Menu Plan Monday

So, every Monday, I'm going to try and post my menu plan for the week. You generally won't see an alternate meal for the kids. They eat what we eat. Except for nights like tonight when Mike gets home late, he's supposed to be bbq'ing (I don't do that very well), and Cole is STARVING. So he had a grilled cheese for dinner, instead of the burgers we're having. Yep. I can't even bbq burgers all that well. I can prep stuff for the grill really well, the actual cooking, and I'm referring to the Weber website. So, here goes. Subject to change. Like my kids were horrendous and refused to nap/screamed all day, so I call mercy and order pizza. The power goes out, and we find the lone McDonald's with power AND a play place (that one really happened back in June). Mike decides to be all picky and doesn't want what I have planned. Stuff like that. And you'll never see a leftover night. Because we don't like them. And there usually aren't any.

Monday - BBQ Burgers and corn on the cob. No fancy recipe there. I buy the Kirkland sirloin burgers at Costco, toss some seasoning salt on, some Kraft slices and done.

Tuesday - Soy Garlic Chicken, rice and a veggie of some sort

Wednesday - Breakfast for dinner (eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, fruit)

Thursday - Pioneer Woman's Chicken Spaghetti. I think this stuff is legend now across the internet. And my family loves it. Do yourself a favour and use the reduced fat soup, and low sodium broth with the smart pasta.

Friday - Baked Ziti and green salad. Nothing fancy there either. Ziti, mozza, parm, and a good jarred tomato sauce.

Saturday - Lori's 40th Birthday Party. Her husband is a chef. Should be tasty.

Sunday - Chili and cheese rolls. This one is iffy. We have a 5th birthday party that afternoon, so we'll see how we're doing, appetite wise. I might just thaw out some soup instead.

So there you have it. This is what's for dinner this week.

Taco Bake

1 lb lean ground beef or turkey

1 can of crescent rolls (healthier options are the low fat or whole wheat)

1 small onion, chopped

2 cups grated cheddar, divided (I use Tex Mex in most things. It has a nice zip)

3/4 cup sour cream

1 green bell pepper, chopped

Taco seasoning (1 package or however much bulk you would use for tacos)

A couple handfuls of tortilla chips

That's a medium onion there. I used half. And those are 3 really small bell peppers from my garden. They were really tasty and sweet. The taco seasoning is from Epicure Selections. And that's light sour cream. It will work just fine.

That's about how much onion you want. Cook it while the ground beef is browning and then add in the taco seasoning. After that, add in about 3/4 cup sour cream and 1 cup of the cheese. You'll get a mixture that looks sort of like this. I used more sour cream. Too much actually, but it still tasted just fine.

Spray a casserole dish with non-stick spray, and put the crescent rolls in there like shown. You'll hate yourself if you forget to spray first. Trust me. I need a new casserole dish. I'd like a more rectangle one, that's slightly larger. Currently all I have is the CorningWare French White bridal special set everyone gets when they get married.

Put your beef mixture on top of the crescent rolls, and then top with the green pepper.

Top with the crushed tortilla chips and other cup of cheese. Bake at 350 for 15-20 mins, until the crust looks puffy and golden and the cheese is all melty.

Ta Da!! All in all it takes under 45 mins to make. Easily. And all 4 food groups are in it. And it's tasty. We top our individual servings with taco toppings like shredded lettuce, chopped tomato, salsa, and a dollop of sour cream.

Daddy and Son Afternoon aka my kid is now one of the no red dye kids

My sister's friend had won two tickets to Walking With the Dinosaurs, so she gave them to us for Cole. Since there were only two, I sent Mike with Cole. He's the one who's constantly watching that stuff on History and Discovery. Cole loved it. Except for the T Rex. Understandable, he was one of the biggest and loudest. And this really "nice" lady sitting behind them kept giving Cole cotton candy. Purple cotton candy. He loved it. And he kept getting more. He DID.NOT.STOP. moving for a good 3 hours after. Total gibberish coming out of his mouth, practically flying around the room, just chaos. The kind that makes you pull out your best parenting moves and scream "JUST STOP!!! Quiet game for two minutes!" while you down two extra strength Advil liqui-gels, or you're pretty sure your head is going to explode. And then who is going to clean up that mess? You. The 2 year old isn't going to do it. No matter how much he likes to "help" right now. The baby is a total loss in the help department right now. And your husband is just going to stand there with a dumbfounded look on his face, like "what do we do now?". You know. You've been there. You might not want to admit it. But we all have. Unless you live in Stepford. In which case, that's just really freaky. And this is all going on while you're trying to bake the super-nutritious meal of chicken strips and fries.

In the quest of trying to be more nutritious I got the Eating Right Chicken Strips. They're at Safeway for the Canadians. Safeway, Fry's, Kroger, Von's and Ralph's, I believe for the Americans. Skip them. Don't even look at them. They do not exist, they're that bad. Their little dot on the box is because they're high in protein. Which they are. They also boast they haven't been fried. And you can tell. I'm assuming they also figure if you want low in saturated fats, you're not looking for flavour, either. Because they're totally devoid of that. They're basically cardboard chunks shaped to look like chicken strips. I never, and I mean never salt my food. I was quite liberal with it last night. So save yourself the money. Don't buy them.

Anyways, mental note taken. No more red food dye for Cole. And now I'm not just label reading for nutrition (no glucose-fructose in the first 3 ingredients), I'm label reading to check for red food dye.

Today is one of those days where you're pretty positive fall is here. Too bad it's not even Labour Day yet. I want to go to the apple farm, but I'm pretty sure it's not even open for the season yet. I'm ready to clean up the backyard and store everything until spring. Maybe if the weather was more than 8C, I wouldn't feel that way. It's one of those casserole for dinner type of days. So, we're having one of Mike's favourites, Taco Bake. I'll post it by itself, so it's easier to link back.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Summer

It's almost over. And it was lazy, busy, hot, and went by too fast. Carson made it difficult to do things like go to the pool for the afternoon. I'd like to keep both my kids from drowning, thanks. Even going outside to play proved difficult some days. I feel so badly for Cole, because really his summer sucked. At least in my eyes. But he doesn't have a standard to hold it up to. That eases some of the mommy guilt in my mind.

I'm starting to really see the fruits of my labor in the garden. My tomato plant is heavy with tomatoes right now. Same with the pepper plant. The second cucumber is really coming along, and we ate homegrown roasted carrots last night with dinner. Speaking of dinner, we had this. We've got a busy fall coming up, so I'm debuting new crockpot recipes that don't call for "2 cans of cream of____". Not that there's anything totally wrong with it, I'd just like lower fat (ok, 2/3 cup melted butter is not that low fat), lower sodium, feed my family healthier options. It was a buttery sweet chicken that everyone enjoyed. And I'm down to one box of Reynold's Slow Cooker Liners. Canada really needs to get on board with those. Or I need to haul myself across the line to Target for more. I miss Target. But both boys, the border and ugh. But Mike needs new socks, so I might just have to suck it up and go. Why doesn't Canada have any men's black sport socks in a 13-15? I can get them in a 6-pack at Target for $12 though. Go figure.

Back to the garden. I have this issue. It's my pumpkins. I planted three seeds. One took. And it's taking over the backyard. No word of a lie. I have no idea what I'm doing as far as pinching flowers, etc, so it will be interesting to see how many we end up with.

Oooh, bell peppers.

Romas. Next year I'll have to plant some cilantro and jalapenos, as well for pico de gallo

We went camping for the first time. We did have an RV. We now have rules for camping, though.

1. It must always involve an RV.
2. No more than 2 nights.
3. And, it must be within a 3 hour drive.

We went for 5 nights. Probably a little ambitious with two kids, 2 and under. And really, we only stayed four nights. The last day we got hit with a storm after 2 other nights of rain, gave up, packed up in less than an hour and began the 8 HOUR drive home. To be fair though, we were already pretty much there for my cousin's wedding. But pulling out at 5pm to start an 8 hour drive is insane. We did do some fun things though like go to the Revelstoke Railway Museum and the Revelstoke Dam. Cole got to squish bugs, and was fascinated by the whole build a fire process.

Next up, fall. I love fall. I love the colours and the warmth. I'm itching to get out the fall decor. It's still August though. I can wait. I'm giving myself until school is at least back.