I was away in rural Ontario this past long weekend and brought several “ready made” meals along with me so that dinner prep would be easier. After four nights in a row of these “heat and serve”, commercially-prepared meals, however, I felt pretty awful. My stomach was gurgly and grumbly and both my energy and mood were rather low (though spending most of the weekend shoveling my way out of snowmageddon might have had something to do with that). Once back home, I made this easy and tasty tray-bake, which served as a good reminder that it really isn’t that much work to make a home-cooked meal. Especially when it is guaranteed to be far more nourishing than most commercially-prepared meals. This Roasted Chicken, Beets & Brussels Sprouts with Barley is one of those staple recipes.
You can scale it up or down to serve more or fewer people. To make preparing it even quicker, use frozen brussels sprouts (no prep required and they are best roasted from frozen). Wash your beets well and don’t peel them (the peel has a lot of nutrition). If you don’t have barley, feel free to either skip it or serve it with brown rice, farro or quinoa. Or roast some potatoes along with the other vegetables. You can easily change the ingredient proportions too. But I highly recommend that you eat all your Brussels sprouts and beets. They contain vitamins, minerals and antioxidants critical to boosting mood. And couldn’t we all use a little mood-boost these days?
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I can’t believe we are half way through January already. How are your New Year’s resolutions holding up? One of the most common resolutions is to eat more healthily. And that often entails preparing meals from scratch rather than eating out, as cooking your own meals makes it much easier to control both the quantity and quality of the food you eat. While we all start out the New Year with the best of intentions, hurdles are inevitable. But you can overcome them by being a little strategic about it. The hurdle I most often hear about is time and/or lack of interest in cooking. So the strategy here is to have a few quick, easy-to-make recipes using foods that are readily at hand in your pantry. That’s why I chose this 
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Coconut and lime is a classic flavour pairing. The acidity of the lime balances the fatness of the coconut milk beautifully. Consequently, with just two simple ingredients you can truly elevate your meal. A few decades ago I bought a book called