I'm happy to be back...

cooking again. I had a terrific vacation but was glad to be shopping on Sunday for red peppers, cheddar cheese, quinoa (a first - coming up this week!) chicken, tortillas, yogurt, berries, broccoli, and a big bag of bread flour. Tomorrow we'll have tacos with ground beef, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, corn, salsa, AND some fresh cilantro the Green Preschool brought back from their outing to the Intervale today. Delicious ~ thanks Emily!!

Lunch today was a school-wide favorite, good old macaroni and cheese. Peas with butter for the babies and little toddlers, crunchy carrot sticks for the bigger kids. Sliced cantaloupe. Milk.
There was a good bit of macaroni and cheese left over, but by the time I left for the day the teachers had taken care of most of it ~


We are busy planning our June Family Dinner for next Thursday, June 24th. Heather and I decided on the menu, but I'm thinking of throwing in a surprise or two....


And HERE is the recipe I promised last time... Baked Spinach and Rice! My husband stumbled upon this site a week or two ago- Cooking with My Kid. If you need some fresh meal ideas I recommend it. Whether or not you want to involve your kids in the cooking process, this is delicious, healthy, kid-friendly food. The truth is, all of the recipes I checked out looked great, but I was especially intrigued by this one. I tried it and it's delicious. It looks and tastes like it took a lot of time and thought and yet, it's easy as pie to prepare and has only five ingredients. You can even go ahead and chop up some fresh spinach if you have it and use that instead of the frozen! I'm going to adapt the recipe for lunch and put it on the menu next month.

Baked Spinach & Rice Recipe

Prep Time: 25 mins (mostly unattended) Cooking Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:
1 package rice pilaf
1 box frozen chopped spinach
1 cup mozzarella cheese
2 eggs
1/4 cup lowfat milk

Defrost spinach and squeeze dry. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Cook rice according to package directions and transfer to a large bowl. Stir in chopped spinach, cheese, milk and eggs. Pour into greased square baking dish and cook for 30 minutes or until set. Let cool for 5 minutes before cutting into squares for serving. Serves 4 to 6.

Take care!
Erinn