I wasn't feeling well, so a cup of tea was my dinner. The girls had a classic, though, fluffernutter. Heavy on the fluffer and easy on the nutter. What could be better?
In looking through the cookbook "Modern Vegetarian Kitchen" by Peter Berley I came across this description of a soup; "This is the stuff of dreams made real by loving hands. Shared with friends and enemies alike, it could be the beginning of peace on earth". Now how could I not make this soup after that?!? It's a Winter Minestrone with Parsley Pesto and Peter was right, this soup is awesome. I loved it with a nice crusty bread. Thank goodness I didn't have to share :D

Red Curry over Rice Vermicelli

It is rare that I will upload my photo and salivate looking at it... but that's just what I am doing now. I have it in my mind, too, to go on into the kitchen and raid the leftovers! Thank goodness I have those to look forward to for lunch tomorrow. I know I've done red curry before this year, but really- I am addicted to the stuff! My husband bought me a huge thing of red curry paste, that I had it in the fridge for a month- as long as it said it was good for, then I made him make a special trip to the store (thanks, sweetie!) to get an ice cube tray so I could freeze cubes of it! Uh huh. Now I just need to tackle teh green curry paste next :D

Salmon! With a mustard,herb and garlic topping thing going on. It was pretty darned tasty, and the thyme and rosemary were pretty in the topping. My husband didn't care for it, and announced he preferred it "naked" with no mustard. He just can't handle the spice, but to me, it wasn't spicy at all.
Yum! Lobster roll. It just can't be beat! I was actually in a soup mood, but it was grocery night, and the grocery shopping went right until dinnertime. So I had to pick something up at the store, and this grocery had no soup bar (wah). I did a fly by of the salad bar, and ick! It really was looking rather wilted. So after peeking around a bit, I ended up with this yummy dinner.
The good news is that tonights dinner will finish up the leftovers! So here's a picture of my husbands steak that he did up on the grill. He had a side of steak sauce and horseradish, too.

I'm pretty sure I will be eating leftovers for the rest of my life! There's still a lot left to eat. Almost there, but yikes- next time I need to remember to halve the recipes! A picture of my husband's dinner again. Hard boiled eggs. And I guess I should take it as a compliment that he made his own, and then declared that the ones I make taste better :D
It was leftovers night! My parents stayed an extra day, so I put out all the leftovers and we picked it over like birds. There's still so much left!!! My husband didn't have too much low carb food leftover, so he made up some buffalo wings. It's one of the things I miss a bit going veg, but really- I do like the chick'n tenders soaked in red hot. Now that's yummy.

So, two pictures of the raisin poppyseed twist I made for breakfast. I thought it was just that pretty. And it was delisious, too. Not too much raisin, which I was a bit worried about, not being a fan and all, but it was just right. I kinda wished there was more orange flavor, but my dad said there was just the right amount, and more would have been overkill. It's so pretty, though.


Thanks for holding my dinner, Mom ;) This was a spinach and mushroom strudel that was featured on the cover of Vegetarian Times magazine for November. Mine didn't come out quite as firm, but I had some time issues going on. I didn't realize what time it was, and then I was 30 minutes behind schedule. So, not wanting to get my girls down too late for bedtime, I rushed through this and the chicken. But it still tasted good!I can't say much about the chicken since I didn't have any of it, but it did smell really good. Garlic cloves between the meat and the skin, lemon, onions and rosemary in the cavity, and kalamata olives strewn about while it was roasting. I do wish I had saved myself a couple olives, though.

Since my parents are in town, they offered to watch the girls so my husband and I could go out to dinner. I totally forgot to take a picture of my shrimp cocktail, but here's one of the caprese salad. A little shy on the basil, but it was still very delisious. Extra points for using heirloom tomatoes if you ask me!For dinner I ordered butternut squash ravioli. I know, I really ordered it more for the amaretto cream sauce. It was so good! Totally made the dish. I was only going to eat a little of it, but c'mon- ravioli so doesn't heat well... and I forgot my cooler... and the sauce was so good!
No, no, no. Not another edible arrangement ;) I liked the first one so much, I decided to recreate it! I saved the skewers and basket from the arrangement I got earlier in the week, and viola, a homemade one! My kale had gone a little limp, but other than that, it came together well. The girls loved eating another one, and my parents thought it was a beautiful breakfast.
Yum! This salmon with martini sauce was so good! It's the first recipe I"ve made using the Susan Spicer cookbook I was given back in September. It looked like the perfect recipe; just what I was looking for. My parents are visiting for the week and I wanted something easy the first night, but really good. Of course, I forgot to pick up the gin, so I had my dad bring some on his way over. The olives really were so nice in this- and I didn't think they would taste that good together. Such a doubter am I.
The day after Valentines day found me eating leftovers. To save you from a duplicate picture, here's the girls' McDonalds dinner. Normally we don't have McD's for dinner, but I'd been doing the groceries and was already 30 minutes late on serving dinner, so fast food it was. The girls did not complain.
Valentines dinner wasn't anything spectacular. I made a red curry "chicken" dish, which I had been looking forward to. It was my first time trying pretend chicken, since I am not a fan of teh real chicken taste to start with... nope, didn't care for the fake stuff either. It was alright, but I think I would have preferred it with just more real veggies instead of the cutlet thing.
On Valentines Day, what to my wondering eyes should appear? But a wonderful edible arrangement!! It really was beautiful, until my children attacked it with such ferociousness... they don't attack grocery store fruit in the same manner... though, I must say, it does lose some of it's luster packaged up in clear plastic. This wonderful bouquet was from my husband. He also ordered a box of chocolate covered strawberries, knowing the girls would devour the ones in the bouquet. It really made a beautiful picture with the light from the window shining in.

No, Mom, I didn't have cookies for dinner ;) I finished off the last of my enchiladas for dinner. So I took a picture of dessert instead. Mmmm. Who doesn't like a good samoa??

To spare you more images of my neon dinner, which I had for leftovers tonight, I took a picture of my husbands dinner. Chicken. And it's eerily saying in a coffin shaped casserole! I never noticed the coffin-like shape before.

My daughters had this with their dinners tonight. A sugar cookie on a stick? no no no. It's a pillsbury crescent in a heart shape on a stick. Cool, huh? My kids didn't think so :(
I had NEON for dinner. A big casserole dish full of neon! Sure, ok, I give. I'm only teasing. It's really an enchilada concotion, but the photo is pretty neon-eriffic. I had some whole wheat wraps I needed to use, as well as some salsa. So I sauteed some cabbage and onion and rolled it all up and covered it with this neon cheese. It was really Montery Jack, but how can you tell by this color?

I love a good salmon. I'd been wanting to cook some salmon in a pan for a while now, but my daughter has such a gag reflex to smells sometimes, I was hesitant. I finally decided to give it a go after just not wanting to bake anymore salmon! The grill was sadly not an option. Just a little salt and pepper and I rested this baby on a bed of peas. And for those of you that have read SkippyJon Jones in Mummy Trouble, you'll know what I mean when I say I was chuckling at the salmon "resting in peas!"

Miso soup with tofu and shrimp! It sounded delicious, and that first day, it was ok. The second day- ew. And I did think it was a bit of soy overkill, with the miso paste, the tofu and the edamame in there. Probably didn't need the shrimp at all, either. It was ok, nothing too great, though.

Cold noodle salad!! Actually, I have no idea what I was thinking when I picked this to make this week. It's much better suited for a summer meal. Well, it at least did get up to 45 degrees today, so at least it wasn't below freezing! The salad features soba noodles with red pepper, sugar snap peas (yum!!), radishes (double yum!!), cilantro, tofu and green onions. Oh, and red grapefruit! After taking all the segments out I was wondering to myself why didn't I just buy the segments already removed?? Then I squeezed the juice into a cup, and instantly remembered the reason. Ah! Fresh grapefruit juice! So yummy! None of the girls liked the grapefruit, but one did like the radish!

Ah, my husband's dinner. He had lettuce, with some Parmesan, pepperoni and doused it all with ceasar dressing. Cringe. I had my leftover tart, and it was still so good! I did splash it with some balsamic, and I think I liked it better without.

YUM! I made a mushroom tart, which I had been dreaming about since I saw it in a cookbook earlier this week. Mmmm, mushrooms with spinach, carmelized onions and my favorite- goat cheese! I'm so glad I have lots leftover, too!! Might try splashing some balsamic vingar on the leftovers, too! Mmmmm.

Salmon night! Yes, I did groceries on the wrong day again, resulting in fish dinner on a Thuresday?!?!? And in reality, I had imagined me having my salmon all coconut crusted with some citrus, but it just wasn't meant to be. By the time I finished with my husbands "Atkins-friendly" concoction for his salmon, I just ran out of time to do anything with mine. So I took the topping I made for him and added some panko to it. It was actually pretty good and my husband (super picky eater) even commented on it and wants me to make it again!! Too bad it came out of my head, and those that know me, know thoughts in my head are often fleeting. I know mine had panko, though, lol.

Ahhh, another night where I just wasn't feeling the cooking deal. Coming down with a cold or something!! The winter blues? I'll just call this my semi-not-homemade dinner. I had made the girls penne with their dinner, so I swiped a spoonfull of those and topped it with a Green Giant frozen veg medley. It actually came out pretty darned good. Not anything I'd want to do regularly, but not bad, really.


Well, now, what can I really say about this... It's butternut squash soup... And, I really wanted to use the slow cooker cookbook I'd gotten from the library, but I just wasn't feeling it. So I only did this one half-heartedly, and it shows. It was just "eh". Now, if you watch Top Chef like me, you'll know what I am talking about when I say "I couldn't taste the love" ya know, getting all Carla-like on y'all.

Date night! So you will have to excuse the camera phone foto. Yes, it's just Applebees, but to be honest, my husband did want to take me somewhere fancier, but I just felt like wearing jeans. We ended up at Applebees, where I was somewhat surprised to see their only vegetarian offering to be ceasar salad. And that's if you don't get the anchovies! Even the portobello burger has chicken in it! (weird). But I'm all into fish, so I had this great tilapia number and they even gave me some guac on the side! Talk about sweet!! My hubby and I rounded out our date night by going to walmart. Now, now, it's not like that- it was a SUPER Walmart! Yeah. It was actually fun, though and we got some things we definitely needed. Like a bundt pan. You reading that, Ma??? Hee hee hee.

Superbowl Quesadilla!

So it's not a regular kind of quesadilla, with chicken or steak... I did keep the sour cream, salsa and avocado, though!! I filled the quesadilla with sauteed onion and artichoke hearts. I think next time, I'd ditch the hearts. I do love them, just not in this. Loved the browned onions, though- I love mine a little over done!!