Menu Plan Monday!

This week will of course be crazy, but let's try to have a plan.
Monday - chicken alfredo
Tuesday - tortellini
Wednesday- Some sort of chicken :)
Thursday - Something fun...maybe steaks (depending on price) and sweet potatoes??
Friday - Sunday - > Various Family Gatherings!

Frugality Tip of the Day

When trying to save both time and money, it is not a good idea to throw your first batch of anything on the floor and break your favorite mixing bowl into a million pieces :)

Found a great read.

I am reading a book this week by Mary Ostyn at http://www.owlhaven.net/ called Family Feasts For $75 a week. It is great! I love that she not only includes recipes for everything, but she also tells you why to do certain parts of the recipe. As an example when she gives her biscuit recipe she reminds you to handle as little as possible to get the fluffiest biscuits...things you may (or may not) know, but is always nice to be reminded of. We tried out her recipe for Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookie Bars and they got the seal of approval from my husband, my toddler, and of course my dear, sweet sister-in-law (she stopped by to hang out, but confessed later that she was certain I would have "good stuff" around). We are enjoying it and hope you get a chance to check out Mary.

Menu Plan - Dec 14th

With all of the crazy Christmas stuff going on we are going to try and eat this week mostly out of our pantry and freezer. We will stop by the store and get a fresh salad and maybe a few other things, but mostly just what we have on hand. I'm posting a little bit ahead so that I can get everything else taken care of this week. We also need to start our batches of Christmas cookies that we will be giving out as gifts

so...

Monday - chicken alfredo

Tuesday - Lasagna

Wednesday - Church

Thursday - Chicken Parmesan

Friday - Hanging with in-laws

Saturday- Chicken mushroom rice - Gramma's birthday party so this may not work out as planned

Sunday - Not sure yet, but something good :)

you can check out more menu plans at http://orgjunkie.com/

The Best Pancakes Ever!

My daughter and I both enjoy a morning breakfast of pancakes and I have been trying out various "scratch" versions for a few months just to see what we like. I think we found the winner! We originally did it with just white flour, but we just tried it with half white and half wheat, and I think it makes it better :)

3/4 c white flour
3/4 c wheat flour
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
dash of cinnamon

mix all of these up really well

add
1 1/4 c. milk
1 egg
3 Tbsp melted butter

use butter on your skillet to keep your pancakes from sticking (I know...a lot of butter, but so good) and yummy!

It gets a lot of cheers at our house :)

Menu Planning

I have never been one to plan in advance for meals, but then it gets to be 5 o'clock and I ask my husband what he wants and he says he doesn't know and ....it goes downhill from there. So for the last two weeks we have planned a week in advance, we don't always stick to it, but it is working out great! We have had peaceful evenings. I have been able to prep in advance and thus no craziness before dinner, hubby happy, toddler happy, all this makes mommy very happy! Since we started doing this I started googling and found orgjunkie.com and her menu planning monday, and we decided to join in on the fun.

Here is our menu for the week.

Breakfasts
- Cereal
Lunches
- leftovers

- BLT's

- Ham and Cheese

- Grilled Cheese
Dinners
- Chicken Pot Pie
- Lasagna
- Tacos
- Spaghetti
- Crock pot Chicken
- Mushroom onion chicken