Day Sixty-six--Our non-dinner

I'm not sure why. Maybe the heat, maybe the fact that we were all very busy and tired, maybe we were still full from lunch but we had a non-dinner last night. I have no pictures. I have no recipes. I got nothing. We just picked at a couple of things in the fridge and that was it.

Tim had a plate of apples, cheese and some fresh snap peas. Connor had an apple with cheese. Aidan and I had a bagel and I had some fresh snap peas. We weren't very hungry and this suited us just fine. I guess there will be nights like this. It did make for an easy kitchen clean up though. =)

I hope everyone is staying cool.

Day Sixty-four--Bacon Spinach Quiche

Wahoo. I'm posting dinner right after dinner. I know, novel idea. Tonight's dinner was a home-run. It was supposed to be a fritatta, but my cousin-in-law(there is such a thing, right) posted on facebook yesterday that she made this quiche and her family enjoyed it. I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did.


Bacon spinach quiche

I had to make a pie crust. Actually, I have one crust in my refrigerator still that I need to figure out what to do with it. I'm thinking Shoo-fly pie. We'll see if I'm being overly ambitious. Anyway, back to dinner. I rolled out one of the crusts and put it into my pie plate. That got set to the side while I got everything else ready. Four slices of pepper bacon, fried and cut up. Four eggs. Some milk and shredded cheese. Some chopped onion and spinach. All of those things got mixed together into a bowl and then put into the pie crust. I did run in to one problem. That problem was the fact that my pie plate was apparently not big enough. The egg mixture spilled out over the top a bit. No problem. I just pushed a cookie sheet in onto the bottom rack of my oven and it caught everything that spilled out of the pie plate. I did sprinkle a little bit more shredded cheddar on top and then carefully put the quiche in the oven. It baked for 40 minutes and then was done.

This meal was so delicious. It was everything in one plate. Protein, veggies, carbs...all in one plate. It can't get much easier than that. Aidan didn't really like it. I think it was because of the onions and spinach and the fact that it was something new that we've never had. I think a couple more times and he'll eat it. He did tell me that he wasn't that hungry.

So, thanks Emily for posting your meal last night. We enjoyed it tonight!

Day Fifty-nine--Macaroni and Cheese

Wow. I'm late in posting today. My pizza dough for tonight's dinner is going through it's final rise and I'm just now getting to posting last night's dinner. Last night's dinner was done on the road. We had Macaroni and Cheese. None of that gross boxed stuff here.



I've made this recipe several times. It's from the River Cottage Family Cookbook. The first time I made this recipe Aidan swore off boxed macaroni. Both boys helped make it this time. It's pretty simple to throw together. You make a flour/butter rue and then slowly add warmed milk. Once it's slightly bubbling, then you get to the cheese shredding. We picked up a nice big brick of cheddar cheese in Cuba, NY while we were visiting Laurie last week and I used that. This is where the boys came into play. They were in charge of shredding. They added the shredded cheese to the milk mixture and melted it all down. Oh, and there was a bay leaf cooking in the milk the whole. My macaroni was boiling the whole time the milk and cheese was melting together. Then, you just drain the macaroni and add it to the cheesy goodness that is bubbling away in the other pot. I also added a wee bit of salt and fresh ground pepper. Then it all just gets dumped into a casserole dish and I put some fresh shredded Parmesan cheese on the top of it. Throw it in the oven and bake it for 20 minutes. Then it's done.

The recipe also calls to put 8 slices of bacon on top of it. I only used 3 slices that I cut in half. It adds a nice smoky flavor to the mac n cheese. I wish I would have thought to bring some hot sauce with us in the car because I think that would have added the last finishing touch to the meal, but we were in a rush to get out of the house. It was enjoyed by all on the road.

Whew. Now it's time to go make tonight's dinner. Until later. Happy cooking!

Day Fifty-three--Fruit, Cheese and Bread

Once in a while we have a night where no one is particularly hungry and we go for the light dinner. Tonight was one of those nights. The inspiration for our dinner came from our day.

It was a beautiful day. The highs were in the high 60's (which is great for June) and the sun was high in the sky. Early in the morning, I had gotten everything done in the house that I wanted and I didn't want to just burn the day inside. I did a quick check on the "pick your own" site and found a farm near us that had pick your own strawberries. Since we've gone to mostly seasonal eating, we were dying for fruit.

The boys and I walked to Tim's office to pick up the car and then headed out to the hills. We went back roads all the way, had the windows open and the music loud. It was so much fun. We spent about an hour picking until our fingers were stained red. On the way home, we passed a little farm stand at a local orchard so I stopped to see if they had anything available. I was able to get a big bag of apples and some local cheese. It was so funny because as we were driving home the boys and I shared one of the apples. We were all so appreciative for the sweet juicy fruit. This apple had been grown on a tree close to our home. It was so delicious and we tore through it.

We got home and had a huge mess to clean up after our dog had gotten very sick. After cleaning that up and giving Patchy a bath, Tim was home from work. So, I through a loaf of bread into the oven and we cut up a couple of apples, some strawberries, some fresh cherries and the cheese. That was our dinner. And you know what? It was perfect. It was all local. It was all fresh. It was just what we needed after being out in the fresh air all afternoon.


A light delicious dinner.

After dinner, Tim went to aikido and I made some shortcakes to enjoy some more of the berries. As for the rest of the berries (we came home with three very big bowls of them) they are destined to be jam today. It's supposed to rain all day so I can't think of anything better to do today. I'll hole up in the kitchen with my Glee soundtrack blasting and jam jars getting filled. Life is good.

Day Forty-six--Lasagna

Oh man, tonight's dinner was awesome. It was loved by all. What was it?

Lasagna!

This meal almost didn't happen. Well, it would have happened but it almost ended up being a really late dinner. No worries. It all worked out. My problem was that I forgot to take a pound of ground beef out of the freezer. I momentarily freaked out when I was down in the freezer too. I had to call Tim at work to find out if we had run out of ground beef. It turns out he had stacked it behind a bunch of other steaks. Whew. My problem then turned into the fact that the sauce was supposed to simmer for an hour and a half. It was 2:30 by the time I realized this and I had not started the pasta or anything yet.

I threw the package of ground beef in a cold bowl of water. I then made the pasta dough. While it was resting, I got the other things for the sauce ready. I chopped onions and garlic. I opened all the cans of tomatoes and got all of my spices ready. I got impatient and decided to start the sauce anyway. I cooked the onions and garlic in a bit of olive oil and then added a pound of Italian sausage. Once that was all browned up, I threw in the beef. It was mostly thawed and the heat in the pan quickly thawed the rest. Then I added crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and tomato sauce. That's a lot of tomato! You want to know the cool thing? Wegman's sells store brand organic tomatoes. I love buying store brand and not name brand. This is a total change from a younger me. A good change I think. Anywhooo, I got all of the meat sauce ingredients stewing and let it set for an hour and a half. While the sauce was stewing, I rolled out the pasta dough and cut it into lasagna sized pieces. I've decided that lasagna noodles are the easiest pasta to make. I let them hang out and hangers to dry (I learned my lesson from last time). Then I got to grating my Parmesan cheese, mixing my ricotta with an egg and unrolling my roll of fresh mozzarella.

Now comes the assembly line. I dropped a couple of noodles at a time into the boiling water. I ladle a bunch of the meat sauce into the bottom of my pan and then lay some cooked noodles down. Fresh noodles only boil for like 2 minutes. I had a layer of four noodles and then put a layer of the ricotta cheese mixture down. Then I put a small layer of mozzarella cheese down. I top that with a scoop of meat sauce and then a sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Rinse, repeat. I had 12 noodles, so I had three layers of four noodles. It made for one very heavy pan of lasagna. It baked in the oven for 25 minutes.

This meal was devoured by all. It was delicious. It also made a ton. Everyone will get to have some for lunch today as well. Yay, one less meal I need to figure out. Works for me. I think that is all I have for now. We have one science lab left to do and then we have the summer off. Well, there will be creative writing projects and I'm going to attempt a quilt, and some gardening...I guess it won't be a summer off, but a summer without sit down school. Until later, happy cooking!