Wednesday night - Feb. 2, 2011

My house feels really chilly. We all had hot chocolate before putting the kids to bed tonight.

I know that those of you in the States will think I'm nuts, and I'm sorry that you have to deal with so many snowstorms and "Crazy Weather" (one of my kids once wrote a song entitled "Crazy Weather"... It was a big hit in our house!). But I'm thinking that we need cold weather food for Wednesday night.

So, here is the plan (using only foods that we already have in the house):

Creamy Green Vegetable Soup
Stuffed Baked Potatoes
Zucchini Pancakes
Lettuce, Purple Cabbage, Cinnamon-Honey'd Oranges, Avocado, and Walnut Salad (ok, the salad is not a cold weather food, but we have plenty of these ingredients and serving salad always makes me feel like a better meal planner.)

Some notes about these foods:

Creamy Green Vegetable Soup - Trying to get the kids to finish up the cauliflower that I made the other day. Here's what I do - make a basic vegetable soup with onions, garlic, celery, broccoli stalks (peeled and chopped), and zucchini. After it has simmered for a while, add some frozen spinach and the already cooked cauliflower. Puree it before serving. Serve with croutons or "soup nuts". (The kids love it and have no idea which veggies are in it!)

Stuffed Baked Potatoes - Bake some potatoes, cut in half, keeping the skins intact, and scoop out the insides. Mash it up with garlic, cheese, chopped broccoli or any other additons you like. Scoop back inside the potato halves, and bake again.

Zucchini Pancakes - I make these with shredded zucchini, chopped onion, ground flaxseed, egg, salt and pepper.

Salad - pretty self explanatory. You can make Cinnamon-Honey'd Oranges like this:  Peel and section a few oranges. Cut them into bite-sized pieces. Place in a bowl you can cover, drizzle with honey and a generous amount of cinnamon. mix gently. cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving with your salad. There is no need for any other dressing on this salad!