Don't Pee on the Bee

Food Trippin'

That seems to be where I am finding my solace these days, and I have to say that these Vegged-Up Oatmeal Cookies from the August 2011 issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray sound amazing!  Definitely not low cal, but they do sound delicious! 

I'm not a huge fan of hiding "good food" in something just to get my kids to eat it, and I don't even think that I would try that with these.  I mean, come on, aren't our kids going to see green zuke and know or at least ask what it is???

But with all the zucchini that are coming out of my garden, I have got to make these at least once!  Not too sure that I will share, though!  Mama needs some good stuff of her own these days!

Yummy New Recipes

I hit the jackpot last week with two new recipes and thought I would share!  One was great for the entire family.  The other was a delicious salad for the grown-ups (who still feel 16 in their heads!).  The kids didn't dig it so much, but my husband did--in spite of the fact that it is vegetarian!  (Remember this on on Meatless Mondays!)

The first recipe Teriyaki Sloppy Joes  came from the May 2010 issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray.  It cooked so fast, I didn't even have our salad made.  I didn't use the swiss chard the first time since I didn't want to push the envelope too far that evening.  But I will definitely include it next time.  I read some of the recipe comments on the website, and one person said one pound of chard was too much, that 1/2 a pound was enough.  Some people added some Worcestershire sauce.  Someone else suggested a pineapple slice.  I think this is a recipe that you can change up however you like.  I just had fish sauce, so did not buy the oyster sauce.  You could probably leave it out.  I don't think it will make that big of a difference.  At first, my kids freaked out and wouldn't even touch it.  They ate the tops of the buns and just stared at the rest.  Then JJ was polite enough to take the "no thank you bite"--that's the bite you take of something new, and if you don't like it, you say no thank you instead of spitting it out on your plate.  (Thanks to Molly for that great idea!)  And lo and behold, just like we told him, he liked it!  So then, of course, Sarah had to jump in, and it was a teriyaki free-for-all at our dining room table!

The Quinoa Taco Salad came from, of all places, The Costco Connection!  A really delicious and refreshing salad.  This will be a summer regular in our house.  It is made with spinach instead of lettuce.  There is no dressing.  I just squeezed some lime juice on it and ate it like that.  J.R. added green salsa.  Another super quick to make recipe and really tasty!  You could even use it in burritos or tacos, and like the one above, you could definitely add other ingredients and make it your own.

If you try them, let me know!

Yum-mo!

I don't know what it was this weekend, but I finally felt like cooking again!  I haven't really been feeling that inspired, but it hit me!  The February 2010 issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray had some super delicious dinners!

The first one was Potato-Topped Beef Stew which I will definitely double the next time!  A nice slow cooked (but easy to make!) stew.  Baked with butternut quash, this had such a deep flavor.  The kind of funky thing about this stew is that it has tater tots on top!   (I had a bad experience with tater tots and an ex-boyfriend, so it took me some time to get over this one!)  But I will tell you that they tasted delicious on this!  And you could always leave them off if you aren't a tater tot person.   You could also add any other vegetables to this dish.   Like most stews, it's very versatile!

The second recipe I made was called Toasted Orzo Chicken Soup.  Again, super delicious with (duh!) toasted orzo, chicken, zucchini, red pepper, onion, carrots and peas.  Topped with Italian parsley and lemon peel, it was so fresh and tasty!  (No link to this one.  Sorry!)

Tonight I think I am going to try the Fennel-and-Onion Chicken--even though it is Meatless Monday!  Oh well!  Maybe we'll go meatless on Tuesday this week!   I would definitely recommend buying this month's magazine.   I have seven pages turned down to try out this month!  I'll let you know how they go!

**I just updated the Recipes page.  Besides adding the stew recipe, I also added 3 of my other all-time winter faves--Spinach-Mushroom Quiche (a pared down, lower calorie version!), Italian Sub Stoup with Garlic Toast Floaters, and Mexican Lasagna.  Check them out!  Roll over the titles on the Recipes page for some of my notes about each recipe!

Black Friday, eco-style

No coupons or hits on where to get the best deals from me!  Sorry!  Black Friday is NOT my thing!  I am not a big shopper anyway, so a day like this gives me the heebie-jeebies!  I'm more inclined to get online in a day or two and get all my shopping done in one fell swoop and have it delivered to my door!

But here is something eco-friendly that I saw in Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine (November 2009): flowering gift wrap from Little Kay Gardens.   It's wrapping paper pre-seeded with flower seeds.   Wrap your gift in this, and then the recipient can plant the paper in their yard and have beautiful flowers as a further reminder of your love and generosity!  Sounds cool to me!

 

You can check out their time lapse to see how the flowers might look.  (I would assume that these are ideal growing conditions!)