What's Cooking -- May

May 29th;
Since the kids have finished an awesome school year, we are having a Family Fun Night to celebrate. They have chosen to have my version of "Hamburger Helper," steamed broccoli, and "Jello" for dessert.

For the Hamburger Helper, I make my own cheese sauce using a basic white sauce recipe. Then, I add the browned beef, noodles and seasonings. It really is quite easy... and the kids love it for a special treat.

May 28th:
We have not had Quiche in quite a while, so that is on our menu for tonight. I will be adding some spinach, onions and mushrooms to the normal egg and cheese mixture.

We will also have Oven Roasted Potatoes (again). My kids just can't get enough of them, and we always seem to get potatoes in our organic produce box.

For dessert we are having White Grape With Peach popscicles... I can't wait!

May 27th:
Tonight would be our normal Frugal Meal Night, consisting of some version of beans or rice. However, I have so much lettuce from my produce box on Monday that will not last much longer! It needs to be eaten ASAP... so tonight I am serving another main dish salad. I will be making a Salmon Salad, which my children really enjoy, believe it or not.

May 26th:
Later today we will be picking up our Pastured Chickens and so I will have to make a quick supper. I will use the pulled chicken I have in the freezer and some already prepared refried beans to make a Chicken and Bean Burrito Casserole. This is one of my children's favorite meals. Rainbow will make a salad to go with it... she has become a salad expert!

Catching Up:
Friday I made a Chicken "Ceasar" Salad for supper. It was very delicious. It was not technically a Ceasar salad since I used a healthier version of the dressing, but we still used lots of dark leafy greens, chicken, parmesan cheese... and sunflower and pumpkin seeds instead of croutons. We thought it was worth making again.

Memorial Day we grilled hamburgers. Yum-O! And I served kale, carrots and potatoes on the side.

May 21st:
Back to the plan today... I am cooking Sally Fallon's Lamb Meatballs with Oven Roasted Potatoes and Green Beans for supper. My children usually ask for seconds on Green Beans, so I am glad we got so many in our last produce box!

I also hope to make six loaves of bread this afternoon... if I can squeeze it in between blogging, ironing and ordering books for next school year.

May 20th:
Consider the ball dropped. I have no plan for supper tonight... which I'll blog about today. I think I'll have to fall back on leftover mock lasagna, which will mean an extra night of cooking this weekend when I would normally serve leftovers. Life is not always predictable ;)

May 18th:
Tonight I am going to be daring. I have chicken, red bell peppers and ricotta cheese. I am going to try something altogether new... a roasted red pepper mock lasagna.

Too bad I can't really find a good recipe for a starting point. I'll just have to wing it all! I have a few other ingredients I can throw in too. I'm thinking about zucchini and garlic...

...And a salad on the side.

May 14th:
Cooking a whole chicken every week has gotten a little tedious. I am going to try something different today. I plan on roasting three chickens this afternoon, pulling the meat off the bone all at once, then making several quarts of chicken stock in my extra large stock pot. It may be tedious for the afternoon, but I think I'll be glad to have meal sized chicken and stock portions ready in the freezer.

We will have some of the chicken for supper tonight. I will also make some oven roasted potatoes... my kids are ever-asking for them... and a vegetable stir fry with Bok Choy, another dark green Chinese cabbage, onions, carrots, mushrooms and garlic.

May 13th:
Tonight is our Frugal Dinner Night... I have black beans and rice in the crockpot.

I also have two quarts of yogurt culturing and a large pitcher of iced peppermint green tea chilling.

May 12th:
We are having pizza for supper tonight. Along with it, I will make a green garden salad and a beet and carrot salad that my children love. It is basically grated carrots and julienned beets with orange juice. Go figure... they really like it.

May 11th:
Tonight I will be serving my version of White Chicken Chili, a recipe that I will post tomorrow.

We will also get our produce box this afternoon, so I am expecting to have an abundance of salad vegetables to throw together for a side dish.

Besides that... I've really got to get my act together this week and get caught up on bread, yogurt and some other baking. I've been doing extra springtime yardwork and have had less time in the kitchen.

May 8th:
Last night we had Salmon Broccoli Pasta, a family favorite.

Tonight, we are going to have baked fish, sweet potato fries and asparagus. It is okay to have fish two nights in a row, isn't it?

This morning I baked some yummy muffins. I just got the muffin itch... I started with a slightly sweet recipe from a Southern Living Cookbook. Since I was making whole foods substitutions, I used some unrefined date sugar, raspberry All-Fruit and orange juice for sweetening them. They turned out super delicious... Especially the half I added chocolate chips to!

May 6th:
Tonight would be our Beans and Rice night, but I forgot to start soaking the beans since I was out at my discussion group last night.

We will have our spaghetti casserole leftovers... Rainbow will have a longer ballet class today... only two more practices until her recital!

May 5th:
I am leaving for a Health and Wellness Discussion Group this evening, so I will need to prepare a quick supper before I go.

Last week I found Kashi Brand frozen pizzas on sale at Kroger. They were $3.99 instead of $6.99. I had $3.00 off coupons as well... so I bought three 99c pizzas!

We will have the pizzas for supper tonight with some salad on the side.

May 4th:
Tonight I have some venison that I must use. I am clearing out the freezer for grass-fed beef and pastured poultry... 'tis the season!

Since I really don't like the taste of venison by itself, I will be making this portion into a spaghetti casserole. I will use swiss chard instead of spinach... and whole wheat fusilli by BioNature.

May 1st:
We came home from strawberry picking with nine gallons this morning! I am facing a long day of washing and freezing. (I will post about this as soon as I am able.)

We have some restaurant gift cards... I think today would be a good time to use them!