So we don’t have our laptop back yet, so I still can’t post the beautiful pictures of my tomatoes!! But I figured I would post to give you some ideas of what I’ve been doing with my cherry tomatoes and lemon tomatoes from the garden.
My new favorite breakfast is a tomatoes, herbs and an egg on toast. I’ve made a couple of versions, but basically you dice up tomatoes mix with a little salt, pepper, olive oil, white balsamic vinegar and whatever fresh herbs you have. Let that sit while you make a piece of toast in the toaster + make an egg either over medium or over hard or you can poach the egg (I’ve never been very good at it. Only one out of 8 tries does that come out right!) Put the toast on the plate, top with egg and then tomato mixture. Add a couple of slices of avocado if you have it.Yum. Karina doesn’t like it too much, but she doesn’t really eat tomatoes. More for me 🙂
I’ve also been grilling more pizzas with tomatoes and making bruschetta. I also made a Rachel Ray recipe with a tomato and cucumber salad. Her recipe is basically to make a meatloaf with ground turkey, greek seasoning (oregano, mint, salt, pepper, lemon zest), feta + spinach. Your own homemade gyros! One the side mix tomatoes, cucumber, salt, pepper and red wine vinegar.
Anytime you want more specifics on the amounts, please let me know! I am trying harder to make note of how much I use, but don’t always write it down. I’m happy to tell you more details!
The new fall produce has arrived at the Ballard Farmer’s Market! Last week I bought a spaghetti squash and made a new take on spaghetti and meatballs. Here is the recipe I’ve given before that is my go to for spaghetti squash. Then in a crock pot put 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup, 1 cup beef or chicken broth, 1 cup water + 1Tbsp Worcestershire sauce with a bag of frozen turkey meatballs from trader joes. Cook for 2-3 hours on low.
Fall is my favorite season so stay tune for some great fall comfort food recipes!!
Limiting myself trips to the grocery store is really helping our budget and my creativity 🙂 Life still happens when you’re on a budget however and I love to play hostess, so when we had a couple of evenings in one week where I was hosting a group of people for dinner, it was a challenge to stay in budget and still make good food, but I think I pulled it off! I based my menu around what was on sale.
One night I had the girls from my book club over and we wanted to enjoy the backyard, so I made grilled pizzas. I bought a veggie tray from Trader Joe’s as the appetizer so the girls could nibble while I grilled the pizzas. Here is the link to my blog about how to grill a pizza. First pizza was a caesar salad pizza, with chicken (marinated in caesar dressing and cooked in advance). Dough is topped with a thin layer of caesar dressing, light covering of mozzarella + chicken while on the grill. When you take it off of the grill, add the caesar salad and some shredded parmesan. Second pizza was a traditional magherita with fresh mozzarella tomatoes and basil. Third pizza was a caramelized onion and goat cheese pizza. Dough was topped with caramelized onions (made in advance) and goat cheese. This was the favorite!
Dessert was simple. 1 package sugar free white chocolate pudding, 1 package sugar free chocolate fudge pudding, chocolate chips, and sliced strawberries. Just layer ingredients and you have a trifle!
Another night we had a friends from PEPS over. I made a quinoa salad (thanks Jodi for the idea!!)and baked lemon chicken. I also was feeling very domestic and made oatmeal white chocolate chip craisin cookies. Cook the quinoa like you would rice. I used chicken stock in stead of water (you could also use veggie stock or water). Let the quinoa cool and prepare a vinagrette or use a salad dressing you like and have on hand and pour over quinoa (once cool). I used Paul Newman’s olive oil vinagrette and mixed in some pepper and lemon juice. Then add whatever you usually add to pasta salad. I used cubed colby jack, roasted zucchini and diced tomatoes. Chill and serve. [Another twist on pasta salad can be found at Family friendly food, a blog I follow.]
Baked Lemon chicken is something I have made for years and varies depending on what I have on hand. I cut the boneless chicken breasts into smaller pieces so they would cook faster and marinated them in lemon juice, white balsamic vinegar, thyme, salt, pepper, lemon zest and honey. Put the chicken into a baking pan, drizzle with honey, cover with foil and bake for 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven. Then take the foil off and bake for another 30-45 minutes (depending on size of chicken pieces).
Some weekend mornings I actually have the urge to make a big breakfast. I really wanted eggs benedict but have never made hollandaise sauce and didn’t have the time or energy to look it up at 8:30 in the morning (it was my morning to sleep in. Tim and I switch off each weekend day). I decided to make a cheese sauce (which I just learned from all of my mac n cheese experiments). I made a lighter cheese sauce (2 Tbsp butter, 2 Tbsp flour, 1 ½ – 2 cups of milk, 3-4 sprigs thyme, salt, pepper, yellow mustard powder, garlic powder, onion powder and 1 ½ cups skim mozzarella) and put that over the poached egg and tomatoes (diced and mixed with garlic, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar) on wheat toast. It was soooo good. I had enough cheese sauce leftover that I boiled some water while we were eating our breakfast and made pasta, mixed pureed pumpkin in with the cheese sauce, poured the cheese sauce over the pasta and baked it for 20 minutes. We spent the morning at home and then after Karina’s nap were able to go out for the rest of the afternoon and enjoy ourselves. We came home just before dinner. I reheated the mac-n-cheese and dinner was served in 10 minutes!
Luckily these meals provided leftovers again for lunch and dinners on the nights in between when I didn’t cook. Making cooking easier by giving yourself nights off is important. Those nights off don’t have to be about takeout (unless you want them to be). If you are trying to save money, make enough of one dish to have leftovers. If you don’t want to eat the same thing all week, freeze the food and then you can take different items out of the freezer and reheat on nights you don’t want to cook. But, like I have said from the beginning with this blog, everything in moderation. Not everyone is organized to cook every night and have freezer foods on hand, etc all the time. I know I’m not. Don’t beat yourself up about ordering pizza or going through the drivethru every once in a while. Taking the time to read this blog and other cooking sites shows you care about what you and your kids eat, even if you just think about trying the recipes. It’s the thought that counts J On that rogue day that you have some time and are in the mood to cook, you have an arsenal of recipes and methods in this blog, cookbooks (and more cookbooks)I mentioned and just by Googling. (Yes I think that is a verb now).
Happy cooking! Coming up…hopefully some recipes with food from my garden. My zucchini is not looking happy…
Sorry there are no pictures this week. The hard drive of our laptop died and our photos are on it! Luckily the Geeksquad was able to retrieve the info, but the computer I am working on now doesn’t have a dvd drive to read the info. Couple more weeks and the computer will be back and pictures of my garden will be up!
I can’t believe it has been over a month since I blogged!! We have had a busy summer, traveling, working on the backyard and handling an almost 2 year toddler and her ever changing moods 🙂 The weather in Seattle has been a little warmer than usual, so I’ve been cooking on the grill rather than using the oven or stove. This week is going to be in the 90s all week, so I’m definitely not turning on the oven if I can help it!
Last week I grilled a pizza for the first time and I’m going to do it again tonight! It was a success. Here’s how I did it:
(1) Take the pizza dough out of the fridge about 20 minutes before you want to grill it. I used Trader Joe’s whole wheat pizza dough. Have the grill at about medium heat.
(2) Roll out the dough on a well floured cutting board and then brush one side with olive oil. Place the oil side down on the hot grill.
(3) Brush oil on other side of dough. After about 20 seconds, use 2 spatulas to flip the dough. After about 20-30 seconds flip the dough again. Do this 1 or 2 more times.
(4) With the least cooked side down, place toppings on pizza and close grill. Check every 20-30 seconds and make sure the bottom isn’t burning. After about a minute or two the cheese will melt and use the 2 spatulas to slide the pizza off onto a platter.
For toppings I used: fresh mozzarella, heirloom tomato (sliced) and roasted red pepper (which I roasted on the burner of the grill while the dough was coming up to temperature). I added some fresh basil, a little olive oil, salt and pepper once off the grill. Delicious!
Tonight I am going to use what I have in the house: cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and maybe some salami and fresh basil from my herb garden. Hopefully our umbrella will provide enough shade to sit outside.
A couple of months ago a lot of blogs were talking about “eating down the fridge” or the pantry. Specifically, two blogs I follow: (1) A Mighty Appetite, Kim O’Donnell and (2) family. friendly. food, Nurit. In line with how things seem to be going in my life right now, always a few months behind :), I am now going through and trying to use up all the food in our freezer, fridge and pantry. For example, last night we had some curry puffs made from leftover ground beef and pork curry that I rolled inside of Pilsbury crescent rolls and some bbq pork on the grill with vegetarian succotash (a frozen mixture of edamame, corn and red pepper). Karina had a great time dipping the curry puffs in some mango chutney.
Karina has been getting more picky and only wanting to eat what she can ask for. Luckily, this includes edamame (“mameh”), but mostly she wants craisins (“ay”), cheerios (“yeerios”), apple (“bopple”) and bananas (“namna”). At least she is still eating at each meal and asking for snacks though, so I cannot complain.
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