Monthly Archives: August 2009

Fruit Smoothie

August 30, 2009

I was REALLY not feeling up to cooking tonight, so Jason and I pulled together enough fruit to make a couple of smoothies. It’s bee years since I pulled out my smoothie machine (no, it’s not a regular old blender – which I wish I had – it’s a specialized machine just for smoothies and mixed drinks like margaritas). I was so happy to finally have a reason to use it again. We kinda winged it using what we had: 2 cups of strawberries 1 cup of blueberries 1 cup pineapple tidbits 2 cups crushed ice 1/2 cup orange juice This made enough for both of us to have big huge smoothies, enough to fill us each up quite pleasantly. We also have enough left over fruit to make another pair of smoothies for breakfast or lunch tomorrow. The only problem we ran into was that by the time all the fruit was blended up, the juicy part was too thin. We filled our glasses and tossed them in the freezer for about 10 or 15 minutes. In that short time the smoothies thickened up perfectly. I froze the leftover fruit so we won’t run into that problem tomorrow.

Read more »

Monterey Chicken

August 27, 2009
Monterey Chicken

I came up with this recipe after attempting a Sandra Lee recipe. I decided to delete a few ingredients because I didn’t like some of the items (mushrooms, onions, and baby corn). I also bought only one can of the cream soup instead of two. Lastly, I didn’t have any fresh or dried thyme, so I substituted my favorite all-around spice. When the chicken came out of the crock pot, it was delicious, but definitely not what Sandra Lee had intended. Here’s what I came up with: Ingredients: 3 or 4 chicken breasts McCormick Garlic Pepper seasoning (or my homemade version) 1 cup baby carrots 3 or 4 red potatoes, skins on, quartered 2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup (optional) 1/4 cup diced onion (optional) 1/4 cup diced green pepper (optional) 1/2 tsp. dried parsley Step 1: Place red potatoes on the bottom of a 5-quart slow cooker, add the carrots on top of the potatoes. Top veggies with one can of the condensed soup. Optional Step 1.5: For a little extra kick, sprinkle some diced onion and green pepper over everything. Step 2: Generously coat both sides of the chicken breasts with the Garlic Pepper seasoning. I...

Read more »

Menu Planning 101: Assignment 2

August 27, 2009

Last week we came up with 15 of our family’s favorite meals. This week’s challenge from The Happy Housewife was to add another 5 meals and list our favorite side dishes. My first list of meals from last week included our absolute favorite main dishes. This week I’m adding a few meals that we like to splurge on once in a while: Taco Cheese Dip Breakfast for Dinner (eggs, potatoes, pancakes, homemade muffins, waffles, any combination of breakfasty foods) Big Chef Salad with veggies (uncooked sweet corn and raw carrots) and different meats (turkey or chicken, salami or pepperoni), shredded cheese, and fruit like raisins, craisins, pineapple bits, mandarin orange slices, apple chunks. Basically a mish-mash of an antipasto tray mixed into salad greens. Hot Dogs (I have a weakness, but I try to keep it in check and at least buy the quality hot dogs) Orange Chicken We don’t really worry about too much variety in side dishes, we’ve got our favorites and stick to them: Carrots Mashed potatoes Rice A Simple Walk’s Simple Pull-Apart Rolls Potato Cheese Casserole Rice-a-Roni Corn on the cob Baked potatoes Green salad Tater tots Guacamole with chips Fruit cocktail Peaches Pears Pineapple...

Read more »

Menu Plan, week of August 24, 2009

August 24, 2009

I was really not in the mood over the weekend to menu plan. We had a couple of unexpected expenses pop up last week and our grocery budget suffered. We’ve got plenty, but I wasn’t really up for an “eat from our pantry/freezer” challenge quite yet. So, here’s what I came up with for this week. Not bad stuff, we’re actually having some of our favorites in spite of my unpreparedness. Monday: Breakfast for dinner, eggs with fried potatoes and fruit. Tuesday: Beef stew with Kate’s pull-apart rolls and leftover green salad. Wednesday: Corn-flake and parmasan crusted chicken with carrots and mashed potatoes. Thursday: Cheese enchiladas and rice. Friday: Our last box of Hamburger Helper which traveled from our California pantry to Alabama. Saturday: BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, and Pioneer Woman’s crash hot potatoes. Sunday: TBD. I have absolutely nothing planned for Sunday. The fabulous dinner I had planned for the weekend before last when we thought friends were coming to dinner wound up being turned into a basic family meal because Jason never actually confirmed the plans with his work buddy. Major oops on his part. Well, he’s re-upped the invitation and this weekend is a...

Read more »

Menu Planning 101: Assignment 1

August 20, 2009

Last week, The Happy Housewife challenged her readers to an assignment. She’s starting a series on how to menu plan and this first assignment was for each reader to come up with a list of 15 meals that their family wanted to eat. Now, I’ve been menu-planning for just about a year now and have really enjoyed it (even though I have often forgotten to post our menus online). I do a week-by-week, Monday through Sunday plan. Depending on our available funds when I’m planning out the week, sometimes I make a list and shop for everything I need to make the meals I chose, and sometimes (when we’re broke) I plan meals around what’s already in our pantry/freezer/fridge. So far, my “fly by the seat of my pants” menu-planning method has been working for us, but since we just recently switched from two incomes to one, and from a 3-person household to a 5-person (and by next spring, 6-person), what I hope to get from Toni’s Menu Planning 101 series is to go from a weekly menu plan to a monthly plan and learn how to make our planning more frugal by stretching our meat with more vegetables...

Read more »

Jell-O Cookies

August 19, 2009
Jell-O Cookies

I don’t know why it’s been so long since I’ve made these Jell-O Cookies. From the archives of my old journal, it appears to have been since Thanksgiving! According to Jason, we need to make these every day. I am inclined to agree. Each batch makes about 4 dozen and they last about 4 minutes after pulling them from the oven. As soon as they’re cool enough to handle, they are promptly gobbled down by every person in the house. This evening we made lemon, but I’ve got four more boxes of Jell-O in my cupboard begging to be fashioned into cookies instead of their intended gelatin state. Next time I can choose from orange, cherry, raspberry, or tropical fusion (cherry/orange/pineapple blend). Tropical Fusion is a double size box, so it would be enough for two batches. Yay! Today’s batch was intended to go to work with Jason tomorrow. It seems that most of his coworkers are jealous of his homemade leftovers lunches. How weird is that? In San Diego he got poked fun of for his leftovers when other guys went off-base for lunch. Now all the guys ask whether he brought enough for everyone. To make up...

Read more »

Pregnancy Sickness

August 18, 2009

“Morning” sickness my butt! I’ve read all the WebMD, mommy blog, and website posts I can handle. Even the What To Expect… book says it: “morning” sickness is grossly misnamed. It’s all day sickness for me. When I was pregnant with Jeremy, I had absolutely no morning sickness. Almost unheard of for a first-time mom. The only time I was ill was after my doctor prescribed an iron pill separate from my regular prenatal vitamin. I took it in the morning with my bowl of cereal and milk and immediately threw it back up. After a week or so I read that iron reacts exactly that way when taken with iron-rich food or drink, like milk and fortified cereal. Once I began taking the iron at night before bed, everything went back to normal and I wasn’t sick again the entire pregnancy. This time, everything is different. I haven’t thrown up at all, but I’m pretty sure it’s just my strong will holding it back by a thread. I hate throwing up, more than any other part of life, I hate throwing up. When I have a flu bug or any other sickness affecting my stomach, I do it...

Read more »

Menu Plan, week of August 17, 2009

August 17, 2009

Wow, I have had very little tolerance for cooking these past few days. Breakfast is whatever I can fathom would stay down, lunch is similar, and dinners are planned but I usually need Jason’s help to cook it. Raw meat (chicken, beef, pork, anything raw) is just more than I can take right now. Hopefully this will pass soon. I really love cooking for my family and have been getting a lot better at it ever since I started menu planning a year or so ago. Monday: Tacos, that’s it. Strawberries on ice cream later. Tuesday: Chicken and gravy with green salad, carrots and cornbread. Wednesday: Pot roast (Jason’s favorite), with mashed potatoes and peas. Thursday: Italian chicken with corn and green salad. Friday: Pizza. Saturday: Baked ziti and corn on the cob. Sunday: Big dinner salad and fresh homemade bread. Next week is going to be a clean-out-the fridge week because I’ve got lots of leftovers for lunches and since we buy all our meat at Costco, I’ve got loads in the chest freezer downstairs. All I’ll need to go to the store for will be milk and sandwich bread. For tons of menu planning inspiration, check out...

Read more »

Potato Cheese Casserole

August 14, 2009
Potato Cheese Casserole

I have to give credit where credit is due… I did not make up this recipe on my own. It started with a recipe that my ex-husband’s step mother made one Christmas. She gave me the recipe from an decades old church cookbook. Over the past three years or so I’ve made a few changes of my own and thought I had it just right. That is, until I read another recipe (I’ve since lost the link) which incorporated cottage cheese. Yum! I changed my recipe around again and dare I say it’s amazing. After I finished tweaking my recipe about a year ago, I started reading Amy’s Finer Things and one of the first recipes that I read on Amy’s blog was Cheesy Potato Casserole. How coincidental is it that we both came up with almost the exact same recipe starting from completely different sources, living in totally different states, without a single thing tying the two of us together? I’ve made Amy’s recipe, and it is really delicious, but I keep falling back on my own because I love the extra peppery kick and the slight tartness that comes from the cottage cheese. Kudos to Amy for a fantastic...

Read more »

Friends for Dinner… Help!!

August 13, 2009

Jason informed me just this afternoon that we are having friends for dinner on Saturday. I haven’t met Jason’s work friend or his wife, but I’ve heard nice things about them. Apparently the guys worked together in San Diego (my husband’s last unit which we just moved from) and the couple are still newlyweds (though longer than us). I’m very excited to have people over to our new home. Also, as I told Jason, this was probably one of the best things he could have done for me in order to get me to finish unpacking our house. I’ve gotta get busy tomorrow to whip my front room and dining room into shape. How convenient is it that the awesome dinner I had planned for tonight didn’t work out for today? I had forgotten to defrost the pork and the recipe takes 18 hours in the crock pot, so I mentally switched today’s planned meal with tomorrow’s (cheese enchiladas). As I was getting busy preparing the enchiladas, Jason came home and told me about our guests for the weekend. Well, I couldn’t very well serve them the Saturday-planned hamburgers and fries, so that got switched to Sunday, we’re taking...

Read more »

Other Places to Find Me Online…

Categories

Archives