Overcoming Fallback Recipe Mode

With such gorgeous weather outside, Ryan and I knew we had to take advantage of the wonderful breeze before the sweltering Florida heat kicks in.

We decided a trip to the dog park was in order and Sadie was more than happy to romp around with a stick the size of her face.

Sadie and Her Stick... Err... Log

Nom, Nom

Clearly Sadie couldn’t get over how fantastic her stick was…

"Oooh Stick, I Love You"

Sadie + Ryan (+ Stick)

Smilin' at the Park

"I'm Just a Love Machine!"

 After the park we headed home to make some dinn-ah.

Dinner

I didn’t realize it at the time, but Ryan and I bought three packs of chicken (two packs of breasts and one pack of ground chicken) at the grocery store earlier this week.

Oddly enough, I’m not a huge fan of chicken unless it’s really doctored up in a tasty recipe. It bores me otherwise.

Seeing the numerous chicken packages we had to use this week, my mind went into instant “fallback recipe mode,” and I figured we’d use the chicken in three dishes we make for dinner regularly:

• BBQ pulled chicken
• Slow cooker chicken tacos
• Grilled chicken

Though they’re delicious, I realized I wasn’t really looking forward to any of these dinners.

That’s no way to live!

A big turning point for me in adopting healthier eating habits was making healthy meals I wanted to eat and couldn’t wait to enjoy.

Before work today, I still had my “fallback recipe” blinders on and threw the ground chicken into the crock pot with taco seasoning and ¾ cup of water to cook on low all day. I figured we’d behaving tacos tonight.

When I thought about dinner on my drive home, I realized I wasn’t in the mood for tacos. I knew I’d just be eating them because they were there and easy.

So, what’s a girl to do? Get creative in the kitchen!

Oh Crock Pot, How I Love You

Instead of using the chicken in tacos, I decided to use it to create taco pasta!

My taco pasta included:

• One serving Carba Nada egg fettuccine noodles
• 3 ounces ground chicken (prepared in the crock pot with taco seasoning)
• One Laughing Cow light Swiss cheese wedge
• 1/2 c. diced portobello mushrooms, sautéed
• 1/4 c. diced onion, sautéed
• 1/4 c. corn
• 1 hard shell taco, crushed

While I cooked the noodles, I sautéed the mushrooms and onion and microwaved the frozen corn.

Onion + Mushrooms

When everything was ready, I drained the noodles and topped them with the veggies, chicken, crumbled hard shell taco and cheese and stirred it all up until everything was taco-tastic!

Taco Pasta

With the Fixins

 

Fiesta in a Bowl

Close Up

Though tacos are delicious, this meal tasted like victory! I overcame the fallback recipe hump and made myself a dinner I wanted to eat and thoroughly enjoyed.

Dessert

Dessert was simple and simply delicious: Gingersnap cookies.

Gingersnaps

They were a great conclusion to a great meal.

So what about you… Do you ever fall victim to fallback recipes?