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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Healthy Shrimp Scampi

15 Oct
This was a great alternative scampi recipe for our family!

This was a great alternative scampi recipe for our family!

I know I say it all the time, but I just love all the recipes that come across my Facebook page every day. I’ve gotten so many great ideas just by my daily scrolling. Today’s recipe is one such recipe.

The only down side is I can’t remember who shared it! I know it was on Facebook though and it says it was from the Prego & Mommy Facebook Page. That’s not a page I follow, so someone definitely shared it and it appeared in my feed.

The thing that appealed to me about this particular recipe for Shrimp Scampi was that it specifically stated that it did not use any butter. We have issues with butter here, and anything too buttery makes some of us sick. I substitute with “I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter” pretty often, but when I saw that this recipe had no butter at all, I decided to give it a try.

I’m glad I did! It got thumbs up from all who tried it! I’d definitely make it again. The thing I liked about it too, was that you could make it as lemony as you wanted it to be (or not to be) by adding additional lemon at the end.

I followed the recipe just as it read, other than one change to the type of shrimp I used which is noted below, and I served it with wide egg noodles. Anyone who didn’t want the shrimp could have plain pasta if they so desired. There was just enough left at the end of the night that I could have it for lunch the next day, too! I love it when that happens.

Here’s the recipe just as I copied it:

Easy & Healthy Shrimp….No Butter (uses chicken broth, white wine, lemon juice)
Ingredients
4 tsp olive oil
1 1/4 pounds med raw shrimp, peeled and deveined (tails left on)  **I used a bag of frozen shrimp and I removed the tails before cooking.***
6-8 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup + 1 T minced parsley
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
4 lemon wedges
Preparation
In a large nonstick skillet, heat the oil. Saute the shrimp until just pink, about 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook stirring constantly, about 30 seconds. With a slotted spoon transfer the shrimp to a platter and keep them warm.
In the skillet, combine the broth, wine, lemon juice, 1/4 cup of the parsley, the salt and pepper; and bring it to a boil. Boil uncovered, until the sauce is reduced by half.
Spoon the sauce over the shrimp. Serve garnished with the lemon wedges and sprinkled with the remaining tablespoon of parsley. Enjoy!

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Monday Musings: Where’s the page in the books for *that*??

13 Oct
Don't bother looking it up, it's not going to be in there. Skip the Google search.

Don’t bother looking it up, it’s not going to be in there. Skip the Google search.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1:  How to decide whether or not to send your children to school during a targeted terror threat to their school……….. Page ????

Chapter 2: How to handle the fear and anxiety that has now consumed your household……Page ?????

*******************************************************************************************************

Did you ever just have one of those really bad days? The kind of day where nothing seems to go right, the kind of day that’s taking place in an already bad week?

I think we all have.

Last Tuesday was that day for me. I’ve been sick, we’ve all been fighting something as the season changes. I was tired, and it just seemed like it was one little thing after the next, all little inconveniences and annoyances all day long on my deadline day, exhausting me. I had a long night ahead too, as it was going to be a late night for my husband as well, due to a night time event at school.

It was our anniversary to boot, 19 years.

Earlier that week, I’d turned down an invitation to a home party at a friend’s for that night, stating at the time that I couldn’t attend because we have a rule here, given the fact that we both have night time obligations for our jobs: whenever one of us is out for work at night, the other of us is in, unless there’s an unusual exception, like a wake. One of us is always here to be “the one” running homework, dinner, showers, drop off and pick up at after school activities, sports and events. So since he’d be out on this night, I’d be in.

I’m incredibly glad we have that rule.

3:00 pm

That afternoon, I picked up my younger kids at school, and just before they exited the building, I received some very sad news. Another parent, the parent of one of my kids’ classmates, had passed away unexpectedly and tragically in an accident, just the day before. I was stunned, and I had a pit in my stomach knowing I’d have to tell my middle daughter, to tell all of them, when we got home before it got out on social media and she heard it from someone other than me.

I cried as I told her, but I was thankful that it was me telling her, thankful I was there after school to be “the one.”

“That was awful,” I thought to myself, as I drove her to her after school activity later on. My mind was overrun with thoughts of her friend’s mom, a mother of three boys, similar in ages to my three girls, and what she must be going through right then, reeling from the unexpected death of her husband. I was devastated for her.

I dropped my daughter off and ran to the store to pick up a couple of quick things: yogurt, some rice pudding cups (my guilty ‘processed food treat’ for those late nights of typing on a deadline) and juice. I’d only be gone from home about 30 minutes total and my oldest was there doing homework with my youngest at the dining room table, more than capable of holding down the fort while I ran out.

In line at the register, my phone rang. “Home” it said, as I was swiping my card. I picked up. “Let me call you right back, I’m paying,” I said quickly. “Um….okay,” I heard her say.

I wondered what was up. Homework issue, I figured.

I walked out of the store, my bag under my arm as I dialed again, calling her back.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Something’s going on,” she said. “We got a call. I didn’t pick up but it played out loud on the machine. The superintendent of schools was on the line. I tried to cover Alex’s ears once I realized what they were saying, but it was too late.”

I was confused. This wasn’t what I’d been expecting her to say and I wasn’t processing all of of it. I heard her say things like threat, and danger and elementary schools, and name our city and the other two cities nearby, which are coincidentally two out of three cities in which I cover all of the school news for the city newspapers. I was trying not to panic as I tried to figure out what was going on.

For a split second, I felt that same fear I’d felt on 9/11 when I was far away from my daughter while at work, as the towers were hit, and I couldn’t get to her. I had that moment of panic come right back to me, a feeling I’d never wanted to feel again, and yet here it was, bubbling up inside of me. Luckily I was minutes away. I could be there almost instantly to see what was going on.

I quickly used my phone to get on the internet to see if I could make heads or tails of what had happened. Everyone was posting on social media that they’d gotten the same robo call. Panic was setting in everywhere, everyone was reacting to the news.

Essentially the news was this:

Someone had sent a letter to the police department of one of our neighboring cities threatening danger and harm at the elementary schools in that city, our city, and our other neighboring city sometime over the next three days. (That’s more than 25 elementary schools. There’s 17 in our city alone.) The police department had shared the letter with the authorities in the other two cities and the authorities had let the schools know, the school department was letting us know. We weren’t told exactly what the threat of harm was specifically, but it was enough of a “physical threat” that they were reacting big time and taking the threat quite seriously. Police would be dispatched to all of our schools in all three cities for the next three days. School would remain in session. You can click here to see the news.

4:30 pm

This was turning into a really, incredibly, very bad day.

I got home, my rice pudding had now exploded in my bag. Seeing that, I truly wanted to cry. I listened to the message on our answering machine myself, hearing all the things my daughter had told me, all the things I’d read online. Threat, physical harm, danger, police, security. Three days. The words all jumped out at me.

Social media was on over-drive. My oldest daughter, brand new this year to her open campus, five building high school, was getting messages, as was I.
“What do we do? Do we go to school tomorrow?” she asked me, panicked. “If something happens there, I don’t know what to do, where to go. We’ve only had one lock down drill in one class. I’d be all alone, while they would be together,” she said. By “they,” she meant her two sisters, together on the same hallway at their school.

“I don’t know,” I said.

There are no rules for situations like this. You're making them up as you go along.

There are no rules for situations like this. You’re making them up as you go along.

I messaged my husband, an elementary principal at a nearby school district not one of the three on the target list. “Please call me,” I said.

I gave him the low-down when he called. He had no idea yet that this was going on, but soon it’d be affecting his job in his school district as well, as fear began to set in across the state.

We spoke briefly, agreeing to wait to see how things transpired through the evening before deciding what to do about school the next day. By the time he was due home later on, we might know more.

I ran to get my daughter where I’d dropped her two hours earlier, shortly after giving her the terrible news about her classmate’s dad at 3pm. I knew I’d now have to tell her this news as well. Her sisters knew, it was all over social media, she’d get a message or text, I was sure of it.

And then it hit me, “WHERE in the parenting books is THIS page? Where does it tell you how to deal with THIS situation?”

I called my mother on the way to get my daughter.

“I’m having a really bad day,” I said, near tears.

6:00 pm

My daughter and I exited the building and got into the car. I thought of the best way to give her this news. At school that same day, she’d been stressed over the recent changes to the lunch and recess schedules which were new, due to incorporating hand washing and the dispensing of Purell before and after because of the recent deaths in our state and a nearby state due to the Enterovirus D68. They’d been hearing all about the Ebola outbreaks in the news. I’d just delivered some other tough news at 3:00 about her friend’s dad, I knew this could potentially put her over the edge.

When I told her, she gasped.

“Why? Why would someone do that? What kind of harm? What did they say they’re going to do? Where?” she said, grappling with the news.

“I don’t know,” was really all I could say.

For the next three hours, my head hurt as I tried to go about the normalcy of our day, making and serving dinner, answering homework questions, and cleaning up after dinner. I fielded questions to which I had no answers and tried to keep their panic at bay, all the while trying to think in my head what the best thing was to do for the next day as I waited for my husband to walk through the door so we could finally talk things through together.

Our phone rang. Had I heard the news? What was our family going to do? What did I think others should do?
“I don’t know,” I just kept saying, over and over.

I watched the hundreds of responses posting on Facebook as moms and dads were at their own houses struggling with the same issues: to tell their kids or not. How much to tell? Send them to school or not? If not, for how many days? This threat was spread over three days’ time. Do we keep them home for three days? How do you transition a kid back to school after an event like this has transpired? We heard from a mom in Newtown, CT., from Sandy Hook Elementary School, who passed along her compassion and empathy as a parent who knew exactly what we were going through, and then some.

And again I wondered, where is the instruction manual for things like this? What page in the dozens of parenting books I’d had as a new mom does this topic appear on?

It doesn’t.

We have a sign in our house over the front door. It’s the last thing you see as you step out, and it says, “Home is where your story begins.”  It’s a sign I’ve always loved because in my head, I picture all of the wonderful things we do as a family, the story we write as a family and all of the memories we make together before stepping out the door each day to write our own stories as individuals.

But today…today I think it has even more meaning than that. I think it’s more than just the happy, wonderful family memories that we create. I think our family’s story includes the pages we write together in our own rule book, our own parenting guide. It’s the things we encounter, conquer and the previously unwritten rules that we write as a family unit.

Last week, every family had to make their own decisions as to what was best for their kids, how to have these tough conversations and make these tough decisions. There was no right or wrong answer and no rule book or parenting manual to help us. We had to rely on what we knew for information and what we knew about our own children, in order to make the best decisions for them. We were told by our elementary principal that every decision made was the right one, and he was right.

We just had to come up with our decision.

9:00 pm

Finally, finally, finally, my husband arrived home. My middle daughter almost jumped out of her skin when our front door opened. I reassured her that it was okay, it was just her dad coming home. We talked it out and made our decision together.

Ultimately, we opted to keep them home for the day. Although statistically and logically we knew the chances of anything happening were probably slim, we didn’t have a ton of information or really any reassurances that all was safe and well, and at the time, we didn’t know what specifically had been threatened, although we do now. But, more than that, we looked at our kids and into their eyes. We saw the fear, the panic and the stress. We saw how they looked at us, begging and pleading not to make them go. We weighed out whether throwing them out there into an uncertain situation was worth the risk of traumatizing them further. It wasn’t. To have them be one of three kids in class that next day, or the only kids on the empty bus that next day, to make them struggle through a day of fear and anxiety while they watched movies and played games all day at school, just to prove a point (what point?) was not worth any added trauma and anxiety for them or for us. Instead, we opted to give them a day to take the edge off, to relax, to breathe a little easier knowing they were safe and secure at home with me.

I felt my middle daughter’s body shake as she cried herself to sleep that night as I lay next to her at her request, something I rarely have to do anymore, and I knew we’d made the right decision. On Friday, when I picked up my younger two girls at school, I saw the complete and utter exhaustion on the faces of the teachers, as the emotional strain of the week showed through, and even then, as I saw the effect of the past four  days on the adults, I again knew we had made the right decision for our children. My heart swelled with gratitude for those teachers who came to school for our kids every day last week, putting aside their own safety and the well-being of their own families in order to be there for our children because that’s what was best for our kids.

With no rule book to guide any of us, our family has written a new page in our family story. It wasn’t a page I ever wanted to write or a page I ever want to write again, but there it is.

I’ll be glad to be able to close the book on this chapter. I know our book will be full of good pages and bad, happy chapters and sad. This isn’t over, I know that, and these awful things are part of the world we live in, whether it’s a school, movie theater, mall, airport or restaurant. I get that too. I guess ultimately, as long as we’re all here writing our story together, I think that’s all that matters.

Our story, every page and every chapter, is written by us together.

Our story, every page and every chapter, is written by us as a family, together. It’s our own rule book and parenting guide.

 

 

 

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I’m a guest blogger today!

7 Oct

I'm a guest blogger today!

Happy Tuesday! I am a guest blogger today over at Stephanie Bernaba’s blog!

I’ve written about my take on the issues of technology and helicopter parenting.

I hope you’ll find it thought-provoking, and I hope that you’ll take some time while you’re there to check out the rest of Stephanie’s blog. She’s a great writer and a fellow Listen To Your Mother 2014 cast member.

Have a great day and I hope you’re having  a great week!

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Fun Friday: S’Mores Mug Cake

3 Oct
Everything tastes better in a mug!

Everything tastes better in a mug!

We have lots of mugs in our kitchen cabinets. Big mugs, little mugs, colored mugs, white mugs, kids’ mugs, teacher mugs, matched mugs, mismatched mugs and every kind of mug you can think of.

I almost never drink my coffee out of a regular coffee mug, ever. I almost always drink it in a re-usable travel mug.

So what to do with all those mugs?

Mug cakes!

I’m sure you all remember the notorious Four Ingredient Nutella Mug Cake recipe that’s my all-time favorite mug cake thus far, but there are plenty of other mug cake recipes out there which deserve equal opportunity to shine. A quick Google search will yield you plenty to try, and recently I even saw a link to breakfast recipes that can be cooked in a mug. I can tell you, that’s in my future for sure.

Last fall, my brother sent me a link which contained multiple mug cake recipes to try, probably 20 or so. I filed it away for future use, and this summer I pulled it back out again. The kids and I were craving something sweet (okay, when are we NOT craving something sweet??) and we couldn’t really agree on what it was that we wanted. I decided to pull up the link to the various mug cakes and let them each choose one to make, and go to town.

I think that for us, half the fun of the mug cakes is baking something so small, so individual rather than a full-sized anything. The other half the fun is eating your creation, sharing a bite with someone else, and taking a taste of theirs. Cooking mug cakes is a fun, easy way to involve kids in the kitchen. In general the recipes are quick and easy, a little less messy (sometimes), and still incorporate important math and science skills, an added bonus to cooking with kids.

On this night, I don’t think anyone even finished their whole mug cake, as they were pretty filling, but everyone definitely enjoyed their chosen creations.

I’ll share both recipes we tried eventually, but today I thought I’d share the 5 Minute Chocolate Fudge S’More Mug Cake recipe from How Sweet Eats because it was the more unique and different recipe we tried. I will say, ours wasn’t exactly like the one over at How Sweet Eats because I didn’t have exactly the same ingredients on hand, but it was pretty close and it still got a thumb’s up at the end of the taste test. I’ll also say, it took us much longer to prepare than five minutes, but I was told that it was worth every minute spent.

Here is their recipe, just as it appears on their site, and my photo of our finished version is here at the top of my post. I’ve tried to add in any notes where I made some changes, using an *.

5 Minute Chocolate Fudge S’More Mug Cake

from How Sweet Eats

INGREDIENTS

2-3 tablespoons graham cracker crumbs

3 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted  *We used I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour  *She said we could use all-purpose flour, so that’s what we did.

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (mine was dark cocoa, hence the dark color)

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1 1/2 ounces milk chocolate (chopped or morsels)  *We used chocolate chips, semi-sweet.

marshmallow fluff, cream or actual marshmallows  *We had giant-sized marshmallows designed for campfire S’Mores. We used one big one, right on top.

DIRECTIONS

Combine 3 tablespoons butter and 1 ounce of chocolate in a small bowl, then melt in the microwave for 20-30 seconds. Set aside. In another bowl, combine remaining melted butter with 2-3 tablespoons of graham cracker crumbs and stir until moistened. Press graham crumbs into the bottom of your mug.

In a bowl. whisk egg, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Add in flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa, stir until a thick batter forms. Stream in melted butter and chocolate, mixing to combine. Fold in remaining chocolate chips. Add half of the mixture on top of the graham crust, then throw on a scoop of marshmallow fluff/cream or a few marshmallows. Add remaining batter on top, then pop in the microwave for 1 minute and 20 seconds to almost 2 minutes. Remove and top with additional marshmallow if desired. You can pop it back in the microwave for 5-10 seconds to make them melty, or pop them directly under the broiler for about 10 seconds to toast if desired. You can also use a kitchen torch if you have one. Sprinkle with graham crumbs!

Notes: If you don’t have whole wheat pastry flour, you can use all-purpose. I would not recommend using regular whole wheat. Additionally, I have made this by substituting coconut butter for the full amount of butter. It was just as delicious, albeit slightly drier. You cannot taste coconut at all. Finally, take into account the power of your microwave. Mine has a mind of it’s own and is insanely powerful, so I cooked this on 80% power. Judge accordingly and add/subtract a few minutes of cooking if you know yours is wonky too. Unfortunately it may take 1-2 trial runs to get the right consistency because all microwaves are different, but I promise it’s worth it!

 

 

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Get your pumpkin on and Go Orange for No Kid Hungry!

1 Oct
Thanks to Paula over at My Soup For You for teaming up with me today to bring you some great pumpkin recipes, and for bringing even more awareness to No Kid Hungry!

Thanks to Paula over at My Soup For You for teaming up with me today to bring you some great pumpkin recipes, and for bringing even more awareness to No Kid Hungry!

It’s October! It’s fall. It’s the season of beautiful leaves, fun autumn events like apple picking, hay rides and pumpkin carving.

Pumpkin….mmmmm…..does it make you think of pumpkin spiced coffee, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin muffins and pumpkin pie?!

Me too!!

We’re a lucky bunch, most of us. We can run through the drive through at the local donut shop and get this month’s pumpkin flavored muffin or drink, without too much of a struggle. We can pop a recipe for my good friend Paula’s Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread or her Pumpkin Soup right into the oven and enjoy it without too much trouble. All those warm, orange flavors warm our bellies and our thoughts all throughout the fall.

We’re very lucky.

Not everyone is so lucky, however. According to the No Kid Hungry statistics for our local area, as of June 2013 (more than a year ago), 22% of kids in our little state were struggling with hunger. Fifty-five percent of them were eligible for free or reduced lunch at school, and only 51% of those students were eating school breakfast.

At a recent school event I covered for the newspaper earlier this month, when a room full of young students were asked what the most important thing was that they’d miss if they were late to school, their answer wasn’t attendance, or morning math, or reading, it was breakfast. Every student who raised their hand was worried that if they were late to school in the morning, they’d go hungry until lunchtime.

Childhood hunger across our nation is a growing problem, but we can do something to help.

Last year, you may remember that our own family started a local Go Orange Day for No Kid Hungry after seeing a television commercial about the nationwide effort to help end childhood hunger. Nationally, the official Go Orange Day for No Kid Hungry is at the end of September, but we opted to do ours just a little bit later at the start of October. It was a big success. We rallied our large school district, the superintendent’s offices and City Hall all to Go Orange for No Kid Hungry, and raised over $1000 in monetary donations as well as bringing in hundreds of pounds of non-perishable food items for our local food pantry. We were helping to put food on the tables of families all around us, and it was a great feeling.  All around us, local restaurants and other establishments went Orange as well, donating portions of their proceeds to the No Kid Hungry effort, and wearing orange to show their spirit.

This year, we’re doing it again. We’ve pushed our date out slightly further, and this year on Friday, October 31, Halloween Day we’ll be getting our pumpkin on, going Orange for No Kid Hungry again. We’ve rallied our school district, our superintendent’s office, City Hall, and even our church to help us put an end to childhood hunger again this year. So far we’ve had TEN local responses for going Orange on Halloween Day. Even more exciting, we’ve had some inquiries from local folks wanting to spread this year’s local Go Orange day to their communities and schools within our state and neighboring areas. All around our city, people will be showing their Halloween spirit, dressing in orange, donating money and/or non-perishable food items on Halloween Day and helping out their neighbors all in a day’s work.

We are thrilled. Wouldn’t it be great if we could really make a difference EVERY YEAR?

Wouldn’t it be great if just by spreading awareness and spreading the word, we could help feed other families?

We are foodies, we are blessed, we are thankful to be able to cook and bake and eat our fun pumpkin flavors in the spirit of the season, all month long.

So I ask you: will you get your pumpkin on this Halloween Day too? Will you spread the awareness of childhood hunger in your area and continue the good work of No Kid Hungry and their Go Orange efforts in your city or town, at your school or church or temple? Will you help?

Get your pumpkin on. Visit Paula’s blog over at My Soup for You and help her spread the word too. Make some Pumpkin Soup. Grab some Pilgrim Pies, eat some pumpkin spiced Chex snack mix, and be thoughtful, be thankful that you can help another family in such a simple way.

 

 

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Monday Musings: Watching it all fall into place

29 Sep
Our goal is always a simple one: to put our family first and have no regrets.

Our goal is always a simple one: to put our family first and have no regrets.

Someone posted this picture on Facebook a few weeks back, and I loved it then, so I saved it. It spoke to me in that it seemed to describe how we as parents try to live our lives. Like most parents, we put our children first and the decisions we make focus strictly on what’s best for them and for the way that we wish to mold them and the foundations we wish to give them.

We know that this time is limited and that it’s important. They’re only “ours” for a short time before we must set them free, off into the world to make their way, making life’s choices using all the tools we’ve given them in their tool-kits. As parents, we’ve taught them the importance of eating together around the table and talking things out. We’ve taught them how to solve problems and come out stronger in the end, how to do more on less, how to be frugal, how to appreciate the little things in life as well as what we believe the big things in life should be. We’ve passed on our strong morals and values and we’ve taught them to think of others before themselves.

And now, as our oldest has transitioned into the next phase of her life: high school, we’re watching it all fall into place. We’re watching all of our hard work, time and effort pay off.  As parents of a high school student, it’s our time now to step back a bit and watch our daughter use the tools in her tool-kit that we’ve helped her to stock over the years while we continue to help her fill it for the future.

It’s an amazing time, and yet it emphasizes the above quote to us even more. Our time with her in this capacity is short and we not only see the “light at the end of the tunnel,” but we actually see the end of the tunnel, we see our window of time together in this way, closing. As much as it saddens us to see her growing up, it thrills us to see her growing, maturing and becoming a confident, kind adult, the type of person we hoped we were raising and setting forth into the world.

It’s fulfilling to watch her make good choices (so far), to appreciate the things we’ve taught her to appreciate, to remember the talks around the dinner table and in the early after school hours as she makes some hard decisions, and to see her make good, solid, split decisions that put the needs of others before her own.

It’s nice to see it all coming together, to see the person we’ve molded, the foundation we’ve built coming into her own. We’re far from finished teaching her and our other children, that we know; our job’s not done, but it’s so nice to see the fruits of our labor coming to be and to see that it’s been worth all of the sacrifice, the time, effort and hard work that we’ve put into being parents, into raising and teaching our kids over anything else.

As the quote above says so well, we’ve found that time to be precious and to be a privilege, and we’re pleased to see that during this time of their lives, it’s precious and a privilege to our children as well, that they still look to us for the consistent advice and encouragement they’ve always relied on us for, and they still want to do the things together that we’ve always done as a family. They need us more now, as they’re getting older, than ever before.

It’ll be over in a blink and our nest will then be empty, but we’ll be able to be proud as we watch the adults we’ve raised from birth go into the world.

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Fun Friday: Cook once, eat twice. After school snacks and breakfast

26 Sep
These were healthy and a huge hit. Definitely a keeper.

These were healthy and a huge hit. Definitely a keeper.

ORIGINALLY POSTED SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

Cook once, eat twice.

I love that old adage. You cook once, and live on the leftovers. Or, you make double, since you’re cooking anyway, and have twice as much.

Either way, I like it.

I’ve been living on that theme all week long.

I’ve been a cooking machine this week, in between my own work hours, trying to deal with our crazy school year schedules, and making sure that we maintain a healthy eating lifestyle at the same time.

Really, just making sure everyone’s got something to eat when it’s time to eat.

However, one thing I really enjoy doing is making great after school snacks for my kids whenever I can. Everyone has something that makes them happy, and I think I’ve inherited my grandparents’ genes. My dad always said that my grandmother was happiest when everyone was eating.

If everyone is eating, they’re happy, and that makes me happy.

To me, as a mom, there is nothing more special than the moment the kids walk in the door from school. They’re tired, they’re hungry, they’ve got more work to do or places to go, but the look on their faces when they smell a snack fresh out of the oven or see it on the table is priceless to me.

I feel like I have the ability to make their day, every day. Or almost every day. I do the best I can. Later on in life, I want their memories of their school years to include coming in from school, and finding me there with something tasty for them to snack on. Some days I’m not even there, my schedule is not always consistent, but I’ve left them a tasty snack and a note on my way out the door.

To me, it’s things like that which make all the difference.

Everyone loves these whether for breakfast or after school or a meal on the run.

Everyone loves these whether for breakfast or after school or a meal on the run.

Additionally, I try to think smarter these days. If I’m going to make an after school snack, I might as well make enough of it to last for more than just one afternoon. I have tried to make things that can be used either as lunchbox snacks or as breakfast the next day.

These little mini quiches, or however you’d describe them, make a great after school snack. They’re healthy and you can make all different varieties to satisfy even the pickiest of eaters. This time I did tomato/egg/cheese, spinach/egg/cheese and just plain egg/cheese. Fifteen eggs made 16 good-sized cups.

They were a snack and they’ve been breakfast or lunch throughout the week as well.

The pumpkin muffins, pictured above, I doubled the recipe to make twice as many. They served as an after school snack, breakfast the next day and a lunchbox snack the day after that.

If I’m going to work hard, I might as well get the mileage out of my efforts.

On that same afternoon this week as the pumpkin muffins, I also made a big batch of homemade applesauce. If I’m going to stand there and peel three pounds of apples, I might as well peel six pounds (although I have to stop there or my hand aches from all the peeling and slicing).

I used one batch in a recipe that night, froze two batches in my freezer for future use, and had some leftover to serve on the side with dinner as well. There’s nothing like homemade applesauce, especially in the fall in New England.

Today, I’m going to share with you the recipe I found for these delicious pumpkin muffins. Note that the recipe calls for mini chocolate chips. I don’t *do* mini chocolate chips. If I’m going, I’m going all the way so mine had regular-sized chips. Otherwise, the recipe I made was the same, just doubled.

This recipe is not my own. Thanks to Skinnytaste.com for posting such a wonderful snack and breakfast! It got all thumbs up at our house and we’d definitely make these again!

If I'm going to spend the time, might as well make it worth my while.

If I’m going to spend the time, might as well make it worth my while.

Skinny Mini Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
Skinnytaste.com
Servings: 14  • Size: 2 mini muffins  • Old Points: 3 pts • Weight Watcher Points+: 4 pt
Calories: 160 • Fat: 5 g • Carb: 27 g • Fiber: 2 g • Protein: 2 g • Sugar: 18 g
Sodium: 118 mg • Cholest: 0 mg

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour (King Arthur)
  • 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour (King Arthur)
  • 3/4 cup raw sugar
  • 3/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
  • 2 tbsp virgin coconut oil (or canola)
  • 2 large egg whites
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • baking spray
  • 2/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a mini muffin tin with paper liners and lightly spray liners with oil for easy removal.

In a medium bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking soda, pumpkin spice, cinnamon, and salt with a wire whisk. Set aside.

In a large bowl mix pumpkin puree, oil, egg whites and vanilla; beat at medium speed until thick. Scrape down sides of the bowl.
Add flour mixture to the wet mixture, then blend at low speed until combined; do not over mix. Fold in chocolate chips.

Pour batter into prepared muffin tin and bake on the center rack for 22 to 24 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let them cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

Makes 28 mini muffins or 14 regular sized muffins.

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Back by popular demand…two weeks of menu planning

24 Sep
Ready for another two weeks of dinners?

Ready for another two weeks of dinners?

Two weeks ago, for my What’s for Dinner Wednesday post, I shared with you our two week menu plan for the following two weeks. The post was very well received. I had so many people come up to me in person, thanking me for taking the time to share some menu ideas and inspiring them to create their own menus or inspiring them to try something new. Therefore, I thought I’d share again this week since it’s a new two-week cycle here at our house.

Meal planning at our house can happen at any time that we have about a half hour or so. We adults get our calendars out, figure out what nights we’re in, out, busy and not, and we start our planning. This time we spent about 45 minutes on a Saturday morning when all of our kids were out of the house at the same time. From there, I went right to the store(s) I needed in order to get everything for our menu “in stock.” I don’t love having to do lots of trips during the week to pick things up because I always see lots of things I “need” while I’m there. However, I won’t lie, those weeks do happen here, and when they do, we just deal with it as it comes. Not every week will work out so perfectly.

For the most part, we were able to stick to our menu for the whole two weeks prior, but there were a few switcharoos, and for those, we either skipped something all together or we saved it for this two-week cycle, so you may seem some repeats. And in general, there may just be some repeats because those choices work well for our family; they’re fast or they’re something everyone likes, or something like that.

I also had the pleasure of taking part in my friend Marica’s Dinners Done meal making and freezing party on Saturday night, so I had four meals automatically prepped and frozen that I could add to this menu plan. She’s a great Pampered Chef consultant, and if you’re local and you’d like to participate or host one of her Dinners Done meal prep events, please contact me and I’ll connect you to her. There are several menu options to choose from and you can either prep ahead ten meals or four. I chose to do four, and I am excited to try them out over the next couple of weeks!

Saturday: Hamburgers and hot dogs..easy peasy and we had a late afternoon ice cream social at church, so we didn’t want a big dinner. Technically ice cream *was* dinner.

Sunday: Wonton Lasagnas I had been craving these! We hadn’t had them since the winter and early spring months and they were a new find last year. They were a hit and we have enough leftover for another whole meal. If we don’t use the meal this first week, we’ll freeze them for the future.

Monday: Homemade chicken soup and homemade bread in the bread machine (coincidentally, three out of five of us were feeling under the weather on this night, and the soup was a perfect menu choice for us.)

This meal was tasty and a good way to combine a lot of things I had on hand.

Tuesday: Kielbasa with cabbage and noodles

Wednesday: Grilled chicken

Thursday: Meatballs in lemon basil sauce (from our make ahead meal party)

Friday: Pizza (olive/cheese, meatball/cheese, ham and pineapple) Friday nights are busy for us and this is a quick and easy meal. It’s also one of the only times we let them chill out and eat pizza in front of the TV, as a treat.

Saturday: Quesadillas

Sunday: Shepherd’s Pie (the meat for this is something I prepped ahead before school started.)

Monday: BBQ pork sliders (these are another meal from my make ahead meal party.)

Tuesday: open for any leftovers

Wednesday: Nicoise Salad (we didn’t eat this last time around so we moved it onto the menu this time around.)

Thursday: Breakfast for dinner: Fritatas we make many different kinds, but here’s one similar to a recent meal we had.

Friday: Crockpot lasagna (another make ahead meal from our party.)

Saturday: Company for dinner!

Sunday: Turkey tenderloin aka a mini-Thanksgiving dinner!

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Fun Friday: Blueberry Crisp

12 Sep
We had the most perfect day for our blueberry picking trip!

We had the most perfect day for our blueberry picking trip!

At the end of the summer we had the opportunity to go blueberry picking just over the state line with my cousin Val and her husband Bob. I have been wanting to go blueberry picking for years. The last time I went, my oldest daughter was two and a half years old and I had a newborn in a front pack. All I remember about that day was that it was incredibly hot.

This summer we were able to check both strawberry picking and blueberry picking off of our list of things we’ve wanted to do.

I have used this cookbook for years and years.

I have used this cookbook for years and years.

That day when we came home I knew immediately what I wanted to make with my blueberries: Blueberry Crisp from my favorite Blueberry cookbook that my parents gave us years and years ago. I use it every summer.

Once I put aside those berries for baking, I divided the rest and bagged them up to freeze so that as the summer turned to fall I’d have extra berries for cooking. As of now, I have one bag left.

In my cookbook I have marked the inside front cover with all of my favorite recipes and their page numbers. Blueberry Crisp is on page 82. I always mark the date that I tried the recipe, on the page that the recipe appears on. I first made this recipe on 6-27-99.

1999!!!

At the time I was four months shy of having my first baby. That was a hot summer, and I bet this dessert made an incredible treat!

The recipe is simple and quick, perfect for summer, and it’s delicious with ice cream on top. I especially love chocolate frozen yogurt on top of my homemade blueberry crisp.

If you have some blueberries in your freezer, I hope you’ll give this recipe a try!

Delicious topped with chocolate frozen yogurt!

Delicious topped with chocolate frozen yogurt!

Blueberry Crisp

INGREDIENTS

4 cups blueberries

2-4 Tablespoons sugar

2 tsp. lemon juice

1/4 cup butter or margarine (I use I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter)

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup flour

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Dash salt

3/4 cup quick oats or old fashioned rolled oats


DIRECTIONS

Place blueberries in buttered 8×8 square baking dish; sprinkle with 2-4 tablespoons sugar and lemon juice. In a medium bowl mix together butter, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt until mixture is crumbly. Stir in rolled oats, sprinkle evenly over blueberries. Bake 375 degrees 35-40. Serve warm with whipped cream.

 

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: How to plan ahead

10 Sep
Throw it all in, throw it all in the microwave, throw it all on the table.

With my Pampered Chef deep covered baker, cooking a chicken is so easy. I throw it all in, throw it all in the microwave, and throw it all on the table.

I’ve had a lot of positive feedback about my make ahead meal posts that I’ve written the past couple of weeks for my WFDW posts. I’m glad that they’re inspiring others to make some meals ahead. I wish I could take all the credit for this freezer meal inspiration, but I’m just sharing something I’ve read along the way too. Everyone helps everyone out by sharing what they’ve learned, read or tried, and I’m glad my posts are helpful.

I had a couple of people comment to me that the whole idea of planning ahead is just so overwhelming, they can’t even wrap their heads around it. I know I’ve written before about how we try to menu-plan ahead of time, but it’s been a while, so I thought I’d do a quick recap once again, to coincide with my make ahead meal series.

My husband is paid every two weeks and I am paid at the end of every month, so we try to plan our menus and our grocery shopping trip for our “big shopping,” as we call it, two weeks at at time. We try to go as soon as we can once he’s been paid, and most of the time we try to create a menu first which spans the two weeks.

Besides thinking about what we all like to eat and don’t like to eat, when planning our menu, we also look at our calendars and map out which nights one of us may have to work, or nights that are tight because the kids need to be somewhere early or right after dinner, or whatever the case may be. We cross off any nights we’re not eating at home, which doesn’t happen often, but on occasion there are some, and we try to plan fast meals for busy nights, big meals with leftovers that can be used for another dinner or lunches, on not-so-busy nights, and we try to stick with the menu plan as much as possible.

You’ll notice that in the paragraph above, I use the word “try” a lot. It’s because you still have to be flexible. Schedules change, so menus sometimes change too. Sometimes we don’t get to do the big shopping and we’re stuck planning on the fly, by the day and picking up what we can, when we can. Sometimes we don’t get to do a menu ahead but we have time to do a quick big shopping and we grab staples we always use in our menus and plan our menu around what we’ve bought.

Either way, my point is that no matter how you do it, planning ahead is worthwhile for organizational purposes, and for staying on budget as well. The less times I enter a store, the less extra items that I just “have to have” that week!

I thought I’d leave you here with the list we came up with for our two weeks of meals, and a few tidbits about how they’ll serve us well on that particular night. I’ve also linked to the recipes on my blog from past posts if I had them.

Sunday: Chicken dinner (we had most of the day to do a big Sunday dinner, it’s one we all love, and it made enough for leftovers for lunches. Two people had chicken sandwiches the next day stuffed with cranberry sauce and stuffing, and one had chicken salad the day after that.)

Monday: Quesadillas (everyone likes at least one variety or another of these and they are great for lunches the next day.)

Tuesday: London Broil (marinated ahead and frozen for a busy day.)

Wednesday: Pasta and meatballs (very busy day, one parent working at night, kids all over at night, and makes enough for leftovers for lunches or dinner.)

Thursday: Pulled pork in the crock pot (same sort of night as Wednesday, everyone likes this, we can eat and run, and have leftovers for lunches or another dinner.)

Friday: Homemade pizza and salad (a favorite meal, three different varieties of pizza for a busy night, and usually we have enough left to freeze some for the future or to use for lunches.)

Saturday: California Chicken with cheddar cheese and avocados (this is a one time only meal. No leftovers. Anyone can make their chicken any way they’d like.)

Sunday: (Eating out with a gift card to celebrate a special event.)

Monday: Chicken Marsala (a family favorite, served with noodles on the side for the one person who doesn’t like chicken. Makes enough for leftovers.)

Tuesday: Nicoise (a favorite French dish, a quick meal to pull together, provides some leftovers for lunch.)

Wednesday: Soup and sandwiches (a crazy night, soup will be made ahead of time using the carcass from the previous week’s chicken dinner, and reheated.)

Thursday: Pasta and Meatballs again! (another crazy night.)

Friday: Payday! Chinese takeout!!

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