How I fed my family an entirely microwaveable meal!

Yes, Yes...that's right. I really managed to pull this off last night and I am NOT proud of it! I have been taking a class through my church in order to educate myself on healthy eating and living on a budget...and yet, still manage to pull off things like last nights supper! EEK!! We have this wonderful woman at our church that just received her Masters in Dietetics and nutrition and has voluntarily given her time to teach a group of women how to incorporate good nutrition into our daily lives and the lives of our family. We have been on field trips, done menu planning, budget planning, made healthy dishes, ice cream and even home-made bread (somewhat). I've been working so diligently to serve creative and yummy side dishes outside of corn and potatoes, have even added bananas to Baby Girl's milk...really working to follow the "More is Better" concept by the FDA. And yet, last night occurred and I about lost it! :) Ha, Ha...

I've started shopping at a local meat market down the street from our house. The people are so friendly, they are helpful and the food is FRESH! I went yesterday and purchased some yummy Parmesan pork cutlets and set out to serve those for dinner. I picked up a fresh cucumber, something I just recently learned Jeff LOVES and we were going to also have berries and broccoli! I was so proud. I started my oven early, heated it slowly and began baking these yummy cutlets at 325 degrees...then, about 45 minutes later, I bumped the oven up to 425...and then FORGOT ABOUT THEM!!! YIKES!!!! I ran downstairs to discover two very small and shriveled burger type masses in my oven of which when I tried to cut them open I could barely stab my fork into and yet the inside was still PINK! Can you imagine the disaster. Not only was it now 6:15 and we needed to eat, but our dinner was disgusting and I had wasted like $5! I was ticked.

In addition to my new attempted lifestyle, my cupboards are bare of most quick fixes...thankfully I had used some coupons for frozen food items on my last grocery store excursion (read "Dierbergs Experience"). I pulled out a Stouffers Frozen Flat Bread, microwaved that, then my frozen broccoli (this is okay to use...very fresh), microwaved Baby Girl some Chef Boyardee Mac & Cheese, cut up the cucumber and served the berries. My goodness...what a fiasco. In all honestly, Jeff loved the pizza bread, Baby Girl hardly ate after she scarfed on her olives and then requested a scrambled egg. All in all, it turned out okay and somewhat healthy, but I feared what my teacher would have said if she were in my kitchen during those panic stricken few moments! (considering my teacher doesn't even own a microwave)!!

Find out more about our class by going to http://journeynutritiongroup.blogspot.com/ We try and update with recipes and tips we learn through the weeks!