We had some of the juiciest and sweetest watermelon recently. It was the best we’ve had in a while. This time of year is when fresh produce is at it’s peak in flavor. This week, I’m including a new recipe great for summer when fresh corn is available.

MONDAY:  Chicken tenders, Sauteed Yellow Squash in Herb Butter (new family favorite!), salad

TUESDAY:  Leftover chicken tenders, Fresh Corn Salad, fresh tomato wedges drizzled with olive oil, salt & pepper

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Fresh Corn Salad:

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups fresh corn, kernels cut off the cob
• 1/2 sweet onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Salt & pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:

Miss all ingredients in a large bowl.  Season to taste.  Salad can be served over a bed of greens.

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WEDNESDAY:  Chicken Alfredo with Broccoli

THURSDAY:  Leftover Chicken Alfredo with Broccoli

FRIDAY:  Chicken & Bean Nachos with avocados

Here is a simple way to reduce the amount of sugar in Kool-Aid with a natural sweetener, stevia.  We made Kool-Aid this way a lot this summer, and our college-age son liked it.  So it passed the test!

INGREDIENTS:

*1 small package of dry Kool-Aid mix
*1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar (or 1 tablespoon works fine)
*6 “KAL spoons” of KAL Pure Stevia Extract powder

Someday I would like to fix up our back deck with an outdoor electric grill for outdoor cooking, comfy outdoor furniture, and several new potted plants.  However, now that we don’t have young kids at home, I wonder how much time we would actually spend outside.  When our kids were little, we were outside every day.  You know how that is.  But now that our youngest is in college, I don’t spend much time in our yard.  I’m inside working on the computer instead, and besides, it’s so hot in Texas during the summer.  Maybe, though, if we had a grill then we would spend more time outside during the spring and fall.

I found a granola bar recipe that sounds great and also made a new friend.  The “Domestic Nerd” is new to blogging and her second post is from Menu Plan Monday this week.  Her next post is this delicious sounding recipe.  I had full intentions of making it, but haven’t yet.  Hope to soon!  Drop by My Life as a Domestic Nerd if you have a chance and welcome her to blogging.

Now that our son is home from his freshman year of college, I’m cooking more.  He’s taking a couple of college courses this summer, and so I try to have lunch ready when he gets home.  When it’s just me and my husband, most of the time we get our own lunch, pack something for lunch at work or eat left-overs.  Sometimes I’ll cook frozen baby lima beans or black-eyed peas and have those with something.  But now, I’m fixing regular lunches which is great because we’re enjoying having our son home for the summer!  This is what I have on the menu so far.

MONDAY:

Lunch – “Food for Life Tortilla Pizzas”  (This is a simple recipe I made up because I wanted a healthier, yet simple, pizza crust.  And it’s perfect for hot days here in Texas when I don’t want to heat up the oven to bake a pizza!)  Here’s how to get COUPONS for Food for Life products.

INGREDIENTS:

• Food for Life/Ezekiel 4:9 Organic Tortillas (You can buy these at Central Market or a health food store with grocery section.)
  
• Pizza sauce
• Reduced-fat mozzarella cheese
• Olive oil
• Simple toppings
  

DIRECTIONS: Preheat your griddle with a little oil.  Fold or cut the tortillas in half.  Then fold or cut each half into thirds.  (I found it’s much easier to have the pieces already cut beforehand than to wait until after cooking the whole tortilla.)  Then top with pizza sauce, cheese and simple toppings that don’t need to bake in the oven.  Cook on medium to medium high heat just until the tortilla crust is a little crispy and the cheese is melted.  Be sure and watch so it doesn’t burn.

We each take a couple of pieces and then I put more on the griddle.

Supper – Chicken tenders, cauliflower, green peas, and left-over banana pudding from yesterday

TUESDAY:

Lunch - Hot dogs, carrot sticks

Supper – Salmon patties, corn, green beans

WEDNESDAY:

Lunch – Turkey sandwiches, Veggie chips

Supper – Chicken Alfredo with Broccoli and salad

THURSDAY:

Lunch – Black bean & cheese nachos, salsa & chips

Supper – Chicken pasta, salad and garlic bread (made with hot dog buns)

FRIDAY:

Lunch – (don’t know yet)

Supper – Green Enchilada Casserole, guacamole & chips

READ MORE RECIPES

Memorial Day is right around the corner, and many people will probably be cooking out on the grill, whether it’s an electric grill, gas grill, or maybe even a little hibachi grill.  I have a feeling that our daughter and son-in-law will probably be cooking out hamburgers and hot dogs.  We haven’t decided what we’re going to do yet, but I can imagine it might be hamburgers.  We don’t eat beef that often, so it’s a treat when we do.

Pictured above:  Easy Cheesy Beef Enchiladas

Ingredients:

• 1 pound lean ground beef  (hormone free, if possible)
• 1/2 – 1 cup chopped onion
• 1  14-ounce (medium-size) can Old El Paso Enchilada Sauce, Medium Red (or if you like lots of sauce like us, then 1 large can or 2 small cans)
  
• 1 package corn tortillas
• 1 package shredded sharp cheddar cheese, reduced fat

Directions:

Cook chopped onion and ground beef until no pink is left in the meat.  Warm tortillas either briefly in the microwave (this can be done by inverting a dinner plate on top of another one to make a “tortilla warmer”) or in a skillet so they will roll without breaking.  Place ground beef/onion mixture in a line down the middle of a tortilla and spoon a couple of tablespoons of enchilada sauce over it.  Roll to make tortilla and place in casserole dish.  Repeat until all the meat mixture is used up.  Pour remaining sauce evenly over tortillas and top with shredded cheese.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Are you a Chipotle fan?  Here are their own Chipotle original recipes.

Here are more recipes you might enjoy:

• Enchilada Casserole Recipe – Charlie Gibson’s Famou Recipe
• Green Chili Chicken Enchilada Casserole
• Mexican Meatballs
• Salsa – Blackeye Pea
• Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup
• Southwest “Cheesecake” Dip
• Tamale Spoonbread Pie
• Texas Stuffed Jalapenos
• Texas Two-Step Picante Chicken (Weight Watchers Recipe)

AND…for an awesome Cinco de Mayo desserts:

• Sopapilla Cheesecake
• Brown Sugar Cookies – Slice & Bake (my grandmother’s recipe)

ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS: Cinco de Mayo: Origin, Activities, & Books for Children

READ MORE RECIPES

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lemon (riper lemons are juicier) for each large glass of lemonade
• Stevia – we use KAL brand Stevia (natural sugar-free herb which is considered by many to be the best choice for sugar replacement)
  
• Water
• Ice
• Mint leaves, fresh off the plant (I used leaves from a Peppermint Plant)
  

DIRECTIONS:

Juice the lemons.  First, roll the lemons on the kitchen counter, mashing them as you roll.  This helps make juicing easier.   Cut the lemons in half and take out all the seeds you can.  Here are a few suggestions on how to juice a lemon:

• The old fashioned way:  squeeze, squeeze, squeeze each lemon half
• Use an inexpensive juicer as pictured below.  (I bought mine in a resale shop years ago, and it’s probably considered an antique now.)

• Use a Le Creuset Citrus Juicer (Christi, I listed this one for you)
• Use a more expensive juicer (they range anywhere up to $549.00 – I don’t recommend this)

After you juice the lemons, add sweetener to taste (Stevia is what we use).  Pour over ice with mint leaves.

NOTE:  The Peppermint Plant is the very beginning of our garden this year.  I’m excited to finally start one because we had a huge garden during all of my childhood.  Our garden this year will start small.  I will be posting the progress with it under “Gardening.”

This week at Central Market through April 13, 2010, if you buy a container of Organic Baby Spinach for $5.99 with an in-store COUPON then you get mushrooms (regularly $1.99) and Gourmet Baby Cucumbers (regularly $2.79) for free.  Since regular spinach usually has a high amount of pesticides on it, I love being able to get a good deal on organic.  So using these fresh ingredients plus organic carrots (another veggie usually high in pesticides), broccoli, green olives, and Hormel Natural Turkey slices cut and cooked in EVOO (coupons for Hormel Natural Turkey), we had a delicious meal that was super healthy!  Here’s our salad:

Here’s a recipe that kids of all ages will probably like.  They’re not frozen fish sticks – they’re made from scratch!  I laugh to myself when I think back to when our son was in elementary school.   I often served fish sticks and oven fries to his friends if several kids were at our house at meal time.  That seemed to be the one meal that all the kids liked.  One of his friends went home one time and raved about the meal I fixed.  His mom asked me about it, and I told her it was just Van de Kamp’s frozen fish sticks and Ore-Ida Steak Fries that I cooked in the oven.  She laughed and said she was going to have to start fixing that, too, because it was her son’s favorite.

Here’s the simple recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 pound boneless, skinless cod fish
• 2 cups coarse Japanese- style bread crumbs, such as Panko
• 1 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 3 large eggs
• freshly ground pepper & salt
  
• Oil – I use EVOO

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Coat a non-stick baking sheet with a light layer of oil.

Cut fish into one-inch strips.  Combine the Panko, flour, and salt in a shallow bowl.  Beat the eggs lightly in another bowl.  Season the fish all over with salt and pepper, dip carefully in the eggs, then press into the Panko mixture and coat evenly.  Shake off any excess mixture.

Place coated fish stix on the baking sheet with at least 1/4 inch space between them.  Bake for 12-15 minutes, being careful not to overcook.

*Also try this recipe with chicken.