Food, food and more food...

I feel like 50% of my new duties revolve around food.  Micah and I usually eat out of necessity and not because we love food.  I know that sounds crazy to some, but we spend so much time and energy on other things that we hardly have had time left to think about enjoying a meal.  Plus, in the past we have trained for many marathons and triathlons so we had to consume things like Clif Bars and gels to literally keep going, so consuming food became something we "had" to do rather than something really enjoyable.  These days we spend weekends at climbing walls and, again, we pack food to keep us going throughout the day and we just snack, rather than packing a delicious picnic lunch to sit down and enjoy.

But since I became a full-time housewife two weeks ago, I now spend hours reading cooking blogs, searching for new recipes, researching nutrition, shopping for food (almost daily I head to the store) and prepping / cooking the food.  Yikes!  Actually, I really don't mind it especially when a recipe turns out great and we end up enjoying a meal, it is the clean-up that I find really annoying.  Here are a few examples of things I have made over the last couple of weeks (please forgive the pics as they don't compare at all to the ones on the food blogs, but this give you an idea)...

Steel cut oatmeal with apples in the slow cooker.  This was a practice run but I have made it overnight so that it is ready in the morning.

Chicken Parmesan with whole wheat pasta and salad.  Years ago I tried to make Chicken Parmesan and I somehow managed to both burn the outside when frying it and not cook it all the way through in the oven, so it was inedible.  This recipe was much simpler as it only involved the oven and we both enjoyed it.  We've been eating a ton of salad and both of us are actually craving it these days, so I've been cutting up a lot of veggies.  Ignore the thrown together place setting :).

Buffalo chicken lettuce wraps with homemade blue cheese dressing, and quinoa with onion and peppers.  This is the first time I've ever made a homemade dressing and it turned out great, and we froze half the chicken for later.  I made the quinoa in my new rice cooker, and it turned out perfect.

Although I have had more time to cook, our evenings are just as full as when I was working full time outside of the home.  The only time we really get to sit down and enjoy a meal together is Mondays, some Wednesdays (but not often) and the weekends if we're both home, which also isn't very often.  It is difficult to know what to eat if you are not the one buying the groceries and preparing the food, so if Micah gets home when I'm gone I am leaving him a list like this so he knows what he can have for dinner.

Because we are still on-the-go all of the time, I really want to find great recipes that are good for leftovers and / or freezing.  I'm searching through casserole recipes but most seem really unhealthy or at least not well-rounded.   I also like slow cooker recipes as they don't involve as much work.  Please send me any that you have to add to my collection!