Weekend Find and Weekend Food

When we lived in California, our family on-campus housing was known for its dumpster diving.  I'm just here to announce that we still have that blood in us.  Some of you might find it a little unnerving, but there are some good things that people leave for, well...me to find.

We've had a good hand-me-down table for a while now.  It was light colored, food encrusted on the bottom (disgusting), stamp and marker stained, and had sticky legs from packing tape.  It had lots of love in it.

I took the garbage out and found this.  An Ikea table, basically perfect condition, and had my name written all over it.  We traded tables.  That's the true dumpster diving way.  At our old complex this table wouldn't have lasted even 2 minutes before it was snatched, so we're pretty happy with our find.

Yea us!

Okay, on to food.  Even though I haven't been sewing as much recently, I have been eating.  My weekly budgeting (the best system ever) always stays on track when I have a menu for the week.  This past week I filled our days with new recipes I had tagged from allrecipes.  So so good!

Baked Potato Soup

Perfect for a cold day.  The real bacon crumbles made the perfect compliment.  I didn't have any baked potatoes on hand, so I diced and boiled some raw ones instead.  Definitely a keeper - might even replace my Leek Soup recipe.

Stuffed (or rather un-stuffed) Green Peppers

I have been wanting to try this recipe for a while now.  This was the weekend.  However, when I went to make it, I had half the time needed to make it.  It requires 20 min cook time for the rice and 20 for after you stuff the peppers. 

I cut that in half.  While I was cooking the rice mixture, I thickly sliced the green peppers, salted them, and broiled them on low until they were nice and tender.

I served the rice/meat mixture over the peppers, grated cheese on top, and drizzled slightly saucy heated tomato soup on top.  

Awesome.  I will also do this again.  I hope you try it.

And one more thing, introducing my drool of the moment: The 2011 Ford Flex.  So with a 3rd on the way, we'll have to get a bigger car.  Our Saturn Vue will fit three boosters/car seats, but elbow to elbow children does not pose a peaceful car journey.  

Not that this is what we'll get, but it's a very pretty option, don't you think?