ABOUT THE HUTSONS

Hello Blogworld!

I take it that I should introduce myself, I am a 21-year-old newlywed (of 6 months, as of Sunday), and am temporarily living as a stay-at-home wife, (yes, it is as luxurious as it sounds, although without any kids or animals to take care of, your life seems a lot more frivolous after a fews weeks of it) due to being laid off from my job as a part-time receptionist last month. My husband, Scott, and I happily subside in a 640-square-foot apartment in the middle of a upper-middle-class suburban area. We love it, however, the space is constantly being pushed to its limits being that we are major social butterflies, and also host a smallgroup for our church every Thursday night. 

This past week my husband and I decided that we needed to step it up in the health department, and I made my first ever meal plan! It was nice to have something to do during the day besides housework, and it's been going great so far! The purpose of this blog is to document our adventures in trying to be healthier 20-something-year-olds, and our experiences in living in 600-square-feet of a blessing! Yeah, I'm sure it doesn't sound very interesting, truthfully, I really just wanted a blog. It's the cool thing to do nowadays, isn't it? 

Anyway, here are some pictures of our first few meals on my 3 week healthy(ish) meal plan! 

I'll try to include the recipes that I have adapted, although Scott is pretty picky, especially when it comes to health food so you might find that my revisions are pretty bland. 

Night 1:

Chicken Pesto Bake

Garlic Rice with Black Quinoa (Uncle Ben's of course)

Please ignore my amateur photography skills, needless to say our lighting isn't the best, and that's the least of the sum of my skills, ha. 

Anyway, the Chicken Pesto Bake was awesome! I myself am a huge fan of pesto, so I knew I would have no problem eating this meal, it was a great kick off to our meal plan. I was apprehensive, however, about the rice with quinoa (any takers on how to pronounce that? I've heard it's "keen-wa," but that hasn't be confirmed as of yet). I've heard great things about Quinoa and seen recipes all over Pinterest lately, so I thought it'd be the perfect time to introduce it into our diets. Scott was actually really accepting of it, excepting the fact that he first compared it to "little black ants" in our food. We both really liked it! The whole meal took probably 30-ish minutes to prepare, super easy! I'll post my way below (which is pretty much identical), but you can find the original recipe here.

Chicken Pesto Bake:

2 Skinless, Boneless Chicken Breasts 

4 Tbsp Basil Pesto

A Handful of Mozzarella per chicken breast

A Dash of grated Parmesan Cheese

Preheat oven to 400º F. 

I cut my two chicken breasts in half for leftovers for lunch the next day, but if you do this, just know the serving size decreases dramatically when baking. We're just a family of two, so we don't need much.

Spread 1 Tbsp of basil pesto on each chicken breast. Cook for 15 minutes, then remove from oven and spread mozzarella and parmesan cheese and continue baking for another 3-5 minutes, or until the cheese is melted. 

And that's it! So easy, and DELICIOUS!