Served With Love: Grace

Last night the dinner I Served With Love was Papa Murphy's pizza, a store bought salad mix, and cut up grapes and cucumbers.  It was one of those nights.

We got back from vacation Sunday night so the house was a mess (when I unpack, it looks like a bomb went off in the suitcase) and fridge was bare.  I didn't sleep well the night before because all the things I need to do were running through my head.  I didn't leave work until almost 5:45 pm which meant I wasn't home until well after 6 pm.  Dinner getting on the table by 6:30 pm was not going to happen, especially if I had to make something.  A quick call to Papa Murphy's and a stop on the way home was all I needed to get a meal on the table.  

And you know what?  Everyone was happy!  Not a big deal at all.  And I was able to soak up some time with the kids while the pizza was cooking.  Way better than frantically trying to create something out of nothing while exhausted.  

I'm glad I've learned through the years to give myself some grace on nights like this.

What is your go to quick pick up meal?  I'd love to have some others in my back pocket!

High Tea Baby Shower: Recipes and Source List

A colleague of mine is having a baby this summer so I wanted to throw a little baby shower for her.  I always struggle coming up with themes but this one was a hit so I wanted to share the recipes and sources I was able to find that made it come together.

My inspiration for this was actually something we did for my Working Moms MOPS group.  We put together a formal high tea for our last meeting this year.  I was also looking for a reason to get my grandmother's tea set out and actually use it!

I made tea sandwiches, punch, lavender cookies, fruit and cheese bites, and had various types of tea available.  I bought some chocolates and a colleague brought some delicious homemade scones.

Here are the recipes I used (great ideas from other people):

Punch Recipe (both a blue and pink version)

Prosciutto and cucumber tea sandwiches

Lettuce and radish tea sandwiches

Brie and grape bites

Lavender cookies (recipe below, from the MOPS magazine "Hello, Dearest")

Sources of various products I used:

Runner

Napkins

Serving towers

Tea pack

This was very easy to pull together and like I said, it went over very well.  It was easy to quickly get some water boiling between conversations and refill the pot occasionally.  The amount of food was perfect for 5-6 people and I felt like I was actually able to enjoy the get together without having to coordinate too much.

It really was a fun little get together and something I will definitely do again!

Why I love HelloFresh

If you're online even a little bit during the day, you've probably seen an ad or two for various meal delivery boxes.  I've tried a few of these for a variety of reasons and I have to say my favorite by far is HelloFresh so I'd thought I'd share a little bit about why I love it so much and how I use it to help me meal plan.

Beast and I started trying out these meal delivery boxes after our first kiddo, Bear, was born.  I was trying to master the working mom/new mom thing and just plain needed a little help getting dinner on the table.  So we started getting a box or two a month just to give me a break some weeks.  Still to today, I love when that box shows up!  It means a delicious dinner is planned for the next two nights with no planning required from me.






Out of the services we tried, we've liked HelloFresh the best for the following reasons:

• It is flexible.  You can stop/start service at any time and skip as many weeks as you want.  We currently get a box every 3-4 weeks and I can easily log in on their online calendar and skip/add weeks as I think of it.

• The meals are easy to recreate.  I save the recipe card for the meals we receive, hole punch it, and put it in my meal planning binder.  The ingredients are all very easy to get at any grocery store.  I can thumb through my binder while meal planning, pick out something that sounds good, and quickly add the ingredients to my grocery list.  I love this because it helps me branch out to new recipes so I don't fall into a rut of just making the same 8 meals over and over each month.

• There is a variety of different cuisine types.  You get to try your hand from everything from Italian to Korean.  I love exposing the kids to different flavors and types of food so this box makes it very easy for me to do that!

• The Family Box is very kid friendly.  Nothing is too spicy or strange.  My kids eat the meals well and the recipe cards even have suggestions for steps you can have the kids help you with.

• I learn new techniques and how to use/prepare ingredients that I haven't used before.  Again good to diversify what my family is eating and make sure no one gets bored with my usual fare, including me.

• And probably most importantly, the end product is delicious.  We've loved literally every recipe.

If you're interested in trying HelloFresh 
(and getting $40 off your first box) 
take a look at this offer:  

HelloFresh $40 off





Happy Cooking!

Sunday Supper: Lemony Salmon and Greek Zucchini Pasta

During the week, getting dinner on the table ASAP is often my goal but Sundays are different.  Sundays we can take our time prepping and cooking which means my Sunday suppers are often a bit more involved.

Bear is currently on a salmon kick where the boy, I kid you not, can sit down and eat a half pound of salmon or more.  At age 3 1/2.  It is kind of impressive.  And I absolutely love cooking him something he gets so excited about so I've been trying to make sure he gets his salmon every 1-2 weeks.

Lucky for me, our local grocery chain King Soopers does an awesome fish program called "Easy for You" where they put the seafood of your choice in an oven ready foil bag with tons of great seasonings and herbs.  It even tells you on the back of the bag the appropriate temperature and time to cook it based on the weight.  Our favorite right now is salmon with butter, dill, lemon, and the lemon pepper seasoning.  For 2 lbs of salmon, you bake it at 380 degrees for 40 minutes and it comes out perfect every time.  

When cooking fish, it is always better to err on being underdone and sticking it back in the oven for a few minutes.  If you overcook it, it will often have that not so pleasant fishy taste that makes people think they don't like fish.  In reality, they don't like overcooked fish.

If your grocery store doesn't offer a similar program, you could make your own foil envelope and just top the salmon with the following:

• 2 Tablespoons of butter
• Healthy shakes of lemon pepper seasoning
• Slices of lemon
• Sprigs of dill

While my salmon was cooking, I got to work on the pasta.  

Ingredients:

• 3 zucchini (small, spiralized to about twice as thick as typical spaghetti)
• 1 bunch of asparagus (cut into 1 inch pieces)
• 1/2 cup of pitted kalamata olives (cut in half lengthwise)
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes (cut in half)
• 1/2 cucumber (cut in slices and quartered)
• 1 small jar pesto sauce

Directions:

• Spiralize and cut all veggies, keeping the zucchini noodles and asparagus separate from everything else.
• Put a large pot of boiling water on to boil.
• When the salmon has 5 minutes left to cook, drop the zucchini noodles and asparagus in the boiling water.
• Boil for 3 minutes.
• While the asparagus and noodles are boiling, stir the pesto into the other veggies with some freshly cracked pepper.
• Drain the asparagus and noodles in a large colander.  
• Push down on the asparagus and noodles with a paper towel or clean dish towel to release some of the excess water.
• Mix the asparagus and noodles into the other veggies.
• Plate the pasta with the salmon and top the pasta with a little bit of crumbled feta.

My kids can't tell the difference between zucchini noodles and regular pasta, especially once it has a sauce on it, so this is a great way to sneak some extra veggies in.  When serving this up, I made sure Bear got extra tomatoes and Beast had as few olives as possible since those are their preferences.  I left the feta off the top of the kids' plates because my kids gag on "weird white stuff" (feta, cottage cheese, and mashed potatoes).  Not a battle I wish to fight since they are great about eating virtually everything else including their veggies.  The feta and cottage cheese I can understand but I think they are really missing out on the mashed potatoes.

This went over well in our house and I hope it will in yours as well!

Happy Cooking!