Meal Planning

Um. So Paige fail at updating. I'm blaming baby and the fact that it took me a LONG while to get back into the swing of things, cooking and baking wise. Only within the last month have I had an inkling to bake, and I went full into it. I've got a freezer full of cookies to prove it. Okay, I lied. It's not FULL of cookies.

One thing I failed to take into account when I was pregnant, and then a new mom, was cooking. I guess I just assumed that making meals would be as easy as before, in that I could just kind of zone out and get it done. Boy, was I wrong. And I know, you're all laughing at me because this should have been a common sense moment. But trying to cook intricate things with a baby who is awake and/or demanding attention is just SO tough. Thankfully, Olivia is 6 months now and a lot easier to leave on her own. It sounds odd, but newborns are just SUCH a time suck. Now that she's older, I just plop her on her mat (or in her Jolly Jumper or Exersaucer or MamaRoo) and check in every 5 minutes as I do shit in the kitchen. Or put her in the high chair so she can watch.

But I digress.

This last month has been about getting back into my groove. With cooking and baking, sure, but also just with life. Getting into habits and routines with Olivia, and with myself. After Olivia was born, my number 1 concern (after recovery and taking care of an infant) was to not get PPD. I know that it's not something that can be willed away, but I like to think I was able to. By keeping a positive attitude even at 3 in the morning with a crying baby.

Low Fat General Tso's Chicken

I belong to this group of mom's on Facebook, some of which I know in real life and others that I feel I should know in real life (trips across Canada will happen!), and we recently decided that maybe meal planning is something we should get into. We talked about it for awhile, but nothing really came of it. So I,  with my uber-Type A personality, took it upon myself to create a website where we post what we're making each week along with comments on what worked and what didn't. We've also got a chat room where we discuss recipes for the following week. This week was the first one that we actually did that in (past 2 weeks I've just been doing it myself) and I think this is going to be awesome.

Today's dish (that I made) was Low Fat General Tso's Chicken, served with plain rice and peas, recipe courtesy of Rock Recipes.  This guy has AMAZING recipes. Last week we tried the Double Crunch Honey Garlic Chicken Breasts and mmmm.

Double Crunch Honey Garlic Chicken

I've found that I have issues when making his sauces, in that I think they should be thicker than they're turning out for me, but I've solved that issue by just putting the chicken in an 8x8 glass dish and baking for about 15 minutes in the oven. Allowed the chicken to soak in some of the sauce and allowed the sauce to thicken.

I think my plan for this blog is that I'm going to condense from having two blogs that I never update (my personal one and then my food one) and just kind of... mesh the two together. No one really cares about the stuff in my personal life anyway, or I just update Facebook and Twitter with it and call it a day. Either way, I'm hoping to take a photo of all the meals I make while doing the meal planning, and at least keeping in touch that way.