Parker Ever After: Five on Friday- What I've been cooking lately..

Happy Friday Lovies!

I'm so excited for the weekend! I'm even more excited that we're in town again. Being in town has allowed me more time to cook lately. Here are some things I've been cooking.

1- Quiche- I've shared this recipe before but my Hubs is loving it! I made this one with zuchinni, squash, and bacon. I had one piece and he seriously ate the rest of it!

2- Pork tenderloin. I saw this on Caroline's blog and I knew we had to try this ASAP! The Hubs talked about this one for days! We will definitely be making this again. I forgot the goat cheese but we had feta in the house, so I used that instead and it was still amazing!

3- Veggie Lasagna- I saw this on Ally's blog and did not disappoint. I will say that I was lazy that night and used organic pasta sauce in a jar instead of making my own. My Hubs even commented that he wouldn't mind it again soon! It was super easy, healthy, and good!

4- Minestrone Crockpot Soup- This was soo good! It's perfect for chilly nights. Bonus- super easy!!! I love that it's filled with veggies.

This is called copycat Olive Garden Minestrone Soup

Ingredients:

4 cups low sodium vegetable stock

1.5 cups water

2 (14.5oz) cans diced tomatoes

1 cup diced celery (3 stalks)

1 cup diced carrots (2 carrots)

1 cup diced yellow onion (1 small)

1 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley or 1 tsp dried

2 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

½ tsp dried thyme

½ tsp dried crushed rosemary

2 bay leaves

½ tsp sugar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 1/3 cups diced zucchini (1 small)

1 1/3 cups shell pasta

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 (15oz) can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 (15oz) can white navy beans or cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 (14.5oz) can Italian green beans, drained

2 cups slightly packed chopped fresh spinach

Directions

Add vegetable stock, water, tomatoes, celery, carrots, onion, parsley, basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, and sugar to a slow cooker. Season with salt and pepper to taste and cook on low heat 6-8 hours or high 3-4 hours.

Add zucchini, pasta, garlic, kidney beans and white beans and cook on high heat an additional 3-40 minutes until pasta is tender. Stir in spinach and Italian green beans and cook several minutes until heated through. Serve warm topped with Romano or parmesan cheese.

5- I saved my favorite for last.. APPLE PIE! I have been wanting to attempt this for a few weeks now. While in the mountains my inlaws bought a huge box of apples and gave us all some to take home. Perfect opportunity to make this. This was my first time attempting this and I wanted to do it from scratch. I found my recipe at Simply Recipes. I was happy with the way it turned out!