Weekly Meal Plan–Week 4

So far so good, two weeks in a row of meal planning!  This week I want to try a few new recipes, I am trying to get myself out of the winter blues.  I also started exercising every day again after almost 6 weeks of very little exercise (other than yoga)…I will break this winter slump!

Here she is -

So the plan is -

Monday morning we are going to make some muffins and get the chicken in the slow cooker (it is skating day).

Tuesday is a simple supper that I am pretty sure the newly picky preschooler and a toddler that lives on a few tablespoons of food a day, it is from Kraft Canada website.

Wednesday is the lazy day, I got some whole grain toaster waffles on sale so we are going to eat those for breakfast and have left overs for supper.

Thursday I have to work (fortunately I work from home) so I can make a nice pot of meat sauce that simmers for most of the afternoon, the best kind.  =)

Friday I am trying a new recipe that sounds interesting…it has bacon so it must be good!  (If it is in fact good I will share the link the next time I have it on my menu plan.)

Saturday is another slow cooker meal.  I’ve made the pulled pork lots before but I have never actually made it into a sandwich, let alone add coleslaw and pickles to it…sounds interesting so I had to try it.

Sunday is pretty straight forward.

I hope that the meal plans help you out just a bit, I know that it helps me keep the sanity in my house!

Meal Plan Thursday–Week 3

Ok, so I have been a bit MIA for meal planning lately.  With the New Year we entered a new phase with our family in which my husband started a new job and we are in the process of selling our house and trying to move to where the new job is.  So I am now planning meals for me and 2 young kids that don’t eat…anything…but sandwiches.  Makes it tough but I have decided that I need to get back on the wagon and make these boys eat real food!

So here it is -

So my battle plan is -

Mondays we have skating at 4, so that means a slow cooker meal is in order for that day.  The lasagna casserole is a favorite of my boys and my oldest asks for it all the time (it will be on my meal plans a lot!)  My green eggs are going to be avocado mashed and added to the eggs right when I take them off the stove, sometimes I use spinach and sometimes my boys eat them.  =)

Tuesday is a simple day for us as we are out and about most of the day and I should have lots of left overs from this weekend.

Wednesday - I make the alfredo sauce using Our Best Bites recipe, super easy and another thing that my oldest is guaranteed to eat.

Thursday is another easy, and guaranteed to eat, supper.  I just brown up some ground beef, add cream of mushroom soup and mushrooms - I have to puree the mushrooms as my oldest will not touch any food that has mushrooms in or on it…its really funny since he usually helps me puree them but still eats the goulash…hasn’t put 2 and 2 together yet. 

On Friday I am making Panini sandwiches…I’ll see if the munchkins will eat that…I don’t have a Panini maker but I just put a heavy pot on the top of the sandwich, basically the same thing.

Supper on Saturday is a Weight Watchers meal from their 5 ingredient cookbook, if you want the recipe just message or comment and I will give it to you.

Happy planning!!

Rae

Weekly Meal Plan–Week 50

Here is the plan for this week, still fairly simple as I am getting everything finished up for Christmas (you know, all the stuff I had full intentions of having done 2 weeks ago!).  I really just have a few finishing touches on things, and I will give a Christmas home tour a bit later this week, just have one area left to decorate. 

Onto the meal plan -

So Monday, Wednesday and Friday are slow cooker nights.  Monday we are having a little playdate with some of the boys friends so we are going to have cookies and hot chocolate for the snack (and make some nice snow flakes for a Christmasy craft). 

Tuesday we are going to make some muffins and then on the weekend we are going to have company and have a kids Santa party.

Happy Monday!  There is only 12 and a half days until Christmas…eeekkkk!

Weekly Plan–Week 48

So I have been a bit MIA this week, it was a busy week of finishing baking and getting ready for an open house for our house this weekend.

So here is the weekly plan, I’ve stepped it back up a bit as I was getting lazy with all the baking I was doing but I am done the baking and onto decorating (YAH!) so I can get my cook-on again.  (I also realized I was a week behind on my count, so skipped to Week 48)

So here is the plan for this week -

Monday – Making super easy tomato soup following Our Best Bites recipe, along with some yummy home-made buns my MIL sent home with us this weekend.  I have some apples to get ate up so I am going to use the slow cooker to make some stuffed ones.

Tuesday – I am trying to get my youngest to eat more vege’s so I am going to try to make this carrot pudding and see if he will eat that.  (Another slow cooker recipe)  And the chicken recipe is another Best Bite recipe – Spicy Honey Chicken.

Wednesday – Is run around day for me.

Thursday/Friday/Saturday – Are all slow cooker meals

Sunday – We got to go to a kids Christmas Party and see Santa.

Tomorrow I get to start to decorate!  I already made one thing for my walls and plan to make another thing tomorrow…I will also be making an advent calendar tonight for my boys, share more later.

Party Idea’s and Table Settings

I decided that I wanted to spend some time looking at pretty table settings and party ideas…there are so many out there that I thought I would share my favorites and just dream of the day that I can host one. 

Some beautiful table settings -

Oh Martha, we can always count on great DIY idea’s from you!

Martha Stewart

I found this one on Pinterest, it was just linked to a blank page and I didn’t see it anywhere else…

This one is from Pier 1, so pretty…

Pier 1

There is so much else out there but I am a bit of a traditionalist…I am a red and green Christmas kind of gal but this year I am branching out a bit and adding silver and gold! 

Some Christmas party ideas that I found were -

• How the Grinch stole Christmas…wouldn’t that be fun!  I wish that there were pictures but there were some games and ideas...I think great with kids as you would have to dress up a bit to make it work.
• White Trash Christmas – would probably be fun but not my kind of party.
• Christmas sweater Party – I’ve heard of these where the person with the worst holiday sweater wins a prize, I think this would be a fun party.
• Christmas in July – where you serve drinks and food to make everyone thing is it July.
• Or just a nice and fancy party – this is the kind of party I would love to one day host, one with just adults and some fancy food and drinks and good company…dress up would be optional but nice as I rarely get to do it.

Don’t forget to make sure you have good music and that your place smells great, if the food you prepared doesn’t overwhelm the house then you could add other nice scents like placing a small pot on the stove with a little water, orange and lemon rind and some cloves and cinnamon and boil it for a bit…so nice.  (I have done this before I have a house showing…makes a nice homey smell.)

And beverages, decide in advance if you have the budget to provide the beverage or, to save a few dollars, choose a theme drink and let everyone know what it is and that anything else wanted by the guest they will have to bring with them.

 

(Isn’t that Santa wine holder awesome!  I want one SSSOOO bad but it is from this fancy store and costs $350 so it isn’t going to happen.)

Some party tips -

• Do shopping for non perishables a few days ahead. Buy all fresh ingredients the day before the party.
• Make ahead any dishes the recipes allows for 1-2 days ahead, or even further ahead if you can freeze it!
• Do as much prep work the day/night before to limit the amount of work the day of the party.  
• Clean the house a few days before the party so all you have to do the day of the party is light clean up.
• During the party, have an area for the dirty dishes to go, have a couple of boxes (or recycle bins) – one for glassware and the other for dishes.  This keeps them out of the way until you can deal with the dirty dishes.  
• I love this last tip…this is what I do when unexpected visitors come or I have a house showing - Put pots and pans back in the cold oven and in the morning move everything to the dishwasher or hand wash.

Some Dinner menus ideas that can basically be made ahead of time and reheated before the party are (beside the main dish which generally needs to be cooked the day of the party) -

• Appetizers – find ones that can be made the day before
  • A cream cheese spread (like surprise spread or chipotle-apricot spread) can be made the afternoon/evening before and just refridgerated until you bring it out for an appetizer.
  • Cheese, meat and vege tray are also great for appetizers and you can prepare ahead or easily purchase them to pick up the day of the party
  • Some mixed nuts are a Christmas favorite too
• Salads – prepare everything the day before but don’t mix it together until right before serving them
  • Citrus salad with red onion and bacon is always a favorite for people I know
  • Spring salad for those non-adventurous people
• Sides – These item generally needs to be cooked the day of the party but you can do all the pre-work the day before
  • cooked vegetable like balsalmic glazed carrots or green bean casserole
  • some sort of potato, like mashed or scalloped
  • fancy rice, but that usually takes a lot of time to prepare
• Main Dish – Generally the meat dish (check if you invited any vegetarians!)
  • Around Christmas this tends to be a turkey, ham or roast.  Not too much work into these and needs to be cooked the day of the party.
• Dessert – my favorite this time of year…so many awesome ones to pick that I tend to make 2 or 3…definitely too much but I don’t care, I want them AAAALLLLL!!!
  • I always make a cheese cake (baked cheese cake is super easy even though it took me years to even try them as they seem so hard), this year I want to make a White Chocolate Candy Cane Cheesecake.  Another cute thing to do is bake a normal cheese cake (would work with a no-bake one as well) and mark out your squares and decorate each one differently with a Christmasy theme, just use gel icing tubes.
  • Make a cake, any kind, and you can use chocolate to make things like Christmas trees or snow flakes and use them to decorate the cake.
  • Put out your holiday cookies, squares and chocolate

(Doesn’t this look fantastic!  Found it on Pinterest but here is the site with more details)

Mmmmm, now I want to throw a party!  Last year we did a pot-luck party and it was a lot of fun…we will have to do it again this year unless someone else wants to host it this year!    One day I WILL host a nice and fancy party!

Next I will share some of my families favorite cookies and some little tricks I have picked up over the last few years…so until next post, happy planning and baking!

Meal Plan–Week 45

Another super easy week as I have to work 2 days and I plan to be starting my baking for Christmas as well.

Munchin #1 and I are going to make some pumpkin muffins (some left over pumpkin to deal with) and then I am going to be baking cookies and squares so that will take care of any other junkie snacks for the rest of the month!  So I’ll be baking lots but I’ll share that plan with you next Monday.

Enjoy your long weekend!

Meal Plan–Week 44

Hi All, how is the planning and organizing going for the first week of Christmas chaos?!?  I have my Christmas card list all ready and I am half way through figuring out all the Christmas gifts.  I just have a supply shopping list to get done up and finalize the list before my big shopping trip next week.  More on the gifts and shopping on Monday’s post though.

Here is my weekly meal plan for next week.  I tried to keep it really simple with a bit more packaged food as my hubby is going to be home with the boys for 3 days and 2 nights by himself…so simple is better when you aren’t used to that (but watch, the boys will be perfectly behaved and they will have a blast…then they will be demon’s when I get back!  haha)

So I am making lots of easy leftover stuff the beginning of the week and we will make cookies and muffins for snacks during the week.  Pretty simple!

Thursday’s Meal Plan

It’s that time again, planning for my meals next week as easy as possible as I have to do some work for my other job so I am going to be busy…so simple meals this week.

I already have cookies and banana blueberry muffins so no baking needed.  Nice and Easy.

Come check out Monday to see the first week of Christmas Organizing!

Thursday’s Meal Plan

 

Ok, here is the switch, I will now be doing the meal plans on Thursday so that I can plan ahead of time! 

Another easier week with only making muffins again.  This is a recipe that I have made and is good and fairly healthy, I will share it with you later this week.

Meal Plan Monday

I am thinking about changing this up a bit and making the meal plan on Thursdays…I think that it will help if I can go shopping on the weekend without the munchkins.  It will work for the winter as we seem to keep close to home on the weekends but I’ll probably have to adjust it again for the summer.

So the plan this week is pretty simple, I had kids with colds last week and now it seems that I have their cold so I have no desire to do anything too fancy this week.

The only thing that I am making this week is the muffins. 

Meal Plan Monday

 

So today is meal plan Monday but I am not really doing a meal plan this week as my husband is out of town for the week and my freezers are in dire need to being cleaned out.  So this week is “Clean out the Freezer” week.  I figured it was a good time to do it since my toddler and preschooler don’t really appreciate it when I make an effort to cook and usually end up eating a few bites then asking for a sandwich.  “sigh”

My plan of attack this week is looking in the freezers each morning and pulling something out…quite simple. 

But don’t worry, I won’t leave the post just at this.  My family had an early Thanksgiving Dinner last weekend so Saturday I made a nice home cooked meal with the left-over turkey…Home-made Turkey soup, cheddar biscuits and apple pie.  I got the 2 recipes from my favourite food site – Our Best Bites…it is a fantastic food blog, it makes me laugh and I haven’t had a recipe fail on me yet. 

I did do the biscuits a bit different, I used a pastry blender instead of a mixer (I didn’t want the extra dishes) and they turned out perfectly.  I also used cheater pie crust but I made it cute with a little maple leaf cut out. 

And home-made turkey soup is actually REALLY easy, the longest thing is cutting the onion, celery and carrots.  Honestly, you put the turkey carcass in a big pot and cover with water.  Toss in a quartered onion, the tops of some celery (the leafy part), some chunks of carrot and throw in whatever fresh herbs you have (or some dried parsley, thyme, and whatever else you feel like).  Let it simmer for a few hours then run it through a strainer…now you have your turkey stock.  Now just add new chopped onion, celery and carrots (and whatever other vege’s you feel like) and cook them until the vege’s are soft.  Then add the shredded turkey and some egg noodles and cook until the noodles are tender.  DONE

It is seriously that easy and you get to have a kitchen the smells delicious all day long for minimal work.

Have a great week!

Meal Plan Monday - Week 39 (leading up to Thanksgiving)

Hi All, so here is week 39.  Pretty simple this week, just a bit of baking and a few ideas for you to search on-line for some pumpkin and apple recipes.

Today is my husband's birthday, so the boys and I are going to bake a small cake and decorate it for him.  And I will make lots of extra un flavored chicken to use the rest of the week...makes suppers super fast escpecially since that is grumpy toddler time for me and it is tough to cook with 2 kids hanging off me.  :)

Tuesday morning marinate the flank steak (which tastes really good and is pretty cheap but you have to make sure you cut it the right way or it can be tough to chew) and bake the pumpkin apple muffins.

Wednesday I decided to do a fun baking thing with the kids and make Apple Pops, which are oreo's decorated to look like apples (but I am sure ours will just look like a mess!)...maybe I will post about the apple pops later this week.

Thursday morning we are going to make pumpkin pancakes as there will be left over pumpkin from the muffins to use up.

Friday I will make pizza dough in the bread maker and the boys and I will make some pumpkin bars (I wills till have pumpkin left over as I bought a BIG can).

Saturday will be get things done around the house day so I planned on left overs and a crock pot meal.

Sunday we will be celebrating Thanksgiving at my Mother-in-Law's.

Have a great Week!

Meal Plan Monday

Here is week 38 for meal plan Monday -

Plan is pretty simple this week (well, simple if you like to bake, hehe), here is how I plan to achieve it -

Monday supper I plan to throw a few extra potatoes in the oven with the chicken for the double baked potatoes Wednesday.  I also plan to make the PB&J cookies with my kids that afternoon.

Tuesday morning marinate the salmon for supper and I plan to make some delicious cupcakes that I have been wanting to make for awhile (I am going to be playing cupcake fairy this week).  ;-)

Wednesday morning marinate the pork chops, bake the muffins and start the soup.

Thursday afternoon make the jello with my oldest (while the youngest sleeps).

Enjoy!

Meal Plan Monday - Week 36

Below is the first weekly plan I have done up (Yes, it says 35 but is supposed to be 36...oops!).  Generally the food is very child friendly and there is opportunity to make extra's one day to have on another day to cut down the cooking you do.  It may be easier to use this plan for next week so you can do your shopping on the weekend but however you use it is up to you.



So my general plan is to -

Sunday - boil a dozen eggs (about 2 1/2 minutes for a nicely boiled egg), and make jello
Monday - Marinate the chicken in the morning, making extra for soup Tuesday, & pizza
                Wednesday.
                Make some popsicles (or freeze yogurt tubes for a quick and healthy snack).
Tuesday - Make oatmeal cookies, great to do with kids (I will share this recipe with you this
                week)
                Make extra potatoes for the double baked ones Friday, throw in the oven with the
                meatballs.
Wednesday - Save some pizza dough to make pizza twists for a snack the next day.
Thursday - Marinate flank steak in morning
Friday - Marinate pork chops in the morning.  Make more cookies or have oatmeal cookies.
Saturday - The Wee Granola is from the Weelicious website and I alter it to have hardly any
                nuts in it as my husband is allergic to most.  This can be made anytime and
               stored for a couple of weeks in a air tight container.
Sunday - I plan to make extra Yams to use for making muffins to freeze for future breakfasts.

Also in the plan this week is to make extra pizza dough to make pizza balls to freeze for quick snacks and lunches.  I am just building up my freeze stores so this first few weeks will have lots of baking and freezing but then it should only be an item a week after a bit of building up.