New Year's Day brings a RESOLUTION for me!

It's officially 2012!  

Did you celebrate big last night?  More importantly did you stay up until midnight?!

We didn't...  the hubby had to be to work at 4:30am, the prince isn't quite able to stay up that late yet, and I just decided that I'd rather get some much needed rest { ahhh }  

But before we all went to bed, we enjoyed a quiet evening with some much needed family time  { smile }

And with the new year also comes the topic of resolutions...

About a week ago the hubby and I talked about eating healthier once the new year came around.

I then decided that adding MORE vegetables to our vegetable lacking diet was a necessity!  

So we are going "all-in"...  

Photo courtesy of MarthaStewart.com

You may be asking...  What does "all-in" mean? 

 Well, for me it means that rather than just adding a serving of vegetables to each of our meals, instead the prince and I will try to eat a semi-vegetarian diet.  AND the meals that we have which include meat will be healthier/lean meats like boneless skinless chicken and ground turkey.

I made the choice to try a semi-vegetarian diet rather than going entirely vegetarian because while it would be easy-peasy for the prince and I to do, the hubby is a-whole-nother story.  Therefore our family meals will generally have the addition of a lean meat, while those that the prince and I have together will be almost entirely vegetarian.

Once I made this decision, I then turned to Pinterest for some inspirational recipes...  check out the recipes I've found so far here  { yummy}

Once I found the recipes I then needed to do some grocery shopping...

I have to say that grocery shopping is kinda enjoyable, dare I say fun, for me when I'm shopping for the components of some wonderfully-yummy recipes like these.

Tonight I was preparing some of the ingredients for the sandwiches I'll be taking to work this week... 

And I was using the new slicer/shredder attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer, too.

Someone's little hand getting into the vegetables... like I've said before he { LOVES } him some veggies!

Next time I'll use the thicker slicer attachment and coarse shredder...  both the cucumbers and carrots were just a tad-bit to fine sliced/shredded.

Here was my inspiration...

Photo & recipe courtesy of MarthaStewart.com.

I chose to make the olive tapenade myself with kalamata olives because...

 1st- I've made it before and

2nd- I think that kalamata olives go fabulous with the hummus and the other ingredients 

{ yumm-o }

Here are the ingredients/recipe for my tapenade... 

{ FYI- I am not claiming that this is an authentic tapenade recipe, rather it's my attempt at creating the closest thing to what I know a tapenade to be without actually using a recipe

...  and I think it's pretty stinkin' good }

1 cup pitted kalamata olives

1 clove of garlic, chopped

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp kalamata liquid

Add all ingredients into your food processor and blend/pulse until you get the consistency you want and all ingredients are blended, I recommend finely chopped.

{ I've used capers previously, but didn't have them this time...  I highly recommend adding at least 1 tsp of capers to get a more authentic tapenade flavor. }

Tomorrow I will be making some soup...

Photo and recipe courtesy of MarthaStewart.com.

Cannellini Bean Soup to be exact and I can't wait...   

I'm hoping this will freeze well so it can also be for my lunches  { crossing fingers }

Oh! and in case you were wondering here's what the prince and I will be having for breakfast...

Photo and recipe courtesy of MarthaStewart.com

So as you can see { a lot } of the recipes I found came from MarthaStewart.com, but seriously I found the website to be a great resource (there were so many recipes), check it out!

Also another thing I'm starting to do...  I'm beginning to make the transition to ORGANIC products.  This will take some time, but if the price difference is minimal I'm pushing myself to choose the organic version.  

{ Stay tuned for weekly updates as to our progress with this healthy lifestyle change }

BTW, did you make any resolutions for yourself this year?

I would { LOVE } to here about them.