Day Three hundred and ninety: New Year's Eve

Lunch: Brown rice wrap, pumpkin puree, cheese, and spinach.  This is my current favorite lunch.

Brown sugar cookies, to be turned into the crust for a...

Cheesecake.  Family recipe, and it would not be the holidays without it.

Dinner (Carnivore-Lite): Grilled chicken, roasted rosemary potatoes, and sesame broccoli.  My dad is picky about most everything I make, and he was raving about the broccoli.  The recipe is definitely a keeper.

Dinner: (Carnivore-De-Lite): Steak, roasted rosemary potatoes, and sesame broccoli.

Cheesecake, up close and personal.

Day Three hundred and seventy

Lunch: Crunchy quesadilla (brown rice wrap, sliced turkey, cheese- with pureed pumpkin spread on the wrap, it melts right into the cheese), baby spinach, and apple.

Quesadilla sticks (the above quesadilla sliced into strips with a pizza cutter), perfect for little hands.

Lotion.  Every once in a while I make a batch.

Day Three hundred and forty-six

Dinner: Brown rice quesadillas (chicken, cheese, black beans, shredded zucchini, and butternut squash puree) topped with avocado and sour cream.  This is such a family favorite.  Here's the recipe:

Chicken Quesadillas

1 lb chicken breast
2 zucchini or yellow squash, shredded
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup orange pureed vegetable (pumpkin, butternut squash, sweet potato, even carrot would work)
taco seasoning (such as McCormick packet found in the spice aisle, or your favorite homemade blend)
shredded cheese (cheddar or mexican)
avocado (mashed)
sour cream
8 whole wheat or brown rice tortilla wraps, 6 or 8 inch work fine

Saute chicken and taco seasoning on the stove until cooked through, and shread or cut into chunks. Mix chicken, black beans, shredded zucchini, orange puree. Put tortilla on sprayed griddle or in frying pan, sprinkle with cheese, spoon on chicken and zucchini mixture. Top with a little more cheese and another tortilla on top like a sandwich. Cook until tortilla browns and cheese starts to melt; flip and brown other side. Top with sour cream and avocado, if desired.  Makes four tortilla "sandwiches."

Sandwich bread (recipe: Gluten Free on a Shoestring) made with the artisan gluten-free flour blend.  I like how this bread comes out, but I'm still experimenting to find the "perfect" loaf of bread.  I have lots of recipes to try until I decide.

Day Three hundred and forty-two

Dinner: Quesadillas (black bean, zucchini, tomatoes, and cheese in brown rice wraps) with sour cream.  Brown rice wraps are SO good- they come out nice and crisp on the griddle. This was delicious.

School lunch for tomorrow: Yogurt, granola, fresh pineapple, whole grain tortilla chips, and celery.

Day Three hundred and thirty-four

Lunch: Deli turkey and cheese on gluten-free bread, cucumbers and spinach with ranch, and apple slices.

Three-bean turkey chili (with shredded zucchini and butternut squash puree) topped with shredded cheddar, sour cream, and avocado.  I made a triple batch of this- one was donated to a charity function a friend was running that evening, and another went into the freezer for future use.

Lunch for tomorrow: Turkey on gluten-free bread, fresh mozzarella, spinach with dip, grapes, and pirate's booty.

Day Three hundred and twenty-nine

Lunch: Shredded zucchini, black beans, and cheese inside of brown rice wraps, with sour cream.

Dinner: Broccoli and cheese soup (crockpot; recipe: Make it Fast Cook it Slow).

Day Three hundred and twenty-two

Dinner in a rush: Polenta slices, gluten-free chicken nuggets, fruit salad, and steamed carrots.

My daughter's lunch for tomorrow: Turkey, cheese, gluten-free crackers, red peppers, and grapes.

Day Three hundred and twenty

Breakfast for dinner: Scrambled eggs with spinach and cheese, homemade gluten-free english muffins (recipe: You Won't Believe it's Gluten Free), and sliced pear.

Day Two hundred and fifty-nine

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with cheese on a whole-wheat english muffin.

Watermelon.  Technically I did not "cook" this, but as it's taking up plenty of real estate in my fridge, and took quite a while to cut up, it's game.

Day Two hundred and eleven

Dinner: Chicken, cheese, and black bean quesadilla casserole (crockpot; recipe was a conglomerate of something I found on allrecipes.com, and another from Make it Fast, Cook it Slow).

Dinner: Above casserole w/sour cream, and sliced pears.

Day One hundred and eighty-eight

Lunch: Sliced deli-turkey and cheese melted on challah bread, baby spinach, and sliced strawberries.

Dinner: Pizza out with friends

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 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-three

Two days until Thanksgiving... let the preparations begin! Sweet potatoes roasting, and cornbread baking.

Shredded carrots, for a carrot-herb biscuit. This is another pre-prep done for Thanksgiving. For this recipe, I measured and combined the dry ingredients, and shredded the carrots, but I won't do the rest of it till the morning of Turkey day.

Cornbread! Recipe: Sneaky chef. This cornbread will go in the stuffing. It was made with half white/half whole-wheat pastry flour, with a cauliflower-zucchini puree, some coarsely-chopped corn, and a little flax seed. May sound weird, but it is super moist and delicious.


Pumpkin pie pudding (Recipe: Cooking Light). This won't be on the Thanksgiving menu, but a friend of mine gave me some cooked sweet pumpkin from her garden, so I pureed it, made a double batch of this, and sent half home with her.


Breakfast for dinner: Spinach and cheese omelets and whole grain english muffins. After this, we had some sliced bananas, and then dipped into the pudding a little bit. ;)

Day Thirty-five

Breakfast: Breakfast risotto (crockpot; recipe: Make it Fast, Cook it Slow). Arborio rice, chopped apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cranberries.

Dinner: Orzo salad, brought to a friend's house. Orzo, olive oil, sun dried tomatoes, fresh basil, Parmesan cheese.

Lunch: Scrambled eggs with cheese, toast, and watermelon.

Day Twenty-six

Brinner (aka Breakfast for dinner): Whole wheat apple pancakes, spinach and cheese omelets, turkey sausage, cantaloupe, strawberry yogurt smoothies.

Day Eight

Apparently taking pictures of our food has become a way of life around here. After dinner tonight, the girls were fooling around with the camera, and pretending to take pictures of imaginary dinners. Lol.

Dinner: Broccoli and cheese quiche in a whole wheat crust, whole wheat yogurt strawberry muffins, and cantaloupe.