A Little Help from Mom

Now that school's in full swing, I have to plan meals a little further in advance than during the summer. Previously, this meant flipping through cookbooks for anything that looked interesting or putting a couple of ingredients into my favorite search engine hoping to find some good recipes. Of course, the time it takes to sift through all those can be problematic. Enter Pinterest and my mom. Thankfully, once Mom's finished her cooking, cleaning, and gardening for the day, she takes a break to play with her online bulletin boards before moving on to reading or crafting. (Makes me tired thinking about it.) This is especially good news for me because when I'm looking for something to make (in the way of foods or crafts), all I have to do is click on her name. Though she has 51 boards and 19,000 pins, they are well organized and offer a plethora of tempting photos and tasty ingredients. This week I took a look at her low carb dinners and snacks to come up with a menu of goodies that includes Sausage Squash Casserole ( http://www.sugarfreelowcarbrecipes.com/?p=110 ), Parmesan Meatloaf ( http://mommyimhungry.blogspot.com/2012/02/parmesan-meatloaf-gluten-free.html ) , Cheese Steak Stuffed Peppers ( http://afewshortcuts.com/2013/01/cheese-steak-stuffed-peppers/ ), Smoked Gouda Soufflé ( http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/2011/08/smoked-gouda-souffles-w-sauteed.html ), and Chocolate Brownie Mug Cake ( http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/2013/05/chocolate-brownie-mug-cake-low-carb-gluten-free.html ) along with the goodies below. I guess this just goes to show that a body's never too old for a little help. Thanks Mom!

 I began the day (after talking to my Mom, of course) by making this wonderful Smothered Chicken. While the chicken breasts bake, creamed spinach (complete with cream cheese and Parmesan cheese) and sautéed mushrooms get going on the cook top. Halfway through baking, all the goodies go on top of the chicken along with slices of mozzarella which melt and brown during the remaining cooking time. This little treat was the best chicken dish I've eaten in quite awhile. And, best of all, there are plenty of leftovers for this week's lunches. (I used a 2.5 pound bag of frozen chicken breasts and cooked them without defrosting.) Here's the link: http://baconbuttercheesegarlic.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-special-meal-for-my-valentine.html

Once lunch was over (which the guys snarfed down pretty quickly), I set my sites on making breakfast for the week. While this recipe did not come from Pinterest, it did come from a friend's posting on Facebook. Lazy Eggs, which consists of making muffin sized quiches with a ham crust, are pretty ingenious and super easy. Spray a muffin pan with Pam, put a piece of ham into each cup. (I used two very thinly sliced pieces of baked ham lunch meat.) Add a little cheese (in this case, mozzarella left over from the smothered chicken), and an egg. (The recipe calls for breaking an egg into each cup, but I like mine scrambled. So I broke the eggs into a bowl and whisked in some olive and tomato bruschetta topping from the fridge before pouring them into the cups.) Twenty minutes at 350 degrees yielded 12 tasty breakfasts for the week. There are many variations of this on the web and on Pinterest, many of which use a slice of bacon instead of the ham - maybe next week!

With breakfast taken care of, I decided we needed something to snack on during T.V. time. (After all, one mustn't watch Downtown Abbey without a martini and munchies.) Enter Sausage Roll Bites which I made with some leftover grilled hot dogs in the freezer. These are excellent - a little crusty on the outside and tender on the inside - making them a kind of upscale pig-in-a-blanket. I'm sure they'd be even better with a nice sausage, but I like to use up those leftovers. These would make easy appetizers or even a quick start to the day using pieces of breakfast sausage links instead of dinner sausage. Just about any little meat morsel would be good as a center to this breading. In addition, since the recipe calls for coconut oil, it's a good way to get your daily dose. While I was perusing the site this recipe came from , I also found Zucchini Pizza Poppers, so take a look around while you're there.
Here's the link for the sausage bites: http://247lowcarbdiner.blogspot.com/2013/05/yummy-breakfast.html

Finally, we needed something sweet which usually means cookies at our house. While these are not extremely low carb, they are better than many treats, and they're really easy. My go-to treat is cookies made from a cake mix. (It's just too easy.) So, today I used a sugar free cake mix and sugar free icing, both of which seem to be readily available at the grocery (and Walmart and Target). Since everything was vanilla, I stirred some sugar free raspberry Jello into the icing, which gave it a delicate color and a fairly intense flavor. Since they are sugar free but not carb free, I only ate one sandwich cookie, and I couldn't tell the difference between these and the full sugar variety I've made in the past. (I've decided I'd really rather eat less of something really good than more of something that is only so-so.) My son, who is a sandwich cookie fiend, couldn't tell the difference either. I don't think these will last very long!

All in all, I had a full day of cooking with the guys hanging out in the kitchen to keep me company. Who could ask for more? Enjoy!

(P.S. If you're looking for my mom's  cool Pinterest boards, here's a link: http://pinterest.com/gra6/ )