When Life Gives You Bananas...

...you {freeze them for smoothies and part with a few of them to} make banana bread!

This recipe from Tasty Kitchen (PDub's recipe site) is my favorite for banana bread.  (The roasted bananas are delish, but you can skip that step if you already have ripe bananas and you're short on time.)

I love to use this streusel topping for...well, everything.  In particular, it takes pumpkin bread to a whole new level.

On these chilly almost-spring days, some warm banana bread is the absolute most perfect thing.

Banana Bread with Streusel Topping via {Simply Scratch featured on} Tasty Kitchen

I'm playing a little game this week to see if I can avoid grocery shopping while cleaning out my fridge/freezer/pantry.  We had (homemade) Mac-n-Cheese w/ Bacon on Monday (leftover ingredients from getting bumped off the schedule last week), Poached Eggs in Spanish Rice on Tuesday, Apple/Brie/Honey Pizza topped with Kale Salad on Wednesday, and for tonight's dinner, I'll be serving {drumroll please} Peanut Butter & Honey Banana-Bread Sandwiches.  (How Memphis-y of us!)  I could have gone the French toast direction, but I'm almost out of eggs (see: Tuesday's dinner).  Technically, I'm also out of peanut butter, BUT I have a can of roasted peanuts in the pantry just begging to be "buttered" in the food processor.  Tomorrow is take-out night, so I think I'm in the clear!  

Food For Thought: What Makes Up a Meal?

A special thank you to this week's clients for trying me out!

If you're interested in having your groceries delivered to your doorstep next Monday, January 20th, the link for your Grocery List can be found here.  (Details/instructions can be found by clicking the banner at the top of the screen.)

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Do you ever wonder if people eat dinner the way you do?

Surely you aren't cooking a meat with three sides, homemade bread, and a different dessert seven nights of the week?  (I'm not!)  Yet, I often feel that these are the type of menus I should provide instead of what I really eat for dinner.

In my attempt to cut a large portion of meat & dairy out of our meals last year (for health and cost reasons), I had to think about ingredients differently than I had in the past.  I had always thought of vegetables as the filler...the side item.  My goal was to move them to the "meat" of the meal...the side would become the entree.  It was a difficult paradigm shift in the beginning.  We ate a lot of salads, because that was the most traditional way most people think about "eating vegetables for dinner."

It occurred to me at one point while I was looking over recipes that if I could eat a salad for dinner (or a bowl of cereal for that matter), why couldn't I make a "side" for dinner?  I've never been very good at cooking more than one thing for dinner on a normal night--I fix an entree and maybe serve it with bread and that's it.  But here was a use for all of those side dish recipes I'd saved up.

In addition, I had plenty of recipes that included a (meat-free) side that I happened to like.  Why not just make that for dinner?

But the protein!  The starch!  You might be fighting this thinking in your head.  I mean, technically, a bowl of cereal as your dinner includes protein (in the milk poured over it) and a starch (in the cereal itself).  What's funny is that we are quick to toss out the most nutrient-dense part of the meal as "unneeded"--the fruits and veggies and legumes and seeds contain all of the best stuff!

When I started reading books making the case for eating more fruits & vegetables, I was surprised to learn that protein was in more vegetarian sources than beans.  (It's in whole grains like quinoa and in plenty of vegetables, like romaine lettuce!)  Starch can be found in fruits & vegetables in addition to whole grains.  Almost all vitamins can be found in fruits/vegetables/seeds.  So much of our traditional thinking about what should be on a plate comes from the way other people/corporations want us to think.

If you're interested in cutting meat & dairy out of your diet, why don't you try fixing a vegetable side as a meal sometime?  (Call it a "salad" if you feel like that makes it legit--whatever works.)  We're having Sweet & Sour Collard Greens with Cornbread for dinner one night this week...or "Warm Collard Greens Salad" if you need to spin it that way.  Or try another trick of mine--creatively think of a vegetable that could substitute the meat in a favorite recipe.  This week, I'll be substituting veggies for meat for my family in two of the recipes I share. (Snap peas in place of shrimp in Curried Rice w/ Shrimp, for example.)  Why?  The vegetables are better for us and a lot less expensive than those multiple pounds of meat I used to buy weekly.  (And NO, my preschooler does not always eat them.  But sometimes she does...!  And the more exposed she is to veggies, the more likely she is to try them eventually.)

What makes up a meal?  If you can eat a bowl of cereal for dinner or my all-too-common dinner-of-shame: boxed mac-n-cheese, then I guarantee you that collard greens can count, too!

Real Life Dinners

As promised, here is our lineup of dinners this week!  Usually I am choosing newer recipes from my December magazine issues--something festive for the holiday, but I'm running behind this year, so I just chose from what I had in my recipe binder.  

Breakfasts: Smoothies made with frozen bananas + Aldi's organic baby spinach + whatever frozen fruit is in stock/on sale this week.

Lunches: My daughter is on a chicken salad kick, so I'll be picking up a container of Aldi's chicken salad to eat on sandwiches.

Here's what's for dinner:

MONDAY: BLT Pasta w/ Corn & Fresh Ricotta

TUESDAY: Leeky, Creamy Chicken-&-Dumpling Soup
(I'm saving money/health by omitting the actual chicken tenders--the gnocchi fills out the soup enough for us.  My fave chicken stock/broth is Costco's Kirkland Brand Organic Chicken Stock.)

WEDNESDAY: Black Bean & Sweet Potato Enchiladas

THURSDAY: Leftovers!

FRIDAY: PW's Favorite Pizza

SATURDAY: Gingerbread Pancakes (Aldi mix) for brunch; Leftovers for dinner

SUNDAY: Leftovers or boxed Mac-n-Cheese for lunch; Popcorn for dinner

If you want to get super "real life," I have had most of the ingredients for BLT Pasta & Chicken & Dumpling Soup for awhile--I was going to make them two weeks ago, and then something unexpected came up and we ended up going out of town.  When that happens, I freeze the fresh ingredients if possible, and "reschedule" the meal for a later time...like this week!  (Luckily, I had not yet purchased leeks, which are in both recipes, so one of the main fresh ingredients was spared from spoiling.)

Real Life

I love meals with 40 ingredients and 2 hours prep time as much as the next person (wait, no one else likes those?), but real life at our house has me down to a short amount of time to put dinner on the table and a small amount of money with which to do it.

I'm going to share something that might be a stretch for some of you: our grocery budget is $120 for two weeks (or $60/week) for our family of three.  Eating out is one of my favorite treats, but we budget $80 per two weeks for it.  When Rhet was a tiny bit younger and our budget was a tiny bit tighter, we spent $80 every two weeks on groceries.  This is breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks.  It can be done, people!

It recently occurred to me that it might be helpful to others to simply post how I make that happen from week to week.

Some of the meals we have eaten are super simple & easy (maybe even embarrassing...ahem, boxed Mac & Cheese), and some are favorite recipes full of delicious & healthy ingredients.  I plan to give full disclosure over the coming weeks.  And, bonus for you: it's the holiday season, so hopefully it will take some guesswork off of your plate when it comes down to what to eat for dinner.

Here is a sample our *real life* plans were for this week through next Tuesday:

MONDAY: Cheese Ravioli w/ Burst Tomatoes in Herbed Butter Sauce

(This was a creation from the brain of yours truly.  Prepare frozen ravioli according to packaged instructions.  In the meantime, put a pint of grape tomatoes in a hot skillet with a little olive oil and let them heat up & burst.  I then mashed mine with a masher to help them lose their tomato shape so my 3-yr-old daughter would eat them--hey, real life!  Add salt, pepper, oregano, & basil, and then 1/3-1/2 stick of butter about 1 Tablespoon at a time until I you have a bonafide sauce on your hands.  Transfer the cooked ravioli to the skillet and tossed with the sauce.)

TUESDAY: Gnocchi w/ Pesto, Green Beans, & Ricotta

WEDNESDAY: Chicken Soup

(This started with a recipe years ago and evolved into the one I make from memory today.  Dice 1 onion, 3 stalks celery, & 2 carrots, then saute in a little olive oil.  Add salt, pepper, thyme, and a little grated garlic.  Today, I put the cooked veggies in my small crock pot after lunchtime, added 1 box of chicken stock, and then turned on low until dinnertime.  It's simmering in the kitchen as I speak and it smells delicious!)

THURSDAY: Boxed Mac & Cheese

(Do you have a suuuuuper cheap go-to when you don't have time or money to spend on a meal?  This is my go-to.  40 cents at Aldi, baby, and my husband can make it if needed.)

FRIDAY:  Homemade Pizza
(Dough from this recipe, topped with pesto, grape tomatoes, & shredded mozzarella.)

SATURDAY: Leftovers; Date Night (out to eat)

SUNDAY: Out to Eat for lunch, Popcorn & Ice Cream for Dinner (a weekly tradition)

MONDAY: Pumpkin Ravioli (from Aldi) w/ Brown Butter Sage Sauce (recipe on package!)

TUESDAY: Leftovers/Clean out the fridge!

Ok, there it is.  Not super veggie-loaded this week because, in all honesty, I had to make a trip to the auto dealership instead of making my list during PDO this past Monday, and I was right out by an Aldi, so I just decided to make some quick dinner decisions on the fly.  Real life, people.  Hope it gives you some ideas this week!