E-Mealz

The Dating Divas are giving away a 3 month subscription to E-mealz today. You can still enter through Thursday night. I was just intrigued with the concept of E-mealz. It was created by two moms who wanted to save money when they plan and buy for their meals for the week. The subscription is only $5/month regularly. They charge in 3 month increments so you would be charged $15 every three months. That is only 1.25 a week for your meal planning. See a sample menu on their website. They have different menus for each type of meal plan they offer. It's quite incredible.

Basically they will look at the local ads for some of the major grocery stores and put together a menu and a shopping list for you to take to the grocery store. The recipes look yummy and I even recognize some of them. They always include sides and most have healthy components of a veggie side. You can print your list and your recipes and be done with it. I'm wondering if you could just subscribe for a few months and then once you have your arsenal of recipes up and running you could do it on your own. But then again, they take into account sale prices at the local market. I'm not sure about couponing...how they approach that...but I'm sure they have something.

My only problem with the site is that they are estimating your budget for a family's meals 7 nights a week to be about $75. That is over $300/month just for dinners. I guess Jeff is more of a money freak than I realized. We budget $150 a month for everything...all of our food...that includes dinners, lunches, snacks, milk, breakfast, milk, staples, and of course milk. (We buy a lot of milk around here.)

I'm wondering though if I could talk him into this program because Dave Ramsey has suggested it. What do you think? Go and check this out and let me know!!

Get Back on the Horse

No, this is not a recipe for horse...:) Instead, it is my attempt to get back into my blogging. I hate going to someone's blog and noticing that it hasn't been updated in a year...what a pain. Well, that is me now! It has been a crazy, busy year. I am now going to try and update this blog at least once a month. It's not that I stopped baking and cooking and partying...it's just that I haven't been taking pictures or posting the recipes here.

I will now try to remedy that by posting to this blog and I will now include my party planning antics as well. Jeff has always made fun of me. He thinks that my party planning is excessive and preemptive. Maybe it is...but it is fun to me. I started planning Ruby's 2nd birthday party the day after her 1st birthday party. I'm excited and that's how I do all of my party planning.

So come back to this blog and hold me accountable. See you in the near future!

Mexican Lasagna

This is one of those meals that Jeff actually goes back for seconds on. I made it last night for dinner and he was excited when he came home because he was actually looking forward to this meal..very unlike him! Whenever I make this I can get 2 pans (8x8). I usually cook one up for dinner that night and put the other in the freezer for another night when I don't want to cook...it works out really well. I got this recipe from Rachel Ray a long time ago from one of her 30 minute meal shows. It cooks really fast and is done within 30 minutes if you have some of the prep stuff done (which I usually do because I used canned goods)!

Mexican Lasagna
2 TBSP olive oil
2 lbs. ground beef
2 TBSP chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 red onion, chopped (or yellow or white)
1 (14 oz) can stewed, diced, or chopped tomatoes
1 c medium heat taco sauce or salsa
1 (15 oz) can black beans, drained
1 can corn
salt to taste
8 (8 in) flour tortillas (to make this healthier try veggie tortillas or low carb tortillas...they actually used spinach tortillas..yummy!)
2 1/2 c shredded cheese
2 scallions, finely chopped

► Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Preheat large skillet over med high heat. Add the olive oil. Add beef, and season with chili powder and cumin, and red onion. Brown meat mixture, 5 minutes. Add stewed tomatoes and taco sauce. Add black beans and corn.
► Heat mixture through, 2-3 minutes then season with salt to taste. Coat a shallow baking dish with oil or spray oil. Cut tortillas in half or quarters to make them easy to layer. (I don't cut mine because they fit perfectly whole in an 8x8 pan, if you are making this all in one large 13x9 pan though you may want to cut them in half.) Build lasagna in layers of meat, tortilla, and cheese. Bake 12-15 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

For the frozen one I bake it at 400 degrees for about an hour if it's straight from the freezer...which is how I do it. If you let it thaw out then you will cook it at 350 for 30-45 minutes.

Sticky Chicken

This recipe is soooo easy and really tasty as well. I saw it on Good Things Utah last week and thought, "What a great, quick meal..I'll be making that." Jeff even liked it even though it was chicken. They claimed that it only takes 12 minutes but it took me longer...don't know why.

Sticky Chicken
3-4 chicken breasts, cut into strips OR chicken tenders
1 c apricot jam (I didn't have apricot jam so I used Strawberry...it still tasted good)
1 c BBQ sauce, your favorite
1 pkt lipton onion soup mix

► Pour small amount of olive oil into skillet and begin browning chicken. Mix together remaining ingredients and pour over browned chicken. Let cook until sauce is thick and bubbly. Serve with rice.

See...simple!

A New Addition

Many of you know my husband Jeff and know that he is stubborn, organized, persistent, and a manager of everything. Most of the time I admire these traits (well most of them) and take advantage of the way that he is. However, there are times that I just want to slap him...literally. A couple of weeks ago he started in about how he feels so disorganized and hates coming home from work to find that there isn't anything to eat and just sits on the couch and watches t.v. until bedtime and sometimes later than bedtime only to go to bed, wake up the next day, and do it all over again. He was going on and on about how he wants to exercise, have a clean house, an organized meal plan for each day, and many other things. As a woman and his wife I couldn't help but think he was trying to backhandedly tell me to get it together. He always says he's not, but if you are a woman then you know exactly what I am talking about. When our men tell us that they feel disorganized, unhappy, like they're just floating along...we feel like it is our responsibility to get them on track, help them out in any way we can, and change things about ourselves to make it better for them. So this was my contribution to his plan...I have made a calendar for meals for the month. This way he cannot come home and say "What's for dinner?" because he will already know! Since he was the one to complain about never having an idea about what dinner is...we decided together that he should be responsible to make dinner once a week. The first week he was slotted in for Wednesday and lo and behold he didn't do it until Saturday...the last day of the week. I told him he is worse than a home teacher..waiting until the last minute! At least now he knows how hard it is to plan a dinner, do the prep work, and make the dinner so that everything is hot all at once. He made breakfast for his dinner last week and we ate in 'waves' as he called them because he doesn't have the 'get everything out at the same time thing' down yet. Anyhow...I'm telling you all of this to announce my new addition to this website! On the right hand side of this homepage you will find our Monthly Menu. Everything is subject to change and it already has been tinkered with but if you see something on the menu that you would like the recipe for...just let me know and I will post it. Happy Cooking to all of you this month...I know I'm in for some fun!

Ham, Peas and Potato Casserole

A few weeks ago I made a ham for dinner. You know what happens when you only have 2 people and a whole ham??...you don't eat it all in one or even two sittings. I had some left over cubed ham and found this recipe to use it up. It was really delicious and even Jeff liked it. I have the hardest time finding anything that he will eat willingly and want more when he's through. So next time you cook up a whole ham for your family...use some of the leftovers for this recipe!

Ham, Peas & Potato Casserole
1 c celery, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 c boiling water
1 1/2 c cubed potatoes
milk
1/4 c butter
1/4 c onion, chopped
1/4 c flour
2 c ham, cubed
2 TBSP parsley, chopped (or 1/3 less of dried parsley)
1 c cooked peas
1/2 c your favorite cheese, grated

► Add celery and salt to boiling water, cook for 10 minutes. Add potatoes and cook 15 minutes longer, drain and reserve liquid.
► Add enough milk to potato water to equal 1 1/2 c liquid. In a large saucepan, melt butter, add onion and cook over low heat until tender. Add flour and blend well, gradually adding liquid, stirring until sauce thickens. Boil for one minute and remove from heat.
► Add ham, parsley, celery, potatoes, and peas. Spoon into an oiled 1 1/2 quart casserole dish and top with cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 325 degrees for 30 minutes or until hot and bubbly. You can also make this casserole a day in advance and refrigerate overnight, just bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Another Take on Pumpkin Cookies

Since I adore pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, I thought I would try another pumpkin cookie recipe. These are good but maybe not worth the trouble of making them unless you want to experiment and then go right ahead. I still like the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies better.

Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing
Cookies:
2 3/4 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp coarse salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 c butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 1/2 c (14 oz) canned pumpkin
3/4 c evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Icing:
4 c powdered sugar, sifted
10 TBSP butter
1/4 c + 1 TBSP evaportaed milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

► Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk dry ingredients; set aside.
► Mix on medium, butter and brown sugar for 3 minutes. Mix in eggs. Reduce mixer to low; add pumpkin, evaporated milk, and vanilla; mix about 2 minutes. Add flour mixture until combined.
► Pipe batter on parchment lined baking sheets. (1 1/2 inch rounds) Space about 1 inch apart. Bake cookies, rotating halfway through about 12 minutes (Tops spring back). Cool on wire racks after cooling 5 minutes on pan.
► For icing, place powdered sugar in a bowl. Melt butter over medium heat, cooking until golden brown (about three minutes). Immediately add butter to sugar, scraping in brown bits. Add evaporated milk and vanilla; stir until smooth. Ice the cookies when they are cooled.

This recipe made tons and tons of cookies (about 6 dozen). I'm not sure if I'll try it again...it was kind of an experiment and unless you really love icing or pumpkin these may not be for you!