Meals...Using What We Have

I'm just going to list some meals not sure what order we'll have stuff in yet. This is using the stuff in our freezer and I will still add in some things that we just really enjoy (like the kale salad). This is using up pretty much everything in the freezer except for the 16 pounds of boneless/skinless chicken breasts....I'm only using those in three meals in this plan. There may be a few things left that there is enough for more than one meal, but I figured I'd make all this and then take inventory and start again. It will be pretty empty after this, though!

I'll just keep this list for us to choose our meals from and add to for the week if there is something we're really wanting. I just wanted to plan out what we have to use it all up.
 --steak gorgonzola frozen meal, dinner rolls
--kale salad
--French bread pizza (Italian sausage from freezer, sweet peppers, onion, pepperoni, mozzarella cheese
--spaghetti (from leftover sausage and sauce from pizza), green beans, carrots
--breakfast burritos
--fish sticks, pasta roni, green beans
--chicken noodle casserole, steamed broccoli
--sweet and spicy wings, fire roasted veggies, potato wedges, onion rings, seasoned fries (using up the little bits of stuff that isn't enough for one meal alone....LOL!)
--butternut squash pasta
--baked chicken (using a Kraft kit in the fridge), black eyed peas, carrots
--chicken fried tuna steak with jalapeno cream gravy, rice medley (frozen side dish from Trader Joes), fire roasted veggies, broccoli
--smokey bbq chicken, beans (using ham hock in freezer), corn bread, corn on the cob
--pasta with meatballs, salad
--chicken caesar salad
--turkey/dressing casserole (using turkey, corn bread cubes and bread cubes in freezer-->making homemade dressing and omitting cranberry sauce), green beans--->the turkey was bad, so we didn't have this meal
--stroganoff pasta with meatless meatballs
--lemon chicken, pasta roni, steamed veggies
--fajitas (using steaks in freezer)
--stir fry (meatless chicken tenders, sugar snap peas, stir fry veggies), brown rice, wontons
--buffalo chicken meatballs, mac and cheese, broccoli
--patty melts (using h.b. patties in freezer), chips, fruit
--tilapia parmesan, sauteed veggies

ETA:  Looking back at my blog, I noticed that sometimes I would give a review of a new recipe that I tried (usually it was on Menu Plan Monday).  I really liked that looking back, I had an idea of if we cared for the meal.  :)  So, I decided to try to update when we try a new recipe!  


The chicken noodle casserole was very good!  We made it with Reames frozen egg noodles.  They didn't taste very good plain, but were really good in the casserole.


The buffalo meatballs were good!  I put celery in them as well as the onion and skipped out on serving them with any dressing, just the buffalo sauce.  I put a little of the hot sauce into the meatball mix, too, and put them under the broiler to brown them up a bit.

Getting organized....again!!

A couple of weeks ago, I did a major clean out of the pantry.  It's been a long time since my pantry has been so clean and so empty! And yes, I do realize that my pantry isn't really empty. It's just that it was overflowing before! I threw out a lot of junk.

 I've also been working hard to do better at making yummy meals for us. More nights than not, we would just throw some random thing together for dinner. There isn't anything wrong with that, but I prefer to follow a plan. If I have something planned, we are a lot less likely to just go out to eat. Part of this planning has me prepping some of our fruits/veggies for the week in advance. I must admit, I don't really like getting it all ready to go, but I figure if I'm going to do a little bit of it, I may as well do it all and get it over with. It makes serving up the fruit or making a kale salad go so much faster!

Another change made recently in our kitchen is a new fridge and dishwasher. When we remodeled our kitchen, we ran a line to have a fridge with ice/water in it. All this time we haven't put that to use. A few months ago I was browsing Craigslist and found a fridge I liked. They just happened to also be selling a dishwasher, so we picked up both for a good deal!

I think the fridge is much easier to keep organized and I'm loving having the water/ice in the door.  I also love that there is more space in the door to accomodate our love of condiments!  :-)

The freezer I haven't found a good way to organize.  I would have loved one of the types with the double door fridge on top and freezer on bottom, but I'm just not willing to spend that right now.

Another change is that my husband bought me a grain mill and new mixer (better for making bread) for mother's day/our 12 year anniversary.  We rarely buy each other anything, but these were something that we've been wanting for several years.  Because he knew I'd likely never bite the bullet and buy it myself, he did.  The buckets in the pantry with the red and blue lids are our wheat.  We have pretty much made our own bread for several weeks now.  I have bought a few specialty loaves, but for sandwiches and such, we've been making our own 100% whole wheat bread!

Soccer Boys!

My sweet, soccer boys!  How I love them so!

Meals...

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things.  Our freezers are packed, so I just need to make a plan!  Lucas does not eat these meals for the most part, but Logan does.  I do try to get Lucas to try what we are eating, but I have enough battles with him that I choose not to battle over meals.  :)

Monday-- falafel on chapati bread with hummus, tzatziki, lettuce, tomatoes

Tuesday--Hungarian cabbage and noodles with hamburger meat (I have cabbage and decided to try this recipe out), green beans

Wednesday--teriyaki chicken, egg rolls, stir fry veggies, rice

Thursday--breakfast burritos, fruit

Friday--roasted potatoes, browned hamburger meat with pork and beans, green beans.  I know this sounds like an odd combination, but you mix the cooked meat and beans and serve it over the potatoes.  I heard about it and tried it and I really liked it.  It has been a long time since we've had it, though.

On the weekends we typically eat up leftovers or have sandwiches.  This weekend will be a bit different because the boys don't have soccer since it is a holiday weekend.  We really don't have any plans either.

Next week:  baked chicken (using one of those new things from Kraft where you dampen the chicken then dip in bread crumbs and cheese....I had a coupon to get it for free), fire roasted veggies (from freezer section at Costco....it has potatoes in it, too)-------->  I originally had this planned for Friday, but then remembered that I had potatoes in the pantry that needed to be used.

Day at the zoo.....

This past Sunday, we met with my friend, Andria, and her family at the zoo. We had SUCH a great time! Later in the day, my friend, Laura, and her family joined us. I had not seen Laura since 10th grade (1996)! It was so great to see her and meet her lovely family. I love that we all went to school together in Texas and have now settled in this area. It's always nice to have friends from "home".

I took over 200 pictures, so it was very hard to narrow it down. Here are some of my favorites. By the way, Blogger changed the way to upload pictures and I can not get it to work right for me. I haven't looked into it. My pictures all overlap, but if you click on one of them, then you can scroll through them individually in full screen mode.

Another tooth bites the dust.....

He's becoming a pro!  Although, he either lost this one on the soccer field or swallowed it.  Ooops!  For the record, when he lost his first tooth, he was very excited that "his tooth came out like Papa's".  :-)

First!

I ran out to the farmer's market and Lowe's. When I got home, Lucas came straight to me and opened his mouth and wiggled his tooth. It has been loose forever, but I think today is the day he will lose his first tooth. 

About an hour later, we were sitting at the table and Lucas said, "Momma. My tooth came out!" as he sat his tooth on the table. :-)

More around the house

We got a few more projects done around the house. If you remember my post about putting the boys in the same room, you'll remember that I hadn't done anything in Lucas's old room yet. Well, we decided to do a reading/guest room. We got a new bookshelf (it is the darker shelf on the left) and loaded it with books and put a futon with a thicker mattress on it in there. It gives us a nice place to sit and read to the boys before bed and a place for guests to sleep, too! It is a very small room, so we couldn't do much in there, but I did the best I could. :-)  The red cabinet was in our hallway at the top of the stairs and it holds our extra blankets, towels, etc..  You may remember it from this post.

Logan often sneaks in here and closes the door. His brother doesn't find him here. I've seen him sneaking out of here after he's already supposed to be sleeping. One night I was headed up and he heard someone coming so was trying to sneak back to his room. Scared him to death when he walked out and saw me in the stair well. LOL!

We also did some work in our full bath. My husband put in a new light switch and outlet. We were putting up a new light fixture, but the only outlet in the bathroom was on the old light fixture. The easiest solution was to put an outlet right next to the light switch. We also put up the new light fixture, new medicine cabinet, new towel holders, and painted the wall and ceiling. I love the results! You can see some before and during pictures of the full bath here.

We chopped down the cherry tree!

Well, maybe we didn't actually do the chopping, but we did have it chopped down. We've planned on having it cut down for a while now. It's just that having such a large tree taken down isn't exactly the cheapest thing. But, it is done. The guy who did it for us said that it is very rare to see a cherry tree as large as ours was. I'll be honest, I was a bit sad to see it go (and before I even got to enjoy the pretty blossoms of it this spring), but it wasn't doing so great. After having it removed, we knew we did the right thing. There was a large amount of rot in the tree. It was starting to drop branches and it really was just a matter of time before a large portion of the tree could have fallen. Much better to just get it done than have to keep worrying when we get lots of rain or the wind picks up.

Here is a picture I took after the tree was down. I really was shocked to see how soft the center of the tree was!

Here is a picture to show how large it was. It towered over our three story town house. There is a ravine behind our house, so I couldn't back up far enough to get the whole tree in the picture (it is the one on the left), but you can see that it was much taller than our home (which is the one on the right)!
I had them cut some smaller pieces and I saved them to do crafts with the boys. :-)