We’ve been involved in big household projects and I have to, have to, have to organize my office/craft room and our laundry room (if not our entire basement) with my limited free time. Easy meals rule this week!

Sunday — MIL’s turkey tetrazinni and other leftovers.

Monday — Cheesy Tuna Quinoa (recipe below)

Tuesday — Rotisserie chicken, garlic fries, and corn

Wednesday — Hopefully out with my husband, weather and childcare help permitting

Thursday –Chicken chili

Friday — Linguine and clams

Saturday — Pizza night

—

Cheesy Tuna Quinoa

1 cup quinoa, prepared as directed (I boiled in 2+ cups of homemade stock)
½ medium zucchini, diced
½ medium yellow squash, diced
½ small onion, diced (for all the veggies I subbed about half a bag of Whole Foods frozen Asparagus stir fry, which is a really nice, inexpensive blend of frozen vegetables)
1 (6oz) can tuna
½ bag of shredded cheese
1 tbsp butter
¼ cup or so milk
Salt, Pepper, & Cumin to taste
Slivered almonds

Blanch zucchini and squash (or, in this case, thaw…). Mix ingredients together in a large bowl and transfer to casserole dish. Top with almonds. Bake at 350 until heated through, about 15 minutes.

I’ve been reading all of my same sources but, sadly, haven’t seen any green coupons, freebies, or discounts! This is the first time that’s been the case since I started writing here a few months ago!

Potentially of interest is that many Walgreens locations are offering Halloween photo shoots for kids in costume. Depending on the store, it’s free (ours is) or $0.31, and they are offering everything from one free 4×8 photo card to a free photo CD. Details and locations here.

To make up for the lack of the good stuff, how about a recipe? Here is a one bowl banana muffin or bread goodie that will get some of the Halloween candy out of the candy bowl…

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter (microwave it for 30 seconds so it’s soft)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 mashed overripe bananas
• 3-4 individual sized packets of m&ms, Raisinettes, or other small chocolate candies

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan or 9 regular-size muffins in a muffin tin.

In a large bowl, combine butter, brown sugar, eggs and bananas with a potato masher. Add flour, baking soda and salt on top and mix together until just moistened. Add candy and stir to mix. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes (more for a loaf, less for muffins), until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

The yummy results:

parenting

Just in time for me, How Do You Do It?, a blog about parenting multiples, has the most in-depth tutorial for making your own baby food. Step by step and lots of pictures.

Also timely, Uber Parents shares guidelines for monitoring fever in children. I particularly liked the idea of taking their temp a few times for a baseline so that you know what really constitutes a fever in *your* kid.

crafting

KIWI magazine has a pattern for making a tote out of all of those Halloween candy and snack wrappers. Genius!

Green Phone Booth shares a quick pattern for door draft dodgers. Just fabric and some beans! I need to make a huge one of these for the french doors from our living room to our drafty sunroom. Kelly at Almost Frugal has an equally easy and useful pattern for reusable fabric gift bags. If you’re like me, you have a box (or a closet) of fabric you’re not in love with anymore. Move some of it along with practical projects like these and make room for some new things you really love!

Crafting a Green World has details on upcycled shrinky dinks (remember those?) from #6 plastics you might have laying around anyway.

eating

Don’t want to make a whole cake or heat your entire oven? This microwavable cake-in-a-mug is such a cute idea for an after-school treat with your little ones.

A Year of Crockpotting is an awesome resource, but now Stephanie has included information on just how frugal a choice it is and links to key recipes on making pantry staples. I will miss her when her experiment is done!

resources

Re-nest posts a request for wool sweaters with holes to be upcycled into rugs. I have a few to send to the artist, unfortunately. Does anyone have ideas for extending the life of my sweaters? I barely seem to make it through a season with some these days.

Baby Cheapsakte reviews several of the deal-a-day sites. Not bad to follow some of these if you are looking for specific types of items for holiday gifts.

Got a spare glove that lost its mate lying around? Etsy shares how to turn it into a chipmunk softie in just a few steps.

My city doesn’t take #5 plastics. I bring them all to Whole Foods, which kindly has a bin set out for customers. Here’s another great idea — send them away for recycling into household goods. Kirstin has all the details at Trying to Be Greener.

Some awesome frugal cooking tips — OAMC with chicken at Mommy Making Money, Make it yourself bake mixes at Leaving Excess.

Dare I save all of our baby food jars? Re-nest has creative reuse ideas. I tried making a snow globe (well, Halloween confetti globe) last week but it didn’t come out so well.

We’re headed out of town on Friday and won’t be cooking at home until next Tuesday night. With that in mind, I’m going to dive in and plan out 2 weeks! First, we focus on using up produce and other perishables, then when we return we won’t have much in the manner of fresh food until I get to the store on Thursday and farmers market on Saturday.

Sunday — My husband was at a conference most of the day, so Chinese take out it was for us!

Monday –  Pizza noodles (egg noodles baked in homemade meat sauce with turkey pepperoni and mozzerella cheeseand apple crisp, since I’m trying to use up all of our apple-picking bounty before we leave!

Tuesday — Slow cooker curry with quinoa (with apples!)

Wednesday — This has become our “date night” with our older son. We’ll hit the burger and custard shop for chicken sandwiches before the start of Yom Kippur.

Thursday — Quick big stir fry with all of our veggies and lots of rice and frozen spring rolls. Not traditional break-the-fast food, but I don’t want our produce going to waste while we’re out of town, and I don’t want to use a lot of pots and pans right before we leave, either.

Tuesday — Chicken Tikka Masala simmer with Trader Joe’s naan.. I haven’t tried this new simmer sauce, but it’s in our cabinet and I’m looking forward to giving it a shot.

Wednesday — Something in the slow cooker… teacher conferences at school.

Thursday — Tuna casserole. I’ll post the recipe for this next week.

Friday — Pizza night!

Saturday — No clue… I’m going to check out some other meal plans for some inspiration!

I can’t even describe to you how crazy behind I am with all matters domestic and blog-related right now. Apologies!

What we’re eating:

Sunday — We went out! With friends! And no children! We even stopped at a second location for dessert!

Monday — Chicken Chili (not traditional, I know, but we needed something quick)

Tuesday — Rosh Hashanah dinner with friends at our house. Honey chicken, apple slaw, mashed potatoes, and whatever they bring to pass

Wednesday — White cheddar corn chowder

Thursday — Quick Enchiladas (recipe below)

Friday — Pizza night!

Saturday — Stir fry veggies and frozen sesame chicken from Trader Joe’s

* * *

Quick Enchiladas — my very own recipe

• 1 8-10 ounce container of fresh or jarred salsa
• 1 6-ounce container of plain yogurt (can substitute cream cheese or sour cream)
• 1 tablespoon low sodium taco seasoning
• 1-2 cooked chicken breasts, shredded or in cubes, or one can of pinto or black beans
• 1 package shredded cheese (cheddar, taco mix, jack, whatever you prefer)
• 6 fresh tortillas

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix all of the ingredients except for 1/2 of the cheese and the tortillas in a large bowl. Spray a pyrex baking dish with oil spray. Fill each tortilla with the filling mixture and place in the dish rolled up and with the ends folded over.
2. When the dish is full, sprinkle with the remaining cheese and bake with foil on top for about 20 minutes, or until the cheese it melted and tortillas have gotten crisp.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starts at sundown on Monday. It is a religious holiday in nature, but like most Jewish holidays (and holidays in other traditions), it’s steeped in routine and symbolism related to the environment, spiritual nourishment, and food. All the more reason celebrate!

No matter what your background, there are simple, inexpensive aspects of Rosh Hashanah to participate in that kids love and that can contribute to a conversational about pluralism, community, and more.

• One very popular observance is eating apples dipped in honey to symbolize a sweet new year. With the preponderance of apples available at this time of year, it’s a great time to go picking at a local orchard or to score some cheap at the farmer’s market. (In fact, a lot of popular dishes for this holiday are farmer’s market friendly… grab some carrots and sweet potatoes for your tzimmes, too!)
• On Tuesday afternoon, many will also head down to a river or other flowing body of water for the Tashlikh, or casting off. By emptying our pockets, stuffed for the occasion with stale breadcrumbs, it symbolically casts off our spiritual baggage welcomes the new year. All the better if we feed some ducks, too!

If nothing else, you can wish your Jewish friends “L’shana Tova,” your wishes for them to have a good year!

We’re looking at another crazy week, and there is something about writing my menus out that makes me stick to it and makes dinnertime easier, so here we go:

Sunday — Birthday (take-out, we’ll go out for a nice dinner some night we can get a sitter or two)

Monday — Baked potato bar: We have potatoes from the farmers market, so I will bake them, make some turkey bacon, some sauteed mushrooms, and a slew of other toppings and we can all pile on what we like.

Tuesday — Crockpot Chicken Tetrazinni, subbing rotisserie chicken for the turkey

Wednesday — Tacos (tomatoes from our garden, some lettuce, ground turkey, blue corn taco shells, and cheese)

Thursday –The salmon & roasted corn chowder that I’ve been meaning to make for weeks

Friday — Pizza night! We have a ton of basil in the yard so still at least 1 fresh pesto pizza. Yum!

Saturday — Big school picnic runs until 2pm, so I’m guessing that we’ll cobble together some leftovers for a light dinner

I wasn’t the only person thinking about green school supplies in August, and now I’m clearly not the only one thinking about what actually goes into those lead- and vinyl-free lunch boxes each day. (Didn’t get that new lunch bag yet? EcoBags has a great line of eco-friendly bags.  Now until October 15th, iLunchBox has a code for 15% off. Use code iLunchBox08 at check out.) So far, we’ve sent a peanut butter and honey sandwich in place of bologna and a chicken sausage in a bun on hamburger day. I’m feeling more inspired for the meals to come, for sure. Quinoa muffins? Yum.

Meanwhile, The Not Quite Crunchy Parent has ideas for making schools greener all year!

eBay has taken over the online store World of Good, designed to connect socially and environmentally aware purchasers with sellers. The items lean more towards international fair trade than organic or locally sourced, like Ten Thousand Villages, while the community section has some interesting green lifestyle articles.

MamaBid has details for recycling those pesky Tyvek envelopes. Add that to the long list of things I didn’t know could be recycled!

Green Your Design links to the EcoEtsy team. I could spend a whole day browsing Etsy online, in fact I’m sure I did more than once when I was on bed rest. Ecosalon culls the best of their favorites at least once a week, too. I’m thinking of adding a feature where I’ll do the same for kid or household items that are green and reasonably priced. Sounds like a lot of fun to me!

Friends, it is almost Christmas. And it is really almost Halloween. The planner for handmade holidays at Skip to My Lou (PDF) is useful for both occasions if you are planning homemade costumes or outdoor displays. It’s not helpful if just the idea of the holidays now makes you a little queasy.

Surely You Nest reminds me that I need to check with our dentist about sealants and their BPA content. He told me he did the research and the ones he uses doesn’t have it, but he also called it “BPH”, which makes me just a little nervous.

The recipe for Spinach-Rice Balls at How Do You Do It? got me thinking about how hard it’s going to be to beat back the bologna monster every day. I need ideas for lunches P can take from preschool to his afterschool program, things that will stay fresh with a minimum amount of hassle for him and us.