Living by myself, I admit I don’t always take the best care of myself. In an effort to save some money and be a little more adult, I challenged myself to cook 7 dinners in 7 days. (Might seem kind of easy, but this is a girl who will opt for icecream for dinner when she is too tired to cook… which is more often than not…)

Night 1: Chicken Parmigiana with homemade Arribiata Sauce..

Night 2: Sausage, Kale, and Green Bean soup, Thickened with Pureed Poatatoes and Heavy Cream. And a piece of Toast..

Night 3: I cheated. I added the leftover Arribiata Sauce to the leftover soup..

Night 4: Shrimp and Arugula Pasta with Lemon, Garlic, and Parm. And Thyme and Red Pep Flakes..

Night 5: Lemon Garlic and Herb Cornish Hen, Wild Rice with Cranberries and Walnuts stuffed Acorn Squash, and Garlic and Shallot Sauteed Green Beans

Night 6: Pumpkin Risotto with Bacon, and the other half of the Cornish Hen..

Night 7: Chicken and Wild Rice Soup, with Garlic Green Beans, some leftover Squash pureed, and Broth made from the bones of my enemies… I mean from my Cornish Hen carcasses…

The lesson to be learned here is this: Home cooking is probably worse than just going out to eat. It is totally just as expensive, takes a lot of work, and you still have to wash the dishes after!… (and that its hard to get a sexy picture of a bowl of soup…) But I sure do love to cook, and it was kind of fun to rise to the challenge. Plus I got to eat a lot of awesome food 🙂