What's For Dinner? Week 3

Probably gonna' be taking a lot more help from the freezer the next few weeks with all the parties and other functions going on. However, more parties also means less meals to plan too.
On the menu this week:
-homemade mac 'n cheese, steamed broccoli
-grandma's chili (from the freezer)
-roasted vegetable penne (from the freezer)

Thankfully, the mac 'n cheese recipe is huge so I froze half for later and therefore contributed to the freezer instead of just taking away. ;)

We have parties every weekend for the next 4 weeks, not including Christmas Eve and Day! I'm still not sure what I'm bringing to each but I need to decide fast. Not sure what kind of grocery shopping I'll be able to do next week, so this Thursday is going to be a big one.

Still trying different ways to get meat/protein foods into Will's diet. He's refusing most every main dish lately, but he's got veggies and fruit coming out of his ears. We tried "ants on a log" last night and he liked the crunch-factor so he managed to ingest a little peanut butter. Oh well. Will's still a very good eater and I guess if I have to deal with pickiness in one food group, meat's not so bad. We can work around that... it just takes creativity!

New for Sophie this week: lentils and cottage cheese (separately - LOL). I bought a bag of dry lentils (super cheap!) and ground them to a coarse powder like her cereal grains. Then I just cook a mixture of lentils and rice on the stove top to form a perfect porridge to be mixed with various vegetables and fruits, i.e. carrots, apples and squash. Cottage cheese - an excellent source of protein and good source of dairy - can be paired with any fruit, veggie or grain.

Quick nutrition lesson: Rice and beans - one of the oldest dishes in human history - originated with the discovery that diets based on single plant foods do not foster optimal growth because certain amino acids are lacking. When certain vegetable proteins are combined, they can make up for those deficiencies together. For this reason, they are nicknamed "complimentary proteins". Other examples: grains/legumes such as pea soup and toast or ANY combo of rice and beans; grains/dairy such as pasta and cheese, rice pudding, cheese sandwich, etc. Often times, people think of rice and beans as a fattening dish. But that just depends on how you prepare it. Creating a porridge as I mentioned above (even if the grains and legumes are left whole) is a very healthy dish for people of all ages. Chinese cultures make a dish called congee ("con-jee") that you can make right in the crock pot with 6-8 cups of liquid (water or broth) to just 2 cups of any grain (brown rice, jasmine rice, barley, etc.) or bean. Sounds like a lot of liquid, but they let it cook overnight and then serve it for every meal of the day adding various things to change up the dish. For example, you could do a jasmine rice and add cinnamon, nuts and dried fruit for a breakfast porridge. Then at lunch and dinner add some savory vegetables and herbs. Of course you can also scale back to much smaller portions prepared just on the stove top... as in Sophie's dinner tonight!

Some other routine meals for Sophie:
-avocado mashed with banana or yogurt and a grain on the side
-oatmeal, yogurt and applesauce (soon to be topped with cinnamon for an "apple pie" flavor)
-chicken with mixed veggies and a grain on the side
-a grain/veggie combo with pears on the side

So this coming weekend we have a birthday dinner with friends and one (of many) family Christmas parties on Sunday. Should be some good food and socializing!