Comfort food...

We love to eat at our house. Most celebrations center around food. We spend weeks planning our get togethers because of the food prep. My husband also does not like "diet" food or anything healthy for that matter. Me, I prefer not to eat it, but am learning I need to for energy and my health. I've mastered a couple of new recipes lately I'd like to share.

First, the balsamic chicken with veggies.

I saw the marinade on Pinterest, which is really nothing more than a bottle of balsamic dressing. I put chicken breasts in the dressing and marinaded overnight in the refrigerator. It smelled delicious once I was ready to put it in a 9x13 casserole dish. I then cut up potatoes, tomatoes and green beans to add to the mixture. I placed all of the ingredients in the dish and poured more of the marinade over the veggies. I baked for half an hour with foil on top at 350 degrees then took it off for another half an hour at 400 degrees. Delish!!!

To balance my Christmas party for Mary Kay the night before, last night I made a Pizza Casserole. I also have seen a crockpot version of this on Pinterest. I failed to cook up the Italian sausage the night before so I made it in the oven instead. Now, you can totally make this much healthier without the sausage, but it's a personal taste preference. The ingredients I used, otherwise, were all very healthy. I used whole wheat Barilla Cellentani pasta, homemade pasta sauce, two cans of low-sodium tomato sauce, turkey pepperoni and reduced fat Italian shredded cheese. 

I put the uncooked pasta in the 9x13 cassrole dish, layered the Italian sausage over the pasta and put the pasta sauce and tomato sauces on top of that. I added 1.5 cups of water to the mixture to make sure the pasta would cook. I then layered about 25 pepperonis on top in rows then placed the shredded cheese in between that. I didn't go overboard on the pepperoni or cheese to make it a bit more healthy yet tasty. I seasoned the top with Italian seasonings and garlic powder. I baked the dish at 375 degrees for 40 minutes. Boy, did the house smell delicious! And it was delicious! 

Hope you can enjoy either of these and know they aren't going to break your diet yet they both fill you up!

*~* Do you have any healthy recipes to share? Please share them by emailing me at melissa.leander@gmail.com*~*