Anyone cook Country style meals? Friends?

I live in the south so I am trying to find new, healthy ways to make all of my favorite foods. I would love to see what others are doing to make their country/comfort meals healthier.

Sounds yummy! I cook from scratch. I'm eating chicken stew with lots of veggies in it, and dumplings. I don't make it completely nonfat, but I skim off most of the fat when I make the chicken stock, from the bones of a roast chicken.

I may make them but I don't necessarily EAT them. My DH is 6'4" with a big bone structure (think stereotypical old style Viking) and can have DOUBLE or more the amount of calories that I have per day. I'm extremely carb sensitive. He isn't. He does a lot of farm work. I do some but NOT the heavy lifting he does. I get the steak and salad. He gets the steak, salad, potatoes, gravy, bread and butter. It's fair. I'm fine with this. I'm 5'4" with a small bone structure. I just don't need that many calories since I'm not doing Tae Kwon Do 2 hours a day any more.

I do meals this way too. I get small servings of carbs. Hubby gets all the carbs he wants, and a bigger steak. He burns more calories strolling on the elliptical trainer than I do doing high intensity interval training.

well, i am having a piece of cornbread w breakfast

we've gone through our veggies from last years garden so our meals don't look quite as kuntry. Garden will be planted in a week or so. This summer it will be all about field peas, green beans, corn on the cob, okra, limas and tomatoes. I can't wait for tomatoes! IMO there is nothing quite as good as the first pick of okra stewed in homegrown tomatoes.

We eat greens year round: collards (my fav), turnip greens, mustard greens, spinach. We have a lot of spinach lately. I use to always make greens the traditional southern way: start w bacon grease of course. I now make them w olive oil and don't miss the bacon grease..the onions, garlic, etc give it so much flavor i have never had any1 guess it starts w olive oil. We also do oven-fried green tomatoes instead of fried: (dip slices in buttermilk that has a couple shots of hot sauce in it and coat in a cornmeal and panko combo. these turn out incredible). I'm southern so i love fried green tomatoes. I really like the baked kind but it's kind of messy so i will often just cut green tomato slices and season w s&p, olive oil and balsamic vinegar and roast them. i love them this way too.

I have been striving to eat 100 grams of carbs so we're not making things like biscuits, pancakes, waffles, or cornbread. (the piece i'm eating today was given to me by my mom.) When the crops are up, we cook them from scratch. In the off season if we don't have enough, we are big fans of frozen veggies. We will buy canned veggies too tho--we like margaret homes stuff. We don't grow pintos, black beans, or navy beans and will buy them dried and make big batches in the crockpot.

You ladies are an inspiration!