Chicken Parm Burgers!!

Last week, ground chicken was on mega sale at the grocery and Joe is a frugally minded guy so he asked me if I could work with the same ingredient to make different meals all week...challenge accepted!  He bought 4, 1lb packages of ground chicken and I made: Shepard's pie, buffalo chicken burgers, zucchini lasagna and our personal favorite and brand new creation: chicken parm burgers!! According to Joe, they were the best meal I have ever made and that is saying a lot. I don't know if this was an original idea or if I saw a recipe a few months back and sort of forgot about it/turned it into my own but I didn't follow any kind of recipe when I made these. I also don't measure ingredients when I cook, I just put things in until they're the right texture/taste/consistency but I'm going to try to put the recipe here so that you too can have delicious chicken parm burgers:
1 lb ground chicken
1/2 onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced (very important to use fresh garlic)
1 egg
3/4 cup italian bread crumbs (this one I'm not sure on I just sprinkle them in until it all makes a burger consistency)
crushed red pepper (I used a tablespoon, use more or less depending on how spicy you like it)
1 cup marinara sauce (I used Prego)

Divide the meat into 3 evenly portioned meatballs, for each meatball take about 2/3rds to make a nest and fill the next with a tablespoon of red sauce

Use the other 3rd of the meatball to make a flat pancake that you put on top of the nest and pinch the edges together to seal it.  I thought this would result in a squirty, messy, oozy sauce situation when you bit into the burger but it didn't, it just kind of cooked in and gave the burger the perfect flavor and moisture.  I cooked them in a non-stick frying pan for about 5 minutes on each side and topped them with a little more sauce and parmesean cheese.  For the bun, I used bulkie rolls but I turned them into garlic bread with the help of some butter, garlic powder and my toaster oven, the result was this:

I'm not a great photographer, so it tasted better than it looks. This is definitely not a healthy recipe, but it is a delicious one. Joe even said I should start my own restaurant and serve just this sandwich...so try it out and let me know if you agree! And if you don't think it's that good you probably did it wrong so you'll have to come over for dinner sometime and try mine :)

Healthy alternatives to pizza and wings now that FOOTBALL IS BACK!!!

We are in week two of the NFL season and football is back in full swing! Football is a religion in the Martin household, and we pretty much watch every Monday and Thursday night game regardless of who is playing and of course ALL DAY on Sunday. I love football because it means I have an excuse to kick back and relax, crack a beer (or 6) and stuff my face with game food. Game food traditionally means a steak and cheese, giant pizza and wings, nachos, or some other kind of meat-filled fat-fuelled meal. Although this is a delicious tradition, my body doesn't bounce back the way it used to from boozy feasts. So this year I am on a mission to enjoy football in all it's glory with healthier but still delicious meals (sticking with the 6 pack though). 

Week 1, I tried my first healthy football meal. We had friends over and it was something I never made before which is always a little nerve-wracking but I figured if it was really gross we'd just order a pizza and try again next week. I found the recipe for a crockpot quinoa enchilada bake via a Google search that led me Here. I'm happy to report that it was delicious and everyone (even Joe!) agreed!! I took the original recipe and tweaked it a little, I used a 12 oz can of corn instead of frozen corn and I didn't measure the onion or pepper I just sliced a whole one of each and threw it in there. I also couldn't find a 19 oz can of enchilada sauce so I used 2 10 oz cans, and the enchilada sauce was the only thing we couldn't seem to find an organic version of but 90% organic is still pretty good.  Also I garnished with TONS of cilantro because it's my fave and I meant to get some avocados too but I forgot and I think it was still delicious without the avocado. 

I still killed a 6-pack on Sunday, but didn't wake up on Monday feeling horrible about what I ate or weighing 3 lbs more than the day before and I didn't feel like I missed anything by eating a healthier food selection. The Martins will be trying new healthy football meals throughout the season and I'll report back to you guys on the good recipes I find.  Cheers and GO PATS!!!

Guide to Fall for "Basic" New Englanders

The kids are heading back to school here in CT, the nights are pleasantly cool, NFL preseason is in full swing and labor day is just over a week away...this can only mean one thing: Fall is coming.

image credit: nerdapproved.com

Fall is a favorite season amongst New Englanders and we really feel we own the season of fall since we have a corner on the foliage market. But we all know some basics that can take their fall game a little too far on social media, and as a basic who has made some of these mistakes, I feel inclined to offer a Guide to Fall for Basic New Englanders:

DO: Get your pumpkin spice on, enjoy a Pumpkin Spice latte or two, they're delicious and you earned it.  Better yet, make it a pumpkin spice K-cup, at about 500 less calories a cup you can enjoy them with much less guilt and more frequently. Drink some pumpkin beer and bite into a pumpkin donut, there's some delicious pumpkin treats to enjoy in fall and you should take advantage. 

DO NOT: Overdo it. There are over 80 different pumpkin spice flavored treats out there and not all of them are meant to be (Popsugar ate them so you don't have to). Pumpkin spice peeps?  Too far, too far.

DO: Get outside and enjoy some foliage!  Peep those leaves, or spend half your weekend raking them if you're a homeowner with a decent sized yard like me. Better yet, invest in a good leaf blower, it's worth the time you'll save. Feel free to put up some foliage pics on all your accounts to make your non-New England friends jealous of your leaf life.
DO NOT: Rake leaves without gloves and then complain endlessly about the blisters you got...you live in New England and you knew better. Also, keep your foliage pictures to a reasonable level.  We get it, you saw some cool leaves, we see them too, we don't need 80 different instagrams from your weekend hike.  Just pick the best and roll with it.

DO: Wear flannel as much as humanly possible. Flannel is comfortable, it's practical, and it's cute! You can never have too much flannel, and if you're lucky you'll find a flannel themed fall party to attend.
DO NOT: Mistake flannel pajama pants for real pants. I know you're enthusiastic about fall and flannel, but that still doesn't make it cool to wear your pajama pants in public. Stick with flannel on top and pair it with some jeans...it's a classic look and you can't go wrong.

DO: Enjoy football season! There is no better excuse to eat deliciously unhealthy food and drink beer all afternoon in the comfort of your team apparel. You can do so from the comfort of your couch with your pets or the comfort of a bar booth with some friends, but either way get your football on.
DO NOT: Antagonize fans of other teams. You're better than that...seriously bring up deflategate one more time...you see where I'm going with this?  Every team has something negative that can be said about it and every fan has heard it before, enough already.

DO: Go apple picking, enjoy a cider donut, run through a corn maize, enjoy all your local apple orchard has to offer.
DO NOT: Spam everyone with pictures. Much like foliage, we get it, we're doing it too and you don't have to post 100 pictures from the orchard in your flannel to prove to us that you had a great time.

DO: Enjoy a local fair, get together with some friends for some good old fashioned fun while supporting your local economy.
DO NOT: Invest $40 trying to win the ring toss game so you can take home a goldfish...if you really want a goldfish that bad just spend $5 at the pet store. It's more cost effective and far less frustrating.

And there you have it, so bust our your football jerseys and your flannel because it's time to enjoy fall. 

You can never have too much food in your house

Joe and I have very different philosophies when it comes to grocery shopping: he thinks you wait until something is gone to replace it and I think you should replace something as soon as your supply is remotely low.  There are things we all know better than to run out of, toilet paper being at the top of the list, but there are plenty of other things you will always find in the Martin pantry.

At all times we have no less than 2 boxes of pasta and 2 jars of sauce, a frozen pizza, frozen chicken, no less than 4 cans of soup, no less than 8 cans of tuna, tostitos, cereal, triscuits, 2 emergency bottles of BBQ sauce, and a minimum of 10 rolls of toilet paper...you get the idea.  Am I a doomsday prepper?  No, but you never know when you're going to have dinner or cocktail guests on short notice and I like to be prepared. (We didn't even get to the liquor cabinet, but know that if you're ever in need of a drink...there will be options for you at the Martins.) Along that same vain we always have a stash of disposable utensils, cups and plates. Joe does 90% of our grocery shopping and he get's annoyed with me if I put plastic forks on the grocery list and he finds another box in there when he's putting them away.  The box in the cabinet is my emergency stash!  If we're having people over and I know about it I get a box of utensils for that party...I never dip into my cabinet supply unless we have spontaneous guests and then I need to go out and replace it immediately the next day.

Joe on the other hand, never notices something is running low until it's gone and doesn't believe in having a backup supply.  For example, I always like to have a backup box of Ziploc bags because we use them every day.  Joe went to the grocery store this morning, and then used the last Ziploc bag this afternoon because he literally just does not notice to how much of something is left until it's gone. Good thing we have tupperware containers that he could use for his sandwich and that wasn't an emergency trip to the store before his night shift, but...if you always keep a spare box and get a new stash as soon as the spare box gets opened you will never run out of anything!!  That's why as soon as we drop below 4 cans of soup, it goes on the list and I never wait for it to get to zero (and the same goes for all our other pantry staples).

Obviously this doesn't work for fresh foods like veggies and fruits and if I'm being honest we still end up at the grocery store at least 3 days a week for some fresh foods we forgot to get or ran out of.  But what Joe thinks of as hoarding groceries I think of as being prepared for guests, a storm, being too lazy to grocery shop for a couple days, ya know whatever comes along. Nothing makes me happier than a fully stocked pantry and someday Joe will be on the same page...

The Weekday Diet

My weight yo-yo's by up to five pounds every week due to a little thing I like to call the weekday diet and it goes like this: the weekends are crazy.  We never have a routine and we're never home on the weekends. We eat pizza, french fries, ice cream, you name it...and we tend to drink our weight in beer usually leading to some weekend bloat/weight gain. But weekdays are a whole different story. During the week I have a routine. I get up in the morning and have a cup of coffee while I watch the news and play with the dogs.  Joe and I both eat the exact same things for breakfast everyday, and since we don't currently have chickens/eggs, he has a bowl of cereal and I have a Kashi bar at my desk and that's it.  I don't snack throughout the day and for lunch I either have dinner leftovers or a homemade grilled chicken salad. For dinner I make something healthy pretty much every night primarily consisting of lean proteins and vegetables. During the week, we cut that weekend bloat and by Friday we're back to the weight we were the previous Friday...only to gain it back throughout the weekend and repeat the cycle all over again.

I don't know what it is about the weekend that means self-control goes straight out the window but things I would never dream of eating during the week I don't think twice about on the weekend. I would never dream of eating a Kashi bar for breakfast on a Saturday, I need either a bagel or something with bacon. For lunch...definitely not a salad.  We've got time to cook!  Let's grill up cheeseburgers...and you can't eat a cheeseburger by itself please pass the chips.  Dinner is an event, since we're always with family or a big group of friends we cook together and we make a big feast: lasagna, BBQ chicken, homemade pizzas, you name it but dinner for a crowd is generally not the most healthy and filled with carbs.

So here we are on Sunday night, I had a bagel for breakfast, tons of cheese and crackers for snacks, a buffalo chicken wrap for lunch and when Joe and I got home I fully planned to cook a healthy chicken dinner...until it was time to cook and I just wasn't feeling it. So as I write this, I have a pizza in the oven and we made plans to meet up with friends for ice cream later...because once  you've gone off the rails you might as well embrace it.  But don't worry...tomorrow it will be kashi bars and grilled chicken salad so that I have the room to pack 5 pounds back on next weekend and still fit in my pants!

Blue Apron Follow-Up

About a month ago I posted that I decided to try Blue Apron and now I am a month in and I have to say, I really love it.  The meals we've had in the last month are: stuffed peppers, Vietnamese chicken wings, summer soba salad, curry lamb burgers, chicken milanese, cod w/ miso soba noodles, steaks and potatoes, mexican chicken tortas (sandwiches), crispy catfish, pork chops, tandoori chicken, and rigatoni puttanesca. 2 out of 12 meals were vegetarian and 10 out of 12 were things I never would have cooked without Blue Apron.

The convenience of not having to plan any meals or buy the ingredients is phenomenal. I do have to say that I wish there was a 2 meal per week option instead of 3 but there isn't.  In the summertime we're gone pretty much every weekend which eliminates Friday-Sunday nights, the delivery comes anytime between 4 and 8 on Monday so sometimes it comes in time to cook it but if the Blue Apron box isn't on the porch by 6 we order something. That leaves exactly 3 nights a week we're home to cook assuming no social plans and I'm gone at least one night a week doing volunteer stuff so it's very tight to get all 3 meals made.  Sometimes I pick the one that will make the best leftovers and cook 2 meals in one night and just package the second meal for next day lunches. On the bright side, you can skip a week very easily just by logging into your account and viewing your delivery schedule and there's no limits or rules on how much you can skip so we might just go with an every other week situation. On the whole, the recipes have been awesome, the ingredients are fresh and it's a nice change from the grilled chicken salad, zucchini noodles, and homemade pizza pattern we had fallen into! 

Again, it's $60/week or $20/meal for two people which is a little more than a standard grocery trip but cheaper than a meal out and still convenient. The meals are healthy and average 600-700 calories per serving but usually I eat closer to 1/3rd of the total food and Joe eat's 2/3rds of the food which works out to about what we should each be consuming for dinner. If you are stuck in a food rut or find yourself going out to dinner more than you should, I would definitely recommend Blue Apron as a way to spice up your diet and force yourself to eat at home more. 

No longer the life of the party

Those of you who have known me for a long time know that I was a quite the party animal in college.  I thought the worst thing on the face of the Earth was staying in on a Friday or Saturday night.  I would never say no to a drinking challenge (or any challenge) and I was the loudest, craziest person at most of our parties. But, I've kind of 180'd over the last few years.

This weekend I was with a group of my college rugby friends up in NH for the weekend and it was the 7th year in a row we've all gone up to the same house and had beer olympics and lit off fireworks and drank late into the night.  But it's a lot different now than when we first started.  I can't drink like I did when I was 21, nor do I want to try anymore, so I was almost dreading beer olympics. Turns out, I wasn't the only one who was apprehensive so we substituted some of the shotgunning and chugging themed events for more casual events like cornhole where you just have a drink in your hand.

When we started this 7 years ago I would be up drinking until 3 am, nap for a few hours and then be the first one up again in the morning to go waterskiing and start back up with my drinking.  This year I was so proud of myself for staying awake past midnight on Friday night (and I made it until 2 am, I was very proud) but I was still the first person to go to sleep. When we got up the next day, we all got off to a slow start.  We spent over an hour making breakfast and then sitting around the table talking before we really got into the day.  We didn't make any morning boat runs for skiing or wakeboarding and didn't make it into the lake at all until almost noon. Beer olympics lasted for about 2 hours instead of 5 hours of competitive drinking.

Everyone has slowed down and matured a little but I think the change is most drastic in me because I was such a wild child and now I am perfectly content spending my weekend watching netflix or going to the bike path with my dogs.  I know my friends are sometimes a little disappointed in how "lame" I've become but my life has just changed so much.  I was the first one to get married and my life is just really settled now, our lives are all in really different places and we all have different goals. But one thing that hasn't changed is my love for this group of friends, and I couldn't imagine not getting together with them every year for our annual lake weekend and Friendsgiving traditions.

Sorry I was the first one asleep and I could only handle a scaled-back version of beer olympics but thanks for putting up with me and still loving me friends!  Things are only going to keep changing more over the years but it's nice to know that there are some things that will always be the same.