Campfire lunch

March 10, 2013

We were starting to have a lazy Sunday and tried to think of something to do. Then it hit me. Spring fever. I wanted to be outside. Even though we still have snow and ice on the ground, I wanted pudgy pies. What is that, you ask? Imagine a comfort food from your childhood. Imagine a golden grilled cheese. Except, it's not a grilled cheese. It is filled with pizza. You butter the pudgy pie cooker (a metal sandwich cooker used in a camp fire). Next you build a pizza sandwich. We used homemade pizza sauce, onion, mushrooms, black olives, pepperoni, and a five italian cheese blend. The cooker seals up the edges as it is cooked to a golden brown. During the summer, we also make dessert pudgy pies. They are filled with pie filling and then dusted with powdered sugar. These things are so simple, yet so incredibly delicious! A big thank you to my hubby and son for shoveling off our patio and building us a fire!

I wanted to give a new recipe a try. I was pretty skeptical. My son has a new obsession: cinnamon toast crunch cereal. I gave it a whirl today. Little did I know about the difference between wax paper and parchment paper. Ugh. Wax paper totally stuck to most of it so I ended up with about 1/3 of the cereal that I should have. The result? We agreed that the next batch needs more sugar in the batter. My daughter loved it and said she would eat it if I made it again. My son said he liked it, wanted more sugar, and would like it to get soft once it sits in his milk for a bit. I think after I buy some parchment paper that I will give it another try. Maybe if I bake it for less time, it will be the right texture for him.

We had planned on having salmon for dinner. However, once it was time to cook, my hubby didn't feel like cooking and asked if we could have leftovers. Um, what?! Ha. I told him that we could do half leftovers. We pulled out the leftover meatloaves, sweet potatoes, and corn. There wasn't too much of the vegetables left so I also wanted to make something else. I wanted some spinach. I sauteed some onion and garlic and then added spinach and white wine and seasoned it with salt, pepper, and adobo. For our starchy side, I pulled out an old favorite recipe. I've been using it for many years but can't remember where I found it (probably Taste of Home). I sauteed some onions and garlic in butter and olive oil. Then I stirred in 2/3 cup orzo pasta (I've made it with other small shaped pasta), 1/2 can of beef broth, 1/2 cup water, two large mushrooms chopped, 1 tablespoon of worcestershire sauce, 1 teaspoon of soy sauce, salt, and pepper. After simmering for about 15 minutes, you have the most flavorful mushroom pilaf.

Hambaaa-gers

March 9, 2013

So here we are. Another Saturday. Uh oh. How do we hold off the temptation of going out for lunch? Especially seeing as we had some errands to run and would be in town anyway. I've got it. Tell my hubby that I am craving hamburgers. I wanted to try something new though. He mixed together a pack of local grass fed beef with a pack of local lamb. He grilled the burgers while he also worked on a new topping. He made caramelized onions with balsamic vinegar, worcestershire sauce, and sugar. The toppings I chose were american cheese, caramelized onions, ketchup, and mustard. My hubby had pepper jack cheese. Kiddos like their burgers plain. We served them up with homemade pickles. The kids didn't notice anything different about the burgers. To me, they had a gamier taste than just beef. After lunch, we even told the kids that we did something different with the burgers today and asked if they had a guess what it was. They guessed that it was half beef and half chicken. Ha, nope. They liked my name for the burgers.... hambaaa-gers.

I decided to make one of the kids' favorites for dinner tonight. They LOVE my mini meatloaves. Well, seeing as the recipe is actually from my 8th grade home economics class....I guess they love my teacher's meatloaves. Ha. I have changed it a little bit over the years. We switched to using half beef and half turkey to make it a little healthier. The meatloaf itself is pretty basic. I think what really makes it is the sauce topping. It is made from tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, and parsley. Tonight we added basil to it too. Oh, and by we, I mean my daughter. She had fun making the sauce. I sliced up a big sweet potato and drizzled the slices with olive oil. My daughter seasoned them with salt and pepper. They baked at 450 for about 20 minutes. About half way through, I flipped the potatoes over and then drizzled some of my father in law's homemade maple syrup on them. Our other side was simple. We grabbed a bag of corn out of the freezer (from the farmers market) and just heated that up. Yum. Yum. Yum. You know nights when you probably should have stopped eating about five bites before you did? Yep. One of those nights. It was delicious.

Keen quinoa copycat

June 21, 2018 UPDATE!

The quinoa craisin kale recipe has become one of my favorites. I decided to switch it up a bit today!

Have you heard of Ningxia wolfberries (also called goji berries)? They are a superfruit that is so good for us! Scientists have found that people who regularly eat wolfberries have led remarkably long and healthy lives. I've been trying to add them into our diet. I've added them to fruit salad. Yum. They soak in all the fruit juices and rehydrate into these plump little bites of deliciousness. Today I wanted to try something different.

I took my recipe that I created for the quinoa craisin kale pilaf (recipe below) and updated it with using wolfberries instead of craisins!

I love finding new ways to bring wellness into our lives!

*If you need help finding wolfberries, you can find them at this link. https://www.youngliving.com/en_US/products/organic-dried-wolfberries

March 8, 2013

The challenge kind of took a back seat today. The kids both wanted to buy school lunch. My daughter just couldn't pass up shrimp poppers. My hubby packed his breakfast and lunch though.

I was craving a dish from the restaurant Gordon Biersch: quinoa kale pilaf with craisins. Hmmmmm. I have quinoa. I have kale. I have craisins. I grabbed a container of homemade chicken broth out of the freezer and thawed it in the microwave. I chopped some onion and sauteed it in some olive oil along with some garlic. I added half a cup of quinoa and let it sautee for a couple of minutes. Then I added the broth (about 1 1/2 cups). I let it simmer for about four minutes and then I added a big handful of chopped kale and just less than 1/2 cup of craisins. It simmered for about 10 more minutes. I finished it off with just a little bit of salt.

It turned out great. The craisins add a delicate sweetness that balances out nicely with the kale. I scarfed down almost the whole thing but kept a little bit for everyone else to try. I had them each take a bite when they got home so that I would know if this is a dish they would want in the future. It passed my hubby's inspection. Next up, my daughter. She loved it. Ok, there probably isn't much chance of my son giving his approval....He liked it too! They all want it as a side dish another day. It will have to wait until I shop again because I'm all out of quinoa. I bet I could make it with some orzo pasta though. Oooooh. I'm looking forward to lunch this weekend now. Ha.

For dinner, we decided to go out. Our friends whom were part owners of a restaurant had their re-opening tonight as their first night as full owners. Of course we wanted to head out and support them.....we can always be tempted with chicken wings.

Double yellow cupcakes

March 7, 2013

Today was a good day for our challenge. The kids both packed their lunches: sandwiches, yogurt, and leftover fruit salad. My hubby packed his breakfast (banana and some mango) and lunch (the rest of last week's ham as a sandwich and an orange). I looked in the fridge to see what I should do for lunch. There was still a little bit of leftover pulled pork. Ooooh, I could have it on a club roll. Ugh. No club rolls. I saw we have hotdog buns and hamburger buns. I figured that the boys wouldn't eat all of the hotdog buns this week, plus they will expire before the hamburger buns will. So my choice was made for me. How do I make this lunch more appetizing seeing as I need to use a hotdog bun? Ah, by making it into one of my favorite lunches. I put the pulled pork on the bun. Next, I added some homemade pickles and then topped it with muenster (melt-ster as my daughter called it) cheese. Under the broiler for a few minutes until the cheese was gooey (yes, such a technical cooking term), and my lunch was ready. Yum!

We decided to do tilapia tacos for dinner. I made a quick cucumber topping of cucumber, onion, tomato, cilantro, salt, and pepper. We also topped the tacos with mexican cheese, lettuce, and some of the leftover avocado/sour cream mixture. I couldn't figure out what side dish would go well with the tacos so I just did a side salad at the last minute. I chopped romaine lettuce, spinach, cucumber, tomato, mushrooms, and carrots. Ha, my daughter is reading this over my shoulder as I type and she said "oh, so that was spinach you made me eat". Ha. Yep. Tricky mom. We all really liked them. I think we may need to put some type of seafood taco on our menu each week.

Ok, time for dessert. Oh, who am I kidding. We had dessert after lunch. So now it is time for our second round of dessert. I wanted to make some cupcakes. I had a box mix for yellow cake. Let's start there. Hmmm. Yellow cake mix. That means I can hide something yellow, right? Next, I went to the freezer and grabbed a couple bags of yellow squash from my garden. After thawing them out, I put them in the food processor. I didn't want the kids to see any stringy pieces in the cupcakes so I made them more into a mash. I added 1 1/2 cups to the cupcake batter (made with 3 eggs and 1/2 cup oil). I also stirred in a little more than 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg. I still had leftover pumpkin frosting that I made a few days ago. It went perfectly with these cupcakes. My son took a bite and said "this is really really delicious". My daughter said "these are the most amazing cupcakes". I guess they should have figured out that I was up to tricks when I let them have one after lunch.

Fruit salad; grocery savings

March 6, 2013

Both of the kiddos packed their lunches today. I finished up the leftover lemon chicken soup. Then I got busy running errands and getting groceries.

My pre-challenge weekly average at the commissary was $175. Today I spent $32.88 on toiletries and cleaners. I really didn't have too much of that stuff to buy but my hubby needed razors. Man those things are expensive. $13.84 just in razors! I spent $1.69 in impulse items. I had planned on getting one container of crystal light lemonade. However, they handed out coupons at the commissary for $1 off of two crystal light. So I got two today. I spent $10.89 on gossip magazines. I spent $94.98 on food. I normally buy "Pam" cooking spray. I looked at the non-name brand version today. Wow. It was $1.30 cheaper than buying Pam. Hopefully it will end up working just as good. I had planned on buying ham from the deli for sandwiches. However, they had lemon pepper chicken on sale. Ham was $8.99 a pound versus the sale price of the chicken was $3.99 a pound. Yep, chicken won. The food item that got me today was soda. I bought a 12 pack of mountain dew and one of root beer. $10.78 in soda! That is ridiculous and I wish I could totally cut it out of our lifestyle but that just isn't reasonable for us. Ha. After adding in their surcharges and taking out my coupons, I spent $137.73 today. That is a savings of $37.27. My pre-challenge weekly average at restaurants was $80. This week we spent $28.72. This is a savings of $51.28. The kiddos packed their lunches this week enough to save $8. This brings our weekly savings to $96.55. Our grand total savings is $2,444.75 in 140 days. I couldn't help but feel grumpy that my weekly savings didn't hit $100. I need to get out of that mindset. I shouldn't feel disappointed if I don't hit my "goal". Just think how much better we are doing at not wasting food and how much money we have saved in the long run.

I asked my hubby to make us breakfast for dinner. He took the time and made all of us our favorites. My son had french toast. My daughter and hubby had fried eggs and toast. I had an omelet or momelet as they are called at our house. The french toast were made with some white chocolate mocha coffee creamer in the egg mixture. He finished them off with powdered sugar and some of my father in law's homemade maple syrup. My hubby also made bacon. My daughter made us a fruit salad. She tried something new. She mixed together a can of peaches (with its juice), a small container of mango (with its juice), and a small box of vanilla pudding. After stirring the pudding in, she added some strawberries, banana, and cantelope. It turned out great! A little extra flavor and it makes the fruit nice and creamy. My omelet had ham, american cheese, onion, mushroom, spinach, tomatoes, and remember his secret ingredient....basil. I also made a batch of chocolate chip muffins. So after we ate, I asked everyone "so, how did you like your leftovers"? It was a great meal to use up some items from last week. The banana, cantelope, and strawberries were all from last week. Of course, I still had a bunch of bread leftover so that was the french toast and regular toast. The tomato and ham for my omelet was last week's. The muffins were a mix that has been sitting in my cupboard for too long. It was getting time to either use this stuff up or throw it out. It made much more sense to ask for breakfast tonight.
*I had issues uploading the pictures so the post had to wait until today to go up.

Healthy nachos

March 5, 2013

Tomorrow looks like grocery shopping day. So that means that today's job is to use up leftovers and make room for all the new stuff. For lunch, I ate some leftover lemon chicken soup. My daughter had a little of the soup along with some leftover rice.

I wanted to make a fun snack for when my son got home from school (my daughter stayed home today). I saw that we still hadn't touched the big box of strawberries that I bought last week. We also had some bananas that had to get used up. Oooooh! I also found some small containers of mango. Oh yes. This is happening. Strawberry banana mango smoothies. Yum! A new favorite.

My hubby had to work through dinner (yay he packed leftovers to take with him) and I didn't feel like cooking so I figured we would use up more of our leftovers. I pulled several choices out of the fridge and let the kids pick what they wanted. My son had balsamic chicken, a tortilla, cantelope, and strawberries. My daughter chose lasagna. I had some frozen so I just stuck it in the microwave and did auto defrost. She still doesn't have much appetite so I think she just managed one strawberry with her lasagna. Ok, so here is where it gets weird....

I wanted to use leftover pulled pork for my dinner. What should I do with it? Mmmm nachos. That's not so weird. But when I looked back in the fridge and saw a container of leftover steamed cauliflower, yeah, for some reason my mind thought this would work. I heated up some pork. I heated up cauliflower. I topped tortilla chips with the pork and cauliflower. I grabbed some green onion out of the freezer (from my garden). On it went. Next, I wanted something cool on top. Sour cream. Oh wait. I have an avocado. Yes! I used my food processor to make a puree of avocado with just a little bit of sour cream mixed in. I think I only added one scoop of it; just enough to help thin the avocado so it would process nice and smooth. I set the avocado/sour cream to the side and cut up some pepper jack cheese to put on the nachos. I popped the pan under the broiler for a few minutes until the cheese got bubbly. Then I topped it with some of the avocado/sour cream. So, how did my weird nachos work?! They were awesome! I think that as long as you have other strong flavors (my pulled pork and avocado) then the cauliflower is masked. You can indulge in gooey nachos and you are still getting your veggies!

Pumpkin cupcakes and 11 meals

March 4, 2013

Today was a great day for the challenge. My son used up some never ending bread by packing a sandwich for his lunch. My daughter brought some leftover lemon chicken soup. I also had some of the soup for lunch.

I was up early today so I figured it would be a good day for luau pork. It takes about 12 hours in the slow cooker. It is the easiest recipe (I may have already written about it) but it so delicious that I'm going to mention it again. Put 1/2 cup apple cider or juice in bottom of slow cooker. Place a large pork roast on top. Cover the roast with 2 tablespoons of sea salt (I just used kosher salt) and then put 2 tablespoons of liquid smoke on top of the salt. Cover and cook on low. My favorite thing about this dish is that it reheats just as tasty as the first day. I freeze leftovers and then can pull out containers for an easy meal later on that tastes like I've been cooking all day.

I looked through the fridge to see what to make along with our pork. I cut up the rest of the cauliflower and broccoli and got it steaming. I saw we still had a small container of cole slaw from when we ordered fish fry on Friday. Hmmmm. I wish I had little Hawaiian slider rolls to make sandwiches on. Oh wait! I did buy a loaf of the Hawaiian round bread (comes in a pie plate). I cut off big chunks of it and then cut it in half to make sandwiches out of. We topped our pork with barbecue sauce and cole slaw.

For dessert, I wanted to make cupcakes. I looked in the fridge and saw I still had 1/2 cup of mashed sweet potatoes. Well, the kids did love the sweet potato bread I made twice this week. I decided to make a half batch of it and put it into a muffin pan. If it looks like a cupcake, it's a cupcake. Uh oh. I didn't have a can of frosting. One more look in the fridge and I found what I needed. I mixed together 1/2 cup milk with a small box of pumpkin spice pudding. Then I added half a block of cream cheese (softened). Once that was blended, I added a partial container of cool whip that I found in the back of the freezer. There was probably less than half left. They turned out so good! My son said "It's amazing, and I can't stop eating it". Ha. I really loved them too. I'm betting that the last few of them do not make it through the night! There is still quite a bit of the frosting leftover. I may need to find something else to frost tomorrow.

After dinner, I got back to work. Remember that I had bought a 9 1/2 pound roast to use today? I separated the leftovers into different sized containers. A few really small ones. My hubby can take those to work for lunches. I made a few medium sized ones. Those I can use when my hubby works late and it is just me and the kiddos for dinner. I also did a couple bigger ones that will feed the four of us. Cook once, and feed us 11 times. Yep, a productive day indeed.