Dinner Menu

Dinner the other evening was a success. Of course, when I choose sausage, it is seldom anything else. The girls all love sausage. Usually, I just cut up the smoked sausage links and brown the pieces in a skillet. I needed something different though.

I took the turkey sausage, about 14 ounces, and boiled it with the juice from a large can of pineapple chunks. It turned out sweet, with a nice citrus flavor, without being overwhelmingly pineapple-y. I just simmered it until the rest of the dinner was ready and the sausage was heated through.

So our menu was this:

• turkey smoked sausage boiled in pineapple juice
• canned pineapple
• sliced red bell peppers and cucumbers
• black beans (prepared ahead and frozen, then thawed for this dinner)
• carrots and broccoli (from a bag of frozen veggies)

That's all. It was simple and easy because much of the prep work had been done ahead of time. I seem to get bogged down in side dishes a lot of the time but these ended up being quick. I will have to remember this menu.

Sometimes things just don't work...

but sometimes they do.

Now that regular ice cream, frozen yogurt, sherbert, and most frozen treats are not in our diet, we are needing to come up with ideas and recipes for something sweet at the end of dinner.

We tried to make apple pie "ice cream" for dessert the other night. While the taste was really good, the texture just didn't cut it. All of the girls liked it and we even had a guest that night who said she liked it. The texture was not up to par and the next evening, it was just not edible because it had become so icy.

Since this didn't work well, we have researched options and will be trying it again. When it works, I will definitely share apple pie "ice cream" with you all.

We have had something good work and it was super easy! Watermelon. It works so many different ways. We have cut it up and just served it like that. The kids like it but popsicles or snow cones are just so much more fun when it is 105 degrees outside. So, we have done two different things with it that worked well.


First, when I was cutting up the watermelon, I saved the juice and froze it. I used the cute little containers that go with the ice shaver from Pampered Chef. Then after the juice is frozen, we shaved it into snow cones/cups using the Pampered Chef ice shaver. A hit!

Second, we took some of the watermelon and its juice and blended it all up really well. Then we just poured it into popsicle molds and froze it. All done!

Now these won't take the place of ice cream so we'll continue working on that but all in all, success!! I hope you are able to find you own ways to stay cool.