Day Forty-nine

Dinner: Spinach salad (hard-boiled eggs; croutons made from the whole wheat bread I made a few days ago; steamed carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower; red pepper; chinese noodles, and avocado. Afterwards: grapes and prunes.

Day Forty-eight

Dinner: Turkey cheeseburgers (with green puree; recipe: Sneaky Chef) on whole wheat buns, steak fries, steamed carrots, and grapes.

Appetizer: Bean dip. This was for a party I was going to that night, and I served it with tortilla chips. The recipe made extra, so I kept that aside, and used it as a filling for quesadillas the next day, on whole wheat tortillas.

Day Forty-seven

Pumpkin muffins (recipe: Fix, Freeze, Feast). I ended up making four dozen, b/c I have to bring one and a half dozen to my daughter's school tomorrow, and also wanted to make some for a friend who just had a baby, and to bring to the Halloween party we went to this afternoon.

Dinner: I assembled turkey burgers this afternoon with the intention of cooking them when we got home from our afternoon out, but we ended up eating at the Halloween party, so they'll stay in the fridge for tomorrow's dinner. Score!

Day Forty-six

Sandwich bread: Whole wheat (bread machine). Another recipe from Sarah H., fellow domestic goddess.

Dinner: Teriyaki stir-fry over lo-mein noodles (chicken, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and water chestnuts) and sliced pear.

Day Forty-five

Dinner: Falafel in a whole wheat pita with baby spinach (thanks to Sarah H. for teaching me the tofu-in-falafel trick!), potato latkes with sour cream and homemade apple-pear sauce, and fresh cantaloupe. Somehow, vegetarian night became Middle-eastern night.

Day Forty-four

Dinner: White wine and cheese bread (recipe: Cooking Light). This bread smelled SO good while I was photographing it that I almost bit it. Technically the recipe calls for beer, which is how I usually make it, but someone (ahem, husband) drank the last beer the last time he BBQed, and I did not know this.

Dinner: Salsa chicken and black bean soup garnished with avocado, sour cream, and shredded cheddar (recipe: Make it Fast, Cook it Slow), grapes, and steamed carrots. This soup was incredible. Highly recommend it!

Vanilla yogurt

Day Forty-three

No cooking today... leftovers for breakfast and lunch, and dinner at a friend's bday party. I'm planning the week's meals, though, so hopefully something interesting will be on the menu for tomorrow!

Day Forty-two

Dinner: Orzo salad, as assembled by my husband, and brought to a friend's Halloween party.

Day Forty-one

Dinner: Movie night, which means Pizza (from Sam's club- I cheated!) but we topped it with broccoli and turkey meatballs. This was supposed to be a vegetarian night, but someone (ahem, husband) "needed" meat.

Day Forty

Dinner: Vegetarian chili (red and white beans, spices, diced tomatoes, butternut squash puree, corn, some leftover rice, a splash of maple syrup) with sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese, whole wheat cornbread (cauliflower, zucchini, and corn purees; recipe: Sneaky Chef), spinach salad, and bananas.

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 Thirty-eight

Dinner: Chicken souvlaki (chicken and zucchini; recipe: Cooking Light), whole wheat parmesan couscous, and sliced pears.

Baking project with my younger daughter: Munchy oat bars (recipe: Annabel Karmel, from one of her kids' cooking books). These were supposed to come out as "bars," but we found them to be really sticky, so it was more like clumpy trail mix. But, really yummy. Next time we'll use a little less butter and sugar, and see how they do.

Day Thirty-seven

Diner: Mushroom linguine (my mom got this for me somewhere) with alfredo sauce, turkey meatballs, green beans, and sliced pears.

Dessert: Chocolate pasta (also provided by my mom) with a white chocolate sauce that my husband made. This one was definitely an indulgence!!

Day Thirty-six

Baking: Pumpkin muffins (whole wheat), mini-muffins, and "donuts" (mini bundt pan). Recipe: Fix, Freeze, Feast. Mini muffins go in the freezer for my daughter's school snack for during the week, and most of the larger muffins go in the freezer for weekday breakfasts.

Breakfast: Pumpkin muffin and sliced pear.

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.