I AM STILL HERE AND STILL COOKING!!!

I apologized for being too lazy to enter new post here, but I been reading what you ladies have been having. I been slacking in making menu, but I am still cooking. Sean is in Philadelphia for a few days, so the kids and I have been cooking food that we like. Here is our menu for the week.

Mon.- Grill Hamburgers serve with salad

Tues. - Lasagna and garlic bread

Wed. - Achievement Dinner( Making 10 sandwiches to the church)

Thurs. - BBQ Korean Beef serve with rice

Fri. - Date Night (kids fixing their own dinner)

Sat. - Left over

Sun.- Pork Loins with veggies

Summer time

Not much new here. Just gearing up for the move and enjoying the grill. Here's what I have planned for the week:
M--hamburgers and fruit
T--tuna patties
W--pasta with garden veggies (really wish they were from my own) and hamburger
Th--tuna patties-I might try grilling them...might have to do it with tinfoil though...any suggestions/experience
F--homemade pizza and fruit
Sat--pot stickers

Great Cookbook

Hey friends,

There's a great cookbook called What's for Dinner by Jana Schofield that I just received as a gift. It gives 6 months of meals to make and it goes day-by-day with a meal for each day. Anyway, it's great and helpful. Just thought I'd pass it along.

MDibb:)

End of May

We are eating but without much planning. Now that school is out I am finding that we don't eat dinner until nearly 7pm.

Sunday-French toast with strubarb pie for dessert with homemade ice cream (a short video tutorial)
Monday-Spaghetti
Tuesday-Hamburgers with raw veggies and baked potatoes
Wednesday-Apple puff pancakes with fruit
Thursday-Ribs...I've had these in the freezer for longer than I should have. Hopefully we can make them tasty.
Friday-?
Saturday-?

Day to Day

I haven't (and probably won't) plan a menu for the week but here's what we're eating tonight:

1. Fajitas.

Maybe we'll have spaghetti tomorrow... maybe not. Maybe tomorrow I'll peruse past posts and get some good ideas (like Sally chocolate cake) to fill a few weeks of meals... maybe not.

sj

What to cook?

So I am 4 weeks from baby --yeah! and I am trying hard to stay motivated to cook. Brandon told me he wants to start cooking dinner on Tuesday if I will tell him what to cook. For those that remember -- BRANDON DOES NOT COOK -- much. He got a little better during the first part of my pregnancy when I could hardly move from morning sickness and then severe joint pain, but he still struggles. That said, I am now VERY motivated to have meals planned, now just to decide what sounds yummy, or easy as the case is usually.

M - Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (we have family coming for lunch and it will probably be a big one so we are going light on dinner).
T - BBQ country style ribs in the crockpot with salad.
W - Grilled Chicken Salad
Th - Haystacks (thanks MMDD for the idea)
F - Tacos
S - out of town

Blah!

Not really into cooking. I've now used up all our 'easy' meals, so I actually have to plan stuff or we don't eat. It also means I need to spend more than a few minutes in a grocery store. For the past couple of weeks it's been milk, eggs, fresh veggies and fruit.
M--hot dogs and fruit
T--spaetzla and a good salad
W--something for the kids, I'm going out
Th--veggie soup and bread
F--leftovers
Sat--grilled chicken
Sun--?

Great Cake

I'm not a chocolate cake eater. I never really have liked them, just because they never taste like chocolate to me. I love brownies for that reason. However, the rest of my family likes chocolate cake so I like to try new recipes to find a better version of it. A couple years ago my mom gave me this old baking book "A World of Baking". Perfect for me, because I love to bake more than I love to cook. In it are some really old and sometimes odd recipes, with the stories behind them. This is a fun book. My 2 favorite recipes from this book are a really great homemade brownie recipe and this recipe for sour cream chocolate cake. It tastes like chocolate and is dense.
I made the cake for Phil's birthday on Th. I put a little effort into it and it turned out looking so nice that he asked where I bought the cake. It was a 9"round layer cake. I wish I would have taken a picture. Really it was the frosting job that made it look store bought and that's where I also tried something new. Phil likes marzipan (almond paste) so instead of vanilla in the chocolate buttercream frosting, I added almond flavoring. It gave it that marzipan taste, especially with the chocolate cake and chocolate frosting. To decorate I melted some chocolate chips and wrote out happy birthday and some swirls on freezer paper and put them on the cake after they hardened. I also used my cake decorating tool I got in my stocking for Christmas a couple years ago, the triangle with different edges that you drag along to make a cake a little fancy looking. Piped on some swirly things on the edge and voila (I have no idea how you spell that), you have a fancy looking cake.
So here is the recipe. If you like your cakes a little dense, this is for you. It also stays really moist for quite a long time (at least long enough for us to finish off a cake).

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake

**Have everything but boiling water at room temp**

1/2 c cocoa

3/4 c boiling water

2 cups sifted flour

1/2 tsp bkg soda

1 c sour cream

1/2 c butter, softened

2 c sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3 large egg whites

Dissolve cocoa in the water and set aside to cool. Sift the flour with the bkg soda and set aside. Stir the sour cream into the cooled cocoa mixture and blend. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar until mixture is light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and blend. Now add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture alternately with the cocoa mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Beat until batter is smooth. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the batter last. Turn batter into a buttered and floured 9x13 pan and bake in 300*F oven for 1 hour, or until the cake tests done. Cool in the pan on a rack. (2 9" round pans took 40 minutes). This is a great chocolate cake that tastes like chocolate.

DibbDInner

M- Tacos
T- Hawaiian haystacks
W-Tilapia and rice pilaf
Th-French Toast & Eggs
F-Fajitas

Enough with the Rain

I think it has rained 90% of the days in May so far and I've had enough. I'm ready for some sunshine our way. I want to be able to do some grilling too.
Took inventory of what we had in the freezer/pantry and came up with a list of things that I can make to use everything up, so basically I'm choosing from that list and eating leftovers as needed until it's all gone. Our neighbor also had a surplus of salad greens from their CSA and gave us a bunch so I'm trying to use those up as well.
M--tuna patties and salad with the works
T--salad and chicken of some sort (might grill if I can get some propane)
W--Weblos cookout-hot dogs and s'mores and banana boats
Th--Phil's b-day so he will have to tell me what he wants, probably enchiladas
F--creamed tuna
Sat--leftovers

Spring might be here????!!!!

This week we are suppose to be in the 70's and have no rain. I am so excited! We are getting our garden planted and I am getting so excited for the grocery store in the backyard and produce that tastes DIVINE! I have been wanting to grill and eat all the things we eat in the summer from the garden, unfortunately we are still a few weeks away. The lettuce, spinach, radishes & peas are just beginning to pop their heads above ground. So I guess I will just get to keep waiting, and meanwhile stick with grilling as much as possible and when not, just eat outside, which we are doing most days for lunch.

M - Frito Pie, a family favorite.
T - Grilled Chicken Salad
W - Rice, Chicken Burgers, Veggie
Th - Navajo Tacos, I am tempted to grill the bread dough (on tin foil of course to avoid Glutenizing the grill), but wonder if that would be as yummy. Any thoughts?
F - Date night, the kids will probably get grilled cheese or something similar.

It's May!?

I have no idea where the past month has gone. I had hoped to get so much more accomplished. But we are all still alive and mostly well! I am really starting to worry about my memory. I have to look at the calendar to know what we have eaten.

M-Grilled Cheese and tuna with raspberry milkshakes
T-Dinner at the PTO meeting (BBQ and hotdogs)
W-Hamburger soup with honey whole wheat bread
T-Pancakes
F-Something with rice, maybe chicken and veggie stir fry
S-Out so mac and cheese for the kids

Eames Meals May 4-May 9

I have to admit, I am actually in a cooking mood this week, or at least thus far. This is what I am planning for dinner.

M - Black Bean Salsa (Heather's) and Broccoli & cheese Quesadillas (should have had it T, but oh, well)
T - Enchilada Casserole in honor of Cinco de Mayo (Mexican 2 nights in a row, I am loving this week.
W - Spaghetti & Rosemary Bread
Th - Hamburgers on the grill with salad and something else, I might try a potato chip-like recipe my cousin gave me.
F - Shepherd's Pie (yes I'm copying, but it sounds so yummy!)
S - Breakfast

Swine Flu Holiday

Maybe you've all heard, maybe not but Matt and Miles have been out of school since last Thursday and won't go back until May 11th because of a confirmed case of swine flu in our school district. I've been thinking lots about Phil through all of this and imagining him being a spokes-person for the CDC on all the Sunday morning news shows. I would love to know if he is rolling his eyes about this whole thing or if he thinks it prudent to shut down a school system (and LDS church services btw) for over a week.

At any rate I have an unexpected house full all week long so we're trying to get some "summer time" stuff done. Matt spent the day building our "square foot garden" boxes and we're having some sort of harvest themed FHE tonight while we plant our garden although it's really cold and I might wimp out.

None of this has anything to do with what I'm planning for dinner but I thought you'd all like to know.

Here we go:

1. Shepherds Pie (I swear I thought of this before I saw it on Sally's post :))
2. Chicken and Cheese Ravioli (I got it from Costco because I succumbed to a coupon but I'm not sure what to do with it.)
3. German Pancakes
4. Dutch Oven Arroz con Pollo (I grabbed the recipe off the internet 2 minutes before posting this. I'm just need to practice using my dutch oven before summer camping trips.)
5. Who knows. I'm sure we'll be going to SL at least once this week... maybe hot dogs at Costco.

Happy Mother's Day to you all! I hope your kids do something fabulous for you and take you out to dinner. You all deserve it! I'm having an emotional week and miss all my Nashville friends...

Frustration Running High

So you know when you get stuck in a rut and then want to get out of it so you try new recipes...like really really good recipes (at least to you). Kind of like the people that feel ugly and go and buy a new outfit or you want to feel fit so you go run 5 miles. Well I did that the other night, the new recipe part, not the outfit or running, and boy did it bomb with the family. Okay, so only with Jakob and Sophia. Ethan put on a nice face for me, even though he didn't really like it. Phil liked it and so did Clara, at least the stuff I fed to her. The problem is, it's really good and easy and while a little pricey for every day use, it's do-able for a nice meal. Here's the recipe:
http://elise.com/recipes/archives/007434baked_shrimp_in_tomato_feta_sauce.php
Put together with a great spinach and strawberry salad with toasted sugared almonds and some really good bread. It was a great meal, if I do say so myself. So after getting really annoyed with the 2 (who really happen to be the most vocal and dramatic in our family), I really just want to take a week end night, put the kids to bed early after their dinner of raman and cook an amazing meal every once in a while. Heck, I would do it every weekend if Phil's schedule permitted it. While I like to eat out, I also really like to cook. This meal ran probably at about $15 total and fed 5 (all be it 3 were really small portions--they didn't like it after all), so it costs lots less than eating out and it would be fun to cook together with Phil. Whew! That's off my chest. But seriously, do you ever have times like that?
Here's the menu for the week:
S--cabbage salad
M--leftovers
T--chili
W--lasagna
Th--cream tuna
F--shepherds' pie
Sat--leftovers