It’s a girl

Current mood:anxious

(I doubled this)
2 acorn squash, halved
1/2 pound of Ground Meat, any variety
1 cup short grain brown rice
1 tbsp olive oil
¼ onion, sautéed
1 cup mushrooms, sautéed
1 carrot, peeled, chopped roughly, and steamed
1 cup spinach, chopped
¼ cup vegetable broth, or 1 Tbsp Better Than Bullion
2 tbsp  butter, melted
1 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped finely
1 tbsp fresh sage, chopped finely
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

• Cut the squashes in half and roast for about 25 minutes on 350 degrees.
• Cook the rice in the rice cooker according to directions.
• Sauté meat and onion in olive oil until softened. Add in mushrooms and spinach for the last five minutes of cooking.
• Steam carrots  for a short period of time.
• Combine broth, butter, thyme, sage, salt, and pepper in a separate bowl.
• Combine rice, sautéed veggies, steamed veggies, and broth mixture in a large bowl. Mix thoroughly.
• Stuff mixture inside each squash half.  Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

*Will post pictures later, when I find them!*

Stuffed Zucchini/ AKA Zucchini Boats

Ingredients:

2 zucchinis (plus chopped meat from other squashes)
1 onion
2 chopped garlic cloves
1 cup spinach, chopped
1 tbsp sour cream
1 egg
bread crumbs
salt & pepper, to taste
Parmesan cheese
half pound of bacon, chopped and fully cooked

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 400 (200C).
• Wash zucchini, cut in half, lengthwise
• scoop out zucchini innards, and coursely chop
• chop up meat from any other squashes
• (wring out excess moisture from squash guts)
• combine all ingredients, and spoon into zucchini.
• Place in baking dish or sheet and cover with foil
• Bake for 35 minutes and remove foil, baking for an additional 15 minutes.
• Enjoy!

Before baking

It was good…

And I’m ok with that.  For now.

And if the image doesn’t show up for you, don’t hate, just click!  Then all will be revealed.  I’m just too tired to figure it out right now.

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to implement the family control journal for a few years now but really lacked any motivation.  I originally got the idea from flylady.net.  I recently bought a set of journal/planning pages from Etsy and got re-motivated.  I then mashed the two ideas/formats together and came up with this:

(As we start using this I will share how it’s working and how to make your own customizable family planning center)

Since I do get to come home for lunch/dinner (kind of) I will try to prep dinner if it’s not already in the crock pot.  Jason works long, hard hours and right now he’s commuting 2 hours a day (until next week!  YAY!) so I don’t want him to have to deal too much with meal making if he doesn’t have too.

So, lots of crock pot and casseroles it is!  The casseroles are easy because I can prep and assemble and then slide it into the fridge and when Jason’s ready, or when I pop in at my lunch break I can put the dish in the oven, turn it on and let it works it’s oven-magic.  Don’t do this with glass dishes.  I made that mistake once, it was a bbq rib disaster.  Stoneware is the way to go with this.

Here is this week’s menu and recipes:

Sunday:  Shepherd’s Pie
Easy peasy: brown up ground turkey (cook it all the way!) add some frozen veggies, add a soup base (like low sodium cream of mushroom) and place that in 9×11 casserole.  Make up some  mashed potatoes and spoon over the top.  Bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees, sprinkle cheese over the top and bake for an additional 10 minutes.  I used swiss cheese and it was yummy!

Monday: CP Cashew Chicken over rice   I will repost a better link by the end of the week.

Tuesday: Pork Carnita tacos
Pork shoulder roast in crock pot.  Add whatever seasonings you want!  Mole, crushed red peppers, garlic, onions, etc.  When done (8-10 hours) shred with fork and serve with regular taco toppings ie:  shredded lettuce, sour cream, shredded cheese, avacado, etc.

Wednesday: CP Beef Stroganoff with noodles
I use Smart Taste noodles that have added calcium and fiber!  Stock up when they are on sale!

Thursday:  CP Macaroni and Cheese   I use regular medium cheddar cheese instead of sharp.

Friday: Potato Soup   Don’t want cheese or ham? Leave it out!  GOOD recipe!

Saturday: Baked Chicken and Cheese Risotto
1 can cream of mushroom soup, low sodium (or make your own creamy mushroom sauce!)
1.25 cups water
1/2  cup milk
1.5 cup frozen mixed veggies
2 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite size pieces
1/3 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/3 cup shredded swiss cheese
4 Tbsp grated parmesan cheese
1 cup uncooked Arborio (risotto) or regular long grain rice

1. Stir the soup, water, milk, veggies, chicken, cheeses and rice into a 13×9 baking dish.  Cover with foil.
2. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes.  Uncover the dish and stir.
3. Bake for 10 minutes more or until hot and rice is tender but still firm.  Let the risotto stand for 5 minutes before service.
Delicious with homemade bread and salad!

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Crispy Chicken Burritos (A Copy Cat Recipe)

• 3 pounds of Boneless, Skinless Chicken breast, boiled until done
• A Brick of Cream Cheese, (Low-fat ok)
• 1/2 cup of sour cream
• green onions, chopped (a bunch)
• taco seasoning, about 1 tsp
• Garlic Pepper seasoning, to taste
• 20 8 inch tortillas

Shred or chop chicken.  Mix with all ingredients except tortillas.  Assemble burritos by placing about 1/8 cup (I use a scoop from Pampered Chef and do 2 scoops) of chicken filling onto tortilla, roll like a burrito and place on cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray.  Assemble until you run out of ingredients.  Spray assembled burritos and bake in oven at 375 degrees for 20 minutes, flipping once after 10 minutes.

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I was so upset while grocery shopping today.  It seemed like a lot of my every-week purchases have gone up in price.  I’m mostly upset because it seems like they never went down after the last gas hike, so now they are just adding to it.  I was especially floored with the price of milk.  It’s gone up $.49/gallon in 4 weeks.  I spent $170.29 this week, which is about $40 more than I usually spend.  Add in extra gas expenses (simply because of the increase of gas prices and extra trips made) and this week is going to be EXPENSIVE!  This does not make for a happy me

On a side note, anyone want to have a party so I can afford groceries and gas? lol… no, seriously…  www.partywithdesiree.com

Well, we were supposed to have a turkey dinner on Saturday, but then I remembered after I menu planned that we are having a potluck thing at my sister’s house for a long-lost family member.  Sooo… I’ll probably save it for Sunday of next week!

Then, I’ll be ahead of the game, and that almost never happens!

Now I have to just get caught up on my blogging and continue writing on a regular basis.  No problem! lol…

I messed around with different blogging sites and I really like all the features that are on wordpress.com so I won’t be switching, however staying does actually require me to pay to forward my domain.  I think that bites!  There are many, many blog hosting sites that do not require a fee to do that, but since I don’t really want to start over, so to speak, and mess with exporting and importing (again!) I will just suck it up and pay the $12 a year.

So… here’s to goal accomplishments and success!  (and winning!)  (Sorry, had to add that in, my kids have been driving me nuts playing a Charlie Sheen game and it’s stuck.  How do I get it out?)

Here are my excuses and you can be the judge if I’ve had a decent reason to not blog…

1. I’ve been busy. (yeah, who hasn’t!)
2. In December and January I was working 4 jobs.  (See, told you I was busy!)
3. In the beginning of January I started having pain, which led me to have surgery the end of January.  (It’s hard to blog when you’re in pain)
4. In February I missed my gallbladder so there was no way I could write about food.
5. In March, I’ve been busy.  See, right back to that again!  But really, with 3 immediate family birthdays it’s just been nuts!

But seriously, not 4 jobs busy. I quit my Hallmark job this month for several reasons.  One, it was taking too much of my time.  (dumb, but really?) Two, they wanted me to start tracking personal time and mileage and not get paid for it.  Um… no thank you!  It’s none of their business where I go between my house and my job, especially if I’m not getting paid for it!

In all seriousness, I’ve gotten lazy.  I’m still menu planning around my budget.  Just not on the computer like I was.  And I’ll tell you why:  Jason is doing most of the cooking now.  GASP!  I know, right?!?!  Since I’ve started working back in a child care center I work too late to get dinner on the table at a reasonable time so it’s left to him.  Now, I menu plan, shop and prep as much as I can.  Usually before I go to work I’ve done whatever food prep I can so he can just throw it in the oven or in the pan to cook.  Or I get stuff into the crock pot.  Usually.

But oh my God, I miss fresh bread.  And I haven’t had time for that since I started working at the day care in October.   And I’m sorry for that!

And another reason (No, not an excuse!) is that I rarely actually get on my laptop.  My phone does basically everything so I basically use it for everything.  But blogging would be difficult so I don’t use it for that.  Even with Swype it would be crazy.

So… here are my end of March resolutions.  Hey, I can do what I want!

1. Combine denakisland.wordpress.com and denakislanddomestica.wordpress.com into one blog.  It will go by denakisland.com.
2. Register denakisland.com as a domain.
3. Have a fairly active blog that will be a combination of my zany family tales and some of the yummy food that I feed them.
4. Get caught up on some of the stuff that I HAVE made and taken pictures of but never got on the laptop to actually get posted.

Is that ok?  If I do those things can I pretty please be forgiven?

What about if I add whipped cream and a strawberry on top?



Ok then!  I’ll see you on the other side of fabulous!