For those of you who, like us, have someone in your household who is dairy-free, CHECK OUT THIS GIVEAWAY! Pardon the caps, I'm just really excited about this. How have I not heard of these goodies before? I can tell you that if I win this, I'll be spreading the love among my local dairy-free friends (it's surprising how many of them I have!) Thank you to One Frugal Foodie and Erin Baker!
So I have been tweaking a recipe for a while now, and think I finally got it to where we really like it - it's a dairy-free Mexican casserole that we call Taco Pie for brevity. =)
Taco Pie
1 lb ground beef
1 pkg taco seasoning
1 can pinto beans, drained
1 cup cooked rice
3/4 cup salsa
1 box Jiffy corn muffin mix
1 egg
1/3 cup water
1 cup cooked corn, cooled
Preheat oven to 400.
Brown the ground beef in a large skillet. Drain off the excess fat, then add the taco seasoning according to the directions on the package. Set aside to cool.
In a medium bowl, mash the pinto beans (I use a hand mixer to get a super smooth consistency). Stir in the rice and salsa. Set aside.
In another bowl, combine the corn muffin mix, the egg and the water. Stir until almost combined, then stir in corn kernels. Set aside.
In a glass 9x9 pan, spread the bean and rice mixture evenly. Top with the ground beef mixture. Spoon the cornbread over the top - it doesn't need to be perfectly even. Bake at 400 for 25-30 minutes or until the top is crisp and golden brown. Enjoy!
Want to know what we're having tonight for dinner? It's a little weird, but do you see a theme?
GOLDEN Chinese eggrolls
RED-hot buffalo chicken strips on
mixed baby GREENs
BLACK Greek olives
BLUEberry pie
That's right! It's my Olympic dinner... With a Greek touch to commemorate Olympic history and Chinese to make it 2008... and the rest is straight up Americana! The pie is in the oven, but if it turns out as beautiful as I'm hoping, I might post a droolicious picture later...
Enjoy the Games!
I had a niece born on Thursday, and I was able to hold her when she was about nine hours old. BEAUTIFUL! What a fabulous experience. There's nothing quite like a tiny baby that's all pruny from nine months in the water! She smelled so sweet and her skin was like silk. Mmm. I would LOVE another baby in our house.
Speaking of my toddler (whose diaper is emitting some nasty fumes at the moment - so this will be a brief post)... she just asked me to open the cabinet where I keep canned goods. I did so, because she likes to take them all out and put them back. Today, though, she had a mission. She pulled all the stuff out to get to the bags of lentils that were in the back. She grabbed a bag in each hand (and at a pound each, that's impressive) and brought them to me. After putting one in each of my hands, she grabbed my hands, looked me in the face, then let go of my hands so that she could eagerly sign please.
Guess what we're having for dinner! Lentils with ground turkey and onions, some crusty rolls and a green salad. Mmm.
Uh oh. She just brought me the prunes. I gave her a tiny bite and she made her "icky" face. Guess we need to keep working on that one!
All right, must go put another diaper on this child. BumGenius, Mommy's Touch or Happy Heiny? We'll have to wait and see!
Peanut's always been on the small side, which hasn't ever been a concern. But then when we went for her one year checkup yesterday, she hadn't put on an OUNCE in three months. I know that she had, but she lost it when she had a cold and wasn't interested in eating.
Still, though, that's a little disconcerting.
Add that to my "denial" over the last six months about her dairy issues. She'd developed hives around her mouth the two times that she was allowed to suck on a spoon that had some ice cream on it. Yes, there were two times. The first time, we let her suck the ice cream. Hives. Worried parents. Benadryl cream. A little relief. The next time, I was careful to lick all the ice cream off first, but she still got hives. Not as many, but still... So I haven't let her eat anything that has cheese or milk, etc., but I haven't cut it entirely out of my diet yet. I cut out ice cream, yogurt and milk, but am still eating cheese and cooking with butter.
She's not sleeping nearly as well as any of her baby-friends at this age. Poor weight gain? Restless nights? Add those up and it looks like she is affected by even the slight dairy in my diet.
It's time. We're going dairy-free for a year, I think. Still not sure if the Mister is going to join us, but we'll see. It's our new adventure. It pretty much hails the end of my laziness love of prepared food and having Mister order out when I'm tired.
I know scads of moms out there have tried this and succeeded, and they get more sleep at night which allows them to keep up with all the extra work during the day. Who knows, maybe I'll even lose those last tough postpartum pounds!
Can I just say that I'm in a food-induced state of bliss?
We picked 12 pounds of strawberries yesterday (it looked like a dauntingly big pile in my container, but is rather a small little stack of frozen baggies in my freezer), and I'm enjoying some of those over this fake ice cream and some pound cake.
Have you tried this stuff yet? PHEN-omenal. Seriously. And for less calories than my normal yogurt. With live and active cultures. It's the best frozen yogurt I've ever had. You know how most frozen yogurt has that weird tangyness to it? This DOESN'T! I had Mister pick up some vanilla yesterday to go with our berries because although I'm a chocolate lover, chocolate frozen yogurt is usually rather gross. Now I'm dying to try the chocolate... or the chocolate fudge brownie... mmm....
This post is brought to you by my state of nirvana, and has in no way been compensated by Edy's. Although I wouldn't mind if they did.
So I'm not doing a regular menu plan this week. What I'm going to do is a little bit different - and a lot harder for me. What I'm going to do is make this a sticky post and add to it all week.
My Challenge: I am only allowed to use ingredients that are already in the house. I can go to the grocery store today for bananas, yogurt and coffee filters, since the Mister eats yogurt every day for lunch and we're out... and in this house, it would almost be considered a catastrophe of epic proportions if we ran out of either bananas or coffee filters.
So. I have a tiny pantry, a refrigerator and two freezers semi-stocked with food. What creative ways can I come up with to use what I have instead of buying more?
Menu Plan for Week of May 21:
Monday:
breakfast - leftover quiche and applesauce
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - chicken caesar salad (never had this last week)
Tuesday:
breakfast - oatmeal
lunch - leftover salad for Mister, sandwich for me
dinner - frozen fish, homemade mac-n-cheese (with Sargento's new chipotle cheddar... drool!!)
Wednesday:
breakfast - cinnamon raisin french toast
lunch - leftovers for Mister, at friends' house for me
dinner - wings & salad for Mister, wings & mac-n-cheese for me
Thursday:
breakfast - eggs
lunch - Mister went out with work people, I had mom-lunch-group
dinner - frozen pizza
Friday:
breakfast - oatmeal
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - brats / coleslaw
Menu Plan for Week of May 13:
Monday:
breakfast - scrambled eggs, bacon and grapefruit
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - taco salad
Tuesday:
breakfast - oatmeal, grapefruit
lunch - taco salad leftovers
dinner - chinese (fried rice, egg rolls, etc)
Wednesday:
breakfast - salsa eggs, bacon, fruit
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - hamburgers and homemade rolls
Thursday:
breakfast - pancakes, bacon and fruit
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - pizza
Friday:
breakfast - poached eggs on toast, bacon and fruit
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - chicken caesar salad
Saturday:
breakfast - fried eggs
lunch - brats & pasta salad (Mister's cooking as I'm doing a yard sale...)
dinner - ??
Sunday:
breakfast - quiche and coffeecake
lunch - wings and man-food
dinner - cheese & crackers, fruit, popcorn
Menu Plan for Week of May 7:
Monday:
breakfast - salsa eggs, bacon and fruit
lunch - leftover brats and pasta salad
dinner - tuna mac and broccoli
Tuesday:
breakfast - choc. chip pancakes, bacon, grapefruit
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - grilled chicken and pasta
Wednesday:
breakfast - scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, bacon
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - fish tacos
Thursday:
breakfast - oatmeal and grapefruit
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - gyros, homemade pitas, cuke salad
Friday:
breakfast - poached eggs on toast, bacon and fruit
lunch - leftovers
dinner - taking Mister out to celebrate the completion of his MBA
Saturday:
breakfast - omelets and coffeecake
lunch - ??
dinner - ??
Sunday:
breakfast - muffins
lunch - Mister is taking me out for brunch!
dinner - cheese & crackers, fruit, popcorn
In response to ukzoe's question - tracking my money spent didn't take too long - it was a few minutes after each grocery store run while I basically typed my receipt into Excel.
Here's the file I used to do it - you could easily modify this to fit your needs. And yes, now you get to see everything we bought in April.
Edited: new link to file - original hosting site wasn't easy to work with...
After reading for months about how everyone in the blog-universe does a menu plan, I thought I'd do an experiment.
During the month of April, I tracked every penny we spent at the grocery store. I divided it into categories, and really figured out where we spent our money. However, during that month, I didn't let that affect how I spent our money. I bought as usual, which involved stocking up on staples and spontaneously buying things for meals. I do coupons, but there were a few times during April that I didn't have them with me.
During April, this is what I spent on food for only two people. Not good. Note that we eat out about once a week - that wasn't taken into account.
Total: $300.12
Staples: $217.38 / Extras: $82.74
The second half of the experiment begins today! I will plan out our meals every Sunday night, and on Mondays, I'll shop for only what is needed. Hopefully, this will be cheaper and reduce waste. I'll let you know at the end of May how much money was spent, and how it compares. To be fair, I'm not letting this experiment affect what I buy - for example, if we want steak, we'll have steak...
Menu Plan for Week of April 30:
Monday:
breakfast - leftover quiche and canned pears
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - corned beef, potatoes, veggies
Tuesday:
breakfast - banana pancakes and bacon
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - taco salad
Wednesday:
breakfast - "salsa eggs"
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - roast beef, asparagus, roasted potatoes
Thursday:
breakfast - oatmeal
lunch - leftover roast beef
dinner - homemade pizza or calzones
Friday:
breakfast - poached eggs on toast
lunch - leftover pizza
dinner - fried rice, egg rolls
Saturday:
breakfast - pina colada pancakes and fried eggs
lunch - with my parents
dinner - with my parents
Sunday:
breakfast - quiche lorraine
lunch - grilled brats, corn, pasta salad
dinner - cheese & crackers, fruit, popcorn
We love breakfasts in our house. Bacon, coffee (decaf for me!), juice, eggs, pancakes, muffins, french toast, etc...
But in the mornings, if we have pancakes or french toast, that's a lot of sugar to be starting our day with. We like syrup, and sometimes there might even be chocolate chips in our pancakes... and for whatever reason, if there's chocolate, Mister likes a little whipped cream on there for good measure. But talk about getting your blood sugar all goofy!
I don't have time, though, to make pancakes AND eggs to balance out the breakfast. So I make big batches of pancakes or french toast, and freeze them. That way, I can scramble up a couple of eggs and microwave some frozen french toast, and voila, a fabulous balanced breakfast.
When do I do this? That's the tip for the week... One of our local grocery stores does a (about) monthly special where their loaves of french bread are two for a dollar. I buy a ton of loaves, and have the bakery slice it for me. Thin slices (normal sandwich slices or just thicker are great) are key, since those microwave more evenly and a heck of a lot faster than the thick chunky slices I cut if I'm making it to be eaten fresh. Make sure you buy a lot of eggs, since the thinner slices really do use up eggs at a remarkable rate. Add a splash of vanilla, a good healthy dose of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg, and you have a winner. I assembly line them, stacking them on cooling racks, then when they're fully cooled, I put them in ziplocs, and into the freezer they go. If you do have nice thin slices, they really only take 20-30 seconds for a plateful to go from frozen to steaming.
That works for me!
When making a pie, I usually make my crusts from scratch using my momma's 1/2 butter, 1/2 shortening recipe that makes a deliciously sweet, sugar cookie-ish crust...
But sometimes you're in a hurry. That's when I turn to the pre-made, refrigerated pie crusts. They're not too bad, considering the tons of time that they save. They're not sweet at all, though, so be warned... (which makes them good for pot pies, too.)
One way to get around that - brush the top of your crust with a little egg or milk, and then liberally sprinkle sugar all over it. The more sugar, the better! To give your pie a little homemade flair, play with your steam vents. Instead of just cutting a slit or two, take an extra 30 seconds and try this tip:
Roll the crust out onto your counter before placing on the pie. Using a cookie cutter, cut out a shape from the center of the crust. Place the main part of the crust on the pie, and then crimp the edges. Add some details to the cut-out, if desired, then place in the hole on the crust. This one will shrink away from the edges a little bit, leaving you with a elaborate (and simple) steam vent... Here's a "Easter bunny" I put on a recent apple pie:
