What's for Dinner - Week of 3/28/11

I was plagued with one of those Mondays without school.  It totally throws off my week!  That, combined with the two birthdays, two sets of class birthday treats, and two extra boys, just about did me in!  Actually, the extra boys were easy; but boy, oh boy, can seven boys put away food!

In the process of doing the two sets of birthday treats I tried two new things:  edible cake tattoos and cake balls.  The cake tattoos are by Chef Duff of Charm City Cakes.  I was able to find them at Walmart.  They come in lots of cool designs and include a template to cut them into cookie size.  I was able to use them to decorate the cookies for Conor's class treat, and then use the cake topper tattoo to decorate the top of his cake.  Success!

I then convinced Aidan to try cake balls for his class treat instead of cupcakes.  It does take a couple of days for the various steps, but ultimately is an easy baked treat to make.  Here is a great step by step tutorial on how to make them:  cake balls.  Because of his large class size I made two cakes worth which left a lot of extras for here at home.  He chose red velvet cake dipped in vanilla candy coating with sprinkles.  Yummy!

Now for the "real food" . . .

Monday:  Homemade Italian Meatballs and Spaghetti, salad, garlic bread
                  I used a recipe for the meatballs that Johnsville Italian Sausage sent me, along with several free coupons for the sausage.  Very good!

Tuesday:  Quiche Lorraine, fruit salad
                  I am still using up items from the freezer.  I had two ready-made pie crusts that I want to get rid of . . . so quiche it is!

Wednesday:  Creamy Chicken Pot Pie, mozzarella sticks, raw veggies and dip
                  I also have a box of rolled pie crust in the freezer and I want to try those new Philadelphia Cooking Cremes, so I will have a go at chicken pot pie.  My friend, Jeni, recently had a House Party that featured this new product.  We all received recipe booklets using the cooking cremes and the pot pie recipe is from there.  The cheese sticks are from the freezer as well.

Thursday:  Leftovers, cheesy potatoes
                  Refrigerator clean-out day!  The potatoes are from the freezer.

Friday:  Creamy Artichoke Pasta, salad, bread
                   Another recipe utilizing the Philadelphia Cooking Cremes . . . I sure hope we like them!  It sounded like a good meatless meal for this week.  The bread is coming from the freezer.

Saturday:  Polenta-tomatillo casserole, carrots
                   This recipe is from The Six O'Clock Scramble.   I have a block of homemade polenta in the freezer that I will use for this recipe.  I will add a pound of ground beef to give it a little extra protein.

 Sunday:  Out to dinner
                   I have a Groupon that I want to use.  This will score major points with the children as well.  Gyros!

Enjoy the rest of your week and all those dinners (especially if they are coming from the freezer, like mine!).

I am participating in Menu Plan Monday over at http://www.orgjunkie.com/!

Happy Birthday Aidan!

Double digits!!

Happy Birthday Conor!

Fourteen candles!

What's for Dinner - Week of 3/21/11

The craziness has begun . . . we are officially in baseball season!  Patrick is playing for his high school JV team.  Conor is on his school team as well as a travel team.  And Aidan is officially giving it a go this year on his school team.  Mark is only coaching two of those teams this year!  But not to forget that both Liam and Rowan are playing soccer this spring, which also starts this week.  Crazy!

Between the scads of laundry from all of the practices and games, the driving around to all of the aforementioned practices and games, and then attending the games; dinners are next to impossible to pull off much less achieve a quorum for.  Food is thrown at the boys as they are walking out or in the door.  My goal for the next couple of months is to try to cut down on, as much as possible, the fallback of fast food.  Difficult as it may seem, it simply requires a different level of planning.  Food that can last on the stove top or in the oven, or food that can be cooked quickly and in shifts is needed.  We will see!

I am still in the midst of cleaning out the freezer of food.  It never fails . . . those items that I didn't label, because I was sure I wouldn't forget what it was, has been forgotten.  Ugh!  I hate when that happens!  Mystery meals are never a winner and certainly hard to plan for.  I am making good headway in the freezer though.

For the meals . . .

Monday:  General Tso's Chicken, brown rice, edamame
                  I have some popcorn chicken in the freezer.  The General Tso's was a big hit a couple of weeks ago, so I am giving it another go with a mix I picked up at the store.

Tuesday:  Potato Leek Soup, salad, biscuits
                  I have the soup from the freezer along with the biscuits.  I also have some odds and ends to round out the meal for the non-soup eaters (a pot pie here, a individual pizza there).

Wednesday:  Turkey Stuffing Roll-ups, salad
                  I found a container of left-over stuffing and some turkey gravy in the freezer that I will combine with store-bought turkey slices.  This will hold well for the crazy night of practices and running.

Thursday:  Pork Tenderloin, cheesy potatoes, green beans
                  Everything from the freezer for this meal!  The cheesy potatoes were one of the unlabeled containers.  Thankfully the cornflakes on top gave it away!

Friday:  Fish Fry at Church
                  Love those Lenten fish frys!

Saturday:  Conor's Birthday Dinner, cake
                  As yet undecided.  Most likely of the Mexican variety.

Sunday:  Homemade Italian Meatballs and Spaghetti, salad, bread
                  I have Johnsville Italian sausage to review and it is in the freezer (so it counts!).  Bread is from the freezer as well.

I am really surprising myself with how much I have been able to make just centered around things I already have in my freezer.  I am going to need to be a little more creative next week as I wind this challenge down.

Enjoy your week!

I am participating in Menu Plan Monday over at http://www.orgjunkie.com/!

The Winners!

The winners of the Purex Complete Crystals Softener, as chosen by Random Integer Generator are:

#3:  Amanda "I use Gain or Snuggle dryer sheets that I got free with coupons."

#8:   Jane "I use Target brand dryer sheets."
#9:   mich520 "I use snuggle liquid and dryer sheets."


Congratulations to all of the winners!  I will be contacting you by email for further information to mail your free coupon to you.


Stay tuned for another review this week!!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

3
9
8

Timestamp: 2011-03-20 21:07:57 UTC

What's for Dinner - Week of 3/14/11

Well, daylight savings time continues to kick this family in the behind!!  I'm not kidding when I say that it will take us a full week to recover.  Who ever came up with this idea?!

Both of my older boys had to be physically removed from their beds 10 minutes before they were to leave for school today.  Of course, they will have to go to bed earlier tonight.  We will see how that goes.

I am in full swing of trying to clean out my freezer a la "freezer challenge".  My problem isn't so much that we have full meals that need to be consumed as that there are so many bits and pieces.  A couple of pork chops here, some frozen soup there.  You know how it goes.  Ultimately, I try to challenge myself to eat something/anything out of the freezer during the course of the day.  And hopefully not replace it with something else that doesn't have a planned exit.  So, yes, I will be shopping to finish/round out those bits and pieces!

Interestingly, with all of the left-overs we had last week, I tried something new that the boys loved.  If you have children that watch the show iCarly, you may have heard them talk about "spaghetti tacos".  Well, we had some spaghetti left over, so I decided to surprise the boys and make them some of those infamous spaghetti tacos!  Essentially you put sauced spaghetti noodles into hard taco shells and cover with cheese.  Easy peasy and a huge crowd pleaser.  My only hint would be to get the wide "stand and stuff" shells to make putting the spaghetti in a little easier.

For the dinners:

Monday:  Beef and Bean Chimichangas, corn, nachos
                  I had the chimichangas in the freezer, but will need to supplement.  Corn from the freezer.  Enchilada sauce in the pantry.  A good start!

Tuesday:  One Pot Italian Rice and Beans, salad
                  This is actually a meal that I had planned for and had all the ingredients.  It is supposed to be meatless, but I will add a pound of ground beef (from the freezer) to make it a bit hardier for the lads.

Wednesday:  Frozen pizza, salad
                   Our Wednesdays have been crazy with our evening group run, so this will fit nicely.  I will be glad to get rid of the bulky frozen pizzas.

O'Thursday:  Guinness-Braised Corned Beef, green beans, Irish soda bread
                   The corned beef and green beans are from the freezer.  I have a great crockpot recipe for the corned beef.  I will spare the children the cabbage and do green beans instead this year!
                
Friday:  Caesar Spaghetti, Texas toast
                   We do meatless on Fridays during Lent, so this will fit nicely.  It is a Rachael Ray recipe from her new cookbook Look and Cook.  Other than the Texas toast, nothing is from the freezer.  I made an exception to try this recipe.

Saturday:  Dinner out

Sunday:  Chicken with Sweet Corn and Potato Saute
                This is another Rachael Ray recipe, this time from her Express Lane Meals cookbook.  The corn and chicken will come from the freezer.

Enjoy your week and good luck cleaning out your freezer and pantry!  Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a free bottle of Purex Complete Crystals Softener!

I am participating in Menu Plan Monday over at http://www.orgjunkie.com/!

Daylight Savings Time Doldrums

I hate daylight savings time! 

There, I said it!  And hate is a very strong word.  I try to rarely use it, but in this case it fits.

I need just about every hour in the day that there is.  So to lose an hour is a huge deal to me.  Especially since I lose it on the sleep end of my day.  And I really need my sleep!  So do my children.  To make matters worse with daylight savings; no one is tired at night.  But everyone is exhausted in the morning.  It is just not fair!

I love the fact that the evenings are lighter later.  I love when Mark gets home and there is still some daylight left.  I love eating dinner when it is not pitch black outside.  And the dark mornings I can even handle, for I know it won't be much longer until they are bright too.

But the week it takes for us to recover that lost hour is enough to push me over the edge. 

Thank goodness for caffeine!