Soup and Pasta Casserole Recipe

Last week, I made split pea soup and didn't love it. I had made a huge pot, though, and I didn't want to toss it. So I incorporated it into a casserole that everyone in the family ate. You can do this with any kind of pasta and any kind of soup. To make it vegan, substitute non-dairy milk and replace the cheese with nutritional yeast. To make it gluten-free, use rice pasta. The possibilities are endless.


Sorry, I ate it before I could take pictures. But you can click on the image for a printable recipe card of the soup and pasta casserole recipe.

For more delicious recipes, check out:

MENU PLAN MONDAY: It's on!

After a few weeks of slacking off, I was back on track this week, and it felt great. Last Sunday, I scheduled most of my blog posts for the week and prepared my meals. I didn't cook all day. I just went into the kitchen when I could and got some stuff together. I had dinners for the entire week, and I barely had to cook on my weeknights. This is when menu planning is so incredibly worth it.

I can't remember what I spent on groceries this week, but it was less than $50. This is getting easier and easier!

The Plan:
Monday: Spring rolls with salad
Tuesday: Cheesy split pea casserole with sausage and pasta
Wednesday: Thai meatballs over rice with kale and cabbage
Thursday: Sausage and pepper sandwiches, tater tots
Friday: Eat at Mom-Mom's
Saturday: Soft tacos

The Reality:
Monday: Spring rolls with salad
Tuesday: Cheesy split pea casserole with sausage and pasta
Wednesday: Thai meatballs over rice with cabbage
Thursday: Sausage and pepper sandwiches, twice-baked potatoes (from freezer)
Friday: Soft tacos
Saturday: Meatball grinders, homemade french fries

The Method:
Sunday: I wanted to kill two birds with one stone, so I "ground" up some chicken breasts in the food processor and combined them with ground beef. I mixed it with Asian flavorings: fish sauce, soy sauce, ginger, sesame oil, garlic, and cilantro. I browned half of it to use in the spring rolls and made the other half into meatballs. Separately, I sauteed shredded red cabbage and carrots until they were soft. I mixed the veggies with the browned meat and stuffed it into egg rolls. I wrapped the egg rolls in wax paper and put them in a plastic bag, and I deep fried them on Monday. For the meatballs, after they were cooked, I threw them in a storage container and poured a can of coconut oil over them.

Last week I promised you I would do something creative with the split pea soup that I made but didn't love. I made a casserole with ziti and turned the split pea soup into a thick, cheesy sauce. (Recipe to come tomorrow). It was darn good. Even Big T loved it, and he was pretty icked out by the split pea soup. I prepared this on Sunday and even have one in the freezer to eat another day.

Monday: All I had to do today was remove the egg rolls from the fridge and fry them. They did get a little soggy in the wax paper. I've had better luck freezing them and frying them from frozen.

Tuesday: Today, I just made rice and heated up the meatballs and coconut oil together, then threw it over the rice. I don't know why I thought having kale on the side would be good. I did have steamed red cabbage on the side. Yum. If you have never tried that, do it soon. Steamed or sauteed red cabbage is sweet and mild and delicious.

Wednesday: Dinner tonight was simple: I threw the cheesy split-pea casserole in the oven. And ate it.

Thursday: I did have to do a little bit of cooking tonight, but it just entailed pan-frying the sausage, peppers, and onions and throwing them on some sub rolls. I also sauteed kale with garlic for myself.

Friday: Tonight, Mom Mom came over our house, so I cooked again. It was one of my go-to meals: soft tacos. Cut up chicken and pan-fried it, roasted some fingerling sweet potatoes from Downeast Connect with some zucchini and onions, and served it in flour tortillas with salsa, cheese, and sour cream.

Saturday: I still had some sub rolls left over from our sausage sandwiches, so I made some meatballs, covered them with tomato sauce, and spooned them into the rolls. We always keep potatoes on hand, so I made some homemade french fries. It was simple and satisfying!

For more meal planning obsessiveness inspiration, check out orgjunkie.com!

Pasta with Sausage and Cannelini Beans Recipe

Last week, I threw together a delicious pasta dish that blended cannelini beans, diced tomatoes, and sausage with pasta. It was simple and yummy, so I decided to make it into a printable recipe card for you. You can use any type of sausage and really any type of white or red bean. It's one of those recipes that takes almost no time to make, and it makes tons and tons of leftovers. The trick to making it tasty and not dry is to add in some of the cooking water from the pasta at the end.

Cook the pasta, then throw everything together.

Lots of nutrients packed into a simple pasta dish.

Dump in some cheese, because that makes everything delicious.

Enjoy. Yum.

Click on the image below to print your own recipe card for Pasta with Sausage and Beans.

For more delicious recipes, check out:

Menu Plan Monday: Off the Wagon Again

Last week was not the best for my menu plan. But I didn't go to the store either, so I didn't spend any money on groceries.We had an incident with my car pouring smoke out of the hood, which would have ruined dinner on Monday if I hadn't prepared it earlier in the day. Big T was working late most of the week, so I didn't have to worry about providing dinner for him. And we had a birthday party to go to on Saturday, which meant I didn't really need to plan dinner for that day either. So I planned out Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and forgot about the rest of the week. Oops.

The Plan:
Monday: Cheesy chicken and rice bake
Tuesday: Split pea soup with bacon
Wednesday: Bacon quesadillas

The Reality:
Monday: Chicken and rice ranch casserole
Tuesday: Chik Fil-A
Wednesday: Split pea soup with bacon
Thursday: Apple with peanut butter
Friday: Eat at the in-laws'
Saturday: Pizza


The Method (not that there was much of one this week):
Monday: I started dinner early today, since the kids were with me all day. I knew I didn't want to be rushing toward the end of the day. (It was a good thing, too, since my afternoon ended up crazy and rushed when my car broke down.) In the morning, I cooked 2 chicken breasts by spreading mayo on them, then cutting an onion into rings and laying that on top of the chicken. I then baked them in a 365 degree oven for about 45 minutes. They ended up soooo moist and juicy. I reserved the liquid that had seeped out of the breasts for my casserole. While the chicken cooked, I made some Lundburg Wehani rice (my new favorite). To make the casserole, I diced the chicken and mixed it with the rice, the cauliflower I had cooked up last week, and frozen soybeans. I poured this mixture into a casserole dish. I mixed half a packet of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing with the liquid left over from cooking the chicken and poured it over the casserole. At dinnertime, I had planned on baking the casserole in the oven to heat it through, but since all the ingredients were pre-cooked, I ended up microwaving separate portions. This was a delicious casserole. The leftovers were even better, and I'll definitely make it again.
Tuesday: Since I had to take my car to the shop today, I had to drive Big T to work. This meant I had to pick him up in the evening, too. Since I knew the kids would be getting home late because of this, we had to eat dinner out on the road, somewhere between picking up Baby T from daycare and picking up Big T from work. We ended up at Chik Fil-A, where Little M ate 4 entire chicken nuggets, and Baby T picked at one and ate some fruit while trying to stay as far away as possible from the clown that was there for kid's night.
Wednesday: I had gotten a bag of split peas the week before, and wanted to try my hand at split pea soup. I used a veggie broth I had cooked in my crock pot the night before, and threw that in with some bacon, sauteed onions, split peas, potatoes and thyme in the crock pot for 6 hours on low. At the end of the day, I pureed the soup (in tiny batches in my knock-off Magic Bullet, ugh). I threw some shredded cheese in at the end. It was better when eaten off the end of the bread I dipped in it than eaten off a spoon. I realized I don't love split pea soup, although it probably would have been tastier with some carrots and celery thrown in. I'm going to try to work it into a pasta and sausage casserole next week. Stay tuned.
Thursday: This was one of those days that I didn't have a menu planned. I was going to eat leftover soup, but I ended up eating the crusts off of Baby T's peanut butter sandwich and had an apple with peanut butter.
Saturday: Party. And pizza. Yum.

For more meal planning obsessiveness inspiration, check out orgjunkie.com!

Homemade Tater Tots

This is the recipe for crispy potato tots from the October/November 2011 issue of Cook's Country magazine. I'm posting it in this blog because it was amazing. These are our new go-to potato. (Big T asked me, "Does everyone have a go-to potato?" I'm not sure, but if they do, this should be it).  

Scroll to the bottom of the post for a printable recipe card.

It wasn't as easy as baking up a bag of tater tots from the freezer, but they were insanely better. Super crispy and golden on the outside, deliciously fluffy and chewy on the inside... Mmmmmm.

The recipe basically involves chopping about 3 potatoes (the recipe calls for russet, but I used 2 russets and one yukon gold) in the food processor with a salt water solution, then microwaving them until they are dry and sticky.

Then, you spread them out on aluminum foil on a cookie sheet for ten minutes.

After 10 minutes, gather the potatoes in the center of the foil, transfer the foil to an 8" x 8" baking pan, freeze for 30 minutes, then remove from the pan and cut into small rectangles. Fry until golden and drain on a wire rack.

Enjoy with a juicy steak. Or whatever.

Click the image below for a printable recipe card. Use the muffins along the edge to rate the recipe for your reference.

For more delicious recipes, check out:

Menu Plan Monday - Pizza, Pasta, Leftovers, and Homemade Tater Tots

I actually stuck to my menu this week! It was relatively simple. I didn't have to buy anything. Since I'm trying to go through what I have in my pantry, I'm trying not to spend much at the store. I got the staples--eggs, milk, bread. But everything else I already had. I didn't do much cooking ahead of time. I'm going to try to do more of that this week to free up my evenings. This is what I made:

The Plan:
Monday: Homemade Pizza
Tuesday: Pasta with Sausage and Cannelini Beans
Wednesday: Chicken, veggies with cream sauce, rice
Thursday: Leftovers
Saturday: Steak, Homemade Tater Tots

The Method: 
Monday: I still had pizza dough and homemade sauce leftover from a couple of weeks ago. It was borderline...it was 2 weeks old. But I made it anyway. And nobody died.
Tuesday: I had bought sausage the week before and never did anything with it. So I decided to throw it in with some rotini pasta, cannelini beans, and a can of diced tomatoes. I added a couple of ladlefuls of the pasta water back into the pot, and the pasta soaked it up so it wasn't too dry. It was a delicious, easy dinner.
Wednesday: I had visions of making a cheesy chicken and rice dish, so I roasted some cauliflower (bought the week before and never used), cooked some rice, and pan-fried some chicken thighs. By the time I was done, I picked at the veggies, chicken and rice so much that I wasn't hungry for a real dinner.
Saturday: I had a steak in the freezer, which I defrosted and grilled. Easy enough. I also had 3 potatoes that were starting to sprout aliens out of their eyes, so I had to do something with them. My recent copy of Cook's Country magazine had an article for homemade tater tots in it. I'm a sucker for anything with potatoes, and tater tots are awesome. I even like the frozen ones. Not anymore, though! Holy cow. Homemade tater tots are delicious.

Update: Here is the Homemade Tater Tots recipe with a printable recipe card!


For more meal planning obsessiveness inspiration, check out orgjunkie.com!

Pork and Beef: Chops with Mustard Sauce and Philly Cheese Steak Egg Rolls

I posted in yesterday's menu plan about making some fabulous pork chops with mustard sauce and artichokes and philly cheese steak egg rolls. Even Baby T liked the pork chops--that's how you know they are good! Here are the recipes.

Print out the recipes for Philly Cheese Steak Egg Rolls and Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce and Artichokes by clicking on the images below.

Philly Cheese Steak Egg Rolls Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce and Artichokes

For more delicious recipes, check out:

Menu Plan Monday: Go with the Flow

The past two weeks, I've been having a little bit of trouble sticking to my meal plan. Maybe I need to start making the plan before Monday, so I can have my groceries ready to go for the week. In fact, when I cooked in bulk that first Sunday that I started menu planning, it was much easier to stick to the menu because the meals were already prepared. This week, I spent $27 at the grocery store at the beginning of the week on pork chops, sausages, apples, bread, and a few other things. But then at the end of the week, Big T decided he wanted Philly cheese steak egg rolls to eat while he watched the game, so I spent another $60 on fixings for that, lunch meat, and who knows what else... Can you believe I have no idea where $60 went to? Oh, right. Beer. Beer and lunch meat were about $36 right there. Is it bad that that makes me feel a little better?

The Plan:
Monday: Chicken Korma (freezer) with rice
Tuesday: Sweet Potato Chili (freezer) with bread
Wednesday: Pork chops, Twice Baked Potatoes (freezer), green beans
Thursday: Steak, Roasted Cauliflower with Kalamata Olive Vinaigrette, Sweet Potato Fries
Friday: Eat at Mom Mom's
Saturday: Rice and beans with sausage, Homemade bread

The Reality:
Monday: Chicken Tikka Masala with rice
Tuesday: Chicken Tikka Masala with rice
Wednesday: Pork chops with mustard sauce and artichoke hearts, Twice baked potatoes, green beans
Thursday: Fend for yourself day
Friday: French onion soup at Mom Mom's
Saturday: Philly cheese steak egg rolls

The Method:
Monday and Tuesday: The beginning of the week was easy. I thawed out some chicken tikka masala from the freezer and made some rice. I didn't account for the fact that there would be leftovers, though, so I ended up eating this two nights in a row. Not bad--less cooking for me.
Wednesday: On Wednesday, I made the best pork chops ever. They were simple to make and delicious. The sauce tasted great on both the chops and the green beans, and twice-baked potatoes from the freezer rounded out the meal. And this time, I didn't cook the crap out of the potatoes, so they were moist and delicious.
Thursday: On Thursday, I was exhausted. Big T was working late, Baby T ate a peanut butter sandwich, and I ate some bread for dinner.
Friday: Since I had actually promised Big T that I would make him French Onion soup on Thursday (which was veering from the plan anyway) but didn't deliver, I decided to make it for my meal at the in-laws' on Friday so I could bring home the leftovers to Big T. I made it with broth from my freezer stash, and it was delicious.
Saturday: We prepped the meal before the kids went to bed, then ate and enjoyed it after they were asleep.

I'll be adding the recipes for this menu plan tomorrow, so stay tuned!

For more meal planning obsessiveness inspiration, check out orgjunkie.com!

Menu Planning: Stop the Excuses

Welcome to the January 2012 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Experiments in Natural Family Living

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have reported on weeklong trials to make their lives a little greener. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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I’ll admit it: I’m always making excuses. I don’t have time to exercise. I don’t have time to eat well. I don’t have time to menu plan. I must be the busiest person in the world. I act like I always have 10 trillion things to do. And I do. But so does everyone else. How many times do I catch myself vegging on the couch, watching TV, telling myself I can do those things tomorrow? I mean, it’s not like it doesn’t happen. I justify it by telling myself I need to relax, which is true. I need some me time. But me time also should include bettering myself.

I had gotten into a rut where I was constantly working on my business. I wasn’t cooking, I wasn’t cleaning, and I certainly wasn’t exercising. We were eating pasta and grilled cheese often—lots of gluten, not a lot of veggies. When I went to visit my family for Thanksgiving, I felt awful the entire trip. My stomach just wasn’t right. I was loading up on bread and sugar, and it wasn’t agreeing with me.

In order to make a change, I decided to start menu planning. Nothing major, just writing down my dinners for the week. Ok—of course I had to make it a little major at first. I always need to start off strong. So I dedicated one Sunday to cooking, spent a ton of money at Costco, cooked my brains out, and totally overwhelmed myself. I convinced myself that there was no way I was going to do that again.

And then I ended up having to cook less during the week, but I ate great. I eliminated most of the gluten I was eating, and I ate a lot of whole foods. And the next week came and I not only spent less time cooking, I didn’t really have to spend much money at the grocery store, either. After a month of menu planning, I spent way less than my monthly grocery budget, ate well-rounded meals chock full of veggies every night, and ended up with a ton of food still in my freezer.

There are plans for Once-a-Month Cooking out there that involve a detailed list of what to buy, how to prep, and how to prepare and freeze foods for the entire month. I’m dying to try it, but I don’t want to burn out. This month, I’m working on cleaning out the pantry and freezer. Once I’m done with that, I really want to try this power-cooking business. I’ll let you know if I survive.

For now, I’ll leave you with some tips for menu planning.

1. Organize yourself and write it down – Decide where you’re going to keep your menu and how you’re going to keep track of the recipes. If it’s all in a million places, it will be hard to keep track of everything, and you’re more likely to get overwhelmed. If I find a recipe I like online, I pin it on Pinterest. That way, I know all the recipes I want to try are in one place.
   
   As for my menu planning calendar, since I most often find recipes on the computer, I have a Word doc with a monthly calendar where I write my weekly menus. Below the calendar, I cut and paste the entire recipe for anything that uses one. That way it’s all in one place. If I am using a recipe from a cookbook, I write the name of the book and the page number on my calendar. Below is a link to my entire document for December, just so you can get an idea of what it looked like. It’s not fancy. It's long. But it’s all in one place, and it worked great for me. (Microsoft Office 2010 allows you to add clickable headings into Word, so even though it's long, I can easily find my recipe titles.)
   
   
   
2. Write it down – Just the fact that I was writing things down helped me plan. How many times do you decide what you’ll have for dinner the next day, and then the next day comes around and you’ve completely forgotten? That’s how I used to live my life, and it’s stressful. Even if I lost momentum on a given week, it only took me 5 minutes to sit in front of the calendar and decide what we would eat that week. Forcing myself to do it made me much less stressed the rest of the week. Also, keep an inventory of your freezer foods (and even the food in your pantry—I’m not that motivated, but I hope to get there.) I write what’s in my freezer directly on the freezer door using a dry-erase marker. That way I can’t lose my list.
   

   

   My freezer door: ugly but functional

   
   
3. Don’t try too many new things – If you try to do once-a-month meal planning at the same time that you’re trying 10 new recipes, you’re more likely to burn out. Start off slow.
4. Don’t bore yourself – At the same time, if you plan meals that you’ve made over and over again, you might get bored. I know I would. Maybe try two new recipes each week. Finding new foods to make will keep you motivated and give you more to include in future menus.
5. Cook one meal a week for the freezer – Don’t overdo it and try to make every meal in huge batches. Freezer meals still take longer to cook – you have to prep more food, use more pans, etc. But if you choose one meal a week (or a month) to double, you’ll have an easy freezer meal to pop out when you’re really not motivated to cook.

No matter what you think, you do have time to menu plan. The few minutes that it takes to write down what you’ll be eating for the week takes time off of your daily to-do list. It makes trips to the grocery store go quicker. And cooking in bulk—even a little bit—decreases the time spent in your kitchen, giving you more time in the long run.

Check out my new printable recipe cards for Salmon Burgers and Easy Homemade Pizza from yesterday's menu planning post. I'll be updating the recipe section of my website soon, and all of my recipes will be easily printable. Keep it bookmarked for more deliciousness!

***
Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

• Make your own moisturizer! — Megan at boho mama whips up a winter skin-friendly moisturizer.
• Cold Water Only — Brittany at The Pistachio Project talks about how you do not need hot water to wash laundry.
• Family Cloth... Really?? — After lots of forethought and consideration, Momma Jorje finally decides to take the plunge with family cloth.
• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle : 5-5-5 Things A Day — Luschka from Diary of a First Child writes about decluttering her home in an attempt to create a gentler living space. She takes on a new project where she sets a goal of reducing, reusing and recycling every day.
• Pros and cons of family cloth — Lauren at Hobo Mama would love to continue replacing paper products with family cloth … if she could only get over how damp she feels.
• Craftily Parenting — Kellie at Our Mindful Life finds that crafting makes her a better parent.
• Changes — Laura at Pug in the Kitchen couldn't choose just one area to experiment with, so she wrote a long post about all the fun changes initiated in her life!
• Life without Internet: Not all it's Cracked up to Be — Adrienne at Mommying My Way tries to go a week without the Internet, only to realize a healthy dose of Internet usage really helps keep this stay-at-home mom connected.
• My Progression to Raw Milk — Kerry at City Kids Homeschooling shares her natural parenting progression all the way to trying raw milk.
• mama's new little friend. — Sarah at Bitty Bird tries a menstrual cup to "green her period," and is pleasantly surprised when she falls in love with the product!
• Before you throw it out, try homemade laundry soap! — Jennifer at Practical OH Mommy shows visual proof that homemade laundry soap is cheaper, easier, and works better than the store-bought chemicals!
• Oil, Oil, No Toil, No Trouble — K from Very Simple Secret talks about her foray into the oil-cleansing method.
• I Need a Hobby — Amanda at Let's Take the Metro couldn't decide which experiment to run, so she did them all.
• 7 days of macrobiotics for a balanced family — The Stones make a [successful] attempt to release the "holiday junking" with 7 days of macrobiotic meals to balance their bodies and souls. Elisabeth at Manic Mrs. Stone includes an explanation of macrobiotics.
• Chemical Free Beauty Challenge — Jenn at Monkey Butt Junction turned to natural alternatives for her daily beauty and cleaning routine, with great results.
• Greening my Armpits!? My Green Resolution — Shannon at The Artful Mama talks about how she decided to give up her traditional antiperspirant and make the switch over to crystal deodorants and definitely isn't looking back!
• Going Raw (for a while) — Jenny at Chronicles of a Nursing Mom shares her family's experience with raw food.
• Do we get to eat gluten today? — Sheila at A Gift Universe has been trying to figure out if her son does better with or without gluten in his diet … but it's really hard to tell for sure.
• Hippies Can Smell and Look Fabulous Too! — Arpita of Up, Down And Natural details her experience of going shampoo-free and overhauling her cosmetics to find the balance between feeling beautifully fabulous and honoring her inner hippie.
• Our cupboards are full...but there's nothing to eat — Lucy at Dreaming Aloud takes on the challenge of chomping through the contents of her storecupboard rather than going shopping — but there's something that she just can't bring herself to do …
• Elimination Experiment 3.0 — MudpieMama recounts the messy adventures of her baby daughter trying to be diaper free.
• Family Cloth Trial — Amyables at Toddler in Tow talks about making and using family cloth wipes in the bathroom for the first time.
• Taking a Hiatus — Amy at Peace 4 Parents shares how her experience of much less internet interaction affected her family and how it will change her approach in the future.
• Trying Out the Menstrual Cup — Lindsey at an unschooling adventure ditches the tampons and gives menstrual cups a try.
• Managing Food Waste in Our Home — Tired of the holiday waste, Robbie at Going Green Mama takes a weeklong focus on reducing food waste in her home, and learns some lessons that can take her through the new year.
• Going Offline, Cloth Tissues, and Simplicity — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama muses over her time away from blogging and social networking. In addition, she shares her newfound love of cloth tissues and simplicity.

• The Oil Cleansing Method — Erica at ChildOrganics explores an easy, organic and natural way to tackle skin care.
• Experiments in Natural Family Living - Natural Toys! — Lani at Boobie Time enjoys the silence of natural toys and being more present with her son.
• Discovering a New City and Organic Foods — Amy at A Secure Base describes her family's switch to and search for organic foods for one week.
• My Experiment in Homemade Bread — Crunchy Con Mommy tried — and loved — baking her own homemade bread.
• Menu Planning: Stop the Excuses — Gaby at Tmuffin stopped the excuses and started planning her weekly meals, drastically cutting her grocery budget and stress level and improving the quality of foods she fed her family.
• My First Menstrual Cup — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children was pleasantly surprised with her first experience using a menstrual cup.
• My Natural Beauty Regime — Christine at African Babies Don’t Cry shares the results of banishing cleanser and soaps from her bathroom, as well as a couple of natural homemade recipes that have worked well on her skin.
• Unplugging and Creating a Rhythm: Our Experiment in Natural Family Living — Dionna at Code Name: Mama focused less on gadgets and spent more time with her family to create a healthy rhythm for the new year.
• Experiments in Natural Family Living: 5 First Steps Toward Preparing for a Natural Birth — Charise at I Thought I Knew Mama discusses how she tackled the pressing matter of how to begin preparing for a natural birth.
• All you need is...vinegar! — Kristen at My Semi-Crunchy Life learns that one household product can replace all the cleaners in her cabinet.
• Nope Nada Ixnay Negative Pass Decline — Zoie at TouchstoneZ finds out what shakes loose if she says, "YES!!" to anything anyone asks of her over the space of 10 days.
• Reducing our exposure to toxins found in plastics — Syenna at Gently Parenting Twins throws out the melamine and BPA plastics which have been hanging around the kitchen for too long.
• Duh! — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment shares how she began the process of helping her 2-year-old son stop physically acting out.
• Experiments in Natural Parenting: Starting, Stopping, and Gaining Perspective — Melissa at Vibrant Wanderings explains how pregnancy brain interfered with her attempts to complete an experiment, but how she gained some interesting perspective as she started and stopped several.
• From Experiment to Lifestyle — Abbie at Farmer's Daughter shares her experience avoiding processed foods for a month, and deciding to make it a permanent lifestyle change.
• From Disposable Paper to Reusable Cloth – AGAIN! — Terri at Child of the Nature Isle stops flushing trees down the toilet and switches to the softest ever butt-wiping material: cloth.
• Extra! Extra! Water Heater Turned Down, Mom Doesn't Notice! — Thomasin at Propson Palingenesis finds an energy-saving experiment that's so easy she didn't even realize it was happening.
• Worm Tea — CatholicMommy isn't sure how successful her worm bin will be, but she's having fun anyway.
• Miles to Go ... — Rachael at The Variegated Life learns that when it comes to sleep debt, she's in real deep.
• My Month With Water Kefir — Paige at Baby Dust Diaries experiments with a new fermented probiotic drink homemade in her own kitchen.
• OMG Mom is Home... All Day Everyday: A Week-Long Experiment in Connecting — What a difference a week makes! Ana at Pandamoly is afforded a week off from work and takes the chance to reconnect and reattach with her 16-month-old son through an experiment in simply being there.
• Creating Healthy Family Recipes — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares her experiment with healthy, gluten-free recipes and a chocolate muffin recipe that was created during the experiment.
• Adventures in Alternative Haircare: No 'Poo — This guest post at Natural Parents Network from Amy at Anktangle chronicles a months-long journey into the world of no 'poo.
• My Experiment in Natural Family Living: Natural Family Planning — Birth control options are seriously limited for those of us trying to live a little closer to the earth, so Mama Psalmist experiments with natural family planning.

Menu Plan Monday: Oops.

Scroll to the end of the post for new, printable recipe cards! 

 
Ok, so last week wasn't a total bomb, but I was a little lazy when it came to meal planning. I didn't sit down to plan my menu until well into Monday afternoon. Then, Big T told me he wanted pizza and totally threw me off. And we spent 5 hours in the ER with Little M on Monday night. That didn't help. But Big T was off from work from Monday to Wednesday, so he helped out a lot when it came to dinners.

The Plan:
Monday: Order pizza
Tuesday: Taco Salad Cups
Wednesday: Hamburger Helper
Thursday: Chicken with stuffing and mashed potatoes
Saturday: ?? (I couldn't put it together and think this far ahead.)

The Reality:
Monday: We forgot about dinner (see below)
Tuesday: Homemade Pizza
Wednesday: Soft tacos
Thursday: Salmon burgers with mashed potato croquettes (basically mashed potato finger food)
Friday: Hamburger helper
Saturday: Chicken with kale, beets, and salad

The Method:
Monday: This was a bad decision-making day for me, apparently. I couldn't decide what to have for dinner, and when Big T suggested pizza, he totally threw me off. There aren't any good pizza places near us, and I didn't really feel like making it. We finally decided to order pizza. I was on the computer, about to order online when Big T picked up Little M by the wrists, just to move him away from the bedroom door so he could close it. Little M started whimpering and didn't stop. Not even while nursing. We knew something was wrong. He wasn't moving his arm, and if we touched it, he would whimper. We spent 5 hours in the ER, just to have a doctor re-set his dislocated elbow in about 2 seconds. Little M is completely fine--he had "nursemaid's elbow," which is pretty common if you pick up your child by the wrists and not under the armpits. Luckily, he wasn't screaming in pain and he slept in the Ergo most of the time at the ER. So obviously, we weren't concerned with dinner by the time we arrived home at 1:30 A.M.

Tuesday: Today, we were going for our pizza. We picked up fresh dough from the deli at our local grocery store and got pepperoni and mozzarella cheese. We made 2 different kinds of pizza: pan pizza in the dutch oven with ham and pineapple (leftover) and a regular-crust pizza on the pizza stone.

Wednesday: I was going to make taco salad in cute little homemade tortilla cups, but I didn't do any prep work and I had a rough day. So while I went to pick Baby T up from daycare, Big T sauteed some chicken, peppers and onion in a cast iron pan with taco seasoning and wrapped them in soft flour tortillas. I also had a few small corn tortillas, which I fried in some oil until crisp to make open-faced tacos.

Thursday: I have a ton of canned salmon that I get from WIC, and I picked up a recipe card for salmon burgers the last time I was in the office. They were easy to make and I had all of the ingredients. We had also brought home leftover mashed potatoes from Mom-Mom's the Sunday before, so I transformed them into potato croquettes. Amazing. They were like mozzarella sticks, but creamier and not as rubbery. They were a huge hit.

Friday: Little M had another incident today when I was holding him and tripped over the dog. Little M hit the floor hard and bit his tongue. He also hit his head on the corner of a wall, and his head and ear were cut. Thankfully, my in-laws live in town, or I would have lost it when I noticed the blood. Mom-mom came over and checked him out, and we figured he was ok. Once Little M started dancing to the "Curious George" music, we knew for sure he was fine. By the time Big T came home from work, the kids were fine but my nerves were shot. I cooked up some breakfast sausage that I had in my freezer, added it to the hamburger helper, and called it a day.

Saturday: Can I just say that the first week of 2012 sucked? As Big T was trying to clean the kitchen before he left for work, the sink stopped draining, then proceeded to leak out of the pipe all over the kitchen. By the time Big T left, the pipes under the sink were undone, there was a bucket of murky water under the sink, and there were sopping wet towels all over the floor. (Add two cranky kids and a very cranky mom to that equation). We were saved by the in-laws once again! Plumber Joe (disguised as Pop Pop) came over and thankfully fixed it while Mom Mom helped me distract the boys.

Also quite thankfully, one of my friends replied to my pleas for company and came over for an impromptu barbecue that afternoon. Dinner was easy. We grilled chicken, sauteed some kale and beets (I used to hate beets until I had them the way my friend makes them--sauteed with olive oil, maple syrup, and balsamic vinegar...a delicious beet recipe!), and had fresh salad from the garden.

The week is over. Thankfully. It can only get better from here, right?

Print out the recipes for Easy Homemade Pizza and Salmon Burgers (with homemade sauce) by clicking on the images below.

Easy Homemade Pizza Salmon Burgers

For more meal planning obsessiveness inspiration, check out orgjunkie.com!

10 Things to do With Baby Food

If you bought baby food by the case or stocked your freezer with homemade baby food only to find that your baby graduated to finger foods faster than you could use it up, what did you do with all that extra baby food? You can donate the unopened jars of baby food--that's what I do with a lot of the meats--or you can get creative in your day-to-day cooking. Baby food isn't just for babies... it's great for toddlers or for mixing into your own meals!

Below are 10 tried-and-true ways to use up those jars of mixed veggies, bananas, squash, and carrots.

1. Add a jar or two of carrots, squash, or sweet potatoes to powdered macaroni and cheese instead of butter.
2. Smear squash, sweet potatoes, or fruit puree on the bread before adding the peanut butter and jelly.
3. Make banana bread or replace the banana in a baked good with a few jars of banana puree.
4. Feed your toddler the pureed fruit. It's the same as applesauce, but it has fewer preservatives and less sugar in many instances.
5. Spread it on crackers or a rice cake.
6. Add pureed green beans to guacamole - it will reduce the fat content, and you won't even notice it.
7. Add a jar of banana and a jar of sweet potato in place of the butter or oil in your pancake recipe.
8. Mix pureed tropical fruit into a smoothie.
9. Mix sweet potato with brown sugar and swirl it with plain yogurt. Top with cinnamon. (Or swirl any fruit-flavored baby food into your yogurt.)
10. Add any of the orange veggies (carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, or mixed veggies) to a curry dish. It will thicken the sauce and give it great flavor.

Jeanie Rose over at Traditional Foods wrote a great post about making your own baby food from butternut squash. That would be perfect to use in lots of the ways I described above. Check out her video!

For more delicious recipes, check out: