Menu Plan Monday, October 22

October 22, 2012 By 3 Comments

Here’s what we are eating this week.  What’s on your menu for the week?

Breakfast
M through F: Granola or Oatmeal (child’s choice); eggs, bacon, and toast; OR breakfast cups
Saturday: Extreme Banana Nut Bread
Sunday: Waffles

Lunch (Vera and I are the only 2 who eat lunch at home during the week, so she helped me write a repeating plan for those days.)
Monday:  Chinese Dumplings
Tuesday:  Ham and Cheese Sandwiches, veggie sticks, fruit
Wednesday:  Pizza Quesadillas, fruit
Thursday:  Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, veggie sticks, fruit
Friday:  Macaroni and Cheese with hot dogs
Saturday: Sandwiches, Leftovers, or Freezer Burritos
Sunday: Eat Out

Dinner
Monday: Chinese prepared by our house helper
Tuesday: Spaghetti and Meatballs with Homemade Sauce, bread, salad
Wednesday: Enchiladas
Thursday: Crockpot Brown Sugar Chicken over rice, green beans, apple sauce
Friday: Papa John’s half price pizza night!
Saturday: Chinese Take-Out
Sunday: Hamburgers, Homemade French Fries, and Sauteed Mushrooms

What are you eating this week?  Check out orgjunkie.com for more meal plans!

Simplifying Mornings–Breakfast Cup Recipes

October 17, 2012 By 4 Comments

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As I posted last week, breakfast cups have become an easy addition to simplifying our school morning breakfasts.  They freeze great, so all we have to do is take out whatever we need the night before, put them in the refridgerator, and reheat them in the morning.  They can be reheated in the oven or microwave.  We prefer to use the oven.

Now for the recipes!

Sausage, Egg, and Mushroom Breakfast Cups

15 eggs
2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup of diced mushrooms
1 cup of cooked breakfast sausage, crumbled
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

Combine all ingredients into a bowl and mix well.  Fill muffin cups almost to the top.  Cook at 350 degrees for approximately 30 minutes until the tops are browned.  Makes approximately 18 breakfast cups.

These can be made with any vegetables of your choice, as well as more or less cheese, sausage, or veggies depending on your preference.

Pancake Breakfast Cups

You can use your favorite pancake recipe for these, Bisquick, or follow my recipe below.

2 cups of flour
2 tablespoons of sugar
4 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups of milk
1/4 cup of melted butter

Combine the above ingredients together mixing the dry ingredients first. After all of the ingredients have been combined well, add:

1 cup of sausage crumbles
OR
3/4 cups of chocolate chips

Pour into greased muffin cups almost filling the cup and cook at 350 degrees for approximately 15 minutes until slightly browned on top. Serve warm with or without syrup, depending on how sweet you like things! Makes approximately 14 muffin cups.

My husband and I both preferred the texture of these better than regular pancakes, and they were so much easier to make as I didn’t have to turn them one by one.

I use individual muffin cups for these recipes as I can fit more in my small oven at once, but muffin tins work just as well.  As long as they are greased well, there is no need to use liners unless you just prefer to use them.

I hope you enjoy these recipes as much as we have and that they help simplify your mornings.  Let me know if you have any questions about the recipes or variations that you think we should try!

Simplifying Our Mornings, Breakfast Cups

October 12, 2012 By 3 Comments

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Besides getting everyone dressed in the mornings, our other biggest time commitment is breakfast.  We need to get something on the table quickly every morning, and I have enough other things to take care of that I don’t have the time to make a hot breakfast on school mornings.

I recently made and froze a variety of breakfast cups that taste awesome and make breakfast on school mornings just as quick as pouring a bowl of granola!

I’ve made sausage, egg, mushroom, and cheese breakfast cups…

…pancake and sausage breakfast cups…

…and since I have a sweet tooth, pancake and chocolate chip cups.

My husband and I both thought the pancake cups tasted better than making regular pancakes, and they were also much more efficient as I didn’t have to stand over a hot griddle turning a whole batch.  I’ll be sharing my recipes soon for these.

**UPDATE:  The recipes can be found HERE.

Do you have any other quick breakfast ideas to simplify our mornings?

Menu Plan Monday, 10/8

October 8, 2012 By 2 Comments

Today’s meal plan is brought to you in the spirit of simplifying!  I’m always looking for ways to make our meals more simple and less stressful, but that is more true this week than most.  A couple of days ago our house helper called to let us know she was leaving today for her hometown for two weeks due to a death in her family.  Considering our impossible afternoon/evening schedule, my goal is to make sure that we all eat dinner.  How’s that for simple?

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Breakfast
M/W/F: Granola or Oatmeal (child’s choice), fruit
T/Th: Eggs, bacon, and toast
Saturday: Banana Chocolate Chip PancakesSunday: Ooey Gooey Cinnamon Buns (We eat these every chance we get.  They are amazing!)

Lunch (Vera and I are the only 2 who eat lunch at home during the week, so she helped me write a repeating plan for those days.)
Monday:  Chinese Dumplings
Tuesday:  Ham and Cheese Sandwiches, veggie sticks, fruit
Wednesday:  Pizza Quesadillas, fruit
Thursday:  Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, veggie sticks, fruit
Friday:  Macaroni and Cheese with hot dogs
Saturday: Sandwiches, Leftovers, or Freezer Burritos
Sunday: Eat Out

Dinner
Monday: My husband and I are joining out of town guests for dinner, so the sitters and kids get Chinese take out.
Tuesday: Spaghetti and Meatballs with Homemade Sauce, bread, salad
Wednesday: Tobey’s birthday!  Dinner of his choosing.  Maybe it’s time to ask what he wants.
Thursday: Crockpot Brown Sugar Chicken over rice, green beans, apple sauce
Friday: Papa John’s half price pizza night!  Yes, we have Papa John’s in China!
Saturday: Burgers w/ sauteed mushrooms and homemade fries
Sunday: Homemade Pizza

What are you eating this week?  Check out orgjunkie.com for more meal plans!

Menus to Make Back to School a Little Easier

August 8, 2012 By 1 Comment

I can’t wait to dive into these menus from Once a Month Mom.  Here are three different menus from this great resource on freezer cooking and just plain good recipes!  These are not only lists of great recipes.  They also include grocery lists and detailed instructions for getting the most freezer cooking done in the most efficient way.

 This is a full menu to really get yourself prepared for the busyness of August.

Traditional Menu

This is a mini-menu for Back to School that includes 5 lunches and 2 snacks.

Back-to-School Mini August Menu

 

And this last one is chock full of recipes especially for back to school.   It include 8 breakfasts, 15 lunches, and  8 snacks.

31 Back-to-School Freezer Meals

 

 

Also, don’t forget today is the last day to get 5 great E-books for Back to School for just $2 each!

Homemade Snacks: Granola Bars

August 1, 2012 By 4 Comments

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been trying homemade snack recipes to try and get those items off my shopping list.  I have loved watching my shopping list change to more and more real foods/whole foods and less and less boxed/canned products.  Homemade granola bars was my next endeavor and these are so easy to make and store in bulk, I don’t think I will be buying many more boxes of packaged granola bars.

Homemade Granola Bars (click for full recipe)

Chocolate chip peanut butter granola bars, oh yes!  The first time I made them the consistency was too cookie-like.  Since I use natural peanut butter that is very oily, I decided to delete the butter from the recipe the next time and I like how they turned out much better.  We’ve tried pecans and toasted almonds in them and they were both delish!

With few ingredients, these are super easy to mix up and make a big batch.

After they completely cool, I cut them up and put 5 or 6 each in ziploc bags and put them in the freezer. I love grabbing a bag when we’re going out to have an easy, healthy, yummy snack.

Do you have a granola bar or other snack recipe you love?  Please share!  I need more homemade snack ideas.

Homemade Snacks: Graham Crackers

July 31, 2012 By 5 Comments

One thing I have been trying to get off my weekly shopping list is snacks – graham crackers, animal crackers, vanilla wafers, granola bars, etc.  I have been wanting a healthier, less-junk/preservatives option, but didn’t want to buy higher-priced products to get the healthier option.  Could I make them from scratch where I know what’s going in them where we could save money and still like them?  My friend, Rachel, is on a Real Foods Journey and shared this recipe.  Thank you, Rachel!

Well, here is a recipe we’ve tried that we are loving:

Homemade Graham Crackers (click here for the full recipe)

The dough wasn’t very…well, doughy. It was very wet and sticky and I used her tip of using a glass to roll it out initially. Then I finished spreading it out by hand, a lot like pizza crust.  I used a 13 x 18 pan and I could roll it out pretty thin.

I overcooked the first batch and you could really taste it. I had to watch them pretty carefully to get them right the second time around. And obviously, my oven doesn’t cook very evenly. Ugh.

Overall, they turned out great! The kids ate them up (except Karis who made a few comments about them being “different”. She’s a bit too used to the boxed stuff). My favorite is with a little smear of peanut butter on them.

Come back tomorrow for homemade granola bars.  What homemade snacks have you tried and liked?

Spring/Summer Six-Week Meal Rotation

July 23, 2012 By 1 Comment

After lots of posts last week going through different recipes I’ve tried here, here, and here, today I’m going to give you my whole Six-Week Meal Rotation for Spring/Summer.

This may initially look like a lot to plan, but if you look a little closer, you’ll see:

  • a few repeating breakfasts
  • a few repeating lunches
  • certain days of the week where the meals don’t change (Monday & Tuesday lunches, Thursday & Friday dinners, and all meals on Sundays)
  • 18 different dinner recipes

With all that in hand, I alternated the repeating breakfasts and lunches, balanced out the weeks with what meats to buy/cook, added in sides, and it was done.  I went into a little more detail in my post about setting up my Fall/Winter Meal Rotation

*If you want to modify my spreadsheet to make your own plan, just click File, then Make a Copy.  Then you can change it however you want and save it in your account.  (If you don’t already have a Google account, now is a great time to get one!)

Another easy way to access these and other menus is to join Plan to Eat.  I just realized another great feature of this super time-saving tool.  When you become friends with someone on Plan to Eat (*hint, hint, send me your email or Plan to Eat username and I’ll send you a friend invite*), you, not only gain access to all their shared recipes, but also to all of their menus.  You can just select someone’s menu and plug it in to your planner, then edit it as you like.  I can now plan a week’s worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with a coordinating shopping list that reflects when I actually have on hand in about 15 minutes every week.  Using Plan to Eat and saving my weekly menus saves me hours each week.

Ok, enough about that.  Anybody else out there plan some kind of weekly meal rotation?  Please share a link if you have it.  We all need ideas to get out of our own cooking rut.

A Million and One Ways to Use a 10-lb. Bag of Potatoes

July 20, 2012 By 6 Comments

At Aldi, it’s only about a dollar more to buy a 10lb. bag of potatoes than it is to buy a 5lb. bag.  So, I’ve been trying different ways to use up all those potatoes before they go bad.  While it’s not quite a million and one, here are several ways we’ve used them lately.  And don’t forget to come back Tuesday for my full Six-Week Meal Rotation.

Cubed and tossed with olive oil and dill. Bake at 400 until they are done and browning (about 25 minutes). So good! Karis asks for “those good potatoes you make with the little green things on them”.

 

Slice potatoes really thin, then spread on a foil covered baking sheet. Toss with oil and salt. Bake at 450 until done. I kept checking them and taking out the ones that were browning earlier than others (a result of uneven slices).

I love using our apple corer/peeler/slicer to slice potatoes.  It results in great, thin, spiraled slices that are easy to cut into smaller pieces.  Perfect for this dish from Lynn.

Easy Peasy Potatoes and Sausage

Then I cut up the leftover cores and can use them lots of ways.

I really like to cook them in some oil in the cast iron skillet, add bacon, onion, and pour over 6 or 7 eggs (beaten) for a super yummy frittata.

My next potato project will be trying some of these ways to freeze different versions of potatoes.

What’s your favorite way to make potatoes?

Six-Week Meal Rotation Recipe Reveal, Part 3

July 19, 2012 By 2 Comments

I’m sharing new recipes this week that I’ve tried lately that are going into my new Six-Week Meal Rotation (which is coming in its entirety on Tuesday).  We’ve had several really good new dinner recipes lately.  And while I haven’t done a great job capturing them in pictures, here are a few you should definitely check out.

Baked Chicken and Artichoke Penne with Sundried Tomatoes from Once a Month Mom

This was really good and flavorful. We all loved it.

Other recipes you should check out:

Mini Pizza Meatloaves from Once a Month Mom – These were really easy and fast to make and I currently have 3 1/2 dozen of them in my freezer.  :)

Mexican Stuffed Shells from The Girl Who Ate Everything – Again, another really great tasting dish.  And all my kids loved it and didn’t complain about it being “too spicy”.  I found this recipe from Once a Month Mom’s Mini Menu for July.

Barbecue Meatballs from Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures - Easy, Frugal, Delicious – Those are the words I would attach to everything I’ve tried of Lynn’s.  And these meatballs were no exception!

What are your favorite sources for delicious recipes?

Click to see other recipes in Part 1 and Part 2 of this week.

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