over it but didn’t have access to my crock pot. So it is first on my list right now! I am definitely making it this week! I feel like it is a good was to ease myself into healthy eating. It’s still rich and cozy, but with lots of healthy ingredients.

recipe + photo via half baked harvest

To balance out the rich ramen, I am going to make this pomegranate salad one night! I will probably add some avocado or chicken, to add a little protein. I love love love fennel, so this salad has my name on it.

winter salad with lemon dressing

recipe + photo via family style food

On new years eve, we made a feast. Steak, lobster, crab legs, twice baked potatoes and millions of veggies, including sunchokes. Funny story. When we went shopping for the groceries, I let the baby use one of the kid shopping carts at the grocery store. She had so much fun picking out items and filling her little cart. I had zero plans that day to make sunchokes, but she was very intrigued by them and filled up a little baggy of them and put them in her cart. So we made sunchokes haha. And they turned out SOOOO good. I cut them up into bite sized pieces then pan seared them in a cast iron with butter and honey. Not the healthiest version, so I want to try them in evoo! I searched “sunchoke recipes” on pinterest and found this. yummm, cannot wait to try this. I am a huge fan of breakfast for dinner. I think an egg is the perfect food. It’s nutritious, packed with protein & vitamins and fills you up. So I eat them every day.

sunchoke skillet

recipe + photo via creative in my kitchen

Usually I stick to three recipes in a week, but I am feeling overly ambitious and just excited to use my kitchen, so I am going to strive for 4! A lot of these can be lunches too and used for leftovers. We went to Costco today to stock up on basics for the house, and they had a massive bag of organic brussel sprouts on sale. I always have a hard time finding organic brussel sprouts, so I of course had to buy them. So we will be eating a lot of brussel sprouts this week. I have a recipe in mind, but couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for on pinterest, so I am going to try to create my own. I will share on instastories if it turns out! I am striving for a super light, asian brussel sprout salad. All of the recipes I am finding on pinterest are really heavy and doused in hoisin and other asian sauces. I just want a little splash of soy (I substitute liquid aminos) to get that asian flavor. And I am going to load it up with other veggies. This recipe is close, but I am going to modify it a smidge!

asian brussel sprout salad

recipe + photo via urban foodie kitchen

xoxo

happy cooking!