Penne with Marinara and Meatballs, Orange-feta salad.

A simple italian-esque meal for a weeknight. Mildly healthy, very yummy, and kid approved. I like kid approved and easy. 

Start with noodles. I picked penne this round. Get your pot of water boiling with a little salt and oil added to it.

Because it keeps noodles from sticking, makes the water boil faster and adds an little something extra.

Geez! So many questions!

Ok. So while the water is getting all bubblyish, chop one onion, 2-3 mushrooms, 1/2 bell pepper and 1/2 a summer squash into chunks. You can add whatever veggies you have in bits and pieces. 

You know the ones. There is not enough to make a side, but too much to just pitch.

This is one of those later in the week meals to get rid of the bits and pieces of other stuff you made.

Throw the veggies into a skillet with a little olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

The water should be close to ready now, so add in your noodles.

Un-bag some meatballs too and get those in a pot or in the nuker. Add a little sauce to them to keep them form getting dry on the edges.

Meatballs you ask?

Costco carries in giant bags. You can also get them from a normal grocer. I like the big bags because we use them for all sorts of meals.

Next add a red sauce of choice. This one was the 3 cheese by Ragu.

Remember that blue cheese and garlic butter you made waaaaaaay back when?

Probably shoved in the back of a drawer in the fridge completely forgotten. 

Ya. I do it too. 

Fish it out and throw in the sauce mix. May as well use it for a good purpose right?

By now it smells yummy and you need a snack.

Have a snack.

If you haven't had this before, you must. It's crack in popcorn form. Don't get out the whole bag. Trust e. You won't eat dinner.

Now you cut up the veggies and stuff for the salad.

I generally use, for the 5 of us, 1/2 head of romaine, 1/4 onion, 1/2 bell pepper, some sort of fruit  (in this case and orange) and a sprinkle of a salty cheese like gorgonzola, bleu cheese or feta. In this case, it's feta.

Oranges

Oh. Tomato and cucumber too. 1/2 of each. If you have them. 

Assemble to make this gorgeous salad.

Have another bite of popcorn.

The noodles should be done by now, so drain them.

Put a few in a dish, top with meatballs and sauce. Get your salad on there too. A vinaigrette works the best IMO. But if you are a hard-core ranch person, I won't tell.

Now go sit down and watch some Big Bang Theory. Try not to snort sauce out your nose. Trust me, it hurts.

Traditional Egyptian Breakfast - Foule, hard-boiled eggs, pita and veggies.

One of the few good things that came out of my mom's marriage to my step-father was the introduction to a whole new realm of food. He is native to Cairo and as such, she learned to make some of the more traditional meals.

Let me tell you, what they serve in Mediterranean restaurants is not what they eat everyday!

This is my daughter's favorite breakfast. I think a lot of that has to do with the hard-boiled eggs. She has her mommies obsession with hard-boiled eggs. 

Obsession. We can eat a dozen by ourselves in a sitting kind of obsession.

Yes. We go through a lot of eggs.

"When I was a lad I hat 4 dozen eggs every morning to help me get large, now that I'm grown I eat 5 dozen eggs and I'm roughly the size of a baaaarrrgggge!"

Channeling my inner Gaston.

A traditional breakfast on Sundays for us was his favorite meal. Foule (a type of bean), warm hard-boiled eggs with butter, crispy pita, tomato, onion and cucumber, feta cheese and kalmata olives. 

Generally you'd put it all together to make a sandwich more or less.

I don't get that technical. I bit of this a bite of that. It tastes the same going down.

And savoring the eggs with butter. MMMMMM.

Ok. So ingredients here are hard to find. My mom sends the beans to me because I have had a hard time finding a good Mediterranean grocer in Portland. 

You need a can of Foule Medames beans, or fava beans

Drain and rinse.

Start with the spices. This is the reason I have cumin and coriander seeds. For this specific recipe. 

Use Mortar and Pestle to squish seeds.

If you don't know how, look here.

Pour seeds in a saucepan with a little olive oil. 

Why? So many questions!

The heat and oil release the natural oils of the spice and make it yummy.

Chop some garlic too...maybe 4 to 5 cloves. If you don't have fresh, then powdered is fine. 

Meanwhile, start the eggs. 

When the whole house smells like cumin and garlic, add 1 whole onion, chopped into bits and half a bell pepper, chopped into bits.

Saute until happy.

Add beans and a can of diced tomatoes or chop 3-4 romas into bits. 

Cook until tomatoes are cooked through. 

Get out your potato squisher. 

You know the one. Yes the one that is rusty and deformed and probably belonged to your great great aunt betty. 

Squish the beans with the fancy squisher.

They will be chunky, no worries, just do what you can.

While the beans finish cooking, slice a tomato, onion and cucumber.

Drag out the feta cheese and olives. These 2 things can be purchased at your local grocery store. I get the olives at Costco because the are really yummy as a snack and are great for adding to other dishes. Pizza and pasta especially. I could go on and on about the fabulous kalmata olives.

Throw the pita bread into the oven. If you can find fresh versus a bug name, its amazingly better. If not, regular ones are fine.

Drain and peel the eggs. Cool them off with cold water but you'll want them warm.

Trust me on this ok? 

Just try it my way.

Warm hard-boiled eggs with butter are...very very very yummy.

Open mind and all that.

Ok good. See? Yummy right?

Everything is done. Assemble on plate and eat.