Weekly Menu Plan 1/26 - 2/1

Well we are having a little bit of a switch up we ended up having a left over night tonight, so we are pushing our BBQ Chicken dinner back to tomorrow night. This week is full of first time meals for us. This is fun for me, I love to try new things, scary for my family that is not always so open to trying new things.

Wednesday 1/26- BBQ Chicken Sandwiches, oven baked fries and mixed vegetables, new recipe from Smashed Peas and Carrots
Thursday 1/27- Philly Steak Sandwiches with boiled carrots
Friday 1/28- Apple Cranberry French Toast, a new recipe from $5 dinners
Saturday 1/29- Eating out
Sunday 1/30- Chicken and Bacon Florentine Pasta, another new recipe from $5 dinners
Monday 1/31- Connie's Mexican Mess, also a new recipe that can be found here from $5 dinners
Tuesday 2/1- Marinated Pork Roast, with mashed potatoes and green beans

I'll post after trying each new meal to let you know how it was. I'll also as is the new habit post new recipes the night before if they are not already linked up here.

Happy Eating!

Sweet Potato Casserole, its not just for the Holidays!!!

I often think we get in a rut certain foods on weeknights, certain foods on the weekend, certain foods we only make for holiday's or special occasions. I am trying to break out of this mold, I love sweet potatoes and I really love the not so healthy sweet potato casserole, but we eat it twice a year, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Why? Why only eat something you enjoy twice a year, so I decided if I want to make it once a month I'll make it once a month! Who knows maybe I won't want it as much once I am eating it more than twice a year :)

The great thing about sweet potato casserole recipes is that a lot of people that don't really enjoy sweet potatoes enjoy these.

Grandma's Sweet Potato Casserole:
1/2 C. sugar
2 beaten eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 C. melted margarine
1/2 C. evaporated milk
1 t. Vanilla
3 C. mashed sweet potatoes or yams (you can use 1 large can)

Topping:
1/3C. flour
1 T. brown sugar
1/4 C. melted margarine
1 C. chopped pecans

Combine all sweet potato ingredients together and place in a small 8x8 glass baking dish.

Combine all of the topping in ingredients and sprinkle over the top of the casserole

Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

Go on and give it a try!

Happy Eating!!!

Lil Cheddar Meatloaves

This Meatloaf recipe is our favorite hands down. It is tried and true and great for when company comes. The recipe serves 8, but lets be honest, I have never met a man that eats less than 2 servings! And my 10 year old daughter easily eats 1 1/2 servings. So my opinion is it should be 8 servings but realistically, it feeds 6.

Without further ado I give you tonight's dinner recipe:

Li'l Cheddar Meat loaves:
1 egg
3/4 C. milk*
1 C. (4 oz) shredded cheddar cheese*
1/2 C. quick cooking oats
1/2 C. chopped onion*
1 tsp. salt
1 lb lean ground beef*

Sauce:
2/3 C. chili sauce or ketchup
1/2 C. packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. prepared mustard

In a bowl beat the egg and milk. Stir in cheese, oats, onion and salt. Add beef and mix well. Shape into eight loaves; place in a greased 13x9 baking dish.

Next combine chili sauce or ketchup, brown sugar and mustard; Spoon over unbaked loaves.

Bake, uncovered at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until the meat is no longer pink and a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees.

*On a side note, I make this using fat free cheese and milk and it still tastes great, I usually buy meet that is 97/3, but I have been known to substitute ground turkey as well. I have also substituted dehydrated onion when I didn't have a fresh one on hand, I would only use a bout 1/4 cup dehydrated onion as it expands.

Happy Eating!!!

Weekly Meal Plan 1-19 to 1-25

Okay so I already have failed, slightly, but I did do two posts yesterday. So here is our weekly meal plan, two days later than I will post it in the future. Promise.

1-19 Wednesday: Polynesian Meatballs
1-20 Thursday: Costco Ravioli, with ceaser salad, galic bread and green beans
1-21 Friday: Meatloaf and Sweet Potato Casserole and boiled carrots
1-22 Saturday: Eating out
1-23 Sunday: Russian Apricot Chicken, couscous, green beans
1-24 Monday: Homemade pizza and salad
1-25 Tuesday: BBQ Chicken Sandwich and oven baked fries (from this website here, it will be a new recipe for our family too).

I will link up all recipes as posted the night before and in the future I will link to previous entries if applicable as well

Happy Eating

Yummy Easy Cake!

Today is my daughters tenth birthday and we talked about all of the different types of cakes we could make our favorite chocolate zucchini cake, PW's Red Velvet cake, PW's Chocolate sheet cake, my husband's favorite mellow cake, applesauce cake, salted caramel chocolate cupcakes, yes the options are endless and well its cake, you just can't go wrong no matter what you choose!

Since its her 10th birthday I will admit I was tempted to make a different cake for breakfast, lunch, dinner and well dessert! One its a day to celebrate, two you only turn double digits once, and three I am too young to have a child in the double digits!!!

Well, sadly I restrained myself, my waistline and my husbands rage and settled for a yummy Easy Cake that we had not made in quite a while (we are talking years) but one we all really enjoy.

The recipe was originally given to me by my friend Alisha and was called Heath bar cake, but we make it with all different kinds of candy bars. Today we are making one with twix and one with snickers, one for our house and one for achievement day.

So with out further ado here is the moistest chocolate cake ever!

Heath Bar Cake:

Cake:

3 oz instant chocolate pudding mix
1 yellow cake mix
2 C. warm water
2 eggs

Frosting:
1/4 C. margarine, melted
1 C. powdered sugar
2 egg yolks
8 oz. cool whip
4 heath bars, crushed ( you can chop up a different kind of candy bar, but you may need more than 4)

Cake directions: Blend together pudding, cake mix, water and eggs. Pour into cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes and passes toothpick test. Let cake cool.

Frosting directions: Mix together margarine, powdered sugar, and egg yolks. Fold in cool whip and frost cooled cake. Sprinkle with crushed candy bar. The cake will need to be refrigerated once frosted due to the cool whip and egg yolk.

Enjoy!

Polynesian Meatballs

This was the Birthday girls, birthday dinner request. Simple easy and pretty good. I got this recipe years ago in a Kraft foods magazine.

Polynesian Meatballs:

12.5 oz pkg Meatballs (frozen, don't thaw)
1/2 C. BBQ sauce
1 20 OZ can pineapple chunks in juice
2 C. green pepper, chopped
2 C. cooked brown rice

Mix BBQ sauce and pineapples with juice in a large skillet. Bring to a boil over medium heat.

Stir in green pepper and meatballs (still frozen). Reduce heat to medium low and simmer 15 minutes. Stirring occasionally or until vegetable are crisp tender, meatballs are heated through and sauce is thickened. I don't mind if the sauce isn't very thick because we just spoon it over the rice anyways.

Serve over brown rice and enjoy!

Calories-510
Fat- 24g
Fiber- 5g

Serves 4.

Happy Eating!

I'm repenting...

Okay so I've been a total blog slacker all around, my personal blog, craft blog and food blog, so I am repenting. I am going to start posting our family's weekly meal plan; our plan won't follow the traditional week, it will go from Wednesday to Tuesday, because Wednesday is my shopping day. I will post the weekly meal plan on Wednesday and then I will post the recipes the night before we will actually be eating them . I hope you enjoy some of our family favorites and maybe can find something new that your kiddos will enjoy. I do like to try new recipes a lot, so if it is one we haven't had before I will let you know when I post the recipe and I will come back and update my post after I have blogged to give the families opinion. Everyone's opinion the health nut, the picky eaters (warning they very seldom like the same thing, they have very different tastes), and myself the pretty easy to please.


Alright its out there now, my promise to be a better food blogger, that means I cannot take it back.

Happy Eating!