Here you’ll find recipes that are a bit higher in both portion size and calories, but that doesn’t mean they’re not healthy options. In fact, they’re really good for you, especially if you’re someone on a higher calorie diet (such as a breastfeeding mom, like me).

Then there’s Shawn: think football player. He’s super tall and burns more calories in a day when he’s doing nothing than when I work out for over two hours…and I actually know that for a fact because we both use the Bodymedia armband.

So when Shawn and I cook together, we usually have a lot of food. And beer. Lots of beer.

Sometimes the recipes we come up with are a little kooky and exotic. Sometimes they’re a little more grounded. They tend to be ethnic, in one way or another. And they’re always fun to make from scratch, because that’s the test kitchen way.

How did this test kitchen start? About two years ago, Shawn, my husband Thomas, and I began to get together to watch Game of Thrones. We don’t live too terribly close to each other (you know, that’s pretty typical in the country) so this resulted in a combined effort to make dinner. Since Thomas and Shawn were roommates in college, Thomas knew to take a step back to Shawn’s culinary expertise, but I got right in there with my flair for changing things up, and soon our Game of Thrones nights evolved.

It’s a pretty good arrangement actually. Shawn and I cook, Thomas takes care of Ginny…that is until I have to run and nurse her while shouting directions for whatever cooking process I was in the middle of…and then we all eat.

Recently, we’ve been trying to make the food healthier. As I said, it’s not super low cal, but compared to what we used to come up with (especially when I was pregnant), it’s highly improved as far as the waistline results.

Shawn is excited to be a part of SweetPeas and Soybeans and he’s adding his own artistic contribution with the photography for our kitchen experiments. So print some of these fun recipes off and get cooking crazy!