Best & Easiest Meal EVER.

 Roast, crockpot or buy some chicken...then shred it..this is literally the hardest step. I put mine in the crockpot for just about 4 hours (anymore and it gets dry) with lemon pepper, garlic salt and seasoned salt..way more than you think you should use.

Make No Biggie's Salsa..mmmmm

Make some Guacamole...or just buy it. Whatever is easiest..

Buy some of this cheese. And I beg you. DO NOT SUBSTITUTE (unless it's another mexican cheese) with some hideous shredded cheese.

 Put some of these in the microwave.Corn. let me repeat..corn. NOT flour.

And put it all together....if you must have cream. Buy Mexican Crema. It is so so good and this is coming from a girl with a aversion to white foods.

I could eat this every day.

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Best & Easiest Meal EVER.

Banana Bread Recipe

This Banana bread is so good it should be called Banana Cake.

 

Found Here.

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Banana Bread Recipe

French Peasant Bread Recipe

I don't have a picture for this one, but trust me you won't care. This bread is so so easy and so incredibly good. Everyone that has tried it has asked me for the recipe.

The ingredients go in a bowl..you mix with a large spoon and let rise..then you flour your hands and take the big blob and separate it into two pieces....set it on a cookie sheet let it rise and bake. Read the recipe for specifics, but really that's about all it takes. It's so so good.

French Peasant Bread

1 Package Dry Yeast

2 Cups Warm Water

1 Tablespoon Sugar

2 Teaspoons Salt

4 Cups Flour

Oil

Corn Meal

Melted Butter


Place yeast, water, sugar and salt in warm bowl and stir until dissolved. Add flour and stir until blended. Do no knead. Cover and let rise one hour or until doubled in size. Flour hands, remove dough from the bowl and place in 2 rounds on an oiled cookie sheet sprinkled with corn meal. Let rise an additional hour. Brush the top with melted butter and bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees and cook an additional 15 minutes. Remove from oven and brush again with butter. Serve warm.

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French Peasant Bread Recipe

THE BEST Whole Wheat Bread EVER!

I've tried at least five whole wheat bread recipes. This one is my absolute favorite. (I had to bug my friend for months to share this)
I know you can't see that very well so here goes:

Measure ingredients In order listed into Baking Pan:(of bread machine--I got mine for $7 at Goodwill)
1 1/2 Cups Water
2 T. Powdered Milk
2T. Shortening
2T. Honey
2T. Molasses
1 1/2 tsp. Salt
3 1/3 Cups Whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp yeast

secure baking pan. close lid. select: Whole Grain Setting (my machine burns bread in this setting I selected basic bread with light crust and it turned out perfect..) Oh cool on rack so the bottom doesn't get soggy. The outside will be slightly crisp and the inside is soft but hearty.

It is so so good.

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THE BEST Whole Wheat Bread EVER!

Chicken Salad

Once a week I make really simple dinners. This Chicken Salad recipe (not pictured above) is DELICIOUS! My version of it was

A mixture of 1 Cup Mayo 1 t paprika 1 t seasoned salt
Then I added...
4 cups of cooked and shredded chicken
about 1 1/2 C diced celery and green pepper (i used 1 whole medium sized green pepper)
2 green onions
about 1 c dried cranberries (craisins)

It's AWESOME. 466 reviewers couldn't be wrong, right?! ◦

Chicken Salad

Meal Planning

My friends are always asking me to share my Monthly Menu with them so they don't have to think about it. So here goes..But first a quick note on organizing all this.

As previously stated in my Organizing Meals Post you can use google calendar to plan your menu. The easiest thing for me is to use my portable monthly calendar (more on that in another post) to quickly plan it out. I plan my menu while I'm waiting for my son during piano, it really doesn't have to take that long if you break it down. For instance I force myself to use a whole chicken at least for one meal a week. I put it in the crock-pot with lemon pepper, seasoned salt and garlic salt on low for at least 8 hours(I've forgotten about it and left it overnight and it turns out great--you can't mess this up) A whole chicken once shredded makes for great lunches and soups etc...and it also freezes really well.

Then I basically break it down like this:(Sorry to be so repetitive, I've written this in another post)
Mon-Mexican
Tue-Pasta
Wed-Something Easy
Thu-Whatever or asian..
Fri-Homemade Pizza & Dessert
Sat-Something New
Sun-Something Good (comfort food)

**Disclaimer...I only plan for the main dish, obviously salads, breads, and sides can be added. Also, my meals are so not gourmet by any means.

Another note. In my recipe binder, on the inside pocket I keep print-outs of recipes to try. When I plan the monthly menu I plug those in first.
So here goes...4 weeks of meals

Week 1
Beef Fajitas
Creamy Fettucine (Martha Stewart)
Homemade Hamburgers & Fries
Tortilla Soup
Chicken Pizza & Brownies
Rosemary Chicken
NOT COOKING THIS EASTER SUN..YAY!

Week 2
Tacos
Stuffed Shells
Chicken Salad Sandwiches(on croissants) fruit salad
Potatoe Soup
Pizza & Fruit Cobbler (whatever fruit I find in the store)
Breakfast for Dinner(French Toast, sausage, fruit)(sometimes we have Belgian Waffles)
Roast Potatoes, green beans

Week 3
Chicken Burritos
Creamy Fettucine With Chicken
Tacos
Beef Stroganof
Pizza
Chicken Lomein
Lasagna

Week 4
Chicken Fajitas
Penne Pasta with Golden mushroom sauce (and seasonal veggies..zuchinni and whatever I find at the store)
Nathan's Hot Dogs with everything (the only ones I'll eat and my kids will love this)
Free DAY!
Pizza
Lemon Fusilli with Arugula
Chicken Chili


I also use a Spreadsheet where I put my grocery list along with this menu. I'll try to save it as a PDF or just leave a comment if you want it. ◦

Meal Planning

Welcome October

With these. These are the best Oatmeal Raisin Cookies on the planet.
And these scones are the best! I've made them so much I've almost memorized the recipe. We dust them with powdered sugar, but if you're lucky enough to have cooler weather they'd be so good with hot cocoa. My advice when making them is roll the dough out after rising and cut into squares ( I used a square tupperware and cut around it) then cut into triangles..after you do this, let them rise again for an another20- 30 minutes (it says this in the recipe but I ignored this the first few times I made them)...they don't really rise but leaving them makes them soft and fluffy when you fry them. ◦

Welcome October

UPdate

One of the reasons I don't post as much as I want or should...besides my self-diagnosed ADD is my family blog I started a little while back. Up until now I've been posting the same stuff there as I have here, because I trust the few people that read this blog and often the most interesting things happening in my life have nothing to do with organization and the many little distractions I write about. I love sharing the day-to-day stuff and frankly lately the blogs I love best are the ones about people's real lives instead of just picture after picture of rugs and wallpaper.. So I haven't known what to post where, and have worried if this blog would be interesting at all if not for all the personal pics? However, since getting the weekly reports on how many people view my blog, I'm not completely comfortable posting all my personal family pics, that and In spite of how stale it can get, I do have lots of great ideas and things to share.
So I will hesitantly separate the two blogs, or rather the content. I will keep this blog about those other things, and my family blog about my life and family. I hope this will relieve the self-inflicted pressure and the chore it has become to post the same stuff twice. This should solve the not blogging at all problem (we'll see). My other blog is private but I would love to add you sweet readers who frequent my blog, so please please leave your emails in my comments and I will send you an invite. In the meantime a quick update on the month of June so far, and yes these are personal but just this one last time..for now.

We had a Pool Party for Daniel's 5th Birthday, and in this heat it is now the only kind of party I want to have.

We hired this cute girl from church to lifeguard and she was great, she helped set up, kept the pool safe and pretty much played with the baby all day.

Daniel insisted on having an Iron Man Cake. It was Marble cake with buttercream frosting and Strawberry filling...soo good. He was thrilled.

A little family pic

Isabelle Turned 1o months the same day Daniel Turned 5. She's getting huge.

Fathers Day was great, and simply put, my husband is an amazing father. I always say that his talent is being the best family man ever...he is patient, even-tempered, funny and so much nicer than me.
The snickerdoodles were for the primary kids who sang (I'm the chorister and I know almost nothing about music) and afterwards they gave the dads a bottle of Jones Soda with a tag that said you're the worlds greatest pop!
My husband turned 37 which kinda bums me out since I wont even be 30 until next year..(P.S. Jill you can relate right?) But he is the most amazing man so I guess there's a trade off.
I cooked him one of his favorite dinners..Salmon and set the table really fancy with lots of candles. In case you're interested, I use my friends recipe which is basically mixing pesto (in the refrigerated section with the fresh pasta) with spinach-- like a package of frozen spinach to 3/4 of the pesto or 1/2 even...I drizzle olive oil, salt and pepper and just put that mixture on top and if you have it chopped pine nuts on top..then I put it in the oven at 400 for like 15 minutes depending on the thickness/amount of Salmon. You cannot go wrong with this recipe.
and for his cake he wanted Texas Sheet Cake. Recipe found here. I didn't put nuts on it because Daniel is allergic, but I highly recommend you do, at least on half. In the morning he got breakfast, Daniel and his cousins sang him a special birthday song, and we all told him something we loved about him before we sang Happy Birthday..

And his gift was a beautiful Bulova Watch..which I did not take a pic of..I was so sick that day...I thought I was getting Pneumonia or something...as I was cooking I was shivering and I felt like I had been beat with a bat, but it all ended up great and he loved every minute of it. ◦

UPdate

Blog Recipes

This weekend was crazy busy with too many pictures to post. Among other things, we went to see my 9 year-old cousin in a dance competition and I made these blog recipes for the Super Bowl.

Awesome yummy Creme Puffs from here

and these Wings and Dip. The wings were a huge hit, and so so easy. Thanks Pioneer Woman

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Blog Recipes