Favorites

I have a few favorite recipes I would love to share with everyone. These are three of my favorite dishes to serve to my entire family.

Favorite #1 - Baked Oatmeal
This is a HUGE hit with the family, even family that visited. Here is the basic recipe : Baked Oatmeal

Lay those yummy berries and bananas on the bottom of a buttered pan.


Mix up the oats with some baking powder and brown sugar. Dump that on the berries and 'nanas


Dump on the egg and milk mixture. Then dump some more berries and 'nanas on. Throw in some chocolate chips and walnuts in. Then you bake that until all sorts of bubbly and brown around the edges. There are no pictures of this one done. That's a first, no picture. It is too good to stop and take a picture.

Favorite #2 Crockpot Apples
I made these last night so that when we got home from Chase's choir concert we would have a warm and yummy treat waiting for us. Throw in that these are pretty good for you, about as good as desserts/treats go.

Core out your apples. I cored them out pretty good to have a pretty good pocket to put the filling.


Here is the filling: 1/4 cup oats, 1/3 cup br sugar, 2 T butter, 1 t cinammon, 1/4 walnuts. Put that in the food processor and pulse just a few times. Not too much. Fill your apples, pushing the filling into the apples.


Place your apples in the crockpot. Place 1 cup of water or apple cider or apple juice in the bottom of the crockpot. I put a little maple syrup in this water as well. Not sure if it did anything but hey it couldn't hurt. Cook these yummies for 2 hours on high or 3 hours on low. Oh man, these were so good.  You could add a scoop of ice cream but I thought they were delish all by themself.

Favorite #3 - Mashed Cauliflower

Now I know you naysayers out there are totally going to skip reading this but don't! Even if you don't make them for your family to try, make them for yourself to try them. But let me say this. They are NOT mashed potatoes. They will not magically taste like potatoes but they come close and are a little healthier. I have made them all sorts of ways but here is my favorite.


Peel and dice  1 russet potato and chop up one head of cauliflower. Cook the potato first in boiling water for about 10 minutes. Then throw in the cauliflower with the potato into the water. Boil these until they are tender.
Drain/strain these once they are done and let the sit in the strainer for a while. The more water you get off the better the mash turns out.


I throw the strained and tender veggies into my kitchen aid mixer with the whip attatchment. I throw in some greek yogurt and a little bit of butter. Throw some salt and pepper. Turn on the machine and whip until your desired consistency.


These are yummy substitution to meals where potatoes are used. I used them with my salisbury steak and it was a perfect match with the mushroom gravy.

So those are a few of my favorite recipes that are being used on a weekly basis. What are your favorites?

Menu Time

The craziness that is our lives has prevented me in a lot of ways from keeping our house as clean as I would like it and from doing those fun crafty things with the girls. I will get back to those soon enough. But my meal planning has gone off the deep end. This is not ok. I need menu's. I need meal planning. Our budget needs meal planning.


Without further or do, here is our menu this week. I have linked recipes for those items / meals that I will be making.

Friday: Baked potato soup with salad

Saturday: Yay! Date night with hubby before the boys football game

Sunday: Salisbury Steak with brocolli and mashed cauliflower ( if you haven't tried these yet, you must. They're really good. No really, they are really good)

Monday: Stuffed red peppers - making stuffing with black beans and quinoa

Tuesday: Turkey burgers with fries

Wednesday: Spooky shepherds pie...I made this last weekend for my inlaws and they loved it, so did the fam. This time I will make little ghost "plops" with the mashed potato/cauliflower mixture on top with little pea eyes

Thursday: Grilled Chicken with mushroom kabobs and zuccini

Breakfast on weekdays are either cereal (this is a cereal with very few ingredients) or oatmeal

Snacks this week: I have wanted to try this recipe for Lemon Buddies. I just love lemon!! We will eat this all week as our after school snack. Or it might only last for a few days. We always have fruit or veggies in the house for those days that we don't have a "sugar" snack.

Dessert: I am going to be making crock pot apples to enjoy after the boys choir concert on Monday night.

Lunch: For me and the girls: this is the best time to pack my girls full of veggies and a little fruit. I try to really focus on veggies. I usually try to give them some sort of protein here as well.


I try to always limit our processed food intake. Here is what I am buying that is processed: greek yogurt, cereal, roterserrie chicken, white chocolate chips, powdered sugar, brown sugar, cheddar cheese. I always look at ingredients and always try to buy those items in the organic or health section of our store. But this isn't always better. Reading labels takes a while but is so worth it!!