Welcome to harmony's Roundeo.

Being pregnant for the first few months is anything but fun. One of the most un-fun things about it is eating. This is because you feel like you are painfully starving all the time, yet hardly any food, or only very specific ones, sound good, and even after you eat you don't really feel better...now you just have digestion and gas pains. Lovely eh?  So food basically sounds, smells and looks repulsive but without constantly eating it you feel like you are going to puke and your stomach feels like its been on empty for days. After you eat it you only feel marginally better, or sometimes you feel just as bad only in a different way. So, I put out a cry for help on FB recently and am happy to say with the help of some friends, I discovered a few good things that I now share with you, whoever you may be (hopefully someone)!

1. Salsa chicken: salsa, chicken, slow-pot, voila. Use as you want. I used it with ideas from this website:

2. Our best bites: I made a for-real Cafe Rio salad with the above chicken, homemade guac, pico de gallo, tortillas, and dressing. A lot of work, but when the craving hits you gotta have it. Look it all up at this site which I'm excited to use more often.

3. Calzones: I actually have craved these, though I have forgotten at times, since we had them in Venice a year or two ago. And my homemade ones did not dissapoint. Super easy, super convenient, kids loved them, so versatile, and most importantly yummy!

Here is what I did for my Calzones:

Store-bought pizza dough (you could easily make your own): roll out and cut into rectangles about 5-6 inches by 7-9 inches something like that. a bit bigger than hand-sized I suppose.

Made a little flavored olive oil by throwing a big crushed garlic glove in a bit of oil with Italian seasonings (basil, thyme, oregano, cayenne) brushed/drizzled this onto center of each rectangle.

Chopped up mozzarella, ham, pepperoni, tomatoes, and grated some zucchini and parmesan. Then I played with different combinations of the above to fill the calzones. Sprinkled the whole thing with salt and pepper.

Closed calzones by folding them (so they are longer than shorter) by taking one side and bringing to the other side and pressing/pinching them together.

Brushed cookie sheet with olive oil, and the tops of the calzones (or use butter). Cooked on 175-200 C for about 30 minutes. Just watch and pull them when they are golden.
They may leak out, not a big deal, let them cool a bit and YUM YUM. You can dip them in tomato sauce if you want. The kids loved them too, which is always exciting!

I realize this would be more interesting with pictures...too bad!

DO try this when you feel like eating a few fabulous and easy "Mexican" meals for a few days in a row:

1. Make a Chicken tortilla soup for dinner. My mom has a great recipe...that I don't have, so I made one with a combination of these recipes: this; and this

Musts: avacado, tortilla strips: cut corn tortillas thin and throw them in hot oil for a few seconds.

2. The next night cook up some chicken breasts in a pan with olive oil, garlic, onion or onion powder, s&p, and lemon and lime juice. And chop them up and have Chicken Tostadas (fry corn tortillas flat and add chicken, ref. beans, lettuce, tomato, avacado, cheese, salsa, sour cream, jalapenos, etc.) And if you want have a little of your soup on the side.

3. The next day for lunch make a YUMMY salad like this: lettuce (any works, i used butter lettuce, but iceberg, romaine, etc. works) topped with last night's chicken, diced tomatoes (i had leftover from the tostadas), cilantro, avacado, feta cheese, crushed tortilla chips or leftover strips, and a white dressing (here it's a yogurt or french or provecale dressing) and some dashes of lime juice.  Warm up a bowl of your soup.... And go to your happy place.

That's what I did.

Oh yeah, and for extra INDULGENCE, make this:

I have not figured out the melted sugar thing very well though, it wasn't the right consistency, it was hard, I ended up reheating it and adding water...But this dessert for me, even though it is super rich, is the same as when I have pumpkin pie in the house, as in I think about it and want to eat it all the time!

And this doesn't go with my Mexican theme, but I loved this soup (and so did my family)

And now I know why I don't share stuff very often! It takes too much time, and I didn't even make the post pretty or add pictures! How do people do it? I hope this post helps someone somehow and then it will have been worth it!