Yo-Yo

Afternoon snack of leftover pizza. Followed by a dinner of Triscuts, cheese & turkey lunchmeat.

Spaghetti for the Kids

Man & I had a little Hell & Farewell shindig to attend, but I "cooked" spaghetti for the kids before I left. I'm using "cooked" in the very loosest sense . . . meaning I boiled the pasta and dumped a can of cheap spaghetti sauce on top. My only embellishment was a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.

They didn't mind my culinary slacking. They probably didn't even notice the lack of loving in the form of meat, garlic, onion, basil, oregano, etc. etc. etc.

Dinner for the adults included a catered BBQ buffet. Normally, that might be a bit scary here in Brussels, but this particular buffet was catered by some of our spouses. Apparently, I'm not the only HausFrau in town who can cook.

Quick & Easy

Food Category: G-Rated
Difficulty: Easy

Tonight, I had a very important meeting to attend. OK, fine. It was a very interesting game of Bunco. But the point is that I threw together some food for the family before I headed out.

Man had leftover turkey & stuffing from the freezer. The kids had chicken strips baked in the toaster oven. I did make mashed potatoes to pull both meals together. Veggies, Schmeggiges. Who eats them if Mom's not home anyway?

Obviously, there was nothing exciting food-wise, but I'll share my recipe for HausFrau's Red Rooster:

2 quarts of cranberry juice
8 oz frozen orange juice concentrate
2 1/3 cups of peach vodka

Mix together into a gallon bucket (I use my Bill Miller ice tea bucket) with a lid & freeze for 24 hours. The cranberry & orange juice certainly count toward you five-a-day. Substitute orange juice blend with calcium for that extra nutritional punch. See how healthy it is? And vodka is made from potatoes. It's almost like kicking back a V8.

Sandwiches

Food Category: G-Rated, Bum Lovin'
Difficulty: Easy

Plain old sandwiches & chips for dinner. Browned turkey, pepper jack, red tipped lettuce, sliced Kosher dill pickles on whole wheat. Served with Cool Ranch Doritos, Funyuns, cucumber slices, carrot sticks & dill/sweet pickle spears.

Pizza

Heat & Eat pepperoni pizza & side salads.

This was only one step above frozen pizza because it was the refrigerated kind from the commissary.

Yes, I actually made a commissary run yesterday & that's precisely why I didn't have time to cook. 2+ hours of total driving time, 2 hours of shopping, 2 shopping carts full . . . $618! Which is my new official record.

What that means for us? My freezers, fridge and pantry are stocked full & I will be cooking lots of exciting meals.

Starting tomorrow.

In true HausFrau spirit, we did have homemade croutons on our salads:

I make croutons out of odds & ends pieces of bread that I collect in a Ziploc freezer bag for a few months. I save all the dried out & stale bread ends from whole wheat, worthless white, hamburger buns, etc, until I have enough to make it worth my while. Or until we run out of croutons in between commissary trips.

To make the croutons:

• lightly butter both sides of bread, I used I Can't Believe it's Not Butter, Mediterranean Blend
• sprinkle with your favorite flavors: garlic & onion powder, seasoned salt, Parmesan cheese
• cut into bite sized cubes
• lightly coat a baking pan with evoo
• place bread cubes on the baking pan, single or double layer
  
• bake at 200F for about 2 hours, turning occasionally

You want to dehydrate the bread, not make toast, so bake the croutons low & slow. Whole wheat and other dense breads take longer to bake.

Sometimes, these croutons actually find their way onto a salad. Most often, they are immediately consumed right out of the oven.

Nachos

Food Category: G-Rated, with Food Porn tendencies
Difficulty: a monkey could make this

We used blue corn tortilla chips because they look like bat wings - also the dark purple of the chips & the orange of the cheese look like Halloween on a plate. We topped the chips with cheddar & Monterrey Jack. Melted the cheese on lowest power in the microwave. Served with Haus Salsa & jalepeños.

And, yes, the Kinder talked me into making more salsa. Now I have enough for taco salads on Wednesday night. Whoo Hoo!

Fish & Chips

Food Category: G-Rated, Bum Lovin'
Difficulty: Easy

This was yet another super exciting meal our the Haus tonight!

The Protein:

Garlic & Herb Crunchy Fish Fillets by Gordon's, straight out of the box & cooked in the toaster oven.

The Veggie:

Frozen petite green peas that were nuked, sprayed with I Can't Believe it's Not Butter & sprinkled with salt

The Carb:

Oven Baked Potato Chips

• preheat oven & baking sheet to 450F
• peel & thinly slice potatoes
• toss with olive oil, salt &/or pommes frites seasoning
• line hot baking pan with parchment paper
• place potatoes on hot pan in a single layer
• baked for 10-15 minutes, turning frequently, until crisp & golden brown

The potatoes cook better if they are in a single layer, but I had more potatoes & just piled them up on the pan. If you eat single servings, this meal is about 500 calories. Load up on raw veggies if you need more volume.

Leftover potential: Peas can be frozen in the freezer soup container. Should you have leftover fish, it can be reheated in the toaster oven to make fish sandwiches later. Potatoes can be added to soups, but not frozen first. They can also be tossed into omlettes or breakfast burritos.

Haus Egg McMuffins

Food Category: G-Rated, Bum Lovin'
Difficulty: Easy

If you need help working the griddle magic, here's a recipe for McMuffins. We are having these tonight because I bought English muffins yesterday at the Shoppette for 50% off & had everything else to make them on-hand.

I basically followed the above recipe with the following exceptions:

• 3-4 deli thin slices of ham lunch meat, instead of Canadian bacon
• extra sharp cheddar cheese
• one slice of heat & eat Oscar Mayer bacon

Laze-E & I had poached/grilled eggs while MiniMe had scrambled. I used my big can of Contadina crushed tomatoes from last night's minestrone for the egg mold for both types of eggs. For the poached/grilled eggs, I covered the can with foil to get some steam action going.

These Haus McMuffins are around 300 calories each, give or take, depending on these cheese. You could shave a few calories by using low fat/fat free cheese. Whole wheat muffins would be great but I haven't seen those here in Belgium.

I did look-up the nutritional value on a real Egg McMuffin & it's (surprisingly) 300 calories also. But the Haus brand taste better & are way cheaper, so why bother with the Golden Arches?

Leftover potential: I only make what we are going to eat, but should you have leftovers, they could probably hang in the fridge for a few days. Heat & eat for a quick & easy breakfast.

Pita Pizza

Food Category: G-Rated, Bum Lovin'

Difficulty: Easy

It's just the girls and I for a few nights, so simple it is. Tonight we built our pizzas on whole wheat pita bread, topped with Contadina bottled pizza sauce, grated mozzarella, a sprinkle of basil-garlic seasoning, leftover chicken meatballs (chopped w/o the buffalo sauce) and snipets of fresh basil.

Here's the link to my Pita Pizza Debut for cooking method.

Fillet of Fish

Food Category: G-Rated, High-5, Bum Lovin'
Difficulty: Easy

Fish

Totally out of the box Gorton's:

• Garlic & Herb Crunchy Breaded Fillets
• Garlic Butter Grilled Fillets

Tartar Sauce

• Light Miracle Whip and/or Light Mayo
• dill pickle relish
• lemon juice
• finely grated onion
• pepper & lemon herb seasoning

Oven Fried Potato Wedges

• sliced unpeeled potatoes into skinny wedges
• toss with evoo & season with salt, pepper, garlic & onion powder, seasoned salt or pommes frites seasoning
• bake at 400F for 20-30 mins, turning frequently until desired crispness

Broccoli & Carrots (both fresh & steamed in microwave)

I don't measure anything when making the Tartar Sauce. Just throw ingredients together until it looks/tastes good. However you mix it up, it will taste mucho better than the kind in the jar.

To speed up the baking time for the potatoes, place unseasoned potato wedges in a microwave safe bowl & cover with plastic wrap. Microwave on high for a few minutes. This little bit of precooking will pull a lot of the water out of the potatoes. Don't overcook potatoes in the microwave - you want the potatoes to still be "hard" to the touch - just with less water. Drain water, pat potatoes dry with papertowels. Then add olive oil and seasoning & bake in the oven. These potatoes are really good sprinkled with parmesean cheese right before serving.

For a healthy dessert:

Orange-Pineapple-Banana Smoothies

• frozen bananas (peel and freeze in chunks)
• frozen pineapple (freeze either fresh or canned - reserve the juice)
• 1 orange, zest first, then peel & remove seeds

Blend orange zest & whole orange with just enough skim milk, orange juice or pineapple juice to get the blender going & pulverize the orange. Add frozen fruits & more liquid. Again, just enough liquid to keep the blender going. You may have to stop frequently and spoon the frozen masses down to the blades & add small amounts of juice or milk.

You want the smoothies so thick that you have to spoon them out of the blender & eat with a spoon (not straw!).

Hello, my name is HausFrau and I am hell on blenders, but I make awesome smoothies.

The fruits & veggies & grilled fish are all totally bum lovin'. If you are dieting, just be careful with the breaded fish, the potatoes & tartar sauce.

Leftover potential: Tartar sauce will keep in the fridge for a few days. Straight-up leftovers are an option. Potatoes can be added to omlettes. Veggies can be frozen for soups later. Fish can be used to make fish sandwiches for lunch. Leftover smoothies are yuck -- so bottoms up!

Leftovers

Food Category: Leftovers, Junk Food, PG & G-Rated
Difficulty: Easy

Leftover Enchiladas & Rice

I had enough leftover from the other night for 2 people.

Frozen Chicken Nuggets & Lipton Alfredo Pasta Side

This was enough food for 2 people

Side Salad: lettuce, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, croutons

Although I started out with grand dinner plans, I just couldn't work the magic tonight. I have had a nagging headache all day, and it was raging by afternoon. Quick and easy was the best I could do.

My advice is to always have something on hand that can be thrown together for a quick meal. Frozen pizza, chicken strips or straight-up leftovers. Regardless of how bad the nutritional info on the prepackaged junk, it's probably better than most take-out food & most likely cheaper.

Leftover potential: Not really. Unless there are a few leftover nuggets that can be tossed in to tomorrow's school lunch box or used for a snack later.