Gardein burgers

Went to Target for a few things on sale and ended up using coupons and getting a bunch of clearanced food. Spent $104 and filled the fridge, the freezer and most of the cupboards. No more snow peas for lunch!

I had a coupon for $1.50 off 3 Gardein meatless products. They were on sale for $3.79 and they're normally $4.49. We got burgers, chicken fingers and beef tips.

Martin's Potato Rolls were on sale for $2.49, regularly $3.29.

Organic spring mix was on sale for $2, regularly $3.99.

I fried up some burgers with spring mix on potato rolls, served with a side of Bush's vegetarian baked beans and the cantaloupe I promised my daughter.

That lunch hit the spot!

Spinach salad with fruit and seeds

Mix in proportions that make you happy:

- spring mix
- spinach
- mandarin oranges
- dried cranberries
- dried blueberries
- raisins
- unsalted roasted sunflower seeds
- unsalted pumpkin seeds
- sliced honey crisp apples
- dehydrated peas

Top with Newman's Own Light Raspberry & Walnut Dressing

Husband Hamburgers

Because husband got unexpectedly called into work, I didn't have a chance to eat properly. This led to a mild mommy meltdown. Husband saved the day with burgers from the ground beef I bought earlier. While he cooked them, child and i went to Aldi and, among other things, got English muffins for buns. I thought the texture would be delightful and it was.... Airy and crispy.

We dressed them with spring mix and ketchup for the little one and Archer Farm's buffalo blue cheese dip for the grown-ups.

Husband sprinkled some of my country herb blend on each one.

Veg BLT

My in-laws left at 11:45 which left me 22 minutes to whip up lunch, when we're low on groceries and I strained my back.

I had my daughter help me whip up a batch of skillet biscuits, all with unbleached white flour as I'm out of my specialty flours of wheat and rye.

When my husband got home, he sliced a tomato from the garden for me and got the spring mix ready. My daughter got the mayo. I put a drop of olive oil in the small frying pan and dropped our last four slices of Morningstar Vegetarian bacon in the pan and covered them with a pinch of organic four color pepper.

We assembled the little sandwiches and they were yummy. For dessert we had warm biscuits with blackberry jam, and my daughter-- so enamored with these fluffy biscuits-- requested a THIRD, this one with peanut butter and jelly.

Tammy's lunch: Warmed Stuffed Dates

The salad for Tammy's lunch was simple: spring mix my mother-in-law brought with the Very Veggie Dole prepackaged salad, added some cucumber from the store, a diced green pepper from my garden, and lots of raisins and sunflower seeds.

Dessert was fresh pineapple and strawberries.

The entree was leftover sicilian.

The beverage was the house specialty of green tea and rose tea.

But the warm appetizer stole the attention.
I modified my stuffed date recipe.

I sliced the dates in half and coated my skillet with walnut oil. I warmed the skillet on low, added a dash of cinnamon across the bottom of the pan, and added the dates. I increased heat to almost medium and let the dates cook for about four minutes. Then I flipped them. Waited four minutes or so and removed them from the skillet.

I turned the heat off from under the skillet, added a slice of morningstar vegetarian bacon for each whole date, waited a minute, and flipped the bacon. Since the heat was off and the skillet was slowly cooling, I left the bacon in there and swiped some cream cheese into each of my date halves. Then I closed the dates and returned them to their original shape.

Once all the dates were stuffed, I wrapped each date in fake bacon and returned them to the skillet where I baked them in a preheated oven (400 degrees) for about ten minutes.

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
  

Daddy's tuna

On Monday when I got home from class, my husband made tuna on toasted English muffins (in the freezer from the buy one, get one free sale) and melted cheddar with spring mix (from the tortoise's stash) and tomato from the garden...

Turkey and Brie sandwiches

The flood has turned our regular eating habits upside down. Subway, boxed mac and cheese, pie for breakfast. Nutrition has fallen to the wayside.

Today for lunch I packed potato chips from Aldi. Cheap-o lunchmeat my inlaws bought on white bread... Which I dressed up...

How does this sound?

White Italian Bread, with soy mayonnaise. Cheap turkey, some brie, some organic spring mix and a thin layer of organic raspberry jam from Wegmans.

Pineapple picnic

This house certainly operates on the feast or famine principle. This week will be the famine menu. It started yesterday with a breakfast meeting of the Northampton County Penn State Cooperative Extension advisory board, where my daughter and I each had an order of cinnamon raisin French toast. Of course, my daughter also had a banana before we left home.

After the meeting, my preschooler visited her grandparents while I went to work. I think my husband ate the last piece of quiche for lunch and I received the last of the macaroni and cheese which I didn't get to eat until 3 p.m. Yesterday was the first day of class for my new undergraduate degree (like I need a second one). So by the time we got home, I wasn't hungry so my husband and daughter had a simple dinner of nachos with refried beans and mango salsa.

Today my husband and I had my homemade oatmeal-almond-apple cookies for breakfast, but the child wanted a granola bar with her apple juice. We took my husband to work and came home where we then gave the tortoise a bath and gave her some fresh spring mix. She didn't touch it (only I could have a picky tortoise) so we offered her some canned chunk pineapple. That was a hit. My daughter joined the tortoise for a picnic on the dishwasher. Pineapple for everyone!

Today is day two of class, the first day of my senior history seminar at 11 a.m. My husband and daughter have lunch planned at Lafayette College's student center. He packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and raw broccoli with blue cheese dressing. As for me, I know I have to eat but who knows what or when.

We're supposed to get snow today and I'm scheduled to do a site visit at one of my middle schools for work and then attend a board of trustees meeting for our local library. I'm thinking dinner may be leftover pork or maybe something like soup with the funky spinach and feta peorogies. I hope to make a pizza crust Thursday a.m. and bring hot artichoke heart/black olive pizza for my daughter and husband to munch on while I'm in class.