Week 4 Menu Planning

Monday: Tuscan Vegetable Torte (crock pot meal)
Tuesday: Sweet Potato, spinach and apple salad
Wednesday: Meatless Mexican Lasagna
Thursday: leftovers
Friday: Vegetable barley soup
Saturday: Quesadilla with spanish rice
Sunday: Tortellini Primavera - this will probably change since it is the Super Bowl

Peanut Butter Banana Cookies

Recipe by 5-A-Day Kids Cookbook

Ingredients:
1 large ripe banana, sliced
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
2 Tbsp margarine
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour (can substitute whole wheat flour0
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Spray sheets with non-stick cooking spray.

In mixing bowl, combine banana, peanut butter and margarine. Mix until creamy with hand held mixer. Add sugars and egg; continue mixing until light and fluffy. Add flour, baking soda and salt to batter. Use a spoon to stir until all the flour has been incorporated into the batter.

Drop teaspoonfuls onto baking sheet. Sprinkle cookies with sugar, then press fork twice on top each cookie to form a crisscross pattern.

Bake on middle rack of oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from baking sheet and place on cooling rack.

*I love, love, love these cookies.  They hit the spot every time.  They come out nice and soft. Be careful, it is hard to not eat the whole batch at once. 

Baked Penne with Roasted Vegetables

This one was recommend to me by a friend and I'm glad that she did.  Wow, was it good.  I made a few alterations to the recipe, used an orange pepper in place of one of the red peppers.  I also didn't have any summer squash because, well, it isn't summer.  I also eliminated the mushrooms since I'm not a fan. You could easily add diced chicken to this if you wanted some meat. 
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/baked-penne-with-roasted-vegetables-recipe/index.html

Dutch Apple Pie

So this isn't a dinner recipe but it we had it this week for my birthday.  It is one of my favorites. I highly recommend it.

http://www.food.com/recipe/dutch-apple-pie-43990

Spinach Salad w Tortellini, Dried Cranberries and Apples

I discovered this website when searching for recipes and found that is has a ton of great salad recipes.  Stuff that sounds yummy and that I would never have thought of.  This one went over well. Everyone enjoyed it.  I used gorganzola instead of feta. 

http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/spinach-salad-with-tortellini-dried-cranberries-apples-almonds-and-feta/

Pesto Pasta

This is one of our favorites and we have made it for years. Best part is that it is super easy.

Box of Captavi noodles
container of basil pesto sauce
mozzarella, but into chunks
1 cup of roasted red pepper (can use from a jar)

Cook noodles according directions on box. If you are roasting the pepper yourself, slice them up and put into a skillet with a little oil and saute until soft. Drain noodles and put back into pot.  Mix in pesto sauce, roasted red peppers and mozzarella. 

Week 3 Menu Plan

Sunday: Spaghetti Pie
Monday: Pesto Pasta
Tuesday: Spinach salad with Tortellini
Wednesday: eating out for my birthday!
Thursday: Corn Chowder
Friday: Baked Penne with roasted veggies
Sat: leftovers