Dinners I've Eaten Lately And Other Fiascoes

Howdy blog world!  I've noticed lately I've been taking a bunch of pictures of stuff that I don't end up publishing because I am distracted by the 30 Day Challenge and life in general.  So this post is going to be a couple good dinners I've made and consumed recently.

First, a little story before I get to Sunday's dinner.  That night I arrived home after my 6 hour drive from DC.  I walked in the door of my house to ALL of the smoke detectors blaring!  Greg was gone (of course), and I have no idea how long they had been going off since I was gone about 3 days.  I also didn't know WHY they were going off!  I ran around the house checking for fire and burn marks, but found nothing.  I frantically called Greg and asked him what I should do.  This involved me cursing the fact that I'm a pilot's wife and my husband is never around when I need him to deal with stupid issues like this!  He patiently waited for me to stop flipping out and explained how to disarm the smoke alarm.  For those of you who don't know me, I'm only 5'3", kinda short.  I had to get up on a kitchen stool and try not to wipe out as I twisted and detached the damn smoke detector from the ceiling.  FINALLY, the thing stopped...  Greg's best guess was that due to the cold weather, one of the furnaces that we don't use much (we have 3 in our house) kicked on and the "burnt dust" in the vent set off the smoke detectors.  This made me totally freaked out to use the heat in the house while he wasn't home, so I turned ALL the heaters off and bundled up in about 10 layers of clothing til he got home later that night and could take a look.  Fun times!

After I settled down from my smoke detector fiasco, I was starving and decided to cook up some dinner.  I made a new version of Chicken Sausage Pasta.

I used:

• 1 Tablespoon of EVOO
• Two jalapeno chicken sausages
• 1/2 a red bell pepper
• 1/2 an onion
• 1 medium tomato
• 1/3 cup veggie stock
• 1/2 cup Classico Four Cheese tomato sauce
• 1 cup baby spinach
• About 2 cups of whole wheat penne and/or rotini pasta
• Shredded Parmesan cheese on top

Directions:  Boil pasta according to package directions.
Saute the diced onions and peppers in a pan with the EVOO till softened.

                                       

Meanwhile, cut each chicken sausage lengthwise, and grill in a grill pan.

Add the tomatoes, stock, tomato sauce, and spinach to the pan and combine.  Chop up your grilled sausage and add that, along with the drained pasta to the sauce to combine everything.  Top with shredded parm.

Last night, Greg was actually home for dinner.  I brainstormed based on what I had in the house and came up with the idea for Veggie Philly Cheese steaks.  One thing about me?  I'm not really a fan of traditional Philly Cheese steaks.  Even though I do eat meat, I've always found them to be kind of gross.  I can't stand reheated red meat, and that's what they taste like to me.  I also am VERY picky about fat on meat and I always feel like there's lots of fatty bits on the meat in the Cheese steaks.  Enter, vegetarian cheese steaks.

I used:  

1 Tablespoon EVOO

1/2 package of LightLife  Smart Ground Veggie Crumbles

1 yellow pepper

1/2 onion

A few splashes of veggie stock

A couple shakes of savory seasoning (I think you could use Thyme)

2 french bagette rolls

Enough muenster cheese to top the sandwiches.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 475 degrees.

Julienne your pepper and onion and cook them in the EVOO along with the veggie crumbles.  Add splashes of veggie stock (not too much) and seasoning until onions and peppers are slightly soft and everything is cooked through.

Spoon mixture into rolls and top with strips of cheese.  Place in oven for about 8-10 minutes until cheese is melted/bubbly.

I also made oven potatoes, which I started before the cheese steaks.  I just washed and cut up 4 smallish potatoes and tossed them in a little EVOO, garlic, rosemary, and salt and pepper.  I spread them on a cookie sheet and cooked them for 20 minutes at 475 degrees.

I served the sandwiches and oven fries with sides of steamed broccoli.  

All together.

Let's see that again.

Mmmm, they were really good!  I will definitely be making these again. :)

The rest of our evening was spent doing a little house cleaning, baking a batch of Mama Pea's PB Dough Balls, and crashing, as seen below.

Well, that about sums up my last couple evenings! 
How are you guys doing?  Have you dealt with any smoke detector-like fiascoes lately?  Any fun new recipes I should know about??