What is on your menu this week?

I've decided that from now on I always need a bottle of pesto in my fridge.  I bought a bottle of this... a little while when it was on sale.  And we've eaten a lot of it the last few weeks: I've made this pasta salad twice from Mel's Kitchen Cafe (minus the fresh basil and toasted pinenuts). Source: melskitchencafe.com via Jenny on Pinterest I've made lots of turkey/provolone wraps and sandwiches with pesto mayonnaise (just mix equal parts pesto and mayo). I've made this chicken pesto pizza. Source: sugarcooking.blogspot.com via Jenny on Pinterest What are your favorite things to make with pesto?

My friend gave me these cute Japanese Hello Kitty macaroni.  She knows how much my daughter loves Hello Kitty.  We made some mac and cheese with these cute little noodles for lunch yesterday.  The kids loved eating Hello Kitty. It made lunch a little more fun!

It's official. Now I'm a real "gourmet cook" since yesterday I bought my first box of kosher salt. I've been wanting some for a while, but haven't remembered to buy any when I've gone grocery shopping. photo from here I felt really professional yesterday when I made some salsa and sprinkled in a pinch of kosher salt. A small pleasure I guess...

Have you tried these? I threw some into a batch of rice krispie treats the other day. And they were really good. I can't wait to make them into some cookies. :)

Yesterday the UPS man delivered a surprise to my house. It was an early birthday present to me from my sweet parents and it was a Whirley Pop popcorn popper. The kids opened up the box and we didn't waste anytime whipping up some yummy kettle corn. The Whirley Pop makes greatest popcorn. Goodbye old air popper and microwave popcorn, I'll never use you again.

I wanted to share with you some more of my favorite products. I love Ronzoni Healthy Harvest noodles and pasta. I feel a little better about feeding my family whole wheat pasta instead of white. They weren't always so excited about eating whole wheat pasta, so I started mixing half wheat and half white noodles together. Now we only eat whole wheat and no one ever complains (or notices). Here are a few of my favorite products by Ronzoni. I love their spaghetti noodles too. I use these wheat egg noodles when I make stroganoff. I'm just waiting for someone to come out with whole wheat manicotti noodles. Anyway...Give these products a try! They're my favorite.

All right, here's another one of my favorite food products: I love ground turkey! I use it in place of hamburger all the time. I usually buy a package at Sam's Club every time I go there (it includes 4 -- 1.2 lb packages). It usually comes out to about $2 a pound. But my favorite thing about it is that it is only 7% fat, so it's pretty lean. I've had ground turkey that had more fat in it and I didn't like it. Anyway...I use ground turkey in lots of things: taco soup , meatballs , meatloaf, tacos, spaghetti, etc. Sometimes I'll add a little hamburger to the ground turkey, but mostly because my parents supply us with lots of beef (since my dad raises a few calves every year and my parents are kind enough to share with us!). What do you make with ground turkey?

Every once in a while I am going to post about my favorite food products. This week, my favorite is... WHEAT COUSCOUS! I love couscous. And, I love this couscous because it is wheat. I love the whole grains! And, I love that it only takes a few minutes to make. We had this on Sunday for dinner with grilled steak. I remember the first time I had couscous was in high school at my friend, Mary Jane's house. I thought it was so great. My kids love it too. So, if you haven't had couscous before, give it a try. It's my favorite!