menu plan monday: March 1st

see other mpm's here!

MONDAY

Chicken enchiladas (first seen here. Her enchildadas picture is gorgeous isn't it?!)

TUESDAY

Italian Pasta with crusty garlic bread

WEDNESDAY

Stir Fry

THURSDAY

Sauteed Mushroom Cream Soup (my family won't eat mushrooms so I divide the creamy broth in half and make them zuppa toscana (with sausage, potatoes, and kale). I will also put kale in with my mushroom soup. It's tasty!

FRIDAY

Pizza Night- Veggie Pizza on Whole Wheat Crust

SATURDAY

Weekly leftovers!

SUNDAY
brinner: French toast and popeye smoothies

man-pleasing food: zesty chicken drumsticks

I love mixing my own spices. This "zesty" seasoning mix is made up of garlic powder, cumin, paprika, seasoning salt, and lemon pepper. I usually double or triple the measurements and fill a bag or jar to have this spice on hand. We love it.

These are the spices all mixed up.

1 Tablespoon of oil per 1 Tablespoon of spices.

Trim the fat off of the drumsticks and baste both sides with the seasoning/oil mixutre.

Broil 36 minutes on high, turning every 12 minutes.

Delicious.

For kids and spouses going to work, wrap a strip of tinfoil around the top of the drumstick to keep fingers from getting messy and sticky. They can just hold onto the tinfoil part.

Zesty Seasoning Mix

1/4 cup garlic powder (not salt, the powder! I used the California blend for no particular reason)

1 Tablespoon paprika

1 Tablespoon lemon pepper

1 Tablespoon cumin

1 Tablespoon seasoning salt

oil

Mix all the spices together without oil. This is your "bulk" spice. You can use the desired amount to taste. For about 12-14 drumsticks, I like to use 3 Tablespoons of the spice. The oil to spice ration is 1 Tablespoon of spice per 1 Tablespoon of oil. Mix the spices with the oil and baste over drumsticks.

To make the drumsticks:

1 Family Pack (12-14ish) chicken drumsticks

3 Talespoons zesty seasoning spices

3 Tablespoons canola oil

After basting your drumsticks on both sides of drumsticks, place in broiler on foil-lined cookie sheet with sides, or broiler pan. Make sure they are 1-2 inches apart. Broil on high for 36 minutes, turning every 12 minutes. Let sit for a few minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

menu plan monday

to join in on the action, go here

I did it! I planned breakfast, lunch, AND dinner for the whole week! I also included snacks and desserts as well. And this menu is from everything we already have on hand. I shouldn't have to go shopping the entire week.

MONDAY
breakfast:  granola with almonds and raisins :: grapefruit
lunch:  Spinach and Cheese quiche :: Granny Smith apples
dinner:  Chicken Fajitas on corn tortillas (toppings: avocado, sour cream, cheese and salsa)

TUESDAY
breakfast:  Pineapple Crush smoothies
lunch:  "sushi" surprise :: red grapes
dinner:  wagon wheel pasta with pesto :: salad with vine tomatoes

WEDNESDAY
breakfast:  cold cereal ::  orange-pineapple juice
lunch:  crunchy pb wraps
dinner:  Taco Soup

THURSDAY
breakfast: popeye smoothies
lunch:  leftover soup
dinner:  Teriyaki Chicken Stir Fry

FRIDAY
breakfast:  granola :: bananas
lunch:  veggie sandwiches
dinner:  pizza night :: side salad

SATURDAY
breakfast:  muffins :: orange-pineapple juice
lunch: leftovers
dinner:  Chipotle Grilled Chicken with Avocado Sandwiches

SUNDAY
breakfast:  popeye smoothies
lunch:  leftovers
dinner:  zesty chicken drumsticks with homemade zesty seasoning mix (recipe to come) :: cornbread :: steamed veggies

snacks on hand
popcorn
celery and carrot sticks
edamame
peanut butter and ranch for dipping
whole wheat crackers
apples

dessert ideas
secret ingredient chocolate chip cookies
swedish fish
homemade apple pie
granola bars
funnel cake

Secret Ingredient Chocolate Chip Cookies

We eat healthy at least 95% of the time, but when we make dessert, we sometimes throw that all out the window! And I think that's A-okay. You can still be healthy and indulge ocassionally. That's my philosophy. I'm always looking for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Unfortunately, I have still not found the one. I've tried so many varieties, but am not in love yet. This was a good recipe however and I liked the secret ingredient of corn flakes. We baked a dozen or so of these cookies and then I froze the rest in Tablespoon sized mounds for a later time. It's nice to have fresh made cookie dough on hand. I ended up with about 100 total of these! Do you have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe? Want to share?

This is from Baking Kids Love, a Sur La Table Cookbook. This book has a ton of great recipes kids can help make.

Ingredients: Makes about 25 big cookies (3 Tbsp. dough for large cookies, 1 Tbsp. for regular size)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup canola or corn oil
4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 cups tightly packed light brown sugar
2¼ cups old-fashioned rolled oats or quick oats (not instant)
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2½ cups Kellogg's Corn Flakes (for best results, stick to this brand)
1 (12-ounce) bag miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Method:
Before you begin. Position 1 oven rack in the top ¹/³ of the oven and 1 oven rack in the bottom ¹/³ of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line the baking sheets with the parchment paper.

Mix the dough. Put the butter, eggs, and vanilla in 1 of the large bowls and stir with the wooden spoon until blended. Add the oil and beat well until combined. It will look like a mess, but that's okay. Put the flour, sugar, brown sugar, oats, salt, and baking soda in the other large bowl and whisk until blended. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir well with the spoon. You can even use your hands to squish all the ingredients together. Sometimes your hands are the best tools. Put the corn flakes into the resealable plastic bag, squeeze out the air, and seal the top. Squeeze the bag until the flakes are broken into tiny pieces (do not use a food processor; it grinds the flakes too small). Add the crushed flakes and the chocolate chips to the dough and stir until evenly blended.

Shape the cookies. Use the large (3 tablespoon) or small (1 tablespoon) ice-cream scoop to shape the dough into cookies. You can also shape the dough by measuring out level tablespoons-3 for each big cookie, 1 for each smaller cookie-and then rolling the dough between your palms into balls. If you are making large cookies, bake only 6 at a time on each baking sheet, spacing the balls about 4 inches apart. These cookies spread when they bake, and if you put too many on the pan, they will run together. If you are making the smaller cookies, you can fit 12 cookies on each pan. Space them about 2 inches apart into 4 rows with 3 cookies in each row. Press down on each ball with your palm to flatten slightly.

Bake the cookies . Place 1 baking sheet on each oven rack. Bake the large cookies for 7 minutes or the smaller cookies for 6 minutes. Using the oven mitts, switch the pans between the oven racks. Bake until light golden brown, another 7 to 8 minutes for the large cookies, or 6 to 7 minutes for the smaller cookies. Using the oven mitts, transfer the pans to the cooling racks and let the cookies cool completely (if you can wait that long). You may need to reuse the pans to finish baking all the cookies. Let the pans cool before you put more dough on them for baking. Store the cookies in an airtight container or resealable plastic bag for up to 1 week.

Thinking ahead:
You can bake some of the cookies today, and freeze the rest of the dough balls for another day. Put the balls close together on a pan and freeze for 30 minutes, or until hard. Transfer the frozen balls to a resealable plastic freezer bag, and freeze for up to 3 months. To bake, take out as many cookies as you need, and space them on parchment-lined baking sheets as directed. Let them thaw for 15 minutes, then press down on them to flatten slightly, and bake as directed.

bentos (#s 36-38)

3 mini quiches, 1/2 whole wheat muffin, carrot sticks, and red grapes

cowboy pizza strips, apples, celery sticks and small container of peanut butter, and 2 gingerbread cookies

Haunted House bento. Get it?! Alluminum ghost tin filled with grapes, 2 gingerbread cookies, cheese chunks, carrot sticks, little house with ranch dip, and slice of turkey rolled up and cut into thirds. This last bento stacks on top of each other. It's super teeny too.

mini spinach and bacon quiches

Here is what I did: I started with Paula Deen's Quiche recipe. I didn't do a pie crust. I got a package of Pepperidge Farms Puff Pastry (sold in the freezer sections at grocery stores) and let it thaw on the counter for about 40 minutes. Then I unfolded it and cut it into circles with my smallest round cookie cutter. I sprayed my mini muffin pan lightly with Pam and these little circles fit perfectly, just coming up a little on the edges. You'll want to press down lightly to make sure it's gathered in the edges of the cup.

I chopped the spinach extra fine since these are tiny quiches and put a pinchful in each cup. I didn't really do any measurements, just what I thought looked good.

I chopped the bacon as fine as I could as well. I put a pinch in each cup.It probably was about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of bacon.

Then I put 1-2 teaspoons of shredded swiss cheese on top.

For the egg mixture, I actually used egg beaters. I had a case from Costco and we didn't like how they tasted so we decided to use them up in baking recipes. In place of the 6 eggs, I used 1 1/2 cups. I put 1 Tablespoon in each cup.

When you are making miniature appetizers or hor d'oeuvres, you cut the baking time to 1/3. So depending on the oven you would bake these at 375 for 12-15 minutes or until the tops are starting to brown. Cook them in the center of the oven and I think that the browning is the best done indicator.

Don't they look good? They tasted so good. I was looking for ways to use up all our spinach before it went bad and this was perfect. I've also made 2 large ones to freeze for a later meal. Everyone loved them. These would also be great in regular muffin tins. You would just cut larger circles out of the pastry and adjust the cooking time. After these came out of the oven I let them sit for a few minutes and then carefully removed them to a cookie sheet to further cool down. We ate a dozen or so and then freezed the rest. We froze them by sticking the cookie sheet in the freezer for an hour or so and then put them in a large ziploc bag all together and stuck it back in the freezer. To reheat you would just put them on a cookie sheet and reheat at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. I think these quiches are hard to ruin. You can do a number of varieties such as mushrooms, diferent cheeses, onions, ham, etc. Oh, and this made about 60 mini quiches!

menu plan monday

Monday:  Slow-Cooker Orange Chicken with Potatoes

Tuesday:  Spinach and Bacon Quiche

Wednesday: Pioneer Woman's Chicken Spaghetti using homemade cream of chicken soup.

Thursday:  1-2-3 Soup

Friday:  Pizza Night. Tonight we will make a supreme (everything on it basically) pizza and try a homemade whole wheat crust.

Saturday:  Spinach and Pasta Salad

Sunday:  Brinner (Breakfast for dinner) Biscuits and egg gravy.

See other menu plans here at org junkie

laptop lunchboxes

 

 

I have been wanting to get some laptop lunchboxes for a while now. I finally got the Bento System 2.0- Flower (pictured above) for my 1st grade daughter. I really love the alien one and will be getting that one soon for our 4 year old son. These are very school and travel friendly and a great size for packing a variety of things for yourself or your child. Definitely the best American style bento ever. I also love that they are USA made and they are very durable and there's even a place to write your name on the bottom of the containers. Our daughter just loves it.

Here's the first lunch I made in the new box: Muenster cheese cubes on cupcake topper picks (by Wilton). The little container next to it is apricot jam that Daisy wanted to put on her 2 whole wheat muffins below. Then there are some baby carrots and some applesauce with some sprinkles on top. I'm pretty sure I saw the sprinkle idea at Wendolonia.

menu plan monday

Right now I'm pretty proud of myself for coming up with a weekly menu plan. I see a lot of people include the other meals for the day in their plan. I'm definitely not there yet. My goal is to eventually add breakfast, lunch, snacks, and whatever desserts we might have for the week to mpm.I've been using a blank calendar (I got a set of 2 at the dollar store) to fill in dinners. I have almost the whole month of February complete. Here's my plan for the week of February 8th (click here to see more menu plans at org junkie):

Monday:  Take out: PF Changs (gift card from Christmas)

Tuesday:  Cream of Broccoli Soup and crusty bread 

Wednesday: Chicken Fajitas. Fruit kabobs (kebabs?) for dessert

Thursday:  Slug Salad (from the Happy Medic)

Friday:  Pizza night- homemade individual pizzas on english muffins. Serve with lettuce wedge and dressing

Saturday:  BLTs on wheat with avocado and sprouts. Serve with chips and/or veggies & dip.    

Sunday:  Fish n Chips  or this one here. Both look good, but I'm liking the idea of the sweet potato fries.

purple popeye smoothies

 

These are incredibly delicious and you would never guess that there is a secret ingredient. (Spinach. shhh!).  I know it sounds crazy to drink something with spinach in it, but you can't tell it's there at all. My kids think that these are Jamba Juice smoothies. But these are healthier than Jamba Juice. It's just fruit and spinach. This is so simple and fast to make and we have it sometimes as a breakfast, or a snack, or along with a little meal.

Here's what to do:

2 cups orange juice

1 cup packed fresh spinach (even though it says prewashed I always give it a good rinse)

1 mango (optional) I get a crate at Costco and dice them up and freeze them to use in these smoothies)

1 banana, frozen

2-3 cups frozen blueberries (I also buy a huge bag of unsweetened at Costco. You can also use other berry mixtures. This one pictured above was blueberries and strawberries. Blueberries hide the color of the spinach which may make it hard for kids to drink if they see it. . .)

Blend until smooth. Add orange juice if needed to thin. We never need to however. Makes 5 (1 cup) servings. Enjoy!

these whole wheat muffins are good! And healthy too.

 

  

  

  

WHOLE WHEAT MUFFINS

5 cups whole wheat flour
4 cups All-Bran cereal
2 cups bran flakes (not the cereal-located in health food store bulk section)*
1/2 Tbsp. salt

Mix dry ingredients in LARGE bowl.

Mix the following ingredients in separate bowl:
2 cups boiling water
5 tsp. baking soda (soda will bubble and roll when added to the boiling water)
1 cup canola oil
1 cup honey
1 cup brown sugar
5 cups buttermilk
4 eggs

Combine wet and dry ingredients. Cover batter and let rest overnight or several hours in refrigerator before baking. Grease or line with muffin papers a 12 cup muffin tin. Fill 2/3 of the way full. Bake on middle oven rack at 350 degrees for 20-23 minutes. Batter will keep for weeks in refrigerator and makes 4+ dozen.*Bran flakes should be stored in the refrigerator or freezer. They will go rancid if left in the cupboard for more than a few months. I mixed the wet ingredients in my kitchenaid. I put the baking soda in first and then added my boiling water to it so that it didn't bubble over. 

These are incredibly moist, hearty, and delicious! I could seriously eat these all day. This is a healthy muffin. It made 54 regular sized muffins. I made up all the muffins this morning and hope that it will make for a healthy breakfast and snack for the coming week for all of us.

menu plan monday

 

Okay, I am starting Menu Plan Monday again. You can click the above image to go to mpm for February 1st. If you don't do your own menu plan, you can go to organized junkie (through above link) to see what others have on their menu for the week. I have found lots of great recipes this way. 

Monday:  Pesto-Chicken Italiano with small mixed greens salad and orange slices

Tuesday:  Won Ton Soup with large salad with vine tomatoes and English cucumbers. 

Wednesday:  Edna Mae's Sour Cream Pancakes with fruit: bananas, blueberries, and orange juice.

Thursday:  mini meatloaves  except I might do ground turkey and a few other things to make it healthier. I will also double the recipe so that I can freeze half of them for another meal. Serve with raw veggies (broccoli, carrots, peppers, and cauliflower) and a dollop of veggie dip. Maybe some mashed potatoes.

Friday:  pizza (papa murphy's) and a big mixed green salad with veggies.  

Saturday:  Veggie and Cheese Bagels from Pioneer Woman Cooks. Serve with baked tortilla chips and salsa. 

Sunday:  Baked potato bar. Toppings: sour cream, salsa, cheese, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, chili, etc.)  Not all together on one potato, of course. Small side salad.

nuts & bolts mix

 

This idea for the nuts & bolts came from Wendolonia's robot party ideas. She also has the adorable bag topper template to print off. Nuts & Bolts is essentially what Chex Mix is. It is apparently the preferred name for Chex mix in the South. I had never heard of it until recently, but it's the perfect name for a robot party treat! There are probably hundreds of ways to preparing this, but I kept it simple, and did no baking or adding of spices and butter.

Chocolate Chex cereal

Honey nut Cheerios cereal

Pretzel sticks

m&ms

In a large bowl, combine desired amounts of each ingredient. I started by emptying half the box of Chex into the bowl. Then I added a little less than half the box of Cheerios. I added 2-3 cups of the pretzels and about half of a large bag of m&ms. I wanted it to be sweet and chocolaty. I put about 2 cups into each treat bag. The treat bags I got at a craft store in the cake decorating aisle. Then I topped each bag with a robot bag topper and voila! It was ready to go. The kids gobbled them up and asked for more to take home.

traditional bento

Here is a traditional bento that I made for HF. It's brown rice and broccoli with roasted sesame seeds sprinkled on top. On top of the rice is red pepper lips I cut out of the pepper on one of the indents. On the right is a bed of green leaf lettuce with California Rolls. No, I did not make these myself, but saw them at Costco (16 for just over $5. not bad!) On the bottom right is a slicone cupcake holder with fresh cut pineapple. A small packet of soy sauce is tucked in the corner.

Wall-E bento

Wall-E sandwich is turkey inside. Instructions found here. Underneath Wall-E is nuts and bolts robot mix (recipe to come). On the other side is a bed of green leaf lettuce. Cucumber coins with star shaped carrot coins on top, a babybel cheese wheel, a heart shaped silicon cupcake holder with a clementine orange in segments and 2 raspberries inside. I was trying to make it look like a flower. Then a hard boiled egg to look like Eva, Wall-E's main squeeze. Her face is a sliver of olive with nasty blue cookie icing that I had leftover from HF's graduation cake.

apple pie trail mix

 

This was so easy to make and it really did remind me of apple pie. The longer you store the mix, the softer the teddy grahams and granola become. I prefer it crunchy, but it was still enjoyable soft. I like how the teddy grahams have belly buttons. . .

This is one of those recipes that you sort of eyeball until it's to your liking, but I started out with a cup of each ingredient and then added more of one or another until it was to my liking.

1 cup Teddy Grahams

1 cup Granola

1 cup yogurt covered raisins

1 cup dried apples, cut into bite size pieces

Mix all ingredients together and store in airtight container. I put mine into tiny little one-serving containers so my kids and husband could snack on them conveniently. I ended up adding the whole bag of dried apples, and used my kitchen scissors to quickly cut them in the size of pieces I wanted. I also added another cup of granola and a shake more of both the teddy grahams and the raisins. Yeah, a shake. Not a perfectly healthy treat or snack, but not too bad either.

food updates

I haven't been making any original recipes or anything lately. I've been eating boring ole healthy foods and snacks. I did eat more junk than I would've liked to during the holidays, and have made some big fitness and health goals that I am working on. I am also busy preparing for a local healthy cooking class I'll be teaching at the end of this month. I will be doing a demo on hummus and ways to use it, and talking about feeding our children healthy snacks and lunches, the resources I use such as websites, blogs, cookbooks, etc. to find inspiration for ideas and showing bento products and how to arrange them. It should be fun.

I'm going to start doing Menu Plan Monday again. I have noticed that t helps us with our healthy eating habits, and our grocery budget when I plan ahead and you can find lots of ideas through the links of others doing it.

I did get Pioneer Woman's cookbook for Christmas, which is one of the things I wanted. Here are the recipes I've tried:

Edna Mae's Sour Cream Pancakes. OMG these are good! They melt in your mouth and are just delightful. LOVE these. This recipe has now replaced my Fly Off the Plate pancakes, which are also very good and also use sour cream, but these pancakes are much more simple. It uses 1 cup of sour cream and just 7 Tablespoons of flour. You should definitely give these a try. You can find pictures and the recipe here at the Noshery.

Beans and Cornbread (page 101): This recipe is also on her website. This was good. One of those filling, comfort foods.

Tomato Basil Pizza (page 112): This is one of our favorites! This is also on her website.

Creamy Mashed Potatoes (146): Good golly these were good! And you wanna know why? Because there was almost 2 sticks of butter, and a package of cream cheese. Wow. And then we paired it up with her meatloaf (150). FANTASTIC!! You cover it with bacon. Out. of. control. Next time I make it however, I think I will precook the bacon and then make it in muffin tins and sprinkle the bacon on top of each cup and then cover it with the sauce. Yeah, these two recipes are hard on the ticker for sure!

That's all for now. That's a cookbook to pull out occasionally.

bentos 29-32

bento 29:  Ritz crackers with squares of Gouda and Havarti with dill cheeses, olives, carrots, turkey skewered, applesauce with a shake of sprinkles on top for fun, and a chocolate cinnamon bear.

bento 30:  HF's bento- banana cut in half, mini carrots, olives, a spinach salad with toasted sesame seeds, craisins, and roasted almond slivers with a little container of poppyseed dressing, and cocktail sausages.

bento 31:  carrots, strawberry yogurt, pulled chicken, clementine orange, craisins and cheerios mix, and a mini dark chocolate 3 musketeers with mint.

bento 32:  I don't know why sometimes the pictures turn this way. Just cock your head to the right to see it properly. This one has mini spinach quiches, mini pretzels, grape tomatoes, apple slices, and strawberry yogurt.

PB smoothie

We love this smoothie. And you know, it's pretty healthy! If you like Jamba Juice's Peanut Butter Moo'd, this is a good copycat recipe. 

3/4 cup nonfat milk
3/4 cup nonfat vanilla frozen yogurt
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (we use natural)
2 fresh bananas, sliced and frozen
1 cup ice


Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

turtles

These babies were good! And so easy to make.

what you need:
mini twisty pretzels or the square grid pretzels
bag of rolos
roasted pecans

The first thing I did is I toasted my raw pecans. I poured them onto a cookie sheet and basted them with melted butter. I put them in the oven at 350 and toasted them for 10-15 minutes, stirring every 3 minutes or so. Using just raw pecans are delicious too. You don't have to toast them.

Place desired amount of pretzels on cookie sheet. Unwrap Rolos and put a Rolo candy on top of each pretzel. Place in a 325 degree oven for 3-5 minutes until just started to droop. Take out immediately and place a pecan on top of rolo and gently press down. Let cool for several minutes or hours until the chocolate has set. Otherwise there will be gooey dripping chocolate all over the place. You can make these for a party or give them to friends and neighbors for a holiday treat.

french apple pie

See, I did make treats during the holidays! I don't eat fruit pies. I have never liked them. Except for the apple pie. I love apple pie. But I cannot eat a store bought apple pie. It has to be homemade. In my opinion, it's the crust that makes or breaks it. I've tried a variety of crusts, but I always come back to a basic. My mom's pie crust recipe.

Crust:
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup shortening
1/4 cup COLD water

Combine flour and salt. Add shortening. Use pastry blender or 2 knives in criss cross pattern to crumble mixture until fine. Add cold water and mix until well moistened. Form into ball and let rest for 10 minutes. Roll out. Makes 1 pie crust.

Apple Pie:
6-8 cups Golden Delicious apples, peeled and sliced very thin
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (if you are using granny smith or a very tart apple you can omit)
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon

Gently toss sliced apples in a large bowl with lemon juice. Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over apples and toss until well coated. Set aside. Make crumb topping.

Crumb Topping:
1/2 cup cold butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour

Combine ingredients in a bowl and cut together using the same method as when making the pie crust until you have pea-sized crumbs.

Place pie shell on top of foil-lined cookie sheet. Pour apple mixture into pie shell and then top with the crumb topping. This will be very high and spilling over. Just be careful to keep it all on top. Once it is cooked, it will shrink down significantly. Also, most apple pies have flour or cornstarch included in the apple mixture to thicken it up, but I always leave it out. I prefer the taste difference it makes. It does cause your apple pie to have more liquid. This doesn't bother me, but it does thicken up the longer it sits out.