Menu Planning Monday-12/21/09

With Christmas being this week, meals are going to be light and easy to cook. I've still got a TON of Christmas baking to do (yay! More recipes to come!) and Christmas being on Friday (which means a big meal for us) I'm not looking forward to doing much else this week.

So...here we go...

Monday-

Cheeseburgers, mac and cheese, green beans

Tuesday-

bean soup, cornbread

Wednesday-

Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn

Thursday-

BBQ Pork Ribs (w/homemade bbq sauce), not sure on sides yet..lol


Friday-

Christmas Dinner! We missed Thankgiving dinner so we're using it for Christmas!

Turkey
Bread Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole
Dinner Rolls (homemade)
Candied Yams
Mac and cheese (homemade)
Corn Pudding
Lemon Meringue Pie
Peanut Butter Meringue Pie
other goodies that Mom is baking...lol

Do you menu plan? Join us at Menu Planning Monday!

Chicken Fried Rice

Okay, I'm late in posting this..lol. Sorry! Monday was a rather bad day for us. I would ask that you all keep us in your prayers please. We're going thru something right now that only God can help us fix.


Now! Onto the regular posting!

Today's decluttering went quite well. In the bathroom I cleaned out the medicine cabinent getting rid of all expired meds and compressing double bottles into one etc. Also cleaned out my drawer of junk..lol. Got a half of a 13 gallon trash bag out of the bathroom.

Onto the Master bedroom...it was scary. I literally mean it scared me. :D Anyhow, I got all laundry that was sitting around put away nice and neat, got the bed moved and the dresser moved and the entire thing spic and span. Took out 2 bags of old clothes or ones that no longer fit DH or myself.

Onto Mmmm-Monday!

Today's Mmmm moment is homemade Chicken Fried Rice! YUMMY!

• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 3 cups cold cooked white rice
• 2 cups chopped cooked chicken
• 1/2 cup sliced celery
• 1/2 cup shredded carrot
• 1 cup frozen green pea, thawed
• 2 green onions, sliced
• 1-3 tablespoon soy sauce

  Directions:

1. To cook chicken-wrap tightly in foil (making sure to seal the ends -- you want it completely wrapped) and bake on a baking sheet @ 350 for 35-40 min or until no longer pink. No seasonings needed. The foil keeps the juices in with the meat resulting in a VERY moist piece of chicken.

2. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat

3. Pour in the eggs; cook and stir until scrambled and firm. Remove from wok, and set aside.

4. Put remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in the wok and turn heat up to high.

5. Stir in rice until each grain is coated with oil.Stir in chicken, celery, carrot, peas and green onions.

6. Reduce heat to medium, cover and allow to steam for 5 minutes.Stir in scrambled eggs and soy sauce, and cook until eggs are heated through.

7. **NOTE: The rice used in this HAS to be cold. I fix mine in the morning and then leave it in the fridge until dinner time.

Enjoy! Tomorrow is Timeless Tuesday! I love all things vintage so on Tuesday's we're gonna explore that love! Hope to see ya'll!

Menu Planning Monday 7/10-7/17

Here is this week's menu plan. No dates for all except for the Chicken Fried rice. That will be on Friday when my stepdaughter comes to dinner.


Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Amish Casserole

Chicken Fried Rice

Pizza Pasta Bake

taco pinwheels

Fettuccine Alfredo

bbq ribs

Need help planning menus? Check out menu planning Monday at orgjunkie!

Recipe-Homemade Calzones

Oh these were so yummy! I didn't get a chance to get a pic of them b/c they got snatched up so quickly!

Please make sure that you read the recipe notes at the end.

1 pkg dry yeast

1c warm water

1t sugar

2T oil

2 1/2 c flour

mozerella cheese

pizza sauce

pepperoni

mushrooms

whatever other pizza toppings you would like to add

For Crust:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Stir in the other ingredients until well mixed. Let stand 5 min.

Roll dough out into rectangles and move to lightly greased cookie sheet or pizza pan.

For assembly.

Spread pizza sauce ON HALF of rectangle. Layer your choice of pizza toppings and finish with adding a good sized handful of mozzerella cheese onto toppings. Fold remaining half of dough over to cover toppings and pinch dough seams together all the way around calzone to create a seal.

Bake at 425 degrees for 25 min or until dough is done.

NOTES: I doubled the dough recipe to make 3 good sized calzones. I also used my bread machine to mix the dough. Please note that this is a VERY sticky dough. Unless you flour or grease your hands, it will stick to you and everything it touches.

In other news, here is what has (or will be today) left my house in continuing with the 365 Day Challenge.

2 bags of donated clothing

4 bags of recycled pop bottles

1 very full recycling tote to center

I hope you are all doing well.

It occured to me today that if I stopped for a few, let's say 5 minutes and cleaned a little bit of my bathroom everytime I was in it, that I would most likely have a very, very clean bathroom. Don't get me wrong...it's not filthy, but it could use a little touch up right now.

It also occurred to me that even if your bathroom is spotless, if the toilet or tub are dirty or dingy, the entire thing looks filthy.

So, I am making it my goal to clean one small thing in there every time I go in there.

Will you join me?

Recipe-Chicken Fried Steak

Chicken Fried Steak w/white Gravy.

So yummy. We had this for dinner tonight. Yummo!

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast (save some cash and buy bone in and cut skin and bone off yourself)

38 saltine crackers (1 sleeve), crushed

1c flour

1 pinch cayanne pepper (optional)

1/2t garlic powder

1/2t baking powder

3/4c milk

2 large eggs

1 1/2c veggie oil

Season chicken breast with pepper. In a bowl, combine flour, garlic powder, baking powder, and saltines. In another bowl, whisk eggs and milk together.

Dredge chicken in the flour mixture then in the egg mixture, then AGAIN in the flour mix. Heat oil to 360 degrees. Fry one side of chicken for 3-5 minutes, flip and fry the other side until golden brown or until done.

Cover tightly with foil until gravy and rest of meal is done.

White gravy

2T drippings from chicken

1/4c all purpose flour

3c whole milk (2% works fine)

salt and pepper to taste

Add flour to drippings and cook until light brown and smooth. Slowly whisk in milk and cook until thickened. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over chicken fried steaks.

Chicken Noodle Soup! Wow!

So I made the chicken noodle soup last night..WOW!

Here's the recipe, gotta try it out!

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 3 carrots, chopped or sliced
  
• 3celery ribs, chopped
• 1/2 cup onion, chopped ( I did not have onion, so I added 1/4tsp onion powder)
  
• 2garlic cloves, minced
• 3 (32 ounce) boxes chicken broth (or 2 of the big ones from swanson)
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 16 oz bags homestyle noodles (from the freezer section, I use Reames)
• 1/4 teaspoon celery seed (the original recipe calls for this, but I forgot it and couldn't tell any difference).
  
• 1/4 teaspoon thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon seasoning salt (aka Season All)
  
• 1 teaspoon all purpose seasoning (I use Spike)
• 1 tablespoon fresh parsley (I used 2 spigs chopped up)
  
• 1/2 of a whole chicken, meat only (I keep the chunks big)(cooked mine in crock pot)
  

Directions

1. 1

   In a large saucepot, saute carrots, celery and onion in the butter for 2 minutes over med-high heat.

2. 2

   Add broth and bay leaf, give it a stir, put the lid on the pot and crank up the heat to high until it start boiling.

3. 3

   When boiling, remove lid an drop in the noodles, chicken and seasonings. Give it a good stir and leave the lid off.

4. 4

   Boil on med-high for 25 minutes.
5. After 25 minutes, lower heat to get a good simmer. Simmer for 20-30 minutes. Remove Bay leaf and serve.
   
   YUMMY!! YUMM!
   

Bean and Bacon Soup recipe

1 lb dried navy beans (Soaked in water overnight or quick soak method)
6 slices bacon, from butcher chopped in pieces (thick slices)
1/3 cup chopped celery
1/3 cup chopped carrot
1/3 cup choppeed onion
5 cups chicken stock or beef stock
celery salt
pepper


Cook bacon in soup pot till browned but still limp.

Remove bacon from pan and reserve two tablespoons bacon fat.

Cook carrots,onions, and celery in bacon fat over medium heat till soft.

add beans and broth to soup pot with bacon and veggies.

Bring to boil and turn heat down to simmer for 1/1/2 hours. (you may not have to cook it this long)

Season with celery salt and pepper and serve with crusty bread and butter.

First day of eating the menu plan-and Mama's Easy Chili Recipe

So chili night went off without a hitch. Yum-O! Took me forever to figure out a chili recipe that didn't taste like tomato soup with beans...lol. If you are interested, here it is. **Note: It is bean heavy.

2 cans tomato sauce
2 cans chili beans
1 can kidney beans (dark or light, your preference)
1 can diced tomatoes
2 lbs ground beef
1 pkge McCormick mild chili seasonings
1 pkge McCormick Tex Mex chili seasoning
1/4-1/2 cup salsa (your preference on kind and flavor)
a little amount of water

Combine sauce and beans in large pot and set to cook on med/low. Brown ground beef and drain almost all of the grease off..leave about 1 tsp in skillet. Add salsa and cook on med for 2 to 3 minutes. Add seasoning packets to the meat. This is important..this is how it gets it flavor. Add the water. I don't know how much because it really depends. You want the meat mixture to be wet, but not sopping. It should turn a dark brownish color and should hold together pretty well when there is enough water in it. Like I said, you don't want it dripping wet, but you don't want it dry either. Cook the seasonings into the meat for 2-3 minutes, then slowly add into tomato mixture. Add by serving spoonful, stirring the mixture well after each. Your tomato mixture will turn a dark reddish, brown color. Bring to a rolling boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until seasonings are mixed in well. Make sure to stir often.

Note: It does have some kick to it, but its not real overwhelming. My 4 year old ate it with no problem. If you like extra kick add some green chiles to it. My husband loves it, even with it being as simple as it is. I am seasoning challenged..lol, so thats why I use the McCormick packets.

Now..the cornbread...lol...taste like Jiffy...lol

• 2/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
  
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 milk, plus a little extra if its too thick

Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl, mix well. Whisk in vegetable oil and mix until dry mixture is smooth and lumps are gone <---I could not get the lumps out, so I went ahead with the recipe and made sure it was smooth after adding the egg and milk, turned out great anyhow. Combine mix with egg and milk, mixing well until smooth. Spray 8x8 baking dish with cooking spray and bake at 400 degrees F 15-20 minutes or until done. I doubled the recipe and used a glass 9x13 pyrex dish and it turned out fantastic...not too thin, not too thick.

Also, I put in the part about the extra milk. Made up the way it was, it was waayyy to thick to bake right. I added probably (didn't look) 2 tsp of extra milk, maybe 3 to the batter and mixed in it well. It made it the right consistency and helped it turn out the way it did.

Taco Bake

So here's how this came about. In June of 2008, my brother in law and his family were coming to visit us. Me, not thinking, didn't prepare a meal plan since I figured they'd be eating on the road. Well an hour from our house, they called and they were hungry! LOL I needed something that would feed a small army, our 5 and their 4...
So...after taking stock of what I had I came up with this. Little did I know that it would turn into a staple at our house. It's very kid friendly and VERY easy to play around with. I think that's why I like it so much!

2 lbs ground beef
3-4 cups nacho cheese flavor Doritos, crushed
4-6 flour tortillas
16 ounces shredded cheddar cheese or mexican cheese
2 (1 1/4 ounce) packages taco seasoning
1 (10 ounce) can refried beans
8 ounces sour cream
8 ounces salsa
shredded lettuce
tomato
any other taco toppings you like

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Crush Dorito Chips.

Brown ground beef and drain, making sure it is crumbled well. Add in taco seasonings according to directions on packets.

Spray 9x13 baking pan with cooking spray.

Lay down 2 tortillas to cover bottom of pan. You may have to rip them to make them fit.

Add a layer of ground beef and then a handful (or more if you choose) of shredded cheese onto meat.

Add a layer of crushed dorito's onto cheese.

Repeat until you reach the top of the baking dish, ending with a layer of chips. Depending on how big my chunks of meat are, I can get 2 or 3 layers into a baking dish.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly.

Remove from oven and let sit 5 minutes. Warm refried beans and spread on top of "casserole."

Finish by spreading sour cream, salsa, shredded lettuce and whatever other toppings you like onto the dish.

I always like to garnish is with a light layer of chips onto the top of it after I am done layering.

Note: Cheese and chip amounts are estimates. I usually end up using 2 bags of cheese, but it really is in how much you put into each layer. The same applies with the chips.