All Things Hold Together

I almost forgot to post my menu plan today, which would have been a shame, since I actually sat down and made one yesterday.

Let’s get down to it. I am feeling a bit chatty today, so the menu is in bold and my commentary/how-to’s follow each day. That way, you can read as much or as little as you want.

Monday: Chicken Pot Pie

I am using chicken left over from dinner last night. I love to cook extra chicken, so I can make one of these hearty favorites of mine. And today is even a rainy day - perfect for a belly-warming meal.

I do not use a recipe; I just make the pie using leftover cut-up chicken, veggies, and gravy, mixed together in a pie plate and topped with crust or biscuits. Bake until golden and bubbly.

Tuesday: Baked Ziti with Turkey Sausage and Spinach

Again, no recipe. Just boil the ziti, as directed and brown the sausage in a pan, until cooked. Then, mix them together with bottled sauce and thawed frozen spinach, in a casserole dish sprayed with cooking spray. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and bake at 350, until the cheese is melted and begins to brown slightly. Serve with salad and bread, if desired.

Wednesday: Leftovers night.

I am guessing there will be leftovers from Monday and Tuesday, and I do not want them to go to waste.

Thursday: Turkey-Stuffed Cabbage Leaves

That is a Weight Watchers recipe (5 points).

Friday: Chicken stir-fry

Another no-recipe meal. I cut up skinless, boneless chicken breast into 1-inch pieces and brown, add onion, garlic, sliced carrots and cook for a couple of minutes. Add thawed frozen peas and canned (drained) water chestnuts. I am also going to throw in some leftover cabbage, but I am not sure when. Probably after the carrots, but before the pre-cooked ingredients.

Then, I pour in a cup or two of chicken broth (enough to make a good amount of sauce), some soy sauce, to taste, and some ground ginger. And any other spices I so desire at the time. Once the broth comes to a boil, I add some corn starch dissolved in cold water to the pan. Stir until slightly thickened. Serve over rice.

To me, stir-fry is an adventure. It never comes out the same twice. Just wing it and have fun with it.

Saturday: Chicken Enchiladas

I made these last weekend and froze half. Now I can just pop them into the oven and have an instant dinner!

Enchiladas are super easy. Just warm corn tortillas (according to directions) and fill with desired filling, pre-cooked if necessary, such as meat. (I used chicken and pepper jack cheese.) Roll up and place seam-side down into a baking pan sprayed with cooking spray. Top with homemade or bottled enchilada sauce, sprinkle with cheese, and bake at 400, until sauce is bubbly and edges are slightly brown.

Some recipes call for spreading some sauce in the pan first, but the way I do it, the bottoms get crispy, rather than soggy.

For more Menu Plan Monday, head on over to Organizing Junkie.

This week, I finally got around to posting my menu plan on Monday. Sometimes I don’t do my menu plan in time. It depends on when I am going to do my grocery shopping.

At any rate, here is what we will be eating this week.

Monday: Crockpot chicken (This is an old stand by. Just throw some chicken in the crockpot with some veggies, spices and chicken broth. Thicken the sauce with some corn starch and water near the end of cooking time, if the mood strikes.)

Tuesday: Turkey meatloaf with couscous and broccoli

Wednesday: Leftovers night

Thursday: Homemade pizza

Friday: Vegetable Enchiladas

Be sure to head on over to Organizing Junkie to check out the rest of the menu plans. Laura also has a list of recipe websites that allow you to search by ingredient list.

I just want to take a minute to say, “thanks,” to Laura from I’m an Organizing Junkie for getting me into menu planning. It really does make my week go so much smoother when I plan my menu in advance. Not to mention how much easier grocery shopping is.

Tonight, my husband, Bob, is going to be getting home late, so we have a kid-friendly menu, since it is just me and the boys.

Monday: Chicken nuggets, fries and carrot sticks. (Chicken nugget tossed salad, for Mom)

Tuesday: Baked ziti w/ sausage and French bread

Wednesday: Taco salad

Thursday: Chicken pot pie

Friday: Slow cooker red beans and barley w/ kielbasa and corn bread

Saturday: Leftovers!

That’s our menu for the week. Be sure to head on over to orgjunkie.com and see the rest of Menu Plan Monday.

As I anticipated, I have been sick with the flu all week. It has been horrible!

Fortunately, I didn’t get sick until after I made this wonderful New England Boiled Dinner for St. Patrick’s Day.

Doesn’t the meat look tiny compared to the vegetables? That’s because Bob won’t eat beef unless it is local (and rightfully so) and the local corned beef at the co-op was $8.99 a pound!

It was the most amazing thing I have ever tasted, though.

I had pictures of the cupcakes that I made, too, but I dumped them onto the computer before the re-installation of the operating system and I have not put the old data back on yet, so I cannot get to them right now.

I am still feeling pretty lousy. I just hope I am better in time to make something half-way decent for Easter.

At least we have no company coming this year.

And to think, I was disappointed at not having company for Easter for the first time.

I guess it was for the best after all.

Well, that’s what has been going on with me all week.  How about you?

This week, we are dealing with a nasty flu.

My mother-in-law had it (just as we were leaving from our trip to visit her) and her fever lasted for 6 days.

My husband has had it since Thursday, stayed home from work on Friday, and hasn’t been out of bed all weekend.

As of yet, I have not had the full-blown symptoms, but I am not feeling well at all.

So, Sunday morning, I went through the sale fliers, gathered up my coupons, and headed out to shop for a week of ready-to-eat dinners!

This is a new thing for this cook-from-scratch mama.

Monday - St. Patrick’s Day - Corned beef and cabbage w/ carrots and potatoes. No green beer for these flu-fighters, but there will be cupcakes with green sugar sprinkles.

Tuesday - Chicken Breast Tenderloin sandwiches (frozen) and French Fries (also frozen) w/ baby carrots.

Wednesday - Frozen mini pizzas w/ salad

Thursday - Fettuccine w/ bottled Alfredo Sauce and Broccoli (frozen)

Friday - Slow Cooker Red Beans and Barley w/ Turkey Kielbasa (I add chili powder and cumin to that recipe and use chicken broth instead of veg.)

That will be the least cooking I have ever done in a week, while still eating decent food.

To check out more menu plans, head on over to Organizing Junkie.

I finally got around to posting my menu plan again! I mean to do this every week, but there is just something about Mondays!

This week, we are going to visit my parents-in-law on Friday, so I have a short week of cooking.

Sunday:Chicken Fajitas* and Spanish Rice

Monday: Pizza topped with left over fajita meat

Tuesday: Baked ziti with sausage

Wednesday: Baked chicken breast, roasted potatoes, and a veggie

Thursday:Chicken Pot Pie (made with leftover chicken breast)

* I make my fajitas using a spice blend of 2 tsp. chili powder, 1 tsp. cumin, 1 tsp. onion powder, 1 tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. sugar, and 1/2 tsp. salt.

Brown meat (~1 1/2 ponds chicken cut into strips); add spice blend and mix; throw in the pepper and onion (one of each, cut into strips) and a little water. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the veggies are tender crisp.

Be sure and stop by OrgJunkie and check out the rest of Menu Plan Monday.

I tried that cream of chicken soup substitute and the recipe came out tasty, but I do not have anything to compare it to. I don’t cook with cream of chicken soup, so I can’t tell you how it measures up.

I can, however, share the recipe I made up last night using the substitute.

Slow Cooker Chicken Yumminess

1 potato, diced
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, diced or sliced
1 stalk celery, diced, or some celery salt, which is what I used.
2 large skinless, boneless chicken breasts cut up into 1″ chunks
1 recipe Cream of Chicken Soup Substitute
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
1 cup frozen peas, thawed

Instructions:

Place the root vegetables in the bottom of your slow cooker. Place chicken on top. Pour cream of chicken soup and chicken broth over top, with herbs.

Cook on low 6-7 hours, or until chicken is cooked and veggies are tender.

Stir well, mix in peas and heat through.

Serve over noodles or biscuits. My favorite biscuit recipe comes from King Arthur flour.

Tips:

Turn off the slow cooker and let mixture cool a bit, stirring occasionally, to thicken the sauce before serving.

When you assemble the ingredients, take the peas out of the freezer and put them in the refrigerator to thaw, so they will be ready when you need them.

You can add the herbs to the cream of chicken soup substitute when you make that.

There are a lot of the slow cooker recipes in my cookbooks that require cream of chicken soup. There is one that I really want to try with some boneless breast that I have, but I do not usually buy cream of chicken soup.

I looked around for a cream of chicken soup substitute and found a recipe on About.com: Southern Food.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.  I am going to try it tomorrow night.

I have had that song in my head all day, since we made our little Love Shacks.

We used graham crackers, royal icing, and lots of candies.

(To make royal icing without the hassle of raw eggs, try meringue powder. I used Wilton, which I bought at Michael’s craft store in the cake decorating aisle.)

You can cut triangles to close the front and back of the roofs, but I was not feeling well, so I took the shortcut way. No one seemed to mind that our roofs were open.

With out further fanfare, here are our houses.

That is Big E’s in the front. He is the artist in that family. That roof is just beautiful. He did that with no help at all.

Here is The D’s. It is hard to believe that just a couple of years ago, this boy had no interest in anything creative.

That’s mine on the left and Little E’s on the right. I did the front for him. He got tired and wanted to go watch Cyber Chase on PBS. (Yes, he’s only 4. He is our budding math genius.)

A few pointers to share… make the icing about toothpaste consistency and they should set up pretty quickly. Little kids do not have much patience when it comes to waiting to decorate candy houses. Fortunately for me, mine did not have to wait.

If you want to make white, pink, and red (or dark pink), make one big batch of white icing. Take 1/3 out and put it in your icing bag. Add a small amount of red coloring to make pink. Take out 1/2 of that and put it in another icing bag. Finally, add more red to achieve desired shade and put the remaining icing in a third bag.

I don’t know if I metioned this enough times yet, but I love the cast iron skillet my parents-in-law bought me for Christmas.

I made the Chicken and Biscuit Pie recipe from this week’s Menu Plan in it because it can go from stove top to oven. It was delicious!

I didn’t have any cooked chicken, so I cooked mine in the skillet first. Then, I put it aside to cool while I proceeded with the recipe.

I think that made it even better because there were yummy caramelized bits of chicken stuck in the pan that added flavor when I made the gravy.

Have you ever seen anything so wonderfully scrumptious (excluding anything containing chocolate, frosting, whipped cream, or ice cream)?