Meatless Monday

  I am trying desperately to get more recipes I can use for Meatless Mondays. Ok recipes I think my 3 year old and 31 year old kid and hubs will actually eat! Especially some with lots of veggies. I have an ap I truly love and use a lot. It was just updated and the recipe bank just got way bigger! Super excited, I search the app and find a category listing all recipes using veggies. Score. What I love about this app is that it features a pic, the recipe and I can add to my fave list and go back to my search where I left off. So this super awesome food app is: The Betty Crocker app! People if you need an all around go to food app- this is it. It has appetizers, cool stuff for kids, healthy stuff, bakes goods. Oh and the quick and easy stuff, like bisquick crepes. Yup awesome.
  So for this Meatless Monday, I turn to dear old Betty and Olive Garden. I really am craving some soup, salad and breadsticks. I don't want to take the kids and go out and even though I know if we got it to go it would be too much food to finish, it just seems wrong to get an all you can eat dinner to go. So I turn to my Betty app find a quick and easy minestrone recipe and pair that with a salad and some bread. The killer part is I can buy the Olive Garden house dressing to go and pair that with a crisp green salad. Then I am thinking for the breadsticks, some cresent rolls that I slather in garlic butter before rolling and baking. Now here is the minestone recipe. I have 2 kinds of squash in my garden so I using that and I like spinach instead of cabbage so I am using that. Enjoy!!

Minestrone:

1 20 oz can whole tomatoes, undrained
1 can great northern beans, drained and rinsed
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
2 med stalks celery thinly sliced, abt 1 cup
1 small zucchini, sliced abt 1 cup
1 small crook neck squash, sliced abt 1 cup
1 med onion chooped, abt 1/2 cup
baby spinach washed and drained
1/2 c macaroni salad pasta or whatever shape you like
1 1/4 c vegetable broth
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 clove garlic minced
shredded parmesan to top

1. Heat all ingredients except cheese to boiling. Breaking up tomatoes, reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 15-20 min stirring occasionally until macaroni and veggies are tender. Serve and top with cheese. Add croutons if you like or if not serving bread.