For what it's worth - Meal Plan

Okay, I have a week and a half to go until I get grocery money replenishment. I have $10 left. :) So I'm using up stuff from the pantry this time. Let's see what I can recall having in stock. As they say, "those who fail to plan, plan to fail." Whatever.

Tuesday- Fried Rice. (Might be meatless if I don't want to thaw/cook the chicken breasts tonight)
Wednesday- Crockpot Foil Packet Tilapia and spinach salad. Don't be scared, it's amazing. I may make the fish in the oven, though, for time's sake after work, but it totally works perfectly in the crockpot!
Thursday-CrockPot Azorean Spiced Beef Stew Recipe - haven't tried this one before
Friday- BBQ Chicken Pizza
--Concerts over the weekend--
Monday- Meatless spaghetti, and spinach salad
Tuesday- sandwiches?
Wednesday- Cornbread Taco Casserole

A good salad dressing to use if you're watching your calories is Balsamic Vinegar and olive oil and some splenda. If I remember right, it's 1Tbsp balsamic vinegar with 1 Tbsp olive oil and then add Splenda to taste. You might taste it as you go to see if you'd like to add more vinegar for more punch...

4.5.10- UPDATE - the Azorean Spiced stew wasn't bad, but I'd rather just have tomato based beef stew from now on. The cinnamon was good at first, then as leftovers it was too strong.

The one time I love typos

I usually am pristine when I submit official things. I hate bad grammar and giggle at misspelled words (like on church PowerPoints). I tend to not be able to focus on the worship song anymore and laugh at whatever misspelling there is that usually changes the meaning of what the song is trying to say. In any case, I'm not usually one to embrace typos. But! When it comes to our taxes, all I can say is Praise the Lord I made a typo and that I discovered it! The CPA contacted us confused about the enormous figure we owed to the government. We were totally confused, and not just a little grieved I would say. Then I found a missing (significant) zero in one of my deductions I submitted, and voila! Relief, delivered. I will say that I will cherish this false-alarm and be even more pristine with our receipts this year. It was a good wake-up call.

This weekend Blake and I were housebound in the middle of a snowstorm. It was 70 degrees here in OKC on Friday, only to be met with a foot of snow overnight and all into Saturday. I haven't gotten brave enough to let our little Doogan outside on his own, but I wanted him to experience snow, so I took him outside in my arms, and held him out so his feet disappeared in the snow. He tried to sniff it and sneezed...then he tried to eat it. He tries to eat everything. Beware any forsaken glasses of liquid around our house. Doogan will insert his whole head into the cup to steal a taste.

We had a local concert on Sunday night and I'm proud to say attendance did not seem to be hindered by the snow covered streets. That was a good surprise. The church had a pizza party after the concert so that also was fun.

Cooking, lately, has been reduced to cereal and sandwiches. Blake and I are trying to eat healthier and so cooking a large meal each night isn't on our radar at the moment. It will be again, someday. My next book club book choice is "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh" by Robert C. O'Brien. An interesting choice since it's a kid's book. We'll see if it is any good. I hope it is.

More picture experiments

Here are some more of my favorites. The other girl is Mark's girlfriend Meagan, and then the rest of us :) You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.

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Weekend to Carrollton, Photography Experiment

We went to Carrollton, TX this past weekend for Blake to sing and we got to see my family, which is always a huge plus :) I love visiting and it's always so hard to leave. My mom has been into photography lately and she upgraded her camera...so Blake and I got to have her old one!! We all (me, Blake, Mom, Dad, and Mark and his gf Meagan) went to experiment with our cameras on Saturday at a greenbelt area. Here are some pics I took of Blake:

Mom took this last one :)

And then Blake sang a full concert at my home church. I was still getting the hang of that new camera, so they're blurry. But I'll get better at it.







Here are some landscapes Blake and I took that I then tried to edit. I'd really like to learn Photoshop. But these I just did with a little picture program called picasa:

I like these of my Dad

I think it will be fun for Blake and I to wander around and take pictures together. :)

Dinner

Okay, after 3 straight nights of cereal for dinner, I'm starting to feel guilty. This is what we're going to have tonight, Blake's actually going to make it for me!!!

Enchilada Chicken Chili

UPDATE: I did NOT like this, Blake liked it. I give it 2 stars, Blake said it was the best chili he's ever had. I might have liked it better had I used boneless/skinless chicken breasts. But I used frozen wings (that I mistook for breasts) and I now know for sure I do not like dark meat. The flavors of the chili weren't bad.

Book club success

I had a great weekend. Friday night Blake and I went to see the Mark Trammell Quartet in concert and they did a great job. The concert was farther away than we thought, so the drive home was kind of miserable because we were so sleepy, but it was totally worth it. Then on Saturday Blake went to help his brother take home some exercise equipment, and I cleaned the house. I love when our house is clean and picked up, it's a great feeling. Blake came home around 1:30 and we had a late lunch of huge sandwiches. I really wanted chips and we didn't have any, so I experimented and made some Sweet Potato Chips. I sliced up a sweet potato and drizzled olive oil on them and tossed them with cinnamon and cumin and salt. I then put them in the oven at 425 for about 15 minutes. I'd probably do this differently next time, maybe on 400 for 30 minutes or something? I had some chips that almost burned and still some chips that were limp, but the seasonings were really good. You can google different recipes for them.

Still, the chips tasted really good, and they were healthy, so what more can you ask for? The ones that kind of burned actually tasted like a "campfire" so they were my favorite.

Then we kinda bummed around the house a bit and Blake left for another concert to attend while I stayed home and made the appetizers for Book Club. I made: Spinach Pinwheels, Brie Bites, Perogies, and no-bake chocolate cookies. All the appetizers were really good, but the spinach ones and the perogies were my favorite. I didn't get a picture of my perogies, unfortunately, but I just bought them frozen from Target.

It's mashed potatoes wrapped in dough, pretty much, like a potsticker.

Here are the Brie Bites. I really like the idea of these - but I noticed I had the most leftover of these. Everything else was polished off. So, I would say just make double spinach pinwheels. :)


Also on Saturday I tried the recipe for Cocoa Pie...and...don't bother. Didn't do anything for me. Blake thought it was okay, but he eats everything. It was like crystallized, chewy chocolate sugar wrapped in dough. I will say, it was definitely better the next day instead of right after it was made.


If you're going to stir around chocolate sugar in a pot, you might as well make no-bake chocolate cookies. :) My favorite!!
So, a pretty successful little book club. I had sparkling water provided for drinks, but most everyone arrived with their own drinks, so that was easy. I can't wait for the next book club!! It's very fun to get with a bunch of girls who share a similar interest. I didn't know all the girls, but that made it even more fun in a way.