Menu Plan Monday, Week of January 16

This is a short work week for me, as I only work two days. Which means lots of homemade goodies this week.

We have soccer and basketball practice and a Girl Scout and cookie meeting this week. So our evenings will be a little busy, but if I am home during the day, that makes it easy for me to plan meals.

Here is what we have in store for this week.

Breakfasts: frozen waffles from the freezer, whacky spice muffins, homemade oatmeal packets and cold cereal

Lunches: leftovers, tuna, sandwiches, baked potatoes and spicy black bean burgers

Dinners: sloppy joes with homemade curly fries, roasted tilapia lemon packets with baked potatoes, Cincinnati Chili spaghetti, chicken fried rice(never had it last week) with broccoli, penne pasta with bacon, olive oil and garlic (this is delicious) and hopefully leftovers.

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday.

I Heart Organizing!

One of my favorite things to do is to organize things. I am always organizing something, a closet, a pantry or a shelf! We are a family of 6, living in a home that most would find small. Honestly it doesn't feel small to me, until we go into a larger home! However, I do have to get a little creative sometimes with our storage and organizing.

I am going to try and post a weekly article about organizing. What I use to organize, some creative ways to organize and some complete overhauls!

Okay, ignore the hideous carpet, replacing it is on the list, at the very bottom, right in front of the kitchen re-do.

You have seen this shelf before, it was used in the kitchen and looked like this. But I decided to move it to the front room, to make more room in the kitchen around the table.

I love baskets, tubs and hat boxes, anything that you can organize store things in!

The hat box on the top, below the lamp has my tape rolls, stapler and extra staples in it. The navy blue shelf/cabinet houses my small Boyd Bear ceramics collection. And the cloth container covers up a tissue box.

On the next shelf the decorative box houses all our markers and crayons, the clear tub below that has extra paper in it, from colored to plain white. The flexible basket houses all of our cards, from playing cards, to Uno to Old Maid. Next to that is a basket that holds our coloring books.

The last shelf holds two baskets, one with notebooks, clip-boards and a box of stencils. The other holds kids books. I like to swap out the books by season.

I plan on painting this shelf once it warms up some, I bought a really nice Heirloom White spray to paint it.

Finer Thing Friday

This year for Christmas one of the things my mom gave to me will be something that I cherish for as long as I live. See the little note she tucked inside above?

She took a photo album and hand copied, yes I said hand copied all of her go-to recipes. These are the recipes that I make as well, but need to call her and say "hey mom, what else to I add to your stew?" Now, I know exactly how she made them and what she uses in her homemade spaghetti and meatballs.

She said that she spent many an afternoon copying these recipes. I love that they are in her handwriting.

Another extra special treat in here is that she did photocopy some recipes. These are the recipes that were handwritten by my grandpa. My dad's mom to be exact, she was Italian! So her recipes use pinches and whole bags of flour. But my grandma passed away when I was little, so the only memories that I have are of visiting her in her apartment and eating candy out of her glass candy dish that she always had on her table.

Oh and I also remember when my grandma got a new clock. Only she couldn't figure out exactly how it told time, it only played music. You guessed it, she had bought one of those "new" clock radios and didn't realize that she had sent it down on the part that told the time, the clock part!

So you can see why having some recipes in both my mom and my paternal grandma's handwriting. Someday I will have to add to it and pass it down to my kids.

Thanks mom for the wonderful gift, you know how much I love to cook and bake. Oh and she also got me a lovely roasting pan and a very cute wallet! Love you mom. What thoughtful and useful gift, which incidentally are my favorite types of gifts to receive!

This post is linked to Finer Things Friday.

Photo of the Week

I am starting something new, a photo of the week. No text really, unless a short explanation is necessary. So, with that being said, here we go! Enjoy.

Okay, so a brief explanation is needed. That man on the right with the funny face is my little man, that is his camera smile. The one on the left is our best friends youngest son, our "cousin". They came down the weekend before Christmas and we had a wonderful visit.

Tip of the Week!

For those of you that have cats, this tip is for you.

We have 2 cats. One we have had since right before we were married, so she is about 15 years old. The other one my husband decided to get for my oldest when she was about 3 or so. So she is about 7 years old.

Sadly, when these cats kick the bucket, we will retire our litter box for ever. While I adore kittens and cats, I do not like their bathroom arrangement. We of the four cats we have ever had, only one made the litter box every time.

Our cats are strictly indoor animals, so that mean they use a littler box. We have tried everything from multiple litter boxes, to brand new boxes, to all kinds of litter. But have yet to find out why occasionally they will pee on dirty laundry.

We have a laundry chute in our house that goes from the top floor to the basement. Occasionally (like on the day the girls have to clean their bedrooms) there is a large quantity of laundry that is sent down before I get to it and it will spill out of the tub onto the floor. Then, you guessed it, one of the cats will pee on it! Yuck. And we have yet to figure out who is the culprit.

I used to just pitch the item. When it was the occasional towel that was okay. But when it was my second daughters new jeans, I knew their had to be a better way to take care of it. And I happened to find it!

We have a front loader washer and dryer system and ours' has a "sanitize" setting. Which runs for about 2 hours, using super hot water and steam to clean the laundry. Yes, I know running the machine for two hours isn't cheap, but it is cheaper than throwing out laundry ever month or so.

 I put the stinky item in with like items (towels with towels, jeans with jeans, you get the idea) and put in my detergent like normal. I add about a 1/4 of a cub of Borax to the detergent. Then run it on the Sanitize setting.

For those of my friends that don't know, Borax is super cheap and is carried in most stores in the laundry aisle. I use it to make all sorts of homemade cleaners. It is much easier on my asthma than store bought cleaners. And nicer on the wallet as well. I have been making my own cleaners for years.

Voila! Out of the dryer comes clothes smelling fresh and clean and no hint at all that they had the horrible urine smell on them. And they are actually clean. Even better.

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday.

Recipe of the Week--Hambuger Lo Mein and buns

This week we tried something that I got out of Mary Ostyns's book.

I love this book. It is filled with great recipes. This recipe we tried was for Hamburger Lo Mein. I changed it around just a tad based on what I had on hand in my pantry. But we loved it. It was very good.

 
You use Mary's homemade Terriaki sauce and it is to die for.
 
I would love to share the recipe with you but can't, as it isn't mine to share. But check out her book, you will find it plus much more in there. It is totally worth the price.
 
I made mine with homemade biscuits/buns though and I will share that recipe.
 
2 tsp yeast
2 tsp water
1/3 cup water
 
4 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/3 c water
1/3 cup oil
1/2 tsp vinegar
4 1/2 cups flour
 
Mix the first three ingredients and let sit for a few minutes. Then add the rest mix. Then kneed until soft and doesn't stick. Cover and let rise for 45 minutes. Punch down. Let rise for 30 more minutes. Shape into buns/biscuits and let rise another 2 hours, or the amount of time that you have on hand. Obviously if you let them rise completely they will be bigger. However I have been in a hurry and only let them rise for 30 minutes and they have been fine.
 

This recipe is linked to Tasty Tuesday.

Menu Plan, Week of January 9

Let me start off by saying I cannot believe that it is January 9th already. Seriously? Where does the time go?

I am trying to get in the saddle again with my menu planning. I used to menu plan two weeks worth at a time and it was such a money and time saver. Plus, I didn't have a lot of food waste because I worked my leftovers into my meal plan.

Working with a meal plan helps me a great deal since I work outside the home 2-3 days a week. I am able to know ahead of time what I need to thaw, cut up, prep or throw in the crock pot.

It is also nice to not have to hear "what's for dinner" 10 times a day since they just  have look at the menu plan to see what is scheduled for that day.

Here is what I have planned for this week.

Breakfasts: Belgium waffles(from the freezer), vegan sausage(me), homemade oatmeal packets, mint chocolate muffins and cold cereal thrown in there as well.

Lunches: leftovers, Raman noodles(my younger two love these, I however do not!), spicy black bean burgers with rice(me--a staple lunch for me), taco crescent rolls

Dinner:
Sunday--Shepherds pie made with leftover mashed potatoes
Monday--Spaghetti with meat sauce(freezer) and french bread(freezer)
Tuesday--Tacos
Wednesday--Fried Chicken(they requested this one again, the family loved it)
Thursday--Fried rice with chicken(leftover from night before, made extra for this purpose) and broccoli
Friday--homemade pizza pockets
Saturday--taco soup(basketball and soccer today right around dinner, so we will be eating in shifts)

The week is slow, we only have soccer and basketball practice for one child this week. Other than that we are home. Makes for nice warm evenings of homework and hanging out.

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday.