Meal Plan Monday: Cookbooks!

Last week's menu was a two-weeker, so you might think I have nothing to say today. But you'd be wrong!

I have quite the little cookbook collection. I'm not a terribly creative chef and prefer to use a recipe, but I also find I get bored doing the same thing over and over again. So I like to mix things up.

When I plan my menu, I like to grab two or three cookbooks to work from over the next two weeks. This, coupled with my handy dandy monthly notebook that I fill with magazine clippings and print outs of seasonal ideas I want to try, usually gets me through two weeks of planning.

These are the cookbooks I used for the first two weeks of February.
The big brown book is The Parenting Cookbook by Kathy Gunst and the editors of Parenting Magazine. I first browsed this cookbook at a friend's house, and was impressed with the recipes. It has a great combination of kid-friendly recipes and healthy ingredients. We made the molasses cookies today for afternoon snack and they were a big hit!

Next we have A Continual Feast by Evelyn Birge Vitz. I love this book for seasonal recipes to celebrate the church year. The recipes for Lent and Easter are especially good. You can find recipes for the liturgical year as well as the major feasts and festivals of the Christian year as well as recipes specific to various saints' days.

Finally this week I have been cooking from a vintage cookbook, The New Parents' Magazine Family Cookbook. While I deeply despise Parents Magazine, this 1970s cookbook fascinates me. Some of the recipes are quirky and the have some odd ideas about what children will eat and a disturbing propensity to use shortening in unexpected places. Still, there are some gems to be found.

I'd love to hear what you're cooking from this week!

Easy Homeschool Lunch: Halved Baked Potatoes

We popped these in the other day during morning snack and had a yummy warm lunch ready and waiting for us!

Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Scrub your potatoes and cut them in half lengthwise. Arrange, cut side up, in a baking dish. Put your baking dish in the oven and bake until they're golden brown and puffy on top. Serve with a dab of butter, salt, whatever your favorite baked potato topping is. Yum!

Smells like winter at our house... Bean soup!

Bean soup, chicken soup, soup with macaroni

Cream of broccoli soup, minestrone
Potato soup, tomato soup, chowder made with clam
Miso soup, mushroom soup, split pea with ham
Bouillon, scallion, tom kha gai with lemongrass
Matzo ball, chili bean, cream of asparagus

John McCutcheon is one of my all-time favorite musicians. If you're not familiar with him, he's a contemporary folk singer who composes songs for adults and children alike. And he's one of those rare breeds whose children's songs appeal to adults as well. He's humorous, poignant, and not too sappy.

I think our favorite is his seasonal series. Right now, we're listening to Wintersongs. There's a great song on there called "Soup". We decided to cook our way through the song this winter.

Today was bean soup. We modified a recipe from The Waldorf School Book of Soups. And it was yuuuummmmy!

We soaked about 2 cups of pinto beans overnight. Then today, I put them on to boil with a bay leaf. I then transferred them to the crock pot with a cup of barley, some chopped up celery and onion and parsley. I tossed in a couple cups of water and salt and pepper and let it simmer in the crock pot. Oh, we also tossed in a couple of ham hocks. About an hour before dinner, I added some tomato paste. I served it up with some parmesan cheese.

He's got a big soup smile all over his face!

Next week: chicken soup!

Book Review: Family Feasts for $75 a Week

For the past few months, we've been taking a Financial Peace University course at our church. I highly recommend it, and I really believe the principles we learned in the class are changing our lives, but that's a whole 'nother post. During the class, one of the facilitators brought in a book her daughter had recommended, Mary Ostyn's Family Feasts for $75 a Week. I jotted down the title and forgot about it, until I was ordering a few Christmas gifts from Amazon, when I decided to do exactly what Dave Ramsey says NOT to do, and order a little gift for myself.

I'm glad I didn't listen to Dave.

One of the struggles with feeding a largish family on a budget is that you feel as if you're constantly having to choose between eating cheap and eating healthy. This book does an excellent job of including recipes that have real food, not a bunch of processed junk.

Anyone can write a cookbook, though. Ms. Ostyn takes things one step further and coaches you through the process of paring down your grocery bill, offering a series of action points so you can work your way towards your goal. Now, I'll be honest-- my grocery budget for six people is $100 a week, which is comparatively low. But I'm garnering tons of tips from this book, and I'm hoping I can get my budget down to $50 a week by the end of the year, giving us more money to throw at our debt snowball.

Family Feasts for $75 a Week: A Penny-wise Mom Shares Her Recipe for Cutting Hundreds from Your Monthly Food Bill

Pantry challenge: Days Eight through Twelve

Boy, everything goes to heck during the holidays, doesn't it?

We've had multiple meals out-- church staff dinners and potlucks, parties with friends and anniversary dinners at fancy restaurants. On top of that, as I stated last week, weekends around here are made for leftovers. So there hasn't been a whole lot to report.

We did make a little bit of headway in the cereal stash. Although my ten-year-old informed me I'm buying all the wrong stuff. Apparently, I'm supposed to be purchasing that candy-in-a-box that masquerades as cereal. We've had oatmeal as well, and also grits. My kids like grits. Whoda thunk it?

Lunch has been mostly leftovers and PB and J, but you know, I'm OK with that. We're using up what we have. I'm hoping once the stockpiled stash is whittled down I'll be able to make some wiser choices when I start bulking it up again.

Last night we had another variation of a Mexican casserole-- this one had ground beef, seasonings, kidney beans and corn, and was topped with cornbread. These were all ingredients I had on hand.

Tonight we had a stirfry, again with on-hand ingredients. I cut up some round steak I had down in the freezer and added tons of leftover rice and veggies. It was pretty yummy!

Of course, with Christmas coming I did have to break down and buy a ton of food. We're having clam chowder on Christmas Eve, a huge meal Christmas Day, and meatball subs when family comes on Boxing Day. But I've also managed to use some stuff from my pantry. Tonight I made Glazed Chocolate Mini Loaves from this recipe, minus any Nestle ingredients since we boycott them. I had everything on hand, and bought some darling little mini loaf pans at Michael back at the beginning of the month. And we're making some chocolates in molds by melting down some Starbucks milk chocolate bars we bought 3/$1 at the Surplus Outlet.

One dubious advantage of being a clergy family is that we don't have to make cookies if we don't want to. The church ladies keep the pastor and his family well supplied! I have about 3 dozen assorted cookies sitting here, and that's not counting what the pastor managed to eat in his study. We are very blessed. Still, if I don't run out of time-- you don't want to see my pre-Christmas to-do list!-- I might make some cookies in the next few days with the kids.

Wishing you peace in the pre-Christmas rush!

Pantry Challenge: Day Seven

No more pictures for you all, I guess, LOL! For some reason, I never think to take pictures of our food. It's just, you know, food, and since I have to come up with something to eat five times a day, there's barely time to plan and cook it, let alone take a photo.

BREAKFAST: Bacon and eggs and OJ. The bacon was frozen turkey bacon that was part of a BOGO promotions.

MORNING SNACK: Applesauce. Again, part of my "let's pick a whole bunch of fruit and freeze it!" scheme.

LUNCH: Peanut butter and jelly and orange slices.

Then all my plans for healthy eating went to hell in a handbasket when a package from my mother filled with Christmas yummies showed up at the door, including some homemade Moose Munch.

AFTERNOON SNACK: Shockingly enough, even after the Moose Munch, they wanted afternoon snack. I have about 10 Guiltless Gourmet cake mixes that were 3/$1, so everyone got their own little cake. Yummy, and really, the ingredient list isn't bad at all.

DINNER: Chicken drumsticks with a maple syrup/lemon juice glaze. The drumsticks were all natural, antibiotic-free, raised in PA, marked down at Weis. Unfortunately maple syrup is the one thing I can never get cheap, and now I'm out. Must add to the grocery list. We had this with herbed rice and peas, also stockpiled.

Pantry Challenge: Day Six

Phew! Now we're back in business!

Breakfast was muffins from La Leche League's fabulous Whole Foods for the Whole Family cookbook. We had ours with all-fruit, and it was delicious! Our grocery outlet often has King Arthur's whole wheat and unbleached white flour for 79 cents, and I have quite a bit of that in the deep freeze still.

Morning snack was whole grain crackers and some yummy cheese from our local Amish store.

Lunch... lunch was lovely. Down in the deep freeze I found 2.35 pounds of ox tails I bought from the Amish store because... um... because... well... I don't know why. Because I thought I could do something traditional food-ish with them and because it was only $1.50 for 2.35 pounds. In my Little House Cookbook, I found a great recipe and made a delicious stew for lunch. I actually only followed their directions for making the broth, and then added organic alphabet pasta (50 cents a box) and tons of green beans, peas, and corn.

For afternoon snack, we had smoothies. You see, I had this brilliant idea-- let's pick our own fruit and freeze it! Which I did, and then promptly forgot all about it. Do you see now why this pantry challenge is necessary?

Dinner was delicious-- mashed potatoes, asparagus (again, frozen on a whim), and London broil (buy one, get one). For desert, I used some canned plums to make a plum crumble. Everyone loved it. The kids said if I was on Top Chef, I would win, which is complete and utter bull, but still, lovely to hear.

Pantry Challenge: Day Five

Ugh. Rough day. Feeling poorly. Brief post.

BREAKFAST: Cereal stockpiled from a big sale along with apples and oranges.

SNACK: Was going to be apples and cheese, but someone ate all the cheese. *is grumpy* So instead we had fruit and crackers.

LUNCH: I was made of fail. I had turkey corn dogs in the freezer, and I used them. Then again, maybe not so much fail, because I bought them for moments like today, when all I really wanted to do was take the kids to Micky D's. As bad as chemical dogs might be, that would have been worse. Besides, some kind church ladies sent home a huge tray of fresh veggies and the kids really chowed down on those. Daniel really likes red pepper. Who'da thunk it?

SNACK: I don't remember. They must have eaten something though, because they didn't come whining for food.

DINNER: Still not feeling great. DH offered to go buy a rotisserie chicken but I was all "NO!!!!! We have to eat something from the pantry!!!!!" So I made a yummy chili and-- in a moment of inspiration-- threw in a bunch of leftover veggies. Peas, corn, some carrots-- not only did they not notice, they told me it was the best chili ever. I served that up with some brown rice and they were happy as clams.

Tomorrow will be better. Hopefully.

Pantry Challenge: Days Three and Four

Ah, the weekend! How I love you!

This weekend was especially busy.

Saturday morning, Michael had a basketball game at 9:30-- he won!. Before he left, we had a breakfast of eggs-to-order and scrapple with maple syrup. If you have a judgment on scrapple, I don't want to hear it. I'm a Lancaster County girl at heart. And then it was off to Katie Grace's basketball game-- she tied! I'm telling you, it's the scrapple (stockpiled from the Mennonite surplus grocery store).


Lunch was leftovers. I told you we do a lot of leftovers on the weekend!

Next we had to rush the kids out the door for our church's Parents' Afternoon Out. Thankfully, we finally have a full church staff and we didn't have to stick around this year. Yay! We actually got to go out on Parents' Afternoon Out! We came home and spread out the Christmas gifts to see what we still needed and then we headed out.

First stop was the thrift store, where I had spied a lovely wood television armoire. I have wanted one of these practically forever. We didn't have a TV for a bit, and then we had one but kept it in the closet, and it's always bugged me that you walk in our living room and see the television. But not anymore! It's my Christmas present.

Then it was off to Target and the mall. Oy. We got one gift we needed, but no others. It was just overwhelming.

Back to the church to pick up the kids and then off to our third basketball game of the day. Nicholas won! After a quick stop at the grocery store, we were off to a birthday party at a church friend's house. So dinner was taken care of.

Today was Santa Lucia Day. I will admit that when I was at the store yesterday, I picked up a tray of cinnamon buns. I actually had a recipe I meant to use to make homemade buns for today, but see above. We weren't home for more than a half-hour at a time! So, for breakfast it was terribly unfrugal, unhealthy, unhomemade Santa Lucia-ish buns.

For lunch, I was back on the Pantry Challenge bandwagon. Tortellini with sauce and cheese and garlic bread.

Dinner is up in the air. If we don't cancel evening activities at church, we'll be eating there. If we do cancel evening activities at church, then... um... hmmm... well, I'll have to come up with a plan, won't I?

I hope your weekend was all the things mine hasn't been-- relaxing, peaceful, and ice-free!

Pantry Challenge: Day Three

Ah, the weekend! Generally we do a lot of leftovers on Fridays and the weekends, and today was no exception.

For breakfast, I made oatmeal and we sweetened it with plum or blueberry all-fruit, leftover from yesterday. Add a little fresh fruit and milk for those that wanted it, and you're ready to face the day.

Morning snack were yummy pretzel crackers from Aldis and the rest of the pumpkin bread from yesterday morning.

For lunch, we had--you guessed it!-- leftovers! Also, another advantage of our little Surplus Grocery Outlet is that they often get international foods, things that we would normally not try. They had some little heat-and-eat packages of Indian food, 2 for a dollar, and I picked up some Mutter Paneer with basmati rice for us to try. Michael really liked it!

Paneer is actually Indian cottage cheese, and it seems fairly straightforward to make, so we might try that sometime.

Afternoon snack was fruit and cheese with Daddy while Mama went to the dentist.

This evening we're splitting ranks. Katie Grace, Daniel, and I are going to the homeschool co-op Christmas party. It's "bring something to share," so we made one of my childhood favorites, tuna dip. It's just cream cheese (I bought a bunch when they were on sale, 2 for a dollar, and froze them) mixed with a can of tuna. Served with crackers, it's really yummy, and thanks to that Flips deal at Target, we have plenty of crackers. I'll also bring some whole grain crackers along as well. This also makes a quick and tasty lunch. I'm also bringing along some soda I picked up for a dollar a bottle.

The big boys and Daddy have a church event. I had actually forgotten about our evening plans and was going to make homemade pizza for dinner, but we changed the plan so that Daddy can just heat up a frozen pizza. Next week, homemade or bust! Friday is always, always, always pizza night at our house. It's a law. And I always keep a frozen pizza or two in the deep freeze for those times when life gets away from me. Because while it might not be the healthiest option, it's still a lot better and a lot less expensive than ordering it out. So tonight, it's pizza and salad for the boys while we're at the potluck.

We'll be having lots of goodies at the homeschool party, and the big boys will be having lots of goodies at their Christmas party. A good time will be had by all.

Pantry Challenge: Day Two

We bring you this special report from my very messy and dated kitchen.

I've been going about this challenge by going down to the basement the night before and bringing up a few key ingredients. Last night, I brought up a can of pumpkin, a jar of jelly, and two cans of crab. Sadly, that's a lot of canned stuff, but it is what it is and we need to work with it.

For breakfast, I used the pumpkin to make this delicious Pumpkin Oat Bread from Weight Watchers. I belong to Weight Watchers Online. One of the reasons I really like it is that most of the recipes use real food, not a bunch of doctored up processed chemical junk. The recipe was a big hit, probably due to the fact that it had a fair amount of brown sugar.

Then again, after dinner I found this

so maybe they didn't like it as much as I thought.

Morning snack was what we call a "pantry snack." In our upstairs pantry (which really is a small closet in my kitchen that I stuck a bookshelf in), there is a kid snack bin. We have an Amish-run surplus grocery outlet with excellent deals, especially on organic food. Organic and natural granola bars are 5-8 for 99 cents, depending on the packaging. This past week I got Annie's cheddar bunnies in little pouches, 6 for 35 cents. I don't like the wasteful packaging in individually wrapped snacks, but I do appreciate the convenience, and I can't make granola bars for less. When I buy these, I dump a couple different things in a dishtub on the bottom shelf and the kids can help themselves. We do pantry snacks several times a week. It's also handy if we're going somewhere in the car.

Lunch was my hubby's responsibility since I got a four-hour break today. They had peanut butter and jelly, some on bread and some on stockpiled crackers, along with apple slices and baby carrots. I believe some of the crew also had some pumpkin oat bread from this morning. Our Amish store sells natural and organic peanut butter for $1.69 a jar, and all-fruit for between 50 and 99 cents. The crackers were part of a great deal I got at Target this week.

We were running errands this afternoon, and forgot about snack. Dinner was a little delayed, and so the kids had "mousie nibbles" of apples and cheese while I was making dinner.

Dinner was a bit of a puzzler. Canned crab. I'm not sure what possessed me to buy it in the first place. It was from the "real store" and not the Surplus Outlet, so I must have had it in mind for a recipe. However, at this late date, I have no idea what that recipe would have been.

I decided to toss together casserole, much like last night. Blessedly, my family likes casseroles. I started with a recipe for "Pasta Crab Casserole" from Taste of Home's 2002 Quick Cooking Cookbook that I got back in my hubby's seminary days. AAL (now Thrivent) used to give them away as part of member benefits. Ah, those were the days... but I digress.

Working off this recipe, I combined the cans of crab meat, a box of cooked spiral pasta (79 cents, thank you very much), 1/2 cup plain yogurt because I had no sour cream, 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons of basil, and some pepper. Then I branched out on my own. Taking my mother's advice from my Facebook page this morning, I tossed in some frozen peas. Then I thought it looked kind of bland and added a can of diced organic tomatoes (50 cents). I topped it all with some grated cheddar and cooked it at 350 for 20 minutes.

Voila! Spiral seashore casserole!


The verdict? Two kids liked it, two didn't. Two had thirds, two didn't finish their firsts. This is life in a big family, I guess.

I do realize this isn't optimal eating. We need to eat this stuff, though, or it will all be wasted. Please be assured that we do have homemade whole grain baked goods, lots of fresh fruits and veggies, and plenty of milk and cheese. We're not only eating out of cans.

And you know what? I'm actually kind of enjoying this! I always did like a challenge.

Pantry Challenge: Day One

A couple months ago, I cleaned up my stockpile, organizing and labeling shelves. It looked about as good as anything in my dungeon of a basement could look.




Besides this, we have a deep freeze full of food.

Now, I'm very good at the shopping part. And I'm very good at the organizing part. But the using up and rotating part tends to elude me.

So I am laying down a challenge for myself: Eat as much as we can from the stockpile so we can get it down and little and so it doesn't go to waste.

Today was day one, and it went pretty well.

BREAKFAST: Cereal (free with coupons). We don't often eat it, and yet I have 10 boxes in the stockpile. Yeah, 10. So, while Daddy was shoveling snow and Mama was at the gym, the kiddos had cereal.

MORNING SNACK: Peanut butter-filled cheese pretzels (2/$1)

LUNCH: Lentil/Pea soup from a Bob's Red Mill mix (35 cents). I added sausage ($1) and put out soup crackers with it (35 cents)

AFTERNOON SNACK: The rest of our cake we made for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception yesterday

DINNER: A Mexican Casserole made from pasta shells (35 cents), frozen bulk ground beef, shredded Mexican cheese (79 cents) and diced organic tomatoes (50 cents) and organic corn (50 cents). For desert, we used up the dribs and drabs of leftover ice cream in the freezer.



Yes, I know we didn't do so well on veggies. The thing is, no one-- and I mean NO ONE-- in this house likes them or willingly eats them. Maybe posting this online will inspire me to do better.

See you tomorrow!

Stained Glass Cookies

From Advent: Lighting the Path to Christmas
















YUM!

Mealtime Rhythms and Routines

Before we start, I have a confession to make. Two, actually.

Are you ready?

One, I have never done a blog series before. Please do let me know what works and what doesn't, what you would like to see, and how I'm doing.

And two-- our own routines have fallen a little lax and I'm feeling at loose ends. My sincere hope is that starting this rhythms and routines series will not only bless and inspire you, but will also help my own family to get back into the swing of things.

Phew! Confessions over, and on we go!

This post is about mealtime rhythms and routines. I'm not going to focus on meal planning-- I'll save that for another post- but this will be more about meal prep and how your meals fit into the rhythm of your day.

I always try to wake up before the children. I find that the only chance I have of keeping one step ahead of them is if I can get a head start! Generally in the morning, I put out a clean tablecloth and napkins, as well as other kitchen linens. Then I start breakfast. This morning it was a yummy oatmeal porridge found in The Waldorf Kindergarten Snack Book.
This morning, I made cocoa as well. Since I'm making an effort to get back into a routine, I wanted to win the kids over to my side. What better way to bribe them than with chocolate?

I generally don't get a lot of help making breakfast-- they're waking up and going through their morning routine on their own. If help is offered, I take it, of course!

To call them to breakfast, I sometimes sing. Do You Know the Muffin Man? is a good song on muffin days, and The Singing Day has a lovely little song, also about muffins, called Three Little Puffins. But, to be honest, I usually don't have to call them to breakfast, because they're right there, hungry with bowls waiting.


This is our kitchen table, where the kids eat breakfast and lunch. We keep our silverware in the basket on the table. This makes it easier for everyone, and we can just carry it with us to the big table in the dining room when we all eat together. I also like to keep a bowl of "help yourself" fruit out.

We use cloth napkins and tablecloths. It's an ecologically sound decision, but I also find that real materials lend themselves to being treated with reverence and respect. We also try to use non-plastic mugs and bowls, although we do have a few melamine bowls for the little boys. Generally, the tablecloth makes it through breakfast, lunch, and morning and afternoon snacks. We use the same cloth napkin all through a day, barring any major messes. Each of us has a napkin ring so we don't get them mixed up.

I've had good luck finding cloth napkins at thrift stores, but there are lots of online directions for making your own, ranging from complicated to ridiculously simple.
Rip and Tear Napkins (ridiculously simple)
Make Your Own Cloth Napkins (pretty darned simple)
Simple Cocktail Napkins (fairly simple and a good size for little ones)
Molly's Handmade Napkins (somewhat complicated)

And of course, you'll need some napkin rings to go with them!

And, if I've gotten you into a sewing mood...
Bib tutorial
and
Aprons! Aprons! Aprons! And more aprons!
And a tablecloth.

In my house, everyone can clear their own dish. Right now, we're working on everyone but the toddler washing their own dish as well. This is fairly easy to accomplish with a sink of water and a stepstool. We try very hard to take the tact of "We're all working together to make our home a lovely place" rather than "I want to make myself redundant, so you're on your own to clean up after yourself." If you gently set an example and repeat and repeat and repeat, pretty soon you'll find your children leaning into the routine and doing their part.

Sometimes we do a cooking or baking project for morning snack, and I take my helpers where I can get them. This morning it was homemade rice pudding.

Afternoon is generally more of a "something from the pantry" affair. Today is was multigrain tortilla chips and salsa. Daniel approved.
One thing I would like to work on is how I call them to the table. While I do sometimes sing, I'll admit that more often than not, it's just me yelling "TIME TO EAT!!!!"

For handwashing before meals, we have our own version of "Warm, Hands, Warm". We sing:
Wash, hands, wash,
And dry them on the towel.
If you're going to wash your hands,
Wash your hands now!

We use a variety of blessings and graces. I'm Catholic and my husband is a Lutheran pastor, so between us we have a rich heritage of prayer to draw from. I do like to pick a couple of seasonal blessings and post them near the kitchen table. This can be a great use for watercolor paintings!
Finally, I wanted to share our helper chart. Knowing I was writing this actually inspired me to write a new one, with Daniel added.
You can see how faded the old one was, and it only included the three older children. Daniel should be able to pitch in now, even at a toddler level.

We have four jobs: chef, host/hostess, waiter/waitress, and busboy/busgirl. Generally, we use this only at dinner, but if they're squabbling to help at another meal, I'll look at the chart then as well.

The chef helps to cook. He also gets ingredients from the pantry, fridge, or storage area. The hostess sets the table and calls everyone to eat. The waiter gets drinks and if we need anything during the meal, it's his job to hop up and get it. Everyone clears their own dish, but the busgirl clears the serving dishes and wipes down the table.

These are just a few of the underlying rhythms and routines that help make our meals more peaceful. I'd love to hear what you do at your house! And of course, I'll see you back here next week on Thursday, when we tackle morning and evening routines.

Two Recipes

Here are two recipes we enjoyed this week that I promised to post.

Soft Pretzels (from Creative Resources for Early Childhood)

Mix 1 1/2 cups of warm water, an envelope of yeast (2 1/2 teaspoons if you have loose yeast), and 1 tablespoon of sugar. Set it aside for five minutes.

Pour 1 tsp salt and 4 cups of flour into a bowl.

Add the yeast mixture to make a dough.

Form shapes with the dough. Brush on some egg and sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake at 425 degrees for 12 minutes.





And Spinach-Ricotta Skillet Lasagna from All You Magazine:

Mix 1 cup shredded mozzarella, 1/2 cup grated parmasan, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, pepper to taste and a pinch of nutmeg.

In a separate bowl, whisk 1 1/2 cups ricotta with 1 large egg and 10 oz of frozen chopped spinach that has been thawed and squeezed dry. Season with salt and pepper.

Spread 1/3 of a jar of spaghetti sauce on the bottom of a large, heavy skillet. Arrange 2 sheets of no-bake lasagna noodles on top. Spread 1/2 the spinach mixture on the pasta and then scatter 1/2 of the mozzarella mixture on top. Top with 2 more pasta sheets, then spread with 1/3 of the sauce. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the mozzarella mixture. Place another 2 sheets of pasta on top and pour over the remaining sauce. Break remaining sheets of pasta into large pieces to fill in around the edges of the skillet.

Dollop the remaining spinach mixture on top and sprinkle the remaining mozzarella cheese mixture. Transfer to stovetop and cook, covered, over medium low hear until the top is firm, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside, covered, for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

Meatless, delicious, and a great way to get kids to eat spinach!

Making soft pretzels

Yum!

Pease, Mama. Poon?

While I was making banana bread today, Daniel was going crazy trying to move the stool and get to the spoons. All the while he kept saying "Pease, Mama? Poon? Need poon!" At first, I'm ashamed to say, I was annoyed by the interruption and told him he didn't need a spoon. As I watched his determination in moving the stepstool over to the silverware basket, I realized what he wanted.

"Do you want to help stir the banana bread?"

"Yes, Mama!" And his little face lit up. (And yes, he really says "Yes, Mama." It throws me for a look every time!)

Well, what is a mama to do but to get a spoon and move the bowl down where he can help?

Banana Bread
5 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup raw sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce, no sugar added
2 eggs
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup chocolate chips

Mix all the dry ingredients except the sugar.

Mix the banana and the sugar. Beat the egg and add it to the banana /sugar mix. Then add the wet ingredients to the dry.

Grease 2 loaf pans and bake at 350 for 30 to 45 minutes (it really varied because one pan was metal and one was glass).

If you cut each loaf into 10 slices, each slice is 2 WW points. But the smile on the helping toddler's face is priceless!

Story of the World: Aztec Hot Chocolate

Mmmmm... we're looking forward to trying this!

In a saucepan, combine 2 cups of milk, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon honey, and a pinch each of ginger, cloves, and red pepper.

Heat to boiling over medium heat. Reduce the heat and simmer for three minutes. Remove from heat.

Using a wisk, beat in 1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa and a teaspoon of vanilla extract until frothy.

Serve in mugs and top with whipped cream.

Homemade Granola Bars

4 cups oats
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
1/2 cup wheat germ or oat bran

Then add another 3 cups of "stuff"-- raisins or other dried fruits, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, chocolate or carob chips, nuts, dry milk, the good stuff

Combine all the dry stuff and set it aside.

Melt 1/4 cup of butter. Add 1/2 cup honey, 1/2 cup brown rice syrup, 1/2 cup brown sugar. Bring it almost to a boil and add 1/2 cup peanut butter. Stir until melted. Add 2 tsp vanilla.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients. Mix well. Press into a greased 11 x 13 pan. Refrigerate and then cut into bars.

From my notebook...

Happy Rolls

Measure 1 cup warm water into a bowl and sprinkle 1 package of fast-rising yeast onto the top of the water. Let it settle into the water.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix 1/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup of cooking oil, 3 cups of flour, and a dash of salt. Add the yeast and water mixture and place the dough on a floured board. Show your children how to knead the dough, and allow them to take turns.

After kneading the dough for about 10 minutes, place the ball of dough into a greased bowl. Cover, and let rise in a warm place for about an hour or until doubled. Take the dough out of the bowl and punch down. Knead for several more minutes and then divide into 12 to 15 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and place on a greased cookie sheet. Let the dough rise again until doubled. Bake at 450 for 10 to 12 minutes.