My Vegan Day

As I have mentioned since today is the first day of the Great Fast I wont eat any meat or dairy along with the not eating gluten so besides being gluten free I had to be vegan as well.  I think I ate pretty good.  This morning I had gluten free toast with almond butter and distilled maple water.  For lunch it was rice noodles with garlic and onion.  I snacked all day on nuts, vacuum fried pineapple and freeze dried strawberries.  Now for dinner I just had a salad of romaine lettuce, green onions, mandarin oranges, and candied almonds with a homemade dressing of oil, apple cider vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper.  With it I had a bowl of lentil vegetable soup from Trader Joe's that Manny just loved.  I have to say what I missed most today was a cup of coffee from our new Keurig coffee maker.  But there is no way I could have coffee without cream.

Who's Hungry?

Did you ever have one of those days where you started out cooking one thing and it just snowballed in to many? Well, for me today is one of those days.
It all started this morning when I looked at the box of tomatoes my Aunt and Uncle so generously gave me and I thought I'd get out the Sqeezo and make some sauce even though I already had chicken thawing in the fridge for tonight and 2 lbs of ground beef thawing as well to make stuffed peppers from my garden peppers to freeze. So anywho, I need to go to the store to get some paste cause the tomatoes we not Romas and I need to thicken them up and while I was there they had a little natural roast on clearance and 2 packs of the natural chicken tenders marked down as well so I had to get them. Well, to make a long story short I have now made-
2 pans of stuffed yellow peppers
1 gallon of fresh sauce with meatballs
3 ham and cheese stuffed, fried and baked chicken breasts
1 small roast with carrots
and grilled chicken tenders with fried portabella mushrooms and onions
whew, I better go throw in a chocolate cake!

Saturday Morning

Well, I'm staying on track so far.




This morning I made french toast for breakfast and tried something a little different. For the 2nd batch I added sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. I also used my vintage crank hand mixer to mix it up good instead of a fork and it came out really good. Next time I think I'm going to use my Trader Joe's Agave/Maple syrup blend in the mix. I love my cast iron griddle I got for Christmas last year. You can make 6 pieces at once. I cant see how any family over the size of 4 could be without one.
Now its 10:30 and since the baby was being so cooperative I have the Sweet Sausage ready for the oven, just need to add some sauce.



And the dough for the Calzones in the bread machine.

My family really likes having the menu up. And it gives me more incentive to stick to it because thats what they are expecting to get. I have painted my pantry/washroom door in my kitchen with chalkboard paint and thats were I put the menu and I added a basket thing from an old cupboard to put the weeks adds in.



UPDATE-

By noon my cooking for the day was done!
My pizza and calzones were coming hot out of the oven for lunch.





Love this pizza peel. Bought it at a yard sale - new in plastic with cookbook- for a buck lastyear.



And my sweet pepper sausage was baked- ready to reheat for dinner.

Tenative Menu

During Lent I'm really going to work on organization and decluttering- not an easy task for me. I love to plan, definitely a good planner but not so good with the follow through part. So one of the things I'm going to try and work on to make my life easier is planning a weekly menu and trying my best to stick to it. I'm really a go with the flow, impulsive kinda of person so this will not be set in stone. But I think it will help me to budget our money and time.
On the decluttering end I am just going to work on one small area a day at a time and either organize and keep it, sell it, donate it or throw it away. There are 40 days of Lent so I think I can get somewhere- hopefully. I started with the kitchen. Yesterday I worked on the cupboards above my microwave and around it. Today I did the cupboards above my toaster oven. One thing I discovered it I don't need to buy anymore honey for awhile, good thing honey never goes bad.



My oldest loves honey, saw it all out and decided to go for a taste test.






Now for the menu for the week-

Friday-
Breakfast- Eggs- found a new source for fresh, free-range- so excited
Home Fries and Cinnamon Rolls- for those who didn't give up sweets for Lent
Lunch- Veggie Pizza, Popcorn Shrimp, Buttered Noodles
Dinner- Pizza, and Rootbeer Floats- Choc. Covered Strawberries

Saturday-
Breakfast- French Toast and Maple Sausage
Lunch- Ham and Cheese Calzones
Dinner- Sweet Sausage and Pasta Salad

Sunday-
Breakfast- Eggs, Bacon and Italian Toast- daughter #3's favorite
Lunch- Pasta and Meatballs
Dinner- Breaded Porkchops and Chicken Tenders, Corn on Cob and Baked Potatoes

Monday-
Breakfast- Ham and Cheese Omelets
Lunch- Chicken Salad
Dinner- Emerils Kicked-up Meatloaf and Green beans

Tuesday-
Breakfast- Hello Kitty Waffles
Lunch-Popcorn Chicken and Mac n Cheese
Dinner- Burgers and Fries

Wednesday-
Breakfast- Eggs and Toast
Lunch- Toasted Cheese
Dinner- Cincinnati Chilli and Corncakes

Thursday-
Breakfast- Oatmeal
Lunch- Pasta
Dinner- Tuna Casserole

Coming up next week-
Lazagna, Grilled Chicken and Balsamic Veggies, Tuna Melts, Ribs and Sweetbread, Taco's and Pork Tenderloin.

Manny's 1st Bath

At nearly 2 weeks old my little man got his 1st bath lastnight. Isn't he a cutiepie!
He didn't do too bad but I'm hoping to get him a Tummy Tub soon. He loves being bundled up and worn in the Moby Wrap so I think he will really like the Tummy Tub.




Anyway, here's my "to do" list for today, we'll see how much I actually get around to doing-

Prune raspberry bushes
Put Halloween decor away
Put clothes away
Wash and put away Manny's diapers
Wash and hang out bed clothes
Scrub kitchen floor
Take kids up Moms to play in leaves
Do some homeschool work

Okay, list is getting a little too long with a newborn to be realistic.

Menu-

Breakfast- Eggs, ham and biscuts

Lunch- Pizza buns

Dinner- Pampered Chef Chicken and Broc. Braid

Sweet- Pumpkin pie

Pampered Chef Chicken Broc. Braid-

Ingredients
2 cups cooked chicken, chopped
1 cup broccoli, chopped
1/2 cup red bell pepper, chopped
1 garlic clove, pressed
4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 cup low fat mayonnaise
2 teaspoons Pantry All-Purpose Dill Mix
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 packages (8 oz each) reduced fat refrigerated crescent rolls
1 egg white, lightly beaten
Optional: 2 tablespoons slivered almonds



Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place Chicken, broccoli, bell pepper in mixing bowl. Add pressed garlic. Add shredded cheese and mix. Add mayonnaise, dill mix, salt then mix. Unroll crescent rolls but do not seperate. Place both packages of rolls on a baking stone or cookie sheet end to end. Press ends together to form one long sheet of dough. Press all seams together so filling will not leak out. Along outer side of dough, along each of two opposite sides, cut 2 inch strips from end toward center. This will look like fringe along the two longer sides of the dough. Add filling down the center of between the strips. To braid, lift strips of dough, one at a time, across mixture tomeet in center, twisting each strip one turn. Continue alternating strips to form a braid. Tuck ends up to seal at end of braid. Brash with egg white. Sprinkle with almonds. bake 25-28 minutes or until deep golden brown. Makes 10 servings.

I have dug out all my Pampered Chef cookbooks and look forward to making some of my old favorites. For the kids I will leave out the almonds, dill and bell pepper for this one and do broc. in all except one quarter for daughter #1.