Happy New Year!

Just a quick post to give you some recipes that may be good for the upcoming weeks and months (ugh) of winter.

When we got back from Chicago (I just realized that I never posted about our Christmas - um, well, I'll get to that in the next few days...) we were feeling full and gluttonous after a long weekend of eating, and snacking, and drinking.

It was also cold outside, so I wanted something that would be nice and warm, relatively healthy, but not too filling. I also wanted to use (if I could) what we had on hand, seeing that the credit card bills would be coming soon. Minestrone soup it was. I used this recipe which was easy in the production of it, but pretty tedious in terms of chopping, etc. Wow, it was really good, and made enough for us to have leftovers for a couple days. I also tweaked the recipe a little. I added a handful of frozen chopped spinach, used 28 oz. of tomatoes rather than the 14 oz. it calls for, and also used one extra zucchini.

The next night, I aimed to make something for dinner that wouldn't lead to a trip to the grocery store. I saw that we had some Parmesan pesto turkey burgers from Trader Joe's. That was a start, but we needed something to go with it. I had a potato, but not enough for fries or mashed potatoes. How about a pasta salad? Not normally what you think of in the winter, but I tried it. I used this recipe and it went perfectly with the burgers. It would also taste great on its own. Although I wouldn't recommend the burgers - they were lacking in something.

Today, I made this toffee, which I got from a link on Shivaya Naturals. I haven't tasted it yet, but it was super easy to do. I used parchment paper in my pan so it wouldn't stick so much, but that's the only thing I did differently. I can't wait to taste it. It looks yummy.

Enjoy!

*Sorry - no pictures this time. I realized that I should've taken pictures when the first 2 recipes were tucked away in tupperware. And the toffee, well, I'm lazy.