Day Three hundred and thirty-three

Breakfast: Spinach mango strawberry smoothies (recipe: Cooking Light).   We refer to these as "Martian smoothies"

Pizza (dough recipe: Gluten-free on a shoestring).

Dinner: Pizza, steamed broccoli, and grapes.

Chocolate chip cookies.  Trying out a new cookie recipe, this one is from Robin Ryberg, who has a bunch of neat GF cookbooks.

Sandwich bread.  Using the all-purpose flour blend I could not live without, this bread recipe makes our current go-to loaf.

Lunch for tomorrow: Turkey on above sandwich bread, apple, fresh mozzarella cheese, cucumbers, and a chocolate chip cookie.  Morning snack in the separate container- ants on a log (PB and raisins on celery).

Day Two hundred and sixty-five

Smoothie: Before

Breakfast: Spinach mango strawberry smoothies (recipe: Cooking Light).  Referred to as "Martian smoothies" to skeptical children.

Dinner: Grilled ranch chicken (thank you, hubby), whole wheat pasta with steamed spinach, and watermelon.

We haven't eaten this, yet, but it's growing in the garden. What kind of a cucumber is this?!?

S'mores... giant grilled marshmallows obliterated the melted chocolate, but my girls were tickled to be covered in sticky white fluff, so all was not lost.  ;)

Day Two hundred and fifty-eight

4th of July dessert: Strawberry blueberry galette (recipe: Cooking Light)

Day Two hundred and forty-seven

Breakfast: Whole grain zucchini blueberry muffins (recipe: Parents magazine) with fresh watermelon.

Father's Day dessert: Sour cream pound cake (recipe: Cooking Light). This recipe is more time consuming than a regular cake, but SO worth it.

Father's Day fruit platter: Made by my mom.  There was a whole other meal, including chicken, steak, pasta salad, salad, etc., but it was made by my parents, so I didn't photograph it.

Day Two hundred and thirty-six

Breakfast: PB banana flax seed smoothies (recipe: Cooking Light).

Lunch: Grilled cheese and apples on whole wheat, steamed broccoli, and fresh blueberries.

Dinner: Turkey meatballs (with green puree ala Sneaky Chef), brown rice pilaf (with cauliflower puree, ala Double Delicious), steamed veggies, and fresh fruit. I had two bags of these meatballs in the freezer that I'd made as extras while back, and frozen. When my afternoon went awry due to a sick child, I was more than thrilled to be able to pull these out of the freezer and put together a quick dinner.

Day Two hundred and fifteen: Mother's Day

Lemon bundt cake (recipe: Wilton)

Broccoli cheddar quiche (before)


Mother's day brunch: Danish, turkey bacon, green beens with shallots (recipe: Cooking Light), broccoli cheddar quiche, fruit salad, chicken cutlets, and creamy potatoes au gratin (recipe: Allrecipes.com)

Day Two hundred and ten

Breakfast: Peanut butter banana flaxseed smoothies (recipe: Cooking Light).

Day One hundred and sixty-eight

Breakfast: Pumpkin whole grain waffles (with wheat germ and flax seed), scrambled egg whites with spinach, and sliced pear. I made a double batch of these waffles and froze two breakfast's worth for future mornings.

Dinner: Chicken fried (brown) rice (recipe: Cooking Light), steamed broccoli, and fresh pineapple.

Day One hundred and forty-four

Dinner: Chicken piccata over orzo (Recipe: Cooking Light), with steamed carrots, green beans, fresh pineapple, and strawberries.

Day One hundred and thirteen

Snow day breakfast: Blintzes, turkey sausage, spinach and cheese eggs, and oranges. My husband shopped for and planned the breakfast, and the pancakes I planned to make were tabled for another day. Weekday snow days are always treated like holidays around here.

Vanilla yogurt. This goes from the pot to six jars, and cools in a water bath for a few hours in a cooler, ala the Frugal Girl.

Dinner: Potato and cheese soup garnished with shredded cheddar and light sour cream (crockpot: recipe: my friend Lynn, who now expects to be famous ;), leftover sliced grilled chicken from a few nights ago, cheddar drop biscuits (recipe: Cooking Light), vegetable medley, and fresh cantaloupe.

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.

Day Eighty-one

Before: Broccoli and six cheese soup (crockpot; Recipe: Make it Fast, Cook it Slow). The recipe was actually for three cheeses, but I had extra swiss and american that I needed to use up, as well as a four cheese blend, hence the six cheeses. :)

Seven hours later: Broccoli and six cheese soup

Cheddar drop biscuits (recipe: Cooking Light)


Dinner: Broccoli and cheese soup and biscuits. This dinner probably could've used a salad, but I was flying solo so I never got to make one.

Day Eighty

Breakfast: Peanut butter flax smoothies (recipe: Cooking Light). Somehow these tasted chocolately even though there wasn't any chocolate in them. Perhaps my taste buds just assume that all peanut butter is accompanied by chocolate.

Lunch: Bean quesadillas (pureed pinto beans and cheese) with frozen blueberries


Vanilla yogurt


Dinner: Leftovers from last night. Clean kitchen! :)

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 Sixty

Yogurt. I tried something new and made it in the toaster... it worked!

Dinner: Cheesy whole grain rotini (with turkey bacon and peas; recipe: Cooking Light), pretzel rolls (compliments of my friend Christie- these were so good!), salad, and grapes.

Day Thirty-nine

Purees for the freezer: Butternut squash. This typically goes into pasta dishes, chili, etc.

Lunch: Annie's mac & cheese, baby spinach with ranch dip, and sliced apples. My girls were home sick w/colds, so I treated them to "boxed" mac & cheese. Sadly, they love it as much as the homemade kind. For it's ease, I do, too, but don't tell anyone. ;) Oh, and I had to make peas for my little one, b/c her spinach was "yuck."

Dinner: Hashbrown Casserole (crockpot; recipe: Make it Fast, Cook it Slow). This came out so well! I used spinach instead of the red peppers it called for, b/c I don't care for peppers in breakfast food, and steak fries instead of hash browns, b/c they are healthier, and it's what I had in my freezer, and Trader Joe's chicken apple sausage, b/c they are just about the only ones to make a poultry sausage and not put it in a pork casing).


Using up my basil plants before the next freeze: Pesto sauce. I think my recipe is from Cooking Light. I add everything but the cheese, then freeze in jars. Each jar is enough for one lb. of pasta.

Day Nineteen

Zucchini carrot apple bread (recipe: Cooking Light). Thanks to Karen S. for the zucchini- one of these breads is for you! :)

Dinner: Ciabatta bread (dough made in bread machine).

Dinner: Tortellini Florentine soup (crockpot. Recipe from my friend Janna, who nabbed this from the Southern Living Slow Cooker Cookbook), and cut up honeydew.