Day One hundred and one

Dinner: Baked turkey legs, challah, and peas. This was another dinner completely made by my husband (I don't touch bones). We were out for the day and needed to make something quick, so this was what he made. In a few days he goes back to work, and then I'm on my own again with dinners!

Day One hundred: Cookie day

Normally we make our Christmas cookies a few days before the holidays, but since we were all sick this year, it got put off. Finally all were well and energetic enough to bake, and boy, did we! My girls had a blast helping, we got some great pics of them rolling the cookies.

Peanut butter blossoms. These are a staple to our holiday; ever since my friend Linda gave us a bunch one year, it doesn't feel like Christmas without them. I've had the recipe forever, not sure where I got it.

Christmas tree spritz cookies (recipe: Pampered Chef). This was my first try at spritz cookies; my grandma has an age-old recipe that she makes every Christmas, but she misplaced the recipe this year. I found the cookie press kinda tricky, I was ready to throw it a/c the kitchen at first, but then got the hang of it.

Lemon sugar/slice cookies. G-d bless this dough-- it is from the same batch I made weeks back, and kept frozen till now. It's the third (and final time) I've worked off of this batch. Once again, recipe from my friend Kelly.

Oh, and dinner was leftovers, as who has time to make dinner when you're baking hours of cookies?

Day Ninety-nine

A really simple dinner: Turkey hot dogs, broccoli, and mac and cheese. My husband was responsible for this meal, but I was just happy to have a night off from cooking.

Day Ninety-eight

Fruit salad. This time of year, it's mostly frozen fruit, as good fresh fruit is so rare right now.

Spinach and cheese quiche in a whole wheat crust.

"To die for blueberry muffins" (recipe: Allrecipes.com). I use a little whole wheat pastry flour in these, but the recipe gets dense with too much. These really are incredible muffins.

Breakfast for dinner: Fruit salad, blueberry muffins, and quiche.

Day Ninety-seven

Granola, in progress.

Granola, in jars for gifts.

Granola, extra for the freezer. This is my favorite granola recipe (Fix, Freeze, Feast) and is so easy to make.

Breakfast: Strawberry cream cheese

Dinner: Out.

Day Ninety-six

Mashed potatoes. These were my husband's doing.

Dinner: Lasagna (my grandma made this for Christmas, and sent it to us since we were sick) and steamed spinach.

Other dinner: Steak, steamed spinach, onion petals, and mashed potatoes. Who other than my husband would BBQ in the middle of a blizzard?!?

Day Ninety-five

Monkey bread (before). This was the first time I made this, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It was quite yummy.

Monkey bread (after)

Monkey bread


Christmas morning breakfast: Monkey bread, scrambled eggs, and sliced apples. This was an abbreviated breakfast of what we'd normally have, b/c we were still under the weather.

Dinner: Chicken and rice soup with ginger (before)

Dinner: Chicken and rice soup with ginger (after)

Day Ninety-four

Sick-day lunch: Annie's mac and cheese (with pureed butternut squash), peas, a clementine, and chocolate milk. If you've followed this blog at all, you've learned that mac and cheese is our sick-day lunch. Especially by adding a veggie puree, it allows me to make something "homemade" (well, kind of) for my girls, while not making too much of a mess, or spending too much time cooking instead of taking care of them.

Dinner: Baked chicken with alfredo sauce, rice, and steamed broccoli. My husband gets total credit for this meal. I was upstairs sick, and he made dinner. I requested rice b/c I thought it'd be good for sick tummies, but I never got around to eating any of it.

Day Ninety-three

Dinner: Indonesian peanut butter chicken (recipe: Make it Fast, Cook it Slow), served over lo mein noodles, with edamame and frozen strawberries.

Day Ninety-two

Chocolate peanut butter dip (with carrot puree; recipe: Deceptively Delicious) and sliced apples. My kids love this dip, but today it went with my husband, for a holiday party at work.

Dinner: Turkey meatball heroes (with pureed butternut squash mixed into the marina sauce), steamed broccoli, and clementines. Confession: I barely made any of this. The meatballs were ones I had made a while back and frozen, and the bread was picked up last-minute from Shoprite. I was at my daughter's school for the afternoon today, and my plan to put dinner in the crockpot before I left never happened. This came out well, though, so all was fine in the end.

Day Ninety-one

Dinner: Breakfast for dinner. Whole grain banana waffles with sweet potato puree (recipe: Sneaky Chef), turkey sausage, and cheddar spinach omelets. Omelets were made by my husband, as he is omelet king, and I am omelet disaster lady. I can fold a crepe, but not an omelet. I think my subconscious prefers this, as there are very few foods that he cooks willingly.

Day Ninety

Breakfast: Oatmeal with maple syrup, brown sugar, and diced apples. Unfortunately... I had my camera right on the table but forgot to take a picture until we finished eating. Oops.

Lunch: Pizza. I'm reading "Eat Pray Love," and after the author's description of the best pizza in Italy, I had to have some, too. Usually I make the dough in the bread machine, but today I did it by hand. Surprisingly, it was much more pliable.

Pizza: (after)

Day Eighty-nine

Breakfast: Scrambled cheddar eggs, Trader Joe's potato latkes with sour cream and applesauce, whole grain english muffins, and tangerines.


Dinner: Was supposed to be leftovers, but I was out-voted in favor of chinese food. Either way, my kitchen stayed clean, so I didn't argue.

Day Eighty-eight

Dinner: Turkey meatloaf (with pureed yellow squash and green puree), steamed carrots and green beans.

Dinner: Butternut squash soup (made from a batch I made a few weeks back, and had frozen).

Mini gingerbread house: My daughter made this in school so technically it wasn't made in my kitchen, but she was proud to have made it, so here it is.

Day Eighty-seven

Lemonade. Despite it being frigid here, my kids wanted to make lemonade after reading a storybook about a character who made some. So, their loving dad bought them half a dozen lemons, and away they went...

Dinner: Quesadillas (whole grain tortillas with diced chicken, pureed sweet potato, shredded zucchini, black beans, and diced tomatoes), guacamole, sour cream, jasmine rice, and clementines. A few weeks back when I made quesadillas, I tripled the recipe and froze the extra cooked chicken and sweet potato in two bags. Tonight I was fortunate enough to be able to defrost one, add some fresh ingredients, and heat up the griddle. It made for a much quicker dinner, and less mess, which I love!

Day Eighty-six

Dinner: Cannelloni. My parents got these for us from Stew Leonard's, and it was a perfect quick dinner to bake in the oven on a busy evening.

Cookie swap: Lemon sugar cookies (recipe from my friend Kelly). You wouldn't know it, but there were ten dozen here. Fortunately, nine dozen were given away in the swap, so we're not responsible for eating all of them. Even more fortunately, I made all of the dough the last week (when I went to the other cookie swap), and stored it in the freezer, so tonight I didn't have to do more than slice and bake. Whew.

Day Eighty-five

Purees for the freezer: Yellow squash

Before: Chicken and potatoes. My parents bought us this chicken and although I'd never actually roasted a whole chicken before, it was on my kitchen to-do list. Since it had bones (I usually only cook boneless breasts), my husband was all excited and actually made the rub and put it on without me even asking. He was giddy.

After: Chicken and potatoes

Dinner: Roasted chicken, roasted rosemary potatoes, cream cheese spinach, steamed carrots, chicken gravy, and clementines.

Spinach, being steamed for purees.

Purees for the freezer: Purple puree (recipe: Sneaky Chef). This is a blend of spinach and blueberries, and is awesome for making brownies.

Strawberry frozen yogurt. Not sure why I felt the need to bust out the ice cream machine on such a cold day, but it seemed right. Made with skim milk and homemade fat-free vanilla yogurt.

Day Eighty-four

Birthday party: Music note cupcake cake.

Birthday party: Three dozen cupcakes. I have no need to make cupcakes anytime soon, and am thrilled! Cupcakes were buttermilk vanilla, and icing was cream cheese buttercream.

Day Eighty-three

Dinner: Lemon rosemary chicken (crockpot), whole grain penne with pesto sauce, steamed carrots & green beans. The pesto sauce was from a batch I made at the end of the fall and froze.

Lemon slice cookies. These were for a cookie swap I went to at a neighbor's house- each person showed up with three dozen and traded for other cookies. I left with a nice assortment. :)

Day Eighty-two

Dinner: Tex Mex chicken (recipe: Cooking Light) over jasmine rice, served with sour cream and avocado, peas, and an apple. The recipe called for pork tenderloin, but since I don't eat pork, I used chicken breasts. My family gobbled this one up, it was a great recipe, and pretty easy.