We have a family of four and most of the time the meals that I make will feed us that night and serve as leftovers for another meal, maybe lunch on the weekend or a potluck night.
LINK TO RECIPES
LINK TO RECIPES
These two weeks of recipes have a a few meals that you will make in a crockpot. I usually try to space these meals out and reserve them for the days that I know I am going to be short on time in the evenings. We have a family of four and most of the time the meals that I make will feed us that night and serve as leftovers for another meal, maybe lunch on the weekend or a potluck night. LINK TO RECIPES LINK TO RECIPES
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I am not big in celebrating Valentine's Day, but we are going to have a special family dinner this year after we all go out to a movie. Initially I was thinking that we could do something simple like a heart shaped pizza, but honestly, that is more of a pain than it is easy. So, I have a menu and it is going to be delicious. To start the evening I will be serving the kids Shirley Temples, I am unsure of how Lily will take to these since she does not like "hot", fizzy, beverages. I plan on making Fettuccine Alfredo with Italian Arancini (rice balls), a light salad, and then a simple Jell-O Cheesecake. Shirley Temples: 3 ounces lemon-lime soda 3 ounces ginger ale Dash grenadine Maraschino cherry for garnish Pour lemon-lime soda and ginger ale into a glass with ice cubes. Then, add a dash of grenadine. Finally, stir your refreshing drink and top it off with a cherry. Fettuccine Alfredo: 1 lb. dried fettuccine 6 tbs. unsalted butter 1 shallot, minced 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 c. heavy cream 1 c. finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper Fresh parsley 1. Cook the fettuccine in a pot of rapidly boiling salted water until al dente. Drain in a colander, reserving 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking liquid. 2. While the pasta is cooking, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add shallots and garlic and sauté until tender. Add heavy cream and bring to a boil. Cook until sauce has reduced slightly, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat. 3. Return the pasta to the pot it was cooked in, set over medium-high heat along with the reserved cooking liquid. Add the butter-cream mixture and half of the Parmesan and toss to combine thoroughly. Add salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. Sprinkle with remaining Parmesan and garnish with parsley, if desired. Serve immediately. Italian Arancini 2 cups cooked white rice, cooled ½ cup grated Parmesan 3 eggs, separated 8 small cubes fresh mozzarella 1 cup Italian-style breadcrumbs Oil, for frying 1. Place a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat and add enough vegetable oil to rise 4 inches in the pot. 2. Combine the rice, Parmesan and 1 egg in a medium bowl and use your hands to thoroughly combine the mixture. 3. Form each Arancini by taking a small portion of the mixture, squeezing it firmly and stuffing one cube of mozzarella inside each ball. Repeat this process to form 8 Arancini. 4. Whisk together the remaining 2 eggs. Dip each Arancini in the eggs and then in the breadcrumbs, shaking off any excess. 5. Once the oil reaches 375ºF, add 2 or 3 of the breaded Arancini to the pot and fry them until golden brown and cooked throughout. 6. Use a slotted spoon to remove the fried Arancini from the pot and transfer them to a paper towel-lined plate. Immediately salt the arancini. Repeat the frying process with the remaining Arancini. 7. Serve the Arancini warm with a side of warm marinara sauce. Do your own thing for the salad. :) Jell-O Cheesecake: Crust: 1 c. pretzels, crushed 1/2 c. graham crackers, crushed 4 1/2 tbs. sugar 3/4 c. butter, melted Topping: 2 c. sliced strawberries 3 tbs. sugar 6 oz pkg. Strawberry Jell-O Cake: 16 oz. cream cheese 1 c. sugar 8 oz. Cool Whip, thawed 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the pretzels, graham crackers, 4 1/2 tbs. sugar and melted butter. Press into 9×13 pan. Bake for 10 minutes. Let cool completely. 2. In a small bowl combine the 3 tbs. sugar and the sliced strawberries; refrigerate. 3. In a medium bowl, beat 1 c. sugar and cream cheese until smooth. Fold in the Cool Whip. Spread over the cooled crust. Refrigerate about 30 minutes. 4. Make Jell-O according to quick set directions and mix in the strawberries. Pour over cream cheese mixture in pan. Refrigerate until completely chilled, at least 2 hours. It has been a while! Good grief, I have not been my organized self in terms of meals since before Christmas, let's do this! I am so ready for a little normalcy to my life again. For those of you who have been asleep for the past month, we have been under the frigid vise of a polar vortex. I was kind of trapped at home and I was basically okay with being there, but I did not make many trips to the grocery so our dinners were rather boring. The plan is to go shopping this evening and even if we are stuck at home for the next two weeks I will have interesting meals planned to feed my family. Here you go.... LINK TO FIRST WEEK OF RECIPES LINK TO SECOND WEEK OF RECIPES I made marmalade over the weekend and this stuff is really good. You will need: 1. 8 Oranges 2. 3 Lemons 3. 6 cups sugar 4. 7 Tbs. Low-sugar Pectin (you may need more or less) 5. 4 cups Cranberry Juice 6. 1/8 tsp. baking soda Directions: Prepare your jars and canner while you are making the marmalade. This way you are ready to go once it is done cooking. Fill your canner pot with a few inches of water and place the jars, lids, and rings in it. Allow the water to boil so that everything is hot and sterilized by the time you are done making the marmalade. 1. Place a soup spoon in the freezer, this will help you check the consistency of your marmalade. 2. Wash the fruit and place your pressure canner on the stove with water and your jars. Bring the water in the pressure canner to a boil so that you can have your jars sterilizing while you are making the marmalade. 3. Peel the outside of the oranges with a vegetable peeler then put in a blender until they are chopped up pretty fine. Place the peels in a saucepan with 2 cups of the cranberry juice and the baking soda over high heat until it comes to a rolling boil. Turn down the heat, cover, and allow to simmer for 20 minutes. 4. While this is simmering peel the oranges and lemons and remove any bits of white and seeds. Place the peeled fruit in the blender and set aside. 5. Combine the pectin with about 1/4 cup of the sugar and add to the chopped fruit. 6. Once the peels are done simmering for 20 minutes add the fruit and the remaining 2 cups of cranberry juice, maintain low heat and simmer for 10 minutes. 7. Add the remaining sugar to the saucepan and allow to come to a boil. While stirring, let it stay at a hard boil for about one minute. 8. At this point you can check to see if the consistency of your marmalade is to your liking. Take out the spoon from the freezer and dip into the marmalade so that you have just a bit on the spoon. Give it a few seconds to chill and if the marmalade is thick enough you may start the canning, if not, add some more pectin and bring mixture to a boil again. 9. Ladle your marmalade into jars, place lids on and tighten. 10. To process you can either use a hot water bath or a pressure canner. Since I have purchased a pressure canner I use it for just about everything since I do not need as much water in the pot. 11. For a hot water bath you will need to make sure that the water covers the jars by at least two inches and once the water comes to a boil start your timer for fifteen minutes. 12. For the pressure canner you will use ten pounds of pressure and process for ten minutes. 13. Carefully remove your jars and allow to cool. Now that Thanksgiving is over and we have a few weeks until Christmas we should focus on saving money and time and maybe a few calories. Make sure that you go out and buy all of your necessary items for the two weeks ahead of time so that you are not wasting time and money by visiting the grocery every day or every couple of days. Stick to your list!! The biggest reason people spend too much at the grocery is that they buy things that are not needed, do not buy them. I am telling you, I can buy enough groceries to feed my family of four for two weeks and spend around $100 - $150. This amount includes organic milk and usually organic fruits and veggies, which always cost more. Do not be afraid to substitute in any of these recipes. There are often nights that I will use different ingredients than what the recipe calls for and that is just fine. Use ingredients that are low in fat, dairy products do not have to be the full fat versions and this saves a ton of calories. If you do not like say black beans, but you do like pinto beans, well, use them. Prep things ahead of time. I cannot stress this enough. I will chop and dice and slice ingredients a week ahead of time and then freeze or refrigerate until I am ready to use them. Doing this makes coming home and preparing a meal much more enjoyable and leaves me with my sanity. WEEK 6 WEEK 7 Today is the day that you should either have all of your turkey eaten or you need to get that carcass in the freezer. Tonight we are going to have hot turkey roll-ups with mashed potatoes and gravy. To simplify things for the evening I am caving in and buying a tube of biscuit dough from the market. Although, now that I think about it, I do have my Quick Mix that I can use instead, that is what I will use. This is what you will need: 1. Leftover turkey. 2. Onion. 3. Gravy mix. 4. Quick Mix (or Bisquick or roll of biscuits). 5. Mashed potatoes if you have them. 6. Cranberries if you have them. 1. Prepare your Bisquick as you would if you were making biscuits and roll out onto a floured surface. 2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 3. Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray. 4. Prepare your gravy mix. 5. Chop turkey into small pieces. 6. Chop onion into fine pieces. 7. Spread a thin amount of gravy over your rolled dough. 8. Spread your cranberry sauce (if you have) over the gravy. 9. Sprinkle the onions over the cranberries. 10. Spread the chopped turkey over the cranberries. 11. Roll your dough into a log. 12. Slice the log into sections that are about one inch thick and place each section on your prepared cookie sheet. 13. Place in the oven and bake for 10 - 12 minutes. Just keep an eye on them while they are in there and make sure that they are a golden color on top when you remove them from the oven. 14. While your roll-ups are baking warm up your mashed potatoes and any other sides you would like to use up with dinner tonight. 15. Serve the roll-ups either on top of a nice pile of mashed potatoes and covered with gravy or alone. If you would like to use my Quick Mix the recipe can be found HERE and how to use it HERE. I know, the photo has nothing to do with Thanksgiving food, but I could not find one of my own photos that would work, I will take some good ones when I prepare all the yummies next week. I hope that some of the recipes that I am adding will inspire you to try something a little different and make your feast that much more feast worthy. Anyway, if you have been paying attention, you may have noticed that in the right bottom corner of each page of recipes there is a number. Well, these numbers correspond to the table of contents that I have for each section of my cookbook. If you are diligent enough and keep up with things you will be able to have a copy of everything. I know, so exciting. Calm down, take a breath, it is only recipes. I do promise you though that they are all fantastic and that if you keep up with me you will have a full binder of recipes. In this OCD Binder is a section for everything!! OK , I am just going to start a page for all of this, I am doing it, you have convinced me. Look for it! I am always looking for more recipes to add to my obsession so please, if you have any that are worth sharing let me know. At some point I would like to make it so that it is an option for me to make some money off of this, but right now I am totally fine with sharing :) Link to Side Dishes #1 Link to Side Dishes #2 Link to Desserts #1 Link to Desserts #2 Link to Desserts #3 Link to Appetizers You are only getting one week of meals since Thanksgiving is next week and hopefully you will be eating lots of yummy leftovers. If I have the time I will try to post some ideas for how to use those leftovers so you are not just eating turkey sandwiches every day. LINK TO WEEK 5 RECIPES Two weeks are down and it is time for a couple more weeks of new recipes. Did you try the first two weeks? What did you think? I am going to the market for everything tonight so that I can make any preparations for the meals over the weekend. I try to chop ingredients like onions and peppers and have them ready to go. I often freeze the ingredients once they have been prepared (obviously you need to do this with some depending on how long it will be until you need them) and if I have extra of something I just go ahead and freeze that for later use. Onions are the worst for me. I try to get them out of the way because no matter what I do I always end up with tears streaming down my face. I plan on updating this entry once I buy my ingredients and have everything in order, this way I can pass along any tips. Week 3 Week 4 11/10/2013 I managed to purchase all of the items necessary for these two weeks of meals for under $140. Besides getting everything that I needed to feed the family, I also needed some Aleve (to help with all of the headaches caused by my Sweet Lily who seems to whine, cry, and have all-around bratty behavior about every 15 minutes), band-aids (for the "boo-boos" that always seem to need one), and extra organic milk. Anyone who says that they cannot go to the market without spending a fortune on food is not doing a very good job when they make their list, and the key is sticking to the list. I only bought 1 item that I did not have on my list and it was something that I had on it yesterday, but for some reason decided to remove. Most of the produce I purchased was organic, the bananas I got were not because the peel is removed before you eat them anyway. I usually by the store brand for most of the things on my list, exceptions are peanut butter and bread (probably a few other things as well, but not many). One of the recipes calls for stew meat and I bought a roast instead and chunked it up myself once I got home. Not only was this less expensive than the package of stew meat, but it will make two meals instead of one. I chop or slice peppers that I know I am not going to use right away and freeze them in bags so they are ready to go and will do the same with zucchini and other squash, tomatoes, carrots, you get the idea. Having everything ready ahead of time just makes life so much easier. Obviously I do not freeze any vegetables that will be used on something like a salad. There you go, update after shopping. Happy cooking everyone! I have a serious problem when it comes to organizing things so they are exactly the way I want them. This obsession with organization has led to me compiling a bunch of recipes into my own cookbook. Recipes that I know I like, are relatively easy to make, and are easy to navigate. Here is the basic layout: Each page has five recipes on it so that you have five days of planned meals for the week and to the right of each recipe is a shopping list along with measurements. I am about ready to start planning my meals two weeks at a time and I figured I would share this with anyone who cares. Last year when I did this I would go to the market and buy the main components of the ten meals in one trip and ended up spending less than $150 each time. I of course need to make small trips for fresh milk and produce, but planning things out really helped with grocery spending. So, this is what I plan on doing, I will post the two weeks worth of meals here ahead of time so you have time to do your shopping over the weekend. If you do this with me let me know what you think about the meals and the process, things I can improve, suggestions for recipes, etc. Make the recipes in any order you want, I used to stick to a set schedule, but realized that sometimes I did not feel like making what was planned. Since then I just use the set recipes and make them in whatever order I choose. When using any of the recipes that I place on here remember that you can substitute ingredients. If you do not eat ground beef then substitute ground turkey, chicken, or a vegetarian version; recipes are meant to be modified. I have other portions of the cookbook that focus on making your own mixes and spice blends for the pantry, desserts, sides, breakfasts, breads, and snacks, but I will begin with the meals. |
Blog by: Libby Clem.................... Archives
September 2020
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Motherhood can be a lonely place and these days unforgiving. I could not care less about how others feel I am doing as a Momma, as long as my kids are thriving I am good. I do not need to keep up with the activities and parties because I just do not care. However, I do care about how my mom sees me as a Momma, am I doing a good job in her eyes? I know I am, she has told me, so has my dad.
The loneliness of motherhood did not start right away for me, the warm fuzzies of having an infant put them at bay for a while. The loneliness for me started when I finally went back to work. I spend the day teaching high school students and come home where I do not get a chance to stop. There are days where all I want is five minutes of silence, but I never get that five minutes. There are days where all I want is for all the household chores to be finally caught up, but we know that will never happen. There are days I wish I could just go off on my own for a day or two, but then I realize how much I would miss my kids and husband. There are days I wish I was not constantly needed, but I am thankful that my children come to me for their needs. There are many days that I get tired of hearing 'Momma' yelled over and over, once is enough; I heard you the first time. There are days where all I want is one 'thank you', but I never get that 'thank you'. Mom, I know that one day this loneliness will go away and it will be filled with a different kind of loneliness, but I now understand how much you did and sacrificed and gave. I see some of my students and know that I was so lucky to have you as a mom, just like my kids are so lucky to have me. You were selfless. You did what had to be done to be a good mom even when it took away from your wants and needs. I know I did not appreciate what you did back when I was younger, but I do now and I am so thankful for you. |