Menu for 9/30/13-10/6/13

I am so ridiculously excited about this week!

First- I'm cooking a two pound beef roast in the crock pot (just like Mom makes hers) and serving it with mashed potatoes and gravy and peas (just like Mom does hers) on Monday.

Second- I'm using some of the leftover roast beef to make a really simple pot roast stew.  I love making soups and stews.  It really starts to feel like fall when I pull out the soup recipes.

Spiced Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Apples and Sweet Potatoes

Happy New Recipe Night!

When I put this recipe on the menu I had no idea how hard it would be to get my hands on a pork loin.  It just never went on sale at the grocery store so I had to improvise.  I used a pork tenderloin instead and I could not be happier with the results.

How To: Stop Being a Lazy Bum After Almost a Month of Allowing Yourself to be a Lazy Bum

Long title, I know.  I'm just being a little silly though.

I really have been a lazy bum.  Somehow my laundry has piled up (in that odd way where I haven't actually put away the clean clothes I washed last week so the new dirty clothes are in a pile where the laundry baskets usually sit while the clean laundry is in the laundry baskets), I have neglected the dusting, I've neglected the dishes a lot, and last week I never even made it to the grocery store!

Ranch Mashed Potatoes

Back before Bailey was born, when Aaron and I lived in an apartment and ate mostly fast food because it was just easier to pick it up on our way home from work than to actually take the time to go grocery shopping and cook dinner after work, one of the few things that Aaron actually wanted to eat at home was (of course) macaroni and cheese.  Now, everybody has those weird food combinations that they like.  Mine is Wendy's french fries and a frosty.  I like to dip my fries in the frosty.  My brother used to (not sure if he still does) like Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls with nacho cheese.  Pregnant women are notorious for wanting strange things like pickles and ice cream.  Aaron's strange combination is ranch flavored Wavy Lays chips and macaroni and cheese.  He likes to use the chips as a scoop for the macaroni and cheese.

Menu for 9/23/13-9/29/13

After another seemingly endless week I am dying for a nice, normal, relaxing week.  I want my routine back.  I want my house cleaned from top to bottom.  I just want everything back to normal.

This month has been busy and strange.  I have skipped planned meals in favor of fast food (which is uncharacteristic of me) or to eat with family.  Last week I didn't feel like cooking Wednesday night so we ordered pizza.  I had errands to run on Wednesday and Thursday and somehow we never made it to the grocery store so I didn't have the ingredients for Friday's planned meal so I just decided to cook what I'd had planned for Wednesday.

Ranch Crusted Fried Chicken

For anyone who reads this blog regularly, you will know that fried chicken is basically a staple in my house.  We have several different recipes with different seasonings and different kinds of bread crumbs, but hardly a week goes by that we don't eat some kind of fried chicken at least once.

Menu for 9/16/13-9/22/13

I have exciting news about Nana!  Last Friday Nana was moved to a rehab center to recover from her recent fall.  She has two broken wrists and her pelvic bone is broken in three places.  After a whole week in rehab, doing physical therapy every day, she is feeling wonderfully optimistic!

Crock Pot Chicken and Barley Vegetable Stew

I think I may have found a new second favorite blog!

My favorite blog is still Annie's Eats, possibly because she posts tons of really original cupcake recipes (most recently Samoa Cupcakes which I can't wait to try) and because I have yet to try a bread recipe from her blog that did not turn out amazing.

Huli Huli Chicken

Have you ever been to a Chinese restaurant that serves something called chicken sticks?  They're boneless, skinless chicken thighs, marinated and skewered, and then grilled to caramelized perfection.  I love those things.  In fact, sometimes I used to order just plain fried rice and an order of chicken sticks from China Garden down the street from my office.  It was enough for two meals for me.

Spicy Sausage Pasta Skillet (updated)

I know it's not been that long since I wrote my original post for this recipe.  I wouldn't have updated it so soon, except that after I made it the second time Aaron decided he didn't care for it.  Since I had made some sacrifices in the recipe for his sake (such as switching the can of diced tomatoes and green chiles for a can of tomato sauce and a can of green chiles) I decided I was going to start making this as a hot lunch option for Bailey and myself.

Menu for 9/9/13-9/15/13

A couple of awesome things happened this week.

1) Starbucks brought back their fall seasonal drinks.  For many of you this means that your precious pumpkin spice latte is back.  Don't get me wrong, I love the pumpkin spice latte (and most pumpkin flavored things for that matter) but for me it's all about the salted caramel mocha.  I've had an obsession with it since I first tried it on Halloween in 2008.  Near the end of my pregnancy I couldn't keep from going to Starbucks up to twice a day for a venti decaf soy no whip salted caramel mocha.

We got hit hard this week...

It has been a rather eventful week yet again.

Nana injured herself (pretty severely) and spent the entire week in the hospital.  She was moved to a rehab center Friday and we're not sure how long she will be staying there yet.  She fell and broke her arm, the other one, at least as badly as she broke the first one in May, and fractured her pelvic bone in three places.  She's completely incapable of caring for herself as they have to keep her pelvis immobilized and she no longer has a hand to do even simple things like holding a piece of paper in front of her face, let alone feeding herself or anything else.

Baked Taco Macaroni and Cheese

Tonight I was going to share our new recipe of the week with you, but something happened to my brain this week and I totally forgot to take any pictures of it.  I guess it will just have to wait until the next time I make it.

The recipe I'm sharing tonight is my own creation, but it's based on chili-mac.  Aaron and I like to eat leftover chili mixed with macaroni and cheese.  We always have leftover chili and we always seem to have leftover taco meat.  I frequently do this with leftover taco meat, but sometimes I just want the taco-mac.

Menu for 9/2/13-9/8/13

Would you like to hear how crazy my week has been?

Dad's family gathered here in Knoxville for a visit last week, throwing our schedule right out the window.  I'm not complaining.  As much as I like routine, there's no way I would sacrifice quality time with out-of-town family just to keep our schedule.