Lava Cake

So simple, but oh so yummy.  I first had this at a Pampered chef party.  I didn’t actually go to the party, but I was able to enjoy the leftovers in the company break room.  By far, for those of us with chocolate addiction issues…or those who take horrific meds like prednisone every day, this is a quick easy way to get a fix.

The ingredients are basic and simple:  One box of your choice of chocolate cake mix plus ingredients to mix it up and once can of chocolate frosting.  Please folks…don’t all rush to Harvey’s or Wal-Mart right now…y’all cause a traffic jam!

Mix up the cake according to the directions.  Pour into a greased or sprayed ceramic or stone baking dish.  Dot the mix with the can of frosting.  Cook in microwave for 12-14 minutes. 

Important Note: Watch your microwave and try to use a dish that will spin.  If you bake ware is too large to spin, then take out the dish and rotate it half way through the cook time.  My microwave cooks “hot”.  So my cake was done after about 12 minutes.

I baked my lava cake in my PC beautiful red stoneware baking dish.  I’d had it for several years and NOT ever used it.  Shame on me.  After a wash with hot water, it was baptized by chocolate lava.  And boy was it awesome with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

The best part of this dessert, not only is it easy it’s so quick!!  I can see this being a big hit during the summer for cookouts.  It would also be easy for camping since I used a whisk to mix and not an electric mixer.  The only thing that could have made this better would have been a sprinkle of some toasted pecans!!

Menu Planning for May

I’m trying really hard to plan ahead for the next three weeks of May.  After you quit laughing, please keep reading.  I have been so diligent these past two months, trying new recipes seeking something different to add to our favorite standbys.  I’ve had a few hits and quite a few misses. 

I can’t be the only person that gets tired of cooking the same thing, over and over.  I keep trying to tell my three little darlings, we can try something new.  I promise not to poison any of you.  Just keep trying. 

Tonight’s requests: spaghetti from one, taco night from another.  Again?  It’s just not happening.  I may revert to another old main stay of the Thorpe house, little (as in mini) hamburger steaks with homemade mashed potatoes and green beans.   But for the rest of the month, I am going to find at least one more ground beef recipe to try and one more crock pot recipe.

What to do with this?????

The only way for us to stay out of the drive through is to work on that meal plan.  We are well known at the Dairy Queen.  I guess it is a good thing that my crowd has never met a cow they didn’t like.  They love hamburgers.  We do grill a lot this time of year but right now I’m looking for “inside” recipes.

So if you have any suggestions or a family favorite that doesn’t involve hamburger helper, please send it on.  Preferably really quick while I’ve got out this calendar!

And it's a Hit

     It wasn’t my intention to instantly please the picky eater.  On this one, I just got lucky.  In moving around stuff in my big freezer, I found a sirloin roast.  I thought hmmm, haven’t had a roast with onions and carrots in a long time.  And this is something that can cook while I do other stuff…namely my new admin duties for CST.
    
     I decided to drag out my electric skillet.  It is a marvelous gadget that currently resides in the camper.  It is versatile and great for warming up spaghetti sauce or taco meat at the lake or for cooking Sunday breakfast.  It is sold at Wally world and we use ours a lot.

          
    This is about as simple and easy as it can get.  It doesn’t take long to assemble and get back to your to do list.  So gather up a couple bags of carrots, an onion, and one can of cream of mushroom soup, and your choice of seasoning. Preheat the skillet to about 250 and lightly spray or add a couple tablespoons of olive oil.  If you have never used an electric skillet, the heat will cycle so don’t freak if it seems to turn itself off. 

    I normally chop the onion and lay it around the roast.  While the roast begins to cook, I wash, peel and slice carrots.  Rheum tip: I will probably buy the mini bagged ones next go round.  My wrist was worn out after chopping two bags of carrots.  Also, if you can't chop, most larger grocery stores carry the chopped fresh onions.

    Once the roast has cooked for an hour or so, I added the can of cream of mushroom soup and a can of water.  (I have been using my own cream of soup mix.  However, I had a few cans in my pantry that I need to use.)  Whisk around the soup and it will eventually thicken and make gravy.  Then add the carrots, cover and go roll over your laundry.

    I let the roast cook on a low temperature until the carrots are done.  This is great served with mashed potatoes or rice and leseur peas. 

Santa Fe Chicken Update

It was OK.  Nothing extraordinary, but OK.  Boo and I had our chicken over rice and the finicky eater made chicken nachos with hers.  We had homemade salsa and sour cream to "dress" it cup a little along with nacho chips.

It was definitely missing something.  I just can't quite put my finger on it.  Maybe I should have added ranch seasoning. I am open to suggestions on this one.  Boo recommended that we add some “soup” to it and make taco soup out of the leftovers.  I thought it was a great idea, but beginning to get a little warm for soup.

However, we did try the chicken as a filling for quesadillas and it was great!!  Even Miss Picky ate one!!  I warmed enough of the chicken to make about 3 small quesadillas, sprayed a non stick pan and added a little taco seasoned cheese.  It was very quick and easy.

Will I make this again?  I don’t know…maybe as the base for taco soup with chicken instead of beef or deer.  We had lots of leftovers, so I have put the rest in the freezer for another night.  Maybe we can have a build your own quesadilla night and break out the electric griddle!

Sante Fe Chicken

Crock Pot Quick and Easy

This is one of those recipes that comes together quick.  As I worked on menu planning yesterday, I wanted to try something new in the crock pot and it had to be chicken.  After searching around pinterest and the net I found several versions of Santa Fe Chicken.  So I basically tweaked it to fit my family's taste.

First I went through the pantry and the kitchen table looking for ingredients. (Don't ask, I've been trying to organize the pantry. Sigh.) Lucky me...this recipe calls for basic pantry staples and I had them all.

If you can open cans, you can make this.  I layered the ingredients: homemade chicken stock, diced tomatoes with chilies, corn, black beans and spices.

homemade chicken stock





A word on the homemade chicken stock...I have several chicken casserole recipes that call for boiled chicken breast.  I season the chicken while cooking and normally have this huge pot of seasoned broth.  So I freeze it for use later.  Either strain through cheese cloth or let chill over night in the refrigerator.  After skimming any fat from the top, dip out with a coffee cup and put in freezer proof container.  You could also use a freezer bag.  It is lower in sodium than the canned stuff and tastes better too.

Place the chicken in the pot on top of ingredients and cook for 6-8 hours on low.  I am cooking on high for four hours.  Once chicken is done, remove and shred.  Return to the crock pot and give it a quick stir.  At this point, I plan to cook on low for about two more hours.

We will have this with leftover rice from last night and corn tortillas.  I've also got my homemade salsa to serve with it.  My girls should really enjoy this.  I also like that it can be served over the rice or as filling in tacos or burritos.

Recipe:
3 to 4 skinned chicken breast
1 can chicken broth
1 can diced tomatoes with chilies
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can black beans
1 tsp of dehydrated onions
1/2 tsp of cumin
1/2 tsp of garlic powder
1/2 tsp of onion powder
salt and pepper to taste
**note** if you have made the homemade taco seasoning a teaspoon of it would probably work too.  You can also add some "heat" if your family lots hot with their spicy!

I will update y'all with a review tomorrow.  Now go drag out your crock pot and let it work while you enjoy this gorgeous day with your family.

Boston Butt in the Crockpot

This is by far simplicity at its ultimate best.   I don’t think it can be messed up, it cooks itself and it is something everyone in my family eats.  All five of us. 

Pictured is a very large, purchased on sale, pork butt roast.  Place the nekkid butt in your crock pot.  I seasoned with garlic salt, paprika, black pepper and a little olive oil.  However, you choose the seasonings that your family prefers.  They don’t like garlic, leave it out.  Try sea salt instead.

I then poured some BBQ sauce I had in the fridge over the top.  This also got me reading the label (yuck) and looking for recipes for homemade BBQ sauce.  I’ll follow up with a recipe for that later.  Naturally it will be a sweet tangy southern style sauce.

Once seasoned, set your crock pot on high and cover.  It is an Aunt Jo thing.  But really, covering the crock pot with a clean kitchen towel helps keep the heat in.  This was a fairly large roast and I originally set it to cook for 4 hours.  It was not quite fork tender and the bone had not completely pulled away from the meat.  So it cooked for about another two hours.  I then left it on warm until the girls got home for school.

We had pulled pork sandwiches and broccoli for dinner.  The original game plan was to have the rest at the lake.  Due to Godly intervention, we chose to spend the week of spring break at home.  So the rest of the meat made a quick and easy dinner and allowed me and Mimi to watch some excellent NCAA Women’s basketball game.

This is easy to put on before leaving for work.  Just cook on low and when you get home, an easy dinner is waiting.  It's also great on those busy weekends when that yard work leaves you too tired to cook.  And unless you are feeding a tremendous crowd, leftovers are great with a baked potato!

Of course, it would have been much better with some Uncle Malcolm ribs.  He was the original BBQ king in our family and he will be missed by all. 

Anti-Fast Food: Homemade Pizza

One of the biggest budget killers for us has always been that last minute run through the drive thru.  With three growing girls to feed, this can be very expensive.  Busy days and evenings make it hard on us moms.  Last Thursday, we had one of those days.  No left overs in the fridge and we were all tired and ill.  Yikes.

What to do?  I threw together some pizza dough (recipe from the Big Chicken roll up dough).  My kitchen aid mixer has been getting a workout here lately.  I highly recommend using your mixer and dough hook if you have one. 

 This time, I modified the recipe by adding a little more olive oil, Italian seasonings and some garlic salt.  This will make enough dough for two pizzas on my PC small round baking stone.

After giving the dough about 20 minutes to “rest” I divided it in half and rolled it out on my stone.  I baked it for about 5 minutes.  For sauce, I opened a jar of Prego that was in the pantry and used some turkey peperoni that was in the freezer.  Shredded cheese is a stable for us. (I can’t hold a block of cheese with the right hand and grate it any more.  And, I’m afraid I’ll lose a finger if I try that grater leftie.)  Bake for about 7-9 minutes or until it is as brown as you want.

 

In just a few minutes, I had a homemade pepperoni pizza in the oven.  It might not have been pizza hut, but it didn’t last long either.  As soon as it was scarfed down, I threw together another one. 

No, I didn’t sneak any veggies in this one, although I’m sure I could figure something out.  And since I had all of the ingredients in the pantry, we saved a whole lot of money.  Total Cost for two pizzas:  Maybe about $5.00.  We used ½ package of turkey pepperoni ($1.50), 1 bag of cheese ($1.66), and ½ jar of Prego ($.85). 

Grand total not including flour: $4.01. Now that is my kind of fast food!

Frozen PB Cookie Balls…Great for Busy Moms

These little jewels were born of frustration.  The Middle child, aka HC2, short for hoodlum child #2, doesn’t eat.  All day.  What, a member of the Newton Thorpe household that doesn’t eat?  Say it ain’t so.  Ahhh, tis true.  She will go to school, not eat breakfast, break or lunch.  So when she gets home, I’m trying to find something she will eat. 

Now, don’t be calling DFCS and telling them I don’t feed my children.  We have plenty of food in the house.  Lack of appetite is a side effect of her school meds.  It is a battle we have been fighting for six years with her.

HC2 and HC3 love anything homemade and baked.  While researching future posts about freezer cooking (RAD style) I came across freezing balls of cookie dough.  Duh…that would be great since I only need to cook 10-12 per batch, once or twice a week.

After fetching the hoodies (yes, I call them that to their faces, albeit with love and affection), I went to work mixing up a batch of peanut butter cookies.  I rolled the dough into balls and baked about 20 for our test run.  They were a successful hit:  HC2 ate the majority of them.  Whew.

The rest of the dough was rolled into 1 inch balls and placed on wax paper on a metal pan and put in the freezer.  Once slightly frozen, I placed in a freezer bag.  I now have about 52 future cookies hanging out in the freezer.  I can place them on a cookie sheet to thaw, go get the Hoodies from school, and pop in the oven when we get home.  This is a quick easy snack and I controlled the ingredients.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups crunchy peanut butter
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)
1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream Peanut butter, sugar and butter, when mixed add the egg and dry ingredients.  Mix well.  Roll into 1 inch balls, flatten with a fork to get that bakery looking criss-cross pattern and bake on cookie sheet.  I use parchment paper, just because I like the finished cookie.  Bake for 12-14 minutes, but check them…a thinner cookie will bake quicker.

 

Homemade Taco Seasoning

I made my mix on Sunday afternoon, trying diligently to get all of my goals for the prior week accomplished.  And this was one of them.  I had some of the spices in my pantry.  However, I also bought some new because I couldn’t tell how old and didn’t know how long the spices had been in the pantry.  Probably, since we moved in nearly 7 years ago.  Yes, it has been that long.

So I gathered up all the spices and the recipe that I was planning to loosely follow.  I also had a pack of taco seasoning in the pantry and had previously read all of its ingredients.   Oooh Yuck! Many words which I can’t pronounce and that ain’t because they are Spanish words.  Talk about scientific and in our food.

 

The following is the “recipe” I used and multiplied by 9.  I figured if I was gonna stand there and measure, I wanted enough spice to last a while.  We eat homemade Mexican a lot at our house.  “A” has been lobbying for Taco Tuesday for some time and “C” will eat chips, meat and cheese when she won’t eat anything else.

1tbsp chili powder

¼ tsp. garlic powder
¼ tsp. onion powder
¼ tsp. crushed red pepper (I used cayenne pepper)
¼ tsp. oregano
½ tsp. paprika
1 ½ tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. salt (you may want more to your family’s taste)
1 tsp. pepper

 

What I learned…this is probably cheaper if you and a friend, or two, go to Sam’s and buy the chili powder, cumin and paprika in the $4.88 canister.  Maybe pick up a bottle of wine and voila!  You have a spice party!! The Sam’s size spices would make plenty of homemade seasoning for several people due to only using small quantities of the other spices.

Also, I up-cycled an empty peanut butter jar and washed it thoroughly. (Y’all like that term…my Grannies had no clue that saving all those mayo jars and peanut butter jars was recycling! Who knew???)

Update: Big Chicken Roll Up

With a few modifications, this will appear on the menu again.  Thorpes are finicky eaters so I made a few changes to the original recipe that I posted.

First I began with homemade pizza dough.  For real.  Making dough was much easier than I originally thought AND cheaper cause the ingredients were in the pantry.

The kitchen aid did all the work…I used a basic pizza dough recipe: 

3 cups flour

1 cup water
2 tbls olive oil
1tsp dry yeast
1tsp salt
(Additional seasonings…Italian or parm cheese)
Cover dough and let rise for about 20-30 minutes...longer if you have the time.

I mixed up my homemade cream of soup mix (very oniony, but worked in chicken mixture) added the chopped chicken and broccoli.

 Next up, spread over the dough...watch the ends, since you will roll it jelly roll style.

 

Forgot to bake on my stone bar pan. Sad face.  Will do next time.  Then I rolled it all up.

 

 Rolled up on greased, actually sprayed, pan.

 

And, the finished product.  All three girls plus Scott said it was very good.  I think the dough could have used some additional flavoring.  I may add a tablespoon of melted butter to the next one.  Of course the girls said more cheese, but I was trying to conserve some WW points.

Maddie said the dough would be great to roll a pizza up in and we may try that the next go round!  Enjoy and modify to what will work for your family.

 

Menu Planning for March

Off and Running...

I’m off to a good start for this week’s goals.  I can already see the dining room table and I have about 3 weeks of menus to work from.  We will have an occasional leftover night and freeze individual meals for Scott.  Definitely helps in getting the most out of our grocery dollars.

I hope to try at least one new crock pot and one new main course dish each month.  Of course, modifying recipes to fit my finicky eaters can be a real pain.  M eats everything, C eats like a bird unless it’s junk and AB eats country.  Try pleasing all those palates at one time. 

So tomorrow night we are going to try a big chicken roll up.  I found the recipe on pinterest but will need to make some drastic modifications for my crown.

Ingredients
Pizza dough (can use store bought or make your own)
Two cups of diced chicken breast/tenders
Cream of soup mix (one making)
Ranch dressing to taste
Broccoli florets
Cheese (however cheesy your crew likes it)

Preheat oven at 400.  Roll out pizza dough into a triangle.  Mix together soup, ranch seasoning and add diced chicken and cheese.  Spread evenly across dough.  Remember: you are going to roll this up.  Sprinkle with some broccoli florets aka shrubbery.  I am going to nuke my broccoli for about 1 minute to soften.  Roll up like a jelly roll.  Pinch or tuck ends if you can.  Bake on greased cookie sheet or stone for 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and sprinkle a little cheese on top.

I plan to bake on my Pampered Chef bar pan stone and use parchment paper.  My oven cooks hot so I will watch carefully at 20 minutes to see if it needs to bake longer.

I am hoping this goes over well with the hoodlums and doesn’t point me out with Weight Watchers. I will post some pictures and update after dinner tomorrow.

Until then, I need to find one more crock pot recipe.  I am open to ideas or suggestions.  We seem to eat the same old same old. I really would like to add more variety in our meals especially vegetables and fruits.

Homemade Hot Pockets

Sorry this is such a short post.  It has been one of those extremely busy and exhausting weeks.  We started the week Tuesday with a cross country meet and haven't slowed down yet.  Between very busy days at work and tons of homework, there hasn't been any extra time for writing.  And I can tell because my stress level is through the roof!!

I will try very diligently to get back on track this weekend. My joints are achy and I realize this is a sign that my body needs rest.  So no football for me Friday night. sniff sniff  But I will be back in action for the next game.  Go Get 'em Cats!!

Hot Pocket Experiment

I finally found something Carlee would eat.  A miracle, right?  She loves the pizza pepperoni  hot pockets.  Even though these aren’t terribly expensive, I wondered could I make them at home cheaper than the $11.97 for a box of 10 at Harvey’s?

So off to the grocery store on Labor day to purchase ingredients:

Pepperoni $0.99                                        on sale for a 3 oz package (bought two and put in freezer!)

Grands Butter Biscuits $1.66                   also on sale (only made 3, used rest for breakfast!)

Hunts Spaghetti Sauce $.25                    (freeze leftovers, only used ¼)

1 cup shredded mozzarella  $1.22         (on hand from previous purchase)

Total:  $4.12        Cost per serving:  $0.515  vs Purchased:  $1.28 per serving

                            
I decided to “experiment” with smaller biscuits first.  When did they get so small?  The girls ate all of them, but the dough would not roll out large enough to put a “serving” of filling in.

For the larger grand biscuits, I rolled them out with a dough roller, smeared sauce on one side, placed about 5/6 pepperonis and covered with cheese.  I then folded over the dough and crimped the edges with a fork.  I lightly spread butter over the top and placed in a 350 degree oven for about 12/15 minutes.

After baking, I let them cool and then placed the entire baking sheet in the freezer.  After freezing, I put in zip loc bags for the lunch box. 

The Good News

All three lunch boxes came home empty.  Carlee and AnnaBelle both said that they would take them again.  These were quick and easy.  So we may try these again for Monday lunch boxes since I can make them and freeze on Sunday afternoon.

Menu Update Teriyaki chicken

Menu Update

I’m really trying hard to stick to our menu plan, which also helps with shopping.  We’ve had some activities and a lot of tests this week, so it has been hard. Scott was able to eat dinner with us Wednesday night, so I fixed one of his favorite meals, mini hamburger steaks, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans.  Also quick and easy.

Crockpot Teriyaki chicken

Quick and easy to mix up, was able to throw together during my 30 minute lunch.  I just somehow messed up thickening the sauce.  I served with white rice and steamed broccoli.  As usual, Maddie and AnnaBelle liked it.  Carlee at a few bites of chicken, rice and a few broccoli florets.  . 

Ingredients

2 lbs Chicken tenders
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup low sodium soy sauce
6 to 7 tsp of vinegar
Minced garlic
Minced ginger
A pinch of black pepper
2 cups of white rice
1 bag of broccoli florets (from Harveys)

Place chicken in crock pot. Mix together remaining ingredients and pour over chicken.  Cooked on low for 5 hours.  Remove chicken from liquid.  Pour liquid in a nonstick pan and thicken with mixture of 4 ½ teaspoons of cornstarch mixed in 4 ½ teaspoons of cold water.   This is the step I messed up. 

Place cooked chicken back in crockpot and cover with teriyaki sauce.  I nuked broccoli and placed on top of chicken.  Served over rice.  I was the only left over taker.  It reheated really well and I will have for lunch again Friday.


Crockpot Teriyaki chicken...found on pinterest

Mini Hamburger Steaks plus Leftovers
Scott’s loads were a little off this week due to the hurricane.  He was able to come through town and have dinner with us.  It was a treat to have dinner together as family, very rare for us during the week.  

I made one of his favorite meals, but it required going to the grocery store to pick up fresh ground chuck and some fresh square dinner rolls. This was simply easier on me, as trying to thaw out frozen meat would take too long.  I already had the other ingredients/staples on hand.  I also made a boat load of the mini hamburger steaks intentionally for leftovers.

Ingredients

3lbs ground chuck plus seasonings
Instant Garlic mashed potatoes (boxtop!)
Large can of green beans

I never make these the same and season the ground chuck with whatever I have on hand, garlic salt, black pepper, seasoned bread crumbs, etc.  I make the steaks about the size of my palm and cook in an iron skillet.  Sometimes we make onion gravy, but this time I didn’t. 

Dessert
Oatmeal Raisin cookies (for Scott made from Miss Betty’s cookie dough sale)
Peanut butter cookies
 

Leftovers were great.  All three girls took two hamburger steak sliders to school for lunch.  I even had them for dinner Thursday night.  We have a few left but I’m sure Scott will finish them off when he gets in Friday afternoon.  He loves a cheeseburger!!  The sliders were a very easy leftover for a school lunch for me to fix!!

Trying something new

Breakfast in the crockpot?  Trying a recipe I found on pinterest…cinnamon biscuits.  They were easy to throw together.  I will share with you how they turn out later.  If they are really good, maybe this will be something easy for Friday morning prayer breakfast!

Menu Update: Crock Pot Lasagne

Again, I had my doubts that this would actually work.  Lasagna is normally one of those more labor than it’s worth to make at home.  But since the ingredient list was short and it was going to “cook” itself, I thought why not give it a try.

It worked!!  Again, my crockpot impressed me.  I cooked my sauce the night before and put in the fridge overnight.  I assembled everything in the crockpot Monday morning about 6ish a.m.  It took about oh, ten minutes, max.

Ingredients

Sauce:  two cans of sauce with browned turkey/ground beef
16 oz. Ricotta cheese
1 egg
8 oz. mozzarella cheese
Lasagna noodles

I mixed the egg, ricotta cheese and 1 cup of mozzarella cheese, and then began layering.

 

·         First layer: sauce to cover the bottom of the crockpot, about 1 ½ cups.

·         Second layer: Noodles…I broke them to fit and overlapped in some areas…could have added more noodles in hindsight.  So double up if you want…they will cook.

·         Third layer: cheese to cover noodles, spreading evenly.  If you have a cheesy family add, some more mozzarella on top of the cheese mixture.

·         Repeat two more times.

Turned Crockpot on low and left it to cook.  It cooked on low from 6:30 to 12:30, about six hours.  I went home at lunch and turned it off.  It was still warm when I got home from work but I turned the crockpot back on and let it warm.  I am buying myself a programmable crock pot for my birthday so I can program the start time…less running home at lunch.

Reviews

Maddie and AnnaBelle thought it was great and took leftovers to school for lunch.  As usual fickle Carlee wouldn’t touch it. But she will eat spaghetti by the boat load.  Go figure.  I had planned to serve with steamed broccoli.  We didn’t get that far.  If you want to hide a vegetable, you could add some chopped spinach to the sauce.

We will make this one again!

Menu Update

Crock Pot Baked Potatoes

Stop whatever you are doing…read this.  I don’t remember the web site where I found the crock pot baked potatoes.  I'll even confess, I thought more like crack pot, that won’t ever work.  Color me wrong.  The potatoes were great, done all the way through and very soft unlike microwave baked potatoes, that can have hard dry spots.  And the kitchen was hot as hades while waiting on the potatoes to bake in the oven.  We will definitely have these again.

Ingredients
6 medium size baked potatoes
El cheapo aluminum foil
Crock pot
2 tablespoons water

I went home at lunch and washed the potatoes and wrapped each one in foil. I put about two tablespoons of water in the bottom of the crock pot.  Four potatoes across the bottom, two across the top.  Covered with a lid.  For some reason, my Aunt in Florida always puts a clean dish towels over the crock pot lid.  I guess to hold the heat in.  Turned it up on high and went back to work. 

AnnaBelle and I came home around 5 p.m. I figured well, if the potatoes aren’t done we can finish them off in the microwave.  I took a knife to check for doneness.  To my surprise the knife went all the way through two potatoes.  I turned them down on low until dinner time.

But were they good?  According to AnnaBelle and Maddie they were great.  The potatoes were almost steamed.  We topped the potatoes with Boston butt leftover from Sunday, steamed broccoli and shredded cheese.

Menu Update

BBQ Pork Roast

Punted on Sunday, well it’s football season folks…had to get some extra practice in.  I bumped our crock pot BBQ roast up to Sunday dinner.  I let it cook overnight Saturday night.  The girls have taken lunch several days and we have enough left to use for stuffed potatoes on Wednesday.  Yeah me!

Ingredients

Pork roast
½ cup Brown sugar
1 cup Vinegar
1 cup Ketchup
Paprika, salt, pepper to taste

Put the roast in crock pot on low setting.  Mixed remaining ingredients and poured over roast.  It cooked over night for about 8 hours on low.

Penne Spinach Pasta

Last Thursday’s spinach penne pasta was a big hit with Maddie and AnnaBelle…they both requested leftovers for lunch.  As expected, Carlee wouldn’t touch it.  She has become a very picky eater.  However, I have told her “if you don’t eat what I have fixed, you eat peanut butter bread.”  And that is what she did.

It was easy to make…a requirement these days.  Not completely homemade but close enough for my crowd.

Ingredients

Whole wheat penne pasta
48 oz. pasta sauce
16 oz. ricotta cheese
1 egg
Pre-shredded Italian blend cheese
1 bag of chopped spinach (pic sweet brand)

Boiled the pasta with some olive oil and garlic salt seasoning.  When almost done, drained half the water.  Added the bag of frozen pasta in the pot with the pasta and let sit while I mixed ricotta cheese, egg and Italian blend.

Sprayed a glass 11 X 17 baking dish.  Drained pasta and spinach and poured into dish.  Spread cheese mixture over the pasta.  Covered with pasta sauce.  Topped with remaining shredded cheese.  Baked on a low temperature (about 325) for 30ish minutes or so.  Served with white wheat toasted buns.

August Menu



Finally completed the menu calendar for August.  I have yet to complete all the grocery shopping for this menu, but have picked up sale items from Harvey's for several of the meals.  I will finish my shopping this weekend and hope to stay clear of stores for several weeks.  Back to school shopping has nearly killed me!

But back to the most important question of Carlee's day...What's for Dinner?  We will be trying some new meals this month.  I will post those recipes as we cook them.  Also, if you would like to request a recipe, please let me know and I will gladly post for you.  I am also trying to modify old family favorites to meet my weight watcher guidelines....so I'll happily warn you when cutting fat and sugar!

The girls have also requested that I bake more muffins and snacks.  We are going to decide this evening one breakfast and one snack item to bake.  I am looking forward to trying to bake my own granola and a lot of low fat/low sugar chocolate recipes!