Pizza: (after)
Breakfast: Scrambled cheddar eggs, Trader Joe's potato latkes with sour cream and applesauce, whole grain english muffins, and tangerines.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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. :)
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.
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.
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
Maple spice muffins (Recipe: Doubly Delicious). These were really yummy.
Gingerbread house. We do one every year, and the girls love doing it, but they always try to eat it immediately afterwards.
Honey whole wheat bread- this one came right out of the bread machine. This is our favorite bread.
Dinner: Homemade chicken nuggets, which I made in the crockpot (recipe: Make it Fast, Cook it Slow), whole grain mac & cheese with cauliflower and yellow squash puree (recipe: Sneaky Chef), green beans, and clementines.
My husband was craving steak, so he BBQ'ed this for himself. I take no credit or responsibility for it.
Chicken soup with egg noodles- my daughter wanted this for lunch for tomorrow, so I let it simmer on the stove during the day and poured it into a thermos for the next day.
Breakfast: Whole grain blueberry pancakes (recipe: Annabel Karmel)
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.
Breakfast: Egg and cheese on a ciabatta roll
Dinner: Whole grain pasta in a ricotta and cheese sauce, with fresh baby spinach (recipe: Make it Fast, Cook it Slow) and then grapes
