I'm preparing most of my meals now

I have taken the first step at taking away some of the cooking from my mother, as she refuses to stop fixing big meals. She also is in a rut when she makes meals. It has been a challenge for me to make my own meals, as I haven't done that in over 6 years. So I'm adding some variety, and make changes into something I might have a lot.I recently made some BBQ chicken with rice-a-roni, pasta-roni, and some fresh green beans cooked on a griddle with garlic. The fresh green beans were good, but the preparation to make them was tedious, as I've never dealt with fresh green beans. There was no way I would have let my mom cook the green beans, as she would have boiled them. I wanted them to stay crunchy. Since I added garlic to it (approximately 15 cloves of garlic), it had a lot of extra flavor. I did keep the vampires away for 3 days. The green beans were lightly coated with olive oil, and stirred constantly to keep them from burning. I forgot to add that I added a twist to the BBQ chicken. I also added a bit of Mrs. Dash to it to give it additional flavor.

Another meal consisted of pork chops (my mom did cook that, as it was Shake & Bake), cheesy rice-a-roni, pasta-roni, green beans with garlic. I bought too much green beans, that I had to have them a second day. I believe I bought 3 lbs. of green beans. It was alright. Another meal again consisted of chicken sprinkled with Mrs. Dash, snow peas with garlic cooked in a little olive oil, and some rice-a-roni. Snow peas weren't as bad, as I was able to cook them as is, unlike green beans, where I had to cut off bad parts of the bean.

Yesterday, I cooked up some pot pies with fried potatoes, and made them with a twist. My mom would just cook up potatoes to be fried in vegetable shortening. I cooked the potatoes (the portion size I wanted) along with garlic in olive oil. Within the last 10 minutes of cooking them, I added some mixed vegetables to the potatoes. It added a lot of flavor too, along with the garlic. I did use 10 - 12 cloves of garlic. So my meals will be having a lot of garlic to it.

I have yet to figure out what all I'll have. I just know that I want to have some variety, and I won't get that with my mom making my meals, nor will I have meals with the right portion sizes either with her making my meals. I haven't lost any weight yet, but I'm not gaining any either, as my meals are keeping me full longer. I do plan to have some vegetarian spaghetti within 2 weeks. I'm also working on cutting back on protein too. That'll help keep me from getting bigger, as I've been getting too much protein.

So if anyone has any suggestions on what I should make, please leave a comment in my blog. I will take suggestions, and look at what might sound good to me. I need plenty of suggestions as I'm trying to get back into making my own meals.