I got Quick Fix Vegegarian: Healthy Home-Cooked Meals in 30 Minutes or Less as a Christmas present and it has been a great resource for weekday dinners that consist of more than pasta with a jar of sauce poured over it. The Indonesian-Style Noodles and Ginger Sesame Noodles with Broccoli were both hits with the adults and toddler. We also had a good experience with, believe it or not, Peanut Butter and Tomato Quesadilla. I know, it sounds foul, but it really was not at all terrible and the Kiddo loved it. (She likes tortillas and loves peanut butter and tomatoes, so I thought, ‘Why not?)

Also, we love Indian food and the daal recipes on IndianFoodForever.com have been great. I don’t know how authentic they are, but they taste like the dishes I’ve had in my favorite Indian restaurants, so, good enough for me. Next, I’m going to try making daal in the slow cooker. (Also found this great site with tips for making all kinds of Indian food using a slow cooker.) If that works, I am going to be in heaven.

Technorati Tags: food

Like a lot of couples, though, money and decisions about how it is spent or saved is a tough area.  I originally signed up for PearBudget, the web-based expense-tracking and budgeting tool when we first moved back to the States. But, it’s only been in the last month that we’ve been consistent about using it to track all of our receipts and income.

For some reason, it is tons easier for me to use than stand-alone programs like Quicken. It’s very easy to edit categories and other information. You can budget for both monthly and irregular expenses, and you can easily see where you are in relation to your monthly plan at a gance. We’ve really been able to see where our money is going and set realistic goals for budgeting and saving. I think we were both surprised that the areas we thought we were wasting money weren’t so bad, but we have problems in areas we thought were a non-issue. For example, we really don’t eat out very much, but we do spend way too much on groceries for  a family of three. (The cats eat cheap.) I attribute this to my love of trying new recipes, which has resulted in a cabinet full of rather exotic herbs and spices, and jars of various international condiments in the fridge. We’re prioritizing meal planning and sale shopping this month to see what we can do in that area.

I really liked this post from Small Notebook on what to do with a budget once you’ve got one. Rather than feeling constrained by ours, I feel it makes us both feel more in control and better able to talk about what we want and how to get there than we were before.

Brief summary of our meatless meals last week: 1) spaghetti with basic marinara sauce, actually a backup meal because I forgot to soak the beans for 2) black bean soup and rice; 3) our only standout veggie meal was this yummy dried mushroom risotto.* Risotto is definitely going to happen a lot more in our house now that I don’t have to stand over the pot and stir.

It also gives me more opportunities to sneak some green veggies into The Kiddo since rice in all its forms is one of the foods she rarely refuses.

*If you have a rice cooker, you should definitely get Beth Hensberger and Julie Kaufmann’s Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook. The recipes are easy and awesome.