3/2: FHE- Togetherness Pasta

Sorry, I should've posted about this on Monday, but... things were a little stretched. So what's new, right?

Lisa asked if she can tutor Daniel on Monday night and since he really needed help, we agreed. If you've visited my tablescaping blog, you would've read that Charlie and I grabbed some truly sweet deal at Albertson's on 31/40 shrimp- B1G2FREE! I basically saved $50 for 6lbs. of shrimp!

Anyway, so we had an informal FHE. I chose to focus everything on the dinner by making a great pasta dish using the shrimp thawed in the fridge. It turned out delicious, but the other driving force was the fact that the kids were having the TAKS test today and we needed to make sure that breakfast, lunch, dinner, and breakfast were packed with good nutrients and vitamins for their testing brains. This test is offered to 3rd to 12th graders here in Texas and all must take it to pass on to the next grade.

To continue, I needed to make sure that I made a menu that everyone will eat up so this is what I came up with:

Linguine with Shrimp and Spinach
Minute Maid Blueberry Pomegranate or as my kids call it, "Brain" juice
Ice Water
Cooky Blue Smoothie

All had seconds and the conversations were centered around families eating together. Daniel told me that his mom is somewhat jealous of me because we eat together and he likes coming over because we eat together. And then he said that my cooking might have something to do with it, too... Smart boy! :-)

We had a great time! Lisa loved telling Daniel that "people like to eat my (meaning her) food"! Ian said that eating together is great because we laugh and we talk. Jasmine said that it was the best pasta she's ever tasted and Charlie kept saying, "shrimp me, shrimp me!" We even talked of cultural dining, mainly Filipinos, mostly my family.

In my childhood home, when my dad would be home from his long work assignments, he would sit at the same one end of the table, facing the whole house. His back would be to the window and he made sure that we were seated at our assigned seats and no one was to deviate. My stepmom sat at the other end and the maid waited or ate in the kitchen. His water glass was always the most filled and conversations started with him asking us questions. We rarely said grace but we were expected to respect the food by trying everything once and keeping the food on the plate. My mom taught me that I was not to eat unless my husband takes his first spoonful. Or that I should serve him his plate and not let him serve himself. Oh, boy! (One rule I kept failing at- gladly, lol!)

Ok, for letting me share our great FHE with you, I'll show you what the dinner looked like and I'll also share the smoothie recipe.

Cooky Blue Smoothie
(my recipe)
2 pkgs of freshly washed ripe blueberries
5 scoops of cookies & cream ice cream or frozen yogurt
2 cups of Silk soymilk (regular)

In a blender, start to puree the blueberries; add ice cream then the soymilk. Mix until dark lavender color and no more chunks. It's delicious and healthy as you're not using extra sugar or too much ice cream. Blueberries are known to help with memory retention.

Here's what our dinner looked like:

"SS Linguine"
It looks as good as it tasted! The plate I used was my birthday gift from Charlie and the kids- "Snowfall Splendor Gold" by Target's Holiday 'O8 collection.

How was your Monday?