It's Dreen. Why is it Dreen?

I told Kam today that there was a new blog post by one of the bloggers I follow. I was really excited about it, too. And then he said, "Is there a new Jensen Family blog?" And I said, "There could be..." To which he said, "That would be fun."

So that's what I'm doing. Being fun.

I try to take pictures of things we do that I think are blog-worthy, and what I have in there right now is a bunch of pictures of food. (I used to have something against foodies, and so did Kam, but recently when I was about to photograph the 4th dinner that week, he was like, "Make sure you get it close up. You don't have to get me in it." Ha ha.) So, I'll start there.

We've been trying to eat healthier (trying being the operative word for both of us. "Kam, I really want a cupcake..."), so these are a few of the recipes we've tried, with a few minor adjustments.

Avocado Pasta
This tastes surprisingly like pesto, which I thought was awesome. But we ran out of basil after making this dish just twice. We love avocado, so we (probably not so smartly) decided to double the ratio of avocado to other ingredients in this recipe. It made the sauce really sticky, but still delicious. We don't have a food processor, so we just used our blender, but we did have to add just a little milk to make it liquidy enough to mix. Probably another reason for that was that we used lemon juice concentrate instead of a real lemon, so we were already low on liquids. We later decided to try adding chicken to this dish, and it really adds the variety it needs. Otherwise, you kind of end up with a delicious, but slightly monotonous green blob.

Pasta Rosa Verde
This one was way good the first time we made it, and a little disappointing the second time. I think the difference was whether or not we had feta cheese (we used instead of blue cheese). It kind of makes or breaks the dish, in my opinion. We also tried to substitute an onion for garlic, which I think was a loser idea. So basically, don't experiment like we did on this one. It's too good to be messed with (minus the blue cheese thing. Bleh. I mean, unless you're into that kind of thing.)

Mediterranean Chicken and Pasta
Can you tell we like pasta? This recipe can get a little pricey if you try to buy the olives they call for (plus, Kam doesn't like greek olives), so we changed the recipe just a little. The only extra special thing we bought for it were the artichokes. And we love artichokes, so we like to leave the chicken broth out of the recipe so the vinegar flavor is even more poignant. Other than that, we added a red bell pepper, and crushed red pepper seasoning instead of the whole red peppers it calls for. It makes for a little milder of a recipe.

Ancho-Glazed Salmon and Sweet Potato Fries
If the idea of covering your salmon in chili powder sounds weird, I totally agree. I was way nervous about this one. But it's now one of my favorites, and I think Kam's, too. We both really love salmon, and I totally don't feel guilty about it because of all the good omega-3 fatty acids. I will admit, I am not sure what those do, but I know they're good for you. Plus, fish take like, no time to cook.

One of the hardest things about eating healthy, for me anyway (besides foregoing cupcakes), is how long cooking at home takes. We typically eat a lot healthier when we cook ourselves, but by the time we both get home from work it's 6:30, and we're already hungry, or we have somewhere we need to be or homework to do, and we don't have a ton of time to cook. so these 4 recipes have been helpful because they don't take quite as much time. If you have any similar recipes (healthy and quick), I'd love to hear about them. I swear they're the holy grail of recipes.