What's For Dinner?

While at work today, I decided I wanted to make homemade macaroni & cheese to celebrate Cameron's 1/2 birthday tonight. Any reason to have a celebration in Cam's honor is fine by me! Anyway, while I was searching recipes, I not only wanted something that was pretty quick but also something that wasn't loaded with butter & cream.

I found a recipe from Good Housekeeping that couldn't have been easier & was close to half the calories as most other recipes. I only ended up having to buy three ingredients at the grocery store & I also made it with the Barilla Plus noodles so it had more fiber & protein. I didn't get home until almost 5:15 & the meal was completely done by 5:45.



I did end up adding more sharp cheddar cheese than the recipe called for & also topped it with a bit of cheddar cheese before popping it into the oven. The only other modification I made was to add a clove of garlic to the cottage cheese/milk mixture that I popped into the blender. It ended up having a yummy, cheesy crust & tasted very buttery even though it had no butter at all. Click here for the recipe I used. And here's an example of one of the top macaroni & cheese recipes I found in my searches today; you'll see that I saved us almost 600 calories per serving! Granted, this recipe was unusually high in calories, but it seems that the recipe I used was half the calories to most. If you're looking for a quick, healthier option to homemade mac n' cheese, I definitely suggest you give this one a try.



I'm pretty sure that Cam was a fan of the meal!



And we splurged with cookies for dessert to celebrate my big guy's half birthday. I wasn't about to make homemade cookies or buy any with hydrogenated oil/trans fat, so I found these at Super Target. I'd never heard of Immaculate Baking Company, but liked that it was natural & had zero grams of trans fats/no hydrogenated oil vs. 1.5g from the Pillsbury brand & was priced comparably. There's 24 cookies/package & you can bake all or just one at a time (70-80 calories per cookie).



Cam enjoyed his bedtime snack & Demps would have too if he'd have shared!