Week 14- Sandwiches

by Bannon

When I saw that the reddit challenge this week was sandwiches I smiled because sandwiches are something that I can most definitely handle.  I make them daily for the husband, myself and the kiddos.  The hardest part of this challenge would be coming up with a sandwich that isn't the run of the mill boring peanut butter & jelly that I serve daily for lunch.

For Easter today I had plenty of hard boiled eggs sitting around here and I remembered a recipe I had seen in the new Pioneer Woman cookbook made with english muffins, hard boiled eggs, cheese and bacon.  So I made it from memory and forgot to add the mayo and dijon mustard.  These were liked by everyone but I know they would have been loved if I hadn't forgotten those two ingredients.

From The Pioneer Woman

 

Make-Ahead Muffin Melts

Prep Time: 25 Minutes  |  Cook Time: 5 Minutes  |  Difficulty: Easy  |  Servings: 6

  

Ingredients

• 12 whole Hard-boiled Eggs, Peeled And Chopped
• 2 cups Grated Cheddar Cheese
• 1 cup (Real) Mayonnaise
• 12 slices Bacon, Fried And Crumbled
• 1 Tablespoon (heaping) Dijon Mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 3 dashes Worcestershire Sauce
• 6 whole English Muffins Split

Preparation Instructions

Combine eggs with all other ingredients. Fold together gently. Cover and store in the fridge overnight.
Spread on English muffin halves, then broil for 3 to 5 minutes or until hot and bubbly. (Don't set them too close to the heating element.)
Serve immediately!

Week 13 - Russian food

This week our husbands went out of town together to Toronto on a guys trip to go see a soccer game.  They also got to eat poutine (yum!) and lots of other great foods, drink local Canadian beers that they can't get around here and enjoy a child free weekend.  While the boys were out having fun we ladies took the kids to the circus together and we found that Bannon's kids loved it and Kerry's son thought it was OK.

We also decided to work together to do our recipe for the reddit challenge this week.  The topic is Russian food, which neither of us have any knowledge of other than Russian dressing or vodka, so this was going to be a bit of an education for both of us.

After looking around on the internet a bit the recipe we finally settled on was this potato knedliky (or dumpling) recipe.  It was very simple to make and the kids enjoyed getting to help roll the dumplings.  Taste wise, bacon grease makes everything taste better of course!  I think they would be a bit bland without the bacon and onions.

Ingredients

• 4-5 baker’s potatoes
• 1-1.5 cups all purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• 4-5 pieces of bacon (or enough salo to render about 0.25 cups fat)
• 1 large sweet onion (finely chopped)
• Salt pepper to taste

Peel potatoes and then boil until soft. 

Drain the potatoes well and return to the pot. Mash them until uniform consistency. You may want to let the potatoes stand for a little while to cool down after this step if you plan on rolling the dumplings by hand. Otherwise, thoroughly mix in the 2 eggs, 1 cup of flour, salt and pepper.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Roll one dumpling for testing. Drop it into boiling water, it should drop to the bottom, and float to the top when it’s done. If it starts falling apart add another half cup of flour to the dough. Make the rest of the knedliky and drop them into the boiling water. Again, cook until they float to the top and remove using a strainer.

At this point, the knedliky are done and ready for serving whichever way you like. For the way my family served them. Fry some bacon in a skillet until crispy, let dry, and cut up into bacon bits. Drain and set aside some of the bacon fat.  Finely chop a sweet onion and fry in the bacon grease until caramelized, set aside.

Then using a spatula, fry the knedliky in the bacon grease (or butter  if you don’t want to use bacon) until lightly browned on all sides.

Serve with a side of the caramelized onions and the bacon bits.


Kerry and Bannon

Smarterer

by Bannon

So I am a part of a word of mouth marketing organization called BzzAgent (you can learn more about it here.)  They give out samples and coupons and then the person who got those samples tells their friends and family members about it and shares the coupons.  Most of the time BzzAgent works just like that.

This time BzzAgent hasn't given me anything physically to share with anyone.  This time it's something called Smarterer, which is a website that you go take tests about various topics to see what you know.  They have all sorts of tests about Facebook, Twitter, Google Search, PowerPoint and even lighter tests about 80's music, video games, etc.

I found it all to be just OK until I found the Costco test.  As some of you may know, I have a bit of a Costco addiction so it should be no surprise that my first really good score on the Smarterer website was for this test.  That helped sell me on the whole Smarterer concept.

Anyone can signup and use Smarterer and take the tests, just go right here.  You need a Facebook signon to login, but other than that it's very easy to get started with test taking.

52 Weeks - Cheese

by Bannon

This post is a few days late in coming and I'm sorry.  You know life goes sometimes.

Last week's food challenge was cheese and I made a simple yet very tasty recipe that the whole family loves.  I found it on Pinterest and it came from here.  I've altered it to my liking.

Ingredients:

4 potatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
1/3 to 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
2 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Cut the potatoes into tiny pieces.

In a small bowl, combine the Parmesan and garlic and set aside. Next, toss the potatoes and oil together in a mixing bowl then add the bowl of cheese and seasonings and stir to coat.

Arrange them on a cookie sheet in a single layer.

Bake for about 30-35 minutes then remove from oven and turn over all the potatoes. Bake for another few minutes until crispy and golden.

This is an excellent recipe that always has the kids begging for more.

52 Weeks - Breakfast

by Bannon

This week's entry for the 52 week food challenge was an easy one.  Breakfast is something that most people have daily and sometimes in our house even twice a day.  It just so happens that we had breakfast for dinner tonight before I checked reddit.com to find out what the weekly challenge was.  The downside is that I have no pictures so I'm sorry.

I made an egg mess dinner tonight.  I cut up some red, orange and yellow peppers and some onion and cooked them in a little oil.  Then I added in some leftover Irish bangers and let all that cook for a bit.  I removed the food from the pan and then scrambled a bunch of eggs in the pan and when they were almost done I tossed back in the vegetables and bangers.  The finishing touch was a bit of salt, pepper and garlic.

The reaction was mixed from the family.  The kids thought it was ok; they aren't fans of the onions.  The husband loved it. 

Buying a Side of Beef

by Bannon

My husband came home from work a month ago and told me that one of his coworkers was looking for someone to share buying a cow with.  I have been thinking about doing something like this for quite a few years, but living in the city I had no idea how to go about doing it.  So when he mentioned that this coworker has bought a side of beef for a few years now and they love the quality of the meat they get I said yes without hesitation.

I will say that we did this on a whim without doing much research into the whole thing.  I knew it would be something that would be good for us and if it cost a bit more out of pocket at first then so be it.  That's what I did when I signed up for our summer CSA* as well, I found one I liked and just dove in head first and that turned out to be a great decision. 

He brought home this Angus Beef Chart so we can pick out what cuts of meats we would like.  We will get the beef on May 14th and there will be somewhere around 200 pounds of roasts, steaks and ground beef. The cost is going to be around $3-$4 a pound.  I'm not sure that will save us money in the long run but I know the quality will be so much better than what I can get in the store.

As we were finalizing some of the details of purchasing the side of beef I started to hear more about this "pink slime" that is creeping into our meat supply.  First it was in meat from fast food restaurants.  Then we hear the government has purchased millions of pounds of the pink slime for school lunches.  Finally today the media is reporting that 70% of the ground beef we buy has pink slime in it as well.  This makes me even more happy and willing to spend the money for the side of beef.

So my job right now is to continue to serve meals out of the freezer so we have space for all of this as well as figure out what cuts of meat to choose to get.  If any of you have experience with what I should choose leave a comment, I'm taking all suggestions.


* CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and what it means is that you pre-purchase shares, or a membership of a farm.  Specifically for us, we get weekly from May to September fruits and vegetables that we pick up at the farmers market.  We prepay this every fall for the upcoming year.

52 Weeks - Coffee

by Bannon

Another drink I am not fond of: coffee.  First I complained this week about the tea and then I saw that the weekly challenge this week was coffee.  I find it bitter and too strong to drink unless it is drowned in an iced capp from Tim Horton's (and even those still have too much coffee in them.)

But first before the recipe let me tell you a story about coffee, and my husband's love of it.  Last fall my husband broke the glass carafe on our coffee maker.  Being busy he never got a replacement one ordered.  Eventually I realized he was spending more money sneaking up to Tim Horton's for a random cup than if he would just call the company that made the coffee pot and order the carafe.

This past weekend we were in Target and found a new coffee pot, a smaller, eight cup version that fits better on the counter on clearance for less than what the cost of the new carafe would have been on the old coffee pot.  Yay, right?  We get it home and dh is thrilled to finally get to make a cup of coffee at home again.  Then we find out that this brand new coffee maker's carafe has a leak in it where the parts were sealed together at the factory.

My poor husband just can't win when it come to his coffee.  We called the manufacturer and it sounds like it's a problem with all of them because it will be a three to six week wait for the replacement.  This isn't the end of the world though.  As long as he pours his cup over the sink he can still have his daily cup of coffee.  It's just a minor inconvenience until then.

On to the recipe. 

Everyone loved this when I made it tonight and it will be going into the dinner rotation.  I served it with Parmesan roasted potatoes from here.

Southwestern Steak and Peppers

 Ingredients

• 1/2 teaspoon(s) ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon(s) ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon(s) chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon(s) salt, or to taste
• 3/4 teaspoon(s) coarsely ground pepper, plus more to taste
• 1 pound(s) boneless top sirloin steak, trimmed of fat
• 3 clove(s) garlic, peeled, 1 halved and 2 minced
• 3 teaspoon(s) canola oil, or extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 2  red bell peppers, thinly sliced
• 1  medium white onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon(s) brown sugar
• 1/2 cup(s) brewed coffee, or prepared instant coffee
• 1/4 cup(s) balsamic vinegar
• 4 cup(s) watercress sprigs

---

Directions

1. Mix cumin, coriander, chili powder, salt, and 3/4 teaspoon pepper in a small bowl. Rub steak with the cut garlic. Rub the spice mix all over the steak.
2. Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a large heavy skillet, preferably cast iron, over medium-high heat. Add the steak and cook to desired doneness, 4 to 6 minutes per side for medium-rare. Transfer to a cutting board and let rest.
3. Add remaining 1 teaspoon oil to the skillet. Add bell peppers and onion; cook, stirring often, until softened, about 4 minutes. Add minced garlic and brown sugar; cook, stirring often, for 1 minute. Add coffee, vinegar and any accumulated meat juices; cook for 3 minutes to intensify flavor. Season with pepper.
4. To serve, mound 1 cup watercress on each plate. Top with the sauteed peppers and onion. Slice the steak thinly across the grain and arrange on the vegetables. Pour the sauce from the pan over the steak. Serve immediately.

Our First Review and Giveaway!!

Welcome to our first blog giveaway!  Revolution Tea was so nice to give us some boxes of tea to try and some sample packs to give out to all of you, our faithful readers.

But first, before we get to how you can win some tea let me share with you some of my thoughts about the Revolution Tea that Kerry and I sampled on Friday night.  Here is my disclosure I have to make before I go any further.  I, Bannon, am not a tea drinker.  I don't care for hot tea at all and very rarely will drink iced tea unless it is a sweet tea.  Kerry is the huge tea drinker out of the two of us and when she told me that Revolution Tea was sending us teas to try I told her I would put on my game face and try all of them for the sake of the blog.

With that being said I did try all six varieties that they sent us.  The types of tea we got were:

Earl Grey Lavender

Sweet Ginger Peach 

White Pear

Tropical Green

Dragon Eye Oolong

Golden Chamomile

After trying all six I would drink again the Earl Grey Lavender and the Golden Chamomile.  Both tasted good with some sugar added.  I feel the Ginger Peach has some promise and Kerry tells me she drinks it as an iced tea instead of a hot tea.  I would like to try it that way as well.  As for the other three they were not my favorites at all, but my husband raved over the Dragon Eye Oolong and the Tropical Green.

Kerry here!  As Bannon said, I am the tea drinker out of the two of us, so I was probably way more excited that she was.  However, she was a total trooper and tried them all.  We made a bit of a party of the tasting-nothing says "tea party" like hot wings, am I right??

I have had some experience with Revolution Teas, primarily the Ginger Peach.  I do drink it iced, and I will go into withdrawal if I don't have it regularly.  It is also quite good hot!  Having tried the rest of the flavors, I can't say enough good things about the Earl Grey Lavender and Golden Chamomile.  I added a bit of sugar, no cream.  The Earl Grey would make a lovely evening drink, maybe something to relax with while reading a good book.  The Chamomile is something I would definitely want if I were sick-it's so soothing, and has some mint to it.  I also liked the pineapple notes of the Tropical Green, and while the White Pear is a bit more delicate of a flavor than I generally prefer, I think it would also make for a nice iced tea.  I'm afraid that I didn't care much for the Oolong, but that's a personal preference-Bannon's husband raved about how good it was plain, but also held it's own with sugar.

That being said, I think we all became converts to Revolution Tea!  I also really loved the teabags-not paper with a tag on string, but a fine mesh fabric bag.  You could also see into it, and could actually tell what the tea was made of.  It really seemed to be high quality, and the blends were well balanced.  There wasn't one overwhelming flavor in any of the blends.

So, how would you like to try some tea?  The rules are simple-between now and midnight on Thursday, March 2 (EST),  simply leave a post on our blog letting us know what your favorite relaxation drink is.  Tea?  Coffee?  Margaritas?  We want to know!  Winners will be chosen at random and will be announced on Friday, March 3.  Five winners will be selected to receive 4 sampler packs from Revolution Tea, giving you a total of twenty bags in five different flavors!  To post on our blog, go to http://valiumvodkaandvegetables.blogspot.com/ and tell us your drink of choice.  Feel free to follow us as well, since we'll be giving away more goodies in the weeks to come!

Disclosure:  We are not being compensated for our opinions by Revolution Tea or any other agency.  Our opinions are purely our own.  We did receive products for review and giveaway free of charge by Revolution Tea.

 

52 Weeks of Cooking Week 7: Love Inspired Cooking

 by Bannon

Love inspired cooking.  What was I going to make for love inspired cooking?  The only thing my kids were begging for on Valentines Day was red milk.  Reddit gave a very wide category this week so I was having a hard time coming up with something I considered love inspired.  Then one night I saw in the refrigerator a can of crescent rolls and remembered a recipe I saw on Pinterest for smores crescents and I knew I had found my recipe.  To most women chocolate = love.

These were super simple to make.  Just preheat the oven to what the package directions say on the crescent rolls.  Separate the rolls and place a few chocolate chips and a few marshmallows on each roll.  Then roll them up like a standard crescent roll taking care to keep the marshmallows and chocolate inside. 

Pop them into the oven, I think they cooked for 12 minutes.  I followed the crescent roll package directions again.

When they came out I saw the one flaw I made.  I should have closed off the ends of the crescent rolls a bit better to try to keep the marshmallows in because they melted right out.

But in the end it really didn't matter because they tasted really, really good.  Simple to make too and kids would love to help make these as well.


**************

I have to say I ignored the 52 weeks challenge the past two weeks due to illness and work but I wanted to let you know what I did.  Two weeks ago was the alcohol challenge and I went super simple and made bratwurst in beer.  The kids and I were sick most that week so I was not into doing anything related to cooking challenges or blogs. 

Last week I did complete the Brazilian challenge but I didn't get around to posting it.  The husband thought it was a bit bland and needed more onion.  I thought it was nice and light.


Brazilian White Rice

• 2 cups long-grain white rice
• 2 tablespoons minced onion
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups hot water
•  
• Place the rice in a colander and rinse thoroughly with cold water; set aside.
• Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook the onion in the oil for one minute. Stir in the garlic and cook until the garlic is golden brown. Add the rice and salt and cook and stir until the rice begins to brown. Pour hot water over rice mixture and stir. Reduce heat to low, cover the saucepan, and allow to simmer until the water has been absorbed, 20 to 25 minutes.

My Productive Day That Wasn't

Today the kids had off from school for teacher meetings.  I had all these plans ready: cleaning up around the house a bit, laundry and the kids and I were going to try our hand at making homemade fortune cookies from scratch for tomorrow's parent-teacher conferences.  Last week I had found a simple enough looking recipe for them on Pinterest (look here for it) and was really looking forward to trying it.

Then life stepped in.

This morning the four of us were sitting around talking when I noticed that one of my older son's teeth was almost completely pink.  After getting closer there seemed to be a chip in the tooth and he then said that he had been eating around that area for a week because it hurt.

So instead of doing fun things with the kids today I got to go to the dentist.  It wasn't the end of the world because since he had the day off anyways the kid didn't have to miss school.  The dentist was able to take the chip off that tooth fairly easily and since it's a baby tooth we don't have to worry about what it looks like.

But when it was all said and done the last thing I wanted to do was go back home and spend what was left of the day baking fortune cookies.  So we stopped in to the local Asian market to buy prepackaged fortune cookies for the teachers tomorrow.  I know they will still like them but it would be nice if a day could go the way I want it to sometimes.

-- Bannon

Reddit food challenge week one, erm, I mean week two

So if you remember Kerry and I were nuts enough to agree amongst ourselves to follow reddit's 52 week food challenge this year to try and expand our horizons.  Well, Kerry is very excited and I am nuts to agree to do this due to a few things.  I am a very picky person food wise.  I do not venture far from my favorites.  When I go to a restaurant I usually can only find one or two entrees that sound good to me on the whole menu.  I'm the only one in the family like this, I've taken great pains to make sure the boys try all sorts of foods.

Nothing makes me happier to see that week two's challenge (our week one) is Chinese food.  That is one type of food that I really do enjoy.  I just happened to have cold rice in the fridge Tuesday night.  I threw that in a pan with a little oil, two eggs, red pepper, bacon and soy sauce and fried it all together.  It took under 15 minutes and the husband and kids thought it was a great meal.

Next week's challenge is soup, which I love, love, love to make.  Plus since it's 20 degrees out it's perfect soup weather finally!

- Bannon

Breakfast Egg Muffins

by Bannon

One of my friends posted this recipe on Facebook a few weeks ago and I happened to have a can of crescent rolls in the fridge so that Sunday I surprised the kids with these.  Both the kids and dh raved about how great they were and they were so simple to make.

Breakfast Egg Muffins

• One can of crescent rolls
• eight eggs
• eight slices of precooked bacon (or bacon bits)
• shredded cheese

 Grease your muffin pan with butter or spray and set the oven for the temperature that is on the crescent roll package.  Separate the crescent triangles, lay one in each of the muffin cups leaving the edges to hang outside for the moment.  Crack an egg into each cup on top of the crescent dough.  Place the bacon on top along with the shredded cheese.  Fold the remainder of the dough on top of the cheese and pop into the oven for 16 minutes.  

 A few tips about these muffins: I gently stretched the triangles to make the dough fit a bit better in the cups.  I also used bacon bits because I had no bacon slices and it worked just fine.  Cooking for 16 minutes didn't completely cook the eggs, the yellow was just a bit soft in the middle.  It was suggested by the family that adding a little salt to each muffin would help with the taste.  They made a great breakfast the next day as well.

This post is linked to Twisted Thursday.

Pantry Challenge Update #1

by Bannon

If you recall I'm trying to stick to a strict $50 a week food/household items budget until October 1st, you can read my first post here.  I am now eleven days into this experiment and have done pretty good making do with the food already in the house.

My first week highlights:

• Spent $5.18 on two gallons of milk.  I'm not surprised that I only spent this because I had done a fairly large shopping trip a few days before I started this so we were already pretty set in terms of food.

• I stuck to my meal plan every night except for Thursday when I was too tired to defrost some chicken so the kids had pizza.  I do need to be more on the ball when it comes to setting meats out and prepping for dinner in advance.

This week is already half gone and I'm now getting my meal plan up.  I think that with it being Labor Day week it throws everything off.

Meal Plan week of  9/4/11

Sunday - out to dinner (with a Groupon)

Monday - brats and turkey burgers, potatoes and onions on the grill and green beans

Tuesday -  fish stix, green beans and peaches

Wednesday - chicken noodle soup and cornbread

Thursday -  hot dogs, mac and cheese, vegetable

Friday - pizza and salad for the kids, we will have dinner at a friend's house

Saturday - cold sandwiches and chips (won't be eating at home)

 

 

Labor Day Weekend in Pictures

 Birthday celebration.

Garden harvest.

 Prepping tomatoes.

 Cooking salsa.

 Salsa done!

Birthday flowers and silly boys.

Yum.

Blueberry bread for breakfast this week.

Bannon

Who Knows What Got Into My Son

by Bannon

Last night I was trying to get the kids showered up and in bed.  Since it was Sunday they were both resisting going through the routine because they didn't want the weekend to come to a close.  I finally get the older one cleaned up and ready and start on the younger.  I told him to get undressed and go hop in the shower and I went back into the kitchen to clean up dinner.  

Dh comes in to say that ds2 did indeed get undressed and for some reason instead of going to the bathroom before his shower like normal he decided to pee in the laundry basket.  He didn't realize he was doing it until it was done and so he was really upset.  My poor little guy.  He told me he was so embarrassed.  I found it to be hysterically funny!

A Second Post on Sunday!

I had a realization Friday that my house has a lot of food in it.  I went down to the freezer to put a few things in it and saw that it was bursting at the seams.  It almost didn't shut.  This is the first time in eleven years that I have had no more room for food in there.  The fridge's freezer is the same, completely full of food.  So I've decided I'm going to have a pantry challenge.  

The rules for myself are simple.  The weekly budget for the next five weeks will be $50.  I am trying to be realistic here by giving myself that much.  The price of groceries is increasing rapidly and it's outrageous how much some things cost now.  That $50 will cover fresh fruits, vegetables and other staples like milk and bread.  My goal is that I will reinforce this by reporting here on the blog what I spend, making me accountable to all of you.  (The one thing I'm not including in the weekly total is my Costco membership which will be coming up for renewal the next time I go there.  If I post my receipts then that will show up.)

When it comes to eating out I plan on using the variety of restaurant coupons that I have from the various daily deal sites, Restaurant.com and the birthday coupons I've started getting in my email.  I hope to only eat out once a week for dinner and not spend more than $15 for what remains of the bill after the discount.

I'm also going to meal plan weekly.  One of my awesome friends has shared the meal plan sheet she made for herself with me and I'm going to try really hard to stick to planning and following through on my menus.

The goal is to see how far I can go until October 1st with this plan.  Right now it seems so easy but I know as the freezer and my stockpile start getting lower it's going to get harder to do.

Meal Plan Week of 8/28

Sunday - chicken wings, baked potato and green beans

Monday - grilled cheese with tomato soup and green beans

Tuesday - pasta and sauce with fruit and salad

Wednesday - fish sticks, with veg and fruit

Thursday - teriyaki chicken, rice and veg

Friday - leftovers

Saturday - pizza for the kids, birthday dinner out for dh and I

• B

Sunday: Good, Bad and the Ugly

I'm back!  I survived a 10 hour car trip with my lovely boys alone twice this week.  We went on vacation up north to visit friends but dh couldn't go this time.  So I drove the boys and we all managed to not kill each other in the car, which is very good in my book.  Dh stayed home and worked on painting the house since there were no kids underfoot.  He got almost all of it done which makes me so happy.





My house is slowly starting to smell like banana bread that's in the oven.  I tried a new recipe this time and I hope it turns out good.  I got it from Simply Recipes and it really was easy to make.

Banana Bread Recipe

• Prep time: 5 minutes
• Cook time: 1 hour

Ingredients

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Method

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Yield: Makes one loaf.

The bad is that one of my son's brought back a fever with him from vacation and has now passed it on to the other kid.  We are on day three of 100+ temps for him, but he is not feeling real sick which means he is bored.  He's had to miss two birthday parties this weekend because of it so he's not thrilled at all.

And the ugly today goes to my poor friend and fellow blogger K who is home really sick with her family.  She's had a rough few days and I hope she gets well soon.

B

Adventures in dog sitting and my meal plan for the week

Last week my friend was in a bind.  She was going out of town and her original dog sitter fell though four hours before she was supposed to leave.  So I offered to take the dogs for the weekend because I am a bit crazy.

Reasons why I don't need any dogs right now:

- dh is allergic to them
- ds1 is most likely allergic to them too
- I haven't lived with a dog in over 15 years
- If we got a dog, the newness would wear off quickly for the kids and I would be stuck doing everything for said dog

My friend has two dogs.  One is a larger dog who is so calm and quiet, the perfect house dog.  Then there is the small, hyper dog that barks at everything that breathes and is wild for you to show him attention.  The kids were thrilled that I offered to have them over for the weekend.  Dh was tickled to have them over as well because he really wants a dog but didn't know how his allergies would take it.  We both grew up having dogs and he really misses that.

One of the good things that happened was that the kids were so excited to have dogs around that they happily did all of the dog chores for me without complaint.  Plus I will admit it was very nice to have the dogs as companions around for the weekend.  The smaller dog was great entertainment as he ran around endlessly trying to get someone to play with him.  We gated him in the kitchen at night and when we were leaving and on Saturday he showed us that he could jump over the gate.  The dog has springs in his feet, he could jump so high.  He jumped over the gate every chance he could, so we had to double gate the kitchen to keep him in it.  He was also dead set on trying to escape every time the door opened.

All in all it was a very good weekend.  After it was all said and done dh's allergies were pretty bad so I still don't think a dog of our own is in the future.  Plus I was quite tired after taking care of them for four days and I don't miss having to take care of them constantly.

But it was very quiet yesterday in the house after we came back from dropping them off.  Almost too quiet.


On a different topic, I missed doing my meal plan for last week.

Monday - Skyline chili on potatoes with fresh green beans

Tuesday - Spaghetti with more green beans

Wednesday - Italian chicken and potatoes in the crockpot

Thursday - rotisserie chicken from Costco

Friday, Saturday and Sunday - up in the air right now.  

B

Last Weekend and a Restaurant Reveiw

We were quite busy last weekend at our house.  We had a t-ball game and swim meet Saturday morning followed by one of the grandma's taking the boys to her house overnight.  K and I met at Target and I got a few items needed around the house and gifts for upcoming birthdays.  On Sunday dh and I picked a color for our bedroom and got it mostly painted.

For Saturday evening dinner we stopped at the newest place for take-out by our house, Yerba Buena Latin Grill.  It's a mobile food cart that's home base is on North High Street at Glenmont Road in Clintonville.  I've wanted to go ever since I found out the owners also own El Arepazo here in Columbus.  

 Above is a beef Arepa, which is grilled corn meal topped with shredded beef, cheese, avacado, lettuce, tomato, onion and the yummy spicy El Arepazo sauce on top.  It tasted amazing.  Dh had the ceviche and sweet plaintains and while he liked them, he wants an arepa the next time we go.  If you find yourself in Columbus looking for some really good food it's well worth making the stop!

B.

Menu Planning

I am on a quest to get back on the losing weight and eating healthy wagon so I'm going to take a stab at weekly menu planning.  This summer I have slipped back into bad habits like not going to the gym and letting the kids talk me into getting fast food on the way home from their sports and other events.  So I went back to the gym yesterday and am aiming to go 6 days a week.  Yesterday I made an effort to chart my dinner meal plan for the week. 

Today - Crock pot Italian chicken and fresh veggies from my CSA

Tuesday - Chicken with tomato soup

Wednesday - Spinach and mozzarella ravioli with more fresh veggies

Thursday - Chili lime chicken burgers, mac and cheese and a vegetable

Friday - leftovers

Saturday - Bratwurst and green beans

Sunday - Tacos, beans, chips and salad

B.