Food for My Family

...one plate at a time.

Trick or Treats: Post-Halloween Menu and a Zojirushi Treat!

· · 157 Comments


One of the things we strive for when planning our menus is making everything fit together. We look to use ingredients in different ways throughout the week so that we are making the most with what we have. We also benefit from a well-stocked pantry. P.S. We don’t always stick to the menu, but it helps get good food in the house on hand to create with, which is often half the battle.

Halloween, Halloween. The trick-or-treating hasn’t even started (last year’s up above), but if you’re like me, you’re going to need to detox or at least have a few healthy and refreshing meals ready to combat the sugar that’s about to hit your house.

We’re starting off the week with one of my favorite new traditions. I started it last year, copying Kristen’s annual Halloween soup party. While my neighbors haven’t joined in just yet, I suspect as their kids grow old enough to trick-or-treat, I could probably convince them to make it a tradition.


Monday – Pumpkin, Coconut and Lime Soup

Tuesday – Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Poached Eggs

Wednesday – Kale and Sweet Potato Soup

Thursday – Baked Quinoa Patties with Potstickers

Friday – Sweet Potato Naan Pizzas

The Preparation Shortcuts:

1. Make a huge batch of naan to pair with soups and serve as a side of bread for the brussels sprouts.
2. Use the kale in both the soup on Wednesday and the leftovers for the quinoa patties the next day.
3. Everything leftover gets added to top off those pizzas. Sweet potatoes are definitely going to be on there, perhaps with some goat cheese and pine nuts leftover from the brussels.

This week I’m sharing one of my favorite kitchen appliances with you, our rice cooker. I remember when rice cookers first came into my family’s home when I was in high school. I couldn’t possibly imagine life without one now, and we use ours for everything from rice to having it make complete breakfasts and dinners for us. It really is a versatile appliance.

HOW TO ENTER TO WIN a Zojirushi Umami 5.5-Cup Rice Cooker

1. Leave a comment. Tell me the craziest Halloween costume you’ve ever donned.

2. Follow @FoodforMyFamily on Twitter and tweet the following, and come back and let me know you did:

Enter to win a Zojirushi Umami Rice Cooker from @FoodforMyFamily http://su.pr/4WJepI #giveaway

3. Join the Food for My Family community on Facebook. Come back and leave a comment letting me know you did.

THE RULES:

This giveaway will run until Sunday, November 6th at 11:59 p.m. EDT and is open to all U.S. residents. A winner will be chosen at random using Random.org from all eligible entries. Each reader has 3 chances to win by completing the above tasks and leaving a separate comment for each entry method completed. Chosen winner must respond within 48 hours of notification to claim their prize. Good luck!

I received a Zojirushi Rice Cooker back in May. I’m in love with it, and I’ll show you exactly how I use mine this week, starting with breakfast and ending with dinner.

Last week from Food for My Family:

Things have been a bit quieter around here as I finish my book and deal with family emergencies, but I have still been working plenty.
Healthy Snake Bites
Cheesy Herbed Potatoes au Gratin
Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
Green Bean Casserole and Fried Onions from Scratch


For more menu plans: OrgJunkie

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. My dad made this crazy good homemade costume of R2D2 from Star Wars (I was obsessed with Star Wars). He fashioned cardboard boxes and something else into a robot shape that fit over the top of me, wrapped the whole thing in aluminum foil, cut out holes for me to see through and covered them in colored saran wrap. It was the best. Everyone thought I was just a robot, but I would quickly correct them! I still can’t believe my dad did all that for one day’s wear!

  11. I’m a weenie, I always make my ids wear the crazy costumes. I refused to dress up as long as I can remember. SO, I guess I’d have to say I’ve made all my poor kiddos be skunks their first year, LOL! IT struck me as funny since they were often stinky in diapers!

  18. I Tweeted and followed you on facebook! My craziest costume was probably the wicked witch of the west. I looked so evil and green 😉
    Hope I win the rice cooker, I’ll be dreaming about it~~

  19. I think I’m a little too cautious to have a really crazy Halloween costume, but one year I was Madonna from her phase in the 80’s when she donned the famous “cone bra”. Oh the good old days, wish I could still pull that look off 😉

  20. Love the menu line up this week!! Memorable costume, hmm…well, my husband was “Super Santa” cape, tights the whole thing and I was a Christmas tree complete with pine, lights (plug myself in periodically during the party) and a star on top of my head.

    I would LOVE the rice cooker.

    Of course I follow you on ALL social media, twitter, FB 🙂

  22. A rice cooker is on my christmas list! Craziest costume (well, most fun) was a ketchup/mustard duo that my husband and I wore a few years back:)
    Off to tweet! And already follow you on FB:)

  23. I dressed up as a banana one year in high school. I wore yellow windpants and a yellow sweatshirt, drew a big Chiquita banana sticker, and made myself a little stem hat.

  30. I haven’t dressed up in years and years, but I think my craziest costume was a sewing kit. I have really long hair so I put it up in a bun with about 4 long chopsticks holding, they were the needles in a pin cushion. I ran a piece or two of string through my bun and I had clothes on for material. Not super original, but it worked for that day.

  36. I joined on facebook! My craziest costume was when I was pregnant with my 3rd child. I wore a hospital gown, rented an IV pole, hooked up some IV bags (just for show) and drug it around with me thru my sister-in-laws very wealthy neighborhood. Best thing about the costume was that I bought a plastic bare butt and wore my bathing suit under the gown, and the bare butt hung out the back. I can’t even explain how many double takes I got! It was Awesome!!!! Oh and my hubby wore scrubs and a mask and walked around with me acting like I was in labor!

  51. I followed you on fb and twitter, and rt’d the above giveaway. 🙂 The craziest costume of recent years was Lady Gaga – and I made my costume out of silver foil tape strategically secured over underwear to look like the costume in Paparazzi (complete with the crutches).

  62. I have been following you for some time now and truly enjoy your tweets, facebook & blog. I have been longing for a rice cooker for a Really long time and it would be awesome to win it! Thanks for the chance!

  64. I went as a cluster of purple grapes. I used felt and cotton stuffing. They were all the size of basketballs. Now realize I am a mom of 4, so I wanted them to cover up allot of me 🙁 It looked great but I couldnt fit through a door without going sideways, the grapes were sooooo big !!!!!
    It was a fun night 🙂

  66. i can’t really say it’s crazy, but i dressed up as a baby years ago – footies, bottle, etc. a gal at my ww meeting is going to wear a shirt with “go ceiling” on it, carry pompoms . . . you know – a ceiling fan.

  74. HoooBoy! The funniest costume I ever donned was just a few yeard ago for a party at our yacht club. Through coincedences, I had a curly red hair wig. I was fond of a blue and white short skirt checkered dress. I put these together with some accessories and became Lil Annie!

    I won the prize…that’s the funny part: a bottle of Kahlua…I’d JUST stopped drinking, had liver cancer.

    Now I have a new liver.

  81. My friends and I went as Scooby Doo and the gang with a semi-life size Mystery Machine. I was Velma which was pretty easy for me sine I sort of looked like her at the time anyway. I wore a bright orange sweater, red tennis skirt, knee-high orange socks, red shoes, and blue lens black framed glasses. I helped make my other friends costumes too. We were pretty spot on to the characters and the mystery machine was really well made. This was pre-cell phone and digital camera era and I must have lost my hard copies of the photos, but I still have the memories.

  98. I dressed up as a man one halloween but my husband went dressed up in a really short maids costume. What worries me is that he really liked it.

  104. I’m afraid I am not a Halloween fan. When I was working I always did ” construction worker” because we had all the gear. Cute but definitely not crazy.

  114. I don’t think I was ever anything crazy. As a kid I always wanted to be something involving pretty dresses, then I stopped dressing up for the most part. My best costume was a gnome.

  126. I actually dressed as a woman… which isn’t a big deal except I did it in the 4th grade and went to school that way; balloon breasts with the knots out so there would be, well you know. No, it wasn’t a portent of things to come, just a crazy idea I had before I was old enough to know better.

  134. The craziest I can think of is one year I went to work as my husband. Jeans, flannel shirt, old tool belt (he worked construction at the time), baseball cap, and I even used a bit of mascara on my lower lip to make a dark mustache.

  138. The craziest costume I ever wore was when I was around 9 or 10: I wore a bloody monster mask, a brown “old lady” hat my mom crocheted with yellow and purple flowers, something that looked like my grandmother’s house dress and I held an ET doll (also that my mom crocheted) wrapped in a blanket that I called my baby. I was a weird kid.

  143. Your little guys look so cute for Halloween, Shaina! Adorable. Hmmm, my craziest Halloween costume, I can’t think of that. But my BEST Halloween costume was the time I decorated a box to look like the front of a National Geographic magazine, then put it over my head (cut out, obviously, so you could see my face), with a scarf over my hair to look like that iconic woman with the blue eyes from Afghanistan.

  144. I dressed as a witch, which isn’t all that crazy, but at the time I was dabbling in amateur theater and went a little crazy with makeup, including a fake nose made from … well, it’s called nose putty. Because that’s what it was used for. Problem was that as the evening progressed the nose started to get warm and misshapen and even odder looking than I had intended. Best thing was that even my friends didn’t recognize me with the makeup job. It was a lot of fun.

  149. I dressed up like a cow one time. That is not that crazy but it was for me! We also dressed my twin nephews up once as a pair of dice! That was just too cute! Thanks for the chance!

Trackbacks

  2. […] Easy steel cut oatmeal, kissed with cardamom and cream and full of the season’s finest pears. This is one breakfast worth getting up for. The world is silent, and I, in my house, stare out at the leaves, blowing in the cool wind. It’s a wind that can ever so craftily find the seams of your coat, inviting itself through layers of wool sweater and cotton undershirt until it chills your skin. Yet the sun shines as the leaves blow, and sometimes a few golden rays are all that is needed for the air to feel warmer and the outlook of life to seem brighter. The gray days have not yet arrived, and the shining sun still imparts a relative level of warmth should you turn your face to it, close your eyes and drink it in. Here in the midst of life, I’m holed up with deadlines enjoying that soft sunshine from the window and then from the backyard as I pack up the last of the summer toys, rip dried tomatoes from the garden and turn the compost pile once more before the snow comes and the gray days of winter begin. I’ll take what little bits I can get these days, sending my kids out to rake the crisp and colorful leaves into a pile, a pile they can then jump in before they turn again to run the prongs through the same leaves. Warm and hearty breakfasts become things of necessity as the sun fades, keeping the chill away. This particular one has three cooking methods to help you choose the easiest and most convenient one for you. If you look closely, you can see the bits of cardamom singing sweetly and reminding you that the sun will shine again soon. You can still enter to win the Zojirushi Umami Rice Cooker! […]

Leave a Reply

Some of My Favorites

Potato Leek Casoncelli Pasta with Walnut Pesto #recipe | FoodforMyFamily.com
Grilled Turmeric Ginger Shrimp and Mango Avocado Slaw with Cilantro Lime Dressing Recipe: Food for My Family
Homemade Salted Nut Rolls with Bourbon Caramel #recipe | FoodforMyFamily.com
Galete Waffle Cookies recipe | FoodforMyFamily.com
Curry Cauliflower Quinoa and Lentil Salad Recipe | FoodforMyFamily.com
Roasted Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream with Graham Cracker Waffle Cones \ FoodforMyFamily.com