Easy dinner all around

Indeed, with all the weekend prep, dinner was a snap last night, and my fridge is much more cleaned out.
I made two soups in about 5 minutes. Of course I should have just made the mushroom - two separate soups for dinner is kind of ridiculous, but I was so curious about the pumpkin that I made that too. I heated up the mushroom soup, much of the fat skimmed, but much remaining. I really made this for Dave and he certainly didn't mind a little extra richness. I also made the pumpkin soup, but had to add about 4 times the suggested red Thai curry paste and also added in about 2 teaspoons each of a store bought ginger paste and lemmongrass paste. These are kind of cheats and not super fresh tasting, but they're massively convenient and pretty good. I must say the pumpkin soup was FABULOUS - and I'm only mad that I didn't have 2 cans of coconut milk to make a double batch. I used light coconut milk which tasted fine. It is one of those pea-soup like consistencies that gurgles all over the stove though.

So realizing that it would be unreasonable to ask the kids to eat either mushroom soup or spicy pumpkin soup I decided to make a second dinner for them - boxed whole wheat macaroni and cheese. We have inadvertently gotten away from having them each pick a meal once a week and need to get back to it. It makes a huge difference in their attitudes on the non-kid meal nights. At any rate - I did not doctor the mac and cheese with anything healthy and they both happily gobbled it up, not complaining that it was whole wheat, but instead seeing it as a treat - actual kid food! My was that peaceful! Maybe making two dinners isn't such a bad idea! Watching them shovel in the pasta, I couldn't help myself, and I did throw a few cold edamame beans on their napkins and insist that they get eaten. One quick complaint from each of them and they the beans were gobbled up so fast I actually thought they hid them. Interesting though as the kids ate easily twice as much mac and cheese as they do grown-up food - the two of them finished the whole box no problem.

Tonight we will eat the already prepared chicken and barley, and some zucchini, yet to be roasted - I need some sort of unifying sauce, often my downfall. Dave and I each got soup at work for lunch. I guess my weekend efforts were helpful after all.

I didn't even eat much of anything as I was not hungry from having overeaten the entire rest of the day. I need to get back on track with a more routine eating plan. Today I'm trying that. Also I still have about 8 cups of pumpkin left. Must get going on using or freezing it.