A Mom Knows… and other announcements

I know, I know…I’ve been promising an announcement.  And probably MOST of you are already aware…but just in case you haven’t heard…
It’s official:

Menu Monday: Jan 30-Feb 5

I should probably change the title to Menu Tuesday…seeing as that is when I usually get the darn thing posted, but it just doesn’t have quite the same ring.  :) 

Here’s this week’s disclaimer:  My menu is kind of lame.  I normally shy away from having so many of the same “types” of foods in one week, but I have several things in the fridge I need to use up before they expire.  And I’m not at all feeling creative in the culinary department.  And I just plain don’t want to go grocery shopping.
I never got to the Greek Pastitsio last week, so it’s a repeat.  I know.  Lame.
But here it is none the less….

Menu Monday: Jan 23-29

Lots of yummy things going on in the kitchen this week! 

Menu Monday: Jan 9-Jan 15

Another week, and another menu.  (And another week with ONLY my menu posted on the blog.)  Ha!  I guess we know where my priorities are!  FOOD…always food. I’m trying lots of new recipes this week, and I am super excited.  The only drawback is I can’t vouch for their deliciousness, because I haven’t tried them yet.  But I am entirely confident they will be wonderful.

Menu (and hangin out with the parentals)

 

Ahhh, menu Monday.  The first of 2012.  I almost went ahead and skipped this week, because my most favorite parents are here in Michigan for a visit.  We have been having a great time hangin around, enjoying each others company, and baking LOTS of yummy treats.  So I thought I would just forgo planning my menu.  And then I realized, we still have to eat!  :)  So this is what I decided on.

Yes, I’m doing the Clam Chowder and Italian bread bowls again.  They are just SOO good.  Also, I have worked pretty darn hard lately to improve my cooking/baking. I am excited to show them off a little and impress my mom with my bread bowl making skillzzzzz.

And PUH-LEASE, do yourself a favor and make these Ooey Gooey Marshmallowey Peanut Butter Brownies from Our Best Bites.  Seriously.  Just do it.  (You can thank me later.)

 

I have green and red peppers left over from my Chicken a la king I made over Christmas, so I decided it would be a perfect chance to whip up these Amazing Chilis Fajitas from The Sisters Cafe. 

 

Sloppy Joe’s

These Sloppy Joe’s are so yummy.  It might look like a lot of ingredients, but its really not that bad.  And its worth it.  But I admit.  When I am in a pinch, or I just don’t feel like throwing this together…I open a can of “Manwich”.  We’ll see how it plays out.

 

Cheesy Mostaccioli

I honestly could not decide what to make for Saturday, until I remembered I had a pan of this tasty pasta in the freezer.  I {heart} a good freezer meal!  Hoorah!!!

 

Sunday’s meal is going to be pretty simple.  I am just putting a ham in the oven, and preparing the most mouthwatering funeral potatoes ever.  EVER!!!  I haven’t typed up the recipe yet, but I’ll add the link as soon as I do.

I am already stumped for next week’s recipes.  Any suggestions???  Or any foodie websites I HAVE to know about??  I am always eager to expand my list of “go to” sites!  Happy cooking!

 

Christmas Menu Monday

Holy Smokes!  I can’t believe how fast the last few weeks have FLOWN by!  I have been a busy busy little bee around here.  I took a break from my menus because my schedule was hectic, My sister was in town, and I have been up to my elbows in finishing projects!  Yay!  I am NOTORIOUS for getting something about 80% finished, losing steam, and moving on to something else.  So I have been feeling pretty proud of myself for finally finishing up several things I have had in the works for awhile and even a spontaneous Christmas project (or 3).  Super excited to share.  Here’s just a little sneak peak.

But we’ll save those for another post.  Or two.  Or 7.  For now, here’s my weekly menu.

 

Garlic Orange Shrimp, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

     *I made the Garlic Orange Shrimp for the first time tonight, and it was really yummy!  I cut down the cayenne pepper by half…and it was still pretty spicy.  So, if you are not into spice at all…I would omit the pepper completely.  (Also, I didn’t have “Old Bay” seasoning, so I used my trusty Lawry’s season salt.  It tasted great.)

Chicken Broccoli Casserole

 

Taco Soup

Chicken a la king, Atkinson Family homemade vanilla custard and hot fudge sauce

Crockpot breakfast casserole – I have to admit…I haven’t tried this yet, so there are absolutely no guarantees as to how it will turn out.  I figure if it is a bust, I’ll just whip out the bisquick…so no harm done.  :) 

 

If you want a tried and true make ahead recipe for Christmas morning, I would happily suggest this Baked French Toast from the Pioneer Woman.  Even the hubs commented on how good it was.  And bonus…if you have leftovers, it was even better re-heated the next day!

mashed potatoes, candied walnut salad 

*The pomegranate spinach salad is nothing special.  Just add pomegranate seeds to your favorite salad.  The End.  :)

Has anyone ever tried a crockpot breakfast casserole before?  I’d love to hear how it turned out!

Little Turkey, and Menu Monday

We did it.  We survived Thanksgiving and all the festivities that come a long with it.  It was just my own little family for the big turkey day this year, so we kept things pretty simple.  After all, who wants to spend forever cooking in the kitchen for just 2 people??  (Okay, technically 3 people needed to eat…but I knew my little turkey would take about 2 bites of his dinner, so I didn’t really factor him into the food preparation equation).

So we just had the basics.  Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, rolls, carrots, and we tossed in a glass of sparkling grape juice just for fun.  And pumpkin pie for dessert.  LOTS of pumpkin pie.  We ate at 1:30, were finished by 1:40, had everything cleaned up by 2:00, and were all taking an afternoon nap by 2:30.  It was great!

 

This is my little Turkey at his Preschool “Thanksgiving Feast.”  One adult was invited to join them for their feast (snack time) last Tuesday.  I was the fortunate one to attend, and Miles was soooo excited.

We got to make our own turkeys out of a bagel and cream cheese, veggies, cracker and raisins.  The kids also worked very hard in class preparing a pumpkin pie pudding.  (And I was shocked that it was actually REALLY good!)

The Judesters was there too…but managed to sleep through the entire thing.  As usual.

I had a great weekend eating good food and enjoying time with my little family…but now it’s back to the real world!  (Which means planning weekly menus) 

 

So here’s mine for this week:

 

Turkey Pot Pie  (it’s my cheater chicken pot pie recipe…only I am using leftover turkey)

Breakfast for Dinner – there’s no “official” recipe.  I don’t know for sure what we’ll have, but probably french toast.  Or waffles.  Or bacon and eggs.  Or all of the above.

Clam Chowder & Bread Bowls – My friend Erin (from The Sisters Cafe) invited me to a luncheon last week to celebrate my birthday.  She served this clam chowder…and it was to DIE for.  I mean it.  And my friend Anona made these awesome bread bowls to go with them.  The combination was heavenly…(Thanks again to my amazing friends!!)

Southwestern Crockpot Chicken

 

Cafe Rio Sweet Pork, Cafe Rio Cilantro Lime Rice, & Cafe Rio Beans

     The recipe I use for my Cafe Rio “copycat” dinner is one I have sort of made-up from several different recipes.  I’ll post it soon…but it still needs to be typed up, and since it’s almost 2 am…I’m going to BED!

Happy Monday Everyone!

The Paper Monster – kitchen organization project #1

Forgoing my menu this week. It seems I have amassed quite the supply of leftovers!  So we will be eating anything and everything left in the fridge, trying to make space for all the goodies that will need to be stored there come Thursday.  (MMMMM…can’t wait!)

Instead, I’m finally getting around to the “how'-to” of my clutter-free kitchen counters.  Finally!!  For some reason, I deluded myself into thinking that when my oldest little tike started preschool this year I would suddenly have “all this FREE TIME!”  I seriously believed that I would gain an extra 3 hours a day of peace and quiet, in which I could sit and ponder, and write, and craft, and pretty much do anything I wanted! 

Ha!  I laugh about that now.  Boy, was I wrong!!!  I still have to do everything I did when he was home with me.  True, it takes me a little less time to fold the laundry or go grocery shopping than it did with all the typical little boy interruptions, but any precious time I gain gets all used up again doing the “school routine.”  You know, helping the big guy get ready, doing reading and handwriting lessons, books and backpack packed, kids buckled into the car, driving to school, waiting outside classroom until he is allowed in, getting baby buckled back into car, and driving home.  Then doing it all again 3 hours later.  Extra time???  I must have been CRAZY!!

So, yes.  It has taken me much longer than anticipated.  But here is my finished product.

You’re looking at my new Kitchen Command Center.  It was a lot of work to get it that way.  But the great thing about getting a space organized and functioning smoothly is that now, it takes very little time to maintain.  For a mom that already feels short on time, that is a HUGE blessing! 

 

Remember the “Before”?

YIKES!!! Oh man…that’s bad.  That random rooster popping up there cracks me up.  Want a closer look??

Oh…if only it was actually true!!

 

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t just have one craptacular, catch-all counter.  It gets worse!!

I had TWO!!!  As well as a completely ineffective (and over utilized) mail sorter, an under utilized and awkwardly positioned magnet board, and bags cluttering up the floor, because there was no place else to put them.  I had good intentions.  But it was COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL! Something HAD to be done!! 

I knew I needed storage.  I needed a place to corral all the clutter, sort the mail, save papers and keep schedules and notes.  AND I knew I needed a SYSTEM to make it all work together and function smoothly.  Before I could brainstorm solutions to get this all cleaned up, I needed to know EXACTLY what was coming in and cluttering up my kitchen in the first place. So I cleaned off all my counters and went to work.

I sorted everything into piles and realized my main problem.  I was battling a paper monster!  I had been inundated with paper, paper, and..you got it.  More paper!  It was coming in from EVERYWHERE!  And I knew corralling it HAD to be my first priority.  So I came up with a filing system to sort it all as it comes in.

After sorting through my mounds of paper, I was able to put everything into 7 main categories.

1. “Take Action” - This includes things like permission slips that need to be returned to school, magazine subscriptions that need to be renewed, bills that need to be paid, and Netflix envelopes that need to be returned.  Anything that requires me to DO something, goes in this folder.

2. “To File” – Things I want to store on a more long term basis go in this folder.  Credit card and utility statements, Receipts, product manuals, etc. are all corralled here and stored temporarily, until I get a chance to transfer it to our “long term” filing cabinet upstairs.   (Because lets face it.  We all know I would NEVER trek every little bit of paper upstairs immediately.)  Instead I  empty the folder about once a week.  (Usually every Sunday night when I sit down to plan my next week’s schedule.)

3. Miles Preschool papers – Papers I want to save forever and ever go here!  (That’s a pretty tall order!) Mostly things like his weekly handwriting sheets (I am going to make them all into a book at the end of the year), special awards he has received, and any other extra special projects he comes home with.  These papers are stored here temporarily.  When the folder starts filling up, I transfer them to the school paperwork storage box I created a la Jen from iheartorganizing.  (A super fun project.  More to come on that later.)  :) 

4. Miles Art – Holy Cow!  I had no idea how many “masterpieces” my little man would bring home every week.  Sweet little gems like this one……

Seriously???  Hi-Larious. BEST part of having a kid in pre-school, hands down.

BUTTTTT  the question remains.  What in the heck am I supposed to do with this thing???  (Besides of course, snap so many pictures of myself wearing this little dandy the artist himself becomes insanely jealous and is forced to tear it off my head.)  True story.  See that little hand in the corner??

This is where having a “System” in place is important.  No my dear friends, having a file folder labeled “Miles Art” will get you nowhere.  TRUST ME!  (especially if you don’t have a kid named Miles.  Ha!) There are usually 3 or 4 projects coming home from school every day.  That’s about 15 a week, and 60 every month!!!  There is no way storing all those papers in one little file is feasible.  So, here is our system.  First, I snap photos of every single one of his masterpieces while oohing and aahing over them for an appropriate amount of time.  Then we remove the previous days art from the fridge, Miles gets to choose 1 or 2 new pieces to display, and I file the others in his “art” folder.  The REALLY special pieces will get filed in his special school specific filing box to keep forever and ever.  The rest of them get thrown in the garbage at the end of the week when my little man is sleeping.  Sorry Dude.  Flog me if you will, but I have absolutely no remorse, because I took photos of ever piece he created.  And at the end of the year, those photos will be combined into a lovely photo book, displaying the entirety of his preschool creativity.  And that is WAY more awesome than having random triangles and turkey legs floating around my house.

5. Grocery Ads – I like to keep my Meijer, Rite-aid, and Kroger ads to refer to when making my weekly menus, and throughout the week for couponing purposes.

6. Coupons – I like to use coupons.  It’s fun.  But they are messy if you don’t have a way to contain them.  I file all my coupon inserts by date upstairs in my “main” filing cabinet.  But sometimes I clip coupons I don’t use.  Or I print coupons to use later. Or I cut a coupon from a cereal box.  Those kinds of coupons go in my "Coupons – Grocery” folder.  I also get coupons to stores like Bed Bath & Beyond, Ulta, Joanns, and restaurants like Arby’s and McDonalds.  All those “other” types of coupons get filed in my Coupons-Store folder. 

7. Recipes– Any recipes I print out for my weekly Menu Plan are stored here.  If they are great, I will transfer them to my recipe binder.  If they are NOT great, they go in the garbage with the leftovers.

I also gave myself and Mike our own folders.  These are for things we want to keep around for awhile.  Things we might want to use or refer to every so often.  For instance, I have been drawing up plans to build Miles a play table and chair set for Christmas.  My drawings and supply lists are in my folder, a long with extra copies of the to-do lists I like to use, my printable calendar pages, blog idea pages, etc.

Once everything was sorted, I labeled some folders, filed all the paper away, and put the folders in a cute basket I bought in the Target clearance section.  

Mission Accomplished! 

All my paper has a place to go, and I have a system to make sure it doesn’t get out of control again.

Then, I just added a few extra accessories to turn the space into the Command Central I  had envisioned.

A Calendar.  No family command center would be complete without one!  And I love mine.  I just print one off every week to keep track of our comings and goings.  I also have a monthly calendar underneath, to keep  track of all our long-term appointments.

 

My cup ‘o markers and a cute notepad to write down reminders and add things to the calendar

 

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A simple basket to house our modem/router and hide their cords.  I also stashed my stapler, tape dispenser, and iPad charger in there to minimize the “stuff” on the counter.

I also added a couple small, leather journals to my filing basket, (one for each boy), where I can write down their milestones and funny things Miles says.  And my iPad rests in the basket too.  (That is, when it’s not out and streaming the Polar Express station on Pandora for me.  Listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving is AWESOME!!!)

so that’s it my command center in a nutshell!  (A very large and overly wordy nutshell.)  It is working FANTASTICALLY, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. 

Let’s take a gander at that before and after just one more time, shall we?

It DID take a bit of work and a lot of time to get it looking this way, but by having this space so streamlined and organized, I also actually SAVE time.  No more digging through piles and piles of papers to find the one thing I was looking for.  Everything is right at my fingertips and I can find anything I need in a matter of seconds.

My Command Center was by FAR the biggest project of my quest for kitchen organization, but it was just the beginning!  I cleaned up my other catch-all counter, found a solution for my bags, and even DIY’d a simple keychain holder!  Then there was Miles’ schoolwork filing project, and my medicine cabinet redo.  So much to share!  Can’t wait to show you how it all works together to keep me organized, and our family functioning smoothly.

How about you?  Any major organizing projects going on in your neck of the woods?

 

Menu Monday & organizing fool!

It’s true…

I have been an Organizing FOOL around these parts.  (These parts meaning my out of control home.)

And okay, it’s not really “out of control.”  But it could certainly use a little sprucing, if you know what I mean. 

 

(Please say you know what I mean???!!!)

 

I have been hard at work and am so excited to show you exactly how I transformed my catch-all, cluttered, make me want to tear my hair out, countertops, into a streamlined, organized, and fully functional space.

Here’s a sneak peak:

 

Ahhhhhh…I can just breathe easier now that it’s finished.  It was a lot more work, and took SOOOO much longer than I anticipated, but was TOTALLY worth it.  Who knew looking at a kitchen  countertop could make me feel all giddy inside??

There were lots of little projects that went into creating my new and improved, clutter-free counters, and I’ll post all about them this week.

 

But for now…enjoy my weekly menu!

Creamy Garlic Alfredo Penne, Parmesan Rolls, Olive Garden Salad

Baked Potato Soup & Lion House Rolls

Honey Lime Enchiladas, Cafe Rio Rice, & Cafe Rio Beans

Calzones

Crockpot Southwest Chicken

 

Happy Monday everyone!!

Menu Monday – simple meals (and a couple repeats)

Back today with my weekly menu.  And before you judge me on its lameness…just know we had a rough week around these parts.  With a husband and a little boy both getting the stomach flu, and a Mommy who was sick (not the flu…just felt like it), several of our meals were “postponed” to this week.

Links:  Spinach Quiche, Honey Lime Enchiladas, Rumbi Island Chicken

***It’s a busy week for us, so these meals are quick, easy, and crockpot friendly.  The Honey Lime Enchiladas are a freezer meal I made a few weeks ago.  SWEET!!!***

bonus for me:  I save $$$ on groceries

bonus for you:  well… there is no bonus.  You just get to see all my repeats.

Lame. 

But there is one thing that should make you happy.  Like, very very happy. 

I’m making spaghetti this week.  And OHHHHHH it is so good.

So good, in fact, that after I took my first trip as a teen to the Old Spaghetti Factory in Salt Lake City, I thought, “What’s the big deal???  My mom’s spaghetti is WAY better than this.”

Sorry OSF…But I still stand by that statement.

 

Behold…the oft requested Atkinson Family spaghetti sauce recipe.  You can thank me later.

Download HERE 

 

Happy Monday Everyone!!!