Domestically Disabled

For those of you that don't know us, we are both seriously Domestically Disabled here at O+P and at the top of the list is cooking.  We can clean, but as Fallon says "a clean house is a sign of a wasted life".  We love to have a clean house fully organized with cute labels and storage systems, but who really has time for all that??? 

On the quest to become better woman, we thought 'what if we tried to find easy new recipes and test them out- once a week'.  Well, two weeks after having that thought, I tested out my first recipe!  First, let me describe my typical diet and menu offering to my husband so you know how much I really DO NOT cook. 

Breakfast: choice of cereal, some sort of protein bar like CLIFF bar, a smoothie, an apple, or if it's Sunday and you're really nice to me- Eggo multi grain frozen waffles.

Lunch: choice of cereal, frozen lean cuisine or other assortment of low fat/low calorie frozen meal, or a sandwich

Dinner: choice of cereal, frozen lean cuisine or other assortment of low fat/low calorie frozen meal, or sandwich. 

As you can tell, I eat cereal...eh....around 6 times a week, give or take.  While our grocery bill is extremely low, I really do have the urge to learn at least a few things for when people come over or when I want to treat my man with a good home cooked meal.  I can picture my life in 5 years having kick ass house parties and being the hostess with the mostess, but I can't really do that serving cereal.  We are having our first get together this Sunday and I am having to default to Sonny's  : /

My problem is, I am health conscious.  I need low fat, low calorie, high protein, low carb, fresh tasting, preferably organic meal(s) with minimal ingredients while being quick and convienant to fix.   Easy, right?  Oh, before I forget, I would LOVE for you all to share any recipes that fit the above criteria!!!!!!!!!

So, I started out slow.  So slow that I'm guessing most people would not even consider this 'cooking', but scroll up a couple of paragraphs and relive my pain.  I have no idea how to boil an egg.  I cannot cook bag rice to save my life. 

I'm slightly embarrassed, but here we go.  Gotta start somewhere...

Kate's Tuna Patty Melt

Ingredients:
1 can of tuna (drained)
1 egg white (I used organic egg whites in a carton)
1/3 cup of low fat cheddar cheese
1/2 small onion (finely chopped)
1 tsp ground garlic
1/2 tsp pepper

Directions:
1. Mix all ingredients

2. Split in half to form two patties

3. In a medium saucepan, fry patties until both sides are golden brown

(2 servings)

Now, I must say, my patties were great!  And by great I mean I did it and they didn't fall apart.  I put a little olive oil in the bottom of the pan and fried them on low.  They tasted pretty good, but I think next time, I will use less garlic powder, if any--they were a little salty.  Also, I don't know who can get by on one little patty, but I would say that this recipe is one serving.  I had them plain, no bun or sauce with green beans and dinner rolls.

1 patty is 1.9g of fat, 2.1g of carbs, 98 calories, and 18.3g of protein!!!  The whole meal cost less than $7 for a meal for two!

Feeling like I could join hell's kitchen, today I made ribs!  This is quick and painless.  Before I left for work, I put a thing (carton from Publix?) of ribs and BBQ sauce in the crock pot and put it on low.  It cooked for about 10 hours (while I was at work).  When I came home, the meat was literally falling off the bone!  Again, it was a little salty, so next time I'm going to check the sodium content in the sauce, but overall, they're a hit!  Drew is working late, so I just scarfed down 3 ribs plain, but if I were to serve this for dinner on his early night, they would be good with mac and cheese, green beans, corn on the cob, texas toast, and/or fried okra!

As I was writing this blog post, it dawned on me that I really like to see pics of the recipes I'm looking up, so in the future I'll try to snap pics for y'all of my latest and greatest.  Hopefully the recipes will get a little more involved as time goes by.

Let us know if you have any good recipes to add to our learning process and feel free to comment if you try anything we post.  How can we make it better.  What worked for you, what didn't?

-jd