These are a few of my Favorite Foods

This is the beginning of something big. 

Over the past few weeks I've been working on a series of posts all about my favorite foods. More specifically my favorite recipes. These are the foods I love to make again and again. Just thinking about these recipes makes my mouth water and my husband come home early for supper. These are the cream of the crop! And I'm sharing them with you.

Why am I being so generous? I'm just a nice person like that. 

The two recipes I want to share today both come from www.eatbetteramerica.com.  Their team of cooks take traditional recipes and "healthify" them by cutting the amount of sugar, fat, calories, and sodium. It's a great resource for families trying to lose weight or just trying to eat healthier foods!

They also have great coupons for many of the ingredients they use most in their recipes. It's pretty much a win-win.

The one thing I'm not crazy about is that many of their recipes call of canned goods and other convenience foods. I usually substitute fresh, frozen, or homemade ingredients wherever I can. I think there is more to "healthy" than simply watching sodium and calories. We also want to cut down on preservatives and chemicals.

So without further ado...

Chinese Chicken Tacos
We don't eat a lot of Chinese food, but after trying this recipe once it became a favorite. It's super quick and easy to make. When they say it takes 20 mins, they mean it! I made this recipes with homemade tortillas in 30 mins just a few nights ago. I usually throw in vegetables with the chicken, because what's dinner without a plate full of veggies? For time sake, I like to use a bag of stir fry frozen veggies that are conveniently located in my grocer's freezer. I  usually triple the sauce when I add the extra veggies.

You'll notice that I made corn tortillas for this recipes. This was actually my first time to make corn tortillas. I just used 1 cup of corn masa, 3/4 cup water, and 1/8 tsp salt (I didn't measure really, I just dashed). The dough shouldn't be too wet that it's sticky or too dry that it crumbles. Think play dough consistency. Break the dough into 8 balls and flatten them between two pieces of plastic (I used my tortillas press, thanks mom!). I cooked them on a hot skillet for less than a min on each side. Then I draped the whole batch over the rails in my oven and baked them on 350 degrees until they were crispy.   I guess it was about 20 mins. They tasted far better than store bought corn tortillas which taste terrible in my opinion!

Ham and Potato Casserole
This casserole is one of our old stand-by recipes. The little bit of mayo and cheese really give it a creamy texture without overloading on calories (FYI I hate mayonnaise, but I love this recipe). I've also been known to leave the ham out and make this as a potato side dish.  Either way it delicious and healthy! What more could you ask for?

The recipe calls for a package of cubed ham, but I usually just buy a ham and cut it into cubes myself.  I don't know if a whole ham is actually healthier than the packaged cubes, but at least when I cut the ham myself I feel like we're being healthier. Ham is one of those foods I can't seem to wrap my mind around. It doesn't really look natural no matter how you buy it. I'd google it, but I'm afraid I'd find out some things that would make me stop wanting to eat ham! We can't have that.

I hope you've enjoyed this little peek into my kitchen. There is more to come so keep the oven warm!