Healthier fettuchini

September 17, 2013

Once again, the kids packed their lunch. I checked their school accounts today and I couldn't believe how little money they have spent since school started. They are doing an awesome job of using up leftovers. The best part is they are doing it happily and without me even asking. Score!

My hubby was home for lunch today. He asked if I wanted to go out. Uh oh. Hold strong. We settled on making sandwiches under the broiler. We love melty goodness sandwiches. My hubby sauteed red onion, portobello mushrooms, green and red peppers, and fresh garlic. I had muenster cheese and he had three pepper cheese. Under the broiler our little hawaiian sweet sub roll sandwiches went. I added on spinach and avocado. Oh wow. I was sad to see the end of my sandwich. Ha!

My hubby had to work through dinner. I thought I would have a couple friends over for spaghetti. My friends couldn't make it tonight. I looked through the cupboards and saw a pack of pasta that has been hanging out waiting for us to try. I figured seeing as my friends weren't coming then it was a good night to try something new. How would the kids like mung bean pasta? Better yet....how would I like mung bean pasta?!

I steamed green beans from my garden. I have a bunch of bread that needs to be used up (seeing as my son has been eating leftovers instead of his usual peanut butter and jelly sandwiches). I melted some butter and added chopped garlic and some garlic & wine seasoning. I drizzled it over the bread and toasted them up in a pan. I popped open a jar of my home canned spaghetti sauce. The pasta only takes about 6 minutes to cook. My son walked by as I was cooking and he said, "mmmmm those plain noodles smell good mom". WHAT?! I topped our fettuchini with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Here we go. My son took a few bites and said "this is really delicious". A few bites later he leaned over to my plate. He pointed at the fettuchini and said "this". Then he pointed at the bread and said "this". Next up was the green beans and he said "and this"......are delicious! Yay! My daughter was more quiet but I asked her after we ate and she said she loved it. As for me: it didn't really have a bean taste. It had a different texture than white pasta, which is what we are used to. It didn't really absorb the spaghetti sauce and it got a little watery after being on the fettuchini for awhile. No big deal. It's just a little messier. It definitely tastes different from white pasta but it's pretty good for a healthier option. I think we will be having mung bean pasta again. I see alfredo in our future.

Grilled burgers

September 16, 2013

The kids started out the week by sticking to their lunch boxes. Yay! Leftovers have never been used up so well as they have the past couple weeks. I couldn't wait to get my hands (and my fork) on the leftover pizza from yesterday. It was just as delicious today.

There is a freeze warning tonight so I spent the day in my garden gathering up all that I could. Then I had to find ways to use up what I had picked. I decided to make a small batch of green tomato salsa. I didn't have all of the ingredients that I normally use so I just used what I had on hand. Instead of lime juice, I used lemon. I didn't have nearly enough cilantro either so I tossed in a little basil. It turned out ok. It isn't quite as awesome as the normal recipe but it made three small jars. I decided that I may as well can them because it would be too much to just keep in the fridge. I also grabbed a little of the hot pepper relish that I had made for my hubby and put it in two tiny jars. I'm kind of hoping this is the last canning I do for this year. I feel like I've cooked and cooked and cooked. And cooked. I will need to work on corn tomorrow. How exciting. It is the first year that we have grown corn.

Tonight's dinner was an experiment. My hubby had seen a new veggie burger in the store. I dug in tonight and grilled us up some of the Morning Star Grillers soy burger. I also grilled red onion and mushrooms. I had american cheese and my hubby had three pepper cheese. I added garden lettuce, ketchup, and mustard. I served our burgers with a side salad and homemade pickles. Oh boy. I was a little nervous for a soy burger. I've liked our bean burgers. But soy?

Wow. I can't believe I liked it. The burger was surprisingly similar to a beef burger. All four of us liked them. I think next time I will add more awesome toppings (caramelized onions!). This wasn't the best "beefy" burger but dressing it up a little will make it a definite repeat at our house. Overall, a win.

My hubby's genius lunch

September 15, 2013

Today was a pretty incredible day for the challenge. You've read about me doing some pretty weird things with leftovers throughout this challenge. Today was a day of recreating leftovers.

My hubby had an idea for lunch. It was so out there that I had to sit and think it through for a minute to figure out if I should give him my "ok". He wanted to make pizza and instead of using pizza sauce he wanted to use....my leftover cream of potato, leek, and fennel soup. WHAT?! Soup as a pizza sauce? He then said that he would also add caramelized onion and sauteed mushrooms. Ok, he had me at caramelized onions. He added a little garlic & wine seasoning on top of the soup, er, I mean sauce. Ha. He finished the pizza with provolone, mozzarella, and parmesan cheese. How in the world is this going to work?! Oh. My. Gosh. Seriously. After every single bite, I let out a sigh or an "oh wow". I kept talking about this pizza for a good ten minutes after we got done eating. This pizza was amazing. I can't wait to make another batch of soup and you can bet there will be pizza the next day!

I couldn't let my hubby out "challenge" me so I tried to come up with something to use leftovers for dinner. I had seen a recipe for stuffed potatoes several months ago. Most recipes call for kidney beans and chili to stuff the potatoes. Hey, I have leftover vegetarian quinoa chili in the fridge. Perfect. I cut the potatoes in half and boiled them for ten minutes. I scooped out 2/3 of the potato. I gave the potatoes a coating of olive oil and baked at 375 for 20 minutes. I filled the potatoes with the chili and topped half of them with cheddar and half with mexican cheese. They baked at 400 for ten more minutes. I couldn't bring myself to throw out all the potato that I had scooped out. I threw them into a pan with some butter, fresh garlic, some chopped fennel, salt, pepper, and garlic & wine seasoning. After a few minutes, I added in a little local white wine. I figured we could sample them tonight and someone would have them for lunch tomorrow. I also got a side salad ready and added in some sliced fennel to try.

The stuffed potatoes turned out great. The chili really went well with it. I think next time I will serve them with a little sour cream on top. The scooped out potato and fennel saute was good too. The fennel actually worked in the salad. I'm excited that we found two new ingredients this weekend that we really like (leek was the other).

Ok, now I just have to wait about 14 1/2 hours until I can have another slice of that pizza for lunch tomorrow.....

Cream of potato, leek, & fennel soup

September 13 & 14, 2013

My hubby and I went out for a lunch date yesterday. We went to this amazing little cafe. It is run by a husband and wife and everything is made from scratch. We tried a cream of potato and leek soup (last week we tried their cream of potato and fennel) along with their special of the day. Wow. It was probably the best soup I've ever had. Unreal the amount of flavor. We were so stuffed that we didn't really want much for dinner. The kids had leftovers.

We spent the rest of the afternoon canning. We did 10 pints of salsa, 9 jars of taco sauce, and 4 pints of tomato juice. I had tried making taco sauce once about 7 years ago but didn't like it. This was my first attempt since then. We just kind of made it up as we went along but I had my hubby guestimate his seasonings so that I could jot down the basic recipe.

12 cups tomatoes (peeled and chopped), 3 tablespoons paprika, 3-4 tablespoons oregano, 2 tablespoons cumin, 2 tablespoons salt, 2 tablespoons pepper, 2 cups onions (we used half red and half of it white), 4 jalapenos, 2 tablespoons adobo, 2 garlic cloves, 2 tablespoons sugar, 3 tablespoons lawry's, and 2 tablespoons chili powder. Saute the veggies and garlic in olive oil. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Put the sauce through the food processor and then can in a hot water bath for 35 minutes.

Lunch time rolled around today and I felt soupy. Ha. I wanted to go back to that cafe. I told my daughter about it and she wanted to try it too. My son had McDonald's on the way. We all ordered soup. I ordered the cream of potato and leek. My hubby got cream of potato and fennel. My daughter ordered fragrant lemongrass with karrif lime, bean thread noodles, & shrimp. Wow. Yum!

I decided to attempt my hand at making a soup similar to hers. I wanted to do both a fennel and leek combo. I wanted the leek to be the star so I decided to only use one of the two fennel bulbs that I had bought. I never make cream based soups so I was a little nervous. I once again jotted down what I added so that I could recreate this soup if it turned out well.

I sauteed one fennel bulb chopped, 2 leeks chopped, 3 1/2 cups diced potatoes, and one large bulb garlic diced in two tablespoons of butter. I seasoned them with salt, pepper, and garlic & wine seasoning. I let them cook on low for about 30 minutes. I added 4 tablespoons of local white wine. I didn't want them to brown but to just get tender. Ten minutes later, I added 1/2 cup of homemade vegetable broth and let it simmer for another ten minutes. I put the veggies into the food processor. It came out looking pretty similar to mashed potatoes (you could process it less if you want chunkier soup). I added it back to the pan and stirred in two cups of heavy cream. It was still missing something. I saw that I had a few sprigs of fresh thyme from my garden in the fridge. Perfect. It probably was about 2 tablespoons worth. I served the soup with a slice of fresh sweet bread (yep, from the cafe too) and topped the soup with green onion.

How did my first cream soup go? My hubby said it was very good. My daughter said it was phenomenal. My son said "woop woop"! Ha. I really liked it. I think the only change for next time will be to double the amount of leeks. This tasted really good but I want the leeks to really stand out.

Ok. Time to move on to warm apple pie...

Homemade applesauce & vegetarian chili

September 12, 2013

I met my friends this morning and we went to a local apple cider mill. I love this time of year. They have the best apple cider, apple cider donuts, apple selection, and list goes on. I bought two giant bags of apples, a gallon of cider, and some cider donuts. After going out for lunch, I headed home to make applesauce.

I kind of just threw stuff together but I did jot down amounts so that if it turned out good I would be able to recreate it. Ha. I made three batches. I put my apple peeler/corer/slicer to good use today. Each batch started out with 14 apples which equaled out to about 16 cups of sliced apples. I added one cup of the fresh apple cider to each batch. Batch one: 6 tablespoons of maple sugar (something fun I found at the cider mill today) and 6 tablespoons of my father in law's homemade maple syrup. Batch two: 1/2 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice and 1/4 cup sugar. Batch three: 1/4 cup sugar and 2 1/2 teaspoons raspberry extract. After the apples cooked down (roughly 45 minutes- 1 hour), I put the applesauce through the food processor. Wow. It makes the applesauce the perfect consistency. If you are looking for a strong flavor, I would add a little more of the flavorings. I wanted it to be more on the subtle side for the kids.

I was talking with my friend this morning and she told me something new to try. She boils her apple peels with water and then uses that juice to make jelly. Hmmmmm. I decided to boil my peels and see if I could just get juice/cider to drink. I let it boil while I canned the applesauce so it may have boiled for 1 hour- 2 hours. It is missing something. I think it will need sugar in order for it to be drank straight. I may use it for cooking something but that is for another day.

Now on to dinner. I made a really quick pot of chili. This was my first attempt at vegetarian chili. Yikes. I had red onion chopped in the fridge. I used that seeing as it was already chopped otherwise I would have used white. I sauteed the onion and fresh garlic in olive oil. I added in three stalks of celery and two carrots (cut small) along with two cups each of black beans and cannellini beans. I added about a cup of green pepper that I had in the freezer. Next up: tomatoes. I grabbed a quart of home canned tomatoes and a can of tomato sauce. Separately, I cooked 1/2 cup quinoa with 1 cup water. I stirred the cooked quinoa into the chili. I seasoned it with salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, oregano, and garlic & wine seasoning. I served it with mexican cheese, cheddar cheese, sour cream, and green onion. My daughter made a side of crescent rolls. Of course we all had some of the fresh applesauce too. Dessert: cider mill donuts!

How did my first vegetarian chili go? My son liked it but would rather less beans. My daughter said it was amazing but she would want more beans. Ha. My hubby said it was "delish". I loved it. I don't miss the meat in it at all. Wohoo! All three flavors of the applesauce went over well. Nobody could pick with one was their favorite. With my new found vegetarian chili recipe and my 13 jars of applesauce, I'm ready for winter! Ok, maybe not quite yet.

Spinach artichoke tortellini; grocery savings

September 11, 2013

Ahh grocery day. How I love you. There is nothing more satisfying than a full fridge and lots of good stuff in the cupboards. The kids have done amazing this past week with packing their lunches. My daughter bought school lunch only once. My son would ask "what is for school lunch today"? I would tell him and also tell him the leftovers that we had. His reply, "but you can get hamburgers any day right"? Hamburgers, by the way, were his favorite school food and got it every time he ordered school lunch last year. However, my awesome little buddy chose to pack his lunch EVERY day. I couldn't believe it. I forgot to add their savings for the first day of school to last week's totals so I will add that extra day in today. The kids saved $23.05! Yay! My pre-challenge grocery weekly average was $175. Today I spent $17.85 on toiletries/cleaners. I spent $109.92 on food. Ugh. However, I have lots of new dishes that I am making this week so there were plenty of ingredients that I had to get. I spent $2.59 on impulse items. There was just no way that I could pass up pumpkin bars mix and cream cheese frosting. I spent $8.71 on gossip magazines. After adding in their surcharge and taking out my coupons, I spent $140.15 out of pocket. This is a savings of $34.85. We went out a few times this week. My pre-challenge restaurant average was $80. This week we spent $73.45 (including the pizza we had to order when the kids bumped the gas stove on for 30 minutes!). This is a savings of only $6.55. Our savings for the week equal $64.45. Our grand total savings is $4,481.38 in 329 days!

I felt adventurous and wanted to try something new for dinner tonight. I started out by cooking some onion and fresh garlic in a little olive oil. I added in half a bag of spinach and some local white wine. Meanwhile, I added silken tofu and 1/4 cup of milk to the food processor. I poured the tofu/milk mix into a saucepan. Then I added the spinach mix and a can of artichoke hearts to the food processor. I stirred that into the tofu/milk mix. I added about a cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and garlic & wine seasoning. I boiled some five cheese spinach tortellini and added the sauce to it. I steamed some green beans. Also, I wanted to do something special for the kids. They have been such troopers both with this challenge of spending less money and also with going vegetarian 20 weeks ago (tomorrow). Although they have added some meat back in a couple times a week, my hubby and I have completely stuck with it. I felt bad that they may have missed some of their old favorites so today I also cooked up a teriyaki pork loin for them. I cooked half (thinking they would want some as lunch tomorrow) and froze the other half.

How did my dinner go? I figured that they would think I did something weird to the dinner. They know me by now and know that I like to "hide" ingredients. I thought that they would probably think my "hidden" item was the green in the sauce. Fingers crossed that nobody notices the tofu! My son saw it and asked if it was guacamole (which he doesn't like). Ha, no buddy. My daughter took a bite and I heard "mmmm". She took another bite and I heard "mmmMMMMMMMM". Ha. Ok, one person down. Two to go. My son took a bite and said "wow mom, this is DELICIOUS". Two. I looked over at my hubby's plate. It was almost empty and before I knew it he went back for seconds. Yes! Everyone really liked it and nobody could think of anything I should change for next time. Unbelievable. Success!

Celebrate!

September 9 & 10, 2013

I woke up yesterday feeling thankful. Thankful that I have two great kids. Thankful that my hubby and I are besties. Thankful that he isn't deployed (while many of our friends are). Thankful that someone I love recently received a clear bone scan when being scanned for cancer. You never know what can happen and I wanted to take the day to show my family how much I love them. Why wait until a major holiday to have a great holiday meal?! Let's have a love celebration. (Ok, so I felt sappy. My hubby laughed when I called it a love celebration). Ha!

I got to work and processed 2 dozen cobs of corn. I bagged and froze it then decided to try something new. I wanted to make cream corn. I took the last six cobs (uncooked) and cut the corn off. I put about 4 tablespoons of butter into a saute pan. I melted the butter and added the corn, 1 tablespoon of sugar, salt, and pepper. I let it cook on low for about 25 minutes. I mixed one tablespoon of flour with one tablespoon of water. I stirred it into the corn. Then I added 3/4 cup of milk and let it cook for a few more minutes. Wow. This corn is so good!

My next project was making my hubby some hot pepper relish. I used the basics of a recipe my aunt gave me last year. I knew my hubby wanted it a little less sweet so I reduced the sugar. I started out by adding 1 jalapeno, 4 cayenne, 2 big habanero, 1 tablespoon fresh garlic, 1 1/2 cups green pepper (a small amount of it was red), and 1 cup onion into a little bit of oil. I cooked them for just a few minutes and then added in 2 cups of green tomatoes (way less than the relish I made last year because I wanted to highlight his peppers and not green tomatoes). I added a little less than 1/2 tablespoon each of mustard seed and kosher salt. I added 1/4 tablespoon of celery seed, 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar, and 1/4 cup sugar. I let it simmer for about an hour and then put it through the food processor. My hubby tested it and said "ooooh, that's spicy". Yay! I usually don't make things hot enough for him.

I decided to make meatballs (vegetarian ones out of chickpeas) and boiled potatoes with garlic butter to go along with the cream corn for dinner. I got the meatballs made and rolled. I got the potatoes cleaned, cut, and into water. Earlier I said that you never know what can happen..... yesterday was an example of that. I went into the kitchen to turn on the oven and stove and discovered that the kids had bumped the stove about 20-30 minutes earlier and our kitchen had filled up with gas. Yeah, that put dinner on hold. I figured it was probably best to air it out, order a pizza, and wait to cook the meatballs and potatoes until later in the evening and just keep them for dinner the next day. Once again, feeling thankful that I noticed it before I turned on the burner. Thankful I didn't blow up! Oh well, our celebration will wait for a night.

I wanted to make a dessert for us. I found a recipe on Taste of Home for a moist chocolate cake. It said it was so moist that it didn't even need frosting and was topped with a dusting of powdered sugar instead. It sounded perfect seeing as I didn't have any frosting or cream cheese to make a batch. I gave it a whirl. Mix 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons of baking cocoa (I used 5 because under the comments it said it needed more chocolate), 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Make three wells in the mix and add the following: 6 tablespoons vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon white vinegar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Pour 1 cup cold water over it all. Beat on low. Pour into a greased/floured 8 inch square pan and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Dinner rolled around and seeing as it was all cooked all I had to do was heat it up. We had our meatballs, potatoes with garlic butter, homemade cream corn, salad with lettuce/arugula/peas/green onion/sunflower seeds, homemade pumpkin pie flavored applesauce, and my daughter's famous deviled eggs. When it came time for dessert, I couldn't figure out how to add powdered sugar to the cake without it clumping. My hubby had a great idea. He suggested I put powdered sugar into my skimmer (handheld little strainer) and tap the side. It worked great!

What did everyone think of our love celebration? Everyone loved the cream corn. I'll have to make that again. My hubby, daughter, and I all liked the cake. My son said it was too chocolatey. What?! It was light with just the right amount of sweet. I'll have to make that again too. It was fun having a nice big dinner. My daughter was so excited that she got to contribute; she had me video tape her giving a cooking show while she made the eggs. :) I enjoy cooking and often use food to show my love. Today was just another day. However, it felt great to take a little extra time and make something special for my family. We talked about how lucky we are as a family. As we sat around our picnic blanket (which has kind of become a tradition), I couldn't help but feel thankful once more. Now go. Go cook. Go spend extra time with your kids. Hug your hubby just a little bit longer. Be thankful for all you can do.