Remember how I’ve been trying new things to become a better housewife/mom/woman/person/etc? As a little reminder, my mission is to consciously evolve each and every day, a little at a time, so that by this time next year (and the year after that and the year after that) I’m a little bit improved, slightly more confident, and hopefully more efficient at doing all things domestic.

A girl can dream!

Well, I’m happy to report than after a few weeks in, I’m still trying new things each day and I’m happy with the results! Simple productivity feels so satisfying and can even be fun – who knew?

The biggest change in our household has been our cooking. Tim and I have been intentionally trying to find and create delicious meals that are made with fresh veggies. This means that we eat at restaurants much less and we grocery shop more and we spend more time in the kitchen arguing about the directions and methods of a recipe. Ah, married life.

Thankfully, I’ve gotten pretty darn good at finding recipes and preparing food and eating my veggies and now we have a growing list of meals we will most definitely be making again.

These meals are simple, delicious, and in most cases, involve a decent amount of veggies.

At first the term ‘meal plan’ would practically make me break out in hives. Oh the stress of it all! But then I came up with a little system that has made everything so much less intimidating for my completely-not-at-all-domestic self. One of the keys to my meal planning is having certain categories of food assigned to each day. For instance, in our house we use the following ‘system’.

So, for instance, if it’s Thursday and I’m scrambling to find a recipe, I already know that I’m looking for a stir-fry, which narrows down my options tremendously. Then I just look in my cookbooks and on Pinterest and find a delicious new recipe. Once we try a bunch of new recipes, we’ll hopefully have our favorites for each ‘category’ that we can then keep going back to.

Ta-da!

Here are a few recipes we’ve tried this month and will be making again (frequently):

I never in a million  years thought a cauliflower recipe would be among my favorites, but this cauliflower stir-fry is extra-delicious (as a side dish or as a meal by itself). I never even knew I liked cauliflower until this dish convinced me that I absolutely do.

I’ve recently found that I love spaghetti squash, so I was thrilled when we came across this spaghetti squash recipe (spaghetti squash with beluga lentils, parsley pesto and shiitake), which has stolen my heart and taste buds. 

I love shrimp and I love simplicity (especially when it comes to recipes), so this garlic shrimp & chickpeas recipe is perfect for us.

And this is my new favorite way to eat salmon. Why had I never thought to eat it with avocado before?! 

Finally, this mushroom marsala pasta bake recipe was sent to me by a good friend and let me tell you, she knows how to eat. Thanks, Kaitlyn!

If you have any favorite recipes, feel free to pass them along! I don’t eat meat but everything else is fair game (no pun intended).