I saw this recipe for marinated cauliflower from Tara at Feels Like Home and I knew I wanted to fix it! I love anything with vinegar, this seems to be a new development of my palette that I am thoroughly enjoying! Her recipe calls for red wine vinaigrette salad dressing and all I had on hand was red wine vinegar. I thought, eh…it’s all the same.

It was VERY tart! I liked it, the boys? Not so much. I really think it would taste so much better had I used the vinaigrette like it called for, but I just didn’t have any! Maybe adding a bit of sugar would have dialed down the tart a bit. I’ll give it a go another time. Have you made anything like this?

My friend Jaime brought me a plate full of these amazing homemade Pop Tarts! I’ve read about these and really wanted to try them, but I never seem to find the time. That, and the fact that I hate to cook doesn’t help either. Buying prepared foods and packaged cereals is easy, but not nearly as tasty!
She outdid herself! These were amazing! We had some with a fruit filling inside and some with a cinnamon filling. I liked those the best! They were soooo yummy! I really need to get my butt in gear and get these cooking! She said you can even make the dough ahead of time and freeze it! That sounds like my kind of convenient!

Have you ever made homemade pop tarts? How did they turn out? Jaime said that the square version of this recipe didn’t turn out as well as the round ones. Hopefully some empty weekend soon I’ll be able to attempt these all by myself. If that doesn’t work, Jaime, will you make some more? Thanks!

I actually woke up early enough the other day to fix this for the boys. They were so excited to hear that we were having cookies for breakfast! They had no idea that they were full of peanut butter, flour, cheerios, and oats! You can make it a bit more nutritious by using low fat butter, wheat cheerios, wheat flour, whole grain oats and reduced fat peanut butter. I added this recipe to Food.com in case you wanted the nutrition break down. These were so yummy!

What do you serve your family for breakfast that might be outside of the traditional?

I’ve been looking for new recipes for Tuna other than the traditional Tuna Noodle Casserole when I came across Tuna Melt Pie in a magazine. I thought it would be perfect! Here’s the scoop:

Ingredients:

• 1 T extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 Large onion, finely chopped
• 6 oz mushrooms, chopped
• 4 5-oz cans of tuna, drained
• 2 T mayonnaise
• 6 oz cheddar cheese, shredded (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 T butter, melted

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until they’ve released and absorbed most of their juices, about 5 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, combine the tuna and mayonnaise, breaking up the tuna. Stir in the onion mushroom mixture, then stir in two-thirds of the cheese.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, flour and butter; stir into the tuna mixture. Transfer to a 10″ deep-dish pie pan and bake until browned, about 35 minutes. Top with the remaining cheese and broil until the cheese has melted.

Freeze Tip: Wrap the baked pie in foil and freeze. To serve, thaw in the refrigerator, then bake in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until warmed through.

Changes:
1. I would add a layer of sliced tomatoes to the top of the pie, then cover with remaining cheese.
2. Also, if you cover it with a lid to hold in the heat it will melt the cheese without needing to broil it.

Monday night we had Thai Peanut Chicken it tasted much better than it looked. Lou cooked fried rice to go with it. YUM!

Tuesday I had made lasagna and I followed the directions that were on the back of the box of no-boil noodles. I had a La Leche meeting that night and I didn’t have time to allow the dish to finish cooking. So I left it in the oven but shut the oven off before I left home. When Lou arrived home he didn’t smell anything so he picked the boys up from my meeting and stopped off for a pizza on the way home.

So Wednesday night we had the lasagna. It was really good!

Tonight I have reinvented the roasted vegetable gratin from the other night. I added some cheese, roasted red peppers, ranch dressing, french fried onions and some italian bread crumbs. I cooked it in the skillet for a while, then threw it in the crockpot to finish up. I hope it tastes better than it did the other night! Keep your fingers crossed!

Tonight we had 7 layer gratin. It was really yummy. I think the artichoke hearts got lost in the taste. I love artichoke hearts and missed them even though they were here.

So far so good on cooking every night! I never thought I’d be able to pull it off. It just goes to show that with a little bit of prep work it is possible!

So last night I ended up cooking the Chicken Florentine. It was great! It was full of spinach, artichoke hearts, chicken, cheese and spices. It was so tasty! (We had terrible drama last night too. Click here to read about it). We even had it again today for lunch.

Tonight we had Taco Night Pasta. It was a nice change. It was pasta, enchilada sauce, diced tomatoes, great northern beans, kidney beans, cheddar cheese and some spices. Even Camden ate it! However, he was eating in his room which was not well lit. I don’t think he would have eaten it if he knew it had beans in it, but he’ll never know!

Day 4: Monday we had Eggplant Zucchini Bake and it was AWESOME! Meatless of course, for meatless Monday. The ritz cracker topping was just the exact crunch it needed.

Day 5: Tuesday we had Tilapia Veracruz. There are some recipes out there but the simplist way to prepare this is tilapia on the broiler with olive oil, salt and pepper. Then top with Mango Peach Salsa and chopped up Avocado. It was delish! We had it with rice and steamed broccoli.

Day 6: Tonight was supposed to be Chicken Florentine, but we had McDonald’s instead. The boys really wanted the Alvin and the Chipmunk toy from the kids meal, so we ate fast food. I know…we’re bad. Tomorrow we’ll have the Chicken Florentine, I’ll just move everything over one day, which works out perfect because it turns out I didn’t pick anything for the 31st. Works for me!