"Healthy" is a very subjective term, and different meals are healthy for different people. For example, a growing child has different nutritional needs than a person trying to lose weight. A professional athlete should eat much differently than the sedentary computer programmer. Some people are lactose intolerant, and others are vegetarian or vegan.

As an amateur chef and amateur nutritionist, I have come up with my own guidelines for creating dinners that help me maintain a healthy lifestyle. The meals on this website aren't originals - they are taken from books, magazines, and other websites. What I have done is filtered out the meals with potential, and made a few changes to ensure that they are easy to prepare, filling, low in calories, low in fat, high in fiber, full of nutrients, and pretty tasty. These meals are "healthy" for me because I try to maintain a healthy weight, eat the foods I enjoy, spend a limited amount of time cooking and shopping, and give my body the nutrients it needs to stay healthy.

• Each serving is between 400-500 calories
• The recipe approximates 100 calories from a lean protein, 100 calories from vegetables, 200 calories from carbohydrates (not including sauces or vegetables), and 100 calories for cheeses, fats and sauces
• I don't eat red meat (personal preference) so none of these recipes use red meat
• Veggies, veggies, veggies! That's the key to feeling full and getting all of the vitamins you need. Eat as many as you possibly can.
• A lot of diets don't let you eat any white bread or pasta. This is a great idea but can leave you feeling deprived. When possible, I use brown rice instead of white, and wheat pasta instead of regular. Lately I've been using the Barilla-Plus pasta because it's healthier than white but tastier than wheat. Some people never get used to wheat pasta.
• I don't shy away from using butter and olive oil alltogeter, but I do use them sparingly. I tend to use a little bit of the real stuff and then some of the non-fat spray also. The combination maintains the flavor and provides all of the non-stick properties that you need.
• I like cheese, so even though it is full of fat (and bad fats to boot) I use it quite often.
• The entire meal will serve a multiple of the correct number of servings. For example, I most often cook for two people, so all of my meals total 1000 or 2000 calories. This way there are either no leftovers to nibble on, or enough for tomorrow's dinner.

I've divided the recipes on this site into two main categories: All-in-One Meals, and Combination Meals. The All-in-One Meals are large dishes like pastas or casseroles that follow the guidelines. The Combination Meals page contains recipes in three columns: one for protein, one for vegetable, and one for carbs. In order to make a complete meal that follows the guidelines you can prepare one recipe from each column.