A Little help from the grocery store

Thank you Trader Joe's! I love that grocery store! They carry all the same stuff as a regular grocery store, but almost everything is their own brand. I spent only $60 on groceries yesterday and managed to pick up stuff for four dinners! That's how much we would spend on one dinner out! Yes, I cook at home everyday. Only on special occasions or if I am extremely tired do we call for take out.
After about two years of tasting what's available for delivery, we've decided that my cooking tastes better and better for the wallet (no tipping required)!
Last night I made hot and sour soup, orange chicken, vegetable stir fry and steamed rice. Of course I had help from the freezer section of Trader Joe's. They sell frozen vegetables in variety of blends and I bought the Asian one for last night's meal. All I had to do was open the package, pour it into the pan and stir for about five minutes then add the soy sauce that came with it. Of course I added a few extras to make it mine. The orange chicken was just as simple! It's a bag of frozen par fried chicken pieces and sauce packets. I have stainless steel cookware so I just plopped the chicken into the pan and threw it in the oven for 25 minutes to cook. When it was ready I poured on the sauce and heated it a minute on the stove top..viola dinner was ready!

I love hot and sour soup, but never made it before so I was a little nervous that mine wouldn't taste as good, but as it turns out I make a pretty good hot and sour soup! Jimmy said it was one of the best hot and sour soups he has had! It was so easy and I got to put all of my favorite ingredients in it and leave out the ones I usually fish out. I also didn't have any green onions so I substituted shallots and it worked just right.

I picked up some pizza dough and frozen lasagna there too. I bought dough for Jimmy and I to make and one for Kai. I thought it would be fun for him to roll, top and bake his own pizza. Then that would take care of our weekly pizza/pasta craving.

I've been on a roll with the cooking and have a rotation of cuisines that I make now. It consists of Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Mexican, American comfort food (meatloaf, mac and cheese, chicken and dumplings, beef stew..etc), Mediterranean and Srevotfel (Jimmy just taught me that one this week. It's leftovers spelled backwards..^_^).

What's for dinner?

That's a question I ask myself everyday. Sometimes I take the time to plan a weeks menu in advanced and sometimes it's just too much work to do with a toddler tugging at my shirt and a newborn crying in her crib. But last night I was able to invent a new pasta dish that consisted of what I had on hand. Onions, garlic, bacon, mixed greens, grape tomatoes, sundried-tomato pesto, parmesean cheese and multi-grain pasta. A dish made in 10 minutes! I'm no Rachael Ray, but I have to cook lots of meals in less than 30 minutes so I have to be creative. The pasta turned out pretty good.

So this is what I did to prepare it. (just a note on how I cook: I don't measure things unless I am baking so it's usually an estimate when measurements are given. That way I have room for adjusting the flavor to my prefrence.)
Put water on to boil. Chop garlic, slice onions, cut bacon into 1 inch pieces and wash tomatoes. When water comes to a boil have the kid season water with salt and dump in pasta. While pasta is cooking heat up frying pan and add bacon. Cook until crispy and remove from fat and set aside. Drain bacon grease and let cool to discard later or save to use for frying eggs for breakfast. Into the pan goes a splash of olive oil along with the onions, garlic, and tomatoes. Cook until grape tomatoes start to pop turn down the heat. Save half a cup of pasta water for pasta then drain the pasta and add to frying pan along with 1/4 cup of sundried-tomato pesto, mixed greens and the pasta water. Toss to mix everything and serve with grated parmesean. This made enough for four.

Yes, my two year old sous chef gobbled up this pasta..so did the hubby. In my house watever my son helps prepare he eats. This kid is amazing. His palate goes beyond mac n' cheese. His favorite cheese at the moment is Gruyere. I'm not saying that he's the perfect toddler who eats everything, but he will eat what he cooks. At the moment he is going through that stage of toddlerhood where he eats well one day and not so much the next. He's testing his bounderies, so I had to teach him about compromise. Yesterday's comprmise was, "If you eat all your dinner you can have a cookie." I know it's a bribe but it's not a bad one. We both got what we wanted.
Now the baby is crying so rescue her I must.