What's For Dinner?

As I mentioned in previous post, I am going to start writing about our meals. Sharing recipes, photos, and maybe a bit of our conversation. You never know who will end up at our table.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Shallot Soup

4 cups cubed peeled butternut squash
1 T olive oil
1/4 t salt
4 large shallots, peeled and halved
1 (1/2 inch) piece peeled fresh ginger, thinly sliced
2 1/2 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
2 T slices fresh chives

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Combine first 5 ingredients in a roasting pan, toss well. Bake for 50 minutes.
3. Blend until smooth in blender. Best to do in batches. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes.
4. Top with chives

calories: 112 and serves 6


Beet and Walnut Salad

Dressing:
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 T sugar
2 T chopped shallots
2 t olive oil
1/4 t salt

Salad:
16 baby beets (about 1 lb)
1/2 c water
10 cups mixed greens
3 T chopped walnuts
3 T crumbled blue cheese

1. prepare dressing- combine first 5 ingredients
2. preheat oven to 375
3. to prepare salad- leave root and one ince of stem on beets; scrub with brush. Place beets in baking dish with 1/2 c. water. Cover, bake for 35-40 minutes or until tender. Drain and cool. Trim and rub skins off beets. Cut into quarters. Place beets in a small bowl; drizzle with 1 T dressing
4. Place salad greens on large platter. Drizzle with remaining dressing, top with beets, walnuts, and cheese.

Note: I omitted cheese, walnuts, and used only 2/3 of the dressing.

Instead of cheese in the salad and walnuts, I served Beechers cheese and warmed, crusty artisan bread.

The kids were heading back to school in the morning, so conversation revolved around seeing friends, making sure all homework was finished, and being thankful for a great holiday break together.

Cheers.
T

What's For Dinner?

If you know me, you know that I have lots of ideas and occasionally act on them. Well I have been noodling on this one for awhile. I like to cook (wanted to say "love", but that seemed a tad strong). I really like to cook things that are healthy, yummy, and fairly easy to make. Since the new year has begun, many of you have made New Year's resolutions to improve your health- eating better, exercising more, spending more time doing the things you enjoy, etc. My goal is to keep up with this blog this year and to add a feature called "What's For Dinner"? Here you will get information on a recent meal we have had including recipe, photos, and reviews.

As a teaser tonight the Gellert Family is having Butternut Squash/Shallot Soup and Beet and Walnut Salad with crusty Italian bread. Come back tomorrow for more information.

Happy New Year.

T

The Ultimate

So, it is Sunday evening around 8:45 pm.  I am sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by one disc (frisbee for those not familiar with the word), gigantic box of Cheez-its, sports bags, and the book I am currently reading, The Girl with the Dragon Tatto.  I am really trying to decide if I still have the energy to finish cleaning the kitchen or should I just wait till morning and work on recapping our great weekend.  Recapping the weekend it is...

This weekend, Spring Reign, has been on our calendar for months.  Spring Reign is a large Ultimate (game played with the above mentioned "disc") tournament.  Teams of kids ranging from 4th grade to Seniors in high school and from LA to Ontario play two days of Ultimate.  3 games on Saturday and 3 games on Sunday.  Morgan and Frances LOVE Ultimate.  Morgan plays with his high school team and Frances her middle school team.  Nick and I LOVE watching them play (thank goodness).   The tournament is played in Burlington, town 50 minutes north of Seattle.  This is our 4th Spring Reign and we quickly learned that it is much more of a celebration if you can spend the night at a hotel in Burlington, have dinner with friends after Saturdays games, and let the kids blow a little more energy in the hotel pool with old and new friends.

Morgan was only able to play one day of Ultimate since this tournament is composed of mixed gender teams and Morgan's school has one full boy's team and one full girl's.  They combined the kids and then split them into two groups- sending one group Saturday and the other Sunday.  Unfortunately for Morgan the weather "sucked" on Saturday:  rain, wind, hail, some sun breaks.  This made for tough play.  I think Morgan was also disappointed in the level of play coming from his team.  It is a building year for this high school group. He did have a great time playing, seeing friends on other teams, etc.

Frances, on the other hand, had two very full days of ultimate. Today, Sunday, was beautiful. Nick, Morgan, and I all have mild sun burns. Since Morgan wasn't playing, we devoted our watching time to Frances's games. They did great winning 2 of their 3 games. I love watching the kids dig down and find the extra push when they don't have much left to give. Frances has turned out to be a very good player and her team works well together. It was great fun to watch.

Our weekend wrapped up with a lovely dinner with our neighbors: Steve, Sonja, Lucas, and Grace. We spent most of dinner sharing our weekends. Grace plays Ultimate with Frances and Sonja spent Saturday and Saturday night up in Burlington- leaving Sunday morning to sell/show her first g to b home. Lucas had spent Saturday in Idaho at a track meet, and Steve had spent the weekend in Spokane celebrating his sister's 50th birthday. Lots to talk about.

The Beginning

So yesterday, I decided it would be great fun to start a family blog.  I was pretty darn excited- thinking it would be a great way to stay connected to each other (the four of us that is), share what is happening in our home with other family members- specifically those we don't see very often, and watch it hopefully grow into something we would later treasure.  A family diary of sorts.  Reaction to my idea was greeted with lots of questions.  Most, unfortunately, I didn't have the answers to.  Today I did some research which will help as we go forward creating something I think one day we will treasure.

I hope the four of us will take turns making blog entries.  My guess is that Morgan and Frances will quickly figure out how to add photos, video, etc- while Nick and I will slowly gain those skills.  I hope to hear about different things you are proud of, things you are struggling with, great books you are reading, places you have been, things you enjoy doing as a family, etc.  I am really not sure what to expect- but hope it will be something fun we can do together.

love- mom