Enjoying my kitchen!

We have been home with a fully functioning kitchen for about a month now.  With the holidays officially over, I am excited to get back into my kitchen and try some new recipes.  We seem to get caught in eating the same 7-10 things over and over since I'm too tired on Friday nights when to find new ideas and make a list.  So a few days ago I sat down and figured out meals for the next several weeks, tricky only due to gymnastics Tues/Thurs and art class on Mondays.  Since we eat so early I have to do quick to cook or crockpot meals on these days.  But Sunday and Wednesday I can cook whatever I want.  If things get too stressful I might even switch our leftover night to Thursday and cook on Fridays.

I pulled recipes from a list of Whole 30 approved meals.  I'm not doing a Whole 30 as that is really restrictive and our budget won't allow for it.  But it's great to have these guaranteed gluten free meals.  So tonight's main course is Crispy Buffalo Chicken Fingers.  The kids enjoyed helping to crush up the pork rinds and this took about 20 minutes to get into the oven.  I did simply cut up chicken breasts instead of buying chicken strips.  Looking forward to a new taste.  To accompany tonight I made potato fries - baked in the oven for 30 minutes at the same time as the chicken and frozen broccoli. Looking forward to a yummy new taste made from known ingredients.  Hopefully the kids will be a fan.

I also made Energy Balls last night.  I plan to send these in Carolyn's lunch as a "dessert" and use them as a quick breakfast when needed.  Both kids tried and approved them today.  Next time I think I might swap out the flax seed for gelatin.  I wonder if that would work?  It would certainly up the amount of protein in these, something I always seem to be looking to get more of with the kids.

I'm looking forward to trying some snack recipes for the kids as we go into this year.  If I can find a combination of things that need to be baked and that don't we'll have some good things throughout the year, regardless of the weather.

Off to try dinner!

Update:  Two thumbs up by me and Jon.  The kids think it's a bit spicy.  Hopefully with some more exposure to spicier foods they'll not be quite so impacted.  They did eat it by dipping in ketchup though, which they seem to do with most meat.  Which reminds me that I should really get around to making my own ketchup to get the sugar out.  We also discovered that we like the fries cooked at 400 much more than the usual 350.  This produced a nice, crispy outside and soft inside.  Hopefully this good meal will help this nausea and dizziness to go away.