Broccoli Pasta Toss

Quick recipe (with my notes at the end) for our lunch today. Super easy, and really yummy!

Broccoli pasta toss
2 cups broccoli florets
4 ounces fettuccine, broken in half
1 Tbsp oil
1/8 tsp garlic powder
3 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese, grated
1 tsp. sesame seed, toasted

In a large saucepan, boil water and add broccoli and pasta. Cook for 6-8 minutes or just until tender, stirring occasionally. Drain. Return to pot and toss with oil. Add garlic, cheese, sesame seeds and pepper to taste. Toss gently to coat. Serve immediately. Serves 2.

My notes:
1) The cook time on this.....isn't so right. The instructions on my box of fettuccine said to boil for 12 minutes for al dente. So I cooked mine for 12 minutes, adding the broccoli in about halfway, and honestly, I think the broccoli was still overcooked and mushy. I'd probably stick with the 12 minutes, but add the broccoli when there's 4 minutes left of cook time.
2) I'm pretty sure I used more than 1/8 tsp of garlic powder, but I love garlic. Mmmm.

This was pretty good, and with the cook-time modification, I'll probably make it again. It was a nice easy lunch.

Easy Menu Week!

So, I'm fully aware that some of the stuff I make isn't exactly what a lot of people have time/energy for after a long day. But a lot of it is. As anyone who knows me real well is aware, I'm a big lobbyist for "real food". When I say real food, I mean minimal processing. I prefer to eat food that I've cooked myself, without having to worry about what other extra crap I'm eating. So to that end, I'm a lot more willing than a lot of people to put the extra effort into a meal at the end of the day. But it almost drives me nuts to hear people say, "Well, I just don't have the time/energy to cook like you do". Yes, you do! Cooking healthy food doesn't have to be time consuming or laborious, and in a lot of cases, it's actually cheaper than all of the pre-packaged processed crap that so many people eat out of convenience. So this week, I'm focusing on easy-to-prepare, yet still (mostly) healthy food that doesn't take hours to make, and I'll be including recipes.

Tuesday - Stewed Tomato Pasta (Recipe to follow)

Wednesday - Soy sauce chicken wings and fried rice (Ok, maybe a little bit of a sodium overload, but we don't eat like this very often, and for the most part, it's not horrible for you. If anyone wants the fried rice recipe I use, I'll post it.)

Thursday - Mexican Chicken (Literally, just chicken breasts and salsa. Put the chicken in a baking dish, pour salsa over the top and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Serve over rice. It's deceptively simple and really tasty.)

Friday - Broccoli Pasta Toss (Recipe to follow. I haven't made this one before, but it looks really good.)

Saturday - Hamburger Hotdish

Sunday - Pasta Alfredo (Homemade alfredo sauce is SO easy to make. Fattening, but easy, delicious, and nasty stuff-free. I'll be making the pasta from scratch, which if you have the time, makes this recipe SO much better, but it's still great with store-bought pasta as well. Recipe to follow.)

I spent about $35 on groceries for all of this, but the only reason it was that much is because I was out of a lot of staples. I had to get minute rice, to keep with the "easy" theme of the week, and apparently, Target does not have a store brand of the minute rice anymore. :( I also had to get another 2 pound block of cheddar (we go through a lot of cheddar), so that added $8, and another block of Parmesan cheese was $2.49 (I never, ever buy green can grated Parmesan cheese.) So it did add up, but mostly because I needed to buy damn near everything.

Stewed Tomato Pasta
(This recipe serves 8-10, I usually do a half recipe)
2 14.5 ounce cans stewed tomatoes with juice
1 3/4 cups of chicken broth (this is equivalent to one 14 oz can)
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
1 12 ounce package of spiral pasta

In a Dutch oven, combine everything except the pasta. Bring to a boil and add pasta. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 16-18 minutes, until pasta is tender. Stir occasionally.

My notes on this recipe: I mash the tomatoes with a potato masher before adding the pasta. I also add garlic salt and onion powder with the Italian seasoning, and I top with fresh grated Parmesan for serving. It's delish! :)

I will get additional recipes up in the next couple days!

This week's menu

This week's menu is small, because I work until 8 Monday and Friday, which means that we will be eating convenience foods (I know, I know, not the best way to do things). I'm going to try to find some super easy healthy foods to eat on my late nights from now on so that we're not falling off the healthy wagon. We've done salads those nights a couple times, and I think we should probably make that more of a habit. Either that, or I should have a hotdish (that's casserole for those of you not living in Minnesota) prepared and ready for Brian to throw in the oven. So without Monday and Friday, here's what we're having this week:

Sunday - Greek Shrimp
Tuesday - Sesame scallion tofu and sea slaw
Wednesday - Asparagus and poached eggs on toast
Thursday - Spinach Artichoke Hotdish

The only one of these that I've made before is the dinner on Wednesday, and we'll be eating it with a couple slices of bacon too. I'm not going to include my shopping list this time because I haven't gotten everything on it yet, and I'm lazy.

*Note: Just got done eating the Greek Shrimp. If you know what is good for you, you will make it for dinner this week. That is all. :)

Vacation: Day 4

Well, I didn't post the past couple days, because I'm lazy. So I'll try to sum up everything I've done since then.

Tuesday:
We got up and headed out for breakfast, only to find that the "all day breakfast" place that Google maps told us was a few blocks away, no longer exists. So we ended up finding McDonald's, and ate there. We did some wandering around the Lincoln Road mall, which is a really gorgeous area. The rest of Tuesday was spent walking around South Beach, just looking at everything there is to look at here. Our legs still hurt today from all that walking. It was a little too chilly to lay on the beach comfortably, so we declared it tourism day. I'll post some of the pictures I took that day when we get back home and I have a better internet connection. For dinner, we headed to the Ice Box Cafe. We both had the rigatoni there, and it was really good. However, the Ice Box Cafe isn't known for it's dinners, it's known for the desserts. Oprah Winfrey has raved about the desserts here. So we got a couple slices of cake to bring back to our hotel room, an Oreo cake, and a cake called "The Bomb". The Bomb consists of layers of cheesecake, chocolate mousse, and brownie. Oh. My. Word. Both desserts were amazing.

Wednesday:
Wednesday morning, we headed to Big Pink for breakfast. Another amazing meal, I had "Pinky's Hollywood Breakfast", consisting of polenta fries topped with wilted spinach, bacon, poached eggs, and a rich cheese sauce. After digesting a bit, we went and laid on the beach for a couple hours. I was one of only a few women on the beach that actually kept my bikini top on. I would've joined in the topless sunbathing fun, but I neglected to sunscreen up the girls, so I kept myself contained. We did step into the water a bit, but it was really chilly, so that was short-lived. When we got back to the hotel room, Brian was really tuckered out from all that laying around, so he took a nap. For dinner, we went down the block to Grillfish. Brian had steak, and I had a fantastic shrimp picatta.

Today:
Started the day heading to the 11th St. Diner. We each got a massive omelette. The old lady in the booth next to us saw the guy bring our food and said to me, "A skinny girl like you can't eat that whole thing!" I told Brian that sounded like a challenge, but apparently, the old lady was right, and I just couldn't finish the damn thing. We headed down to the beach for a couple hours again. We've both gotten some color now, although Brian is definitely more of a shade of pink, while I've got a decent tan going. We got an early dinner at La Sandwicherie, which is just a block away from here. I got a seafood croissant. Again, a fabulous meal. Now, we're just relaxing for the night, we'll probably head to a souvenir shop in a little bit here.

I really, really, really don't want to leave tomorrow. My tan isn't dark enough and I haven't eaten enough food. I haven't seen enough sights here.

Which just means I'll have to come back again soon. :)

Vacation: Day 1

Today we started our vacation in Miami Beach! We got up well before dawn to be to the airport, and it was crazy there. The lines for check-in were long, and the lines for security were insane. We finally got here though, and hopped a cab from the airport to the hotel. I think there's a reason why I've never ridden in a taxi before. This guy was insane. Zipping between lanes, honking his horn 1/4 of a second after a light changed green, and changing direction at the last second. Finally, we got within a block of our hotel, and he decided that he needed to be over a block to pull up in front of the place. He quick turned and went down a creepy alley behind the hotel, where we were confronted with a small space to fit the car through, and a homeless guy pushing a bike on some kind of cart in that small space. The homeless guy stood his ground and refused to move, while the cab driver felt the need to start shouting at him. I slouched down in my seat, wondering why we traveled so far just to get whacked by a homeless guy within an hour of landing. Finally, the homeless guy backed down and got out of the way. We got almost all the way out of the alley, where there were two guys participating in what appeared to be a drug deal. Apparently they stared at us a little too long, so the driver shouted in broken English, "Whats you problem?" then turned to us and said, "Everybody here, dey have da problem!" He finally got us dropped off at our hotel, and we got checked in. After a short rest, we headed out to find food and came across Five Guys Burgers and Fries. I'm not big on burgers, they all pretty much taste the same to me, but I could actually rave about this burger. It was SOOO good!! Once we got some food in us, we walked down to the beach and just walked for a while. It was nice and relaxing. We've mostly just been bumming around the hotel room since then, because we're pretty beat from all the flying and walking and almost getting killed today.

Tomorrow's Itinerary:
*Sleep in.
*Lay around on the beach all day.
Nice. :)

Yummy dinner that you should make!

I made this for dinner tonight, and it's DELICIOUS. Very simple, but the flavors are out of this world! Brian liked it, and he's not even real big on spinach. Give it a try!

Beans with spinach and sun-dried tomatoes

Need a new name for Menu Plan day

My menu plans are returning! However, since I've started a new position with different hours, it's not necessarily getting done on Saturday morning any more, and I'm no longer doing all the cooking! Brian's getting his turns at least twice a week now too. So I'll update them as often as possible, and they won't necessarily always be for an entire week. I think I need a new catchy name for my menu plan posts now though, since I can't really use "Menu Plan Saturday" anymore.

Anyways, here's my current menu and grocery list:

Monday - Salads (I know, original, right?)
Tuesday - Salsa Chicken
Wednesday - Fettuccine with zucchini (Brian's cooking)
Thursday - Soy sauce wings and fried rice

My list this week also included supplies for making sandwiches, as I'll be bringing my own lunch the next couple days, and a few other items that weren't necessarily "needed" for those 4 meals.

Meat:
Deli sliced ham (Market Pantry) - $3.49

Veggies:
Romaine lettuce - $1.99
Alfalfa sprouts - $1.99
Green onions - $1.19
Zucchini - $1.07
Radishes - $.99

Dairy:
Muenster cheese (Market Pantry) - $2.29

Shelf-stable foods:
Honey (Market Pantry) - $3.19
Western salad dressing - $2.03
Instant rice (Market Pantry) - $3.39
Bread (Sara Lee) - $1.99

Grand total: $23.61

Now, I'd love to tell you that that's all I bought. But that would be lying to you. My actual total came to $70.70. I also bought a couple shirts and a few pairs of undies, and Coke products were on sale, so I got some Diet Coke for me and Caffeine-free Coke for Brian for $3/each. We're also complete Reese's fiends, so I got a huge bag of the mini Reese's cups. However, I did find out that you can get 5 cents off your total if you use a reusable bag! I was pretty psyched about that. And tomorrow, Brian will be getting more ground beef and chicken wings from Costco, which will tack even more onto the total. So don't let that piddly $23 fool you, that's just the actual meal food that I got from SuperTarget.

Notes from this week:
1) Salads might seem like a cheap idea, but they can add up, especially if you prefer store-bought salad dressing (which my husband does, I might be trying some homemade stuff). They are great if you're keeping them basic and you already have some of the toppings to go on there. (We already have diced ham in our fridge, as well as some Salad Toppins and a few different bottled dressings.)
2) I will probably be trying to bring my lunch more often, at least on the two days a week that I work until 8. I brought my lunch to work yesterday, but it was a pretty small portion and I was starving, so I went and got Chipotle instead. Mental note: when packing my own lunch, make sure to bring enough food!
3) As much as I love to cook, I'm really enjoying having Brian take on some of the cooking responsibilities too. He usually has to pick what he's going to make, and he's been finding some good recipes. Tonight he made a really rich cheese soup in our slow cooker. He is becoming a serious pro at the slow cooker. I think he'll do really good making the Fettuccine with zucchini on Wednesday.