Keeping track of what we ate, and what we thought of it.
Date: 5/10/2012
Recipe: http://www.thewaytohisheartblog.com/mexican-stuffed-shells/
Modifications: I used ground turkey,and this taco seasoning recipe.
Time to table: 45 minutes prep, plus 45 minutes of baking time
Servings: 4 adults
Ben: Love
Erin: Love
Annie: Like – it was a bit “picy” for her 
Notes: This was really good and actually pretty easy. I thought the filling could stand to be cheesier, so I would up the cream cheese next time, and maybe add some veggies into the filling too.
Annie’s portion
Date: 4/24/2012
Recipe: http://www.goodthymesandgoodfood.com/2012/04/southwest-avocado-chicken-salad.html
Modifications: I modified this quite a bit. Instead of serving it in the avocado halves, I just chopped up the avocados and mixed them in. I used a whole can of black beans, 2 chopped tomatoes, 2 chopped avocados and the rest of the ingredients except white wine vinegar because I didn’t have any. We also left the chips out and just served this as a dip.
Time to table: 20 minutes
Servings: 6 adults
Ben: Love
Erin: Love
Annie: Like
Notes: This was an excellent summer meal! We all really liked it – I’m a huge fan of chips and dip so any dip is a winner for me Annie LOVES guacamole already, so I figured she’d enjoy this. We will definitely be making this again – I always have a hard time coming up with meals we all like in the summer since we typically enjoy warm comfort foods, so this will be a good one to add to the rotation. Today I had this with the crushed up chips in a wrap for lunch… delish!
Luke enjoyed dinner
Date: 3/3/2012
Recipe: http://www.closetcooking.com/2012/02/roasted-cauliflower-and-aged-white.html
Modifications: Forgot the thyme, whoops.
Time to table: 30 minutes
Servings: 4 adults
Ben: Love
Erin: Like
Annie: Like
Notes: I recently subscribed to the Closet Cooking blog, it’s the only cooking blog I subscribe to and I’ve already got 5-6 recipes of his that I want to make, this being one of them. This soup was absolutely delicious, its hard to go wrong with 1.5 cups of shredded cheese in your soup. On top of that, it’s incredibly easy to make. Will for sure make this again when soup season is upon us next fall!
Date: 1/15/2012
Recipe:
Soup: Ingredients:
Adapted from: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Chicken-Wild-Rice-Soup
Rolls: http://annies-eats.com/2008/10/29/honey-yeast-rolls/
Modifications: The soup recipe was pretty heavily modified, which is why I posted what we did. I followed all instructions on the rolls, but it didn’t take 2 hours for my dough to double.
Time to table: Soup took about an hour total, because the wild rice takes 45 minutes to cook – but since we combined that with the first step of the soup (simmering for 30 minutes) it wasn’t so bad. Rolls take about 3 hours including all rising time, maybe 30 minutes of active prep time total.
Servings: The 3 of us ate this for dinner, and then froze another dinner portion for all of us. There was enough after that still for one lunch and one toddler dinner. Probably would feed 6 adults. The rolls make 10-12.
Ben: Love
Erin: Love
Annie: Love
Notes: I feel like we need a special category for these rare (but happened twice in a week!) triple LOVE meals. So I am making one, and calling it “triple love” (some are amended from my feelings on a meal during the first trimester of pregnancy. Another note – apparently we mostly love soup). I was VERY skeptical that this would live up to restaurant quality soup, but wow, it definitely did! This soup was absolutely delicious, and paired with fresh baked rolls? Can’t get much better than that on a cold January night! When Annie even chooses to eat the soup after eating an entire roll, you know it’s good. She eats so much better on weekends it’s ridiculous – the big difference being that we don’t give her snacks in the afternoon on weekends – shockingly that results in her actually eating dinner! Anyway, this meal was definitely a winner all around. Kind of surprising for us given the lack of cheese and cream involved!
Date: 12/5/2011
Recipe: Meatballs: http://weelicious.com/2010/06/01/turkey-pesto-meatballs/
Tomato Sauce: http://weelicious.com/2009/10/06/weelicious-tomato-sauce/
Time to table: 30 minutes prep, 25 minutes bake time
Modifications: Not many – I think we probably used nearly double the pesto because that’s what we had frozen, and it still worked out fine.
Servings: 35 little meatballs – we baked half with all the tomato sauce, and froze the other half and half the meatballs served our family of 3 perfectly.
Ben: Like
Erin: Like
Annie: Like
Notes: This was very easy, especially with frozen pesto. The tomato sauce also came together quickly, making this a great weeknight meal. I always love recipes that we can get 2 full meals out of – we froze the meatballs as she indicates in the post, prior to baking so that’ll be an easy one to just pull out and have with more tomato sauce. We served this over spaghetti.
Date: 11/3/2011
Recipe: http://annies-eats.net/2011/10/27/creamy-stovetop-mac-and-cheese/
Time to table: 20 minutes
Modifications: Used whole wheat macaroni noodles. No other modifications.
Servings: 2 adult dinners, 2 adult lunches, 1 toddler dinner
Ben: Like
Erin: Like
Annie: Like
Notes: We served this with roasted broccoli. This is quite rich, and we all liked it. I really liked the raw garlic and shallot – I thought it gave it a nice bite. I loved the gouda – I’m glad we splurged and got that instead of a cheaper cheese because I think it made a big difference in flavor. The broccoli was necessary for all of us to cut the richness a bit. As Annie mentions in her post, this reheats very well and was delicious for lunches.
