Basil-Pesto Zucchini Pasta

I decided when K and I got married I would learn to be an amazing cook. I wanted to be able to make my wonderful husband a dinner that would make him proud to know me. Well, I've totally succeeded! Haha... just kidding. My go-to desire when dinner time rolls around is to pour some cereal into a bowl, along with some almond milk and call it a night. Since we don't eat cereal anymore (so sad), I've had to force myself to cook. While my interest in cooking is growing (right along with my developing infatuation learning the health benefits of every natural food...), my motivation can still be lacking after I've already thrown on my favorite SeaWorld sweatpants. If you find yourself with the same issue, no fear- I am bringing you an easy, healthy and most importantly, DELICIOUS dinner! It would also work fabulously as a side, if you typically eat a fuller dinner.

Basil Pesto Zucchini Pasta

Remember when I mentioned that this dish is easy? Here goes:

Ingredients: (p.s- this serves one as a whole meal)

Zucchini (at least one. large)

Tomato (1, diced)

Basil-Pesto Sauce (1/2 cup. someday I will be prepared to make homemade pesto, but for now- this is great. It was just from Costco, but all the ingredients are actual foods... imagine that!)

Julienne Peeler or something similar. I bought mine here.

Steps:

1. Use peeler to create zucchini pasta. I peeled into a bowl, but you can peel directly into the pan if you'd like

To be honest, I wasn't totally sure when to stop peeling, but I imagine it wouldn't be bad to use the entire zucchini. I stopped when I got to the seeds.

2. Add the noodles to a pan and saute over medium heat. Add some chopped tomatoes and any other veggies you might like! I'm not eating meat currently, but I bet if my husband were here to eat with me, he would be very thankful if I added some chicken sausage. (p.p.s- I found that the zucchini brought out some water, so the pasta was a bit runny. I just drained that- it was perfect!)

3. Enjoy! Yup- that's it! There are only 2 steps to this delicious and healthy meal. It's food like this that makes me realize how amazing vegetables are. It's a beautiful thing to see how God provides for us, we don't need to be poisoning our bodies with chemical and factory produced "food". Yahoo!

So. Good. 

"And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.'" 

Genesis 1:29

Our New Home

Although I was born in Texas, I moved to California within months of my birth. I grew up in Southern California and complained of the cold during winter months, and lost sleep over the sweltering nights during summer. I dreamed of leaving and creating an adventure somewhere far away where other seasons existed besides summer and winter.

K and I made the 2,000 mile drive to Illinois at the beginning of October. It has been a crazy ride already! I have already had the pleasure of experiencing 3 degree weather, and driving in the snow... I'm definitely not in California anymore... Some of you may have heard about, or even experienced the tornado that ripped through Illinois and other nearby states- well, we were here! Again, definitely not in California anymore...

So- that all leads us up to this point- our home in Illinois. I've loved posts showing the bloggers home. They always look so snuggly and clean! I love them so much I wanted to share my own. These pictures were taken right after we finished unpacking and hanging everything. I wish I could keep it so perfect clean all the time, but we all know how unrealistic that is.

Ok. So our apartment was so bare and boring at first. (as you can see below: living room and kitchen)

Our bedroom was pretty depressing.. and we were sleeping on the floor.

K began work immediately, so, so did I! I painted our entire home in two days...  oh.. and we bought a bed :)

K loves his books, he collects them like no one's business. (I love it, but find it so strange because he never gets around to ever reading any of them). I made the moss initials for our wedding, they hung on the gazebo we were married under. I loved them so much and wanted to keep something sentimental from that day. They were so easy to make! Also, K's aunt and uncle had that beautiful name plate created for us. I'm not sure where they bought it, but there's a ton of cute options on Etsy.com, like this one here.

This is probably my favorite piece. I love the idea of having our dishes out on display. We were given some beautiful dishes and barware and I love letting it show!

Lastly- our first original art. I love them :) The first week we were here the city was holding it's local art faire. There were so many amazing artists to discover! One of my favorites was Carrie Pearce, her work was so haunting, yet so mesmerizing. Her work was a bit out of our budget, but luckily we found another artist who was basically just giving away her work. Honestly, for how awesome her work is, I was surprised it was so affordable. Here is the link to Dewey James's online gallery. There were so many fun prints to choose from, and I love the ones we walked away with. 

Now that our car is unpacked, and the dishes are stacked, things are beginning to feel normal. This apartment is becoming our home and it's so fun to realize it as it's happening. Now I just need to find the motivation to purchase new Christmas decorations and get this place holiday ready!

In His love,

Bri

So it begins...

First things first. This is me, Bri, and my husband. (I'll refer to him as 'K' because it's totally mysterious and all the blogs are doing it these days...) If I wanted to be really cool, I'd only refer to myself as 'B', and end all my posts with "xoxo", but I've tried being really cool before, and I've learned that only makes me uncool. So, you know my name, maybe it will make you feel like we can be friends- which I would love!

I love healthy food blogs, but I also love life blogs as well. It's encouraging to know that the people behind no carb/no sugar/lots of exercise type blogs are normal people- it makes me feel like if they could do it with 3 kids and a full time job and pets AND family, maybe I could do it as well!

So to possibly be relatable as well I want to give a little introduction. My husband and I are newlyweds (June '13) and we recently packed up our whole life and moved approximately 2,070 miles to our new home in Peoria, Illinois. We left behind both families, all our friends, and all the comfort associated with both of those. We are starting from scratch! Attempting to live a life devoted to our beautiful Lord and Savior, then each other, and of course our bodies. We are beginning a journey of healthier lifestyles, and I am beginning a journey of learning how to cook and bake healthy, and nutritious meals.

I wanted to put this adventure down in writing, allowing us to relive these moments of new experiences, naive decisions, and developing beliefs. This will be great!