Taco Tart Tuesday

Flaky outer crust from a Pop Tart but with a taco inner.

I got the idea here. I replaced the frozen corn in the original recipe with a can of diced tomatoes. Make sure to drain the juice from the tomatoes so it doesn't make the crust soggy. Throw a little lettuce under and some avo on top and you are bueno to go!

Happy Taco Tuesday!

Pig Pita Pizza...say that 3 times fast

If you are looking for an easy lunch for your kids or an even easier dinner for your family....Look no further! We went to the fair over the weekend and saw some pigs and got inspired to make some HAM pizza. I make pita pizzas all the time! Sometimes I'll use the pitas to make garlic bread as well.

I buy these on sale at Smith's for around $3 and something cents for a pack of 6. You can also buy something similar at Costco. Makes for a cheap meal. I will take them straight out of the freezer before baking them sometimes too and they turn out great!

Slop it with marinara sauce, Italian seasoning, moza, & toppings of choice. I will always have a side option of sliced apples, carrot sticks, a salad like the one found in this picture (easy recipe found in another post), garlic bread, etc. Spray a baking sheet or line with parchment paper. Bake at 400 until cheese is melted. Watch closely so the bottoms don't burn!

 PIG OUT!

I was sweating like a pig at this point of the fair!

Omelette Bar

For the month of June Mondays dinners are Most Important Meal of the Day (Breakfast)
Omelettes made in a ziploc bag are so easy and so fun! Your ziploc (quart size) bags MUST BE FREEZER!! BAGS! The rule in our house for omelettes is you must pick at least 3 vegetables as your filling. It doesn't have to be many, just at least 3. Here's the line-up......

Cheese, green and red peppers, chopped asparagus, chopped squash, olives,
avo, mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, cubed ham, & cooked sausage in onions and garlic

Step 1: Boil water in a large pot

Step 2: Crack your egg(s) into your ziploc bag. I had 2 eggs, my kids had 1 but we all added a little egg white just because there was a lot of solids in there.

Step 3: Put your filling in the ziploc with the egg. We reserve the avocado until after your omelette is done.

Step 4: Get as much air out of your bag before you seal it shut then gently mush your bag with your fingers to incorporate everything together. This is fun for the kids to do!

Here is my baggie with my initial on it so I know which one is mine.

 Step 5: Drop the bags into the boiling water. Cook with the lid on. The more bags the longer they take to cook. 4 bags took about 20-25 minutes. You can always take them out of the water to check the level of doneness. If it's too squishy,runny,liquidy in the center just toss it back in.

Step 6: Salt & Pepper before devouring!

It's HUGE I know. My kids were not able to eat all of theirs so they will finish theirs in the morning for breakfast. Yum!

Sundays are Sweet

Today we decided to make Sunday Sweets. Here is a "Caramel" popcorn recipe that's healthier than regular caramel popcorn.

Pop enough popcorn to fill a HUGE bowl (mine is a 5 1/2 quart bowl). I used a healthy version of bagged popcorn so it has less butter and salt. 
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup honey
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp sea salt

Melt coconut oil. Mix in honey. Add in vanilla and salt. Stir to combine.
Very slowly drizzle the sauce mixture over the popcorn. I filled my bowl to the top so it was a little hard to mix together. So I drizzled then mixed, drizzled then mixed until the popcorn was coated.

Within a matter of minutes you have a healthy(er) and easy Sunday sweets.

Enjoy!

Dinner and a Movie

Our Dinner 

Our Movie

We went with a Swedish theme and had Swedish meatballs over brown rice for dinner and watched a movie that takes place in the Swiss Alps. If the meatballs look huge it's because they were. I was too lazy to roll them any smaller. Here's my recipe for homemade meatballs and the sauce:

Meatballs:
2 lbs ground turkey
4 or 5 slices of bread, torn into small pieces
1 small to medium sweet onion, diced very fine (you can saute if you want but I didn't)
2/3 cup milk
2 eggs
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp black pepper

Sauce:
6 TBSP butter
1/3 cup flour
1 quart beef broth
3/4 cup sour cream
Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In a medium bowl, mix the bread pieces with the milk. Wait for the bread to soak up all the milk. Hand mix the rest of the meatball ingredients until combined. Make meatballs to the size of your liking and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. This makes a lot of meatballs!  I ended up using 2 sheet pans cause I couldn't fit them all on one. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until browned and cooked through.

While the meatballs are cooking, melt the butter in a LARGE saucepan. Whisk in the flour to make a roux. Slowly whisk in the beef broth until smooth.  Turn the heat to LOW and stir in the sour cream and add the cooked meatballs. Simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Serve immediately over rice. 

Summers Secret

For 30-minute Thursday let's start with what I made my kids for lunch. I don't like to buy a lot of processed/boxed foods for my family but every once in awhile I will give in but try to make it a little more healthy. So I started with a box like this....

And it ended up looking like this......

Can anyone see the "secret ingredient"? It's not ground turkey or peas. I add the ground turkey for more substance to the meal and I add peas cause I tell my kids they need to eat at least 1 vegetable with lunch and they like peas. Summer Squash just happens to have a very similar look and color to the cheese and noodles. It's not really a secret anymore but the first time my kids had this it took them awhile to figure out what it was. SECRET= I grate 1 yellow squash about the size of the mac n cheese box to the ground turkey when it's almost done cooking just to soften it up. I recommend gradually adding in things to mac n cheese if you don't already. I have almost always made mac n cheese with peas and/or cubed ham so my kids are used to more than just the mac and the cheese and 1 box will feed more mouths this way.

For dinner I made SPAGHETTI! I know there's nothing new or special about making spaghetti in 30 minutes. But another little summer secret is I add ZUCCHINI to our spaghetti. My kids don't even notice with the other green(Italian seasoning) in there. If I make a smaller batch of sauce that will only feed my family of four for that night I will only use 1 large zucchini. If I want to be able to refrigerate or freeze some for a later date than I will add 2 zucchini's to the  sauce batch.

I enjoy sharing this SUMMERS SECRET and hope someone can benefit from it.

Most Important Meal of the Day

Frittata's are so great because the add-ins are endless. Here is the base I use for a frittata and then you add in your family's favorites.

In a large bowl whisk 8 eggs and 1/2 cup egg white, 1/2 cup milk, 1 tsp salt, & 1/4 tsp pepper.

Here is what I added in:
8 oz sausage, cooked
4 slices ham, cubed
3 green onion, chopped
1/2 TBSP minced garlic
1/4 red, orange, yellow bell peppers, diced
Small broccoli head, chopped small, I boiled mine just for a few minutes to slightly soften

Started with the sausage and then throw everything else in there to soften. Then remove everything to a separate bowl. Drain broccoli and add with everything else. Preheat oven to 350.

Grease the same large/deep skillet (I used a 4 QT) really well. Put the egg mixture in the skillet on medium heat and let it firm up for a few minutes. Dump your veg/meat mixture evenly into the eggs. Cook in the oven until eggs are set in the middle, mine took almost 30 minutes.

I think this paired well with my favorite summer salad. I promise it's so easy! I grabbed a 10 oz container of spinach from the grocery store and put half or maybe a little over half in a large bowl.
1-1/2 cups sliced strawberries
1/2+ cup chopped almonds (I like using whole slightly salted almonds and chopping them up)

For the dressing:
1/4 olive oil
2 TBSP red wine vinegar
2 TBSP honey
1-1/2 tsp poppy seeds
Whisk together
Toss everything together and VIOLA you have a yummy easy salad for summer that works as a "breakfast" meal because spinach, almonds, & strawberries are things I put in a morning smoothie quite a lot.

Heart(rate) Healthy

I may not have a closet full of race medals because I have put my time and attention elsewhere. Don't get me wrong I do love trying to be fit, strong, & healthy but a large part of that comes from the food we eat. I have never been one for diets of any sort. I am a firm believer in variety and moderation and that includes the occasional sweets. And that's hopefully what you will find in my blog. I enjoy cooking for my family and the satisfaction that comes from it. Speaking of satisfaction, your belly will be satisfied with this CHICKEN MARINADE recipe I used for Saturday Salad or Sandwiches. It deserves a medal!

Take a look...

It's so juicy and tender! It makes for a great Summer "Cool-Down" meal combined with pretty much any vegetable under the sun. 

I have yet to marinate mine overnight and it's still my pb (personal best) marinated chicken! Enjoy!

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

"The sun will come out tomorrow, betch your bottom dollars that tomorrow there'll be SUN!!" IT'S SUMMER! I LOVE THE SUN!!
Our Fun Family Flick Friday was......

My girls love the new version of Annie but I lean more towards the original.
So when choosing our food I stuck with the original and went with WARM MUSH aka MAPLE-BACON GRITS PUFF with a side of sweet potato hashbrowns baked with chopped bell peppers and zucchini. I did have to substitute the bacon with breakfast turkey sausage because apparently we ate all the turkey bacon. The recipe I used can be found on my Pinterest under Yummy Food or here.

For dessert we took a little bit of the new Annie mixed with the old and came up with these cookies...

Leapin' Lizards, these are so good! Cookies & Cream Cookies

Summer Meal Planning

Summer is here! To make my life easier I (with the help of my family) come up with a monthly meal plan. Everyone chips in and lets me know one thing they would like to eat every day of the week this month. I also thinks this helps with the grocery budget because I am buying a lot of the same foods in bulk.

Sundays this month we will eat something Grilled.
Mondays this month we will eat The Most Important Meal of the Day (Breakfast)

Tuesdays this month we will eat Tacos (of course)
Wednesdays this month we will eat wraps (My kids love wraps, there are easy to make, and great for hot summers)
Thursdays I'll make up a 30-min meal
Fridays this month we will have Fun Family Flick & Food (The food will coordinate with the flick)
Saturdays will will be a Sandwich or Salad

We won't be following this if we happen to go out of town or go out with friends but it's all planned for when we eat at home.

Last Friday was my girls last day of school so we celebrated by having an early FUN FAMILY FLICK & FOOD FRIDAY.

Throw back to the 80's! Anyone remember this movie? It's rated PG but does have a few swear words. My kids really liked it and our dinner too. We had HARRY STEW.....

SPOILER ALERT! At one point in the movie the Henderson's try to entice Harry into the car to take him back to the forest by throwing sacks full of hamburgers and fries into the car. So we put ground turkey and potatoes in our stew. BUT Harry wasn't that interested in this because....he is a vegetarian! So we loaded lots of veggies in here.

2 pounds hamburger or ground turkey
1 medium onion
4 cans (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes
A handful of baby carrots chopped up
2 small celery ribs cut very fine
2 medium red potatoes, peeled and diced small
1 large zucchini shredded
1 heaping cup of peas
2 cups beef broth
1/2 cup uncooked long grain rice (helps to thicken it up)
1 -2 TBSP salt (I used a little over 1 TBSP seasoned sale)
1 - 2 tsp pepper

Cook meat and onions until cooked through.
Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil
Reduce heat; cover and simmer until veggies are cooked through.
Sprinkle each serving with Parm on top

We ended our night with "HARRY" gingerbread cookies that my girls decorated earlier that day.

Disclaimer: I am not a foodographer (someone who is good at taking pictures of food).