Waffle Night!

We started Father's Day a wee bit early and had waffles tonight for dinner!  I use the recipe from The Joy of Cooking for our waffles.  They are soooooo good!  We make these a couple times a month for dinner and it is a family favorite.

For the Strawberry sauce we used some of the strawberry jam I canned today, yeah that jar didn't last long!  I used this recipe from Ball^® for the jam.

The whip cream is also homemade and could not be easier!

Ingredients
1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 tablespoon real vanilla extract

Directions
Add all the ingredients into your mixer bowl, I have a Kitchen Aid Mixer, and beat on high with the whisk attachment until it has stiff peaks.

Menu & Shopping List for the week of June 15

This is the first week of summer vacation!  No packing lunches!  I didn't have to put special lunch food on the shopping list!  Juice boxes make me mad...I don't know why really, but they do.  I am looking forward to not buying them for the next few months!

I am hitting the farmers market today and will probably buy more produce than is on my list but I fully intend on canning some stuff this week.  Strawberry stuff if I can and maybe some pickles and dilly beans.  I'll see what the tomato prices are and see if I can start doing small batch canning on them, but I think it might be too early in the year still.

We are leaving Father's Day open because I know the Daddy in this house will probably like to go out for pizza on his special day!  Yay Daddies!  You guys rock!

You can print your own blank Weekly Menu Planner by clicking here

Soups On!

This is my spin on Minestrone Soup, a vegetarian soup packed with loads of veggies, beans and pasta!

Ingredients
Onion
Carrot
Broccoli
Spinach
Bell Peppers
1 can Diced Tomatoes with juice
1 can White Beans drained and rinsed
1 can Black Beans drained and rinsed
2 cups cooked pasta
4-6 cups veggie stock
Olive Oil
Salt, Pepper and Italian seasoning to taste

Directions
Saute onion and carrot in a bit of olive oil until soft and caramelized add in our diced tomatoes with the juice from the can, beans and veggie stock.  Heat to a simmer and then toss in all of your remaining chopped veggies reserving the spinach, season to taste.

At this point if you want to freeze any of this soup now is the time to grab a ladle and scoop it out into freezer safe containers, or a bowl until cool enough for freezer bags.  To cook this once frozen you can microwave it or put it in a stock pot and heat through, you can add pasta and spinach if desired.  I find that pasta in this soup just doesn't freeze well and I love the fresh taste of the spinach that gets lost after freezing and recooking.

Next toss in your cooked pasta and fresh chopped spinach and heat just until hot, taste and season more if necessary  Serve with parmesan cheese and croutons!

Today I made enough to eat for lunch and freeze for 4 single servings.  I love taking individual frozen soup packages on the road when we travel to visit family and friends.  It makes eating nutritions vegetarian meals on the go quick and easy.  It also makes finding and cooking meals easier on non vegetarian hosts when I bring a few quick things like this with me!

"Leftover" Pizza

Pizza night is pretty much a weekday staple in this house.  Pizza is not as complicated as you may think!  Tonight we tossed leftovers on pizza crust and called it good.  My homemade pizza is always a little wonky, I have never got the hang of getting the crust perfectly round, but boy are they good! The girls always love pizza night because they can have whatever they want out of the fridge on them (this is my sneaky little way to get them to clean out the fridge)! Someday they will figure out they can have fruit on them instead of veggies and pizza night will forever change!

Tonight's pizza crust came pre made from the deli at WinCo.  But on a normal basis I use the Pizza Dough recipe from The Joy of Cooking.  I prepare it in my bread machine on the dough setting.  This takes about 90 minutes so if you are making it the day of you have to plan ahead.  You can also make the dough the night before and keep in in a zip bag in the fridge over night.

I buy pizza sauce either from the deli or in a jar in a pinch I'll use spaghetti sauce from the cabinet.

As for toppings, anything will work.  Anything!  Tonight we used a little bit of the stir fry veggies I chopped yesterday and saved for pizza night.  You can put pretty much any leftovers on a pizza crust and it will work.  Back before I became a vegetarian we would put leftover taco stuff on crust and have taco pizza.  We have also been known to put on leftover pulled pork, bbq chicken and even breakfast sausage for all you meat eaters.  We always have plenty of chopped veggies in the fridge to make pizza night work...if all else fails plain ol cheese is always a good option.

Easy Stir Fry

Ingredients:
Mushrooms
Carrots
Broccoli
Sweet peppers
Zucchini
Snap peas
Flour
Sesame oil
Soy sauce

Cooked rice

Directions:

Any kind of stir fry veggies you have on hand will work (this is a perfect time to use frozen veggies leftover from last week).  I use about a cup per person.  Dump all of your chopped up veggies in a hot pan with a wee bit of sesame oil. After they start to get soft I put a tablespoon of flour all over them and stirred it to coat. Next up put 1/4 of a cup of water and 1/4 cup of soy sauce in and mix like crazy and put the lid on and let the veggies steam for just a bit. Dish up the rice (white or brown rice out of the rice cooker) and dump the veggies on top.

Sometimes I use quinoa, ramen or other noodles instead of rice.  This is a vegetarian recipe, but on occasion Brad will add a little bit of precooked chicken to his if we have some on hand.

THE ORIGINAL TREATS™

One way to save big and to have fun with the kids is to make our snack at home!  This is one of our favorites.  Although not super healthy it is super easy and pretty inexpensive to make.  I spent $1.94 on generic rice cereal and $0.98 on marshmallows, so for about $3 I have enough to make two batches of Rice Crispy Treats.  These won't last too long, I will go package 4 more to go in lunches this week and the girls will eat the rest up for snacks this week.

You can find the recipe we used here.

Shopping Trip for the week of June 9

Ugh, welcome to my organized chaos!  After a peek into my fridge and cabinets and a little help from the girls we planned our menu for the week.  I don't always stick to the order these dinners are in, but at least I know what we will have for dinner this week and what we will need to pick up at the store.

Here is my receipt from WinCo this week.  I forgot a few things...but they really weren't necessary for any of my main dinners so we will just do without for another week.  My grand total was $69.37.  This leaves me a little wiggle room this week just incase I need to pick something up mid week.  

This was also the last week of buying "treat snacky things" for Ellie's lunch box!  I won't have to buy juice boxes or individual serving goodies for a few months!  On a side note about lunches, our local library is doing free lunch for kids under 18 this summer!  I plan on taking the kids down there a few times this summer.  Want to find a free lunch program in Oregon click here.  Do you live outside of Oregon?  Click here.