Menu 1/31-2/5

A day early even! Woohoo! I actually got everything I needed for this month minus one thing for one recipe. And I have 2 days right now that are blank because I don't know what to have those days. One day is when I'm going to be doing a freezer cooking day and the other is because I'm going out to lunch for my dad's retirement and we are going to Biaggi's which is a pretty fancy Italian restaurant. So not sure what will happen those days, but they are later this month. But on to this weeks!

Monday - Enchiladas

Tuesday - veggie soup from the freezer with bread

Wednesday - BBQ from the freezer

Thursday - Pizza Bowties with sausage (new recipe will post review later)

Friday - Pizza night!

Saturday - This is my dad's birthday and so we are going to take him out if he is feeling better. He has been not feeling so well the past couple of weeks. But hopefully he'll be well enough to go out with us. Or we might just have dinner here. Depends on what he wants to do. It is his day after all :)

Pantry decimation

I started today out with mentally preparing myself to do this by going out to eat with my friend Laura for breakfast. Then I played with my kitties with the hubby. Then went out to eat with my mom and brother to Flat Top Grill. Can you see how prepared I was ;) Then I went to Target and bought 3 new containers to house some stuff. Then it was time to tackle this....


Man, I can NOT believe it was so terrible. Stuff everywhere. Didn't have a system or anything. I did have some help from the kitties who decided everything and I mean everything had to be sniffed. Like they didn't know it was there before. I also got some help from WCIC which was nice to have in the background. I continued until it looked like this...


It hasn't been that clean since we moved in a little under a year ago. I continued. And now the final product! WOOHOO!


Now if you look hard enough you will see I have room for my KitchenAid Mixer and my coffee maker that I only use for making hot water. This is such a great feeling!!! I feel great now that it is done. And I also realize how empty it was...

Quick apology post

I want to say sorry for not posting my menu on Monday like I thought I would. I just have no excuse why I didn't. I had it written on my whiteboard. And honestly we didn't do a great job of staying to the meal plan either so it would have been a bust. I promise to update you for next week's.
Tomorrow I'm going to tackle my pantry for organizing. I am really not looking forward to it only because I know it is going to take a while. I am planning to take it a shelf at a time. Before I do anything I'm going to go buy some storage containers for my stuff. I did some searching at the dollar store and honestly nothing is big enough. So stay tuned for pictures tomorrow...

Organizing this year!

I was reading Orgjunkie.com the other week and she challenged her readers to do 52 weeks of organizing. Well I thought that would be a great thing! Except I couldn't think of 52 things in this house that I'm allowed to organize. The basement is pretty much full of Grandpa's things and I could organize them, but I can't throw away anything because I'm not allowed. Which is ok, but annoying. SO instead I focus on the upstairs and will work with all that I can. First things first was my spice cabinet. Yes I have a cabinet. I love it :)
Here is the before
What a mess! Ok, so it was mostly organized in the sense that I had most of the spices on the bottom on 2 lazy susans. Which are wonderful in themselves! But everything else. Yikes :) So after about 20 minutes of reading labels and cleaning up I show you the after!

What a great feeling! I have to ground the bread that I have dried into bread crumbs and find a cute container for them. But working on that.

And the bug bit! It was such a great feeling. so I tackled 2 projects in one night. The second was our main bathroom linen closet. It has been one of those where I just throw our towels and other "junk" for the bathroom. Before....



This just took be about 5 minutes of going thru because it was mostly stuff I needed to rearrange. Now I will be honest, I don't like the towels how there are in this after pictures. The towels we own are very big and fluffy which I love, but they don't quite fit in this closet because it is small. But it is ok for now.

Pizza Soup

One of the things that my work is doing this year is to post recipes that are from people from around the area. Which I think is pretty cool. It makes it nice. So I got this recipe from a "coworker" who I don't really know. :) But it was so yummy! And I did adapt it a little...so this is my recipe that I used.




Ingredients
2 Cans Progresso Minestrone soup
1 14.5 oz can petite diced tomatoes
1 pound ground sausage
oregano flakes
garlic powder

Cook sausage and drain on paper towels. Pour soup and tomatoes in pot. Add 1 soup can of water add sausage and spices. Allow to heat up/simmer. I did it for 10 minutes and I thought it was alright. You can then add mozzarella cheese and crackers like we did. Or you can omit those. Best with both tho.

Menu 1/17-1/22

Last week went alright. Wednesday both of us had the day off so we spent some time together and went out to eat at Olive Garden instead of enchiladas. We had a gift card ;) Gotta love those. And my sweet and sour pork was a disaster. I can NOT for the life of me make it. I don't know why. I just seem to fail. Perhaps it is because I don't have a fryer. But one day I will succeed. And Friday I didn't feel like coming home to make pizza dough so we had Papa John's instead. I'm already working on my February menu! Just need to make a few changes here and there. Then I will also make sure I have ingredients for what I need.

Monday - Spaghetti with homemade meat sauce

Tuesday - chili and cornbread

Wednesday - chicken fajitas

Thursday - Steak and potatoes (yummmmm!)

Friday- home made pizza

Saturday - leftovers

Challenge 2011!

Ok, I have made a couple of resolutions this year and so far a couple of them are stuck in limbo. I'm asking for you, my readers, help to me keep with these little goals. Now mind you, I have one that I've made for myself that I have NOT even started yet so I'm not going to post about that one.

1)Menu plan! I want to get my month planned out and then be sure to post on Mondays in conjunction with Menu Plan Monday on Orgjunkie.com

2)attempt to blog all my recipes that I have written up with photos

3)Work on my organizing list. I have thanks again to Orgjunkie.com started a list of 22 things that I need to organize in my house. Granted it says 52 weeks for her site, but I can't think of 52 things! I'll post that list and what has been completed WITH photos on Fridays.

4)Save up for a down payment on a house. Ok, first of all, this should be easy for us since we have 1 debt and that will be paid off by July. So....now just to save our money instead of spend our money.

5)Try at least 50 new receipes. That is less than a new one a week. I can do that. And to blog about them.

Sounds not too bad right? I think I can handle. Now...just to actually do :)

Menu Plan 1/10 - 11/15

So far this year hasn't shaped up very nicely. I have been sick more days than healthy so far this year! And I rarely get sick. So for me, not happy at all about it. Last week's menu went pretty ok with the exception of I didn't make the veggie soup as planned. And other than that I made what I thought I would. Which is great! So you will see veggie soup for Tuesday which is going to be made. Wednesday I have the day off because I worked Saturday so I plan on making some homemade bread that day and work on my 52 weeks of organizing. Be sure to look up Orgjunke.com for both.

Monday - Mac and Cheese*using my mom's cheese sauce*

Tuesday - Beef Veggie Soup and bread

Wednesday - enchiladas*beans and cheese*

Thursday - sweet and sour pork with rice noodles

Friday - homemade pizza

Saturday - leftovers or whatever we find in the freezer

Happy New Year!!!! (five days late...)

Man, the time has gotten away from me. I apologize with my whole heart! I have no good excuses for you. My birthday is over, of which I got a Wii from my mom and dad. I love them so much! And my mom in law gave me socks! I love her so much! Christmas is over and it was a wonderful time with my family on both sides. New Years was spent with hubby's family on his dad's side. It is wonderful to see how that side of the family really took in my mom in law when hubby's dad died when he was just a year and half. Such a huge blessing to have such a caring family! I can't imagine why people don't like their in-laws.

This past December I made a few resolutions for the New Year. One was to get our budget down to only spending what is absolutely necessary. Food and shelter. So far so good. It helps when you get your hubby a Miata calendar for Christmas for us to write what we spend down on :) In order to help with that spending goal I have made the menu plan for the entire month of January excluding weekends. Now my goal is to spend less than $200 for the month on groceries. Now, I don't know if that will be feasible right now due to the fact that we are just starting. But I have made it on $300 a month, so I'm sure I can do $200. Plus this will help out on our eating out budget to be much lower. ***DISCLAIMER*** we are not in debt up to our eyeballs. I just want to live within in a single salary if possible.

SO with out further ado....my menu plan for this week! (I won't overload you with the entire month)

Monday - Pizza Pasta Casserole * this was from the freezer and wasn't made due to me being sick*

Tuesday - Veggie Soup and bread *this wasn't made because day 2 of being sick, but I did warm up the Pizza Pasta Casserole for the hubby to eat when he got home for lunch/dinner from work

Wednesday - tacos * I made a taco seasoning mix from someone I found online and not a fan too much of it, so I'm glad I didn't make it all with the taco seasoning. will have to find something else.

THursday - Chicken stir fry and rice

Friday - home made pizza *Taking this over to hubby's mom's house for dinner before she leaves for Phoenix. She's visiting her friend out there and going to a work conference.

Saturday - leftovers *I'm probably going to make the veggie soup today because it will be a nice crockpot meal.