Sandwich “Sushi Rolls”

16 Sep

I’ve been admiring pictures of school lunch bentos for a while now.  My girls aren’t in a full day program that would require a lunch of some kind yet.  However, I do try to be creative with some of their meals I make at home.  We have a dinosaur sandwich cutter that we use on occasion, but I recently came across a new idea –  sandwich “sushi rolls”.  I know that really it’s only sushi if it includes rice, so maybe these would be more like pinwheels.  But, my kids love sushi and since this resembles sushi, that’s what we call it.

I got the original idea on allrecipes.com here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/peanut-butter-and-jelly-sushi-rolls/detail.aspx.  You start by cutting the crusts off the bread, then use a rolling pin to roll the bread out.  Then, you decide what you want the filling, peanut butter and jelly, turkey and cheese, turkey and lettuce, lots of possibilities.  So far, we have done peanut butter and jelly and chicken lunch meat.

Rolled out bread, peanut butter and jelly spread on

Rolled out bread with chicken lunch meat

Next, you roll it up, then cut into 3 or 4 pieces.  The bread I am using here is on the small side, it is the organic multi grain bread from Bountiful Baskets, so I cut mine into 3 sections.  I do this twice for each of my kids, so they get 6 rolls each.  I like to arrange the 6 rolls into a flower for my girls.

This does require a little more effort than just a regular sandwich, but my girls get so excited to see something a little different on the plate.  Plus, I’ve found that they will finish off all the rolls, but as a sandwich, they normally don’t finish it all.  I had shared the peanut butter and jelly rolls with my Facebook friends a while back, and one of my friends told me the other day her son wasn’t finishing his sandwich at lunch, so she tried this out and he thought it was great and ate all the rolls.  In fact, some of the other kids wanted the rolls too!

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Spinach Manicotti

15 Sep

I still had some spinach left, and I had intended to make spinach artichoke dip, but used some of the ingredients I had on hand for that to make last night’s Radish Dip.  I had wanted to make Stuffed Shells, but the store only had 1 box of shells that was beat up.  The manicotti was right next to it on the shelf, so I decided to make it inside.  The process and end result is pretty much the same, plus, my family really likes manicotti.  Here is how I made it tonight.

Manicotti

1 box manicotti noodles
2 eggs
1 container (15 oz) ricotta cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, divided
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 lb fresh spinach, chopped
1 1/2 tsp basil
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1 jar of pasta sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Cook manicotti according to directions on box.  Drain and cool on a piece of aluminum foil.  Meanwhile, beat eggs in a medium bowl.  Stir in the ricotta, 1/2 cup of the mozzarella, 1/4 cup of the Parmesan, garlic, spinach, basil, and oregano.  Pour 1 cup of the pasta sauce into a 13 x 9 baking dish, or enough to make sure to cover the entire bottom of the dish.  Fill manicotti with the mixture and place in the dish.  Pour the remaining sauce over the filled manicotti, then sprinkle the remaining Parmesan and mozzarella.  Cover tightly with foil.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Remove foil, and bake for another 5-10 minutes, or until sides are bubbling and the cheese is melted.

This didn’t last long in my house tonight!

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Radish Dip

14 Sep

My husband loves radishes, and since they were 2 for $1, I bought some on my last trip to the grocery store.  He usually eats them raw, but this time suggested I make the radish dip I had made once before.  Last time it was actually more like a spread, so this time I changed it a little to make it more like a dip.

Radish Dip

What you need:
2 cloves garlic (You may add more or less depending on your taste level.  I actually used 4 cloves tonight and it was a bit much for me)
2 bunches radishes, quartered
8 oz cream cheese, softened
8 oz sour cream*

How to Make it:

Peel the garlic cloves and mince in a food processor.  Add the radishes and mince them as well.  Add in the cream cheese and sour cream, pulse until well blended.  Serve with chips or your favorite veggies.

*Note that if you want this to be more of a spread than a dip, omit the 8 oz sour cream and add another 8 oz of cream cheese.

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Kick Off to Savings

14 Sep

Kroger family of stores, including Fry’s Food Stores, has a new promo game out, Kick Off to Savings.  You can play once a day and win up to 2 prizes through 9/24/2011.  I didn’t win anything today, but I will be back to try each day!

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Frikadellen and Oven Baked Parmesan Sweet Potato Fries

13 Sep

A dear friend of mine (we used to be next door neighbors) introduced me to the Maggi Hackbraten mix packets when we used to trade off nights making dinner.  The packets are really easy, add 1/2 cup water and 1 lb ground beef.  Add 1 Tbsp oil to a skillet, form small patties, and cook until no longer pink in the middle. She would serve them with gravy, with mashed potatoes as a side.  Tonight, I learned from another friend that although the packet shows the patties and says hackbraten, they actually call the patties frikadellen.

I haven’t made these for a while, so I decided it was what we would have for dinner.  We had mashed potatoes recently and I had sweet potatoes from 9/10 Bountiful Baskets, so I decided to make sweet potato fries as a side.  I have a recipe that I have used a couple of times to make these, but decided to try something new tonight.  I had recently seen a recipe for oven baked Parmesan fries, so I decided to try something similar with my sweet potatoes.  Here is how I made them.

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

2 lbs sweet potatoes, washed, peeled
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp Italian blend seasoning
4 Tbsp Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Mix together the Italian blend seasoning and Parmesan cheese, set aside.  Cut sweet potatoes into 1/2″ strips, making them all as close to the same size as possible.  Add to a separate bowl.  Pour olive oil over sweet potatoes and toss to coat.  Pour the seasoning mix over the potatoes and again toss to coat.  Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray or olive oil.  Pour sweet potatoes into a single layer on the prepared baking sheet.  Cook for 30-45 minutes, turning halfway through, until fries are crispy on the outside (as shown below).

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Spanakopita (Spinach Pie)

12 Sep

My mom’s side of the family is Greek, and growing up, we lived in the same town as my grandparents.  And no, not next door like in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  We did get to see them often, though, and I did get a chance to learn some Greek traditions, attend some services at the Greek Orthodox church, and learn how to cook some traditional Greek dishes.  This also means that most of the dishes I learned how to make, I make from memory or sight, add a handful of this, a little of this, a little of that, until it looks right.  However, I have measured out the way I make spanakopita to my taste, and when I got all the spinach from Bountiful Baskets over the last 2 weeks, I knew I wanted to make this to be able to share how I make it since I get asked a lot.  So, here we go!

Spanakopita

1 roll phyllo dough (You can find this in your grocery’s freezer section with the pies and baked goods)
2 sticks unsalted butter, melted

Filling for spanakopita:
2 lb fresh spinach, chopped, or 3-10oz pkgs frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 lb feta cheese, crumbled
4 eggs
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1 Tbsp dried dill weed

How to put it together:

Preheat oven to 325 F.  Combine the ingredients for the filling and set aside.  Brush bottom and sides of 12″ X 18″ jelly roll pan with melted butter.   Lay phyllo dough in bottom of pan, and brush completely with butter. (Note: Depending on the size of your pan and the size of dough you find, you may need multiple pieces of phyllo dough to cover the bottom of the pan) Repeat the process of laying dough and buttering to create 5-6 layers of dough.  Pour filling over phyllo dough and spread evenly.

Spreading the filling on the phyllo dough

Place a layer of phyllo dough over the filling, again, brushing it completely with butter. Repeat the process of laying dough and buttering until you have 3-4 layers.

Score through top layers of the pastry with a sharp knife. I cut mine in straight lines to make squares, then add diagonal cuts to make triangles.  Pour remaining butter over.

Bake for 1 hour or until pastry is golden brown (see picture at top). Remove to rack and cool for 5 minutes.  Cut and serve!

 

You can find the cheese version of this, Tiropita, in this post.

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Coin Sorting Activity

12 Sep

This is another activity that was inspired by something from Pinterest.  It was a picture of a coin sorting activity using a snack divider tray.  K was bored after dinner one night and we had a ton of change that I needed to count and put in rolls.  I don’t have the snack divider tray shown in the picture, but I do have a 4 section glass plate that I believe was a wedding gift.  I put a coin in each section to show her what coin goes in that section.  Then, she started sorting the coins.

We didn’t get very far that night, K was tired from her day at school, but we picked it up the next morning.  We finished the sorting, then she started counting it into stacks of 10 so I could wrap it.  We worked on it a few times throughout the day, I think all the counting was wearing her out!

We ended having $52 in coins!  We will take it to the bank this week to deposit into savings for the girls.

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How I Got Started with Coupons

12 Sep

I have been putting off posting about coupons since I’m my coupons are a little disorganized and I keep putting off organizing it since other things have taken priority.  But, I thought today I would finally sit down to share how I got started with coupons.

I have heard stories of helping my mom with her “poo-cons” when I was small.  She and my aunt would get together to clip coupons and get deals.  Something must have stuck at that early age, because now that I have a family of my own and we are a 1 income household, I am always looking for a deal.  I handle all the finances for our household, and after our second daughter arrived, I knew it was really time to buckle down on our finances and find more ways to save money.  We had already taken a lot of extras out of our budget, things like cable TV, minimum house phone and cell phone services, but we still needed a way to save more.  I occasionally would use coupons, but generally would forget.  Around this time, a friend of mine really started to get into coupons. She was my motivation for getting more into coupons, and in April of 2010 I really started paying attention to sales ads better, getting multiple newspapers each Sunday for the coupons, and reading coupon blogs.

I found that I needed better organization, so I created my first coupon binder.  I bought a 2″ binder, 16 dividers with pockets, 2 packs of 9 pocket pages (like for baseball and trading cards), and 50 full sheet protective sleeves.  I decided that I would clip and organize by store aisle, so I created a cover page with my name and contact phone numbers in case I left my binder somewhere (and yes, this has happened a couple times) and a list of the sections I would divide the coupons into.

Then, I went to work each week clipping and organizing my coupons in the 9 pocket pages.

9 pocket page with coupons

I used the full sheet pages to put inserts I hadn’t clipped yet and to put the weekly store ads in.

Full sheet protectors with unclipped weekly inserts

This method worked for me for quite a while.  I also was reading blogs like The Krazy Coupon Lady and “The” Cents’Able Shoppin to get the coupon match ups for the weekly sales.  After a while, I made some changes to my organization, which I will talk about after I can get my coupons organized better and get some pictures to share what I do.

If you want to get started in coupons but don’t know where to start, I really like The Krazy Coupon Lady’s Beginners page.  It talks about different ways to organize your coupon binder, how to find coupons, how to change your mindset about shopping, how to understand sales cycles.  Another great resource for getting started is Jill Cataldo, founder of Super-Couponing.  You may have read her columns in your local newspaper.

With coupons, you have to be willing to give up some brand loyalties and decide what prices you are willing to pay and knowing how low of a price you can get on something.  It can be rather confusing at times, plus it’s a lot of work, but in the end, the payoff is worth it.

Salmon, Rice, and Roasted Cauliflower

12 Sep

I decided to try something new with my cauliflower from 9/10 Bountiful Baskets.  I had seen a post about roasted cauliflower on the Bountiful Baskets Facebook page, so I went to my go-to site for recipes, allrecipes.com, to get ideas on how to season and roast the cauliflower.  I decided I would serve it as a side to salmon, along with a box of long grain and wild rice.

For the roasted cauliflower, cut the head of cauliflower into even sized florets and preheated the oven to 400 degrees F.  I added 3 Tbsp of olive oil and 1 Tbsp of minced garlic to a gallon size bag. Then, I added the cauliflower florets to the bag and shook to coat them.  I added them to a baking pan I had sprayed with cooking spray, then sprinkled on some rosemary, about 1 tsp worth. I put the pan in the preheated oven.  After 10 minutes, I stirred the cauliflower.  I returned it to the oven for another 10 minutes, and the cauliflower had started to brown.  I removed from the oven and set my broiler to low. I then sprinkled 1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese and 1 1/2 tsp parsley.  I put the pan under the broiler for another 5 minutes until the Parmesan cheese had started to melt and the cauliflower was golden brown.

While the cauliflower was in the oven, I started on rice and the salmon.  The rice was a boxed mix, so I just followed the directions on the box.  The salmon I had on hand was frozen individually, and I thawed by putting in a sink of cold water for about 20 minutes.  While it was thawing, I started heating my George Foreman grill.  I cut open the packages and dried using paper towels.  I brushed olive oil on both sides, this salmon did not have scales on one side like it sometimes does.  If there are scales, I brush the olive oil only on the non-scale side.  I seasoned it with lemon pepper seasoning, then put them on the grill.  In just under 10 minutes, the salmon is done when it flakes easily.

In about 45 minutes, I had a filling meal.  Salmon is one of K’s favorites, so I try to make it 1-2 times a month.

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BBQ Chicken and Cornbread

11 Sep

I had some broccoli left from 8/27 Bountiful Baskets that I had chopped and frozen.  I love making Broccoli Cheese Cornbread with it, so I needed to decide on a main dish.  I have a lot of barbecue sauce that I got free with coupons, plus we had some buns that we needed to use up. So, I decided I would make shredded BBQ chicken in my slow cooker, which was perfect because I was going to be gone all afternoon co-hosting a baby shower and needed a low maintenance dinner.

To make the BBQ chicken, I first sprayed my slow cooker with cooking spray.  Next, I took frozen chicken out of the freezer and ran it under cold water to remove some of the ice.  I didn’t defrost it first, I put it in the slow cooker still frozen.  I have found that it still cooks thoroughly, so I skip the step of defrosting if I forget to get it out of the freezer or decide last minute what I’m making.  I then poured a whole 18oz bottle of barbecue sauce over the chicken.  I set it to low and set my timer for 6 hours (my slow cooker is a programmable one that cooks for the set time, then switched to the Keep Warm setting until you are ready to serve).  Once I was ready to finish up dinner, I shredded all the chicken and stirred well in the sauce.  This was then served on hamburger buns.

For the broccoli cheese cornbread, the broccoli was already chopped, so I just had to mix the ingredients.  This recipe calls for cottage cheese, which I thought seemed strange  at first, but it helps keep the cornbread really moist.  Here is how it is made:

 

Broccoli Cheese Cornbread

What you Need:

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup cottage cheese
  • 1/2 cup shredded mild cheddar cheese
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted
  • 1 (8.5 ounce) package dry cornbread muffin mix (I use Martha White, but Jiffy makes a mix as well)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1  1/2 cups chopped broccoli

How to Make it:

  1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease an 11×7 inch baking pan.  (You can use a 13×9 pan, but the cornbread will be pretty thin and you may need to adjust your cooking time.)
  2. In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs.  Mix in cottage cheese, shredded cheddar cheese and butter. Stir in the cornbread muffin mix and salt. Fold in the broccoli. Pour batter into prepared pan.
  3. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out clean.
Here is how it all turned out.  Both girls ate it!

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