Kielbasa, Mixed Squash, Salad - {In the Kitchen with Kayla}

Tonight's dinner was sort of thrown together. I was originally planning on making something else, but my daughter asked if we could have the kielbasa that we has recently bought. Our local Natural Grocers had it on sale last time we were there and so we bought a couple without specific plans for them. Anyway, I like to accommodate the food desires of my family when I can so I said sure, why not?! But as our food budget grows increasingly tighter as we try to eat better quality foods, I couldn't just steal side dishes from another nights dinner. So here's what I did. I had purchased 2 Mexican Squash for yesterday's dinner and only ended up using one. So I cut that up and went rummaging for anything else I might throw in. I found half a bag of frozen broccoli in the freezer and some leftover acorn squash and leftover squash from last nights dinner. I threw in the broccoli and cooked the two. When it was almost time for dinner I tossed in the leftover squashes to warm them up but not make them mushy. I made another salad just like last night. And there you go. Dinner is done!

{Tips}:
~Instead of produce wash I spray my produce with peroxide. It kills any molds on the surface and helps to remove pesticides (so I've read, but have no idea where). And because its not a foreign chemical to me I feel much safer using it. Plus, its budget friendly, I can get a bottle for 88¢. I put a dollar store spray bottle sprayer in it and it allows me to spray right on veggies or counters to disinfect after meat prep.
~When I can I like to wash and cut if necessary any fruits or veggies that will stay fresh after doing so. Tonight I washed all the blueberries, picked out the spoiling ones and any stems and put them in a container in the fridge. I also washed and sliced all the strawberries. This makes the rest of the weeks salad prep a lot easier. Tomorrow all I will have to cut is the cucumber and celery. Hope you like the lovely food prep photos. Enjoy!

~My last tip for tonight is on food prep. I try to always schedule 1 hour of food prep every evening before my 1 hour to make dinner. This allows me to do things like, shred carrots, wash & cut berries, make a dessert, prep tomorrows breakfast, or dinner veggies, cut carrot sticks for lunches. It allows me to make head way in feeding my family well.