I am back from a fantastic weekend in London. Blogshop was super and I am looking forward to using my newfound skills to pretty up Mini Piccolini!
It’s Tuesday today, and at our place that means Takeout Tuesday. It’s like a mini date night. We forgo the otherwise so strictly adhered to family dinner, let Alec eat before us, and then we have takeout and veg out watching TV or just hanging out. No computers, no work, no blogging.
So tonight, while we order in (I’m thinking Thai), Alec will have pimped out tomato soup. And starting with this post, I will be sharing more food, recipes and meal planning here on Mini Piccolini. I feel like what Alec eats (and what we all eat as a family) is one of the most important parts of my job right now. We are a vegetarian family. I am actually not a vegetarian, but Alec and my husband are, and I don’t have meat at home. So, you won’t be seeing much in the way of roast dinners. But I hope you will still get some menu ideas, and I will try to mention where and how you can add fish, chicken and meat to the recipes if you wish.
In the next few days, a page will turn up in the menu above, and in the coming weeks and months, I will start building up an archive of recipes and quick meal ideas. Search by ingredient if you are looking for something in particular. I am big on keeping things healthy and varied and interesting for Alec and exposing him to as many different flavors and textures as I can. I am also big on family dinners, sitting down together at least once a day to talk and enjoy a meal together. If you are into those things too, I hope Mini Veg will be the thing for you!
First out: Tomato Soup with Broccoli, Peas and Mini Pasta Shells
Alec seems to really like soup right now, so this is a quick and easy meal idea that can be varied endlessly and re-used over and over again without feeling old.
Ingredients:
- Tomato soup (this evening I will be using a ready-made soup)
- Broccoli
- Frozen peas
- Mini pasta shells
- Fresh mozzarella cheese
- Cook pasta according to the instructions and let the broccoli (or whatever veggies you are using) cook along with the pasta for the last 5 minutes or so.
- Add peas at the very end (if using frozen) since they only really need to be thawed and warmed up.
- Drain pasta and veggies.
- Heat up soup and add pasta and veggies.
- Serve with little cubes of mozzarella cheese.
- You could also add grilled cheese sandwiches or similar if you are looking for a heartier meal or are feeding bigger, hungrier kids.
3 Comments
We are on the same wavelength today! I wrote about last night’s spinach pesto, today. I think Alec is a little too young for Spinach, right? — I forget at which age it is OK for spinach…but when he’s older, I LOVE to have spinach pesto on hand and everyone in the house loves it. (Although, we live very vegetarian… but are definitely not completely)
I love your date idea. Very cute and very workable. What a great suggestion. As I was texting and surfing on my phone, in the grocery store today, I saw the Svenska Dagbladet headline about mobiles: making you self involved…”… I actually took a photo and mailed to my husband, it is such a good reminder to unplug. We do, too — but not in such an organized way — many will certainly find this post a good support!
Also, so curious about the seminar/workshop. I’ve only been blogging for 2 months… so there’s infinity for me to learn. I’m still at odds with the word processing w/in my blog program… I’m glad to hear it was good and am very curious.
Gina, your spinach pesto sounds delicious! I will definitely try that this weekend (spinach is ok from 1 year and Alec is 15 months now so we are slowly introducing it). My mum makes the most amazing cilantro pesto – classic pesto recipe, but replace basil with cilantro, parmesan with feta (and pine nuts with walnuts if you wish). It is the yummiest thing ever!
Blogshop was great. Two days of intense photoshop. I was concerned that my under-challenged mommy/pregnant(!) brain would be so out of gear and that I would have a hard time getting through this, but I had no trouble following it and there was lots of room to ask questions etc. I would definitely recommend learning a program like photoshop in this kind of environment. I also didn’t even realize before how much you can do with photoshop – I had no idea. That said, it is an expensive class and with travel etc added on, you really have to be sure you will get a lot of use out of it (which I think you would)…
Hi Mina,
hey congrats on pregnancy numero 2!
glad you had fun in London!
looking forward to your posting more recipes. We are almost all veg too. it’s not that easy to get fresh halal meat here in Ottawa, and also, we feel better about not eating too much meat. Knowing that you cook veg at home, i have always wanted to know how you keep it varied and interesting, as well as get the protein in there! looking forward to your future posts! (-: