Happy New Year!

My new year celebration was spent in the Shenandoah area of Virginia with 5 great friends and our 3 dogs. We had fun passing each other on the highway until we all pulled into the driveway at a friend's family house. Some of us raided our cabinets and refrigerators at home and packed up some goodies to bring along, so after taking an inventory and quickly planning our meals, we made a shopping list and the girls (you know...the only ones qualified to shop) headed to the grocery store. How funny to shop at a Food Lion again (they do not exist in the NE), but glad I still had that old MVP card to save us $11! While it might be hard to prepare meals for that many people with differing tastes, we did a great job and to keep costs down, we choose some store brands and brands that were on sale. The total cost for each person after being split 3 ways was only $20! And to top it all off, we all came home with some goodies. I scored big by bringing home a large bottle of red wine and a box of ice cream sandwiches!

Our big meals for the trip were:

• An Italian dinner! We added sauteed onions, garlic and peppers to a jar of organic Trader Joe's sauce for the spaghetti, toasted Italian bread and added minced garlic to olive oil for dipping, and had a salad with mixed greens from the co-op and chickpeas.
  
• A hearty breakfast. With the leftover veggies from the night before and some of what was brought along, we scrambled eggs with black beans, onions, peppers and cheese. Oh so tasty. One of the guys made delicious scones (maybe cranberry?) that were so tasty dipped in organic French vanilla yogurt, and we also grilled a couple of big sausage links.
• A warm and filling dinner. After spending the afternoon hiking through one of the parks with all the dogs, we were hungry and ready to get warmed up! After cheating and each ordering a couple of delicious slices of pizza (oops...) from the local pizza joint, we went home to rest and let our Friendship Soup cook. We opted for ground turkey instead of ground beef, added to the dry soup mix of lentils, beans, pasta and seasonings as well as a large can of crushed tomatoes. This is the best soup I have had in quite awhile, and after looking up the recipe, it's so easy to prepare the dry mix! Also, 1 container of the dried mix creates 16 servings! It's a good think, because I just may have eaten 3 bowls (shhhh).

This was such a great trip, and I had so much fun preparing meals with friends. There's no better way to do it!