Breakfast for Supper

If anything is easier than last night's pasta dish, this is it.

Scrambled eggs with cheese
Conecuh sausage
Fruit smoothies

I never follow a real recipe for fruit smoothies, but tonight's batch was good. I used orange juice, plain yogurt, frozen blueberries, mango, papaya, strawberries & pineapple.

Ravioli with Tomatoes, Spinach & Feta

Anna has been asking for ravioli, so last night we had this easy dish for dinner:

2 lbs. frozen ravioli, cooked according to package directions

16 oz. grape tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup frozen spinach
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup feta cheese

Place olive oil, wine and tomatoes in pan. Let sit for 15-20 minutes to briefly marinate.

Saute tomatoes and garlic, adding spinach after about 3 minutes.

Add feta and serve over ravioli.

Grapes Supreme

2 lbs. grapes, washed and dried
1 8 0z. package cream cheese, softened (I used reduced fat)
1 cup sour cream (I used light)
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup pecans, chopped
1/2 cup brown sugar

Place grapes in a 9-10" round dish.

Beat cream cheese, sour cream, sugar and vanilla together until smooth and creamy.

Spread cheese mixture over the top of the grapes.

Just prior to serving, sprinkle with pecans & brown sugar.

Chicken with Veggies

I rarely buy marinades. Partly because I've always felt I can make one just as well from scratch and partly because I shop at Aldi a lot and they don't sell them. However, this week when I shopped, Aldi had a trio of packet marinades for less than a dollar each. I thought it might be worth trying, so I pulled some chicken breasts out of the freezer and tried it.

The herb marinade packet called for
3 tbsp of olive oil
3 tbsp of white vinegar
1/4 cup water.

I was marinating a larger amount of chicken than recommended, so I used 1/4 each of olive oil and apple cider vinegar and 1/3 cup water. I also let the chicken marinate for about 36 hours since J ended up having a work dinner one night this week. Since I had split chicken breasts instead of boneless, I baked them for about 75 minutes at 350.

With the chicken, we had:

Roasted Green Beans
Drizzle olive oil over frozen green beans.
Top with salt & pepper.
Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, then 400 for 10 additional minutes.

AND

Green Salad with Marinated Cucumbers.

Anna's Recipe

Fruit Milk

1 bowl of milk
10 strawberries
25 or more blueberries

Cut up strawberries and put them in the milk.

Drop in the blueberries.

Let it soak for a minutes and eat it!

Anna wrote out this recipe and left me a note that said, "Mommy - Put this on your blog! - Anna"

Friday Food

This is why you should eat foods in season. Our dinner tonight was very easy, but very yummy!

Corn on the Cob (fresh from the berry farm we went to today)
Soak in water in the husks
Grill for 10-12 minutes

Burgers
Pre-made, frozen and from Aldi (I had wondered if these would be good - they were!)
Grill

Fruit Salad
Blackberries & Blueberries (picked today by the Truss Girls)
Diced apple
Diced mango
Cantaloupe balls
Honeydew balls
Grape halves

I made the fruit salad this afternoon, so the entire meal came together super quickly after J got home. It was a great Friday summer meal.

Veggie & Pasta Salad

It's been a while since I've successfully cooked on two consecutive nights. For some reason, I've been having a tough time finding joy in cooking lately. I'm fairly certain this is part of a bigger lesson that God is teaching me about where to funnel my creativity, so I'm trying to push through and cook even when I don't feel like it. One thing I discovered today is that if I leave all meal prep until just before dinner, I'm exhausted and overwhelmed and want to quit. Today, A & B had friends over to play, so I made part of our dinner in the afternoon so that it would be chilled and ready. That worked much better than starting it at 5:00 when my girls are cranky and I am, too.

1 box Italian pasta salad
1 cup whole wheat pasta
1 bunch broccoli, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
1 cup marinated cucumbers (see below)
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup Parmesan Italian dressing
Italian dressing packet from salad box

Cook whole wheat pasta for 4 minutes, then add pasta from box for remaining 4 minutes.

Steam broccoli and zucchini for 2-5 minutes, to desired tenderness. Rinse immediately in cold water to stop the veggies from cooking more.

Mix all ingredients together.

To Marinate the Cucumbers:

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar (I use a scant 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

Mix milk, sugar and vinegar together and pour over peeled, sliced cucumbers. I used 1/2 of each marinade ingredient for two cucumbers. You can vary the marinade amounts up or down depending on how many cucumbers you are using. My mother-in-law gave me this recipe and I love the way the cucumbers taste tangy and sweet when prepared this way.

I had planned for us to have fruit salad to go with this dish. Alas, by the time we returned home from Sam's at 6:30, the last thing I felt like doing was preparing more food. So the kids had cherries and blueberries alongside their pasta salad. Oh, well. At least we didn't eat out.

Taco Salad

After a week of no children and lots of eating out, I was actually ready to cook tonight! Here's what we had:

1 lb. ground beef
1/3 cup onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 squash, thinly sliced and quartered
1 package taco seasoning

Brown ground beef. When partly browned, add onion. Cook for 1-2 minutes.

Add bell pepper. Cook 1-2 additional minutes.

Drain fat from beef, onion and peppers.

Add squash and taco seasoning and cook until beef is completely brown.


Spinach Leaves
Red Oak Lettuce
Cucumber, thinly sliced and quartered
Fresh salsa
Shredded cheddar cheese (I used a taco mix)
Sour cream or plain yogurt
Guacamole

Place ingredients in bowls, adding or subtracting ingredients to your taste. Top with ground beef mixture and have tortilla chips on the side.

Grown-Up Dinner

My girls have been out of town this week at their grandparents' house, so that has meant a lot of eating out for Jason and I. In just one week, I've been to Batter'd & Fried, Allium, Chili's, Rosepepper, Jackson's, and Panera. That's more eating out than I normally do in a month! Last night was a night at home, so we had a grown-up dinner that our girls might eat, but wouldn't enjoy like we do.

It was basically a fruit and cheese plate. I stopped at Marche and picked up a four pepper goat cheese, crostini and a key lime tart to share for dessert. With that we had a rouma rosemary cheese, sliced granny smith apple and sliced mango. It was yummy!

I had the plate arranged beautifully for a picture to include with this post, only to find the battery was dead... you'll just have to close your eyes and imagine a quiet house, a white plate, green apples, yellow mango and cheese. Lovely.