Veggie Bake with Parmesan Cheese

I found this recipe Here. It was delicious but took WAY longer to bake than she said. I really liked the mix of flavors and I LOVED having so many leftovers!

Penne with Roasted Asparagus

I found this recipe on Pinterest. The link for the original recipe is here. We absolutely SALIVATE for this dinner. It smells good and it is DIVINE! I.LOVE.IT! It is so full of flavor and since asparagus went on sale for 1.77 lb this week I am having this at least twice this week. My boys don't mind...they DEVOUR it! Of course I made some changes so here is my version of this deliciousness!

Penne with Roasted Asparagus

1 lb asparagus(cut into 1 inch pieces)

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 1/2 T olive oil (divided)

1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/2 tsp brown sugar

1 lb penne pasta

3 Tbsp butter

1/3 cup grated parmesan

Directions: Roast 1/2 Tbsp oil, asparagus, 1/4 tsp both salt and pepper at 400 for 10 minutes. Put vinegar in sauce pan and cook on medium low until about 3 Tbsp remaining. Stir in the sugar and the rest of the pepper and take off heat. Cook pasta and add remaining ingredients. stir together and serve.

Extremely Low Sugar Strawberry Jam

This can be bottled and stored on your shelf OR in your freezer.

The best thing about it is you don't have to us pectin!

So I wrote down exactly what I did today. Strawberry's went on sale for 1.27 lb so I stocked up and made some jam. We were running low. I use this EXACT same recipe for apricots and peaches...minus the lemon juice. This is about 1/6th of the jam that recipe's normally use to make jam. The riper the strawberries the YUMMIER it will be. Here you go:

Extremely Low Sugar Strawberry Jam:

6 lbs strawberries (this is 12 cups puree'd)

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup modified corn starch

1/4 cup lemon juice

I started by cutting off the leaves and quartering them.

Then I put them in the blender and lightly puree'd them. I am not a big fan of the clumps but if you don't mind it you can actually skip pureeing and put them in your pan and mash them. You can use LOTS less cornstarch if you do.

Then, I added the rest of the ingredients in a sauce pan and cooked it on medium heat until it came to a boil. I boiled it for 5 minutes.

I almost immediately put it in the containers before it starts to set.

No joke that this is how clean my kitchen was 1 hr after getting the stuff out to make it. It is THAT easy.

Don't you love my empty house? We just moved in. I need to start decorating and painting and STOP making jam :D.