Here comes the sun

This weekend was absolutely beautiful here in Seattle!  We don't like to advertise it, but every so often we get sun.  Sometimes we get sun, but no heat...this weekend we got sun AND heat.  It was just perfect.  When we get sun like this, we Western Washingtonians do a few things - break out the shorts (even at 50 degrees), head to the beach or mountains, and BBQ.  It's extremely helpful for dinner prep for the week...more grilled meat...and even better the hubby helps out with that part.  What's not to love?!  With that said, here's what's planned for our week:

Sunday - Turkey Burgers w/ baked beans
Turkey meat recipe - 2 lbs of turkey, 1 packet of onion soup mix, approx 1/2 C shredded Parmesan cheese, and salt / pepper - mix all ingredients together and form patties for grilling

Tips and tricks:  This recipe makes about 16 patties.  I like to use 1/2 for fresh burgers, then freeze the rest of the mixture.  Just take it out a day or even 2 before you grill and make fresh patties.  If too moist when you defrost, just add a bit of bread crumbs to absorb before making the new patties.

Monday - Balsamic Roast Beef Dips w/ fries and green salad

http://addapinch.com/cooking/balsamic-roast-beef-recipe/

Tips and tricks:  This is a new recipe for us, but I think will work perfectly for french dips.  Just a note on how we do french dips in our house.  We use the harder rolls (helps with soaking up the Au Jus).  So for dinner time, we make the fries (frozen package).  While the fries are baking, cut the bread and butter lightly.  At the end of the fries baking, put the bread on top under the broiler for just a few minutes until just starts to toast.  Take out and put a slice of Horseradish cheddar (we love this stuff!) on one side of the bread.  Put back in broiler just until cheese starts to melt.  The broiler makes the fries crunchy like we like and makes the bread so nummy.  Take out, put meat from crockpot and serve.  Use juice from crockpot for dipping.  I'm thinking we'll have lots of meat, so I plan on freezing the second 1/2.

Tuesday - Leftovers of french dip - because it's totally a 2 night meal!

Wednesday - Green Chilli and Chicken Lasagna

http://www.caciqueinc.com/blog/2015/05/green-chili-and-chicken-lasagna/?pp=0#.VWnJiJ5FDIV

Tips and Tricks:  This is a new recipe, too, but it looks delicious and I'm hoping just as easy.  I'll be putting this one together in the morning to have in the fridge ready to pop in the oven that evening.  We have some frozen cooked meat from last weekend's grilling.  It already has some mexican flavors, so should be perfect.  Fingers crossed!  I'll be serving with refried beans and tortilla chips.

Thursday - Leftovers - hoping there will be enough.

Friday - Grilled Chicken Salad and cheese sandwiches
Recipe - Mix together grilled chicken (about 3 breasts chopped), mayo (to your liking), green onion, onion salt, garlic powder, celery (chopped), and cashews (if you like).  Butter back side of 2 slices of bread, put butter sides together.  Put chicken salad mixture and slice of cheddar or provolone cheese on bread.  Put that piece of bread on grill, butter side down...add other piece of bread on top, butter side up.  Grill for a couple minutes, then flip.  continue to grill and flip until golden brown.

Tips and Tricks:  We grilled the chicken on Sunday when we were BBQ'ing, so it's ready to go.  I usually make the chicken salad just a day before we cook...or even morning of.  It's good on non-grilled sandwiches, too, but try it...you'll love it!

Hope you all have a great week.  Happy cooking!!!

Let's catch up

I'm a horrible blogger!!!  Life has kind of taken over and, although, I have fed my family over the past few months, I haven't bothered to tell you all about it.  I'm learning to forgive myself for not having it all together.  Join me, won't you!?!  Or maybe that's not your issue, like it is for me.  But if it is...repeat after me:  "I'm not a superwoman, I'm not a superwoman, I'm not a superwoman!"  Just scream if to yourself in your head, but then make everyone still think you're a superwoman.  It's just easier that way.

Well, it's memorial day weekend, and here's what's for dinner at our house:

Sunday - Street tacos (Johnson version) w/ macaroni salad (see Monday for recipe) and beans
Ingredients for street tacos:  Weber grill marinade (http://www.weberseasonings.com/product-detail?id=93&sel=marinade), chicken breast tenerloins (approx. 1 lb), corn or flour tortillas, cilantro, white onion, mexican cheese (just pick your fav), sour cream

Tips and tricks:  I put my chicken in about an hour or 2 before I'm going to cook.  You can cook your meat ahead of time, but we like to do this one on Sundays (or weekend) so we can grill.  Remember to throw some plain chicken (a little olive oil) on the grill at the same time so you can have some to freeze for later recipes.  This recipe isn't even really a recipe.  Just grill your meat, chop cilantro and onion, heat up your tortillas, and serve with cheese / sour cream.

Monday -  leftovers from Monday (we make enough for 2 days)
Ingredients for mac salad:  1 pkg elbow macaroni, 6 hard boiled eggs, 4 oz. dill havarti cheese (cubed), 2 dill pickles (chopped), 1 white onion (chopped), mayo (about 3/4 c), salt / pepper to taste.

Recipe:  boil package of macaroni and drain, add to the drained noodles coarsely chop hard boiled eggs, pickle, cheese, onion.  Add mayo and salt / pepper.  Mix well and chill before serving.

Tuesday - Pioneer woman's "My favorite meatloaf" w/ mashed potatoes (see Wednesday for recipe) & corn
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/09/my-favorite-meatloaf/

Tips and tricks:  You will all thank me for this one!!!  I can't even believe it's taken me this long to post it.  We use ground turkey instead.  It's a little more moist, so I add about 1/4 c (I guess) of bread crumbs to soak up moisture in addition to the bread that's already in the recipe.  Also, we have found it works really well to make 2 loafs when you cook.  I use a large broiler pan and put foil on the bottom pan, then create 2 loafs to bake.  It cooks through better.  This is a great one to make up the loafs in the morning (with bacon and sauce) and hubby puts it in the oven for dinner.  I put the extra sauce in the fridge and he adds it for the last 15 minutes.  It probably takes a full hour to hour 1/2 to bake.  The bacon kind of looked like a crazy idea originally, but it turns soft and carmelized and delicious.  I'm not kidding, this is a HUGE favorite in our house.  It's in the top 3 for my hubby.  You can all send me gifts after you try it.

Wednesday - Leftovers
Ingredients for "Mommy's Mashed Potatoes":  About 8 Medium Red Potatoes, 4 oz Cream Cheese, 1/2 c parmesan, 1/2 c milk, 4 tbsp butter

Recipe:  Cut potatoes into quarters and boil.  Once you can poke the potatoes with a fork easily, drain and add butter and cream cheese, put lid on top and let it melt.  Once pretty melted, add parmesan and milk and mash with hand masher.  You can use beaters if you'd like, but we like it hand mashed in our house.

Thursday - Meatloaf Sandwiches w/ roasted red potatoes
For sandwiches:  Use the same BBQ sauce (make a new batch) for the spread.  We like those Torta rolls from Costco for the bread.  Recipe:  Cut bread, spread bread with butter and broil for just a couple minutes (until starts to toast), remove bread, spread think layer of BBQ sauce, add slice of mozzarella cheese, broil for another couple minutes until cheese starts to melt, add meatloaf (we microwave for a minute to make it warm) and serve.
For Potoates:  Clean and cut the rest of your 5 lb roasted potato bag (about 6-8 medium potatoes) into bite-size chunks, toss in a bowl with a tbsp of olive oil, rosemary (dried or fresh), salt and pepper to taste.  Bake on a cookie sheet at 350 for approx 20 minutes. Poke and bake until soft enough for a fork to go through.

Tips and tricks:  For sandwiches, I have everything prepped in the morning (cut the bread, slice the cheese, make the BBQ sauce) so it's ready to go.  For the potatoes, cut the potatoes and toss in the olive oil / herb mixture to a large freezer bag.  Just mix it up in that and leave in the fridge until dinner time.  I write the temp and time on the bag and hubby can pop it in the oven.

Friday - It's my Finny's birthday, so he gets to pick...and he has chosen for us to "make our own pizza"!!!!  We haven't done this before, so I'll wing this one and post the results later (if it's successful).  Wish us luck!!

So that's it for this week.  I'm going to start posting in advance what we're doing for the week coming up, rather than posting what we've done.  Have a great week everyone!!!!

Week in review - #5

Wow, what a week.  I'm tired.  Anyone?  It just seems like so much craziness lately, then there is dinner time.  I always had this image (I'm somewhat idealistic) that we would always sit around the table at night and talk about our day and really enjoy each other's company during dinner time.  Then...I was hit with the reality (at least in our house) that we are lucky most nights if we eat at the same time, get the kids to eat at all, and not end up in some sort of time out for one of us (including mommy).  Just being honest.  It's insanity sometimes, but I know this is just a season and soon I'll miss trying to get them to sit and eat dinner every night.  And someday maybe, just maybe, even sit around a table together.  Patiently (truth be told not so patiently) waiting to eat like a normal family...wait, maybe this is normal...hmmm...

So, it's week's like this that I'm so thankful to have dinner already figured out.  Here's what our week looked like (do not picture Donna Reed though).

Sunday - White sauce chicken enchiladas
http://www.raininghotcoupons.com/chicken-enchiladas-with-sour-cream-white-sauce/

Tips and tricks:  I did this one on a Sunday because it was my first time.  I used frozen shredded chicken as I've explained how to prep in #1 week in review.  You could easily prep the stuffed tortilla portion in advance and freeze (or just refrigerate for a day), then do the white sauce when ready to top and bake.  It was soooooo..... good and super easy.  We will do this one again.

Monday - enchilada leftovers.  The recipe makes 8-10 enchiladas.  My hubby at 2 in a serving, I had one and the boys split (actually they didn't really eat, but anyways).

Tuesday - Chili (my first time ever making) and cornbread
http://temeculablogs.com/5-ingredient-crockpot-chili-recipe/

Tips & tricks:  This recipe called for ground turkey, which we did.  Oh my goodness, this was so delicious.  We were all going back for seconds.  This really only needed to cook for 4 hours, as opposed to my full workday of 8 hours, so it was handy to have a nanny available.  I really don't think 8 hours would hurt, but I would definitely double the batch.  We had just enough for one night and were bummed.  Seriously, so good.  Why have I not made this before???  We made with cornbread, my only tip for this comes from my mom's cornbread growing up.  Make whatever cornbread recipe you like, and add some real corn.  Just perfect.

Wednesday - Well, we planned on Chili but as mentioned we at it all in one night, so we pulled out Spaghetti fixings we always keep on hand.

Ingredients:  Ground Turkey, 2 jars of favorite marinara, and spaghetti noodles

Tips & tricks:  We always keep these ingredients in the house, for just those occasions.  Get Spaghetti sauce when it's on sale!  Our nanny browned the meat (which you could do in advance) then we put in the crockpot to heat up with the sauce.  Hubby just had to boil noodles and heat up bread.  I threw together a green salad when I walked in the door.

Thursday - Spaghetti leftovers

Friday - Grilled cheese sandwiches w/ tomato soup
We don't really have a recipe, but there are a lot of grilled cheese ideas on pinterest.  We like the Pacific brand tomato soup.  Organic and nummy.

Not sure what we're doing for Saturday yet, but I better go figure it out now!

Have a great week.