Here’s another easy pasta dish for a weekday dinner.  Use some of your already cooked pasta (see yesterday’s Tuesday’s Tip) and layer it with ricotta cheese and sauce to make a quick lasagna.

And surprise--there is a fun kid-friendly ingredient in this dish--chicken tenders.  You can easily omit to make this dish vegetarian, but I think the chicken can add a fun factor to this dish!

Baked Spaghetti Lasagna

1 pound whole wheat spaghetti, cooked
1 head of broccoli, cut into small florets
1 - 28 ounce jar of marinara

Last week I shared several slow cooker recipe, tips and ideas for my favorite way to get healthy food to our family’s table without a lot of stress and time.  This week I focus on my second favorite convenient, healthy food genre:  pasta.

Pasta has several things going for it:  first, it is almost universally loved by children and adults alike. Second, even if you have special food needs, there are gluten-free versions and of course my favorite, whole wheat and whole grain blends.  Third, pasta can be served in almost infinite flavor combinations: Italian, Southwestern, Asian and American flavors all are well-suited for pasta dishes.  Fourth, and perhaps most important for our purposes this week:  pasta cooks fast.

Pasta dishes can be as simple or complex as you wish, but for our purposes this week, I am going to keep the recipes quite simple, yet super tasty.  Really, in a pinch, I’ve been known to open a jar of store bought marinara and serve it over cooked spaghetti with a touch of low-fat cheese.  This is great, especially when I am just super short on time.  Using whole wheat pasta, you have a really healthful meal!  But here is an almost-as-easy recipe that gets rave reviews in our home.

This recipe is a perennial favorite in the Sweet Pea home.  We love tacos and this stew (it is a thick, thick soup) is almost like a taco in your bowl.  Serve it with the toppings of your choice for a happy dinnertime for the whole family.

Slow Cooker Taco Stew

2 - 15 oz cans of black beans, drained and rinsed -OR- 3 ½ cup cooked black beans
16 oz can tomato sauce
10 oz frozen corn package
2 - 10 oz cans of tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
12 oz can or bottle of beer or 1 ½ cups broth

This is a recipe that I simply call "easier than pie."  Pie isn't easy for me, but this couldn't be simpler. 

What I love about this slow cooker recipe is that it not only yields a great meal for the day you cook it, but also the makings of a quick meal later that same week.  

Slow Cooker “Roast” Chicken

1 - 4-6 pound chicken, thawed
1-2 tablespoons spice mixture (such as lemon pepper, jerk seasoning or Italian)
2 onions, cut into quarters

Have you tried spaghetti squash yet?  Spaghetti squash is a winter squash with a special surprise inside.  When you cook this humble vegetable, it goes from this:

to this inside:

If it is true (and I believe it is) that we eat with our eyes, this salad is a feast.  I contend that green items always make a plate look gorgeous, and green with a complementary color like orange or red or purple make a plate shine.  But particularly this time of the year, I love the look of a green and red touch to our holiday meals.

If you are looking for a quick and easy side salad to grace a special meal, this salad is your ticket.  It not only looks great, but it is a breeze to make and unique enough to make your family or guests take note.  The combination of the radicchio and arugula is super flavorful and a far cry from iceberg or romaine lettuce.

One of my boys loves salad, the other does not, yet both boys love this salad.  Try it with your family, it might just surprise you how everyone gobbles it up!

Radicchio and Arugula Salad

1 medium head radicchio

I must have unknowingly bought the miracle parsley plant.  

Two summers ago, I bought an Italian, or flat-leaf parsley plant at a local nursery.  At the end of the summer, I brought it inside for the winter, something I try each year in a way to ease the pain of losing my fresh garden herbs.

Over the long winter our parsley plant barely held on, growing a wee bit sickly from the lack of sunlight.  Sure, I had the plant in the sunniest window possible, but the gray days of winter lingered on and our poor plant looked quite sad.  With a bit of hope and lots of optimism, I planted the parsley in the garden in the spring and oh-my-goodness, it thrived.

This parsley was so abundant this summer, I found myself making Chimichurri, a South American sauce, similar to pesto, but using parsley in place of basil.  I harvested a bunch of parsley and brought much of the remaining plant inside in a pot.  I am hoping we have a similar experience with the parsley again this spring.

A week ago Sunday, 60 Minutes had a piece on the company and scientists who develop flavors for our foods.  It was eye opening to see what sort of chemicals and compounds go into our food to make them seemingly addictive, so we crave more of whatever we are consuming.  

I have three recipes for easy natural flavor enhancers this week.  All are a breeze to make, but can transform a simple meal into a gourmet delight.  There recipes will be perfect for this time of the year, when you may be called upon to whip up a meal in short order.

The first recipe today is for Kale Basil Pesto.  Pesto is traditionally made with basil and some other great ingredients.  I had the idea to add kale to increase the healhtfulness of the pesto, and no one could tell the difference.  But by all means, feel free to make this recipe with all basil too!

Kale Basil Pesto

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Before I was a mom, my job was stressful and I did not often meal plan.  There was a Harris Teeter on my way home, so I often swung by the grocery store on my way home from work and picked up food for dinner.  Not the most efficient way to do meals, but I was young, busy and distracted.

So distracted in fact, that one year, I brought home a roast chicken for dinner the week before Thanksgiving.  I had been so wrapped up with work and life that I had forgotten that we’d be having a similar big meal the next week.  Not the end of the world, for sure, but it did make the roast turkey on Thanksgiving a little less special and tasty.

Chicken seems to be the most popular dinner item, so do you need a little inspiration for your meals in the next week so you avoid eating poultry, or for that matter, sweet potatoes, stuffing or apple pie too?  

On Monday I shared a delicious and decadent tasting Broccoli Au Gratin for your holiday dinner.  Au Gratin recipes are fairly traditional and not that unusual for holiday meals.  

Today I share a more “outside the box” holiday dish, one that can serve as a tasty side, but also a dish that is a great main dish for any vegetarian or vegan guests at your dinner table.

My friend M shared this recipe with me.  This southwestern inspired dish takes black beans, a great source of plant protein, and adds some fantastic flavors to create black bean cakes.  But wait, it gets better:  the “crust” of the cakes are crumbled baked tortilla chips, which add a fun twist and taste.

A word to the wise:  if your black bean cakes crumble a bit when you cook them (like ours did in our first trial run), simply place in a tortilla and enjoy as a really tasty filling for a burrito!