Day Three hundred and sixty-six

School lunch for the day: Fresh mozzarella cheese, edamame crackers, cut-up apples, carrots, and cashews.

Dinner: Turkey meatloaf (with green puree ala Sneaky Chef), mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, and grapes.

Day Two hundred and sixty-eight

Dinner: Big salad (spinach, romaine, diced apples, cucumber, cherry tomatoes- from the garden!, zucchini, cucumber- from the garden!- steamed carrots and broccoli, canteloupe, and hard-boiled eggs.  Whew.  Some challah and light ranch on the side, and a cool dinner on a hot summer's eve was done.

Day Two hundred and sixty

Dinner: Chicken marsala (McCormick recipe, adapted for the crockpot) over egg noodles, steamed zucchini and broccoli over romaine lettuce, and watermelon.  A perfect dinner to come home to after an afternoon at the pool!

Day Two hundred and forty-five

Dinner: Big Salad.  Steamed carrots and broccoli, fresh zucchini and red peppers, sliced hard-boiled eggs, baby spinach and romaine lettuce, homemade croutons (from ciabatta rolls), and fresh berries.

Day One hundred and eighty-seven

Vanilla yogurt. About to go into the cooler for six hours, ala Frugal Girl's method.

Dinner: Four-cheese tortellini with fresh spinach in a light alfredo sauce, broccoli and cauliflower, and fresh pineapple.

And dinner for the meat-eater: Some kind of steak with a horseradish sauce, tortellini, vegetables, pineapple.

Day One hundred and eighty-one

Breakfast: Yogurt parfaits- vanilla yogurt, blueberries and strawberries, and granola.

Lunch: Spinach pizza bagels on whole grain bagel thins, steamed broccoli, and sliced pears.

Day One hundred and sixty

Breakfast: Cream of wheat with maple syrup and fresh strawberries.

Lunch: Spinach omelet on whole grain bagel thin with fresh strawberries.

Dinner: Turkey breast in a white wine sauce (crockpot; Recipe: Make it Fast, Cook it Slow), mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, steamed yellow squash sticks, and grapes.

Day One hundred and fifty-two

Lunch: Pizza muffins on whole grain sandwich thins, peas, and sliced apple. My daughter didn't want to eat pizza for lunch, until I offered to let her make it... then she helped, and promptly gobbled it up. Perfection.

Dinner: Chicken enchiladas on whole grain tortillas (with pureed butternut squash and cauliflower), fresh strawberries, and steamed broccoli. This was another night when the freezer saved me-- I'd previously made a batch of grilled chicken and frozen it for future use. After thawing and turning it into enchilladas, dinner was made without a dishful of dirty pots and pans.

Day One hundred and forty-five

Breakfast: Banana Blueberry Oat Bran muffins (loosely based on Barefoot Contessa's "Chunky Banana Muffins"), with orange slices and skim milk.

Cinnamon Sugar Rattlesnacks (aka Roasted Chickpeas; recipe: Sneaky Chef).

Dinner: Indonesian peanut butter chicken (crockpot) with matchstick carrots and red peppers (with pureed butternut squash; Recipe [sans squash]: Make it Fast, Cook it Slow), over chow mein noodles, with steamed broccoli, and fruit salad.

Day One hundred and thirty-three

Snow day project: Cotton ball snowmen and gingerbread men (Recipe: Kid Concoctions. We didn't eat these, but the dough did need to be cooked on the stove, so it's fair that they get to share the spotlight w/our other food of the day.

Breakfast: Oatmeal with strawberries and blueberries (frozen), drizzled with a little maple syrup and cinnamon.

Dinner: Alien green ravioli (homemade ravioli with edamame and light cream filling; Recipe: Rachel Ray) with broccoli, and bananas.

Day One hundred and twenty-nine

Dinner: Tilapia with pineapple-mango salsa (recipe: Allrecipes.com), whole wheat couscous, and steamed broccoli.

Day One hundred and fifteen

Lunch: Scrambled eggs with shredded low fat cheese, carrot sticks, and sliced apple. I wasn't actually intending to make this for lunch, but when three eggs accidentally cracked as we took them out to boil for dinner, I decided eggs it was!


Veggies in the steamer-- two lbs. of organic baby carrots, two heads of broccoli, and two heads of cauliflower. Some of this ended up being...

Purees for the freezer: Cauliflower



Purees for the freezer: Carrot



And the rest of the steamed veggies ended up being...
Dinner: Big Salad (steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots; romaine lettuce and baby spinach, garbanzo beans, crunchy noodles, and sliced hard-boiled eggs, with light ranch.


Fruit salad with "fairy dust" (aka cinnamon)

Day One hundred and seven

Broccoli and cheese omelet muffins. My friend Kristi turned me on to these-- they are cool b/c they are carb free, which doesn't matter to us too much, but it's nice for an occasional change. There are tons of recipes online-- they're very easy to make.

Kids' cooking project: Oatmeal raisin cookies (recipe: Annabel Karmel). I made these w/my younger daughter and a friend of hers, and they had such fun baking together.


Dinner: Nachos (turkey taco meat with pureed sweet potato, salsa from our favorite Mexican restaurant, refried beans, mashed avocado, cheese sauce, sour cream, and green beans). Don't ask where the chips are- somehow they didn't make it into the picture.

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-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-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 Seventy-seven

Dinner: Chicken Quesadillas (whole grain tortillas, grilled chicken, black beans, shredded cheese, and 3/4 cup of the remaining sweet potatoes leftover from Thanksgiving), broccoli, and sour cream. According to my mom, who was there for dinner that night, you couldn't even taste the sweet potatoes.

Latkes. My daughter's teacher asked me to bring these into the classroom, so we whipped up a few batches to share with her friends.

Day Seventy-two

Mashed potatoes. This was for my daughter's school Thanksgiving feast. The recipe made such a large bowl that I kept some extra at home for dinner. (Score!)

Dinner: Leftover mish-mosh. Spaghetti from the other night, mashed potatoes from earlier, turkey hot dogs, and steamed broccoli.


Blueberry sorbet (recipe: Sneaky Chef). This really counts as fruit, as it is blueberries, cranberry pomegranate juice, and a splash of honey, pureed in the food processor. I love that my kids call it "dessert," though.

Day Sixty-four

Breakfast: Maple french toast sticks (with sweet potato puree; Recipe: Sneaky Chef)

Breakfast: French toast sticks, turkey bacon, pineapple, and grapes


Dinner: Fondue night. Cheese and white wine fondue


Grilled chicken and steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots


Cheddar biscuits (think Red Lobster biscuits, but these are half whole wheat and all natural; recipe: Fix, Freeze, Feast)

Dinner: Cheese fondue, grilled chicken, steamed veggies, and cheddar biscuits

Last but not least, fruit salad. My husband made this- mangos, strawberries, and blueberries

Day Sixty-one

Dinner: My husband's turn to cook, which means BBQ. Cheeseburgers (mine and the kids were turkey, his beef), waffle fries, steamed broccoli, and grapes.