Recipe of Love ~ Welcoming Children into the Kitchen

How child-friendly is your kitchen?

By child-friendly, I am not referring to filling the cupboards full of toys, or hiding all the knives. I am talking about welcoming your children into the world of food preparation, and inviting them to be a part of all the sights and aromas.

So often, our culture relegates children to the "safe" play areas while adults hurriedly complete the now mundane tasks of making dinner. And yet, there are few things more natural and satisfying than slowing down and including children in the creative process of meal preparation.

Even very young children, three and four years old, can wash lettuce, dump pre-measured ingredients into a bowl, stir batter, and grease pans.


As they get a little older, teach them how to slice fruits or vegetables using knives, carefully stir hot things on the stove, roll out dough, and preheat the oven.

While all my children are welcome in the kitchen, each week one child is assigned specifically to be my helper, beginning around age seven. This is when they receive one on one instruction. I do not set aside extra time in my day to show them how to make one thing from a recipe. Instead, almost every weekday evening, they assist me in creating an entire meal, from start to finish.

This is an important point, because knowing how to make just one dish is quite different from the ability to prepare a full dinner. Seeing and being a part of the the process repeatedly, they slowly become accustomed to knowing how all the parts work together; that the roast needs to go in way ahead of time, when to begin steaming the vegetables, and allowing enough time for the rolls to rise.

Several things can be happening at once; food in the oven, food on the stove, food being chopped, stir the gravy, check the chicken, check the rice, whoops we're out of this ingredient so we'll have to use this instead, how about if we add this, don't you love the smell of this spice, how many 1/4 cups are in one cup, and on and on.

I admit, there are times that the goof-ups during the learning curve can be quite frustrating. Hang in there. It'll pay off, big time. At age nine, my oldest daughter was able to make full meals (for example; salad, roast chicken, rice, vegetables, and homemade bread) completely on her own. Believe me, this was beyond wonderful when I had a newborn baby to tend to.

There are some occasions when I just need to get something quickly accomplished (surprise guests coming!) and do not have the time, or patience, to include them every step of the way. When this happens, they are allowed to remain in the kitchen to watch if they keep quiet and keep their hands to themselves. Usually, I end up asking for their help anyways.

I encourage you to make your children's presence in the kitchen just a regular part of your life. You'll teach them quite a bit, sure. But you'll learn a lot more.

Mexican Bean Soup-(Not-Tortilla Soup)

You know how sometimes those days happen? It's dinner time and you have no idea what to even start cooking. Maybe you had a plan, but forgot to defrost something. Or maybe you just looked at the clock and realized that people are hungry and it was your job to make something, but you completely forgot about it until now.

I had one of those nights recently. Desperation is the mother of invention, especially in the kitchen.

What I had; a family size can of re-fried beans, (I buy it on sale and break it out for bean and cheese burritos on occasion.) tomato sauce, condensed chicken broth packets, cheese, green onions, frozen corn. What I didn't have were tortillas, otherwise I would have made some burritos for dinner.

So it all became soup instead. Though I wasn't sure about it at first. I mixed the can of beans together in the pot, added the tomato sauce, water, a packet of chicken broth, and spices; ground cumin, a dash of chili sauce, cayenne, oregano, etc.

The beans were already seasoned so I didn't have to add much.

Once it was boiling and smooth I added the frozen corn, turned off the heat and served it with shredded cheese and sliced green onions.

Technically it's tortilla soup, and you can fry up strips of tortilla to put on top like croutons, but I didn't have tortillas, remember? So it was not-tortilla soup. My kids didn't know the difference and were actually delighted to get leftovers for lunch the next day.

The best part about this soup is that it adapts very well to whatever you have. You don't need a can of beans. Some leftover frijoles, black beans (leftovers from Volcanoes perhaps), chicken broth, etc can all be thrown together to make this soup. Or you could plan ahead and cook some pinto beans from dry. If you do, I recommend adding onions, garlic and salt to them as they cook.

The key ingredients are beans, tomato, broth, cumin, and cayenne.

You can add vegetables, such as celery or carrots, substitute cilantro for green onions. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the top. It's really all up to you isn't it? Because, after all, you're the cook.

PS. I'm making this for a potluck this weekend. Instead of putting in corn I plan to use hominy, which is like big corn kernels that are starchy instead of sweet. That should make it more hearty. But I'll need to add in the sweet another way, probably with a can of tomato paste.

Happy Festival of Fried Foods

Yes, I know I haven't posted this past week, and I'm still not done with the week of pantry basics, but we've been celebrating Hanukkah over here. And while latkes are definitely frugal, one of my granny's favorite stories to tell before she died was all about how she didn't know what to make for dinner and only had one egg in the house and so she made latkes (potato pancakes) and every one had plenty to eat, they may not count as healthy for most people. My mother in law made some this past week though, we called them leftover latkes, and she put lentils and chicken and grated zucchini in them too and they were really good, and fairly healthy as well.

I roasted that $5 turkey I told you about last night, and I now have leftovers to last several days. Hello turkey soup, and pie, and sandwiches.

One night, while trying to think of a way to use my dry goods, and honor the fried food tradition I decided to make samosas. I used a package of spring roll wrappers that I had stashed in my freezer and combined the fillings in these two recipes.

samosa recipe how to make samosas

lentil samosas

I didn't use mango powder though, or carrots because I didn't have either of those. Next time I will roast some of the panch phoran mix seeds and add them to the filling too. I think it will taste even better.

These were a total hit. My husband asked me how long he's have to wait before I made more, my kids ate them, the Girl needed encouragement to finish the filling but she finished it, and even the neighbor kid had some with us for lunch the next day and liked them.

Right now I have two stocks going, one for turkey, one for chicken. We are having shepherd's pie from Turkey leftovers tonight, and so much soup in the weeks to come. I'll get back to you soon with an authentic, only from basics day soon.

Pantry Basics-Day Five and a Bonus section on beans and gas

Well yesterday was another pantry day.

Breakfast was crock pot porridge again.

Lunch was quinoa and lentils again. I mad ethem the night before so the Gh could tak ethem for lunch as well.

I was excited to find some ground beef in the freezer that I had overlooked. If memory serves I stocked up on ground sirloin when it was $1.99.lb. This was about 1 pound of meat. The kids wanted noodles so I cooked up about 1 pound of noodles I got at Big Lot's for $2.50 for 3 pounds.

I added two cans of Hunt's tomato sauce, also Big Lot's $.69.can, and the GH actually seasoned it because I had to feed the very cranky baby.

I defrosted a frozen loaf of the free cheese bread. (I wrap it in foil shiny side out and put it in a warm oven, 250F or so for at least half an hour. Be sure to flip it over in the middle. It comes out all warm and moist and has that fresh baked feel.)

And we had salad made from half, or less, of the red leaf lettuce I bought at the Farmer's Market last week, some organic cauliflower($.87/lb), and some sprouts. I estimate the cost of the salad to be around $1.20 or less.

We had more than half of the sauce left over and I plan to add some beans and turn it into sloppy joe's later this week.

Sauce $3.40 halved $1.70
Noddles $.83
Salad $1.20
Bread-free

Total cost for dinner $3.73

I was excited about the ground beef but after a week of eating vegetarian, well, and a stomach bug this weekend that kept me from eating much of anything courtesy of my sick baby, I felt distinctly uncomfortable with all that meat in my belly last night. I was getting used to the lighter cleaner feeling that comes without it.

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Now onto a very serious question. One of you, and I won't say who because I'm nice like that, has indicated that you are concerned about the amount of beans I am eating because of gas issues. I thought that might be a question for more than one person so here goes.

If you find beans make you gassy, there are a few possibilities. The most likely is that the beans you are eating were not soaked first before cooking. All seeds, and beans are seeds, have in them enzyme inhibitors. These keep them from sprouting when conditions are too dry and unfavorable, they also make beans hard to digest and make it hard to absorb nutrients. Soaking changes all of this. It convinces the seed to wake up, thus removing the enzyme inhibitors turning the carbohydrate into protein and making the whole thing more digestible. For more detail go to this article that I wrote here. If you've not been soaking your beans over night before cooking them and you find you feel uncomfortably gassy after eating them, try soaking them. This may eliminate the problem.

I don't find that beans cause any extra gassiness, I get more from too much meat. But perhaps I don't notice that much because I also eat a lot of cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and spinach and those can cause gas too.

The second thing to consider is whether or not you are eating those beans with red meat. I find this combination often leads to excessive gas, but I don't usually blame the beans, I blame the steak or BBQ or hamburger personally. Try eating them without meat though and see if that makes a difference.

Last, for now, I know people who swear by Beano and other digestive enzymes. Beano you put on you first bite and it helps your stomach to break down the enzymes, and others you take before your meal, like papaya enzymes. Also, other things to try are drinking juice only before you eat, not after the meal as it's easier to digest on an empty stomach than full and helps the rest of the food along. Stick to water after you start eating. Wine on the other hand makes digestion easier. This is why I try to eat salad first as well. The vegetables digest better on an empty stomach and keep things moving for the other foods. There is something to be said for the whole European idea of single foods served in individual courses in an order that is meant to aid digestion.

I hope that some of those help y'all. Anyone else know something I missed? Add it to the comments.

Making meals with dry goods and pantry basics-A week, or more, of pantry scraping

It's going to be a tight month for us, really tight. The GH's line work has always been affected by season, and this year more than usual. (That means it's been a while since we've seen a paycheck and it may be even longer before one appears. Such is the lot of the self-employed. Especially when some clients don't pay on time. Sigh.) Plus there are two little girls with birthdays in December, and lots of holiday related things. I'll be hand making a lot of gifts from materials I already have stashed, I already have some gifts tucked away. And, I'm spending as little as possible on groceries. I've been talking a lot lately about how little you have to spend to eat real food that's good for you. Now it's time to put my money, or lack of it, where my mouth is. Literally.

A quick look through my kitchen give me this list of things to work with:
Quinoa
lentils-red and green lots
10 pounds jasmine rice
5 pounds red rice
1 pounds black rice
1-2 pounds sticky rice
1 bag dry black beans
1/2 back pinto beans
lots of tiny little white beans
1 pound of black eyed peas
whole oats
barley
millet
a huge bag of textured vegetable protein (Made with soy flour)
cornmeal
whole wheat flour
white flour
fresh ground flour
wheat berries
3 sweet potatoes
4 onions
condiments and crushed garlic
chicken broth
rice stick
spring roll wrappers
maseca-Flour for corn tortillas
alfalfa seeds
zesty salad mix sprouting seeds
almonds
One 12 pound turkey in the freezer. Purchased for $5 on sale.
Several chicken legs, $0.49/lb. I have a rain check for more when I run out.
2 whole chickens (These were free because we butchered them ourselves for the GH's parents when they stopped laying. They are old and tough and will take some unusual measures to render edible.)
Frozen edamame
frozen green beans
frozen cranberries
2 eggs
2 quarts of yogurt
half a large box of powdered skim milk
frozen seafood stock
stockpiled baking items, chocolate chips, nuts, icing, etc.
molasses
almost out of honey
a little bit of sugar
a lot of tea
1 loaf of bread
maple syrup
canola oil
and many condiments and spices.

I still have a few apples left, I stocked up when they went on sale for $0.57/pound a few weeks ago.

Still growing in my pots,
garlic chives
oregano
parsley
basil
galangaal
mint (Not thriving)

As you can see, I do have quite a lot stockpiled that I can work with. I am going to try and not buy anything fresh and see how long I can go this way. I will eventually need to get honey for bread. And I can't imagine I'll be able to avoid buying eggs for long. I'll be making a sourdough starter so I don't need to worry when I run out of yeast. I really wish we weren't out of peanut butter. I read that you can make yogurt out of powdered milk and no one can tell the difference, but I haven't tried it yet. I'll be testing that out when we run out of yogurt.

So, are you wondering what we ate today?

Lunch was rice with an egg stirred in toward the end of cooking. We call it yellow rice. And edamame, (Soy beans). The kids ate it. It all depends on the sauce. I let them dip it in kecap manis. I suppose starving them helps too. And by starving them I mean feeding them yogurt for breakfast, and sprouted almonds, and dates, and apples, and toast.

For dinner I bought something. I spent $1 on a ham hock to make navy bean soup. Actually I spent $3 for 3 because that's how they were packaged. I'll put the other 2 in the freezer for another time.

Ingredients
1 lb dried navy beans (These were free actually, my friend gave them to me when she moved away, but for the sake of conversation...) shall we say $1?
ham hock $1
one onion $0.40

Soak the beans for several hours, then put in the crock pot with the ham hock and a lot of water. Cook on low overnight. At lunch time or so, chop the onion and add it to the crock pot along with 2 tsp minced garlic and some bay leaves. An hour before serving I fished the bones out with a slotted spoon, picked the meat off and added it back into the soup. I'm deciding if there is another broth in the bones still, I think there might be. At the end I also added salt, pepper, old bay spice, thyme, parsley, etc.

So the soup cost $2.40. There is more than half left, which I put in the freezer for another day,

Cost of main course $1.20

To go with it I made Indian Corn Pone, following the recipe in the More with Less cookbook.

1 cup corn meal $0.15 (I got the large bag at Big Lot's for $2.)
1/2 tsp salt-negligible
1 tsp baking powder-negligible

2 tbsp fat-I used canola oil $0.10
3/4 cup powdered milk $0.25
1/2 cup water.

Stir together in order and let sit for a bit so the cornmeal has a chance to soften. Using a table spoon drop spoonfuls into a hot greased skillet and flatten with a spatula. Flip when the bottom is golden and cook until both sides are golden. Serve immediately.

So, the side dish with extra protein cost $0.50.

We also had some fresh springs of parsley for the vegetable. Free from the planter.

Total cost of dinner for 4 people $1.90

Except for the cornmeal, I'm basing this on regular prices, not sales. Imagine if I got it on sale.

More with Less Cookbook is Still in Print

So I did a little search and here it is. The More With Less Cookbook is still available on Amazon. There is a lot of good stuff in there for you to look at, hundreds of recipes and lots of information as well. You may never come back here again. No, come back, I didn't mean that.....but this book is a great resource, just saying.

Thai Turkey Dinner

Four years ago I had just given birth to my daughter and spent most of the holidays laying on the couch and watching other people take care of my house, and kitchen. The Genius Husband, who is a fabulous cook, and quite the foodie commandeered the preparation of the tiny turkey I had procured earlier. What followed was the best tasting, and most unique turkey dinner I had ever had. It tasted so good that our new menu for Thai Turkey has become a yearly event. If you are bored with turkey, or never really liked it much to begin with, and you are cooking for people who won't hang you for mixing it up a little bit, you'll like this. I will be posting recipes to go with this menu for the next few days, starting with the turkey and a shopping list. You'll need an Asian supply store.

The Menu

Thai turkey, turkey marinated and roasted in Thai seasonings until they caramelize.

Spring roll and prawn salad

Brown rice and mushroom pilaf

Black rice pudding with mangoes for dessert

When you eat turkey several times in a few short weeks, this is a refreshing variation on an old, old, theme.

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Those of you who mentioned more for less haven't been sneaking glances at my reading pile have you? I've got an original copy that I inherited from the GH's grandmother this summer that I'm perusing. I grew up in the large shadow cast by this book, and my Mennonite grandma. Now I finally have my own copy.

Help with menu planning

I've been looking at the free menus over at savingdinner.com. They look really great, If figuring out what to make for dinner every night is a chore, and finding recipes and coordinating shopping lists is a headache, you may really enjoy this service.

Their are many menus to choose from including crockpot, low carb, heart healthy, gluten free, frugal, low fat and sodium, and vegetarian. Leanne truly is the dinner diva it seems and what I've seen are really excellent ideas and healthy menus. The cost for a year is minimal enough that I'm tempted to sign up myself, and I like menu planning.

Roasted Yam and Onion Soup

I made this recipe for Roasted Yam and Onion Soup the other day and it was FANTASTIC! I could have eaten bowl full after bowl full all night long.

I roasted the onions along with the yams, and then sliced them and sauteed per instructions. And I didn't add any cream or milk, it didn't need it at all. The only drawback to this soup is that it has no protein in it at all. So I would have it as a first course in a larger meal and pair it with roast chicken or well, anything really, it's so yummy.

I like that it makes use of winter vegetables also.

Making Biscuits the Old Fashioned Frugal Way

(First for my British readers, sorry I don't mean cookies, I mean the scone dumpling type things that we here in the New World refer to as biscuits.)

Have you ever saved the fat from your cooking to make somethings else? Bacon drippings to cook eggs in for days, beef fat, chicken drippings? Not that long ago oil was too expensive for most people to buy and so they gleaned the fat the they used to cook from what they already had on hand. My mom did this while I was young and today I am going to pass this on to you.

Like all of my recipes, this one started as something else entirely. A few days before this I roasted a chicken in a crockpot. I made a rack out of potatoes, so what I really did was put a few potatoes underneath the chicken in the pot so that it wouldn't sit in the drippings. I put the chicken on top of them and rubbed it with butter and sea salt and ground pepper and fresh rosemary leaves. I was quite pleased with how it turned out, it was very tender and it actually turned a nice golden color. I cooked it on low for several hours. When it was ready there was all of this really ice broth in the bottom of the crockpot, and the butter and fat had been rendered as well. I chose not to make gravy and instead returned the uneaten chicken to the pot with some more water and cooked it overnight to make more broth. Then I strained the broth and picked all the meat from the bones. At this point I ladled all of the fat that I could skim from the top of the broth into a small bowl that I put in the fridge. Don't worry if you get some broth mixed in as well, it will separate after it cools.

Then I made soup.



I added all the leftovers I had in my fridge. I had corn and brown beans and some chicken and basil sausage that I sliced and browned and added at the end. There was barley in there as well. And it lasted for two meals. For the first we had leftover bread from something else to go with the soup. Two days later I pulled it out again to serve for dinner and also pulled out the skimmed fat.



I put about 2 1/2 cups of flour in the bowl, 2 tsp baking powder and a pinch or two of salt. I stirred it all together and added the fat from the bowl it comes out easily in one piece and cut it in like you would lard. until it was all evenly distributed. It comes out looking coarse and grainy but my picture of that is really dark. Those little bits in the fat are rosemary leaves from the chicken which added a really nice layer of flavor.












See how there is broth left at the bottom of the bowl, I just put that back in the soup.











Then I added about one cup of warm water. Only add it a little bit at a time until it looks like this. If you add it all at once you may end up with too much and a wet dough.













Then I shaped then with my fingers on a nonstick pan and cooked them at 350 for about half an hour, shorter if you make yours smaller than mine.














And there you have it, a better tasting less expensive way to make biscuits.

Peanut Butter Happy Face

This only takes a few minutes to do, and your kids will love it. I used sprouted grain bread, Trader Joe's Organic Chunky Peanut Butter, and raisins.

You can mix it up and use whatever you want. Why shouldn't lunch be fun?

Yay!

I was starting to feel depressed about this losing weight thing because I didn't feel like I was making much progress. Until today when I tried on my jeans, my comfy jeans from before I was pregnant, and I can do them up, and zip, with out even sucking in! They still feel too tight compared to how they used to fit, but two months ago the buttons had a 5 inch gap that I could not close because of the belly in the way. Maybe in another month or two I'll fit into my skinny jeans. I'd guess I'm an 8 now, still a ways to go to get back to 4.

I'm thinking about your questions, Becca gave me a tricky one, I"ll post when I have something.

In the meantime, here is a link to one of my favorite ways to serve vegetables, year round but especially in the summer. Roast them.

Fast Food

Okay, I have a big long hopefully helpful post planned really soon, but it's not ready yet so tonight I'm going to tell you about my last minute dinner. Because I know you're dying to hear about it.

I was way behind in running errands today due to some very late nap takers and by the time I got home it was way past dinner time, past the kids bath time and almost bedtime. I did not today have something nifty already cooking in the crockpot. My dinner plans were not made with an emergency toilet paper run in mind, which in my case is a 20 minute walk to the store with 3 kids in tow another hour dragging them through the store and another 20 minutes minimum getting them home. I didn't buy many groceries however, because I have most of what I need for this week already.

I knew that my plans for baked chicken with noodles and sauce were not going to happen tonight, we couldn't wait another hour to eat. So when we walked in the door I had no idea what to eat for dinner and I needed to get it together fast. You all know me, sort of, so you won't be surprised to hear that I have no convenience foods on hand, none nada zip. Okay, I do have some cans of tomato sauce and I make meals ahead but those are pretty much gone and pretty much everything is dry or frozen. Suddenly I remembered that I have all of these turnovers in the freezer so I pulled some out to warm up and figured that that may have to do for dinner. Then behind the turnovers I spotted a lonely little vegetable broth that I made last month and forgot about and I knew what I was going to do about dinner.

I put the frozen soup broth in a pot, turn it on high so it will thaw. I added some rice to cook in the broth. Then I pulled from the fridge some leftover black beans that have gone with two dinners so far this week, into the pot they went, with a can of tomato sauce, some andouille that I had just picked up at the store on a whim, chopped. I madly seasoned for about a minute, covered the whole thing, and 15 minutes later threw in a few handfuls of kale that I had chopped and then frozen and we were enjoying a pretty tasty soup and a salad that I made while the soup was cooking. It was a little rushed but it worked out.

So, I have some habits that made this possible of course, like making soup broth out of all of my usable leftovers, meat bones, and vegetable scraps. And I usually make double what I will need for one meal of just about everything and save the other half for later. These habits are so ingrained now that I don't think about them, it just happens. I was just very pleased to discover that even when plans go awry I don't need to rely on convenience foods to get my people fed.

A week of meals made simple

Today I’m going to talk about meal planning. I do this, most of the time and it makes a lot of things go more smoothly in my kitchen.

First of all I have a master list. It contains 40 or more meals that my family enjoys eating. On the list are also recipes, if I need a recipe to remember how to make it, and an ingredients list for each item. One day a week, Sundays lately because we do our Trader Joe’s shopping on Sundays, I sit down and plan the meals for the next week. I try to first take into account what we already have that needs to be used up, especially in terms of fresh produce and meat. I also like to try one new recipe a week and incorporate it into my meal plan and shopping list. Once I have the meals planned I check the ingredients lists for those meal against what I already have and write a shopping list for the missing ingredients, as well as breakfast and lunch staples. I keep a magnetized list on the side of my fridge and write down anything that we run out of or that I remember we need during the course of the week. This also goes on the shopping list. I then write down in my day timer a reminder to take anything out of the freezer or start things in the crock-pot the night before a meal is planned if it is needed, it really helps with getting dinner on the table everyday.

One thing that I really like to do is meal plan to make my life easier and utilize leftovers. For example, here is a sample of a week of meals at my house.

Sunday: We have company for dinner. I roast two large chickens with a spicy saffron and lemon and ginger and garlic and garam masala rub that they sit in for several hours before roasting. We also eat rice and salad and some appetizers and roasted brussel sprouts.

Monday: I warm up some of the leftover chicken and serve it along with black beans flavored with cumin and chili and oregano and salt and pepper and cilantro that I started in the crock-pot that morning, and brown rice, and salad. Monday night I take what is left of the two chickens after dinner and put them in the crock-pot and cover them with water to simmer. They cook all day Tuesday.

Tuesday: We eat quinoa and lentils for dinner prepared with chili peppers and other spices, cooked peas, and raw carrot sticks and broccoli florets and red pepper slices. (I don’t feel like making salad.)

Wednesday: I drain the soup broth and remove the meat from the bones to add back to the broth. I add the leftover black beans and rice from Monday, the leftover lentils from Tuesday, some Dahl that I have in the freezer in tiny amounts for flavoring soups because I made too much one night and it was a little too salty but is perfect for adding flavor to soup broths, and added some celery and fresh kale and parsley at the end for dinner that night. We eat it with salad and sprouted grain toast.

Thursday: The kids want noodles. I make a tomato sauce with whole-wheat rigatoni and ground beef. In the summer I often have homemade tomato sauce. When tomatoes are in season and a good price I make big batches of sauce and either freeze or can them for later. But it’s February, so I use store bought canned and ground beef out of the freezer. Any leftovers will be lunch the next day.

Friday: This is our special dinner day since we keep Shabbat. On this day is when I usually try out a nicer recipe. In the morning I start the Challah bread, which is super simple once you’ve done it a few times. After lunch I start dinner prep. which this time is marinating a London broil to grill in Thyme and garlic and fresh ground pepper and red wine and olive oil. I try out two new side dishes, one with broccoli and olives that I like but no one else does and fennel root with blood oranges and broth. I also make scalloped potatoes and salad.

Saturday: We eat the leftover soup from Wednesday with the leftover Challah. We have roast beef sandwiches for lunch from the rest of the London broil. Sandwiches at our house are productions involving gourmet mustard, specialty cheeses, those tasty spicy pickles, and chopped pepperoncinis and olives, and often some whole-wheat sourdough from Trader Joe’s.

Sunday: I make cheeseburgers. We eat the leftover scalloped potatoes also and salad.

Salad is made of whatever I have in the fridge. So this week the base of greens was romaine lettuce and arugula. I have been adding Italian parsley leaves and cilantro to all of my salads recently because it makes them taste really fresh. I also had some fennel leaves last week so I threw them in there. Sometimes that’s the salad, and we have a choice of dressings. I put different toppings on it for variety. Sunday was apples and raisins and walnuts, Monday it was red peppers and celery and broccoli and sunflower seeds, Wednesday it was just greens, Thursday I made a caesar salad using Brianna’ Asiago Caesar dressing, juice of half a lime and fresh ground pepper over the greens base, this tastes so good with the cilantro and parsley added. I also throw in celery for crunch and black olives. I don’t like croutons. Friday I think it was greens with fennel, blood oranges, goat cheese, walnuts and a limejuice balsamic vinaigrette. I think at this point you get the idea.