What's for Dinner?

Dinner lately has been (if I do say so myself) SO delicious lately.  For those who are interested, here's what we've had the last week or so.

 

Mike got a recipe for fettuccine alfredo from a lady at Filomena's restaurant in St. Louis.  It isn't the perfect alfredo, but definitely super tasty and ridiculously easy.

Filomena's Fettuccine Alfredo

 

1.  Cook 8 oz pasta.  Drain and return to pot.

2.  Add half a stick of butter until melted, then add 1/2 c. cream and 3/4 good grated parmesan cheese until all melted and smooth.

3.  Stir in one beaten egg yolk

 

I also added some roasted broccoli.  It was good, and both kids even ate it.  That makes it a miracle meal.

 

Mike and I like meat, but sparingly.  We eat probably 50/50 meat vs. non-meat meals and sometimes, especially during the summer, we like to go without meat more often.  Hence, my meatless-but-it-totally-tastes-like-it-has-meat-in-it spaghetti sauce. 

Karen's Meaty Non-Meaty Spaghetti Sauce

 

1.  In a large pot (I used my dutch oven heavy duty guy) cook 2 medium onions, 1 lb. baby bella mushrooms, zucchini and garlic in olive oil until soft and starting to brown (or you can let them brown- they'll be amazing either way). 

2.  Add 2 cans diced tomatoes and 2 cans tomato sauce.  Add your spices - I used salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and fresh basil.  Sorry, I don't have any measurements, I just kind of add some, and then adjust later if needed. 

3.There are two secrets to this sauce, though.  One is sugar.  If you add a couple tablespoons it will lessen the acidity.  I learned that from Mike's mom and grandma.  :)  The other secret is that I add some chopped up parmesan rinds.  Since it's harder than the rest of the block of cheese, it doesn't melt all the way, making it a really hearty sauce. 

4.After I cook it for at least 3 hours, I blend it up until my kids don't know there are vegetables in it.  And there you go.  It is really delicious.  

 

Mexican haystacks.  Um....yum.  It's basically a burrito on rice.  I've made it with white and brown rice, and both were good.  The idea for it came from Pinterest, and they used ground turkey, but we really like tofu, and it was cheaper, so I just chopped it up and added the taco seasoning to that.  I also made my own refried beans here.  I used the recipe for black bean hummus, but only used about 2 teaspoons or less of the vinegar and smashed the beans rather than blending them.  They were amazing.

 

 

And last but not least, open-faced egg salad sandwiches with bacon and avocado.  Yeah, that's it, but it was really tasty.  Andrew was NOT a fan of the egg salad, but Emmie went nuts and loved it.  So that was good.  :)  It's nice to have a kid who eats what we give her.