The best laid plans.....

I really did have EVERY intention of blogging almost every day for recipes etc....but of course life got in the way!

This weekend I didn't do much cooking.  We had a birthday party on Saturday so we had a late breakfast/early lunch of scrambled egg sandwiches and fruit.  Then we made black bean and corn salad to take to the party.  This is always a big hit at pot lucks and recipe is similar to the one we use at Bird City for the Sunday lunch salad.

Black Bean and Corn Salad
2 cans of black beans (rinsed and drained)
1 can of corn (rinsed and drained)
1 can of green chilies (rinsed and drained)
1 bunch of cilantro chopped
1 small onion chopped fine
1 packet of salsa ranch powdered dressing
juice of 1 lime
Mix it all together, let sit for at least 1 hour (overnight is better) and serve with chips.

Saturday supper was just leftovers from the pork tacos.

Sunday was a busy day as mom didn't work enough on Saturday so we had meeting and then came home for lunch and mom worked all afternoon except for a small break to run to a holiday open house and pick up some Scentsy bars!  Sunday lunch was just ham, green beans and baked potatoes.  We made a lot of extra baked potatoes and will use them for something later in the week.

Monday we had grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and for supper we used the rest of the leftover pork and made barbecue sandwiches again with baked beans and coleslaw, which is apparently Keenan's favorite meal...or so he said.  He says that a lot though!

Tuesday was scrambled eggs for breakfast.  Lunch was chicken salad sandwiches in pita bread for lunch with apples and spinach salad.  At dinner time dad offered to pick up Little Cesar's Pizza while mom ran some errands and used some Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons!  They only get that pizza when I am going to be out of the house because it is SOOOOOO bad for you (and in my opinion gross too!)

Wednesday I fried up some of the leftover ham for breakfast and made fried eggs to go with it.  While that was cooking I browned a pound of hamburger with some onions and taco seasoning.  I also pulled out some frozen turkey that was leftover a while back and chopped that up for soup.  The kids washed and peeled carrots and cleaned and diced celery.  Then I put together a casserole using the rest of the leftover rice and beans from the pork tacos and a soup for supper.  All in all I spent about 45 minutes in the kitchen and that included cleaning up.  In that time I had breakfast, lunch and supper all made!

Mexican Casserole
Leftover cilantro brown rice from the pork tacos (about 2 cups)
Leftover bean and corn mixture from the pork tacos (about 2 cups)
2/3 cup medium salsa
1 pound ground beef (browned and rinsed to get rid of grease)
1 small onion (browned with beef)
1/2 packet of taco seasoning
1 cup enchilada sauce
1/2 cup grated cheese
Brown hamburger with onion and taco seasoning and rinse in a colander to get rid of grease.  Drain well.  Layer rice, beans and salsa in the bottom of a square casserole dish.  Put beef on top, pour enchilada sauce over it and top with grated cheese.  Cover with tinfoil and put in the fridge until ready to cook.  This would probably freeze well too.  I cooked it at 350 for 30 minute and it was warm clear through.  Serve with green salad with the rest of the cilantro lime ranch from the pork tacos and a tortilla shell.  The kids wrapped their casserole in their tortilla and said it was good!  We had enough for all 4 of us and probably 1 serving left over.  Sorry I didn't think to take a picture of this.

Turkey Noodle Soup
8 cups of chicken broth (I use the base from Costco)
2 cups of diced turkey breast
6 large carrots diced in 1 inch pieces
1 bunch of celery diced in 1 inch pieces
1 large onion
1T dill weed
Mix and cook on low in crock pot all day long.  About 1 hour before serving mix in 1/2 package of old fashioned egg noodles.  You can make them homemade but I used the German ones from Wal-Mart.  Quick and easy and taste almost as good as homemade! 

Keenan has had a really hectic week of school as he is trying to finish up all of his semester tests.  He has only got history and grammar left.  The little turkey got a 97% on his vocabulary (Latin/Greek foundational vocabulary, level 7) and a 100% on literature.  He must take after his mom in that way!  He has 3 more lessons in Spanish before the big test in there to finish level one.  Today he will do the history and grammar tests and tomorrow will do his mid year assessments in math.  His program has a semester test at the 50% point in the different classes but they are not scheduled to start until January 23 so he is a bit more than a month ahead of where he needs to be.

Conner is working hard on Earth Science and Geography so he can get his finals done in there.  His program works on the block system so he has 2 blocks at a time and each block is a year's worth of the class.  He has 2 months to complete 2 blocks but with science and geography it looks like he will be done in about 5 weeks with both.  Then he has health and Spanish next.  I am really impressed with his program and he is really doing well with it on the days he applies himself....however, like every teenager, there are days where he just doesn't! 

Using more Pork!

I have to start this post off right away with an apology to my Sister-in-law Kelley. She makes these Pork Tacos the REAL way and they are amazing. I can't follow a recipe to save my life....if I could even find the recipe she gave me! So, this is just my version, the best I can remember from her amazing recipe and my own substitutions for things I couldn't remember!

Breakfast was fresh tortillas filled with scrambled eggs and Pico de Gallo. So delicious! I love that sauce, could put it on everything I eat I think!

Lunch was Taco Bell compliments of dad because I had a massage!

Dinner was Pork Tacos. This is probably one of the most time consuming meals I have made in a long time but it was well worth it and actually wasn't even that bad! It is only for the cilantro lover though! If you don't like cilantro you will be miserable eating this meal!  I probably spent a total of 1 hour in the kitchen over this one.

The first part of this recipe that I put together was the sauce so the flavors could really blend well.

Cilantro Lime Jalapeno Ranch Dressing!
1 cup of buttermilk
1 cup of cilantro washed
1/2 jalapeno pepper
Juice of 1 lime
I used the magic bullet to blend this but a stick blender would work too
Add puree to:
1 cup of light mayonnaise
1 cup of light sour cream
3T ranch dressing powdered mix
Blend well

Cilantro Lime Rice with Jalapeno Peppers
2 cups of brown or white rice
1/2 cup of chopped cilantro
Juice of 1 lime
1 small pepper diced fine
4 cups of water
Prepare according to package directions.  I added the lime and cilantro before cooking so they cooked with it but next time I will add them at the very end I think.

Pico De Gallo
I made this the night before and all it has in it is finely chopped onions, Roma tomatoes, lime juice, cilantro, jalapenos and a bit of kosher salt.

Beans and Corn
1 can of black beans
1 can of corn
Rinse and drain
1/2 small sweet onion diced
1/2 cup of cilantro
Juice of one lime
Warm over low to medium heat

Pork
All I did was take about 2 cups of pork, squeeze 1 lime over it and heat until it was a little bit browned.  I think there is really supposed to be more stuff on it for flavor but this was good.


Assembly:
One Taco shell
Layer meat, shredded cheese, rice, beans/corn, pico, avocado (or guacamole if you feel really ambitious), lettuce and sauce.  ENJOY!

And again, my apologies to the REAL recipe, but this version was good too!

German inspired deliciousness!

Around here Thursday means a top speed day always! (Notice I didn't say busy, trying to avoid that word! We are blessed to have lots of things we can do!) We have a heavy load of classes for both boys and Conner has piano lessons Thursday afternoon and my Thursdays have a heavy work load.

Thursday morning Conner made breakfast because I was working and hadn't broken away to make it yet! Good kid! He made scrambled eggs and bacon and heated up English muffins.

 

 

Thursday lunch was grilled cheese sandwiches, baked Lays chips and Apples.  Simple and light but the boys don't mind that lunch once in a while.  I add some turkey or ham to the sandwiches before gilling them. 

When we left for piano lessons Keenan got the potatoes ready for mashed potatoes and rinsed and drained the sauerkraut. He did a great job and got the potatoes cooked without even boiling them over! He is doing better than his mom since I learned from my mom that in order to make good mashed potatoes you MUST turn them on high and walk away until you hear them boiling over and then you have to run into the kitchen saying "Oh, Oh, Oh!!!" and grab them off the burner until they stop boiling over and then turn them down to low! :) Tradition is what it is!

To put dinner together all I did was mash the potatoes with some chicken broth as the liquid. Then we make pork and kraut with gravy. This is another use of the leftover pork shoulder.

Pork and Kraut over Potatoes

2 cups of cooked leftover pork shoulder

3 cups of sauerkraut from a can, rinsed and drained

1tsp Greek seasoning or seasoning of your choice

Cook over medium heat until the moisture is gone and the Sauerkraut starts to brown a bit. Serve over mashed potatoes and top with simple chicken gravy. (My gravy was just chicken broth with a bit of cornstarch added to thicken it).

There was enough left over for at least one person to have that for a leftover meal later, so there was just about enough for 5 people here.

One other thing that I did Thursday night was make the Pico sauce for Friday. We all love Pico but it is one of the most time intensive food products that I make. So I chopped the tomatoes, jalapenos, cilantro and onion and added kosher salt to it all and put it in the fridge so it would be ready to use for breakfast Friday. I don't really have a recipe for this and how hot it is just depends on how much membrane you leave in the your peppers and how hot they were to begin with!

Wednesday

This always seems like a hectic day for us! We seem to rush all day and then supper time sneaks up on us before we know it and we have to be out the door to meeting by 6:40. Because of this tendency I always have leftovers for supper on Wednesday. In the past though, we have been scrounging around trying to find some leftovers for supper but today we had enough for 2 different meals of leftovers.

For breakfast I made scrambled eggs and biscuits. The biscuits take a bit of time but not too bad. I am not a biscuit recipe kind of person so I just dump and mix and sometimes they are great, other times not so much! I always make a bigger batch that I need and then cut them all out but only bake enough for the one meal. The rest go on a sheet in the freezer until they are hard and then into a bag so we can pull out frozen biscuits, pop them on a baking sheet and have hot biscuits that are much better than the canned kind!

For a quick lunch I microwaved a couple chicken sausages from the freezer (we get them at Costco) and the boys had those with the leftover baked beans (which were still not a favorite)! Conner told me he likes the kind grandma makes better...you know, open a can of generic pork and beans and add ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar? Yeah, that is what we will do in the future for Baked beans I guess! Mom and dad had the leftover orange pork and sweet potatoes from Saturday with a green salad.

For supper it was leftover soup. We still had beef stew and the Chicken Taco soup. After supper I put the rest of the leftover soup in smaller containers for the freezer since we have had each of them for a couple different meals and I don't want people getting sick of them. We can pull those out for lunches as time goes on.

Total time spent in the kitchen on Wednesday - about 40 minutes the whole day. The kids do most of the dishes and have for quite some time but yesterday we were getting snowed under so mom took a turn cleaning up the kitchen for a while.

It was much warmer here yesterday and I did get outside for a run but it was still pretty cold! It is always so beautiful though when there is snow on the mountain and snow on the foothills! I love living so close to such beauty.

Tuesday - pork shoulder roast

Some humor to start the day! :) I love this picture....because it is so true!

So.....Tuesday was pulled pork day. Breakfast was very simple, just fried eggs, bacon and cinnamon toast. I threw the pork shoulder roast in the crock pot while I was making breakfast and sprinkled it with some Herbs De Provence and poured a Pepsi over the top. Turned the crock pot down to low and cooked for about 6 hours. In the early afternoon I rounded up the kids and we pulled the pork. Each of us used 2 forks to kind of slide the fat off the outside and then pull the pork apart. That took about 15 minutes with all of us working together...if I had done it alone it might have gone more quickly than that and there surely would have been less cleanup! After all the fat was removed the 5 pound roast yielded about 3.4 pounds of meat for the next few meals!

Lunch was leftover Beef Stew from Saturday and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Actually putting the meal together took about 20 minutes, including everything!


Recipes for dinner:

Barbecue Pork Sandwiches
2 cups of pulled pork
1/2 cup barbecue sauce
Heat together and put on sandwich buns.

Fake Baked Beans
3 15-ounce cans of pinto beans
1/2 cup ketchup
1/3 cup molasses
3T apple cider vinegar
2T spicy brown mustard
splash of Tabasco sauce
fresh ground black pepper
1t liquid smoke
dehydrated onion flakes
Put beans and their liquid in a pot and mix everything else in. Simmer for about 30 minutes or so until thickened.

Disclaimer - This recipe came from "The Wednesday Chef" and I tweaked it a bit for our tastes. We didn't LOVE this one. There was enough for dinner and enough left over for the kids to warm them up and have a Chicken Sausage from the freezer with it for lunch today.

Cole Slaw
Cabbage/dressing. That one is pretty much a "how your family likes it" thing...All I do is use the Marzetti low fat Slaw dressing on cabbage.

Blueberry Honey Greek Yogurt
1 cup Greek yogurt
Drizzle with honey, sprinkle with blueberries (I used frozen) and about a T of sliced toasted almonds.



There is enough of this pork left over to make at least 3 more meals!

Monday - It was a soup kind of day!

Breakfast was leftover breakfast enchiladas from Sunday, and they do rewarm quite nicely.

Lunch was a quick chicken salad, which is a favorite with my kids. It takes a bit of chopping but it is very yummy and healthy!

Chicken Salad

2 cans of chicken breast drained and broken up

2 green onions sliced thin

1/2 red bell pepper diced fine

1/4 cup craisins

1/2 apple diced

1 stalk of celery diced

about 10 snow peas sliced

2T-3T light mayo

Mix it all together and serve in a pita pocket half with a sliced apple and some taro chips for a healthy lunch that doesn't make the kids fall asleep in the afternoon!

Keenan was mostly done with his school stuff in the morning and spent the afternoon cleaning off porches and walks for the older ladies in our neighborhood. He came in very red cheeked and cold but he enjoyed it and got to count it for PE!

While I was chopping things for lunch I put the boys to work opening cans since supper was an easy crock pot soup. I did find out one really great trick! Put the broth and all the fixings in the crock pot and throw in 2 frozen chicken breasts for the meat. After 3-4 hours pull the chicken out and shred it and it is done!

Taco Soup

2 frozen chicken breasts

1 large can of diced tomatoes (I think it was 24 ounces) with juice

2 of those cans full of water

1 generous scoop of chicken bullion (I use the paste)

1 can of Black beans

1 can of garbanozo beans

1 can of kidney or white beans

1 can of pinto beans

1 can of corn

1 pack of taco seasoning

1 pack of ranch dressing mix

1 can of diced green chilis (6oz)

1 small onion diced

Rinse and drain the beans and corn. Throw everything else in the crock pot on high until there is condensation on the lid, then turn to low and cook for 5-6 hours. After 4 hours shred up the chicken with a couple forks and throw back in.

We served this with these tortillas that are uncooked and you cook them 30 seconds on each side on a skillet. They are from Costco.

The best thing about this meal is that there was easily enough left for one more meal for our family of 4! My kids are also learning how to eat leftovers!

An easy breakfast

Sunday was Castle Rock Special Meeting and I wanted to do an easy breakfast since I would be fixing lunches etc. and trying to get out the door. I put together a caserole the night before that turned out to be pretty good but was one of those "sort of" disasters. It took much longer to cook than the recipe indicated so we were waiting on our breakfast, but I believe I will make it again on a work morning since breakfast is the hardest part of those days.

Breakfast enchiladas
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
¼ pound chopped ham
1/3 green chilis from a can
1/3 cup chopped onions
8 small tortillas (corn or flour)
4 eggs
1 cup milk
¼ cup salsa
1 T flour
Ripe olives sliced
Combine cheese, ham, onions and peppers. Place cheese mixture into open tortillas and roll up. Place seam side down in 11x7 baking dish. Beat eggs, milk, salsa anf flour together and pour over tortillas. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until firm (It took over an hour for ours). Eggs will be inside of the tortillas!

These were really delicious and there was enough for 2 breakfasts for our family of 4. I made it a bit more healthy using low fat cheese and whole grain tortillas but it was quite good.

I am sorry that I don't have any pictures of this meal.

Saturday...some delicious food! :)

I have a bit more time to spend in the kitchen on Saturday so I thought we would go a little more elaborate, except that it didn't take very long at all!

I had gotten out some pork chops for lunch but wasn't sure what I was going to do with them but then came across a delicious sounding recipe for orange pork chops. Dinner is going to be Crock Pot Beef Stew.

I got the boys in the kitchen and they started peeling potatoes and carrots for stew while I started cutting things up. Then Keenan Zested the orange while Conner made Corn Casserole for lunch and it all fell into place, including the kids loading and unloading the dishwasher, in about 45 minutes!


Recipes for Lunch

Baked Sweet Potatoes
Wash and cut spots from sweet potatoes and wrap in foil
Throw in the oven and bake at 350 for an hour.
We like to serve them with a little bit of Moooove Over Butter (a light whipped buttermilk spread) With about 1T of brown sugar and a lot of cinnamon mixed in 1/2 cup of the spread.



Corn Casserole
1 can of creamed corn
1 can of whole kernel corn drained
1 package of cornbread mix
1/2 cup of light sour cream
2 eggs
Mix it all together and bake covered at 350 for 1 hour

Seasoned Green Beans
2 cans of green beans
2T dehydrated onions
1/2 tsp pepper
1 slice raw bacon sliced over the top
Simmer on low for 1 hour

Honey Orange Pork Chops
1/3 tsp zested orange peel
1 cup orange juice
1T soy sauce
1 1/2 T honey
1/8t pepper
2 cloves of garlic
4 thick pork chops
Remove as much fat as possible from the pork chops. Mix marinate together and pour over pork chops in baking dish, bake covered at 350 for about 20 minutes, turn over and baste with pan juice. Bake covered another 20 minutes or until internal temp is 165. Then pour pan drippings into sauce pan and add 1T cornstarch to make sauce to pour over chops.

While we were working on all that I was throwing the stuff in the crock pot for Crock Pot Beef Stew for dinner. There should be plenty of leftover Corn Bread Casserole to go with that and hopefully a lot of left over stew for lunches this week!


Crock Pot Beef Stew
2 medium onions, chopped
5 stalks of celery, diced in 1/2 inch slices
6 carrots peeled and diced in 1/2 inch slices
1 red pepper diced in 1 inch pieces
5 med size white potatoes peeled and diced in 1 inch pieces
1 1/2-2 pounds of steak with fat trimmed and chopped in 1 inch pieces. (Use the cheapest steak you can buy!)
1 envelope onion soup mix
1/2 cup dry white wine (cooking sherry)
1 can tomato sauce
3 cups beef broth
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp bay leaves
1/2 tsp rosemary
Turn Crock Pot to high. Throw in all ingredients and cover. As soon as there is condensation on the lid, stir and reduce heat to low and cook 7-8 hours. 1/2 hour before eating add 16 ounces of frozen green beans that have been thawing on the counter. Serve with corn bread or biscuits.

I think I can get this cooking thing figured out to where I am only in the kitchen really once a day except to tie things together! I have been researching a lot of recipes and have decided that if my kids are going to eat here they are going to help with meals!

Thursday's lunch was leftover potato soup for the kids and the last baked potato with a can of chili over the top for Dad. I got to go out for a "girls lunch" with some of my friends and have to admit that my lunch was a very small salad and a very large slice of gingerbread cake with eggnog sauce on top!

For Dinner Thursday night I left Keenan with instructions for getting the chicken in the oven when we left for piano lessons. All he had to do was take it out of the package and dump the half bottle of balsamic vinaigrette on it and put it in the oven at 300 for a couple hours. Then he peeled 5 carrots and washed 5 stalks of celery so when I got home I could make steamed veggies. Added a package of Pasta-Roni and there was dinner.

Recipes for Thursday Dinner -
Chicken
5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 bottle of Newman's Own Light Balsamic Vinegrette salad dressing
Bake at 300 for 2 hours

Veggies
5 carrots
5 stalks of celery
1 medium onion
1/4 head of cabbage sliced
1 head of broccoli
All veggies are sliced on the diagonal into about 1/2 inch thick slices.
1 cup chicken broth
Greek seasoning
Saute onions for a few minutes on medium in some Pam. Then layer the rest of the veggies in a large flat skillet or wok. Pour chicken broth over the top, sprinkle with seasoning and cover tightly with lid. Turn to high and steam for 3-5 minute until veggies are just warm through


We had enough chicken left over so lunch the next day was chopped up chicken and cheese and onions in tortillas, either rolled up or quesidilla style, whichever they wanted. I didn't want the fat of all that cheese so I simply had a repeat of the night before.

With about 1/2 of one chicken breast left - breakfast will be coming from that.

Dinner Friday night was just Taco Bell as mom was tired and had work to do and dad offered to buy! :)

Our life....when I have time to update! :)

Lately my biggest challenge has been how to create enough hours in the day to get everything done. The one thing that seems to suffer and frustrate me the most is creating meals for everyone 3 times a day and still have time to get to the kids schooling, my work etc.

I have been working to try to create meals that have components that can be used for the next meal. One thing there is never a shortage of in our freezer is a variety of soups and chili that have been left over previously.

So....here was my first attempt at that idea, trying to spend less time in the kitchen but still have healthy meals. -

Yesterday before my run I threw 10 medium sized potatoes in the oven and made baked potatoes.

Lunch recipes:
Loaded baked potato
1 Baked potato
Cover with leftover chili or canned chili
Top with shredded cheese and diced green onions.

Baked potato soup
3 baked potatoes diced
1/2 onion diced
1 head of broccoli plus the stem (peel it to get to the tender part) diced up
6 ounces diced ham
4 cups chicken broth
Dill weed
Boil together until broccoli is tender
Add 1 cup of milk
2 ounces of velveeta cheese
Top with 1 slice of crispy bacon.

Serve with biscuits - you can make and freeze them before baking, then just pull out of the freezer and pop on a pan and bake them.



There are still 4 potatoes left so breakfast this morning is going to involve dicing a potato up and tossing it with an onion and frying it in Pam, then we will mix eggs in and scramble it all.

3 meals without too much effort, all from tossing potatoes in the oven.

In other news: School is going well this fall.

Conner is a 9th grader and using a program that uses NovaNet and has concurrent enrollment for college credit (he starts those classes next fall). He has finished Algebra I, English 9, American History I and is currently working on Geography and Earth Science. They work in modules and have to finish an entire years worth of work and take the semester test in about a month. So far he really likes this way of doing things and is doing very well. His final semester test grade for Algebra was a 92, which just blows me away considering how hard that class was for his mom!

Conner and his dad had a project this fall with an older laptop computer that the charging port quit working on. Conner found out that YouTube can teach you how to do anything and he was able to get the computer completely deconstructed and then put back together and it all worked! Sadly, the charging port was not the final problem and there was a short on the mother board so that computer is now in the graveyard! The project was surely educational though!

Keenan is in 7th grade this year and is flying through his curriculum. He loves science and is doing VERY well with that. He recently got to dissect a clam and find all the important parts of that. He has almost finished all the literature component for the year because he loves to read so much. His challenge project for this year is to write children's books explaining math concepts. He has finished one and is starting on the 2nd.

Have a wonderful Thursday everyone!