Red and white Mostacciolis with Quinoa

I've been making this recipe for a couple of years now and it's become a family favorite. I've made it to bring as a take-in dinner and everyone always loves it. I love how adaptable it is and how simple the ingredients are. But the taste is always phenomenal. It's a great meatless meal if you're looking for delicious vegetarian meal ideas.

And isn't the name just cute? It kind of rolls off your tongue: mu-stash-ee-o-lees. The kids love to say it over and over again. And what does it mean? Little mustaches! :)

And if you're not convinced by that of our fondness for this dish, let me just tell you that it even has it's own nickname! Yeah. I have no idea who came up with it. It's "mu-stash" (with the emphasis on the "stash" part). After making it this last time (the one in the picture) I was informed that I had a made a very good batch of "mu-stash".

So there you have it folks. Mu-stash in all it's deliciousness. It's cute. And it's yummy. Our kids ask for it again and again. You just gotta make it. The end.

P.S. Maybe now the reason I posted the Alfredo sauce last week is even more clear. :)

Red and White Mostacciolis with Quinoa

Printable Recipe

*Serves 8-10

*Note: We often half this recipe for our family of four. I usually make the sauce recipes (in their entirety) and then freeze half of each. I haven't tried freezing and reheating the casserole. We're not big into frozen reheated pastas so freezing the sauce has always seemed best.

INGREDIENTS:

1 batch homemade spaghetti sauce with quinoa

1 lb. uncooked mostaccioli or other tubular pasta (I often use penne)

1 batch homemade Alfredo sauce

3 Cups shredded cheese (I like to use either mozzarella or a mozzarella-cheddar blend)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare spaghetti sauce according to the recipe below. While that is simmering, cook the pasta according to package directions until it is just barely under cooked. Almost done, but still a tad bit crunchy. Do not overcook. Meanwhile, prepare the Alfredo sauce. When everything is done, spread a thin layer of spaghetti sauce in a 9 x 12" baking dish. Layer half of the pasta, half of the Alfredo sauce, half of the spaghetti sauce, and 1-1/2 cups of the cheese. Repeat the layering with the remaining pasta, Alfredo sauce, spaghetti sauce, and cheese. Cover with aluminum foil and bake 25 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 5 minutes. If desired you can broil the top for a few minutes to brown the cheese, being careful not to over broil (I love browned cheese). Serve with bread sticks and a green salad.

*Recipe Source: Adapted from The Food Nanny

Simple Alfredo Sauce and a Few Thoughts on what Healthy Means to me

I might surprise you by posting this recipe. No, really. You know that sesame street song that goes, "one of these things is not like the other....one of these things just doesn't belong" or something like that. Well that might just be this recipe. You might look at the ingredients and say Wow. What is this doing on a healthy food blog? I've posted recipes like it that contain spinach and squash so you you might have gotten over those, but not this one. Nope. None of that. You might think to yourself, wow she's going too far here. There is NOTHING that's really good for me in this recipe except maybe the garlic. Well that may be true, but I'm posting it anyway. So just give me a second to explain my reasoning okay? And if you don't agree that's okay.

As I've talked to people, I feel like many don't really understand what "healthy" is and what it isn't. Many people think that to be healthy a recipe can't contain anything that is ______ (blank). And that "blank" changes over time depending on what the whim of the day is.

I believe that to be healthy a meal needs to be made up of a balance of foods. The food pyramid is a great visual if you remember that from grade school days. If you aren't eating in balance, you're not eating healthy. Period. Even if every meal you eat is packed full of a single very healthy food, you will be deficient in some areas unless you balance your diet and eat a wide variety of food.

Another thing to think about in terms of healthy is cutting processed foods out of your diet. But remember that you have to have a substitute for them. Especially at the beginning. Otherwise you will break down and sneak a McD's binge every weekend or the equivalent. This recipe is a perfect way to get your McD's cravings under control (which will eventually go away over time...blech!) while avoiding the chemical additives in processed foods which are so addicting and harmful.

The other point to be made here is that family cooking needs to be delicious. You are feeding the people you love. I'm all about finding healthier ways to eat things, but sometimes you need some real, comfort-tasting food to get the healthy down. Do ya know what I mean?

To give you an example, in our family we love pasta dishes and this simple Alfredo sauce has been a tried and true recipe for our family a long time. It probably won't win records for the healthiest of Alfredo sauces. But honestly I've tried a lot of different recipes and I keep coming back to this one. It's one of the best.  It works great for a quick week night meal. In fact it's usually my go-to recipe for a fast meal that I know everyone will love and that means a lot to a Mom. It is so important for your family to enjoy the food that you cook. And for you to know that they enjoy it, so that you want to cook food for them more often.

We usually serve this sauce over pasta (whole grain is delicious) or as a dipping sauce for these bread sticks. I also love to serve this over spaghetti squash (which is 100% vegetables) or use it as a pizza sauce. Of course we always include a side dish like steamed vegetables or a salad to balance the meal. It's also delicious served with chicken, but we only do for the very specialist of special occasions. Balanced with a plethora of healthy side dishes and atop a healthy vegetable or grain, this Alfredo sauce will send a good meal right over the top. I hope you enjoy!

Simple Alfredo Sauce
Printable Recipe

*Makes 2-3 Cups

*Note: This recipe can be made ahead of time and refrigerated or frozen. It reheats well, just thicken with a little flour or thin with a little milk until desired consistency is reached.

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 Cup butter
1 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese (or light cream cheese)
2 Cups heavy cream (substituting half-n-half or whole milk works great too)
1 tsp. garlic powder *See Note below
1/2 Cup grated Parmesan cheese (Optional. I've omitted the Parmesan cheese successfully, but it's better with it)
1/4 tsp. salt, more to taste
1/8 tsp. black pepper, more to taste

DIRECTIONS:
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Mix in the cream cheese and turn down temperature to medium low. Whisk until combined. Stir in the cream and garlic powder. Increase the heat to medium and bring to a boil. Decrease the heat and simmer, stirring often until desired consistency is reached (about 5 minutes). Stir in the Parmesan cheese and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over hot pasta.

*Note: Fresh garlic works great in this recipe too. Use 1/2 t- 1 tsp. of freshly minced garlic (1-2 cloves) and saute it with the butter.

*Variation: To use as a pizza sauce or dipping sauce, thicken sauce with flour 1 tsp. at a time before Parmesan cheese is added until desired consistency is reached.

Recipe Source: Adapted from The Food Nanny

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies {Whole Grain & Sugar Free}

Can one ever have enough sugar free cookie recipes? I think not. So today I'll share one of my latest favorites with you. These cookies melt-in-your-mouth with a soft, but chewy texture. Packed with whole grains and sugar-free they not only taste delicious but are loaded with nutrients too. My husband and I ate almost a half a batch of these as part of our date the other day (speaking of dates have you checked out my post with more than 50 Frugal Date ideas? Valentines Day is coming up...). He doesn't know it but I froze the other half for later or else they would be gone too. Being a food blogger/photographer has its downsides. One is that every time I post a picture of yummy food I want to eat it. Right now. Well all I can say is it's a good thing I saved a few in the freezer. I'll be going now. See you later...

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Printable Recipe

*Makes 2 dozen cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 Cup raw honey
1/2 Cup (1 stick) softened butter
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1-1/2 Cups Wonder Flour
1-1/2 Cups quick oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 Cup Chocolate Chips (I use these Sugar-free Chocolate Pieces)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer combine butter and honey and mix until creamy, scraping the sides as needed. Add the egg and vanilla and combine, scraping down the sides again as needed. In another small mixing bowl add the Wonder Flour, the quick oats, baking soda, and salt and stir until combined. Then add the dry ingredients to the combined wet ingredients. Mix well. Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine. Scoop out about 1-1/2 Tablespoons worth of dough and roll into a ball (I like to use a 1-1/2 Tbsp. cookie scoop for this) and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten dough balls slightly with a wet hand. Repeat with dough until there are 12 per cookie sheet. Bake one sheet at a time in preheated 350 F oven for about 9 minutes or until edges are slightly golden brown.

Recipe Source: Slightly adapted from a recipe from the web that is no longer hosted. 

Frugal Friday: Batch Cooking & NEW Winter Menu Plan

Aaah batch cooking. This has been on my list of things to talk about for quite a while. This is one of the great secrets for saving money in the kitchen and I hope you've already discovered it yourself. If not, I hope you will try it after reading today's blog post! 

Batch cooking means cooking more than you need for a meal and using it for other meals. Cooking in batches, if you will. Batch cooking saves time by allowing you to cook ingredients for multiple meals at once. It also saves money by using less energy to cook. Batch cooking is a great way to cook healthy, frugal meals for your family and save time doing it. 

Here are some great examples of batch cooking that I do all the time:

1. I cook six loaves of homemade bread at a time and freeze five loaves for later. 
2. I make two servings of green smoothie in the morning for breakfast and freeze one for the second day.
3. I can oodles and oodles of food in the fall (when I have loads that I have grown myself or foraged for) to use all winter long.
4. I usually double the recipe for sauces or soups and freeze half for another meal (Note: soups and sauces are some of my favorite things to freeze because they reheat so nicely). 
5. I double or triple the recipe for rolls or breadsticks and freeze them for another meal.
6. I make several batches of muffins at a time so I have some on hand for quick breakfasts.
7. I make extra waffles to freeze. To reheat them I pop them in microwave for about 15 seconds and then the toaster until barely crispy. They are delicious and just as good as making them the first day.
8. I make extra cookies to freeze for quick lunches (usually they don't make it though because my family can sniff them out anywhere...)
9. I make lots of banana bread when I can find cheap bananas and lots of zucchini bread when it's in season. We freeze it and eat it when it's not as readily available. 
10. I cook extra chicken if I'm cooking it anyway and freeze it. 

Do you get the idea? I can't even list all the ways I do batch cooking here because there are so many examples. It saves a lot of money and time. And it makes cooking real food a lot more enjoyable. And allows you to keep a stock of easy mostly prepared meals on hand for those emergency occasions (which happen a lot around here) when you didn't have time to prep the meal.

And speaking of meals. It shouldn't be any secret that I love good food. And I love to make it for my family to enjoy. One of my goals for this blog is to include recipes that will help your family experience delicious, healthy food. I believe that one of the most important things for a healthy family is to have a consistent family dinner time every night, if possible (with delicious, healthy food). To help you with this, I'm in the process of creating several 2-week menu plans that can help make the planning part of making dinner easier for your family.

Today I'd like to share the second one with you (the first one can be found at this link), but before I do let me just mention a few things about why 2-week menu plans are awesome. And why MY 2-week menu plans are awesome (if I can do this without blushing).

I love 2-week menu plans. One reason is because it saves me money. Using a 2-week menu plan allows for me to shop less often. The less often I go to the store, the less I see things I "need" and the less I spend. The other reason is because it saves me time. With a 2-week menu plan I only have to plan and shop once every two weeks. I still sometimes go to the store another time to pick up perishables, but those are quick "in-and-out" type trips that don't take a lot of time. 

My 2-week menu plans are specifically designed around theme nights. I've included in my menu plans themes that work for my family (and these are the very themes we use most every single week). Of course you can mix and match the days if the themes don't work for your schedule. I've selected Wednesday as our leftover night because it's a night that's always fairly busy for us. We like to reserve the weekends for more comfort food-y meals because we have more time to prepare them and time to enjoy a larger meal. Of course Friday night is our pizza night (and has been for years) and everyone looks forward to it. We love having week night themes in our family because our kids can look forward to those every week. It puts a consistency in dinnertime and it's a lot more easy to plan that way too. 

So now that you know the ins and outs of why 2-week menu plans work so well, here's my newest 2-week menu plan. Today's menu plan is specifically geared toward meals that are delicious in the winter but many of the meals would work for any time of the year.

You can download and print the winter menu plan at this link. 

And to help you with even more menu planning ideas, here's a post where I share lots of great tips for menu planning that also includes a downloadable blank printable menu plan. Also at that link you will find meal ideas for breakfast and lunch.

Now it's your turn. Please remember that I love to read your supportive and thoughtful comments. They brighten my day and make blogging fun and rewarding. If you need a some ideas, here are some question prompts just for fun.

How has batch cooking helped you save money? What kinds of food to you cook in batches to save time?
Or...
How has menu planning changed your life?

Please share. Happy Frugal Friday! Have a great weekend.

Oven Roasted French Fries

I love to make these French fries in the oven because they are quick, easy, and they taste delicious. The other nice thing about this recipe is that they are a lot healthier than most french fries you buy. They are made from baking (not frying) real potatoes and I keep the skins on because the skins have lots of fiber and vitamins that are healthy for you. I like to use a  slicer to cut up the potatoes because it goes really fast, but you can cut them by hand if you'd like. I've seen (and tried) various recipes for baked french fries and I always come back to this recipe from my Mom. Some recipes I've seen say to soak the fries first and then dry them before baking. I've tried them that way and it does make the fries a bit crunchier, but the extra steps (and extra time) really doesn't add very much to the recipe and really not worth it in my opinion. If you're looking to go even healthier you can substitute olive oil in this recipe for the butter, but I prefer them with the buttery flavor. Enjoy!

Oven Roasted French Fries
Printable Recipe

INGREDIENTS:
5 large Potatoes (Russets work great)
1/3 Cup Melted butter
salt, to taste

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 450 F. Wash potatoes well. Leaving the skins on, cut the potatoes into french fry pieces. I use a slicer for this because it's fast, but you can do it by hand. Make sure that the pieces are an even thickness because they cook best that way. Place the fries on two large greased cookie sheets and spread around until they are close to being in a single layer. Drizzle fries with melted butter and toss until evenly coated. Sprinkle with salt, as desired. Place fries in oven (using multiple racks is fine). Bake for a total of 30-40 minutes (depending on how crispy you like them). Every 10 minutes, pull the fries out and turn them so that they cook evenly and don't stick to the pan. Rotate the pans top and bottom each time if your oven doesn't cook evenly like mine. Fries are done when they are tender and slightly crispy.

Recipe Source: Slightly adapted from my Mom's recipe