Easiest Soup Ever

Ingredients:

45 Oz canned black beans (about 3 cans)
1 cup salsa
1 cup water
1/2 tsp group cumin (or however much you like)
14 oz canned corn kernels, with their liquid
1 cup Greek Yogurt or sour cream (totally optional

In a pot over medium heat, combine the beans, salsa, water and cuming and bring it to a boil. While it is heating, us an immersion blender to puree about half the mixture, so it is still chunky .Add the corn and its liquid, continue to heat stirring occasionally.

Serve with a collop of yogurt or sour cream.

So easy, so easy to make from pantry items, and really good!

Sausage Stuffed Autumn Squash

I got this yummy recipe from a blog I read, and I tweaked it to our likes and availability in the cabinets! My notes are in italics next to the recipe list.  This is a great fall recipe that takes advantage of the great squash available right now!  I'll be making this again!

(Here is the link: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2011/11/04/fall-recipe-connection-savory-greek-sausage-stuffed-autumn-squash/)

2-3 acorn and/or carnival squash
½-1 lb. sausage (I used ground turkey and spiced it up with chili powder and such)
1 onion, chopped
½ green pepper, chopped (I was cheap and just bought one green pepper and used the whole thing instead of buying a red one as well!)
½ red pepper, chopped
2 large tomatoes, diced OR 1 15-oz. can diced tomatoes, drained (I skipped the tomatoes this time, but I think they would be great!!)
1-2 c. spinach (or more)
4 cloves garlic, pressed (I cut up my garlic and sauteed it in, a little different than she says to do)
¼ tsp. pepper
sprinkle of salt
1 Tbs. balsamic vinegar (I didn't add the balsamic...let me know how it goes if you do!)
1 c. shredded mozzarella cheese (I used some cheddar, Parmesan, and Swiss, just what I had around!)
¼ c. Parmesan cheese
2-4 Tbs. butter (oh yeah!)
1 Tbs. feta cheese (I didn't use this, but would have if I had some!)

You can read her instructions on her blog, but here's what I basically did.

Wash, cut, seed the squash (enter handy husband who did it for me...though I read somewhere that you can do this after you roast them for a bit.  Might be worth a try, these suckers are hard to cut!)

Place squash facedown in glass casserole dish with some water (so that the flesh is touching the water, but not too much).  Bake at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes until skin easily pierced and and flesh is soft.  (It took me about 30 minutes, I think it would have helped if I also rotated them part way through cooking.)

Brown sausage, add onions and peppers, saute until well cooked (5-8 minutes)

Add tomatoes and cook a few minutes, season with salt and pepper (though I salt and pepper at the beginning as well)

Add spinach and garlic together, and cook until greens are wilted (again, I added cut up garlic and sauteed it before I added the spinach...I didn't think the garlic would be well incorporated unless I cut it up...that's just me!)

Remove pan from heat.  Stir in mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses.

Turn squash over in the glass dish.  Place 1/2 - 1 tablespoon of butter along with salt and pepper in each one (Josh and I LOVED the butter flavor in the squash...I would probably add more next time.  Hey, butter is a good fat...get the real stuff and enjoy it!)

You can cut these in half again if you'd like a smaller size.  It's pretty filling!  Also, these are GREAT heated up the next day as leftovers.  They made a great work lunch for us the next day.  How wonderful!!

I like eating the skin along with the sausage and the flesh of the squash...Josh wasn't so much a fan.  He scooped it out with a fork.  To each his own!!

Potato Bacon Salad aka Man Salad

Found this beauty in Real Simple. They also added steak, but we really enjoyed it with just the bacon. YUM!!!

Dressing:

3oz crumbled blue cheese

1/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

1 scallion chopped

Slice bacon into 1/2 in pieces and crisp in large skillet. Remove bacon onto paper towel.

Add 1/2 in slices of yukon gold(or fingerling) potatoes to the bacon drippings, season with salt and pepper, and crisp them--stirring occasionally for about 12-15 minutes. Transfer to the paper towel.

Put torn romaine lettuce in plates and top with bacon and potatoes. drizzle with dressing. Enjoy!

Weekly Meal Plan

Sara inspired me to share with you my weekly meal plan. As you probably already know(though I was not such a quick learner), having meals planned for the week is so so so so great, on equally as many levels--less stress, more fresh meals, save lots of moneys. So, here is my meal plan with recipes included, followed by our shopping list that includes almost everything you'd need to make these meals. The meals with more produce are early in the week, and the non-fresh produce meals are at the back. Sam does our shopping on the way home from work on Tuesday, so that is when my meal-week starts:

Tuesday: Blue Cheese Salad

Layer:

Spring greens

Green apples(chopped small)

Blue cheese

Walnuts

Dressing: balsamic vinaigrette of some kind

Serve with crusty bread and wine

Wednesday: Southwest Chicken Salad

1 15 oz. canned black beans

1 and ½ cups corn kernels (either fresh or frozen – fresh is really better J)

2 cups grape tomatoes, cut in halves (or chopped big tomatoes)

8 ounces chopped, cooked chicken breast

1 medium sweet red pepper, chopped

8 cups Romaine lettuce, cut into thick shreds

Dressing:

6 TBS reduced calorie mayonnaise

2 TBS cilantro, fresh, finely chopped

3 TBS water

1 medium scallion, minced

1 and ½ TBS fresh lime juice

2 tsp sugar

1 and ½ tsp chili powder

Combine all dressing ingredients and whisk together until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

In a large bowl, layer salad ingredients in order listed. Cover and refrigerate. To serve, spoon salad ingredients onto plates and drizzle on dressing. By not putting dressing on the whole salad, you can easily store the leftovers. (I also like to crunch tortilla chips on top)

Note: if you cook the chicken in the slow cooker, you can add lots of extra chicken and make this Chicken Salad for lunches(it keeps crunchy for a week):

Cooked chicken

Celery—chopped little

Grapes—halved is fine

Mix 1 part sour cream with 2 parts mayo (like, if you used 1/4c sour cream, use 1/2c mayo) and add to chicken celrey and grapes.

Serve on bread OR my favorite, over spring greens from Tuesday’s dinner with a little balsamic vinaigrette. YUM!

Thursday: Date night/Sam’s dinner night--he has to plan what we eat this night

Friday: Chicken, Rice, and Relish

Grill chicken

Rice cooker rice

And relish: ½ cucumber—seedless, and chopped small(pieces smaller than a dime)

½ cup Feta (2oz)

¼ red onion chopped really small

¼ cup fresh dill, chopped

2 Tbs olive oil

1 Tbs fresh lemon juice

salt

pepper

Saturday: Frozen Pizza

Sunday: Chicken/Pork/Lamb/or Steak dinner

Roast/cook meat

Rice

Sautéed canned green beans

Monday: Stir fry over rice

Put rice in cooker.

Chop chicken, cook in oil in large pan

Add frozen broccoli—cook till tender

Add water chestnuts and bamboo

Add stir fry sauce(homemade or otherwise)

Once blended serve over rice—top with Chinese noodles as desired.

Clement Shopping List

Shopping List

PRODUCE	DRY GOODS
Spring greens (2bags)	Chicken broth—1 box Black beans—5 cans*
Romaine Lettuce Cucumbers(3)	Mandarin oranges—3 cans Green beans—8 cans*
Red pepper	Water chestnuts—4cans*
Roma tomatoes(5)	Bamboo—4 cans*
Celery	Summer Corn—4 cans*
Red onion	Walnuts
scallion	CRUSTY bread—2 loaves
	Cereal
	Bread
Dill	English muffins
Cilantro	Tortilla chips—1 bag
	Tortilla salad strips
	Diet ginger ale—canada dry
Green apples(5-6)	Diet caffeine soda
Lemon (1 )	Small wine
Lime (1)	WATER jug—2 gallons
Bananas
Grapes(2 bags)
MEAT & DAIRY	PAPER & HOUSEHOLD ITEMS
Lunch meat: ~1 lb turkey ~1 lb ham ~1 lb Munster	Diapers Wipes
Hot dogs	FROZEN
Pork tenderloin	Perdue chicken nuggets
Chicken(7-8 lbs or more)	Pizza
	Broccoli florets—4 bags*
Milk—2 gallons
Sour cream	Apple juice
Feta	Mini waffles
Blue cheese

*Enough for the month

Pork Tenderloin

Pat the tenderloin dry.

coat entirely in mayo, about 1/8th in thick all the way around.

crush one packet of lipton onion soup mix and sprinkle all the way around.

bake at 375 for about 40 min.

INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!! Dad said it was the best he'd ever had. SO SO YUMMY!

also, I should note, I used an extra lean tenderloin and low fat mayo and it was still yummy--imagine what it could be like whole hog?! (pun intended)

Heather's Hash

I made this last night and it was good! And easy!

We're scraping the cupboards here because we don't want to go to the grocery store before we leave TOMORROW for Nashville. Thankfully I had the ingredients for this already around...and it helped me cook up some veggies that I didn't want to waste!

The recipe is in the Family Cookbook, so I won't type it here. But the combination I used was: cubed frozen hash browns, chicken, yellow squash, zucchini, shallots, garlic, and cheese! Throw in some garlic powder, salt, and pepper and it was great!