- Burritos: ground turkey, green pepper, corn, brown rice, on Trader Joe’s Habanero tortillas.
- Pasta with zucchini and ham
- Chicken Bulgur Skillet, adding spinach or kale
- Cheesy Zucchini and red onion flatbread with ham
- Mushroom and Poblano tart that never got made last week
- Chicken and Asparagus with Melted Gruyere
Author: HungryDad
Mini Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
No photo…it was devoured too fast! Our son made these at school and brought home the recipe. We wanted to save it for next year, so here it is. Looks like it was adapted from this Cooks.com post.
Mini Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
Ingredients
- 3 c all-purpose flour
- 1 Tbs plus 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 c sugar
- 1 can 15 ounces pumpkin
- 4 eggs
- 1 c vegetable oil
- 1/2 c orange juice
- 1 c fresh cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Grease and flour 5-6 mini (5X3-inch) loaf pans.
- Combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt in large bowl.
- Combine sugar, pumpkin, eggs, oil and juice in large mixer bowl
- Beat until just blended.
- Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture
- Stir just until moistened.
- Fold in cranberries.
- Spoon batter into prepared loaf pans.
- Bake for 50to 55 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes
- Move to wire racks to cool completely.
Meals for the week Jan 5-11
A few meals for the new year
- Black-eyed peas with sausage and roasted beet and kale salad with lemon vinaigrette with feta cheese instead of goat cheese.
- more to come as we plan our menu bit by bit…
Meals for the Week December 24-28
- Pizza
- Turkey, sweet potatoes, spinach and bacon
- Butternut Squash al Forno
- Enchiladas verdes
- Avgolemeno soup with kale, see also this and this for ideas.
Meals for the Week December 15-21
- Rustic Italian Tortellini Soup
- Sweet potato and black bean enchiladas with salsa verde
- African stew
- Ham with roasted fingerling potatoes and carrots
- Something along the lines of this Brown fried rice
- Spaghetti squash carbonara
Orange Chicken and Vegetables

With nut allergies, Chinese restaurants are not somewhere we can go as a family. So when I find recipes that can be made relatively easily at home, I like to try them out. This recipe came from Mommy’s Kitchen, who adapted it from Jamie Cooks. It doesn’t take the long to make, and is really good. The chicken pieces are nice and crisp. There’s quite a bit of sauce, you could reduce the volume a bit if you didn’t like so much sauce.

Orange Chicken and Vegetables
Ingredients
For the chicken and vegetables
- 4 Boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1in pieces
- 3/4 cup flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 4 Tbs olive oil
- 2 cups baby carrots sliced lengthwise
- 1 Onion diced
- 2 Bell peppers--try different colors--cut into chunks
- 4 stalks celery sliced
- 1/2 tsp pepper
For the sauce
- 3/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp chopped fresh ginger
- 2 tsp rice vinegar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp olive oil
- 2 Tbs corn starch
- 1 cup chicken broth
Instructions
- If serving over rice, start the rice.
- Combine the chopped chicken with the 3/4 cup flour and the 1/4 teaspoon of salt in a medium bowl.
- Toss to coat the chicken.
- Heat the oil in a large frying pan or wok.
- Cook the chicken in batches, until golden brown (about 10 minutes) and set aside.
- Add more oil if needed and then the chopped veggies.
- Cook over medium high heat until crisp tender--about 5 minutes.
- Make the sauce while the veggies cook.
- Whisk together all the sauce ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat.
- Bring to a boil.
- The sauce will begin to thicken as it comes to a boil.
- Add the sauce and chicken back into the pan with the veggies and stir to mix everything together.
- Serve over rice.
Meals for the Week Dec 8-15
Pizza with zucchini, bacon and mozzarella
Seems like we’ve been using a lot of bacon as of late, but at least according to this, undoubtedly unbiased, source, bacon is actually healthy for you! OK, maybe not really healthy, but it is really good and, in moderation, can it really be that unhealthy?
The original recipe called for cream soaked mozzarella, but that seemed a bit excessive. All I’ve got to say is, there were no leftovers!

Pizza with zucchini, bacon and mozzarella
Ingredients
- Pizza dough
- 2 Zucchinis grated
- 8 oz Bacon cooked and broken into pieces
- 8 oz Mozzarella cheese
- 1-2 Tbs Olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425
- Roll out the pizza dough
- Bruch with olive oil
- Spread the zucchini over the pizza
- Top with cheese and then bacon
- Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the cheese begins to brown
Meals for the week Dec 1- 8
- Easy beef stroganoff
- Italian sausage and spinach pasta
- Slaw dogs and baked beans
- Something along the lines of Taco Pizza
- Campfire casserole in Saving Dinner
- Sweet potato pizza with onion