Food Friday - A Favorite and a Not Favorite

We had this for dinner recently.  Two of the three items are family favorites.  First up, the meat.  That was leftover from camping that we did not cook.  We always love steak kabobs cooked over for the fire but we found that with kids, it just didn't work.  Instead, I threw them in a skillet and cooked them up - they were fantastic!  They had marinated in Sweet Baby Ray's Steahouse Marinade YUM!.  Second, the zucchini (from our garden!) is cooked just the way we like it - in a little butter with nature's seasoning sauted until soft and tasty.

The other item - that Orzo salad?  Yuck.  HA!  That was a recipe I planned to share but it just wasn't good. I like aspargus when it is roasted but just blanched?  Not great flavor.  The tomatoes ended up being bitter/sour - they were a gift from someone's garden so I don't know what happened to them.  I won't make that again though!

Nothing super exciting as far as cooking here lately!  Seems like we have been eating a little more simple OR the recipes are not note worthy!

Weekly Menu

Wow, it is Thursday. I got up Monday morning and realized I had not prepped any blog posts for the week and figured I could get them done on Monday.  Well, that didn't happen.  Oh well.  :-) 

We stayed pretty true to the plan this week.  We did end up grabbing fast food after soccer.  Making Philly Steak and Cheese sandwiches just didn't make it on the "I really want this for dinner" menu this week after all. 

So, I have searched high and low for the perfect ranch dressing.  I've purchased every brand and almost every flavor and nothing tasted like THE Ranch I was looking for!  Well, this past weekend we were at my Mother-in-Laws and she had her "homemade" ranch dressing.  It was PERFECT!  Do you know what it was?  Hidden Valley Dry Dressing Mix that you just add mayo and milk too to make the ranch dressing.  Wow.  Why didn't I think of that?? :-) 

Here's what is on the plan for this week:

Saturday - My parents are coming for the day; my husband is leaving for the day; and I think I actually might get a few hours to go into town and do some shopping.  I have two different things in mind to make for dinner but haven't decided what to make for sure yet!

Sunday - It's time for a roast in the oven!  I'll add some carrots and cook up some fabulous noodles.  Yum! 

Monday - Baked Teriyaki Chicken, a family favorite, Sweet Potato Casserole, Green Beans, and Rolls

Tuesday - Meatball Soup and homemade bread

Wednesday - Slow Cooker Honey Ginger Pork, Baked Brown Rice, Corn, and Rolls

Thursday - Another night of soccer so we'll grab dinner after the game. 

Friday - Tacos :-) 

Sunflowers

This past spring the boys planted sunflower seeds and it's been fun to watch them grow especially the ones they did NOT plant this year!  Yes, we had some HUGE sunflowers that grew from seeds that fell out of the plants that grew last year.  A few weeks ago I decided to snap some photos of the flowers at their prime and I'm so glad I did because just two day later the biggest of the biggest flowers all fell over. 

Between my black-eyed Susans and the Sunflowers - my back yard is just fabulous!

Weekly Menu - a day late

I missed a week.  I tend to do that every once in awhile so when I planned the menu last week I had appointments in the wrong week and forgot about other things so we did not follow the planned menu well at all!  I'm back on track this week so I think we'll be a little better off!


Saturday - We are going to my in-laws for the day and she has instructed us to not bring anything :-)  I'm sure it will be a great day and I always like it when I don't have to cook!

Sunday - This is our first real football Sunday so I've planned some football food.  I wanted things that we could eat after church and then snack on throughout the day.  I'm going to cook a big pot of Chili (which is nice for leftovers and then to freeze for another meal in a few weeks).  The snacks on my mind as of this writing are:  Strawberries/Pineapple with our favorite fruit dip, Holiday Bacon Appetizers (this are great because I can freeze the left overs and take them out in a few weeks to enjoy during a game), Cheesy Bacon Bites (a family favorite that I will cook up later in the day), Warm and Creamy Bacon Dip (this is still on my "maybe" list), Little Smokies (yum, yum YUM!), and maybe I'll make two cheeseballs (but cut the recipes in half for each of them) Now, don't freak out by the list.  Ultimately, I'll probably only end up putting 1-3 of these items on the list but I haven't narrowed it down yet.

Monday - Today is my husband's x-ray AND MRI (not last week!) so we will go into town as a family, maybe do some free fun (Like the big bacon and egg play land at the mall) and get some dinner before his appointment.

Tuesday - Tonight is Pan Fried Pork Chops, Salad, Savory Rice, and Rolls

Wednesday - Philly Cheesesteaks, Broccoli Salad, Coleslaw and Jell-O Salad.

Thursday - My plan is to make a big pot of Sloppy Joes.  The boy's soccer game is later this session so I think we'll try to eat before hand.  The sloppy joes freeze great too so we can use them in the future.  We'll also have left over salads from Wednesday.

Friday - Tacos!  I'm hungry for Fish Tacos again so that is the direction we'll go.  Plus, we should have some left over coleslaw from Wednesday to use as the topping !

September 11th

A simple photo such as things can bring back so many gut wrenching memories from that day.  I remember where I was when I heard, who told me, and the shock as I finally got out of work and started hearing and seeing the stories.

Today is a day to remember all that was lost on that one day.  To keep it in the forefront and never forget.

What I'm reading (or Not)

So, here's the deal.  I started out the year with a great list of books to read.  I even started out reading them!  Something happened and it is called "Darryl's Surgery".  Seriously!  You would think that spending 5 days in a hospital I would have spent hours and hours reading but I haven't cracked open a book since June 25th.  That is just crazy coming from me because I LOVE to read!  I was trying to figure it out and there are a couple of key things.  1) Darryl is home.  I do most of my reading while eating lunch (by the time I get the kids settled down and eating and my lunch on the table . . .they kids are done so I get to read for a bit!).  I don't read when Darryl is eating with us because we all talk and eat together.  2)  I always read for 30-45 minutes in the afternoon for my "down time".  Now, we have school during that time so I really don't get that chance to read like I did before.  3) I stay up later because Darryl is staying up since he isn't working.  Before, he went to bed at 8:30 so by about 10:00, I would be ready to lay down and I would read for an hour.  Now I just stay up until 11:00 watching TV or playing a computer game.

Now that September is here, I'm ready to get back into some books. 

Well, my brother wrote a book!!!  So, of course, this is on the very TOP of my reading list!  I'm really excited to read it and then promote it for all of my readers. 

I have two other "must reads" on my list this month and you've seen them before:

I'm adding these to my "September Goals" list - to read the above three books by the end of September.  I also want to read for fun.  I've been saving a lot of books to my wish list for my Kindle and need to find a really good one to download and read! 

Camping - Fun Fun Fun!

I've shared all of the planning and activities and food from our camping trip so now it's time to share the fun we had over the weekend.  We learned a lot, made short lists of things we want to do differently, and remember things we used to enjoy doing while camping.  But, most importantly, we had fun.

 All of us worked together to get the fire started - the boys and I went searching for some sticks and dried bark around the campsite (Ok, the boys rode bikes HA).  Darryl had me set up the wood and he got the fire going.

 Nate did finally start to help me some to search for some small sticks.

 Josh was SOOO tired (haha) that he needed to rest for a bit while the fire started to burn.

 Our "new to us" camper.  Two of the canopy poles would not open up so our canopy was very tilty.  It worked though and that's all that mattered (And we can easily replace the poles before next summer!)

 Nate set up a camp light and enjoyed playing in the sand in the dark.

 Darryl and Josh.  We took Josh camping when he was about 9 months old - Darryl sat and held him by the fire just like this photo.  (Except he was MUCH smaller!)

Our lights!  Over the coming years we plan on making our camper notably ours but for now, these little lights worked.  I have some other lights picked out and want to get a flag to put outside and we want to "name" our camper too!

 Saturday the boys LOVED riding their bikes around.  We happened to be near a turn around on the road which gave the boys lots of space to ride while still being in our site.  They loved the freedom of just being able to ride their bikes all over.

One of the things that Darryl and I always loved was taking a short walk out to the pier and walk along the water.  We introduced that tradition to the boys.  They loved the short walk but were not quite as enthralled with the pier and channel as we always are but at least there were some HUGE sailboats that came by to entertain them!

 (My all time favorite photo - I didn't even know I got this photo until I downloaded photos after we got home.  That boy can jump!)

 Once we ate lunch and went to the store, we came back to the campsite and got ready to go to the beach.  The boys and I headed down to the water while Darryl stayed up in the pavilian at the park.  I went in the water with the boys and we had so much fun.  At one point, I turned around and there was a HUGE wave coming.  I grabbed Nate's hand and told Josh to run to the shore.  Had I not been holding Nate, it would have gone over his head and knocked the poor kid down!  The waves went all the way up on shore and got our stuff wet!  The waves kept coming for a few minutes and we had a blast!  The boys even made a couple of trips running in the sand up to tell Darryl things - I'm not sure how they had the energy to do that!

More bike riding fun after the beach!

 Who is this kid?  Every once in awhile we get a glimpse of what the boys will look like at 16 and this is one of those times.

 Yep, more bikes!  This time we let them ride their bikes out to the pier.

 I wanted to get a great shot of the boys . . .. well, this is the best they would give me.

While Darryl and I started packing up, the boys had fun in the sand.  I turned around and saw Josh on the bike, throwing sand back at Nate who was holding the umbrella.  It was so cute!

That was our adventure.  It was a ton of fun and we are still holding out to get to go one more time this season!