Tonight is the Big Game at the Big House. Our House will be quite tense. Once a year our hearts are on opposite sides of the field. We’ve both been fans since we were little so tonight someone won’t be happy. (If you have been under a rock, tonight is the Notre Dame vs. Michigan game. I ❤ Notre Dame and Jeff is a Michigan man.)

One thing we’ve always been able to agree on is what to eat on football Saturdays. Man Dip has been our go to since some friends introduced it to us. It’s 1lb burger, 1lb sausage, a can of Rotel and a brick of Mexican Velveeta. It’s become a tradition in our apartment, but this year I just can’t bring myself to make it. We’ve changed our diet significantly and one of the things that I’ve been enjoying most is experimenting with making healthy versions of food that we would normally eat. When I saw this recipe for Nacho Cheese Sauce, I thought I might just have a winner on my hands. It’s flavoring up in the crock-pot right now. I couldn’t wait so I grabbed a chip and tried it already. We’ll see what Jeff says when he gets home from the cross country meet. Hopefully this will be a tasty, healthy comfort food for us on this stressful day 😉

Be mindful of the name here, that’s chickPEA, not chickEN. This one’s a meatless dish, a perfect choice for any of you who do Meatless Mondays. We borrowed this recipe from our friends at eatliverun, a blog that just happens to combine 3 of the things we enjoy doing the most. (Why did we not think of this name, you ask? Your guess is as good as ours. The prospect of the Layman pun was too much, I suppose.)

Things we would do differently:

– Substitute chicken for chickpeas on a day other than Monday
– Go easy on the barbeque sauce, as it easily overpowers the rest of the dish
– Cook the crust beforehand so it gets a little more crispy. The BBQ sauce made it a bit soggy.

That’s about it. This dish was awesome the way it was. We made it on a wheat crust because we were feeling extra healthy, but I’m sure it would taste just as good on a regular one too. If you have to pay extra attention to anything, do so on the carmelized onions. Make sure they’re good and carmel-y.

Today is my day off of running this week, and it’s too hot outside to live. Guess I better go eat!

Just like we anticipated…life has gotten crazy! We’re now working 10-11 hours a day…I’m just working and trying to stay caught up, Jeff is crazy with his new job and coaching cross country. I’m also training for our 5k at the end of September and taking an online graduate class the ENTIRE semester. We crazy…and we know!

We made these when we got back from our amazing summer away. We were quite obsessed with the caprese theme for awhile and have the pictures to prove it! Needless to say we were quite excited when we saw this sandwich. We don’t have a panani press, but improvised with a grill pan and baking stone 🙂 We happened to have most of the ingredients in our fridge but we did sub mozz for feta and used this pesto. These sandwiches were A-MA-ZING! We would definitely make them again…and again!

Tonight is the last night before our summer is officially over and we have to report to school…so you’re getting 2 posts 🙂

Before my 4-week cleanse with Rooted Wellbeing, I loved having baked goods around. In my humble opinion, Ghirardelli brownies are the best box of brownies you can make. On average, I used to make them every other week. Even though we have incorporated a lot of foods back into our diet, we have tried to be even more conscious of what we eat. Sugar is one of the things I have tried my hardest NOT to go back to because I know how addicting it is. Needless to say, I have been missing baked good and CHOCOLATE! Lucky for me cookie dough balls have been a huge hit lately on the blogs I read. I decided to try this one because there is no sugar (pure maple syrup is used instead). I also used fresh ground organic peanut butter from Earth Fare (love this store) and Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips (60%). I whipped these up super fast and then put half in the fridge and half in the freezer. These are the perfect little snack anytime you are craving something chocolatey! And Jeff liked them as much as I did 🙂

Hurry! Go make them before you have to go back to school tomorrow! 😉

We definitely didn’t lose our faith and tried another of Jenna’s recipes. This time we were not disappointed! I love when I come across a new recipe in my reading and realize we have almost everything for it. This one was no different and we highly recommend this quesadilla for all occasions! We made a few small changes – fresh sauteed peppers and onions with spinach. Next time, I would add more chili powder…I like it spicy! But I think the pictures speak for themselves…

Enjoy!

Can you believe it’s almost August? We can’t! We left on June 8th for the mid-west. 5,145 miles, 8 states and 6.5 weeks later, we arrived back in SC on Sunday. We got to see tons of friends/family and participate in numerous memorable activities. Pictures will be on facebook sometime before we go back to school (August 8th :(.

Although we didn’t do lots of cooking (did you see the dinner party we cooked for?), I did discover the world of health/food blogs and the genius of Google Reader. I never knew there were so many blogs out there! While it has been fun perusing recipes, it has also made me realize I’m not (and probably never will be) a good/dedicated blogger. I don’t have the motivation to post everyday or even every week! Two things have helped me not become too depressed: 1– We are NOT professional bloggers and may even be considered workaholics from August to June & 2 – Our blog is called cooking in LAYMAN’s terms. We didn’t go to culinary school, we aren’t professional photographers and we don’t make our own recipes. But unlike many people we know, we cook 5+ nights a week (and enjoy it!) and we like to be pretty healthy.

Here are a couple recipes we’ve borrowed this week from blogs I’ve started following:

Gnocchi by Jenna