vegetable, vegetable, vegetable...and CHEESE!

Kamryn has to eat vegetables all day if she doesn't eat her dinner the day before, so today I made spaghetti squash with spaghetti sauce, with chopped up tomatoes and some cheese.  Prettty tricky if I do say so myself.  Suckas!!!!

My kid's FAVORITE soup ever!

Cheeseburger Soup!
Seriously every kid in the world likes it...ok, about 90% of all de orphans in de whole world like this soup. Just make it!

• 1/2 or 1  pound ground beef or ground turkey
• 3/4 cup chopped onion
• 3/4 cup shredded carrots
• 3/4 cup chopped celery
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups cubed potatoes
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups cubed Cheddar cheese
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup sour cream

Ok, brown your beef or turkey....add the onion (you can drain the fat from the meat first if you want).  Sauté til onions are almost translucent.

Add veggies and broth.  Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes.

In a separate little pot mix the butter, flour and milk over heat until it's smooth, make sure you scrap the bottom of the pan as you stir it, the flour tends to stick down there.

Then slowly pour into soup mixture while stirring.

Add the sour cream...or don't, we don't and it taste fine.

and add the cheese, stir it in as it melts.  Then eat it because it's soo freaking delicious!!!!

The usual

So, I realize that our usual doesn't call for recipe, but I thought I'd post anyway. We're trying, this year, to have lunch be our biggest meal, then breakfast, then a small dinner. So this is what our usual lunch looks like (not that we have salmon everyday, only once a week, but chicken or beans) I love this lunch because all 4 of my kids eat every bite of it. They love salmon, they LOVE brocolli and they like the weird black beans, pepers, small onions on rice thing...which I think is weird.So since this isn't anything special, I thought I'd share my 2 favorite ways to cook salmon...

The way we like the most is to get the frozen filets (from Sam's) and put 4 of em on a cookie sheet, sprinkle them all with coconut oil (or olive or butter) then rright away sprinkle with lemon pepper. Then sometimes I squeeze some lemon juice on top, but usually I wait til after they are done and squeeze it on. Then I cover them with foil, bake em at 400 for 20 minutes. Take the foil off then let em cook for another 5 minutes or so (I always test with a fork to make sure it's peachy white intead of pink...blah)

and another thing is instead of lemon pepper and lemon, we use agave or honey for a sweet salmon. And it makes a really yummy crust on top of the salmon. So good! It's really good with lemon squeezed on afterwards.

Oh and the drink...OJ blended with ice, vanilla fro yo, 1tsp vanilla and an orange. Mmmm