What's for dinner?

Every weekend (usually Sunday morning), I sit down and plan out what we will be eating for dinner during the week.  Thanks to a few food blogs and pinterest, it makes the planning a little easier.  I am still using the menu board that I made over a year ago.  Deciding what we are having for dinner for the week also makes the trip to the grocery store much easier.  I used to find myself buying all sorts of things and spending a small fortune and still having nothing to cook.  Planning ahead really does help, especially now that Lillian is here and she takes up a lot of time in the evening once I am home from work.
This week our menu looks like this....

Here are a few links to the recipes for this week (in case you care to try any of them as well)...

Sunday- I love pasta, especially with creamy alfredo sauce.  Since we are trying to eat somewhat healthy on most days, I decided to try out this healthier version.  I bought some whole wheat noodles to go with the alfredo sauce and blackened chicken.

Monday- We eat a lot of chicken, so I decided to throw in some pork chops when I came across this Paula Deen recipe (she is still a great chef despite all the media hoopla).  The red pepper soup sounds fancy, but it is not homemade.  Campbell's Go soups are so delicious!  You should give one of them a try!

Tuesday- I love stuffed bell peppers, and I love Mexican food!  What a better way to combine the two than with this recipe.  (Just don't tell my husband it's made with ground turkey!)  I also found this cilantro lime rice recipe I think should go perfect with the peppers.

Wednesday- Squash is in season right now, and we love chicken, so what better way to use both than to make a chicken squash bake.

Thursday-  We will join some great friends for dinner for E's night out.

Friday-  I decided to do something nice for my husband and make his favorite meal.  I asked him what his all time favorite was would be, and this is what he said, "steak, my mom's mashed potatoes, and green beans or any type of pea."  My sister came in town when Lillian was first born and made us some incredible steaks using the cast iron skillet, so I will attempt to recreate them.  I don't think I can make mashed potatoes quite like my MIL, but I think I can come close.  The green beans I can handle.  I hope it makes for a happy hubby!

Saturday-  I really like fish, but only if it doesn't taste "fishy."  This is my "go to" recipe for fish.  It is so good!! The fish has a tomato sauce with it, so I decided to make some okra and tomatoes with rice to finish off the meal.  My MIL gave us some fresh okra the other day that needs to be cooked.

Here to hoping I stick with the plan this week...
And as my girl Paula Deen says,

"Love & Best Dishes,"

Our Weekend

via pictures...
**WARNING** picture overload ahead **

I was in the mood to take pictures this weekend.  We didn't do anything super special, but I snapped lots of pics anyway.

Lillian sitting in her daddy's lap at Another Broken Egg.

They were watching us do yard work.

I took a pic when he wasn't looking.

Sweet Charley hanging out with Lillian

I put my sun hat on to weed the flower bed.

Annabelle was following me everywhere and loving the outdoors!

Jon marinated some steaks that he grilled on Sunday night

Lillian played while her daddy grilled

I made a salad with some of our goods from the Farmer's Market.

We ended our weekend with this beautiful rainbow.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.  Ours was not very eventful but it was filled with quality time spent together and you can't beat that!

No Farms No Food

The Shreveport Farmer's Market started yesterday. It's always one of my favorite things this time of the year. It is held on Saturday morning from 7-12 and Tuesday evening from 3-6. This past Saturday we got up and about early and headed downtown to see what we could find. Lillian got to experience her first Shreveport Farmer's Market! It was very crowded and already hot outside. We were wanting squash and strawberries. We did find 2 eight ball squash/zucchini so we snatched those up. I had never heard of them before last year when we found them at the market. We did not see any strawberries that looked good to us, but we did end up with some other goodies. A booth out there called Comfort Food was selling pre-made meals and mixes, so we bought cinnamon rolls from them that sounded delicious. Can't wait to try them! We also came across a dairy farmer's booth who was selling fresh milk, heavy cream, and butter. We were intrigued and decided to buy a half gallon of their chocolate milk. It should go good with a cinnamon roll! We will have to go earlier in the morning next time because a lot of the booths were sold out of things we would have bought. I'm glad Shreveport offers a farmer's market! It is a good thing for people to do with their families, it helps the farmers, and it introduces people to new foods and experiences!

Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

When I was planning the gender reveal party I knew I wanted to have cute party favors for those that came. I'm not sure where the idea came from but I decided on clock sugar cookies. I had been wanting to make sugar cookies and decorate them with royal icing. I figured this was the best time because it would be an easy shape and design. I went to some of my favorite blog recipe sites and compared recipes and picked out what to do. I went with a lemon vanilla sugar cookie with basic royal icing. The whole process took me about 3 days, but it was not difficult at all.

I made the dough, rolled it out, cut out all the circles, and baked them.

After they cooled, I outlined each circle with royal icing.
Once the outline dried (a few hours), I "flooded" the cookies with royal icing and let them dry over night.

After the white royal icing dried, I decorated the clock "faces" with black cookie icing.
They were packaged after they were completely dry.

The finished favors!!

I had more pictures to show each step, but the computer is acting funny and not posting them like it should.   I really enjoyed making these cookies, and they actually tasted really good too! I see more decorated sugar cookie baking in my future!

November is upon us

I thought this past weekend of work was never going to end! We did dress up for Halloween on Sunday at work.  The theme of our unit was rockstars, and my co-workers looked more "rockstarish" than I did.  I did have some pretty sweet horns that the MIL bought for me! But thank goodness the weekend of work did end!!

On Monday our sweet babies got their "fur did" and I must say they are precious!
That night I decided to make a new chili recipe from Annie's Eats and we invited Jon's parents over to join us for dinner.  I definitely have to recommend this recipe! My husband was somewhat skeptical about the meal because it does have ground turkey, but he loved it anyway!  After dinner we sat around the house waiting for trick-or-treaters that never showed, but that's okay because we enjoyed the candy ourselves while watching Monday night football.  On Tuesday morning I finally went to my long awaited neurologist appointment.  It went well, I suppose.  I like the doctor, I feel she listened and really put into consideration what I have been going through.  She started me on Topamax and wants me to change my eating habits (cutting out as much MSG as possible).  The Topamax will also be a trial and error drug, like all the ones before.  I have to slowly increase my dose in hopes that it helps my headaches but does not cause the unwanted side effects.  If this doesn't work then we will have to try yet another drug. In a way I hope that this is the drug that works because I am tired of playing the trial and error game, but on the other hand if it does work I will have to stop taking it once Jon and I decide to start a family.   Oh the joys of these dang headaches! Why can't they just go away on their own?!  (I guess they are just stubborn like me!)
Wednesday and Thursday will consist of working, but we will have the weekend off!!  Saturday morning we are taking our family (Jon, myself, and the pups) Christmas card pics.  And of course Saturday night we will be cheering on the LSU Tigers for the biggest game of the season against Alabama!  Geaux Tigers!!

I hope everyone has/had a wonderful week and weekend!

Don't knock it til you try it!

I used to be totally against Sushi.  I mean raw fish, come on! I would always say that I hated it (although I had never even tried it.)  When Jon and I moved to Fort Worth we found a restaurant there called Piranha Killer Sushi, this is where I found out that I loved sushi!  I finally tried it and now I'm hooked.  I am still not very daring with what I eat, but I do eat the raw stuff.  Jon on the other hand loves the straight up super raw fish on a hunk of rice stuff.  I mainly eat rolls that have a combo of things, including raw fish.  This past week we went to Sushi Gen here in town with the in-laws.  It is one of our favorite places to get sushi around here.  I am picky about where I will order sushi from.  The place must be clean, not hot or musty, and most importantly, can not smell like fish.  I know you probably think I am crazy?!  Sushi Gen meets all of the criteria.  When we went this past week we decided to try the Monkey Brains appetizer that we have heard so many people talk about.  It consists of avocado, crab, and spicy tuna.  It was delish!  For dinner I had the spicy tuna roll (one thing I always order) and a combo roll called the Red Dragon Roll that was made of shrimp tempura, avocado, cucumber, spicy tuna and crab on top.  I was very impressed.  Jon ordered the Sexy Trio roll, which was an ordinary spicy tuna roll but was topped with salmon, yellow tail, and eel, and mackerel and eel sushi.  I did try a piece of his Sexy Trio roll and it was pretty good.  The in-laws are not fans of raw fish so they had shrimp and chicken fried rice and were very pleased with their dinner.

Monkey Brains

Jon's dinner

my dinner

I am very glad that I decided to give the raw fish a try.  Although I'm not very adventurous in my sushi intake, I still really enjoy what I do eat! 

Chicken {tortilla} Soup for the Soul

Jon and I both work every other weekend, so on those days it's nice to have a quick, easy, and delicious meal to be able to prepare before work.   I am also a lover of the crock pot (I do believe it was one of the best inventions ever!).  So when I find a recipe that sounds delicious and is able to be put in the crock pot when I get home in the morning and then a wonderful meal is ready when I wake up, I am all about it!   And as most of you know, I LOVE Mexican food! One of my favorite, if not my favorite, mexican restaurants in town is Superior Bar and Grill.  Well, I was flipping through a cookbook we have, Louisiana's Best Restaurant Recipes, and I stumbled upon a Chicken Tortilla Soup recipe from Superior!  Fabulous was the first thing that came to mind!  So this morning I stopped by the grocery store and picked up a few items, went home and chopped them up, and then threw them in the crock pot to mix and mingle and create a wonderful dish!  Here is the recipe...

Chicken Tortilla Soup

from Superior Grill

Ingredients:

1/2 gallon water

1 (16 oz) can whole peeled tomatoes

2 (8-10 oz) skinless chicken breasts, uncooked

1 (16 oz) can tomato juice

1 tablespoon black pepper

1 tablespoon cumin

1 tablespoon garlic powder

3 jalapenos, finely chopped

1 1/2 oz chicken base

1 potato, peeled and cubed

1 yellow squash, cubed

1/4 head cabbage, chopped

1/3 cup rice

1 zucchini, cubed

4 ribs celery, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 onion, chopped

Directions:

In a large stockpot, combine water, tomatoes, chicken, tomato juice, spices, jalapenos, and chicken base. Bring to a boil, then add remaining ingredients; lower temperature to let simmer for 10-15 minutes.  After it has simmered, use a potato masher to stir contents until all chicken has broken up and spread throughout the soup.  It is then ready to serve.

I definitely made some changes to the recipe.  For one, I put all the ingredients, minus the chicken, in the crock pot this morning and put it on low.  Once, I woke up this afternoon I put in the chicken and cranked up the pot to high.  I let it cook about 2 more hours and then proceeded with the potato masher step.  Also, instead of 1 16 oz can whole peeled tomatoes, I used a 10 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes and 1 can rotel tomatoes (I probably use rotel tomatoes for everything).  Do NOT mistake chicken base for chicken stock/broth...it's not quite the same thing!  I am glad I looked this up before making this recipe.  Chicken base is powdered stock.  I only put in 3 ribs of celery, because instead of chopping up an onion and making myself cry, I used Season's Blend (another great invention!).  If you don't know what Season's Blend is then you are missing out.  (Not too long ago I didn't know what it was, but my friend Shannon introduced me to this chopped onion, celery, green bell pepper blend in the freezer section...Season's Blend=godsend).  Notice the recipe does not call for salt....it should!  I realized there was not salt in the ingredient list, but I figured it would be salty enough with the can tomatoes and the tomato juice, but I was wrong.  You definitely need to add some salt. (I don't know how much because I added mine to my bowl once it was cooked.) Also, garnishing your bowl of soup with some sliced avocado and crispy tortilla strips would top it off just right!  I hope you like this recipe as much as I did, and I hope you are having a great weekend!

Foods

5.  bread pudding- I always thought it looked disgusting, but once I tried it, I fell in love!

4.  dill pickles- the sour the better! don't even think about giving me one of those bread and butter ones..YUCK!

3.  chicken spaghetti- love it!

2.  red beans and rice- and add a little Tabasco! DELISH!

1.  chips and salsa- I could eat it every day, multiple times a day!

This was actually really hard for me because I love to eat and I am not a picky eater! :)

Cake Pops

Due to my incredible case of insomnia, I am awake at this hour as my husband snoozes away.  There is not much on TV at this time of the morning and no one is updating their facebook fast enough, therefor I decided to go ahead and post about the cake pops. As I mentioned before, my sweet friend Jamiee @ My Happy Life, is having a Princess Tea Party for her daughter's 5th birthday.  She has been planning this party for months now, and I am so excited to see pictures from it! I know it's going to be super cute and include all the details.  She decided to have a sweet treats table and was wanting some cake pops.  After a few hints from her, I finally volunteered to make the cake pops.  I have made quite a few cake balls before but never any cake pops.  The only difference is the fact that the cake pops are on sticks, easy enough I thought!  I made the strawberry cakes (of course everything needs to be pink!) and then crumbled the cakes and mixed pink vanilla icing so that it would be the perfect consistency.  I then formed them in to balls and put them in the freezer for a while so that it would be easier to dip them.  I put a paper stick in each cake ball.  Then I melted pink Wilton Candy Melts and dipped away.  Usually when I use milk chocolate or white chocolate the dipped cake balls end up smooth, but that was not the case with the candy melts.  At first it was bothering me pretty bad, but then I realized there was no way I could fix it.  After the cake balls dried, I decorated away! That was the fun part!! I bought colored sugars and pearl edible beads to help with the decorating.   The only design that didn't quite work out was the one I attempted to draw a crown on...I'm not sure how to describe what it looked like, but it definitely was not a crown!  Here is my picture documentation...and I'm sorry about the quality, I took the pics with my iphone.

{the strawberry cakes}

{crumbled cake}

{they totally look like meatballs and i'm sorry about the ugly pan}

{the not smoothness i told you about}

Ta da! I think they turned out pretty cute, especially for my first time actually decorating them.  I hope they work out for her sweet treats table!  Oh and they do taste pretty good I must say!  Three of them fell apart so of course I had to do a taste test!  Happy Birthday Albree! I hope your 5th birthday party is fabulous!

P.S.  I am very excited about the weekend (in case I haven't mentioned it before), but I always hate leaving my sweet kids behind...

Annabelle aka Baby Girl

Charley aka Big Man

I mean who wants to leave those sweet faces!  They are up keeping me company at this early hour of the morning! Sweet babies!

The next Paula Deen...

Ha! I wish! I sure do love cooking though!  Maybe since I am starting to cook more and experimenting with my cooking, I might be half as good as Paula Deen when I have great grandchildren (yes, I said great grand).  Since the lifestyle change I have been trying to cook more, although they may not be the healthiest meals, they sure are delicious!  Two of the meals I made last week I felt were "bloggable."

One night I decided I wanted to cook something with the okra that we picked up from the farmer's market.  After looking through our collection of cookbooks, I came up with my own idea on how to cook okra and tomatoes.  Then I had to decide what I could cook to go with the okra and tomatoes...I settled on baked chicken.  It turned out pretty darn good! 

The start of the okra and tomatoes...bacon always makes everything taste better!

The yummy okra from the local farmer's market

add in the tomatoes and few other key ingredients

then add the okra and voila...okra and tomatoes!

Dinner is served- baked chicken with okra and tomatoes served over rice! Delish!

The next "bloggable" meal started when I decided to cook some pork chops.  I usually smother pork chops in some sort of gravy, but this time I didn't want to.  So I turned to one of my favorite food blogs, Annie's Eats, and found a recipe for parmesan crusted pork chops.  The recipe was very simple and the chops turned out great!  My next decision was choosing sides...so I went with what we had...sweet corn and asparagus.  I remembered another recipe that I had flagged on Annie's Eats, where you topped asparagus with tomatoes and feta, so I tried it out.  I love tomatoes and feta cheese so I knew I couldn't go wrong!

seasoned pork chops (I took it upon myself to add the seasoning I prefer)

dip chops in parmesan cheese, then egg, then bread crumbs

then drop them in the skillet (P.S. I LOVE cooking in a cast iron skillet!)

asparagus with tomatoes and feta

Another yummy dinner!
(Please excuse the poor picture quality...1 I am not a photographer and 2 they were taken with my iphone.) 

Since the lifestyle change that I previously mentioned, the hubby and I have completed week 1 of Couch to 5K! Woohoo!  We were supposed to start week 2 yesterday, but my crazy sleeping habits/schedule didn't allow me to get out of the bed until after lunch.  We don't like going to the gym after lunch because it's a mad house.  So week 2 of Couch to 5K will start on Wednesday.  

Hope you have a great first week of AUGUST!