Spaghetti Squash Surprise! (aka What's That Smell?)

It's been a rough week here. 2 pizza nights and lots of other chaos that you guys don't need to hear about. But, I got one good meal to tell you about!

Friday's dinner was supposed to be spaghetti squash with chicken. It was going to be a wonder mish-mash of flavors on top of a big bed of spaghetti squash. A pasta dish without the pasta. I was so excited!

Squash will last for weeks in the right environment (months if it is cold and dark enough!). The one problem with this is when you bring your squash home, you don't know how old it is. I did not think about this. So, when I cut open this delicious looking spaghetti squash, I got quite a surprise. It was a smell. Not a bad smell but, not the right smell. I opened the squash up and very quickly realized I was smelling sprouts. Oops. The seeds were sprouting! After a quick look online, I found out that we would not enjoy it's very bitter tasting flesh so I said bye bye and moved on to something else.

We ended up with a pasta dish and man was it delicious. I could not have been happier! Here is what I did:

Boil water for the pasta (I regret that I only had white pasta in the house. Usually we are whole wheat all of the way!)

Meanwhile, cut up everything else to be sauted together:

3 Garlic cloves (minced)

Olive Oil

1 small butternut squash

Most of a white onion

1/2 cup grape tomatoes

2 chicken breasts

4 tbsp basil (frozen fresh from the garden!)

Italian herbs

Pepper

Cook that stuff up and pile it on top of your spaghetti and you got yourself some awesomeness!

This week's menu (and Spinach-Black Bean Lasagna)

Better late than never, right?

Translation:

M - lamb chops

T - spinach-black bean lasagna

W - hamburger with sweet potato fries

Th - fish

F - spaghetti squash with chicken

S - wedding (which means pizza for the 3-year-old)

S - soup

The Spinach-Black Bean Lasagna we had last night is one of my favorite freezer meals. I will often cook it in a 9x13 and then freeze the leftovers because there is no way we can eat that much. It's also an easy one to double and then assemble in 4 8x8 pans. It's great to have on hand for us but also for friends that may be in the need for a meal. (And this one tends to be a hit!) If you are making a whole one just to freeze, no need to cook it first! Only if you are freezing leftovers.

I have no idea where this recipe came from. It is not mine originally. 

Spinach-Black Bean Lasagna


Ingredients: 

9 lasagna noodles

2 large eggs 

2 cups ricotta cheese 

1 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

4 cups Monterey Jack cheese, shredded and divided

2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed and drained

3 cups prepared marinara sauce

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin


[1] In a large pot of boiling water, cook, lasagna noodles until done but firm to the bite. Drain and set aside on waxed paper.

[2] In a large bowl, stir together the eggs, ricotta, spinach, cilantro and salt. Add in 1 cup of the Monterey Jack cheese; set aside.

[3] Mash beans with a potato masher or fork in a large bowl; stir in pasta sauce and cumin. Spread one-third of bean mixture on bottom of a lightly greased baking dish.

[4] Layer with 3 noodles, half of spinach mixture, and 1/3 of the Monterey Jack cheese; repeat layers. Spread with one-third bean mixture; top with remaining 3 noodles and remaining bean mixture and remaining cheese. Cover tightly with foil, affix the cooking label and place flat in the freezer.


COOKING DIRECTIONS
Thaw
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Bake, covered for 1 hour, remove the foil and bake for 10 minutes or until golden.

Lamb Chops with Brussels sprouts and mashed 'taters

I don't have this week's menu made yet.... I hope to have it up tomorrow. You will know as soon as I do!

But, on to more important things... Tonight's Dinner!

All of the main ingredients were locally grown and my goodness they were delicious! I didn't use much seasoning. Everything tasted so fresh and, well, as it should taste.

Lamb Chops:
Preheat oven to 450.
Heat oil in an oven-safe pan. Sear the lamb chops until brown on each side. About 2 minutes.
Move to oven and bake for 8-10 minutes (9 worked for me!)
Be careful taking that pot out of the oven! Use an oven mitt!

Brussels sprouts:
Put sprouts with a bit of water into a microwave-safe bowl. Cover with vented top.
Cook for 2-3 minutes, depending on how soft you like them. (I like my veggies a little crunchy so I only did 2.)
Drain water and add just a little spray butter

Mashed Potatoes:
Wash, peel and cut into pieces
Add to pot with just enough water to cover them
Cook until soft enough to mash
I didn't have enough water in the pot so they got a little dry.  I added just enough butter (tsp?) and milk (1/4 cup?) to make them super yummy! I also added a little garlic salt 'cause that's how my husband likes them.

Over all, a very easy and very yummy meal!

Tacos!

We love taco night. It doesn't happen often enough around here. I had some ground beef from a local farm in the freezer, lettuce, tomato and avocado from our organic weekly delivery and cheese and salsa. All we needed was the shells and seasoning! I saw that Ortega had some new Whole Grain/Whole Wheat product and decided to check it out!

I am always skeptical of big-name products that claim they are whole wheat. They usually aren't very whole wheat at all. For instance, last week when I was making the spider pizza, I was looking for some premade whole wheat pizza dough. I had 2 choices, Boboli that was almost $5 for 1 pie or a different brand that was $2.50 for 2 pies! Seemed like an easy choice, right? They both had "100% whole wheat" on their packaging. Upon further inspection, on the Boboli was actually 100% whole wheat. The other one had enriched white flour as the first ingredient. Whuk?! I just don't get it... but, I digress, I am happy to report that Ortega passed initial inspection.

This is such a fun and easy dinner. Our toddler gets a kick out of assembling her taco (even though she takes it all apart and eats each piece with her fingers), it's fun for adults, easy to cook and not necessarily that bad for you! Especially if you load up on the veggies.

Pasta with Asparagus and Pine Nuts

We had a delicious pasta dinner last night that was so incredibly easy to make. I'm definitely keeping this simple recipe in my back pocket for nights when I don't know what else to do. You can sub any vegetable and any nut!

The original recipe is from Real Simple and is called Linguine with Asparagus and Pine Nuts. I'm sure it would be amazing with fresh pasta and fresh shaved Parmesan, but, using what we had on hand (which is another part of this blog... everything has to be easy and convenient!), I used regular ol' spaghetti noodles and the Parmesan cheese that comes in a shaker. Easy enough!

I almost always have pine nuts in the house for cooking and I had asparagus in the freezer from our CSA earlier in the summer. I added a nice salad on the side and it was perfect!

Mmmmm.... look at those big garlic cloves. YUM!

Turkey Burgers

We love turkey burgers. I prefer the homemade variety but I tend to keep some frozen ones in the freezer. They are so quick to cook and you don't have to thaw them! Jenni-O makes some great ones and while they aren't local or organic, they only have 2 ingredients: turkey and seasoning. I'll take that (even though I'd love to know exactly what "seasoning" is.)

We aren't big on buns in this family either. This is what a burger looks like in our house:

Locally grown organic tomato, organic avocado and a little mozzarella cheese all wrapped up in some locally grown organic lettuce. Delicious!

This week's menu

 

Translation:

M - Turkey Burgers

T - Deli Sandwiches

W - DATE NIGHT!

Th - Pizza party at school

F - Pasta with Asparagus

S -Tacos

S - Chili

Halloween Yums!

Pumpkin Pancakes

Yesterday Gracie and I had pancakes for dinner. But not just any pancakes, they were PUMPKIN. And I'm not taking about the mix you can buy pre-made. I did that last year. Total waste and they weren't even that good. Thanks to my good friends at Macaroni Kid, I am going to keep this easy recipe around for a long time.

Spider Pizza!

We hosted a little Halloween party for some little people today. There wasn't much Halloween going on so I ampted it up with some super scary spider pizza! Again, Macaroni Kid came through for me on this one!

Sausage and Apple Kebabs

What a perfect treat for the seasons! Super easy to make. Super fun to eat and super tasty - especially for kids!

I got this recipe out of a recent edition of Real Simple. It's a great way to use up all of those apples you have sitting around, too. (I know you went to the farm and picked too many! We all do. It's too much fun.)

I'm not sure what kind of apples we had but they worked fine. And I don't have maple syrup in the house but I do have Aunt Jemima Reduced Sugar syrup which also worked just fine. We made the 'taters and peas, too. Except I don't use milk and butter, just some of the cooking water and salt and pepper (much to the dismay of the rest of my family).

I do wish I had made a nice salad to go on the side. It needed a little something else....

Slow Cooker Barbeque Pork Sandwiches

I am a big fan of pulled pork. It's so easy to make in the slow cooker and often comes out moist and delicious, plus there are extras for the freezer!

I have a go-to recipe called Slow Cooker Dr. Pepper BBQ Pork (comment if you want the recipe) but I decided to try something different last night. It was GREAT! Such nice flavoring and the perfect amount of sauce. (Read: not too drippy.)

It was super easy and because I wasn't home for dinner, my husband and toddler had a nice meal without me. That, of course, also means I didn't get a good picture of it. But I think you all know what pulled pork looks like.

I opted to not make the slaw that is also in the recipe and instead served it with a side of locally grown, organic broccoli that I steamed for just a few minutes in the microwave. (I like my veggies to have a little crunch left in them. No need to cook out all of the nutrients!)

I also totally regret not serving this with pickles. It would have been delicious!

Here is the fabulous recipe from Real Simple.

Squash Lasagna and Salmon

Squash Lasagna

Sorry for the double post here, you guys. I forgot to take pics of dinner from last night. (what?!) Such a fail!

Anyway, the Squash Lasagna has amazing potential and was over all quite good. I'd do it a little differently next time, though. It calls for frozen squash puree. I didn't buy this because I have a whole peck of frozen squash and zucchini in the freezer. I figured I would thaw that, throw them in the blender and puree them myself. Well, my blender stinks (just bought a new one yesterday, thank you very much!) so I had some puree and some big solid chunks. I figured this wouldn't matter but the large pieces ended up being quite bitter. I don't know why. I'll definitely make this again but with puree all the way... or fresh vegetables.

What may surprise you is that it is a slow cooker recipe and a really easy one at that. Thank you Real Simple for making it delicious! Here is a link to the recipe.

Salmon

Tonight's salmon turned into tilapia. We eat a lot of salmon and talapia in this house and the main recipe is interchangeable. We usually do it on the grill but tonight I put it all in a baking dish and tested that out. For the grill you would make foil packets for individual servings. I like it better this way because you get more juices which is fabulous when you serve it over rice!

Here is what our dinner entailed of tonight. You can do this with any fish and any vegetables. That's how we roll! It is such a healthy dish and an easy way to add fish into your diet. It's also great it you have a lot of vegetables in the house you need to use before they go bad!

Ingredients:

2 tilapia fillets
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
broccoli
cauliflower
cabbage
Old Bay Seasoning
Mrs. Dash Sun Dried Tomato seasons
brown rice

Preheat over to 400
Spray baking dish with cooking spray and  put fish in the bottom
Cover with vegetables
Season (make sure some gets on the fish, too!)
Cook for 15 minutes or until the fish is flaky

Serve over rice and enjoy!

This week's menu

Translation:

M - squash lasagna

T - salmon

W - sausage and apple kabobs with maple syrup

Th - BBQ pork sandwiches

F - pumpkin pancakes

S - Louisiana red beans and rice

Su - wild rice, mushroom and chicken soup

Pumpkin Seeds (and Gumbo for Soup'r Sunday)

Everyone should be able to roast pumpkin seeds, right? Easy as can be! Why even look it up? Well, I learned last year that you can't just do it. All of that time and labor freeing the seeds from the pulp just to get roasted seeds that weren't edible. YUCK!

I learned a trick this year and maybe all of you know it but, I must share.... when you are getting the guts out of the pumpkin, put it into a bowl of water. THAT, my friends, is the trick. It keeps the pulp from drying onto the seeds and helps separate the seeds from the dreaded sticky stuff

After you have a bowl of just (mostly) seeds, put them in a colander and run the seeds under warm water. Get your hands in there to make sure all of the pulp is really out of there.

Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray (or drizzle with olive oil), spread the seeds in a single layer. Spray some more (or stir the seeds around the cover in olive oil) and then add some salt.

Cook at 350 for 25 minutes. VOILA! Perfectly roasted pumpkin seeds!

And as for what we are having tonight... check out this supercrazy easy Gumbo recipe from Cooking Light. They use all frozen and pre-chopped vegetables and pre-cooked meats which makes for a very easy and fast meal.

Because I had most things fresh in the house, I baked the chicken and boiled the sausage (local and organic!) and cut my own vegetables (some local/organic, some not). I doubled the recipe (for freezing, as always) and added half a pound of shrimp.

Yumminess!

Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto with Sugared Walnuts

Guess what we had for dinner tonight? Squash!

More squash? What? Well, we get a lot of it in our CSA delivery and we need to make the most of it! Tonight I used this great recipe from Cooking Light called Roasted Butternut Squash with Sugared Walnuts. (I was tempted to not sugar the walnuts to cut out some fat and sugar but I am so glad I did. YUM!)

I made the squash and walnuts earlier in the day. It was a real time saver!

Getting ready!

And then, after much risotto stirring, we ended up with this truly delicious dish!

Soup'r Sundays

On Sundays we make soup.

That is what we decided when Fall descended upon us a few weeks ago. Today I am making one of go-to slow cooker recipes. I love this soup. Not only is it super easy, relatively healthy and soul warming, but it also looks gourmet. Mmmmmm... just thinking about it is making my mouth water.

(I'm doubling the recipe for the first time in hopes of freezing some of it. Should go fine! I'll let you know if it doesn't.)

The gourmet-ness of it comes from the mushrooms that are used: portabello and shiitake. Also, it is mostly broth-based. You add just enough whipping cream at the end to fool your eyes and pallet to think it is full-on creamy goodness. So, without further ado, I present to you:

Slow Cooker Cream of Mushroom Soup


Ingredients:
1 tablespoon butter
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
1 white onion, chopped
2 portobello mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
1/4 pound shiitake mushrooms
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
3 cups vegetable broth
3/4 cup frozen corn
3/4 cup wild rice (I use brown rice because we always have it in the house)
coarse coarse salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted (optional)


[1] In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add celery and onion and cook until almost tender, 4 minutes. Add mushrooms and garlic and cook for 2 minutes.

[2] in a slow cooker, combine mushroom mixture with broth, corn, rice, salt and pepper.

[3] Cover and cook on low until rice is tender, 6 hours.

[4] Just before serving, stir in cream. Garnish with toasted almond slivers.


I acquired this recipe while I was a subscriber to Relish, a superawesome meal planning service. Check it out!

Stuffed Sweet Dumpling Squash

This dish is amazing! Not only is it easy to make but it is delicious and beautiful! I had to take a picture of the stuffing half-way through because it was so pretty! (This dish makes me use lots of exclamation points!)

Veggies and rice pre-meat - GORGEOUS!

I should note that I didn't have any spinach so I used swiss chard, and I didn't have any currants so I used raisins. The worked great!

Also, the ingredient list does not have meat on it. I am sure (positive) it would be delicious without meat but I added ground beef (a pound). There was more than enough stuffing for the 6 halves. We also topped it with a sprinkle of asiago cheese which was a delightful addition.

The recipe says it serves 6. This was our main (only) dish with no sides so the adults each ate 2 halves and the kiddo ate 1. I recommend this to everyone. This has been added to my favorites list! I also think I will add it to our Thanksgiving menu. Sans meat it will make an excellent side dish.

The final product

Here is the original recipe as found on Inspired Bites.

The Jenny Special

I've been making the Jenny Special for as long as I can remember. It is different every time but always the same thing: a stir fry-type dish of whatever is left in the house. It usually looks a lot like stir fry with salad-ish vegetables and some shrimp or chicken. But tonight's was different! And it was so good I have to share! It was so basic but the flavors were amazing. Also, the majority of the vegetables were from our CSA which means local and organic! Here is what it looked like:

Ingredients:

cooking oil
1/4 - 1/2 white onion
1 small butternut squash
1 sweet potato
1 small eggplant
1 small purple bell pepper
cabbage
dried thyme (also from CSA)
mild curry powder
salt & pepper to taste
whole wheat couscous

My process:

Cook couscous according to directions on the box 

Heat skillet and add cooking oil

Add onion and saute until soft. Just a few minutes.

Add squash and sweet potato, thyme, salt & pepper and saute until squash begins to become tender. (This took a good 10 minutes for me, I think. I kept a lid on the pot and stirred frequently.)

Add eggplant, bell pepper and cabbage. Mix together well. Add curry powder (as much as you want!) and mix mix mix.

Continue to cook until it is how you like it!

Serve on top of couscous

YUM!!

Squash-Apple Turnovers

It is my plan to post about the current week's menu but, with crazy weeks at our house coming up, our menu board is looking a little sad! But, I've tried some great recipes recently that I will share for now!

The first being Cooking Lights' Squash-Apple Turnover.    

You know winter is coming when the winter squash starts showing up in the CSA delivery. Part of me is sad to see the summer go but another part of me is so excited for winter squash! Oh, the possibilities! And what also comes the same time of year in mass quantities? APPLES. Here is a way to use them both! (And I made a bunch and froze some of them. So easy!)

This would make a great appetizer. We ate it as a side-dish with big bowls of soup.


I didn't make them into pretty circles. I used the pre-cut Pillsbury dinner rolls. One on top and one on bottom. Cute little triangles. Super easy. And I used whatever apples we had on hand.

In the beginning....

Every Sunday I start with this....

...a blank slate of what the week holds for my family's stomachs at dinner time. 

Some weeks are boring and some are an adventure. I try and keep things simple but also mix things up. I do my best to use real organic food that is preferably local. But, of course, this isn't always possible.

I hope to share all of the excitement here! The good and the bad... the successes and the complete failures. Rarely will a recipe be an original. I cook from lots of different sources and I will share them all with you.