52 in 52 #33 - Homemade Chicken Fried Rice

I love chicken fried rice.  It is honestly one of my favorite things to order from any Chinese restaurant.  Other than egg rolls, but who doesn't love egg rolls?  I know that it sounds boring to say that fried rice and egg rolls is one of my favorite dishes to order, but anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not an adventurous eater.  I like certain things and I rarely step out of that comfort zone to test anything else. 

I wanted to figure out how to make chicken fried rice at home, because it seems like it would be easy and something that I could make quickly on a busy night when I have nothing else planned.  I found this recipe on Pinterest which made it almost seem comical how easy it looked to make.  I don't know that I have mentioned this before but thanks to Grace's generous grandmother we have been getting farm fresh eggs... they are awesome!  If you only buy eggs from the store, you forget what an egg is supposed to look like - note the awesome orange color of the yolk! 

It took a bit to prepare because you have several pieces (chicken and rice) that ultimately get combined together once they are cooked, but the combination of the items was super easy.  The result was something that tasted like it could have come from any half-decent Chinese food restaurant.  It wasn't the best fried rice that I have ever had but it was definitely something that I would make again, especially considering the ease that it came together. 

Try it and let me know what you think!

Homemade Chicken Fried Rice
Prep time: 35 mins
Cook time: 15 mins

Ingredients:
4 cups rice, cooked
2 chicken breasts, chopped and cooked
3 Tbsp sesame oil
2 cups frozen peas and carrots
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
2 eggs
1/2 cup soy sauce

Instructions:
Prepare rice and chicken.  I cooked our rice according to the bag instructions and I sautéed the chicken in a little bit of olive oil with some salt and pepper to taste.  In a large saucepan, heat sesame oil over medium heat.  Add peas & carrots, garlic and onion and sauté until soft.  Once softened, add eggs and scramble.  Add rice, chicken and soy sauce and cook for approximately 5 minutes until all ingredients are heated through. 

Serve warm. 

Enjoy!

52 in 52 #32 - Twine Wrapped Star - front door decoration

I saw this pin on Pinterest and thought this would be an awesome idea for our front door.  Too bad that the pin was actually just a picture.  I HATE that!  Give me some direction.  Help me understand how you created something that looks like this.  Don't just show me a picture and expect me to be able to create something even remotely similar.  Luckily, I knew that I didn't want the entire middle of the star covered by the twine, but that I wanted each 'arm' of the star individually wrapped. 

I have been wanting to replace our sad front door wreath for years, but Christmas decorating always gets overwhelming for me and I run out of steam usually after the tree and the mantle. 

This year I swore it would be different.  All of my children are getting older now and are starting to appreciate the season more and more and so I need to get my butt in gear and actually work on décor for Christmas. 

For this craft you will need:
- 10 paint stir sticks
- 1 bundle of thin twine
- wood glue
- clothes pins
- bells, ribbon, etc for decoration

Let me say that a nice woman at our local Lowes let me have 10 of these paint stir sticks.  I was willing to pay her for them, but according to her they were not permitted to charge for them and were only supposed to give the customer one per can of paint. 

You will first need to determine the shape and correct size of your star relative to your front door.  I had to 'cut' about 2 inches off of each stick in order to get the correct size for our front door, but this will depend on how big you want your star, how wide your door is, etc. 

Use the wood glue and glue your star together.  Remember, to glue all the 'blank' sides of the stick to one side.  I say this because I forgot and about half of the 'arms' of my star have the blue ink words on them.  Whoops.  Hold each piece together with a clothes pin while the glue is drying.  I let mine dry for multiple hours to ensure that it was fully stuck together and wasn't going to come apart in the wrapping process. 

Now, one of the things that I didn't quite think through was the logistics of how I was going to wrap the actual star in twine.  I mean, one end is loose but the other end is attached to a roll about the size of a roll of toilet paper.  Did I really think that I was going to pass that roll around and around like 400 times while this was getting wrapped?  No, I didn't... and I didn't end up doing it that way either.  I unwrapped about 15 - 20 ft at a time that way it was manageable.  I hid the knots from the beginning and when each piece got tied together in the side that I felt would be the back that way it looked better on the front. 


I wrapped all the way around the star with the twine as tight together as possible.  I went back at the end and wrapped the corners around the outside of star inside of around the stick.  It was not working out as well trying to wrap them completely around the stick, so I had to come up with a different way. 

Add your decoration of choice and hang on the door. 

Enjoy!

52 in 52 #31 - Loaded Baked Potato Casserole

Our friends Jim and Tracy made this amazing twice baked potato casserole for us when we visited them for dinner one night.  I had always heard rumors of this delicious dish but had never tasted it until that night.  It was amazing.  Creamy, cheese-y, and utterly amazing.  I mean, who doesn't love anything with bacon and cheese? 

I found this recipe for a Twice Baked Potato Casserole and decided to give it a try for myself. 

Twice Baked Potato Casserole
Prep time: 25 mins
Cook time: 30 mins

Ingredients:
5 lb potatoes, peeled and diced
1 cup sour cream
10 slices bacon, cooked, drained and chopped into small pieces
1/2 cup melted butter
8 ounces cream cheese
2 cups shredded cheese
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
chopped green onions

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Boil peeled and diced potatoes until fork tender.  Drain potatoes and put in stand mixer.  Add butter, sour cream, and cream cheese.  Mix until completely combined.  Add 1 and 1/2 cups shredded cheese, salt, pepper, and 1/2 bacon.  Mix well.  Press into well greased 13x9 pan and top with remaining cheese.  Bake for 30 minutes or until cheese is melted and potatoes are heated through.  Garnish with remaining bacon and serve warm. 

Enjoy! 

52 in 52 # 30 Salsa chicken

Over the last few years, I have a new found love for making food for my family.  Before that, I was never a chef, by any means.  I was capable of making simple items like a grilled cheese or some boxed max and cheese but nothing that would have been considered from scratch or that contained more than a few ingredients.  Over time I became more and more interested in cooking.  Fortunately, for people like me, there are a million websites for beginning chefs who need even the most basic of assistance, and now there is Pinterest, which is a cook-in-training’s best friend.  Because of the internet, thousands of recipes are available to you in the click of a button. 

 

My sister pinned the original recipe for Salsa Chicken from Pinterest a while ago.  I never looked at it because the picture isn’t the most appealing photo that could have been taken of that recipe.  One day, I was bored with what we had for dinner options and decided to give it a try exactly as the recipe stated.  We absolutely loved it!  My sister said that they have served it over rice, in tortillas, or just alone with a side dish.  It is amazing with any of those options.  Our favorite way to serve it is over a homemade Spanish rice. 

 

Of course, because we are who we are, the subsequent times that we made this recipe we changed up the ingredients a bit.  Now that we have a different version we like it so much more.  This recipe originally called for sour cream to be added into it, but we changed that to cream cheese and we love that addition.  It gives the dish a creaminess that fools your body into thinking that it is super cheesy without all of the added calories of putting cheese into the dish on top of the sour cream.  We also add more than double the salsa that it calls for.  We love spicy things and if Grace wasn’t eating with us and if the babies toddlers weren’t eating out of our bowls, we would probably make it spicier.  What makes this recipe even better is that it cooks in the crock pot and is completely a ‘set it and forget it’ style meal.  This recipe is very simple and easy to assemble. 

  

Salsa Chicken

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 4 hours

 

2 frozen chicken breasts

1 can reduced fat Cream of Chicken Soup

2 cups your favorite salsa

3 ounces fat free cream cheese

3 Tbsp Homemade Taco Seasoning**

1 can black beans

 

**Refer to this post here, if you have not made your homemade Taco Seasoning.  If you don’t intend to do that, you would substitute an entire pouch of Taco Seasoning from the store in this recipe.

 

Place 2 frozen chicken breasts in the bottom of your crockpot.  Sprinkle taco seasoning evenly over frozen chicken.  Pour cream of chicken soup and salsa on top of chicken.  Do not stir.  Cook on high for 3.5 hours.  After 3.5 hours, remove lid, shred chicken, add can of black beans, and cream cheese and stir to combine.  You can either remove the chicken from the crock pot and shred outside of the container using whatever method of shredding chicken that you prefer, or you can use two forks and shred it while it’s still in the pot.  We have done it both ways and it yields a similar result both ways. 

 

Serve over rice, wrapped in tortillas, or on its own with a veggie or salad.  We have had it several different ways and I must admit that I love it served over rice.  You can easily substitute sour cream for cream cheese and you can use the full fat/calorie versions of all items as well but we are trying to make this as healthy as possible.  You can add more or less salsa depending on how spicy you like it.  The original recipe called for 1 cup of salsa and I don’t think that you should add any less than that for fear of it being too thick or losing some of its necessary flavor. 

 

Made as our recipe describes there are 302 calories in a 1 cup serving.  This will make approximately 6 servings of 1 cup each.  This is very filling and using our Spanish rice recipe makes the total calorie count still appropriate for a calorie conscious dinner and it is very filling. 

 

Try it out and let me know if you make any substitutions as I am always looking forward to trying new variations of my favorite recipes. 

 

Enjoy!

 

-Sara

 

 

 

52 in 52 #22 Sweet Dough for the Bread Machine

So I made cinnamon rolls a few weeks ago and they were amazing.  Well, I thought they were amazing; Corry thought they were 'so-so'.  I have always wanted to have an amazing cinnamon roll recipe in my proverbial back pocket for recipes, so I kept looking. 

I looked for every kind of cinnamon roll on Pinterest and was unimpressed by most of them.  I knew that I wanted the mixture for the inside to have more than just brown sugar and cinnamon but I wasn't sure what I wanted that to be. 

Thursday night was a pretty significant ice storm in DFW, so what better to do on a Friday morning when you are iced/snowed in, than to experiment with homemade cinnamon rolls?  Corry found this recipe on Pinterest for Sweet Bread Dough that we can make in the bread machine.  It was simple to put together with basic ingredients that most people would have on hand.   

A warning:  This dough is VERY sticky.  We only used the bread machine to mix/knead the ingredients together and then we took it out to rise in the oven because we were making two batches so we would have some for this morning as well.  After the dough rose for right at an hour, I took it out and kneaded about 1/2 cup flour into each batch just to make the dough manageable enough to roll out. 

We used this recipe for both our Basic Cinnamon Roll recipe (shown above) and also our Fancy Cinnamon Roll recipe and they both turned out amazing.  This dough is not overly sweet and could be used with any cinnamon roll recipe that you would like to try. 

Cinnamon Roll Dough for the Bread Machine
Prep time: 5 mins
Mix time: approx. 20 mins - we aren't sure how long - just use the 'dough' button on your machine and wait for it to stop mixing/beating
Rise time: 1 hour

Ingredients:
3/4 cup milk
2 Tbsp butter
1 beaten egg,
2 and 1/4 cups bread flour
1/4 white sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 and 1/2 tsp yeast

Instructions:
Select loaf size on your bread machine.  Add all ingredients and select Dough button.  Remove from machine once dough has finished kneading.  Add to well greased pan, and cover with a greased piece of plastic wrap.  Allow to rise in a warm, draft free location for an hour.  Once risen to at least double the original size, remove from pan and knead in enough flour to make dough less sticky.  You don't want the dough to be too sticky or else you won't be able to roll the dough out.  Fill with your desired toppings and bake according to instructions for your recipe.  See recipes for Basic Cinnamon Rolls or Fancy Cinnamon Rolls. 

Enjoy! 

 

Homemade Spanish Rice

Our family is a huge fan of Spanish rice.  We used to use a random recipe that my husband found and it was good but this recipe that he makes now is amazing.  It always turns out great and is very easy to manipulate the basic recipe to your liking. 

We serve this with our Salsa Chicken, with our Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas and basically any other time I can convince my husband to make it.  This is even a hit with our teenager and our toddlers.  It has awesome flavor and doesn't have too much heat.  If you wanted to increase the heat you could just add more cayenne.  This rice is awesome as well the second day.  Because it is so tender the day that you originally make it, the rice doesn't dry out when you try to reheat it. 

Spanish Rice
Prep time: 30 mins
Cook time: 20 mins

Ingredients:
1 whole onion, chopped
1 Tbsp minced garlic
2 and 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 cup jarred tomato based salsa
pinch of cayenne
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
salt to taste
frozen corn
diced carrot
1 and 1/2 cup rice
2 Tbsp olive oil

Instructions:
Add oil to pan, heat and sweat your chopped onion.  Once your onion has sweated, add rice and brown to your liking.  While rice is browning, add salt, cumin, paprika, cayenne, salsa, and chicken stock to a bowl and blend with an immersion blender.  (If you don't have an immersion blender, you can use a regular blender.  The idea is to get the salsa pureed a bit more.)  Add garlic to browned rice and continue to brown for approximately one minute.  Pour liquid mixture into browned rice.  Add corn and diced carrots and bring the entire pot to a boil and boil for one minute.  Once one minute has passed, turn the heat down to low, put a lid on the pot and do not open for 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes, open the lid, fluff the rice and serve.

Enjoy!  

Fancy Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

52 in 52 #19 - Chicken Noodle Soup

I have been looking for a recipe for a decent chicken noodle soup forever.  All of the ones that I have tried so far have either had way too much salt, not enough seasoning at all, noodles that fall apart, or something else that made you think that you wasted an entire evening cooking something that you just want to throw away.  Since I have been having some luck with Pinterest recipes lately and since it was perfect soup weather today in DFW, I figured that I would try out one of the popular recipes that I found this afternoon. 

Thanks to wanting to make a chicken pot pie at some point during this month, I already had the ingredients for this recipe on hand.  I also took a look through the recipe to ensure that there weren't any steps that made me rethink the author's sanity.  This is a step that I used to not perform, and then I was burned by several awful recipes and decided that I had to start previewing the recipes before cooking.  This recipe did not seem to have any out of the ordinary steps, so I figured that we were good to go. 

This recipe is very good and was an excellent end to a cold, rainy day here in the Metroplex.  My husband said that the seasoning was lacking something but I think that he is looking for something that he is never going to find with a recipe for chicken noodle soup because my kids and I thought that it was great.  I did make a few minor changes to the recipe.  The original is here and you can find mine detailed below. 

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 1 hour 30 mins

Ingredients:
2 whole chicken breasts
1 medium to large onion, chopped
3 tbsp. chopped garlic
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 lb carrots, chopped
1 bunch celery, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp. chopped, dried parsley
1/2 tsp thyme
1 tsp dried basil
1 tbsp. salt
1 tsp black pepper
water
16 oz egg noodles

Place chopped garlic and onion in large stockpot with olive oil and sauté over medium heat until tender.  Add carrots and celery and continue to sauté for 2-3 minutes.  Add herbs, salt, pepper and chicken breasts to pot and cover with 8 cups of water.  Bring the mixture to a boil and immediately reduce to a simmer.  Continue to simmer for one hour.  After one hour, remove the chicken and shred finely with two forks.  Add at least 1 tsp more salt at this time, depending on how salty you like your soup.  Add a little more than you care for, because you have yet to boil the pasta and add additional water and that will lessen the saltiness of a soup.  Add the noodles, raise heat and boil for 7 minutes.  After 7 minutes, add chicken back into mixture and add at least 2 cups more water.  I had to add another 5 cups to get the amount of soup that I was looking for and to even out the liquid to noodles mixture.  Ensure that water that you are adding is hot or else you will have to spend another 5 minutes heating mixture again to avoid hot and cold spots in your soup.  Season again and serve warm. 

Enjoy!

52 in 52 #18 - Pioneer Woman Meatloaf

So, I'm going to be completely and totally honest here... I am not a meatloaf fan.  I never have been and probably never will be the biggest fan of it.  My mother didn't care for it and thus didn't serve it a lot, so I never really got the chance growing up to become accustomed to it.  Now that I am a grown up, it doesn't make my meal plan a lot, even though my husband loves it.  I resolved to change that this month because I know that he loves it and doesn't get to have it a lot.  Plus, I saw that the Pioneer Woman has a recipe for it and I figured that her recipe was bound to be amazing since I have yet to try a recipe by her that wasn't completely awesome. 

This recipe definitely did not disappoint.  I mean, it's covered in bacon... how bad could it really be?  Everything is better with cheese and bacon, right?  If you aren't saying "Right?" right now, we can't be friends anymore...

This meatloaf is moist and flavorful, and the sauce for the top is amazing.  I made a small modification because we don't have Tabasco in our house, but I would imagine that even if you made it exactly the way that it called for in the recipe that it would be amazing.  I will say that I am stating our cook time that it took in our oven.  Her recipe stated that you should cook the meatloaf for 45 ish minutes and after that time our loaf was no where near done.  We used a probe thermometer to ensure that it was cooked through and ours took roughly an hour and a half to cook through.  Keep an eye on yours and ensure that it is fully cooked before consuming.  Pink in the middle is not acceptable for this recipe. 

Definitely make this recipe if you or anyone you know is a meatloaf fan and they will think that you are awesome! 

Simple Meatloaf
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:
2 lbs ground beef
1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup fresh minced Parsley
4 beaten eggs
6 slices white bread
1 cup milk
3 tsp salt
pepper to taste
1 tbsp. seasoning salt
10 slices thin bacon
1 and 1/2 cups ketchup
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. ground mustard
Sriracha to taste

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place six slices of white bread in a bowl and cover with milk.  Allow to soak for a few minutes.  This part is crucial for the texture.  Bread crumbs are not an acceptable substitution in this recipe. 

Mix eggs, beef, cheese, salt, pepper, seasoning salt in a bowl and mix thoroughly.  Crumble bread and milk into this mixture and completely combine.  As odd as this sounds, your hands are the best tools to combine a meatloaf's ingredients together. 

Once your ingredients are completely combined, form into a loaf shape on a broiler pan.  Ensure that you have another pan underneath to catch drippings.  For your sanity, I would cover that bottom pan with aluminum foil.  This will allow for easy clean up when you are in a food coma after consuming this amazing dish. 

Once your loaf is formed, top with bacon slices.  Combine ketchup, brown sugar, mustard, and Tabasco.  Pour 1/3 of the sauce over the bacon slices and spread evenly.  Bake in oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Remove from the oven, top with 1/2 of the remaining sauce and continue baking for 15 minutes.  Check the temperature.  We looked for 165 degrees.  You can technically cook it shy of that temperature but you are safe at 165.   Note:  I am using a picture from the Pioneer Woman's own recipe post.  In all the excitement of dinner finally being done with three starving kids, I forgot to take a 'final' photo.  This will not be the last time that we will make this so I will update with a 'real' picture of mine when we make it again. 

Serve with remaining sauce and your choice of side dishes.  We served it with the Crockpot Macaroni and Cheese. 

Enjoy! 

52 in 52 #17 - Crockpot macaroni and cheese

I love my crockpot(s).  I love macaroni and cheese.  So when I saw this recipe for a crockpot macaroni and cheese, my heart was overjoyed.  You mean, I wouldn't have to stand over the stove and cook a roux, cook noodles and then wait for all of this to bake?  I could really just par-cook noodles and then throw all this stuff in the crockpot and 4 hours later like magic it would be done?  This is like modern day magic! 

I was anxious to test this out as Thanksgiving approaches.  In our family's Thanksgiving celebration, we are in charge of the side dishes.  I am always on the look out for a good macaroni and cheese recipe.  While this recipe that I blogged about the other day was delicious, I am not going to be home for the crucial cooking time for that recipe and was hoping to find something that could just hang out in a crock pot and cook itself. 

I will say this about this recipe... it is cheesey.  For someone who likes a macaroni and cheese that tastes extra cheesey, then this recipe is totally for you.  For us, it was too cheesey.  It tasted, honestly, like we could have half-ed the amount of cheese in the recipe and been completely fine.  And I will admit that I even added more noodles than I should have because it seemed like the balance was already off from the get go.  The taste was good and it would honestly probably work with half of the Velveeta, or half of the Colby and jack cheese(s).  Also, for all of you readers that have the larger circular crock pots or crockpots that heat to a hotter temperature, you might want to cut the time back as well.  I was using our larger circular crock pot and it boils on low some how, so I should have also cut the cook time back by at least 30 minutes or used our smaller crock pot which actually is a low temperature when set to low.   

Even though the finished product was not what I intended, I will definitely be making this again and will update with the changes that I make to the recipe.  I am bound and determined that I will find a simple but delicious macaroni and cheese recipe that I can share with you all.  If you have one that you think would make the cut, please email me! 

Crockpot Macaroni and cheese

Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 4 hours

Ingredients:
2 cups cooked macaroni noodles
16 ounces Colby cheese, cubed
16 ounces Monterrey Jack cheese, cubed
16 ounces Velveeta cheese, cubed
1 stick of butter, cubed
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups whole milk

Instructions:
Boil macaroni noodles for 4 minutes, tops.  It is going to seem very odd to only cook them for such a short time, but believe me, if you cook them any longer they will be mushy and gross by the time your macaroni and cheese is ready to serve. 

Layer macaroni, cheeses, butter, salt and pepper together starting and ending with your cooked pasta.  Once the layers are complete, pour milk over the top. 

Cover and cook on low for 4 hours.  Stir only twice - once halfway through and once at the end.  Any more stirring than that and you will risk breaking down your noodles and turning the whole thing to mush. 

Beware that the edges will get very dark brown.  This will be similar to baked macaroni and cheese.  Ours did not get as brown as I thought that it would, but rest assured that it will not burn and those pieces are acceptable to be stirred in or eaten separately by the person cooking. 

Enjoy! 

52 in 52 #16 - Buckeye Bites

Sugar and peanut butter held together by a pretzel and dipped in chocolate.  Oh it sounds awful!  How could anyone make such a gross recipe?  Totally kidding... this recipe, honestly, had to have been invented by a woman either PMS-ing or pregnant. 

These are nothing short of amazing.  The creamy peanut butter and sugar and the awesome hard candy shell really work together to make these irresistible.  I have made them several different times and have yet to find anyone, besides my toddlers, who hate them.  We are lucky because our toddlers are not into these - more for us!  The creamy, peanut-buttery, pretzel-y, chocolate-y goodness is something that should be shared with others but with a secret stash for yourself to eat after the kids go to bed! 

Buckeye Bites
Prep time: 10 mins
Freeze time: 1 hour

Ingredients:
1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tbsp. softened unsalted butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
 pretzels
chocolate melts

Instructions: 
Line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil.  Cream together butter and peanut butter.  I have used a stand mixer and it seems to incorporate things easier, quicker and you don't feel like you need to stop and have a rest for your arm halfway through.  Mix in sugars.  Dough will be very thick and very sticky.  At this point, I refrigerate the dough for at least 10 minutes to make it significantly less sticky.  Roll the dough into balls and top a pretzel with each ball.  (We do balls about the size of 2 marbles, but you can do more if you would like your bites to be thicker, smaller if you would like them to be thinner.)  When you find that the dough is too sticky to handle, simply put it back in the refrigerator for a few minutes.  Top each ball with a second pretzel with the sides lined up to the bottom pretzel.  Once all of your dough is balled up and in a 'pretzel sandwich', place those pretzel sandwiches in the freezer for at least 20 minutes, if not longer.  Melt the chocolate in the microwave or over a double boiler.  Dip half of each pretzel sandwich in the chocolate and place back on your pan.  Once all pretzels are dipped, place in the fridge for 15 minutes. 

Consume with caution - these are dangerously good!

52 in 52 #15 - Southwest Chicken and Rice Casserole

I promise I am going to blog about something other than recipes... eventually.  I have been in the zone lately making recipes that I find from Pinterest, it seems.  And (knock on wood) they have been mostly positive experiences. 

Next up on the list is Southwest Chicken and Rice Casserole.  Let me be honest here... I was originally annoyed by this pin because it is just a picture when you click on it.  I don't understand why people do this for a recipe.  Take me to someone's blog or website that has made the recipe and can give clear, descriptive instructions.  I don't want to see a picture with your less than 100 words of description/recipe.

With that being said, I still took the chance and it turned out great.  Our latest version of taco seasoning that we made is a little bit more spicy than I care for, but it made this dish very flavorful. 

Southwest Chicken and Rice Casserole
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 25 mins

Ingredients
2 large chicken breasts
2 cups instant rice - we used brown
3 tbsp. homemade taco seasoning or 1 packet
1 can tomatoes and green chiles
1 1/2 cups water
grated cheese

Instructions:
Cut chicken up into bite sized pieces.  Add water, taco seasoning and tomatoes and green chiles.  Heat until boiling.  Add rice and stir together.  This is where we differ from the recipe.  We heated our mixture to boiling again after the rice was added, then immediately covered and moved the temperature down to low on our stove top.  Once water is absorbed, stir completely to combine and top with shredded cheese. 

We served ours in a bowl and it was amazing!  It has great flavor and is super easy to make.  The cheese melts and makes it creamy and delicious! 

Enjoy!

52 in 52 #14 - Persimmon Cookies with an orange glaze

A few weeks ago we got this mysterious orange fruit in our Bountiful Baskets haul.  While everyone is picking up their food, it is difficult to talk to people about what you are getting because it is mildly chaotic, so I just figured that I would look it up at home.  Lo and behold... a persimmon.  Before that day, I can't say with confidence that I knew what a persimmon even was. 

I have been trying to use everything that we get out of our baskets and let less go to waste, so I knew that I wanted to use them in something.  A quick search on Pinterest and voila - persimmon cookies!  I told a friend at work about them and he instructed me to freeze them because they are supposedly better after a first freeze and since ours would have been harvested before that then they probably weren't technically ripe and awesome tasting yet.  Into the freezer they went... 

My first batch of cookies tasted awesome but I knew that the texture could be better so I decided to try out pureeing the fruit and see how that did.  Once out of the freezer they defrost very quickly and the fruit turns kind of mushy.  If you are not going to use them in cooking, and want more of a raw fruit experience, I would not freeze them.  However, for this recipe it was a great idea!  Give it a try! 

Persimmon Cookies with Orange Glaze
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 12 per batch

Cookie ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 cup unsalted softened butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup persimmon pulp (from 2-3 persimmons)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla

Orange glaze:
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup fresh orange juice - we used at least 1/3 cup if not more
zest from oranges that you are juicing

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Set aside.

Cream the butter with the sugar. Puree the persimmons and beat in persimmon pulp, egg, and vanilla.

Slowly add in the flour mixture until everything is combined.

I use a small ice cream scoop for similarly sized portions of dough.  Bake for approximately 12-14 minutes or until cookies are brown around the edges and set. They will still look a little under done, but that is perfect!  Let cool on baking sheets for five minutes and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the orange glaze, combine the confectioners' sugar, orange juice, and zest together. Whisk until smooth. Spoon glaze over each cookie.  Set cookies back on wire rack for glaze to harden.

These cookies have an amazing cake-y texture and the orange glaze really makes them special.  We love a really orange flavor in our glaze so cut back the juice and zest if you do not love as much orange flavor. 

Enjoy!

52 in 52 #13 - Extra cheesey macaroni and cheese

Honestly, does the Pioneer Woman make anything that isn't awesome?  I should have known when I went in search of a macaroni and cheese recipe that I would find one that was amazing.  Let me back up...

Almost anyone that you cooks seems to believe that one of the easiest things that you can cook is macaroni and cheese.  I am here to tell you that I think that is wrong.  I am a relatively decent cook most days, and I have royally screwed up more macaroni and cheese dishes than I care to admit.  I, however, was bound and determined to find one that was not a complete disaster. 

Back to the Pioneer Woman... we have made one of her awesome recipes before and I would be willing to bet that she is capable of coming up with a recipe that isn't amazing.  She loves butter and cheese as much as the next guy, and how can anything be bad with butter and cheese?  This macaroni and cheese was creamy and cheesey and amazing. 

Extra cheesey macaroni and cheese

Prep time: 25 mins
Cook time: 20-25 mins

4 cups dried macaroni noodles
4 tbsp. butter
1/4 cup flour
2 1/2 cups whole milk
2 tsp dry mustard
1 whole egg
1 pound cheese
salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 2 qt casserole dish

Cook macaroni noodles until very al dente.  I cook mine roughly 5 minutes.  Remember they will continue to cook in the oven. 

Melt butter in a large saucepan.  Sprinkle in flour.  Cook mixture for 5 minutes, whisking constantly.  Be careful to not allow mixture to get too brown. 

After 5 minutes, add milk and dry mustard.  Continue to whisk and cook for another 5 minutes.  Mixture will be smooth and thick.  Turn heat to low after 5 minutes. 

Remove 1/4 cup of mixture and whisk vigorously with the beaten egg.  Add egg into saucepan and continue to whisk vigorously until fully combined and smooth.  Mixture will become very thick. 

Remove from heat and add all but 1/2 cup of cheese.  Stir until melted.  Season generously with salt and pepper. 

Add noodles and stir well to combine. 

Spoon into greased baking dish and top with remaining cheese.  Bake uncovered for 20-25 minutes.  Cheese on top will be melted and dish will be bubbly on the sides. 

Enjoy! 

Homemade Pumpkin Bread

Two years ago, I roasted my own pumpkins.  It was at that point that I realized that we needed more recipes for pumpkin.  Insert pumpkin bread.  I had always heard people talk about how awesome pumpkin bread was and a certain un-named major coffee shop has a pumpkin cream cheese bread that is to die for.  I wanted a bread like that in my repertoire. 

I searched online and found a recipe for pumpkin bread from the website where I first got the information about roasting the pumpkins.  I tried it that weekend and it was amazing!  Since then I have made this recipe about 20 different times and have changed very little.  I will admit that we now add chopped pecans and white chocolate chips this year and it makes it really special.  I recently took this to a potluck at my job and it was met with rave reviews. 

Homemade pumpkin bread

Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 65-70 mins

3.5 cups all purpose flour - I have used bread flour and it seems to work exactly the same
3 cups white sugar
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg - I grate my own for each use so sometimes I use more, sometimes less.  I have found that nutmeg is a taste that not everyone loves...
1.5 tsp salt
.5 tsp allspice
2 cups roasted pureed pumpkin
.5 cup water
1 cup vegetable oil
4 whole eggs, beaten
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl.  I never use a mixer for this because you want to stir as little as possible and I get better control over the amount that is mixed with a whisk than the stand mixer.  After dry ingredients are mixed together, mix in wet ingredients until fully combined.  Pour into loaf pans.  This bread will rise a bit so I normally don't fill my loaf pans anymore than 3/4ths of the way full.  It normally takes 3 medium sized loaf pans - I use the aluminum ones.  Bake 65 - 70 mins.  I normally cool mine 10 minutes in the pans and then remove and cool completely on a wire rack. 

Enjoy! 

Easy Breakfast Casserole

I have read different recipes from every corner of the Internet claiming to offer an easy, healthy breakfast option to the consumer.  Most of those, after careful inspection, are lackluster in flavor, substance, or are not really as easy as they claim to be.  When it comes to making breakfast, the easier the better, for me.  I don't want a 900 step recipe to follow in the morning when I shouldn't even be trusted to find my own shoes. 

Luckily for our family, I found a recipe for an easy breakfast casserole years ago.  Over time, we have adapted it to fit our new tastes and diet.  Honestly, other than pouring a bowl of cereal, I don't know that you could cook a recipe that was more simple than this in the morning.  This meal also fills you up enough to be a good substitute for dinner.  Who doesn't love breakfast foods for dinner every once in a while? 


Easy & Healthy Breakfast Casserole
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 45 mins

6 eggs - we use the Aldi brand of Egg Beaters and they are awesome. 
1 lb of turkey sausage, crumbled
1 package of low calorie crescent rolls
8 oz low calorie Colby Jack cheese

Preheat your over to 350 degrees. 

Brown the sausage.  Sometimes we buy the patties and crumble them up and sometimes we buy in bulk.  The calorie count is pretty similar, so I just work with what we have on hand.  Drain the fat from the sausage.  This is an important step or else you end up with grease elsewhere in your dish and that is less than ideal.

Press the crescent rolls into the bottom of a well-greased 13 x 9 pan.  I am emphasizing well-greased for a reason.  If you decide to skip that step, you will run the risk of not being able to eat any of the crust that forms on this meal because it will be horribly stuck to the pan.  Don't ask how I know. 

Once you have the crescent rolls pressed out into a flat layer in the bottom of your pan, pour the drained sausage crumbles over the layer of crescent rolls. 

Pour the beaten eggs over the sausage evenly and top with the shredded cheese. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 mins until the crescent roll layer is browned and crispy on the edges, the cheese is melty and the eggs are set. 

Enjoy!

Bread Machine - Basic White Sandwich Bread recipe

Once upon a time, many moons ago, I convinced Corry to buy me a bread machine.  In order to convince him to buy me one, I had to promise that I would use it all the time.  Fast forward to yesterday and we had only used it a handful of times and I had never used it by myself.  Less than ideal results on my part. 

I decided yesterday that I wanted to start using our bread machine primarily to make our sandwich bread.  Our household typically eats at least 4 sandwiches per day, so we go through a lot of bread in a month.  Because I am trying to reduce our trips to the grocery, this seems like a step in the correct direction.  Plus, since I am using a bread machine, this is possibly the easiest thing that I have baked in months. 

This recipe makes a 1.5-2 lb loaf of awesome white sandwich bread.  It has a slight sweetness to it and a super thin crust that does an amazing job of helping the bread hold it's shape and is absolutely perfect for a sandwich or toast.  We allow ours to sit out after cooking for a few hours to cool and to develop a bit of a tougher crust because we light a more crusty bread. 

Basic White Sandwich Bread
1.5 - 2lb loaf
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 3 hours in bread machine

3 cups flour - the recommendation is bread flour, but I use A/P and it works fine
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 & 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons white sugar
2 & 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 cup warm water - recommended 110 degrees Fahrenheit

• Mix water and yeast together and set aside.  You are not waiting for the yeast to fully activate but you do want them combined while you measure and add the other ingredients to the pan. 
• Add all other ingredients and pour water & yeast mixture over the top. 
• Start machine - should run for 3 hours in a bread machine.  We say medium color, size 2lbs, and sandwich bread. 

We cut ours into slices as we use it.  You could also slice it as soon as it is done in the machine.  Because there are no preservatives in this bread it will mold quickly so you will want to eat in 2-3 days. 

More bread machine recipes to come!!

November Grocery Shopping

To continue my previous post - this post will cover my planning for a monthly grocery shopping trip and what I purchased. 

Once I make my monthly meal plan, I go down the list for each item and write down all of the ingredients, even the ones that I think that I have in my stash already.  Once that list is compiled, I then go through my pantries, refrigerators and freezers for the items that I need from that list.  I cross off the ingredients that I have and add other items at that time that I need for other meals that aren't dinners.  My mom watches our children and my niece during the day, so I always add extra lunch options, extra milk, juice, etc to the list for them, plus breakfast and lunch options for myself, Corry and Grace.  Then I take that edited list and re-write it for the specific grocery stores that I am going to use that month.  Normally, I like to buy the bulk of my items at Aldi, and then I split the remaining between Brookshires and Walmart. 

So far we have shopped this month at Brookshires, Costco and Aldi.  Tomorrow I will finish up my initial shopping at Walmart and will update with that total.  We bought some produce this week because we did not purchase our CSA this week.  Normally that will add $18.50 including fees per week - separate post on that coming soon!

Below is a list of items that I purchased and the actual total from each trip so you get an idea of what I am buying. 

Brookshires total $24.74:

• 2 cans sliced pickled jalapenos
• sesame oil
• soy sauce
• mustard
• 2 aluminum loaf pans
• sweetened condensed milk

Aldi total $166.61

• 4 gallons whole milk
• 2x10lb bags russet potatoes
• 4x New Orleans rice side dishes
• cream cheese
• 3x toaster pastries
• 3x frozen appetizers - random dinner for tonight
• 3x random boxes of breakfast cereals
• 2x 100 calorie snack pack boxes
• Elbow macaroni
• 2x cream of mushroom soup
• 4x cream of chicken soup
• 5x random kids canned lunch options, i.e. spaghetti-o's, etc.
• 2x jumbo canned biscuits
• 3x 1lb ground turkey
• 2x country style pork ribs
• bananas
• 2x ranch dressing
• ketchup
• sliced pepperoni
• 2x white chocolate morsels
• steak sauce
• powdered sugar
• 3x canned diced tomatoes
• 4x canned green beans
• 1x canned corn
• 2x canned refried beans
• 2x canned black beans
• 4x canned tomato sauce
• 3x bagged tortilla chips
• 4x bagged 'Frito' chips
• salsa
• 2x jar salsa con queso
• 3x lunch meat packages
• 2x sliced American cheese
• 2x 3lb bags frozen chicken breasts
• Parmesan cheese block
• small bag oranges
• strawberry cereal bars
• unsalted butter
• 8x block Colby jack cheese
• 6x block sharp cheddar cheese
• white sandwich bread

Costco total $40.04

• chocolate chips
• organic pasta blend
• pecan halves
• frozen egg rolls

This month is a weird month for us grocery wise because we are buying more items to make sweets for the holidays (powdered sugar, chocolate chips, pecans, etc), and we are trying out a couple of new recipes and buying the items for those (soy sauce, sesame oil, etc).  All in all this is a fairly similar month to our usual.  I will call out that we do eat a lot of cheese in our meals and for various reasons I do not buy pre-shredded cheese.  I only buy the block cheese and shred it myself for all of our meals. 

I hope that this helps those of you who are considering the once a month shopping trip.  It is a larger expense upfront but I think that it is less expensive overall for our family. 

Let me know if there are any questions. 

November Meal Plan

We are in our third month of working on a monthly meal plan and I finally feel like I am getting the hang of it.  In earlier months, I was always forgetting something.  The first month I totally spaced on what I was going to serve for breakfasts for any of our family.  Then last month, I forgot to plan what Corry, Grace and myself were going to take for lunches.  Overall, this has been going well though.  I feel like I am saving money on groceries overall because I am making less shopping trips, resulting in fewer impulse buys.  Plus, I have been buying produce through a local CSA (review pending) thus reducing our produce bill to $15ish a week. 

As a reminder, I will run through the general steps that I follow to get a monthly meal plan.  I first look at a calendar that has our activities on it to figure out how many meals I will need.  I know that for November, we are camping two times for a total of 5 nights that I will not need to include in my standard meal plan.  I will plan those, but I will do that separately.  Based on where we are in the month and how many meals we are skipping, we need 23 meals for this month.  Then I go through my Pinterest, and my basic list of meals that I know that our family likes and decide what I want to make.  I usually keep it to the favorites and add in a few new recipes.  I also figure out how many meals that I am making to put in the freezer.  Normally I budget about 1-2 meals a week to make and stash in the freezer.  This post will cover the meal plan portion.  I will continue on the next post with the grocery list and how I plan my shopping trip(s). 

November Meal Plan

1. Pinto beans and cornbread
2. Beef chili - we eat ours with fritos and cheese
3. nachos - chips, cheese, jalapenos, beans, and taco meat with extras
4. pulled pork (recipe post to come), pasta side dish and veggie
5. country style pork ribs, mashed potatoes, and veggie
6. Grilled steak and chicken, rice side dish and veggie
7. Baked tacos
8. Stuffed bell pepper casserole
9. salsa chicken & Spanish rice
10. pizza roll ups & garlic cheese bread
11. chicken noodle soup & grilled cheese
12. chicken spaghetti
13. breakfast for dinner - pumpkin pancakes and sausage
14. chicken chili - same as beef chili for fixin's
15. chicken fried rice and egg rolls
16. ravioli with homemade spaghetti sauce & garlic cheese bread
17. beef tips, rice and gravy
18. cheesy chicken and rice
19. baked tacos
20. baked spaghetti (recipe post to come)
21. salsa chicken and Spanish rice
22. nachos
23. Grilled steak and chicken, red beans and rice side dish and veggie

Those are our basic meals.  I also planned this month to make stuffed shells, baked spaghetti, 2 more chicken spaghettis and another round of chicken chili for the freezer. 

Remember that even though my meals are numbered, this is just a list of possibilities for the month and not a day by date mandate.  There are times when I get home and don't want to cook a meal like chicken spaghetti, so I might pick a chicken chili that day.  It seems to work easier and allows us more flexibility on days when the meal that would be listed for that day isn't a possibility.  Recipes that I have available on my blog are linked above and I will be posting more in the days to come. 

What are some items on your meal plan for this week?  If you have any tips or tricks to further simplify this process, please share. 

9/11 – the single most ‘remembered’ day in American history

To say that I struggle with what to say when September 11 comes around each year is an understatement, at best.  Almost every American over the age of 18 can tell you down to the minute where they were when it happened and exactly what they did following those tragic events.  Everyone in America seems to have an unmatched level of passion for the events surrounding 9/11.  This is not inappropriate considering that, for most of us; this is the largest act of violence committed in America in our lifetimes.  

I want to acknowledge the lives that were sacrificed on that day, whether they were civilians, military, airline personnel, workers in any of the buildings, or any of the countless police, fire and EMS workers that were lost.  I want to acknowledge the work that was put in by both on and off duty police, fire, EMS, military of all branches, etc. on that day and for months after to assist, rescue, and fight for normalcy.  Without that sacrifice and dedication to the job, we wouldn’t have been able to get to this point that we are at right now.  

I don’t ever talk about any of my feelings about what happened on that day that would seem controversial because I recognize that is neither the time nor the place.  I have respect for the lives lost, the families that have been forever changed, and the hard work and dedication of the people that were left, and I would never use this day to speak out of turn to cause the focus to be away from those individuals.

I would instead like to choose this entry to ask us to all ponder a simple question.  We all remember what happened that day, now 12 years, but what are we doing about it? Are we simply remembering what happened but not allowing ourselves to make a change or are we attempting to live a change based upon what happened?   Because of the strong presence of social media, the internet, and ability to communicate with the entire world with one mouse click, you will now see at least 100 references to “Remember 9/11” today alone.  You might even post one yourself.  But I would challenge us to grow as a society and realize that eventually we need to turn this statement into an “AND”.  “Remember 9/11 and _____”.  If we refuse to do that, then we are no better off than we were on September 12, 2001.  

I am definitely not proposing any solutions or ideas with this.  I would just like to use this time to think about what we should do and how we should fight to make our country better and stronger than it has been since we were all changed.  Are you comfortable being complacent in your grief as an American public or should you channel those feelings and emotions regarding this day into making your own world a positively different environment to live in?  I deliberately am not going to say that we should make it better because we did have a significant loss of life and the world is not better without certain people, but we can use their sacrifice and make the world a positively different place.  

I am definitely not advocating for anything that sounds like revenge and that is not where I would like to entry to go.  In an ideal world, we would take our tragedy, and use our memories and lessons that we learned to make our society different today than it was on that day in a positive manner.  If we are not able to get to a point where we are willing and able to take the sacrifices of those who died that day and use them towards the greater good of our society, then I would argue that those people have died in vain.  Yes, those who were lost would want to be remembered, but I believe that they would all want us to use this situation as a way to teach our children lessons about what happened.  At this point, those lessons could be as simple as religious tolerance, equality for all humans, compassion for those less fortunate, or empathy for the poor in other countries.  

Let me know how you are remembering today and how we were changed.  

Monthly Meal Planning - September

I like meal planning.  It gives my type A, list-making personality something to smile about.  I try to help my family stick to a meal plan/meal budget, but we can all do better.  For me, going to the grocery store weekly for a more frequent meal plan is the quick way to financial disaster.  Even at Aldi, there are times when I get out of there $30 over the budget that I came in with.   I got inspired by an awesome woman named Julie (mammaneedsanap) that I follow on Youtube who meal plans by the month, and I am going to give that a go for September. 

Luckily, Corry and I have been stocking up and keeping certain ingredients on hand for months now of foods that we favor, so the shopping trip for this month is not as massive as it would be if we were starting from scratch.  It is not a lie to say that thinking about spending a bulk of our grocery budget in one trip at the beginning of the month is a bit daunting.  I understand that we will still need to shop weekly or so in very small doses for things like milk and our CSA produce, but the vast majority will be purchased in this one day.  I decided to play it safe and stick with mostly meals that we have made before for this first month, however I did throw in a few meals that we have not had previously to test a few new recipes. 

I am not changing the way that I meal plan/build a shopping list/etc; I am just planning for more meals upfront.  I will include recipe links when I have them and will do recipe posts on the ones that I don't have yet.  I will also keep up the practice of not planning a specific meal for a specific day unless we have produce that is going to spoil soon, etc.  We are less likely to stick to a plan, for some reason, if we are "forced" to have a certain food on a certain day. 

Here are our meals for the month:

Salsa Chicken & Spanish Rice x 3
Breakfast Casserole
Grilled Steak & Chicken, grilled sweet corn & fruit salad x 2
Chicken Chili x 2
Spaghetti x 3
Tuna Salad (kids will have something else not decided upon yet) x 2
Baked tacos x 3
Pulled Pork & side dish
Spinach, Alfredo, & turkey pepperoni pizzas
Grilled chicken salads
Sandwich & Homemade Soup (cream of chicken with wild rice & chicken noodle) x 2
Chicken Spaghetti x 2
Red Beans & Rice
BBQ Chicken Sandwiches

I need 28 dinners total for the month of September.  This is technically 25, but I gave us three dinners eating out in case we are out later than expected or feel like a treat.  Most of these recipes are 'diet' and I will include the nutritional info on them in the recipe post if I have it.  If not, I will include the portion(s) that we are having so you can get a general idea.  I need to shop at three different stores to get all of the items that we need - Target, Aldi, and Walmart or Albertsons.  Target's shopping trip was a bit distracted because of diapers, a new skirt for Grace and a few other random items but we did manage to get $10 worth of grocery items.  Aldi was where I spent the bulk of our money and it amounted to $111 and some change, which wasn't bad considering that consisted of a large volume of meat.  I still need a buy 2 items from the list that they don't sell at Aldi and they didn't have for some reason at Target.  All in all, our budget this month for groceries should be less than $200, which is pretty good for a family of five.  Next month that will change because we won't have as many items on hand and we will have a different menu (hopefully).   

Have you ever done a monthly meal plan?  What did or did you not like about it? 

52 in 52 #11 - Car Seat ICE Labels

Over and over again, I have seen this pin on Pinterest. 

The basic idea is that if you and whoever is capable of relaying information in an accident are knocked unconscious or (God forbid) killed while driving, that emergency personnel will be able to have information re: your children that will be important in assisting them.  Since they won't be able to tell you their pediatrician's name and phone number or if they have any medical issues, this will be a suitable substitute. 

Each example of these labels online are a tad bit different, but it really comes down to what you think is going to be important in an emergency.  Below are my choices for my cards for my children:

• Child's name
• Child's DOB
• Parents with dates of birth
• Insurance Information
• Medical condition(s)
• ICE contact - not the parents
• Pediatrician

I decided to include both of the parent's names and DOBs since I don't know who will be driving the car at the time.  It is important to remember that your ICE contact, in this case, should be someone who isn't either one of the child's parents in case both are in the car together.  Ideally this should be a related third party who would be capable of providing the remaining information on the parents and children.  We chose my mother for this role since she has this information, is their grandmother and likely would be close in proximity to where ever we are. 

This pin is definitely something that you don't want to think about but it would be essential in an emergency.  What items would be on your list? 

Meal Planning 8/20- 8/25

The week back from vacation is always tough.  You have just spent several days not worrying about working or bills or what is for dinner.  And now you are back... sigh.  I guess that now is as good of a time as ever to start posting meal plans, grocery lists, and recipes again for weekly meals since I have been slacking on those. 

As a reminder, I always make a list of the meals that I want to have during the week but I never assign a specific day to a specific meal because that will ultimately go awry somewhere during the week and then my whole attitude towards meal planning will be thrown off. 

I write down the meals that I would like to have/make for the week like this: 

Then I take a separate sheet of paper and make a list of all of the ingredients that I will need to make any of these meals to see if I have any of the ingredients that are needed ahead of time so I don't repurchase items that we already have in stock.  As I find that item in my pantry or freezer I cross it off the list like this: 

 

 

Then, lastly, from that list I take all of the remaining items and write them down with an idea of where I am going to buy that item next to it like this:

 

                                              

 

Normally I try to buy the bulk of our items at Aldi because they are significantly less expensive especially when it comes to produce and usually dairy items.  If I have to go to Walmart, that is usually a last ditch trip where I have to buy name-brand items or something that doesn't exist at Aldi. 

 

As you can see, this week our meal plan is as follows:

• Baked Tacos
• Stuffed Shells and garlic bread
• Salsa Chicken and Spanish Rice
• Grilled Chicken/Steak and Twice Baked Potatoes or Baked Potato Casserole
• Spaghetti

What's on your menu for this week?  

Corry's Birthday Weekend Celebration

We didn't initially plan this trip to celebrate Corry's birthday, but it lined up perfectly with his 40th birthday this year.  Our friends that we met through NTTE wanted to go camping and it was decided that we were going to visit Lake Murray State Park near Ardmore, OK. 



 We decided to leave Thursday night, which was Corry's birthday, and head up there after work.  Luckily, it didn't take us that long to get up there, get set up and relax with our friends.  We stayed in the Rock Tower area of the park and it was awesome!  The first night there were very few people there and we got awesome camping spots right on the water.  The area was very quiet and the spots were spacious and ideal for a larger camper, which you don't always find in a campground.   This was our first time to camp at this state park and we definitely will return.  They have several hundred campsites in the entire park and awesome amenities like an ATV area, fishing, swimming, play grounds, etc. 

 

 

As I have mentioned several times before my children absolutely love camping.  I will admit that I am stressed for days before a campout that at least one of my children isn't going to sleep well at night, isn't going to eat what we are serving, is going to fall out of a camper and injure themselves - wait... too late on that one.  Needless to say, my children would live in the wild if I would allow them to.  They love being outdoors and have no problems just wandering around playing with bugs and dirt.  By the end of the evening, they are both so worn out and dirty that they really should be hosed off before going to bed but they couldn't even stand up long enough for that. 

 

 

 

Because we now have Grace living with us, we had a different sleeping arrangement this time than we normally do so we could give her the most comfortable sleeping placement possible.  We moved Isabella to the table bed and let Grace have the fold down couch bed.  It works out fine, especially because Isabella could sleep on a log, I think, if she was tired enough.  Most nights she sleeps so well that she ends up with awesome bed-head like this.  We called this her 'I went to prom last night' hairdo.  Silas slept amazingly well in the 'baby-jail' situation that we have set up for him in the bunk house portion of our camper since it gets dark and mostly soundproofed in there.  Our friends have children that are older than Isabella and Silas, and they have so much fun with their children.  They love other kids and are starting to not freak out 'stranger danger' style around our friends.  

 

Of course because it was actually Corry's birthday, we definitely had to get a cake.  And, of course, because we were ordering a cake I contacted Heather from A Sweet Fix bakery to make it.  She went so above how I thought this cake was going to turn out.  Everyone was amazed and oohed and ahhed over how awesome it looked and how great it tasted.  It was rich and chocolatey and delicious.  Corry agreed that this was definitely the best tasting cake that we have ever had from her.  I know that I have talked about her and her business in several blogs before but definitely if you are in the DFW area and in search of an amazing cake, you have to check her out.  This cake was an amazing chocolate inside and chocolate buttercream on the outside.  I know that buttercream is not what she normally deals with but it is always excellent.  She made these awesome donut shaped cookies that my kids loved as well.  She really goes above and beyond what I could expect every time that we order a cake from her.     

 

 

 

All in all we had an excellent weekend with family and friends.  My parents came up to bring the cake and celebrate with us.  We also met some very nice new people while we were camping who had some very sweet children.  I definitely could not have asked for a better weekend for my husband's birthday. 

 

What would be your ideal birthday weekend celebration?