Back in the Kitchen

Over the past several weeks my microwave has been in overdrive and my oven and stove have been neglected.  Having a new baby made it difficult to cook.  Since I'm breastfeeding, I'm always starving and it seems like I never have time to cook.  Thankfully family and friends provided several meals during our transition to parenthood.  Lisa and Kathryn would just stop by the house with food.  This was awesome.

Now that we have a baby, we're all about saving money, so this means many more home cooked meals.  Ray and I used to eat out 1-2 nights a week and we would usually have lunch out somewhere over the weekend too.  It was nice to be able to eat out so much.  After a long day at work, nothing made me feel better than Thai or Italian.  Since James arrived, it's a little more difficult to get out.  I'm always thinking about when he will need to eat next and how to keep him quiet in a restaurant.  Let's just say that going out to eat does not have the same appeal that it did before - going out with baby is far from relaxing. 

So, apart from our date nights that don't include James, we're eating at home these days.  At first, I was not too happy with the current arrangement because I did not have time to cook good food.  Ray insists that I'm a food snob.  I'm not going to lie -I do need variety and I want good quality food that's tasty and healthy.  Finally, in the past two weeks, Ray and I are back in the kitchen.  It takes two in the kitchen right now because one person is entertaining the little man while the other is cooking.  I wear him some when I'm cooking, but it's easier for us to cook together and we're enjoying working together to make our meals.  

I'm looking for new recipes these days because I want different meals each night.  I am trying to find meals that are healthy and cheap.  Here are two that we've made this week.  We really liked them and we will make them again -

Chicken Fajitas

Lentil Vegetable Soup

We used to do Taco Tuesday or Taco Thursday (where we got dollar tacos), but now we can have Mexican night at home with the chicken fajitas.  I'm also pretty excited about the lentils.  I made them last week in a sweet potato and curry dish and this week in a veggie soup.  Lentils are cheap.  I'm planning on having a lentil night every week.  I'm not quite sure I have Ray on board with me yet, but I'm still working on him :)

Cooking the lentils -

 And Ray is teaching James.... Well, I'm not actually sure what he's teaching James.  It's just scary. 

What are you cooking these days?  If you have any good and healthy recipes, send them my way!