Cooking while on vacation can be challenging but fun!!

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you probably know that I have been trying to lose weight lately. And if you have been on a diet, you also know that going on vacation can ruin your diet. That is why I was so excited about having a kitchen in the condo that we stayed at. I mean, we did go out to eat twice while we were there and that totally made me gain back two pounds but really, that's no big deal, because I am a reasonable person who knows how to enjoy life every once in a while. I wasn't about to let my diet take away all the fun of my vacation. As much as I wanted to go out to eat for every single meal, however, we also wanted to save money as well. So we managed to cook three delicious meals during our stay at Tahoe. 

It was a little challenging, though, to cook something without any oil or any of my favorite spices. I only had my Santa Maria seasoning and black pepper, totally forgot to take olive oil. But thank goodness, there was a Raley just down the street so we went and got some cooking spray. Luckily, the condo came with a bbq so we did a lot of grilling. We also bought some tortellini and pesto, too. Sometimes, I have to tell myself that premade/precooked meals are perfectly fine... especially on vacation!

Chicken and apple sausage with brown rice. 

This was actually a fabulous meal! We had this for lunch one day and I loved it. It was my first experience with the chicken sausages and they tasted delicious! And they have very low calories compared to normal sausages. Oh and the brown rice was just perfect with the sausages. Look for chicken and apple sausages at your grocery store. I totally recommend them!

Cheese Tortellini w/ Pesto

These tortellinis have a great, rich flavor of cheese and went perfectly with the pesto. I used a store-bought pesto, about 1 cup of it.

Mushroom Burger w/ Pesto

Oh this was absolutely my favorite meal during the vacation. It was a little challenging to saute the mushrooms without any oil, but the cooking spray worked fine with a little bit of water to soften the mushrooms. I added some Santa Maria seasoning (which is a combination of garlic powder, garlic salt, Italian seasoning, black pepper, etc) to the mushrooms and they tasted wonderful. I also sprayed some cooking spray (It was butter flavored) on the buns and grilled them and boy, they were perfect! Spreading one tablespoonful of basil pesto on the bun was my husband's idea and to my surprise, I absolutely loved it! You should definitely try it, if you are a fan of mushrooms and/or pesto. Yum!