Weekly Meal Plan

Meal Plan for the week of March 16-20:

–Crock Pot BBQ Meatballs (freaking LOVE these!)

–One Pan Lemon Garlic Chicken Pasta (**new recipe for me)

–Tilapia w Garlic Roasted Tomatoes & Corn (already made a few weeks ago, just have to remember to defrost it this time!)

Who else is cooking Corned Beef on Tuesday? How do you like to cook it? I’ve only ever done it in the crock pot and it always turns out delicious! Yummmm!

I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures especially of the new recipe I’m trying out.

Happy Cooking!

P.S. Would you be interested in a shopping list if I added it along with the meal plan? It’s easy to do. Just let me know, I would be happy to include it!

Let’s Bring Back Summer!

In my efforts to “bring back summer” especially for all you northern folk, I whipped up some homemade potato salad while the husband smoked a brisket on the Big Green Egg.

Looking back, I should have stayed in last night instead of drinking wine with neighborhood ladies because prepping for potato salad is a pain in the neck! Even more so when all three kiddos are awake. But I had a blast last night so I’m going to take Elsa’s words to heart and “let it go” because “the past is in the past.”

Anyway back to the potato salad…it’s from Better Homes & Gardens – Classic Potato Salad – a recipe that I fell in love with about 20 years ago. When I’m craving delicious potato salad, this is what I want and nothing else will do.

The potato salad has eggs, mustard, onion, sweet gherkin pickles, celery and of course potatoes and mayo. All of my favorite things!

Happy Cooking!

Katie 🙂

P.S. I apologize for all the Frozen quotes but you do remember that I live with two frozen obsessed daughters. A day does not go by that we don’t sing, watch or talk about Elsa, Anna and Olaf. But let’s save that for another post 😉

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

I think I’ve found yet another site for the most delicious recipes ever! I’ve already tried two of them so far and both have been fantastic! Like restaurant quality fantastic. Like holy hat, I could eat the whole dish before the husband gets home and he would never know I cooked anything. “Sorry, honey, I ran out of time to cook. Frozen pizza ok??” Ha. He’s no dummy. He would definitely call my bluff.

If you are looking for a great and relatively easy dinner to make tonight or this weekend, go check out Julia’s Album. I promise you will find a dish that you LOVE! And make sure to tell her I sent you by 🙂

Last night I made Chicken Mozzarella Pasta w Sun Dried Tomatoes and truth be told…there isn’t any left. Seriously. No joke. And it was only my husband and I who ate it. It was THAT good.

In all of my 20+ years of cooking, I have never sautéed my chicken in the oil from the sun dried tomatoes. I almost skipped that step and used regular olive oil. I am so thankful I didn’t!! It made a huge difference in taste and adding a little paprika gave the chicken a beautiful color. Of course, I had to take a picture of the chicken because it just looked so pretty!!

I love how Julia’s Album incorporates a variety of flavors all in one dish. The mix of fresh basil with sun dried tomatoes and melted mozzarella is mouth watering delish. My favorite part was sprinkling red pepper flakes on top to give the dish a nice kick!

Another step that I was tempted to skip was reserving 1/2-1 cup of the pasta water. Once again, I’m thankful that I didn’t. The cheese sauce definitely gets very thick and you do need to add the water to make it a creamier, thinner sauce so it can cover all the pasta. And who doesn’t like extra sauce for dippin’?!

Happy cooking!

Katie xoxo

P.S. Check out your local Fresh Market for a great deal on chicken breasts. I promise you won’t be sorry! On Tuesdays, it’s $2.99/lb. Great savings and great tasting chicken!

Lasagna Soup? What?!

A few weeks ago, my sister told me that she made Lasagna Soup. I was like, lasagna soup?? What?!? How in the world can lasagna be made into soup?! She went on and on about how much the WHOLE family loved it…even the kids. Well, once she said the kids loved it I knew I had to give it a try.

Skinnytaste‘s recipes are absolutely, without a doubt, DELICIOUS! So much so, that I even bought her cookbook last year! I should have bought some kind of protector for it to keep it clean from all my cooking though…

I’m not usually looking to reduce calories so I always find myself making the dishes “un-skinny”. With this one, I used regular sausage and most definitely added more cheese.

The girls didn’t try it because I ended up feeding them before it was done. I had a MNO to go to and I wasn’t feeling up to having them try something new. That takes a whole lot of energy…and time. Both of which I was lacking that night.

Next time, I will have them help me prepare and eat this meal. I just know they will LOVE breaking the lasagna noodles as much as I did. It was a great stress reliever!

Happy Cooking!!

Katie 🙂

The “Perfect” Cake

Before motherhood, I was a perfectionist and I had that quality perfected. Now that I’m four and a half years into this motherhood gig, I’ve finally determined it’s not worth all the time, effort, stress and craziness that it brings along.

I’m embarrassed to say that this lightbulb just went off this weekend. I mean really went off. I’ve heard it pretty much all my life but it wasn’t until I took my daughters baptism cake out of the refrigerator that it hit me. Actually, it hit the cake. The top shelf of the fridge hit it…when I pulled it out for the party. Eesh! The old me would have been devastated!! But in all sincerity, it really didn’t phase me. That’s when I realized I’ve changed. Maybe I’m so delirious from the lack of sleep these days or maybe I’m finally coming to terms with motherhood and all its twists and turns. Either way, it’s all good…I created happy memories for my girls that day. And in case they happen to forget, I took LOTS of pictures to show them later.

I’m in the process of storing all of my recipes at Plan To Eat so that I can efficiently meal plan for the entire family (blog post coming soon!). So here’s the link for the buttercream icing:

http://www.plantoeat.com/recipes/3238551

Your Charmed Wedding made Elizabeth’s gorgeous headband for me. Head on over to Etsy and check out this wonderful shop!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/YourCharmedWedding

PS…I’m new to all this “linking” of websites so if for some reason it’s not working, just let me know.

Beautiful the mess I am.

Love & Prayers,

Katie

Malaspine Meatloaf

I never gave meatloaf much thought until I tried my BFFs mother’s recipe. Oh my! Ever since then, this is the only meatloaf I crave and now with the cooler weather coming, it’s the ultimate in comfort food. Serve with some egg noodles or mashed potatoes. Or heck! Serve it with both and enjoy! Let me know if you decide to add it to your meal plan for the week. I would love to know how you liked it!

Katie 🙂

Malaspine Meatloaf

Servings: 4
Time: 2hr 30mins
Print

Credit: The Malaspine Family

Ingredients:

Meatloaf:

1-1.5lbs ground beef
1-1.5lbs ground pork (not the original Malaspine way, a Roemer addition)
2 eggs
1/2 c ketchup
2 tbsp spicy brown mustard
1/2 c breadcrumbs
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Glaze:

1/2 c ketchup
2 tbsp spicy brown mustard
4 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, scramble 2 eggs. Add the ketchup, mustard, bread crumbs, garlic powder, salt & pepper. Mix well. The mixture should be kind of gooey.
Add the ground beef and the ground pork and mix well.
Place into 13×9 pyrex and evenly distrubute to cover the majority of the dish.
Use a small bowl to prepare the glaze. Add the ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, and apple cider and mix well.
Pour the glaze over the meatloaf.
Bake at 350degrees for 1hr 45mins to 2hrs or until meat is thoroughly cooked.

Seeking Comfort

I have been doing a lot of cooking this week and its only Wednesday. It seems that when my anxiety is through the roof, I tend to skip my early morning bible study and when I skip my early morning bible study, I cook…alot. I start doubling recipes, stuffing them into a Ziploc and freezing them. While its awesome to be prepared and have a stocked freezer, I’m not focusing on whats really important… God and my family. That all hit me this morning when I was telling a girlfriend about the amazing Shepard’s Pie (my ultimate comfort food!) that I made last night. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Hmm… so here I am searching for comfort, so I make comfort food. When all along I should have searched for comfort from Him.

I was up early this morning and while the whole house slept, I did get about twenty minutes of study time in. Maybe that’s why I was able to see my previous actions so clearly. Maybe that’s what I needed. So I made the comfort food yesterday and found comfort from Him this morning. I do have to admit that my anxiety is at a much more controlled stated. There has been no yelling today and that’s a win for this house!

Did I receive the seed that fell on good soil? Today, I did.

“But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” Matthew 13:23