I was all set to make a fun lunch for the kids (I'll keep it a secret from you for now until we get to do it another day) but they stopped me and asked for leftovers. Wait, what?! My daughter wanted some leftover noodles (my lunch from yesterday) and my son wanted to make another weiner dog hotdog. So I just had the leftover curly noodle dinner from last night.
Ok, now let me begin the rest of our day with dessert first. Because honestly, who doesn't want to talk about dessert first? Remember my big find at the grocery store this week: four cans of biscuits for twenty cents cheaper than one can of crescent rolls. Well, on the package was a recipe for monkey bread. Oooooh monkey bread. I don't care how much sugar is in the recipe. I NEED monkey bread. They were so easy to make. Mix sugar and cinnamon. Chop biscuits and then shake in bag full of sugar/cinnamon. Melt butter and stir in brown sugar. Pour that mixture over the biscuit pieces in a pan. Bake. Mmmmmm.
Now back to the afternoon. We needed a snack and my son had been begging for cookie dough hummus. Yes, again. You can't really deny them when it is a healthy snack that they think is junk food (well, there is chocolate pieces in it but I say the healthy aspect still outweighs the junk!).
As for dinner, I was craving beef barley soup. Hmmm. I don't have beef. I don't have barley. Now what? Aha. I have local lamb stew meat and quinoa. Those will do! I mixed flour, salt, and pepper and dredged the lamb in it. I browned it in a pot with a little olive oil. Then cooked it as I would for beef stew: simmered with a bay leaf in beef broth for about two hours until it was very tender. I scooped the meat out with a slotted spoon so that I didn't have any of the thick flour based sauce left, and then set the meat to the side. In my soup pot, I combined some homemade broth (yay for broth that I stick in the freezer), carrots, onions, celery, and quinoa. I simmered that for about twenty minutes. Then I added the meat, a bag of tomatoes (frozen from my garden when I didn't have enough to can), a bag of corn (frozen from the farmers market), and a handful of peas. Simmer for another few minutes until everything is nice and hot. Voila. Lamb stoup (stew+soup) is born! The kids said it was good but my son wasn't too big on the lamb for some reason tonight. He can't get enough of it when we grill lamb chops though. I think if I were to make this again, I would shred the meat after it simmers. I rather smaller pieces of meat in my soup. However, if you are looking for a filling "man" soup, this would be it!
No comments:
Post a Comment