Creamy Chocolate Fudgsicle Pin

I thought this PIN looked good and wanted to try it.

Since I wanted to do it before I got groceries and the Pin said you could use milk I did that.

So I used 2% milk and since she said it wouldn't be as creamy with milk I added 2 heaping spoonfulls of greek yogurt.

My verdict on using this with milk and greek yogurt.  1) it's not creamy, it's like the crystally 'ice milk' consistency.  2) I can taste the bitterness of the cocoa.

I was thinking I may try this again with greek yogurt and honey so that you don't taste the bitterness of the cocoa as much.

Taco Roll Ups

We had a week were once again meal planning didn't go as anticipated.


DH was home really late on Tuesday and dd1 who is the only kid who will eat at least 1 taco didn't want them, so we did a more casual snack supper.  Wednesday DH and I went to the funeral home for my aunt's visitation and since it's out of town we ate on the road and the kids went to dh's mom's for supper.


Now it's Thursday (and supposed to be French Toast) but I have taco meat thawed out.


DD1 suddenly 'dislikes' tacos so I am going to try 'Taco Roll ups'  I couldn't find any pins with what I had in mind so I created my own recipe.  I don't measure and weigh....I just go by what looks good.


I also hide veggies in food.


Note: I pre made a few pounds of taco meat about a month ago.


1) Taco Meat (ground turkey, taco seasoning, pureed salsa and it has some pureed squash & sweet potatoes in it).  This is a bit under a lb (didn't weigh it but we don't seem to use a full lb when we eat tacos so I had split it up in less than a lb bags).


2) Pillsbury crescent rolls (2 packages)


3) Monterey Jack and Cheddar cheese


Spread the meat on  (about a spoon full) and top with cheese (I took about a 3 finger (and a thumb lol) pinch of cheese).

Roll them up and seal off ends to the best of your ability.

I had enough meat for 1 1/2 packages of crescent rolls (so I would guess 1 lb may be enough).  For the remaining 1/2 pack I put some left over chicken and cheese in them.  I thought about adding some taco seasoning to it but decided not to.


Put in the oven at 375 for 13 minutes.

Before I made this I tried to find a PIN on Pinterest of this but I didn't find this.  I will be going to do what apparently isn't 'acceptable' on pinterest (from what I have read) and will Pin this myself.  You can find it here.


The verdict: DH and I really liked them.  DS1 said he liked them and then said he didn't but he ate all of his except 1 piece that wasn't 'perfect' looking.  DD1 said she didn't like the crescent roll part and wouldn't eat it.  DD2 just refused (but she just woke up from a late nap too and was still sleepy).  DS2 well he's not old enough to eat them yet ;)  I have extremely picky kids.  I know you're thinking that most kids are but I do believe based on feedback of food suggestions from friends that my kids are pretty bad for pickiness.

Menu Plan Monday!

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Sunday's meal from last week is being moved to Monday as DH and 2 of the kids went to DH's grandparent's house for grandma's birthday (I stayed home with one sick child and the baby).  

Monday: Sour Cream Enchiladas - I made them yesterday and will reheat today. I used green pepper instead of chilis (as I don't like super hot food) and I did not use onion but did put 1tsp of Epicure 3 Onion dip mix in it.  I ate a couple lunch today and they were very yummy!  I think this would be a good thing to make for work lunches when I go back.

Tuesday: Tacos

Wednesday: Uncle Ben's rice and ? 

Thursday: French Toast

Friday & Saturday: We won't be at home for supper time so Treat night.

Sunday: Chicken Fingers

Menu Plan Monday

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Monday: Almost Lasagna

Tuesday: Steak & Veggies (thinking of trying this with California mix veggies)

Wednesday: Kraft Dinner

Thursday: Cheesy Chicken & Rice

Friday: Frozen pizza (don't worry we'll eat it cooked)

Saturday: Eggs & Toast

Sunday: Sour Cream Enchiladas

Meal planning has helped us with not eating out quite a much.  Last week we did end up having a treat night when we weren't supposed to (due to the unanticipated circumstances of the day) but I just removed an upcoming treat night and replaced it with a meal.

I can't say whether or not it has saved us money because I have not been meal planning based on flyer sales.  Each meal we seem to have leftovers so I split the remainder of the meal up based on what we ate that evening, if we don't have enough I figure we can have veggies or some fruit after.

Crock Pot Cream Cheese Chicken

I decided to try this recipe but I kinda switched it up a bit......I decided to also serve it over rice instead of pasta.


The original recipe can be found on the Year of Slow Cooking Blog


What I put in is as follows - the remainder of the cooking instructions is the same as the original recipe.


2 cans cream of chicken 
2 T italian seasoning
1T of Epicure french onion soup mix (plus another 1/2 t - because I was trying to do it from memory and did the 1/2 first)
1 T sugar
1t kosher salt
2t of epicure minced garlic (which is supposed to be equivalent to 2 cloves)
really large chicken breasts (which is why I did the 2 cans soup)
block of cream cheese

I took out 1 cup of the broth and added it to the rice (did 1 1/2 cups of rice - so 1 cup broth and 2 cups water) - so the rice was also flavoured a little

Meal Plan Monday

 

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I entered a meal plan on my google calendar to rotate every 4 weeks (or until I decide to change it since I will be trying new recipes as well). I know it would be smarter to meal plan based on weekly flyers but when I am back to work full time with 4 kids I just don't see it as a realistic plan.  So if I know what types of foods I need for my meal plan I can stock up when I see sales (hopefully). I have also put in the recipes in my google calender but all the recipes I have pinned on my Food & Drink board on pinterest. (Excluding things like tacos or Uncle Ben's rice).  I use my playbook with the google calendar to read the recipe and I don't have to print it off then and I don't have to store recipes.

Monday: Meatballs and Roasted Cauliflower

Tuesday: Crock Pot Cream cheese chicken

Wednesday: Uncle Ben's Rice and Veggies

Thursday: Tacos

Friday: French Toast

Saturday: Spaghetti

Sunday: Grilled Cheese

Menu Plan Monday

 

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My weekly menu plan is trying to use a few recipes I have pinned on pinterest.  Generally, I alter recipes a bit to fit in with our families preferences.

 

My Weekly Menu Plan:   

Monday: Chicken Roll Ups and sliced carrots (just used a mix cheddar/monterey jack cheese and also couldn't find powder ranch dressing, was going to use epicure herb and garlic and forgot! - still tasted good though.  I also didn't do the butter and bread crumbs).

Tuesday: Chicken Spaghetti (except I am going to use Spaghetti Squash - haven't tried it before, so hoping it tastes good!)

Wednesday: Macaroni and cheese (quick meal since the kids have something that evening at 6:30)

Thursday: Sour Cream Enchiladas (will not put in chilis - will use finely chopped peppers so hopefully the kids won't notice and also will use epicure onion spice instead of actual onion).

Friday: "Snack Day" The kids have requested this is a snack day, basically we 'graze' on food in the house, so fresh fruit and veggies are cut up etc and we 'snack.'

Saturday: Crock Pot Cream Cheese Chicken

Sunday: Chinese Noodles (dd1's choice)

Pinterest Suppers!

Yesterday and today our suppers came from Pinterest.


I am not one who enjoys cooking usually, but it's nice to have a meal that doesn't make me tempted to want to go out for supper.


Yesterday I made "Almost Lasgana"

I left out the pasta sauce because my kids don't like "red sauce" and used cottage cheese instead of ricotta because it was on sale and I couldn't find ricotta.  It turned out to be really good even though the kids were extremely apprehensive to eat it (ds1 didn't eat any of it).  DH and I added pasta sauce after the fact to ours and also enjoyed it.  I put the left overs in freezer bags to eat another time.  When I went to bed last night I wished I ate more of it.


Tonight I am making Crock Pot Chicken Parm

The only change I made for this was I used crushed vegetable thin crackers instead of bread crumbs.

We are also going to try Roasted cauliflower.  I used chili powder and epicure Herb and Garlic sea salt.  I am not a fan of veggies in general.  The cauliflower wasn't horrible (please note that I really dislike veggies!!).  I was able to eat it without pulling any faces.  

Overall verdict of supper: DH and I liked all of it.  DD1 ate 1 piece of chicken (because we made her) and refused to eat anymore because there was 'red sauce', DD1 (once I offered 10 cents) ate all the cauliflower on her plate and then finished off the bowl.  She said there was a little too much sea salt.  DS1 refused to eat the cauliflower but did eat all of his chicken (although initially he also said he wouldn't eat it because of the red sauce), DD2 also refused to eat it, but it's waiting for her when she gets hungry tonight as she didn't even try a bite and she did this yesterday and ended up eating all of it later in the evening.

*pictures are screen shots of the pins as I forgot to take pics!

Supper: Tator Tot Casserole Pin

Going to torture my kids with some potatoes again.  Saw this pin for Tator Tot casserole and figured I had most of the ingredients in the house.  I didn't have was an onion so I substituted with 1 tbsp of epicure 3 onion dip mix.  I also buy ground turkey instead of beef, so turkey was used instead.  I really love salt just as much as anyone else, but everything contains so much salt already, so I did not season my meat with extra salt.  I also didn't measure the cheese but sprinkled a couple handfulls on.


The original recipe can be found here, my recipe has some slight alterations to ingredients but that is all.


DH and I liked it.  DD2 ate quite a bit off her plate without any tears.  DD1 lots of tears and bribery - she ended up eating the meat and maybe a little bit of the potatoes (I was feeding the baby by this point), DS1 completely refused to try it.


So what potato dish shall I subject them to next?

Smoothie Pin

Out of the blue the kids asked for a smoothie.  So I remembered a pin on pinterest with a smoothie with spinach (my kids are bad veggie eaters as am I).  I had purposely bought mixed frozen fruit and frozen spinach to try a 'similar' idea of smoothie as the pin I saw.

the smoothie (not a great photo but it serves the purpose)

I broke up a couple pinches of spinach and let my dd1 pick the frozen fruit that was put in - strawberries, raspberries, honeydew, peaches, and probably a few others.  I did not let the kids see me put in the spinach.  We added some local honey, a small yogurt cup, splash of milk and a couple scoops of ice cream per request of the kids.


I didn't want to add too much spinach because there would be no way the kids would drink something that looked brown/green.  Making the smoothie I think caused the death of my blender....there was a horrible smell when trying to blend it up (even after letting the fruit thaw a bit and blending in small quantities).  DD1 was liking it, then didn't and asked for more ice cream in it, then didn't like it again....and after I just told her it was good for her she has agreed to try it again.  DS1 refused to try it because he didn't like the smell (which is actually the smell of the blender dying), DD2 refused to try it, DH liked it and I liked it.  I think DD1 is aware of 'something' else in the smoothie because she's complaining of pieces sticking to her tongue (there are no pieces that stick to your tongue but there are green flecks in it).