Dinner tonight

Although she'd try if we let her, we can't eat cheese puffs all of the time.  Really, what was Santa thinking with that tub?

One of my resolutions for 2012 is to become more disciplined in the area of cooking.  Over the last year or so I feel like our weekly food budget has exploded and sadly our food waste has as well.   In an attempt to curb this I'm making a binder full of our favorite recipes.  I currently use a weekly menu planner that I like but I feel like I could do a better job if it was a bit more long term, like 3-4 weeks.    I'm giving myself the entire year to complete this task, I want to do it right not just get it done.  To keep myself on track and to document some of our favorite meals over the year I'm going to post one meal a week.  Something different each week, so at a minimum I'll have 52 meals for my handy dandy binder. 

Marinated Flank Steak

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Roasted Red Potatoes
1 small bag of red potatoes, halved
Put halved potatoes in a bowl, drizzle olive oil over and sprinkle salt (garlic and rosemary if you   want)
Stir until potatoes are well coated.
On a foil lined baking sheet, put potatoes in a single layer.
Bake at 450 for 30 minutes, turing potatoes over once, half way through.

Eleanor's Spinach, Feta, and Pea Salad with Lemon Vinagrette
( in all fairness Jaime Oliver should receive credit for this super salad, however in our house Eleanor receives credit as she is the one who requests (no complaints from any of us) and makes this salad).

1 bag of fresh spinach (or as much spinach as you want to eat)
Feta (use your judgement, how much are you in the mood for)
Peas (we use half of a frozen bag, thawing them in the microwave)
1 lemon (or lemon juice from a bottle)
salt
olive oil

Mix together
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4-5 tablespoons of olive oil
teaspoon of salt

Toss ingredients.

Homemade butterscotch pudding

This find totally made my day.  I got out our Naked Chef cookbook because I wanted to include accurate measurements not just the eye ball estimates we use.  I 'm usually the one to make comments in the margins of our cookbooks.  I love that someone is picking up the habit!