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Two weeks of meals

5 Feb
menu clip art

Ready for another two weeks of dinners?

It’s the end of another week, and it’s pay day, so that means it’s time for our family to plan another two weeks of meals! We had a successful two weeks of meal planning, so I thought I’d share the meal plan that we just finished. Maybe it will provide you with some inspiration for your own meal planning! Our meals incorporate our dietary needs and I’ve indicated any place where we’ve had to make adjustments. I have also linked over to the recipes if I have previously posted them on the blog before.

Sunday: Marinated pork tenderloin, homemade applesauce, potatoes and corn.

Monday: Hot dogs and hamburgers, french fries, veggies.

Tuesday: Taco Bake

Wednesday: Cranberry Chicken

Thursday: Chicken Marsala (We used a new gluten free chicken recipe from the Gluten Free Bible cookbook and cornstarch in our sauce instead of flour.)

Friday: Pizza (using a frozen gluten free pizza from Trader Joes for one of the pizzas)

1Saturday:  Tacos (using gluten free corn tortillas)

Sunday: Lasagna (we made one large regular, and one small gluten free, and wrapped the leftover gluten free in individual portions for the freezer.)

Monday: Paninis (We used gluten free bread for one sandwich.)

Tuesday: Whole chicken microwaved in the Pampered Chef Deep Dish Baker, mashed potatoes, vegetables.

Wednesday: Stir Fry (chicken, broccoli, snap peas, carrots, zucchini) over white rice

Thursday: Homemade chicken pot pie using the leftover chicken from Tuesday plus the rest of the mashed potatoes. (We bought a miniature gluten free chicken pot pie for one serving.)

Friday: Leftovers (stir fry, pot pie, lasagna)

 

2*As an added bonus for you this week, here is the recipe for the Parmesan-crusted chicken from the Gluten Free Bible which is mentioned above in the Chicken Marsala recipe.*

Makes four servings

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup gluten free all purpose flour blend

2 tsp. Italian seasoning

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

Pound chicken to 1/4 inch thickness. Combine cheese, flour blend, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper in large resealable bag. Add one chicken breast at a time, shake to coat evenly. heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Cook chicken in single layer four to five minutes per side or until golden brown and no longer pink.

 

 

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I’m in love.

1 Feb

It’s February, and I’m in love.

My heart pitter-patters and I think about the new object of my affection constantly. What will we do together next? What new things will we try? For years I hoped and prayed I’d find love like this again. It had been so long since my last love affair.

I wasn’t even planning for this, and it has taken me completely by surprise, which I guess is the best kind of love.

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That’s right, I’m in love with my new Stir Fry pan from Pampered Chef. Now I’m not a Pampered Chef consultant, and I don’t pretend to even play one on TV, but I.LOVE.THIS.PAN.

And I’m pretty sure my husband does too.

You see, years and years (and years) ago, my husband and I had received a beautiful piece of cookware from his grandmother. It was a nice, deep Teflon saute pan and it had a glass cover for the top and two handles for the side. I loved that pan. We used it constantly and it was the perfect size for all our meals, even as our family expanded from two, to three, to four, and finally to five hungry mouths to feed. We could saute, cook, simmer. You name it, we cooked it in that pan.

And then, one day, try as we would to deny the obvious, we realized our pan was getting old and scratched and we thought we were seeing evidence of little bits of Teflon coming off.

Clearly, you’re not supposed to use Teflon as an added ingredient in your recipes.

We had to say good bye to our pan.

I missed that pan every.single.day.

Don’t get me wrong, we had other pans. We even had two cast iron pans that we loved, but it wasn’t the same. We had to use both pans at once to make some of our saucier meals because one wasn’t deep enough to hold everything. My stir fry meals toppled over the sides of just one pan, our sauces bubbled over. We didn’t have a true matching cover to go with our pans.

I was sad.

And then suddenly, I wasn’t!

A few weeks ago, my very good-I’ve-known-her-almost-as-long-as-I’ve-known-my-husband-friend Marcia asked me if I would host a new kind of Pampered Chef party. She’s been a consultant for years and years now, and there was a new kind of party she wanted to try: a virtual party on Facebook. Would I try it?

Sure thing! I love Facebook because it’s where I get to see lots of family and friends from all over the country, all over the world! And, it’s where I get a lot of great recipes! I invited hundreds of people. Literally. I can fit a good 10-12 in my living room, but this let me be unlimited. I didn’t have to worry about space or weather or distance. I had all kinds of out of state friends on my list.

The party would last one hour and be completely virtual. No ingredients to buy, no house to clean, no makeup to put on. I could sit in my bed under my electric blanket and play along with the games, talk to my guests and watch the videos of all the great new tools that I would suddenly have to have.

As many parties as I’ve had in the past, it never even occurred to me to check out the January hostess benefits, or even to ask. Suddenly though, as I had my party, the orders started coming in. Notification after notification arrived in my email inbox. As my youngest daughter partied in my bed along with me, part playing along and part watching iCarly on the TV, I decided we’d better check things out on the hostess benefits page of my party website.

Sure enough, January was DOUBLE hostess benefits month!

Who knew?

Well, probably lots of people, but I was happily surprised!! Suddenly, even my daughter was paying attention to them and we looked at the videos and photos popping up throughout the party with new eyes.

Granted, I have lots and lots of Pampered Chef tools. I have been creating a collection of great pieces since before my wedding when I had my first party as a newly engaged young 20-something, and I use them all the time.

When all was said and done, I had earned……

Wait for it…..

$530 to spend outright, plus five half price items and one 60% off item, and I received two booking credits for people who had agreed to also have virtual parties after participating in mine, so I’d get really great discounts if I saved a few things from my list and ordered from their parties too.

I was amazed and I was so ready to shop. Normally I don’t have this much to spend.

Or should I say, I have NEVER had this much to spend.

I had a running wish list as the party had progressed, but it was full of little things. With this much money to spend, I could now afford many of those little things and then some really big, expensive things.

And that’s when it happened.

As I turned the pages of my paper catalog now in hand, I saw my newest love: the Executive Chef Stir-fry Skillet. The words Executive Chef made my heart stop for a mere second and I took in a breath as I looked at the pan. I think I even heard angels sing.

It was definitely love at first sight. It was a pan which was not Teflon, but rather a baked on non-stick aluminum. It had handles on both sides, it was ever so deep. It could even go in an oven of up to 400 degrees. What fun we would have together! I pictured all of our recipes being made right in that pan. Cranberry chicken, Chicken Marsala and any one of our favorite stir fry recipes, all bubbly and steaming and yet not bubbling right over.

After placing my hostess order, I planned out our next two weeks of meals, which conveniently coincided with the arrival of my shopping spree. I planned out all of the above and then some. Cranberry Chicken was up first, per request from one kid. Chicken Marsala was up another time, per request of another kid. Shepherd’s Pie, Taco Bake, Lasagna.

I began to daydream of cooking two pounds of ground beef at once in a pan with two cans of creamed corn mixed in for our Shepherd’s Pie, or being able to saute 15 chicken tenderloins in the pan with two cups of cranberries and two cups of water all at once for our Cranberry Chicken recipe.

Sure enough, when my order arrived and I unpacked it all, reminiscent of a child opening gifts on Christmas morning, my pan was all I’d hoped for and more. That very first night, I rejoiced as I happily made our Cranberry Chicken, and beamed as everyone commented how great it came out. My meat browned evenly, there was plenty of room for everything and it all tasted delicious. I think it tasted even better than usual in my new pan!

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I’d highly recommend any Pampered Chef party and any of their products to any of my friends and family, always. However, I must say, this new virtual party was fantastic! It was such fun “seeing” everyone that I wouldn’t get to see at my own in-house party. It was fun watching the videos and seeing some new must-have products, but most of all, it was fun falling in love-with a stir fry pan- all over again.

Happy February!

 

 

 

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What’s for dinner Wednesday: A new cookbook for our two weeks of meals

20 Jan
Ready for another two weeks of dinners?

Ready for another two weeks of dinners?

I have to apologize for the time in between my posts recently. I have been having computer troubles for months now, since the summer, and they finally  came to a head in the past weeks, so doing a blog post was not in the cards for me. Now that we’ve solved my computer woes, I’m back at it.

In the meantime, since this is a slower time of year for me, and I can actually breathe for a bit, I’ve had some time to try out some new recipes. I recently had an interview to do at our local Barnes and Noble, and while I was there, I came across a cookbook of gluten free recipes in the bargain bin. I love bargain bins. Since it was such a bargain, I decided to splurge and get it in the hopes that it would give us some new recipes to try out. I thumbed through it first to make sure the recipes were our kinds of recipes, things we’d make and actually all eat, with things we actually keep on hand, and they were, so I was happy about that.

It was a bargain! I had to get it, but we've already made good use out of it.

It was a bargain! I had to get it, but we’ve already made good use out of it.

Additionally, I also saw a yummy looking recipe floating by me on Facebook, a Buzzfeed video. It was for Balsamic Chicken with veggies and I thought I’d try that. I didn’t realize how hard it is to try to cook from a video. I had to keep stopping and writing down the ingredients because it’d flash before my eyes and then move on to the next step. I did a lot of playing and pausing and writing, but in the end, it was good. Everyone said it was a keeper. I used carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, and asparagus for the veggies and I doubled the recipe since there are so many of us. All of the ingredients are gluten free, so that worked for us. I served it with a side of rice. You can click on the video here, but I did not take my own photos because although it tasted good, it didn’t seem to look as pretty as the one in the video.

When I got home with my new cookbook, I let my daughter go through it first and tab some recipe ideas for our next two weeks of meals. Then I went through it and tabbed a few more, as well as a dessert idea. Everything we tabbed was doable, so we made our list of meals. Sometimes we make our list of meals on the back side of the shopping list. We shop, then when we’re done with the list we flip over the now wrinkled, crossed-off and crumpled list, and we tack it to the bulletin board. That’s what happens most weeks. Not this week though. This week it’s nice and neat an organized and very pretty because I had more time, so this week’s is the one I decided to photograph for you. Just know, it’s not real-life. My real-life list of meals is normally a hot mess.

We cross off as we go, rearrange if we have to, and the kids put future meal ideas at the bottom, even on the messy list weeks. It gives us a head start for the next time around.

We cross off as we go, rearrange if we have to, and the kids put future meal ideas at the bottom, even on the messy list weeks. It gives us a head start for the next time around.

The sweet and sour chicken from the first night was good, but not enough people loved it to make it again. We switched some things around, so the Fish and Chips (a healthy version not deep fried) is tonight’s meal, which everyone is looking forward to.  However, the tortilla pizzas from the second night were fantastic, and that’s the next recipe I’m going to highlight in today’s post. (See, even though I had a few weeks off, I’m making up for it today with a great post!)

So the tortilla pizzas were supposed to look like this:

This is the page from the cookbook.

This is the page from the cookbook.

Here's the original recipe.

Here’s the original recipe.

Ours were fabulous, but we didn’t exactly follow the original recipe. We kind of used it as a jumping off point for our own tortilla pizzas which look a lot like regular pizzas just with a tortilla shell. The making of the pizzas was so much fun though, we would definitely do it again. We also found the gluten free corn tortillas easy to work with and I think they’ll be a great replacement for my flatbread pizzas that I used to make on flatbread that is not gluten free. For the rest of us we used flour tortillas. Normally we use dough to make our own pizzas, and so far we’ve been buying a frozen gluten free pizza for Alex from Trader Joe’s that she really loves. This was a fun way to mix things up. Since everyone did their own, we were able to cater to everyone’s tastes. Everyone got four tortillas to work with and that left extras for lunches in the days ahead. This recipe was absolutely a keeper, and I’m sure some day we’ll even make it as it’s written!

The gluten free version of make your own tortilla pizzas.

The gluten free version of make your own tortilla pizzas.

These are the corn tortillas we bought to use.

These are the corn tortillas we bought to use.

In the days ahead we have a few more new recipes to try, so if they’re good you’ll see them here eventually! In the meantime, I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s post and hopefully I’ll be back on track again!

Have a wonderful week!

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Two weeks of meals

14 Dec
With some extra planning, we've been able to make gluten free work for us.

With some extra planning, we’ve been able to make gluten free work for us. These biscuits are made with a gluten-free Bisquick mix. We made a set that were not gluten free for the rest of us and froze the leftover gluten free biscuits for future meals.

I know some of you have missed our bi-weekly menus for your own meal planning inspiration, and I’m glad to say that it’s back this week!

We’ve been working within the parameters of our family’s needs, with the most recent addition of a member of our family eating gluten free. Although it takes some advanced planning, there’s so much available out there for people who are on a gluten free diet, that we’ve been able to make it all come together every night without making a separate meal for anyone. Sometimes we need to use a separate pasta or change our recipe a bit, but so far, so good.

Without further ado, here’s two weeks of kid-friendly, gluten free meals for you:

  1. Shepherd’s Pie: We use ground turkey for this meal, which tends to be lower in fat and this recipe is already gluten free except for the packet of gravy we use. However, Alex doesn’t use the gravy to begin with, so we didn’t need to do much to this recipe in the way of modifications.
  2. Tacos: Hard taco shells are corn-based and we found a gluten-free taco seasoning mix to add to the ground turkey. However, in the past we’ve also made our own taco seasoning mix. There are soft white or yellow corn taco shells that are gluten free, but so far, we prefer the hard shells. The fixings (lettuce, tomato, cheese, low fat sour cream, and refried beans) are all gluten free.
  3. Corned Beef and cabbage: It’s not just for St. Patrick’s Day, you know! We try to pick the least fatty cut we can, and trim off much of the fat when we cook it. The plain, boiled veggies (cabbage, potatoes, onions, celery and carrots) are all low fat and gluten free.
  4. Sloppy Joes: This was a quick meal for only a portion of us that were home one Friday night. I bought gluten free rolls (which she didn’t like so she just ate the meat without them) and the sloppy joe mix is out of a can over ground turkey.
  5. Nicoise: This is totally gluten free: olives, hard boiled eggs, green beans, tuna and red potatoes. The dressing is olive oil and balsamic vinegar, all were gluten free. It’s a low fat meal and can be served with bread or biscuits on the side. We have a bag of frozen gluten free biscuits on hand.

    We've tried both the orange cheese and the white cheese versions of Annie's and it's been well received both times.

    We’ve tried both the orange cheese and the white cheese versions of Annie’s and it’s been well received both times.

  6. Macaroni and Cheese and hot dogs: We’d started out planning a homemade version, but due to time constraints we had to use boxed mac and cheese. We had Annie’s Gluten Free on hand and we use turkey hot dogs and we keep gluten free hot dog rolls in our freezer.
  7. Chicken Soup: This is a homemade soup in which we used a gluten free pasta as the base, along with the usual chicken and vegetables. We have a bakery here called A&J’s Bakery which specializes in allergy free foods, and I have found everything I need there, if I can’t find it in a store. For this meal we used a small pasta that I found there. Up to that point, I’d only found large gluten free pastas (like penne) which was too big for soup. This pasta was imported from Italy, so it was pricey, but it was a corn pasta rather than a white pasta and it was perfect for this soup. Although I wouldn’t use it for my weekly pasta meals on a regular basis, I’d buy it as needed for soups like this one. We used the whole box and made the whole soup gluten free, rather than trying to make a big batch and a small batch, but we could have done that too.
  8. California chicken sandwiches: This is just grilled chicken with cheese and avocado. It can be had on a roll or on the plate, with our without the toppings. It’s a DIY chicken and everyone has it how they like it, but we had gluten free rolls available if needed.meatloaf burgers 4
  9. Meatloaf Burgers: This recipe is a family favorite and everyone loves it. The only thing I did differently was take the bread crumbs out of the mix. It made them a bit softer, but the end result was the same. In the future if I purchase a gluten free bread crumb, I could throw some back in, but they were fine without.
  10. London Broil: This was on a night not everyone was home for dinner so there wasn’t a lot of menu modifying to be done. This is marinated and served with onions, mushrooms and peppers as well as some side dishes (usually a rice or a couscous).
  11. Homemade Pizza: For this we made two homemade pizzas and bought one gluten free pizza from Trader Joes’ which was cheese, sliced tomatoes and sauce. Thumbs up on this, so it’ll be an addition to our Friday night Pizza Night meals.
  12. Chicken Marsala: To modify this dish to be gluten free, the chicken was not breaded and the sauce was made with cornstarch instead of flour. I actually liked the sauce better. We served it over pasta and made one pasta gluten free and the rest not. This is a favorite meal of mine, personally, so I was glad to see it easily modified.The rest of our meals consisted of leftovers one night and another hot dog/hamburger night using gluten free buns with french fries which were baked and are already gluten free, and salad.So for our first two full weeks of meal planning with our new needs, we were in good shape and we’re all able to eat one meal, all together, and no one is feeling hungry or slighted or as if they can only eat salad and water every day or night.

    Stay tuned as we continue on this journey through the holidays and beyond and thanks for your feedback over the past few weeks as we’ve been at the beginning of this journey!

 

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Peanut Butter Pumpkin Muffins from Family Food on the Table

18 Nov
The combination of ingredients was what piqued my interest in this recipe.

The combination of ingredients was what piqued my interest in this recipe.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t get off my pumpkin kick until after Thanksgiving. I’m still all about pumpkin for a few more weeks, at least.

I’m finding that this school year, due to our scattered after school schedules, I’m doing a great deal more driving than I am baking in the afternoons and evenings. Whereas I used to be able to do a quick after school baked snack at the end of my work day, this year I can only do that a couple of times a week, if I’m lucky. This means that I haven’t had a lot of new and exciting recipes to try out and to share, and for that, I apologize!

On Monday however, a recipe came across my virtual desk and it definitely piqued my interest. I actually had to read the title a couple of times to make sure I was reading it correctly, as I wasn’t sure I’d seen this combination of ingredients in the past. It’s not that it was anything crazy, it’s just that it wasn’t something I think I’d paired together in the past.

It meant that I just had to try it, just to see how it was.

 

Batter looked good, that's always a good sign!

Batter looked good, that’s always a good sign!

The recipe was for Peanut Butter Pumpkin Muffins, and it was from Family Food on the Table and it said chocolate chips were optional. To me, chocolate chips are almost never optional, but I liked all of the ingredients that were listed and I had them all, except for the white-wheat flour. I had white, I had wheat. I did not have white-wheat, so I decided to try using half white and half wheat instead. Otherwise, the recipe seemed perfect for an after school snack/late night snack/breakfast for our whole family; well at least for almost all of them. I forgot that one of them doesn’t like very much with peanut butter. She ended up having something else for her snack instead.

These came together quickly and easily. The prep time was estimated to be about ten minutes, and that was pretty on-target. The cook time was 18-22 minutes. A few of mine were a little soft on top, and probably could’ve cooked a little longer than the 18 that I did, but everyone was starving by the time I finished working and started baking, and everyone gets home so early now that I rushed them out, not checking each one as thoroughly as I should have.

However, despite my feeling a bit rushed, these muffins were delicious! They were hearty and healthy and deemed a keeper by all but my one non-peanut butter lover. I also noticed that there were several options listed at the end, including the option to substitute various types of nut butters such as almond butter to keep them peanut free. It also said that they were tasty with a little extra spread of peanut butter on them when eaten. One of my daughters did that, and she did say they were delicious that way too!

So if you’re as curious as I am as to the combination of peanut better and pumpkin and chocolate chips, I suggest you give these tasty muffins a try! Head on over to Family Food on the Table and check out this recipe and all their others too! Or maybe, you eat pumpkin, peanut butter and chocolate chips together all the time, and in that case, you most definitely want to head on over and check this recipe out!

Enjoy and have a great rest of your week!

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Baked Cheese and Broccoli Patties

6 Nov
These were so great! Definitely a keeper!

These were so great! Definitely a keeper!

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON DECEMBER 3, 2014

On a recent school day afternoon, I received a text from one of my daughters. It was about an hour before I had to leave and she’d be arriving home while I was gone, but I wouldn’t be back for quite some time.

Her lunch had been ruined. I can’t remember the reason why or specifically what happened. My memory isn’t what it used to be. She was annoyed and she was already starving, with a couple of hours to go before she’d arrive home.

I didn’t have an after school snack planned, and she knows how to make a bagel, cereal, a sandwich, things like that, but I had an idea. I looked up a recipe I’d been wanting to try for a while,  one I’d seen floating across my Facebook page for Baked Cheese and Broccoli Patties.

Now I know that doesn’t sound like a typical yummy after school snack, it’s definitely not chocolate and not sweet, but it’s savory and my kids actually all like broccoli. In fact, this one in particular loves it, and her winning recipe that got us to the White House in 2012 was a simple broccoli and cheese omelet. Rather than let her come in and make just anything for a snack, which was now replacing her lunch, I thought maybe I could leave her these to just reheat and she’d get something a little warmer and more nutritious than a bowl of cereal.

I checked out the recipe, checked out the time and figured out that if I moved quickly, I could squeeze in the prep and cook times before I left. They’d be done and on top of the stove when she got home. It might even make her day a little better, which would be an added bonus.

They were delicious. I texted her a photo of them when I knew she was out of school, on the bus, on her way home. “Just reheat and eat,” I said.

She was so happy. So hungry and so happy. I later texted again to see if she liked them and she said she loved them, that they were very similar to this recipe that we’d gotten out of our cookbook that we’d received at our White House luncheon, minus the hot dogs and pasta. When my other daughters got home from school, they too reported loving this after school snack.

So I call this a great recipe success! All thumbs up, a quick and easy recipe and it can be used for a side dish with a meal or on its own; even as an after school snack. Who knew?!

When I saw this recipe go by on Facebook, a friend was sharing it to another friend’s wall, but there was no originating information to go with it. I did an online search, saw the recipe on the Food.com site, but the photo was different than the one in the recipe I had, and this person too, reported getting it from a random Facebook post. However, someone put up a comment with the origination of the recipe, so I’d like to give credit here to the Po’Man Meals blog. Thanks for inspiring a whole lot of us!

I’m using the ingredients and directions I found on Food.com, which is the same as the one I have printed out at home, so thanks to them as well.

I encourage you to give it a try!

Baked Cheese and Broccoli Patties

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil.
  2. Heat the oil in a small pan over medium heat, add in the garlic and onions. Season with salt/pepper to taste. Sauté until onions are garlic are tender, set aside to cool.
  3. Add the broccoli to a kitchen towel. Wrap the towel around the broccoli and squeeze out the extra moisture. Pour the drained broccoli into a large bowl, add the onion and garlic and mix gently.
  4. To the same bowl, add the panko, the cheeses, eggs, and salt/pepper to taste.
  5. Mix together and form into patties, place on the prepared baking sheet.
  6. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Flip and bake for another 15 minutes if needed, or until browned and crispy.

 

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Taco Bake

4 Nov

This little “cookbook” is handmade from my college roommate, Karen, circa May 1993. I still cook from it!

ORIGINALLY POSTED MARCH 13, 2012

Last week during one of my posts I mentioned a cookbook that my college roommate, Karen had made me before we graduated URI back in 1993. Despite all our moves from state to state, apartments to house, that little booklet has traveled with me and several of our regular recipes have come from it. However, there’s so many in there that I haven’t made in years. Recently I pulled it out again, as I was specifically looking for a recipe for dinner that we hadn’t made in years, probably since before we had kids. It was a huge hit, so I thought I should share it here.

My family all likes Mexican food but I was getting a little tired of our alternating meals: tacos and quesadillas (even though they weren’t at all tired of them and could probably eat tacos and quesadillas day after day, I could not.) I decided to give Karen’s Taco Bake a try. It got four thumbs up. (And a thumbs down from Alex who said, “But I really liked the tomatoes Mom.”)

You don’t need a ton of ingredients for this recipe and I had everything on hand even though I hadn’t planned it in advance.

This recipe is all the things I like: quick and easy, one pan, and budget friendly. I had a pack of ground turkey in the fridge and everything else on hand in the house already.

KAREN’S TACO BAKE
INGREDIENTS

1 lb. Grd. Turkey or Beef

1 12 oz. jar of salsa (I had a 24 oz. jar, with about half left so I just dumped it all in.)

1 cup corn (drained if canned, mine is frozen)

1/2 cup mayo

1 Tbl. Chili Powder

2 cups crushed tortilla chips (I didn’t measure, but I put about half a bag into a ziploc and crushed them.)

2 cups Montery Jack Cheese (I used a block of cheddar)

I love how it first looks when you throw it all together.

DIRECTIONS

Brown and drain meat.

Stir in salsa, corn, mayo and chili powder.

Layer 1/2 meat, cheese and chips in a 2 qt casserole (I used a 11×7 baking dish)

Repeat so that cheese is on top of chips.

Bake 20-25 minutes until cheese is lightly crisp.

Top with shredded lettuce, tomato and sour cream.

My kids were so excited for this new meal, they couldn’t wait to try it out.

Now you could serve it on a plate as is, or as my kids like to do, you could throw it into a soft taco and wrap it up, with all the fixins’ and eat it that way. We had a little of both at our house; some on a plate and some in wraps. Either way….delicious.

So there you have it….another one of Karen’s famous recipes from my college years.

Enjoy!

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Two weeks of meals…almost

30 Sep

Last week I saw the funniest post on Facebook, shared by a friend but originally from Modern Mommy Madness, and it reminded me of our weekly scrambles to get our meals planned and prepped. It made me laugh out loud, literally, and I instantly shared it on Facebook myself. We try very hard to stick to a budget and we try very hard to make a meal plan for two weeks at a time so that we can stick to that budget, but some weeks it is just so hard, and we’re just barely pulling some sort of meal together.  This graphic put the reality check right out there, and I loved it.

I'm pretty sure we all can relate. Don't you think so? My personal favorite is Friday's meal.

I’m pretty sure we all can relate. Don’t you think so? My personal favorite is Friday’s meal. Thanks to Modern Mommy Madness for keeping it real.

So this week, instead of two weeks of meal ideas for you, I’ve got ten. By the time we got our meal plan together and shopped for it, we were down to ten days instead of 14. I’d say I’d share with you the other four, but I barely remember what we ate last night, nevermind ten days ago. I think I do remember a lasagna and a shepherd’s pie in there somewhere, a chicken pot pie made an appearance as well, but for now, we have ten meals. The kids have been helping with the meal planning, putting in their favorite meal requests, which has helped us come up with two weeks of meals every time. Hopefully this list will help to jump-start your own meal planning for the next couple of weeks!

  1. Oven roasted chicken dinner, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce
  2. Fajitas
  3. California chicken (chicken sandwiches with melted cheese, avocado, and sprouts if desired)
  4. Homemade pizzas (we did Hawaiian, plain cheese with sauce, and BBQ chicken this time)
  5. Ravioli
  6. Sloppy Joes
  7. Chicken and Broccoli quiche (recipe here)
  8. Chicken and Mushrooms in white wine sauce (recipe here)
  9. Sweet and Sour Meatballs with egg noodles (recipe here)
  10. Pastene “soup” and Meatball sandwiches

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Fun Friday: Crazy for Crust’s Homemade Brownie Mix

21 Aug

Brownies 4Happy Friday to you all! It’s a little rainy and overcast here, the weather isn’t quite sure what it wants to do today! It’s quiet at our house, and I’m using the “me time” to type a quick blog post for you! I know it’s been a long time since I did a post, but summer is like that, lots of mom-and-kid-time, not as much mom-at-work-time, thankfully!

Today’s post is one that started out as something we were using for our cross country trip, but we’ve used since returning home also, and I plan to continue to use it at home, especially during the crazy school year weeks.

I had been looking for a pre-made brownie mix that I could duplicate to take along with us on our trip so that I would have an easy to make dessert on hand all the time. We were bringing five mugs with us so that we could make Nutella mug cakes, and I had the ingredients for that, but I didn’t want to have to have a lot of other ingredients on hand because our pantry was small. As I searched, I came across a homemade brownie mix that could be made up ahead of time, stored in an airtight (mouse tight and ant tight) container and only the wet ingredients would need to be added. I decided to make a double batch of the mix. I wasn’t sure we’d even use it, but I thought it would be good to have on hand. Our oven in the RV was tiny, so I brought a 9×9 square baking dish, as it was an option for the recipe as were 9×13 and loaf pan sizes.

brownies 2The recipe I chose was from the Crazy for Crust website, and you can visit it here to take a look around. We made up our double batch of the mix before we left and put it in an easy to store container that would fit into our pantry. I made sure to print out the recipe which contained the details for adding in the wet ingredients as well as the dish size options and the bake times. I put the directions into an envelope with the flap cut off and taped it to the top of the container for future reference.

brownies 1While we were on the trip, we decided to try out our oven. We’d gone many nights without dessert, and on other nights we’d had mug cakes, we’d had ice cream, but now I wanted to give baking a try, and we were really craving something good.

I found the recipe very easy to use, very quick to prep because we’d done the dry mix ahead of time, and as I mixed it all together, it looked thick and fudgy, just as a brownie mix should. We put everything in the pan, put it in the oven and I crossed my fingers.

Brownies 5A little over 20 minutes later, our brownies were done! They looked and smelled delicious, and we were thrilled that they tasted delicious also! Our first-ever baking experiment in our camper’s oven was a success, but more than that, I’d found a perfect brownie mix to keep on hand at home for future use. So often we need a last minute dessert and don’t have a mix on hand to throw together. I recently used this mix to make another couple of batches of brownies at home: a 9×13 and 9×9 batch at the same time, and there is still a little bit of dry mix left over!

I can’t wait to make another batch of this homemade brownie mix, and I can’t thank Crazy for Crust enough for sharing their recipe with us! I hope you’ll pay their site a visit so that you too can have the best homemade brownie mix ever. It’s a great, user-friendly recipe for kids and adults alike. You can see some amazing photos of their own freshly baked brownies while you’re there checking out the recipe!

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#crosscountryadventure2015: Tips for planning your own trip

27 Jul

So many people have said to us that they would love to take a trip like this one at some point in the future. I thought I’d share some tips with you, including things we’ve done or learned along the way.
trip wall1) Get everyone involved: If you’re bringing kids along and they are school aged, get them involved in the route planning by asking them what they’d love to see. We kept a large map and blank poster board on our wall and asked our kids to tell us what they hoped we could see. We let them know that just because it went on the list didn’t mean we could absolutely do it, but we’d do our best to make it happen. We tried to hit at least one place each person had requested, but many of the requests overlapped, like the Grand Canyon. We all wanted to see that. Our family and friend visits were worked in as well.
2) Be flexible: We had our calendar, we knew the date when we had to be in California, so we had a deadline, but my husband cautioned me against planning where we’d stay at every single stop because we might get delayed along the way or arrive earlier than planned along the way. I took his word for it, the planner that I am, and we only made our reservations for Virginia, for Fourth of July weekend, and for Los Angeles. As it turned out, we did modify our schedule a bit, and picked up an extra day along the way, which we were able to spend in Arizona with our friends, and another extra day which then allowed us to arrive a day earlier in Los Angeles than we’d initially planned. We struggled with finding a spot to stay overnight for three nights in Yellowstone National Park, so many campgrounds were now full, but had we booked it a month ago or more, our dates would not have been correct, so having a reservation would not have helped us. We opted to just stay two nights instead because that’s what we could find. So ultimately, he was right.
20150707_2329213) Be spontaneous, and be aware of your family’s habits: We knew several things we definitely wanted to do, like visiting the Alamo and the Grand Canyon, and we had specific plans for days when we were with our family, but we couldn’t possibly plan out every single minute of every single day ahead of time for the entire five weeks. It was nice to be able to wake up and do nothing some days or to wake up and say, “What should we do today,” making that decision as a family. We tend to be later risers and night owls, so we never planned to be up and out at the crack of dawn, because that wasn’t realistic for us. There’s a lot of us also, and one bathroom, so it takes us some time to get organized and out the door. We are much better at later arrivals for things whenever possible, and with the pressure to rush out the door off, it kept everyone happy, at least for the most part.
4) Divide and conquer: With an undertaking such as a trip like this one, there was no way we could make any one person responsible for the entire thing. We did sit many nights and plan out some of it together, but we also split up the responsibilities. I took on the bulk of the organizing of the camper inside as well as the family’s needs, while he took on the bulk of organizing the route (since he’d done this trip before) and finding the campsites, as well as taking on figuring out the hardware and equipment needs for the truck and camper. Working as a team is much easier than one person doing everything or both of you trying to do every single task together. Our kids were old enough to be involved in the organizing and setting up of the camper as well, so our team was more than just the two of us.
20150629_1242495) Remember that it’s camping: Yes, you have all the comforts of home in an RV, but you also have the potential for ants, a mouse, beetles, and the like. It’s not the Four Seasons, and we didn’t want it to be, but don’t be shocked if you see a bug, or if there’s dirt on the floor or if you shower in your flip flops at the campground’s showers. If you don’t like those types of things, this type of camping across the country trip isn’t for you. Our group consists of an Eagle Scout and four Girl Scouts. We’ve all tent camped and hiked before, and we like meeting and greeting new and different wildlife. We knew we’d be okay on a trip like this.
6) Be patient: Close quarters, long hours driving, tight spaces, many weeks away from home. There will be short tempers and meltdowns and frustrating situations. It’s important to be as patient as possible as often as possible. They say patience is a virtue, and this trip is a great way to practice it. Nothing will go 100% perfectly and you deal with things as they come, just as you would at home.
7) This is a driving trip: You’re going to spend a lot of time in the car, you’re going to spend a lot of money on gas. To think of the trip without knowing those things going into it would be silly. We saved lots of money in other ways, but we were up front with knowing gas would cost money and even a great deal of money in some places, and we’d be using a lot of gas because we would be spending five weeks on the road. We also knew going into the trip that we’d be pulling a camper and driving a large vehicle, so we knew our gas mileage wouldn’t be fantastic, but again, these were all known facts way ahead of time, so no surprises there and we took it all into consideration.
8) Camping is cheap: Although gas is expensive at times, lodging is very inexpensive. Campsites varied in price from as little as $15 a night to as much as $75 a night, depending on where we stayed, with an average price of $25-$30 a night, usually. We ate out on occasion as we do at home, but we ate in much more often, just as we would at home. Had we stayed in hotels, we would not have had such inexpensive lodging and not have had the ability to cook such great meals as we do now. At $3900 to own outright, our camper was our hotel and our ability to cook meals for five people a dog and a frog, for five weeks all wrapped in one, without having to spend money on airline tickets which would not allow us to experience the entire country from East to West and South to North as we have. And when we get home, we have the ability to go anywhere else we want to go with our camper from here on in, because we own it. Who knows what adventures lie ahead for us?

Adventure is all part of the fun!

Adventure is all part of the fun!

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