Roasted mushrooms and fruit salad

I subscribe to emeals. So sometimes I follow their meal plans. I don't love their meal plans. I have a hard time picking a meal plan that really suits the way we like to eat. The vegetarian plan is most like what we like, but not perfect. I usually pick 4 meals to make out of the 7 they provide. I feel like their plans cost more money than when I do my own meal planning. And I feel like we eat better food on my plans. I don't know how that works out. Just tastes preferences I guess.

Poorly pictured above is one of their meals. Roasted portobello mushrooms with blue cheese and a side of summer fruit salad. The mushrooms were good, I would have preferred them sliced over a salad though. Just to make it a little more main dish-y. But I would make it again.

The fruit salad was ok. It was fruit mixed with yogurt, cinnamon, and honey. The kids LOVED it. I would have rather eaten a bowl of a fruit and then a bowl of yogurt. But that's just how I roll. 

Lemony Shrimp Scampi Pasta

I forgot to take a pic, but I made a variation of this the other day. A lot of time when I make dinner if I'm not menu planning (which I suck at) I just try to use up what I have in the kitchen already.

I pretty much stuck to the recipe, I used frozen pre-cooked shrimp instead of fresh. I didn't make the shrimp broth, I just caramelized some onions and added water to them and the marinade to make the sauce.

It was ok. Very light tasting. We prefer a little more kick in our meals around here. If I made it again I would up the garlic and red pepper at least. I know a lot of people like bland food, it's one of my problems when following recipes.

Pizza pasta

Pizza is a magic word in my house. I have made lots of "pizza" items in my day. Pizza soup. Pizza muffins. Pizza-dillas. Actual pizza. I've found that kids jump at the word pizza. For lunch today I made pizza pasta. Super easy, super fast, and can be made ahead of time and eaten chilled. So it would be perfect to pack in lunches.

The recipe is pretty easy, basically put whatever you would put on a pizza in the pasta. Measurements are to your liking as well. For today's pizza pasta I used:

Pasta (Trader Joe's gluten free pasta)

Fresh, raw broccoli chopped up

Pepperoni slices, cut into fourths

4 mozzarella cheese sticks, sliced up

Italian dressing

Salt and pepper

Cook pasta. Mix together. Eat immediately or put in the fridge and eat cold later. 

This is also great for kids to make. My kids love to help in the kitchen, and they can almost make this by themselves. I've already been told next time it needs mushrooms (my sons favorite pizza topping).

I mean, it's not the most delicious thing in the world. But it's moderately healthy and so easy and cheap. It's great for a lunch. 

There a lot of different versions of this, just Google it and you'll find a bunch of different recipes.

Pumpkin....Mac and cheese?

I'm not one of those people who desperately counts down the days for Starbucks to start making pumpkin spice lattes. I don't really like pumpkin pie. Basically, my brain isn't as pumpkin as obsessed as the rest of America seems to be.

My husband however loves it.

So when I was Pintresting (yes, it's a verb now) a mac and cheese recipe to make and I came across this pumpkin one, that I just happened to have all the ingredients for on hand, I had to give it a whirl. Plus it healthied up mac and cheese a little (or so I like to tell myself).

To be honest, I was not expecting good results. But it was actually really good! The pumpkin made it creamy more than anything else, with just a hint of a savory flavor that went well with everything else. You *almost* couldn't even taste it. 

Look! It's gooey!

I followed this recipe from Brooklyn Farm Girl to a T (with the exception of using gluten free noodles). Which I never do. So I don't have any changes to recommend, except that it needed some salt and pepper. Which we did to our individual bowls. But that would all be to taste. 

Pumpkin. It's not just for lattes.