Weekly Challenge: Day 3

Man, today was a challenge indeed. First off, I had a huge hankering for a Starbucks Java Chip Frapuccino Light (my favorite!). But I promised myself that if I did cheat, it would not be for a coffee. So instead, I drove past that Drive-Thru Starbuck's (can you believe there's actually a Drive-Thru Starbucks right down the street from me?). Ahhh...the cruelty.

And then by evening, I really wanted to cook (I love to cook). And to me, cooking means picking out a fun recipe, going to the store, buying specific items for my specific recipe. Many of the ingredients will be half-used and later go to waste. I really, really wanted to go buy food. But instead I somehow pushed through it (I probably wouldn't have except that I'd have to tote a baby and a kid with me and I decided at the end I was just too lazy to do that). I had just picked vegetables from my garden this morning an d happened to have my first two tomatoes ripened on the vine. I picked them and wondered what to do with just two. I decided to use them to make an incredibly easy homemade pasta sauce. See recipes below!

Breakfast: Two slices of whole wheat bread with homemade blackberry jam. Seriously good.

Lunch: Chicken sausage, grilled garden veggies.

Dinner: Pasta with homemade sauce, grilled garden veggies. Dessert: peaches with whipped cream (I made the whipped cream by whipping some organic cream I had in the refrigerator and adding sugar to taste).

Recipes:

Grilled Garden Veggies
2 zucchini, cut into diagonal strips appx 1/4" thick.
3 yellow onions cut into 1/2" thick rounds
2-3 sweet peppers, red, yellow or orange. Cut into 1" thick strips

Toss with olive oil and kosher salt and grill (I use a raclette to grill my veggies unless my hubby is actually cooking an entire meal on the grill -- he's the grill guy).

Light, East Tomato Sauce
2 large tomatoes (3/4 - 1 lb ea.)cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2-3 cloves of garlic sliced
2 - 3 basil leaves sliced into thin strips
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Use a bit of the olive oil to saute the garlic for a minute or so. Add tomatoes and saute with garlic for about 3-5 minutes. Throw all of this into a mixing bowl and add the remainder of the olive oil into the bowl, as well as the basil and salt and pepper to taste. Throw in cooked pasta (angel hair is great) and mix everything together. You can also grate some fresh Parmesan cheese onto the dish.

Weekly Challenge: Day 2

Breakfast: High Fiber Oatmeal, one slice of whole wheat bread with butter, one peach. I'm boring, what can I say? =)

Lunch: Chicken apple sausage, leftover 8-ball squash, another peach (I'm on a race to eat them all before they get squishy -- I bought a whole box from the Farmer's Market last weekend!).

Dinner: Cut up some tofu into 1/2 inch cubes, sauteed in olive oil, added a bunch of frozen veggies and some peanut satay sauce. Served over jasmine rice. Served more peaches as a side dish! Only 4 peaches left!!! No signs of squishiness...

Weekly Challenge: Day 1

Breakfast: High Fiber Oatmeal, one slice of whole wheat bread with butter, one peach.

Lunch: Chicken apple sausage, blackberries

Dinner: Lemon Pepper Pappardelle pasta mixed with olive oil, lemon juice and lightly sauteed shrimp. Side dish: I had an 8-ball Squash in the garden ready for the picking (see picture of 8-ball Squash). I cut it up, sauteed it with some olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper. Delicious!

Weekly Challenge: Buy No Food!

A while back my husband and I tracked our spending for a month - every single penny spent was tracker. Where the heck did our money go? In my case...it was food. Note that I'm the one who does the grocery shopping in the house. But I also love cooking, so I find myself wanting to make a butternut squash lasagna one day and the next thing you know, I am heading to the store to buy 8 ingredients I didn't happen to buy on my weekly shopping expedition. And of course my husband, who loves my cooking, doesn't bring the leftovers to work for lunch. And thus...I spend ridiculous amounts of money on food, half of which goes to waste.

So I decided to challenge myself this week, starting today and ending Sunday, July 12, to make meals from what I have in the house. I won't go grocery shopping or eat out during this week. Each day I will log what I was able to make from ingredients already in my house. I hope this experience will not only help me to save money, but also learn to mix things up in terms of my meals, and better appreciate food, thus using the food rather than allowing it to go to waste.