Salsa festival

As I mentioned a while ago, Wegmans phased out their organic mango salsa and I haven't been to Wegmans lately to see if they rolled out their new salsa line.

We made nachos tonight with canned refried beans, cheddar, velveeta (a gift), and black olives on Archer Farms blue multigrain tortilla chips with flax seed. (These chips very much hurt my broken tooth, somehow chip ended up over there when I hadn't chewed on that side.)

I had a coupon for $1 off if I bought one 16-ounce Archer Farms salsa and one bag of Archer Farms chips. Hence the chips mentioned earlier. The chips were $2.99 before my discount(s) and coupon. The salsas were between $2.99 and $3.31 a jar. Odd price range.

I opted for two jars: one mild (raspberry with jalapeño, pineapple and red bell peppers) and one medium (corn, black bean & roasted red peppers with roasted jalapeño, red bell peppers and green chiles).

Both are tasty. Now the cheap salsa from Aldi has 10 calories per 2 tablespoons, 180 mg sodium, 2% RDA of vitamin A and no protein or other vitamins/minerals.

My favorite Wegmans mango salsa has 15 calories, 105 mg sodium, no protein, but 8% RDA of A and 15% vitamin C. Much more nutrition.

Archer Farms? Well...

The mild raspberry has 15 calories, 120 mg sodium, 1 gram protein, 4% vitamin A and 6% vitamin C. So it has some punch, but not like the mango. And the corn/black bean also has 15 calories, 220 mg sodium (holy cr*p), 1 gram protein, 2% vitamin A and 10% vitamin C.

Each year I plan my garden hoping to grow enough herbs and ingredients for homemade salsa. Hopefully this summer I'll learn to can and if I don't grow enough, I'll be visiting local farms and farmers markets. Let's make salsa!

Farewell, my salsa

Wegmans organic mango salsa has been a staple in my house for six years. My daughter loves nachos, so I pile them with beans, real cheddar cheese we grate ourselves and the mango salsa. That particular salsa was the only commercial salsa that packed nutritional punch:

Compare

2 Tablespoons wegmans mango salsa has
105 mg sodium
1 g fiber
3 g sugar
15 calories
8% rda vitamin A
15% rda vitamin C

Versus same serving of salsa from Aldi
180 mg sodium
1 g fiber
1 g sugar
2% vitamin A
No vitamin C

But wegmans has discontinued this product and will relaunch the line. I eagerly wait to see if a new product can compare.

Turkey salsa sandwich

I made myself a delectable pre-Thanksgiving treat:
My turkey salsa sandwich.
(my husband did a bagel and milk run yesterday morning and he wanted smoked turkey lunch meat.)
- half a jalapeno bagel, toasted
- for the condiment about 2 tablespoons Wegmans mango salsa
- two slices turkey
- lots of spinach and romaine

Refreshed Mexican

I took last night's leftovers from Mex Tex Trio and piled them on top of fresh nacho chips with some extra cheese and black olives and our favorite wegmans mango salsa.

To do that, hubby had to run to Aldi first for chips. He spent $17.41 and got a nice assortment of groceries. He was given the list, "greens, chips, soymilk, sauce, fruit?"

He came home with:
- 64 ounces of soymilk, $2.29
- 8 small cans of tomato sauce, 25 cents each
- 2 bags white tortilla chips, 99 cents each
- the Aldi brand of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch, $1.79
- small bag of spring mix, $1.69
- jalapeno cheddar kettle chips, $1.99
- Broccoli crowns, $1.49
- strawberries, $1.69
- raspberries, $2.49

Nachos

For a late lunch yesterday, we used the leftover browned hamburger from the "Daddy Pasta" my husband made the other day (I don't think I blogged about that), added some cheddar and Velveeta on multigrain chips and some Wegmans mango salsa and sour cream leftover from my cake.

Quesadilla

I wanted to make cheddar and bean quesadilla with my homemade guacamole last night but I didn't get there... We had salads with guac and chips instead.

Today for lunch I made the quesadillas: cheddar, velveeta, black beans and black olives, garnished with romaine lettuce, homemade guacamole, and mango salsa. And a side of strawberries.

The little one loves it, and while she insists at restaurants she does NOT like guacamole, she sure loves mine.

She even said to me when I served her, "This is guacamole?"
And I replied yes.
"But I don't like guacamole, but I love this!"

broccoli cheese quesadillas

For a quick easy dinner last night that included a green veggie, my husband (at my suggestion) made cheddar-broccoli quesadillas in the skillet and served with mango salsa. Not high cuisine, but tasty and kid friendly. Included a green veggie, an orange fruit, calcium and protein. All good in my book. And literally, he chopped the broccoli and cooked it in the microwave, slapped it inside flour tortilla shells with lots of cheese and cooked with cooking spray in the pan. That's all. Nothing fancy.

Parmesan Tuna Sandwiches

So, I did make tuna sandwiches for lunch on the store bought wheat bread from Wegmans. (I bought it because I had a coupon.) We only have one can of tuna, so that means a half-sandwich for each of us (Mommy, Daddy and Baby).

My tuna today was:

• one can solid white tuna packed in water
• 2 tablespoons safflower mayonnaise*
• 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
• 3 slices Wegmans whole wheat sandwich bread sliced in half.

*What shocked me is that my mayonnaise is really mayonnaise. For years, I've been using vegan/soy mayonnaise for health reasons and because I hate mayonnaise in the traditional sense. But when I was scraping the last of the mayo out of the jar, I noticed that the ingredients listed eggs. I had purchased safflower mayonnaise instead of soy!

What made that even more compelling was the high vitamin E content in the mayonnaise. 1 tablespoon of that safflower mayonnaise has 2o% of the RDA of Vitamin E. Interesting.

To accompany these meager sandwiches, I also served tortilla chips and mango salsa (vitamins A & C thanks to the salsa) and applesauce. We also had a snack a few minutes ago of dried Italian meat stick so I'm sure that will also help compensate for the half-sandwich.

Yummy Yummy Taco Salad

While I walked our daughter to school in some very nasty wind, my husband made this incredible salad:

• organic spring mix
• black beans
• black olives
• New York Extra Sharp Cheddar
• tortilla chips (broken)

with a dressing of

• sour cream
• mango salsa
  

Stuffed Quesadillas tonight

Tonight I made stuffed quesadillas... because despite going to the warehouse club last night we have no milk or eggs and I didn't thaw out meat and we had tomato soup for lunch so that ruled out anything with tomato sauce so no pasta (and I had hoped to have pasta tomorrow)

Now that was a run-on sentence.

In a skillet, I layered some extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled some garlic pepper, with the heat on medium low, I added a tortilla shell, piled it with black beans and sliced black olives, then lots of extra sharp cheddar, a little pepperjack for zest, and a lid of another tortilla shell. Cook until crisp on the outside, gooey on the inside.

Serve in nice triangles with mango salsa and sour cream.

Burritos for lunch

Friday night we went to a seafood restaurant with my dad, where my daughter ate and ate and ate: salad, shrimp, half of grandma's chicken, fries, sweet potato fries, bread and butter, water, pineapple juice, a few bites of veggies, ice cream, whipped cream AND a haagen-daaz bar. This was _after_ she had milk and three slices of watermelon at school (for red day) and a pumpkin scone for an afterschool snack and a couple handfuls of fritos because she caught me red-handed.

Yesterday she spent the day with her Mimi and we had a party for author Kaylie Jones to attend. Hence, no food entries.

Today we had bean burritos for lunch. To use up the nacho stuff from the other night. We had refried beans, lots of black olives, cheddar cheese and mango salsa.

Funky Mexican Style Meal

We made that hot bean dip on Sunday and today I plan on using it for some sort of cheddar cheese burritos for lunch. I'm currently boiling water for brown rice. 1 cup instant brown rice. I put in the pan 2 cups water, about a teaspoon commercial chili powder (the kind that has all the chili seasonings not just chili powder), about a teaspoon garlic powder and a few twists of my pepper grinder with the four color peppercorns.

After the rice cooked for about six minutes I threw in some tiny pieces of fresh broccoli, about 1/4 cup frozen corn, about a 1/4 cup frozen peas, and about a 1/4 cup fresh matchstick carrots that are no longer that fresh.

I sprayed my skillet with some no-stick spray, tossed in flour tortilla, some shredded cheddar and a few spoonfuls of the bean dip. With the heat on around medium, I slapped a lid on the skillet and cooked it until the cheese melted, careful not to let the bottom of the tortilla burn. I pulled it off the heat, topped with mango salsa and rolled.

Those who have followed my blog for a while know that I serve mango salsa with my Mexican dinners because it has a nice vitamin C and vitamin A content, so it's not nutritionally void like a lot of salsas. I use Wegmans. They have a generic version that's organic.

Chili Nachos

Hubby took some of the chili out of the freezer tonight and made nachos for us. Messy and delicious. My daughter spent the weekend with her grandmother so husband and I ate a lot of junk... Really, we did. Like one night for dinner we had jalapeno poppers, onion petals and Coke floats.

Crazy Quesadilla

My husband used my idea and made crazy quesadillas tonight. We made them with fresh broccoli, slightly cooked, cheddar, and tortilla shells--oh and more morningstar veg chik'n. I hate using lots of soy analogs... And we topped them with salsa, mango salsa, spinach dip, guacamole, sour cream, Frank's hot sauce... and for dessert: watermelon!

Time for Nachos!

After a very busy morning of playing outside in the snow, we had nachos for lunch. When my daughter was a toddler, she adored three meals that she never seemed to tire of: nachos, salad and yogurt. And we're not talking plain old processed cheese and chips as nachos. We made nachos piled high with real cheese, refried beans, black olives, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream and salsa- regular and mango!

Daddy makes nachos for dinner or lunch. We use canned vegetarian refried beans (though I bought beans to make my own and never got around to doing it.) We grate our own cheese. The organic mango salsa from Wegmans is the key. In two tablespoons of salsa (and we tend to eat 1/4 to 1/2 cup each instead of 2 TBSP), there's 15% of your RDA of vitamin C and 15% vitamin A, gotta love that mango!

So even though nachos traditionally seem like junk food, in my book, they are not. Real cheese for lots of calcium, tomatoes and lettuce for vegetable matter, beans for protein and fiber, and the salsa for the vitamin content.