Menu Plan Monday

Last week I didn't get to all the meals I had planned. One day, my MIL brought over a meal, so that was GREAT! So no review on the Indian Chicken in the CP. We'll save that for another time.

This week. . .tonight's meal is ready to go. I even took a photo. . .all I need to do is put a cornflake/cracker/butter crumb mixture on top. This is based on the recipe Ham and Cheesy Pasta Bake. I never got around to it when I had planned to a few weeks ago. I have a few alterations to the recipe already. . .because of my dutch/frugal nature! The meal we got. . .the kids were not a fan of the noodles and sauce. . .it was too spicy/tangy/tomato-y/vinegar-ish-y for them. So to use the left-overs, I used the noodles from that (tried to use the non-"sauce" parts) and added all the rest of the recipe. Well, minus the mushrooms because the hubby isn't a big fan. I added some corn instead. Hopefully it will go over well. Other changes I made: I used less noodles so it will be more sauce-y (to balance out the extra spices/flavours of the noodles), and added the crumb mixture to the top.
It's a short week for me as little a and I are off to Cow-town to celebrate a wedding with friends. And of course to visit my sister and bro-in-law and their adorable daughter. My hubby has the other two kiddos at home for suppers, so I can imagine there will be A&W kinds of nights and mac 'n cheese or pizza. . . :)

Monday-Ham and Cheesy Pasta Bake, garlic bread, cut up veggies and dip
Tuesday-French Toast Casserole, fruit salad
Wednesday-Left-overs or sandwiches
Thursday-Saturday- ?
Sunday-if the weather is good--a BBQ of some sort. :) Shhh. . .don't tell hubby. He was kinda put on the back-burner for Father's Day because little a was baptized and we had people over after church and all the goodies that go along with that, so hopefully I can do something nice for him. I have some time to think about this!


Hopefully I'll have some recipes to come home with from my sister. . .I usually do!
For more mpm, see www.orgjunkie.com

Menu Plan Monday

Well. . .late as always!

Last week I didn't have time to post anything. . .things were a little hectic around here. I'm not sure I can even remember what we ate here at home. . .i think it was tortilla pizzas one night and a meat and potatoes kind the other night. The rest were out on the town. . .so it was nice to be back home and eat at our house on Saturday--lemon pepper chicken skewers (on the BBQ), mashed potatoes, corn and salad. Sunday the weather was iffy, but we went out to the local park/lake and had a hot dog BBQ. fun. nice. the way Sundays are supposed to feel.

Now it is a new week. Was going to post last night, but there was a new nephew born! Obviously visiting the new little guy was a little more important than blogging! :)

Monday-Corn Fritters with garlic cilantro dip, farmers sausage and salad
Tuesday-Corn on the cob, meatballs and mashed potato casserole
Wednesday-BBQ Chicken sandwiches (CP), salad
Thursday- left-overs buffet
Friday- Indian Spiced Chicken (CP recipe. . .this is a new one, so we will see if I have time to give this a try. Otherwise, we'll find something in the freezer. . .)
Saturday's Snack-?
Sunday-French Toast Casserole (We have lots of bread again, and will also have company during the day. Little A is going to be baptized, hence the company after church. This is a nice, make-ahead kind of breakfast--er, dinner!)

There you have it. . .my quick little entry this week. For more MPM, see www.orgjunkie.com.

Smiles

Just wanted to share one of my biggest smiles with you. . . these kiddos always bring a smile to my face!

Blueberry Breakfast

Uh-oh! Re-renos!

Just over a year ago, we (mostly my hubby, of course!) finished {most} of our basement. (We still have a back bedroom to finish off, but right now that is just acting as junk storage.) We liked all the work that the people we had hired had done, and we liked all that my hubby had done. It was nice.

But as luck would have it, our hot water tank decided to kick it and RIP--but did not allow us the peace! It made a mess! As soon as my hubby walked downstairs and into a puddle of water, we made some phone calls! Here is our basement that day! Our vinyl pulled up and fans doing what they can!
In this photo you can see some of our "new" vinyl and the old lino under it. (Don't worry, its not as messy as it seems. The flooring people put a leveling compound down as we had "floating vinyl flooring" put in. That is why it looks so dirty and ugly, I think.)

And, as luck would have it, the insurance company had to test the original lino for asbestos (is that how you spell it?) because of the age of our home. Guess what they found?

We got "re-located" for two days as they had to pull everything out to remove it all.

That is where the fun part comes in, for the kids that is! That meant a local vacation at the Super-8, consisting of lots of swimming time, which of course was the highlight for the kiddos! Other highlights included the BIG beds, late bedtimes and continental breakfast (aka: "I can pick whatever I want for breakfast!!!!")

Our little bathing beauty!

Playtime!

What little a did best at the pool. . .

Bedtime. . .or story time or TV time. . .

More swimming. . .did we mention there was a water slide? The kids were kinda small for it (see above), but they went off the end of it and enjoyed making the water stop and start. They turned into quite the swimmers after the two days there!

Hot tub time. . .

Water slide time. . .

As much fun as being in a hotel and going out for meals sounds, it isn't all its cracked up to be when it is totally unplanned and raining like crazy outside. Makes going out on adventures a little more difficult! And cramming all of us (newborn baby and all!) in a hotel room--not fun! We spent some time at the mall and stores, at Opa and Oma's and going on walks when it was somewhat dry. We popped into our house every now and then to see the progress. We may have had to make a few not-so-nice phone calls so that we could get back into our house as I was getting tired of this living in limbo thing.

Finally, we are back in our house. The result. . .our own beds, our own toys, home cooked meals again, no laundry, limited basement space for now, and for me, the dreaded M-word. Yep, mastitis! As luck would have it. . .I'm not the lucky one these days! I like my quiet house. I like my little nursing spot in my house. I like routine to my days. I like having more than 3 hours of sleep at night because everyone is comfortable in their own spaces. I like home-cooked meals again (although, not having to cook was kinda nice!). I'm a boring, boring person--and very content with it!

So, the next step in this whole reno-process is NOT another mini-vacation (much to the dismay of our kiddos. They miss the pool. The first morning back in our house, E came upstairs with his swimming stuff because he wanted to go back. He prayed at night that we could go back--please!They just don't get how much energy this takes out of us!). Hopefully, the next step will be getting the floors in, the baseboards done, the painting finished, getting my laundry back, and getting better!

But as luck would have it. . .I think we have a better chance of having sunshine than for this re-reno to be done any time soon! :)

A Little Bit of {Sweet Potato Fries}

We had some sweet potatoes last week. I've often had them in recipes, like soups and Chicken Milani, and anything like that which calls for potatoes--you can generally substitute these in.

But I've also had Yam Fries at restaurants and LOVE them, so I though I would give these sweet potatoes a try at fries.

At first I tried a mixture between these two recipes (Recipe One and Recipe Two). I say mixture because I liked the nutmeg aspect, but didn't use the egg white, but did the oil instead. They were great--a lot like Oven Baked Fries or Jo-Jo's.

Then later on in the week (or was it the weekend?), I was blog-hopping and found a recipe for Cajun Baked Sweet Potato Fries. The idea of sweet and spicy was very intriguing, so I gave this recipe a try too.

I sliced up all my tators to look like fries. . .and topped them with the spices. With this recipe, you could probably make it so much easier by just using Cajun seasoning (like from Epicure or Costco, etc). Or you could make the seasoning topping suggested in this recipe, and just store it in a sealed container until you need to use it. The seasonings would taste good on most kinds of meat as well.

Laid them out on the oil-greased baking tray. . .

One change I made from the recipe is to cook/bake them shorter. . .only a half hour to 45 minutes, flipped them around, and then broiled them on low until they looked crispy.

And then. . .served them! We are them with Pizza Buns one day. . .

And here they are with a more healthy choice of a sandwich/bun. . .

3 out of 4 of us liked them. E thought I should just make the regular potato ones. He likes routines. He likes predictable meals. His opinion really shouldn't count because he ate them anyway! :)

Also, for those of you who do OAMC, this link shows how to freeze them. I did it. . but haven't used them in a meal yet. They are sitting happily in my freezer at the moment, so I can't tell you how it will work out.

Visit Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays at BlessedWithGrace.

Menu Plan Monday

It's Tuesday again. Oh well. We had that kind of a week last week, and I don't think things are going to wind down any time soon! Because :

1. Water tank broke. . .a day and a half with NO hot water AND the year-old basement renovations need to be re-renovated now! We've had people coming in ever day at various times! It's been crazy! I think I liked having renovations done on our own schedule as originally done, but. . .that is just how it goes! And
2. Little A is deciding to hold onto his jaundice as long as possible! He's a whopping 7 weeks now, and still his bilirubin tests are coming back off. More appointments for him this week as well. Hopefully he'll give up his stubborn streak of holding on to this. . .:)


So, the menu plan for last week turned into this: Freezer meals: Lasagna galric bread and corn, Chicken enchilladas, salads, sanwiches, out once, pancakes, leftovers. See, nothing fancy.


The menu plan for this week looks like this:

Monday-Chicken Milani (5 ingredient CP meal), buns
Tuesday-Oven Cheese and Bacon Chicken (I used the oven method this time, not the CP one--and it was still delish!), Mashed Potato Casserole, corn
Wednesday-Hamburger Helper, salad
Thursday (CP)-Honey Garlic Chicken Thighs, rice, beans
Friday-leftovers
Saturday-?
Sunday (BFS)-Blueberry French Toast Casserole (see below), bacon

We loved the other French Toast Casserole I made (since it is full of SUGAR!!!), so I decided to try something a little lighter. A friend made a comment on that post about making a blueberry kind, so when my mom showed me this recipe, I thought I would give it a try. Have no idea where it came from, but if you google it, I'm sure you'll come up with a thousand of them!

Blueberry French Toast
6 slices of sturdy, thick cut white bread (about 1 inch thick)
2 t. butter. for pan
8 large eggs
3 c. milk
3 T. brown sugar
1 t. vanilla
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
1 c. blueberries
1/2 c. maple syrup

Instructions:
1. Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange slices of bread on the bottom of pan, overlapping the slices.
2. In a large bowl, combine eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt.. Whisk until blended. Pour mixture over bread slices, making sure to cover bread evenly. Gently press down the bread to insure that the bread is fully submerged. Sprinkle blueberries evenly over the top. Cover with foil and refrigerate for 5 hours or best overnight.
3. Preheat oven to 350F. Bake for 40 minutes, until puffed and light golden. Serve with maple syrup.
Serves 6

No Snack for Saturday recipe, but hopefully this easy breakfast recipe will do. I'll let you know how mine turns out!