Menu for 8/26/13-9/1/13

Our snack plan has worked out great!  I did have to make a tiny modification.  Bailey would prefer to have her snacks after nap and before bed.  I know it's probably not a good habit to have a bedtime snack, but I only give her healthy snacks like fruits so I'm not going to worry about it for now.

Crock Pot Barbecue Chicken

This is probably one of the easiest meals you could possibly make.  The hardest part of it is opening the bottle of barbecue sauce.  Truthfully, you could make this with only two ingredients: chicken and barbecue sauce.  I just happen to think it tastes better when doctored up a bit.

Chicken Salad

Chicken salad is one of those things that everyone does differently.  A local grocery store here makes fresh chicken salad in their deli with roasted red peppers, Nana makes hers with hard boiled eggs, and my Grandmother's recipe calls for chopped sweet gherkins and pickle juice instead of relish.  Arby's chicken salad has nuts and grapes in it and some other restaurants even add chopped apples, dill relish, grated carrots, or black olives.

Sweet Corn and Bacon Skillet Mac and Cheese

It's new recipe night!

I love new recipe night.  Tonight was particularly fun because the new recipe is one of Aaron's favorite foods.  That's an almost guaranteed hit with him.

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

Toddlers get bored with foods so easily.  Bailey loves yogurt one day, but refuses to eat it the next.  Sometimes I put a plate of green beans in front of her and she scarfs them down as fast as she can, other days she throws them on the floor.

Menu for 8/19/13-8/25/13

Normally we do a lot of snacking during the day when we are at home.  I'm the kind of person who eats when I feel hungry, but also when I'm bored.  I'm trying to keep Bailey from picking up that habit so this week I made a meal schedule out for us.  The entire day of food is planned out so we don't do that I'm-bored-so-I'll-see-if-there's-something-good-in-the-fridge thing.

Chicken Alfredo Roll-ups

Tonight I completely threw any thought of a diet out the window.  Let's be honest, you've seen what I normally eat so you know I'm kidding about the diet, but seriously this will explode your calorie tracker if you are dieting.  Gotta love any recipe that includes a stick of butter and a pint of cream!

Lazy Days

Some days you just feel like being a bum... hanging out at home in your pajamas, snuggling on the couch (or in our case the recliner), and snacking while watching Netflix.  I had one of those mornings today.  It's laundry day and grocery day, so we didn't get off completely free of work today, but we did spend the morning munching on dry cereal and watching My Little Pony while the laundry did its thing.

Twice Baked Potatoes

I may have mentioned this before, but a month or so ago I made twice baked potatoes for the first time in six years.  They came out so perfect that I almost forgot why I had ever stopped making them in the first place.  Then I saw Aaron's plate after dinner and realized why... He only eats the inside and throws out that wonderfully crispy, salty skin!  No matter though because I don't mind to eat his shell with a tiny bit of cheese melted into it for lunch tomorrow so I tossed it in a container and put it in the fridge.

Menu for 8/12/13-8/18/13

This is two weeks in a row that Bailey has completely finished all of her fruit before it was time to go to the store again.  I've been trying to keep up with her, but the kid just loves fruit.  I usually buy a pint of blueberries, a quart of strawberries, and then a 6-8 oz container of raspberries or blackberries (or in this case I bought both) and if cherries or grapes are on sale I'll grab a few pounds of those too.  This week I had all of the berries I mentioned before, plus two whole apples, half a bag of apple slices leftover from the week before, and three peaches.  She ate it all!  I'm glad she likes fruit and all but we're going to go broke buying it for her.

Maple Dijon Roast Pork

I don't get to enjoy it often, but pork is one of my favorite meats.  We cook a great deal of chicken here because Aaron prefers chicken and because I can get it pretty cheap, but I've noticed the past year or so that I can usually find pork loin on sale at a decent price too.  I like to buy a 5 lb pork loin and cut it into chops.  I can generally get 10-12 chops out of it which is three or four meals for us.  I've found a few flavorful pork chop recipes this spring and summer that even Aaron appreciated, but this is my first attempt at a pork roast in seven years.

Menu for 8/5/13-8/11/13

We have had one very busy week/weekend.  I feel like I have run around like crazy all week.  I made two trips to the store this week, one to Kroger for groceries and one to Target for diapers and toiletry items.  My very best friend in the whole world accidentally forgot her umbrella in a restaurant on my side of town (about 45 minutes from her house and almost an hour and a half from her office) so I went to retrieve it for her.  We had some fun outside at Yaya's house Monday night chasing wiffle balls in the back yard... until we had an accident with a firefly and decided to go back inside.  The spaghetti and meatballs was a huge hit again when I made it for Aaron's parents Saturday night.

Chicken and Potato Burritos

I love my Mom's cooking.  Like I've said before, she has a certain throw-things-together-and-see-how-they-taste style of cooking.  Most of our favorite original recipes started out as one thing and evolved into something else.  The chicken veggie spaghetti pie started out as spaghetti pie with meat sauce and somehow got mixed with spicy chicken vegetable soup.