Simple and Healthy Recipes

Being the manager of our home I have a big responsibility to keep my family healthy. I know I will never reach perfection (because I do have cravings for McDonald's, Taco Bell, and many other fast food places), but I do have a desire to make the best choices most of the time that are good for our health and future. It is okay to occasionally splurge with the convenience of fast food, just not everyday. It is not a diet, rather a lifestyle change. It will not happen overnight in our household, old habits die hard. It is a daily, meal by meal, choice. The grocery stores and TV ads do such a great job at convincing you to buy "this and that". Usually those "this and that" choices are not the most beneficial for our health. The choices we have are absolutely ridiculous in my opinion. Some may not agree with me on this, but I believe so strongly that our eating habits have created so many health problems in our lives that we can prevent just by making different eating choices.

I love being the person in our family who inspires the way we eat. I was given the best gift for Christmas this year from my mother in law. It is the World Community Cookbooks put out by the Mennonite Central Committee. It comes with three different cookbooks, "More-with-Less", "Simply in Season", and "Extending the Table". "More-with-Less" is filled with recipes for eating better and consuming less of the world's limited food resources. "Simply in Season" has recipes that help you prepare meals with fresh foods that are in season which helps you save money. The third book "Extending the Table" introduces you to recipes all around the world. Yesterday I decided to make one of the recipes from "More-with-Less". I just have to tell you, before I decided to make it, I thought I was going to have to go to the grocery store. I know you all will identify when I say that you can have lots of food in the fridge, but cannot figure out what to make. It's all random items and you don't know how you can put it together in a meal. Well, I found two great recipes in the book for two nights worth of dinners and I didn't have to buy a thing. It felt so good not wasting what we already had and also saving money.

Last night I made a recipe called El Burgos, which I will post and share with you all. Jeff loved the meal and asked this to be a regular on the meal planning :) He convinced me to blog so I can share the yummy meal with you. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did! I will post some more recipes as I make them. I have one in the oven as I write. If it is as wonderful as last night's, it will be on the blog! Below is the recipe...

El Burgos~
Serves 8
(you can cut the recipe in half or adjust it to what you want)

Cook in a small amount of water just until tender then drain:

• 5 Large potatoes, thinly sliced(I used red potatoes)

Saute in skillet:

• 1lb of ground beef(I used ground turkey)
• 2 green pepper, chopped(I used a red pepper)
• 1 large onion, diced

Combine in a large bowl:

• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 t. salt
• 1 T. brown sugar
• 2 c. tomato sauce

Alternate layers of meat mixture and potatoes in greased 2 qt. casserole. Pour cheese-tomato mixture over all. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 min.

Recipe by Mary Ella Weaver, Lititz, Pa http://www.worldcommunitycookbook.org/