FunnyLove

family + food + feelings

Healthy Eating

Easiest Eggplant Parm

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Oh, early week dinners. They can sometimes feel sad. Maybe we’re trying to do better by our bodies after a weekend, maybe we’re hurried with work and activities and life, maybe we’re just out of inspiration and tired.

Easiest ever eggplant parm to the rescue! Marinara + cheese is a pretty universally loved combination, and I make versions of this all the time: throw random veggies in with marinara and cheese, top with something crunchy, bake until tender, done.

This version with eggplant ends up almost creamy when the eggplant softens because we slice it with a mandoline. If you don’t have one just slice the eggplant as thinly as you can – or buy a new kitchen tool, you’ll use it a ton once you have one!

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Seared Sea Bass + Curried Carrot Puree

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Because we aren’t celebrating Valentine’s Day, but we aren’t NOT celebrating it either, right? Here’s our in-case-you-need-a-fancy-meal solution.

I’ve been making this sea bass for over a year now, and it is hands down one of my feels-like-a-restaurant meals that we make at home. Sea bass is definitely expensive so this is a real treat, but the veggies we have on the side are simple, affordable, and treated so well that they are just as much the star of the show as the fish. This is something I always say about restaurants – if the vegetables are good, everything else will be spectacular. We had a particularly expensive meal last night that featured steamed unsalted zucchini, and we were NOT impressed.

We need to be kind to our veggies because they’re pretty kind to us, you know? So, with that, I give you Seared Sea Bass + Meyer Lemon Crumbs with Curried Carrot Puree and Garlic Spinach.

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Lentil Bowls with Cauliflower and Tahini

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Continuing our month of vegetarian choices! I’m being extra careful to not use words like “cheat, guilt, good, bad,” and so on. I think that thought pattern surrounding food can be so damaging, but also I agree that in terms of physical health there are foods that are better for our bodies than others, if we’re talking lentils vs cheetos.

Now, in terms of mental health or happiness or convenience? We could go on all day about those things.

But today, instead of my not wanting you to have “cheat days,” we ARE talking lentils. I love lentils, but even if you don’t I think you could stomach these. They are SO flavorful (because salt) and honestly I could eat a bowl of them on their own. We made this into a fun bowl with bright pink pickled onions, a shortcut gremolata, and toasty roasty cauliflower, one of my favorite substitutes for meat because when roasted it has just the best texture.

The idea for this came from an Instagram account Jay follows but he couldn’t show me a recipe or the actual account or image (?), so he described a picture to me and this is what I came up with. So, if you made some amazing cauliflower bowls and this feels like a copycat, tell me! And I’ll credit you if it was your original image.

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Buttery Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Spinach

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Obviously healthy enough for what we’re trying to do this January.

One thing I’ve been trying really hard to do since having Will is find a balance between 1. complicated meals that I love to make but take forever and trash the kitchen and 2. takeout. I know that seems dumb, but I’m never the one to look for “super quick and easy weeknight meals!” I don’t mind eating at 9pm, I love cooking, and it mostly works for me.

Until, of course, it doesn’t. Will has been taking a longer stretch of sleep (like…two hours, don’t get too excited) in the late evenings, so if we eat at nine and go to bed around 11pm I’m missing a lot of that good sleep. Then homeboy wakes up sometimes every hour at night, I’m exhausted and forgetful and irritable and honestly the fun crazy dinners are mostly not worth that.

So the quest is to find quick dinners that are actually GOOD, and this is definitely that. It’s sweet potato gnocchi that boils in four minutes, during which time we saute some spinach with so.much.garlic. aka my favorite way to eat spinach. Then the gnocchi gets a brown butter + sage bath because we’ve earned it, and dinner is ready in FIFTEEN MINUTES, tastes like something from a fancy restaurant. You need this in your life, trust me.

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Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps

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Oh good, the first Monday after Christmas break and there’s a big football game tonight and honestly WHY ARE WE EVEN HERE?

I know it’s not this way everywhere, but people around here are pretty dang excited for the National Championship tonight. I don’t give a hoot, but Jay and I both went to Clemson and our neighbors are Alabama fans BUT we are adults so they’re coming over for Korean beef bowls made with fake beef.

Naturally.

And in case you need some fun-but-healthy food to keep your resolutions in check tonight or for any upcoming snacky events, I give you this: buffalo chicken lettuce wraps, seasoned with ranch flavors, super flavorful and spicy, with minimal-but-necessary butter to keep everything together. I use ground chicken to make things go quickly, so less than 30 minutes to your new favorite bar food!

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