ChickPea Salad

We had this salad during coffee hour this past week at church.  Easy, yummy, and filling.

1 can chick peas (rinsed and drained)
1 cup pico de gallo (pick it up at the salad counter in your grocery store to save time/money)
1/4 diced red onion (only if it is not in your pico de gallo and if you want it)

Place chick peas in a bowl and mash with a fork.  Add pico de gallo (red onion also if you are adding) and mix together.  Serve on crackers, or bread.

NO idea what to do for lunch...

so took the boys to run some errands this morning.  As they were happily playing with some new toys I hear "mommy, I'm hungry."  Well I had NO idea what to serve them.  PB&J just didn't seem like a good choice today, it's chilly and blustery and I wanted them to eat something warm.  I check my favorite go to kids meal site and UREKA!!  Homemade Spaghetti O's were born.

I found the following recipe for Baby Bolognese and realized I had letter pasta and half a jar of crushed tomatoes frozen from the other night.  I immediately went to work.  As the sauce and the noodles were cooking I wondered is there an online recipe for homemade spaghetti o's so off I went to google.  SCORE!!!  Another post on the topic to help my endeavor.  You can find the recipe here Homemade Spaghetti O's.

So here is my version of Homemade Pspaghetti O's

1  16oz can crushed tomatoes (small can, although I used half of a large can that was frozen in my freezer)
1/4 onion chopped
6 baby carrots, diced
1 tbsp garlic powder
salt and pepper
1/4 tsp Herbs de Provence
1 cup ABC pasta (i used Manischewitz)
1/2 to 3/4 c shredded cheddar cheese
2 tbs milk

1. place crushed tomatoes, onion, and carrots in sauce pot, bring to boil
2. prepare pasta as directed
3. after sauce comes to boil add in garlic, salt, pepper, and Herbs de Provence
4. simmer sauce while pasta is cooking
5. once pasta is cooked, drain and add to sauce (reserve your pasta water)
6. add cheese, milk, and a little pasta water to sauce pot
7. serve and enjoy

Now I have to say, I've tried to have my boys eat spaghetti o's from a can before and they NEVER eat it.  Today they ate over half of what I gave them.  Oh and I had some too and it was really tasty.  I will be making this again, maybe even double the recipe so I can freeze some when I really need a quick lunch.

If you try this recipe please let me know how you liked it.

Birthday Party was saved!!!

So as we are in Lent and the boys have a friend with dairy and nut allergies I found myself in a pickle. How can I have yummy cupcakes that are safe for their little buddy and yet taste yummy? Well thanks to a good mommy friend we used a fantastic packaged product.

Cherrybrook Kitchen has awesome mixes for those that are restricted to certain diets for health reasons or for those who eat a certain way by choice.  I made the yellow and chocolate mix as well as the vanilla and chocolate icings.  YUMMY!!!  The texture was a little different but the taste was awesome!!!  I did add a teaspoon of vanilla extract to both mixes but I often do that with other cake mixes so nothing out of the ordinary.  Taking a page out of Sandra Lee's Semi-homemade book.

I totally recommend this product and let me know if you try it and how you like it.

Lunchtime Tip...Eureka!!

I have been researching a lot of new recipes lately. Seems like my kiddos are in a funk, granted I love PB&J but they need more variety. Well when hubby and I got married we got a mini food processor. I have only used it a handful of times. After seeing recipes for different meat salads I thought hmmm....idea.

Why not process the chicken or ham salads in the mini food processor? It makes it smooth and creamy and more appealing to my kiddos. The boys took turns pushing the button. (what a great way for kids to be involved in meal time)


Today I made them chicken salad.

1 can of chicken
1 tbsp sweet relish (one that I canned myself)
1 to 2 tbsp mayo
pepper and curry powder to taste

Puree to your liking.

This was wonderful. Easy on their palate as there was not a lot of chewing and they got to use my cool snowman spreaders to put the salad on crackers.

Next up, leftover filling and wonton wrappers. Yumm-oh!!!