Love Making Dinner!

Just had to share that it really makes me feel good when I make dinner for my family and both my teenage boys come and give me a hug afterwards and thank me for making a great dinner.  Last night was Hawaiian Beef... YUMMY!

Photos of Food Prep Day

Tonight's Dinner: Bacon, Cheese & Potato Chowder

Tuesday Night (made today because I have a busy day tomorrow): Quick & Easy Zesty Sausage Pasta

My favorite soup to put in freezer for a quick meal sometime: Chicken Gnocchi Soup!

Dinner sometime this week: Lasagne, ready and going in the freezer. 

• I also chopped green onion, carrots, broccoli, celery and radishes that were used in some of the meals as well as ready for use in later recipes.
• I would have had one more full meal (Shepherd's Pie) done and in the freezer but I don't have ANY mashed potatoes of any kind, nor regular potatoes.  I still put the meat mixture together with the beans on top and put that in the freezer.  I will pick those up sometime this week at the store.
• Pork roast is ready to be marinated tomorrow so that it goes in the crock pot on Wednesday night.

Whew!  I'm beat, but ready for a busy week and no-stress meal time!!

Food Prep Day!

I have a busy week coming up so this morning I am doing all the prep work for dinners for the week.  My menu is:

• Bacon, Cheese & Potato Chowder - Monday
• Quick & Easy Zesty Sausage Pasta - Tuesday
• Kaluah Pork - Wednesday
• Hawaiian Beef - Thursday
• Lasagne - Friday

Tonight's dinner is easy and can be put together in 30 minutes.  This morning I will make the Sausage Pasta for tomorrow night's dinner and we can reheat tomorrow night.  Wednesday is a crock-pot meal so I will throw that in the crock-pot on Wednesday morning.  Thursday I will prepare the lasagne and put it in the fridge so it is ready to throw in the oven on Friday evening.  Thursday night will be the Hawaiian Beef and I will be home in time to prep that meal on that day.

If you want the recipes, comment on my post and I will post the recipes with photos. 

Recipe Book

So I mentioned earlier in the week that I worked on creating a recipe book for my neighbors.  It was a lot of work but am I reaping the rewards.  Here is what the cover looked like (Thanks to Megan Burnside who created that)

The pages look like this: 

I used the computer software that my business partner, Donna, and I created to do it.  You can make your own recipe book with your family's favorites as well!  Wouldn't that make a wonderful Christmas gift for your family! 

Fun with Dinner!

So, simple ham and cheesy (funeral) potatoes for dinner tonight, but I took it to a new level.  Sometimes I want to be a bit more creative so I decided to serve dog, owl and bear for dinner.

Yup.  That's right.  I took cookie cutters and made shapes.  My boys laughed at me (because they are teenagers) but it was a fun twist on dinner. 

I thought I would share as you can do this with lots of different foods.  And... as Sandra Lee says... Round Two (and Round Three) Recipes:

All the scraps aren't going to waste!  I took them and chopped them into cubes and am going to make ham & beans one night and fried rice with ham another night.

Now that's thrifty!

New Recipes this Week

I am trying out a bunch of new recipes this week for dinner.  I was lucky enough (if you call it that) to compile a recipe book for the ladies in my neighborhood as a Christmas gift.  I got to test out a lot of them as I went along and now have a few more to try this week.  I will post pictures and the recipes as I do them so you can share in the fun!  Shopping for ingredients today... simple ham and funeral potatoes tonight.  I;ll keep you posted!