As for the blog, we are so excited to be back! The timing is now right. It is really great to do this blog because it forces me to be more mindful of our menu planning. Writing a weekly menu makes me have something healthy and creative to share. It gets me out of the normal recipe pattern. This week, I was trying to get the more fruits and veggies into our meals. This meant breaking out the good old food processor. Here's what happened:

I love making soups in the winter and often don't follow a recipe. Anything that you think would be good in a soup usually is. This week I combined:

- 1 Tbsp butter

- 1 Cauliflower head

- 32 oz Chicken broth (homemade but you can use store bought as well)

- 1 leek

- 1 onion

- 3 garlic cloves

- 2 peeled potatoes

- 1 large carrot

- 1 large celery

- 2 Tbsp. chopped parsley

- leftover ham or bacon

- cheddar cheese

1. Saute the butter, onions, and garlic in a large pan until the onions are transparent and garlic is fragrant.

2. Add the cauliflower and heat for about 3 minutes. Add the chicken broth, leek, carrot, celery, and potatoes. Bring to a boil until the cauliflower and potatoes are soft.

3. Puree the soup with your food processor.

4. Garnish with ham, bacon, cheddar cheese and parsley.

5. Don't tell them it's cauliflower : )

Neither my husband or I are thrilled over bananas but this week I decided that we would eat them. To disguise the bananas, I simply added them to a strawberry jello recipe. When you make jello, you usually combine boiling water with the jello powder then add ice cubes to set it. I learned this week that you can use pureed fruit instead of water. As long as you combine jello powder with a liquid it will work. I couldn't believe how amazing this turned out to be. We added a little whipped cream on top and it was an outstanding dessert. It was so easy!