Busy Night's Dinner

Well, it is that time of year.  T-ball, Little League, registration for camps, end of the school year for my kids and for me as a teacher.  Crazy, crazy, crazy...  Then I had to miss the last 2 Saturdays at the farmer's market besides.  My kitchen is bare bones.  Well here is a product that I feel good about for a couple of reasons.

• Newman's Own donates to education
• The pepperoni is nitrate free
• I recognize almost all, if not all of the ingredients
• It is a fast week night dinner before a baseball game
• Just add carrot sticks and a fruit as sides (not chips :)

Farmer's Market Haul

French Bread (makes great garlic bread), Snap Peas, Carrots, Garlic (that is shaped like scallions), Shiitake Mushrooms, ASPARAGUS - great sign of spring, & Eggs

Saturday - I made mushroom swiss hamburgers (grass fed beef), fries, asparagus
Sunday - Lemon chicken parm, asparagus, noodles
Monday - Spaghetti, sauce, garlic bread
Tuesday - Quiche - spinach, ham, cheese, broccoli,
Wednesday - I have golf league so boys on their own.... PIZZA
Thursday - out to dinner at a conference
Friday - ???

Quiche to the rescue

I made this quiche for dinner tonight.  It has been a go to lately.  I am able to use so many different ingredients.  The only downside is that my 4 yr old doesn't like it.  The rest of the family LOVES it.  Tonight I am using,

• Cheese
• Ham
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower (which I am sneaking in so I won't use much)

Got the flu - Hang in there

My entire family got the flu last week so we are just recovering back into routine.  I will be posting as soon as we get going.  I was finally able to stomach grocery shopping.

How far did that come from???

Ok, so here is a work up of my produce in miles from my last shopping trip.  I was CRAVING fresh produce because it has been so long.  I broke down and bought some fresh fruit and veggies.

Sorry the pictures isn't perfect.   Even as an estimate it is crazy to see where the food came from, how far it traveled and how much that would cost me to drive.  AND THIS IS JUST PRODUCE.  I know all of that other "stuff" traveled quite a bit to get to me too.

Check out to the right, I have added an Amazon widget where I will place some of my favorite products that help me in my journey to eat healthy while being a full time teacher and mother of 2. First up is a book that really got me started on my locavore mission.  It is inspiring and fun to read.  Check it out!

Freezing Basil

So here is my first installment of my freezer series

FREEZING BASIL

Here is my basil plant.  It is sitting right on my kitchen window.  I picked off some of the larger leaves.

Stack the leaves so you can cut them into strips (Technically called chiffonade :)

Then put the strips into a freezer container to use later in soups, or my favorite, on top of pizza right after you pull it out of the oven.

Chance are you can get bunches of basil from your farmers market when in season.  Then just freeze and you can use them throughout the winter.  Mine lasted in these containers all winter.

Shopping trip

One major downfall of using a farmer's market is that if you are busy during the 5 hours it is open, once a week, than you don't get to go.  That's what happened to me this week so I was stuck getting everything from the grocery store.

 

I broke down and got bananas (organic at least) and strawberries.  Neither are at all local or in season but I was missing them terribly.