Mashed potatoes and noodles

Yum! Brandon really liked dinner tonight! I started out thinking of making scalloped potatoes, but didn't feel like it, so I made mashed instead. Cooked up some whole wheat egg noodles and some gravy to go on them and the potatoes for whoever wanted that. The girls aren't big on gravy. Also had raw broccoli, baby carrots, and red grapes. The carrots were a big hit with Michaela tonight. She was sitting there eating them at the table waiting for me to get the rest of the dinner ready!

Hamburger Helper Cheesey Italian Shells

WITHOUT the actual hamburger of course, is what we had tonight! I could just make it without the meat or use Boca meatless meat. I use the Boca to help get some protein in our diet, plus it just adds to it! I also added some whole wheat rotini pasta to it since the shells it came with were lacking in number it seemed! Haven't had this before, and the girls LOVED it! Rachel even ate the Boca in it! She doesn't like it in her tacos. . .hmmm. . .another mention of tacos when tacos isn't on the menu! ha! Maybe we should have them sometime soon! With this, I brought out the veggies I cut up for last nights dinner that didn't get eaten (I tend to cut up WAY too much!) and added some grapes to it. Also thawed some frozen petite peas and white shoepeg corn in some warm water vs steaming it like my mom suggested so we could have that raw vs cooked. First time I've tried that. . . .worked out great! Rachel doesn't like corn for some reason though. Michaela would have eaten it. . .until she saw her sister getting picky about the corn. At least they both ate some veggies even if they didn't have all that was offered. :)

Ever wonder what our vegetarian family has for dinner?

I often get people that wonder what I make for our family to eat since I don't prepare any meat dishes. So, for those curious minds out there, I decided to add on this separate blog about what I make for dinner. . . . I most likely won't get every nights meal blogged, but hopefully this will end up being a good sampling. I'll probably add in special treats and stuff we're doing too just for fun! ;)

Tonight we had baked potatoes with a variety of raw veggies: broccoli, green and yellow peppers and tomato slices. Any veggies are good, but they're best eaten raw as much as possible so you don't kill the enzymes in your food as much from cooking. :) Everyone is required to choose at least 3 things from the veggie plate to go along with their potato. Broccoli and peppers are big hits at our house! Tomatoes. . . .not so much! In order to get them to eat tomatoes, I usually have to make tacos or something, then they'll eat them mixed in the taco. Tonight, Rachel hoarded all the green peppers and "left two for someone else, mommy!" lol She took a while getting to her potato since it was "too hot." Once it cooled down, she was all good! Michaela had her fair amount of broccoli, but didn't want as many peppers as usual which surprised me. She usually loves them! I've actually found that she'll eat peppers for me better as a snack or while I'm cutting them up than on her plate at dinner. Tonight had to be pretty simple since it's Tuesday and we had ballet this evening. Sometimes I just make it simple just because I hate to fuss with dinner! Sometimes I wish we didn't have to eat. . . .either that or I had a personal chef!