Choles

One thing that's bugging my mind right now is A's high level of bad cholesterol. (ugh, I know!)

He found out about it on a recent free cholesterol check that they had at work. He couldn't believe it at first so he went for another test and consulted with an endocrinologist as well. Well, the test came out the same - he did have a staggering level of bad cholesterol!

Why the endocrinologist? Because A has a thyroid problem. And he read somewhere that hypothyroidism can cause high cholesterol (slow metabolism and all that!). A used to have hyperthyroidism sometime during college (I didn't know him yet then) and he went for radioactive iodine treatment. His hyperthyroidism stopped alright, but the RIT burned through most of his thyroid, hence, he now has hypothyroidism. (I know, grr, right?)

So, now he is hypo and the endocrinologist prescribed him with hormones to help his system get back to "normal". This hormone supplement will be, sadly, for life. Hay. Sad. But then life has to go on.

And so, this led me to look for healthy recipes online. I saw this recipe for tri-veggie pasta sauce and pesto chicken at the Yummy website and I tried it out last night.

The verdict?

Two thumbs up from the hubby and a ginormous appetite from the kid! I was really glad that they liked it.

They were bitin pa nga because I cooked a small portion of spaghetti lang because I was hesitant that we'd like it - sayang kasi ung noodles. Hehe, nabitin tuloy :P

We thought that the chicken would taste blah, but surprisingly, it turned out flavorful. Of course, compared to the usual fried chicken, it was more bland - si Mama yun ang sinabi, wala daw bang asin. Hehe.

It was also my first time to use spaghetti sauce made from fresh tomatoes (usually kasi store-bought spaghetti sauce). As I was cooking it, I had to add more spices to make it more flavorful. I also used more of the parmesan cheese, instead of salt, to bring saltiness into the sauce.

While I was cooking the sauce, it tasted bland for me. Siguro nga kasi you'd look for the taste of meat that's usually present in spaghetti sauce. But when we incorporated it with the pasta, surprisingly ulit, masarap sya :)

Hay basta, tuwang-tuwa kami ni A lalo na andaming nakain ni Ethan (who usually has poor appetite for solids)!

P.S. I read from Today's Parent website that there's such a thing as "too much juice" which can ruin a kid's appetite. It was a suspect for me kasi before Ethan drinks a lot of juice and ends up with very very poor appetite. Coincidentally, the same day I read the article, Mama also decided to stop Ethan's juice intake muna (and just have it after meals). So as soon as I told Mama about the article, we had data na agad because we observed Ethan's appetite to improve agad. *Me and Mama have really connected brainwaves I think hehe*