Monday, February 25, 2013

Food reinvention

February 25, 2013

Today was a total challenge success. We started our day by my hubby and kiddos packing leftovers for lunch. My hubby brought beef roast to make a sandwich out of. My daughter brought tacos. My son brought a sandwich.

I wanted to make soup out of the leftover beef broth and some of the beef from the slow cooker yesterday. I looked in the fridge to find other ingredients for the soup. Hmmmmm. Today is going to be a day of reinvention of food. Why do I always put the same veggies (onion, celery, carrot, corn) in soup? I had some leftover red potatoes, broccoli, and cauliflower from when we had fondue. Why do I always use pasta or rice in soup? I had leftover quinoa with corn. This was the easiest soup ever. I put the broth in a pot. I added the container of cooked veggies. I added half of the container of quinoa and corn. I added a little bit of chopped beef. Simmered until heated through. It was actually pretty good! I really liked the cauliflower in soup. I will have to keep that in mind next time I make some.

I saw that I had three bananas that needed to get used up. I decided to make the kids some smoothies for after school. I normally start with some milk but today I used orange juice instead. I added spinach and bananas to the orange juice. After blending, I added strawberries and ground flaxseed. The kids really liked it (my daughter had 2 1/2 glasses) but they prefer it made with milk.

Time to plan dinner. I knew I was going to make salmon. There are leftover taco shells. Ok, so salmon tacos it is. What side dish would go with that? Ah! Black beans and rice. I have leftover rice. Perfect. I used half a can of black beans and sauteed them with some red onion. I added a bunch of the rice and 3/4 of a pint of home canned tomatoes. I seasoned it with cumin, oregano, thyme, and salt. For the tacos, I seasoned the salmon with oregano, salt, and cumin. As my hubby grilled the salmon, I got to work on the toppings. Why do taco toppings always consist of lettuce, onion, tomato, and cheese? I cut matchsticks of cucumber, celery, and carrots. I also cut up some red onion and lettuce. My daughter mixed together some guacamole and sour cream. Oh man. Dinner turned out even better than it did in my head. Ha. I will definitely make this again. The guacamole/sour cream really complimented the salmon. My hubby used leftover hard shells. The kids and I used tortillas. My daughter went back for seconds and made it in a lettuce wrap.

Who can let that extra half a can of black beans go to waste? I'm sure you know where I'm headed. Yep, dessert. I made half a batch of the brownie dip. I can't wait to dig into that tonight after our evening activities.

No comments:

Post a Comment