Meal Plan

Last week was a week of way too much really great food!!! 
Here's the plan for this week.

Sunday~Quinoa Stuffed Peppers, Salad
Monday~Lima Beans, Corn Bread
Tuesday~Homemade Pizza, Salad
Wednesday~Carribean Black Bean Soup
Thursday~Prime Rib, Scalloped Potato Gratin, Roasted Red Onions, Shrimp and assorted munchies
Friday~Slow Cooker Cabbage Roll Casserole, Rice, bread

This week's meal plan had to use up some leftovers and some meal plans fro last week that were held over.
Plus the New Year's Eve feast of course.
I'm excited for next week. I received two great cook books for Christmas that I'm anxious to try out. Both are healthier, lighter recipes which we are really gonna need!

Santa was here.

And, BOY! Did he leave a mess!

Good times were had by all. :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Garden Basket Lasagna

I grabbed a book from the library a couple of weeks ago. It's The Best 125 Meatless Pasta Dishes by Mindy Toomay and Susann Geiskopf. I thought it would help me with my goal to make dinner vegetarian at least half of the time.
The first recipe I tried was for Mushroom Stroganoff and it was delicious. The leftovers were great for lunch the next day or two as well. I was in a rush that night and didn't get around to blogging about it.
And tonight I tried this one. OMG!!! SOOOOOOO DELICIOUS!!! I wanted to make sure and get it down here because we will definitely be having it again.

Garden Basket Lasagna

Makes 8 GIGANTIC servings

9 points per serving

Approximate cost for this meal: $10

The sauce:
3 Tablespoons olive oil
3 medium onions, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 6-ounce cans tomato paste
2 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes
I used 4 pints of home canned tomatoes...sooo yummy!
1 cup fresh parsley, minced
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried basil
3 bay leaves
2 slices lemon
I didn't have any so I skipped it.
1/4 teaspoon salt
fresh ground pepper

The filling:
1 Tablespoon caraway seeds, lightly toasted in a dry skillet over medium high heat till fragrant
15 ounces part skim ricotta cheese
1 cup light sour cream
2 medium zucchini, thinly sliced
2 medium yellow squash, thinly sliced
2 medium green bell pepper, thinly sliced
8 oz. part skim mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded

 8 oz (9 pieces) dry lasagna noodles
1 Tablespoon olive oil

About 30 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Heat the 3 Tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet and saute the onions and garlic several minutes. Add the tomato paste and chopped canned tomatoes, discarding the juice from one of the cans, but including the juice from the other. Bring to a simmer and add the parsley, oregano, basil, bay leaves, lemon slices, salt and pepper. Simmer uncovered over low heat about 1 hour, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is considerably reduced.
Meanwhile bring several quarts of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta until almost al dente. It will finish cooking in the oven.Cool the noodles in a bowl of cold water, drain and place on waxed paper until ready to use.
In a small bowl combine the ricotta, sour cream and caraway seeds.
Rub a 9X13 (BIGGER!) baking dish with the 1 Tablespoon olive oil.
Build the lasagna in layers in this order, pressing the layers down as you go:

1/4 of the tomato sauce
1/3 of each of the sliced vegetables
1/3 of the noodles
1/2 the ricotta cheese mixture
1/3 of the mozzarella

1/3 of the remaining sauce
1/2 of each of the remaining vegetables
1/2 the remaining noodles
all the remaining ricotta mixture
1/2 the remaining mozzarella

1/2 the remaining sauce
all the remaining vegetables
all the remaining noodles
all the remaining sauce

Cover tightly with foil and bake 45 minutes.
Remove foil and top with the remaining mozzarella and the parmesan cheese.
Return to the oven and bake an additional 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and let stand 10 minutes before serving.

What we thought:
I LOVED it. Truly LOVED it! More than the meat lasagna I usually make.
I wasn't sure about the caraway seeds when I first read the recipe. I am pretty sure it was caraway seeds that made school lunch pizza so unappealing to me in my school days. But I made the recipe as written because that's my quirky rule for trying new recipes. And I LOVED them! They get kind of tender once they've cooked and give a yummy burst of flavor when you bite into them.
The veggies were perfectly crisp tender. Perfectly! I was afraid they'd get overcooked and soggy but that wasn't the case at all.
Am I the only one that gets kind of confused reading instructions for layering lasagna? Well, I do. So I rewrote the instructions here to hopefully simplify it. Hopefully it makes better sense to you too.
Roger, Kenzie and Emily all said they liked it and they'd have it again.
Jaxon picked the noodles out and seemed to like those.

I would definitely use and actual lasagna pan rather than a 9X13. This is a HUGE pan of lasagna. It must weigh 15 pounds! I'd say it's more like 10 or 12 servings, realistically.
I'd add more salt somewhere next time. In the sauce and maybe also in the ricotta mixture.
I bet the fresh herbs would take it totally over the top in flavor. Mmmmm.....

SOOOOO DELICIOUS! You should try it!
I served it with salad and bread.

Meal Plan

Ahhh....so nice to shop when there isn't a MUST BUY for Christmas item on the list.
Just cause we want to. Makes the crowds and traffic much more tolerable.

We did the grocery shopping early this morning, then a co-op pick up. Then a little optional Christmas shopping. Nice!

We'll have to go back to the grocery store for a couple things as soon as I decide what to bake for coworkers and neighbors in the next couple of days. But I'm pretty well stocked on baking supplies so it shouldn't be a big deal.

The meal plan for this week:
Saturday ~ Dinner for us at our super cool friends and neighbors house. Happy Meals for the kids.
Sunday ~ Family Dinner - Spaghetti, Roasted Cauliflower, Salad, Bread
Monday ~ Garden Basket Lasagna, Bread, Salad
Tuesday ~ Basil Mint Pesto Shrimp with Pasta, Salad
Wednesday ~ Quinoa Stuffed Peppers, Salad, Bread
Thursday ~ Indian Feast Leftovers

Christmas Brunch ~ Frog Eye Salad, Ice Box Dessert, Lion House Potatoes
(Strawberry Banana Crepes, Ham, Veggies and Dip, Rolls - brought by other family)
If we need other food later in the evening I'll make homemade pizza.
Do points really count on Christmas? I don't think so. ;)

This and That

~It's been a busy week!

~We have a meal plan that started last Saturday. And it's a good thing too because, IT'S BEEN A BUSY WEEK! And we would surely be eating out every night if there wasn't a plan in place and a little advance preparation done.
Saturday-Bulgur Black Bean Burgers, Oven Fries
Sunday-Indian FEAST for family dinner-Saag Panir, Sindhi Chicken Curry, Cauliflower and Peas Keema, Basmati Rice, Cucumber Raita, Cilantro Mint Chutney
Monday-Briami, Bread
Tuesday-Fend for yourselves
Wednesday-Meatloaf with Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, Cooked Carrots
Thursday-Garden Basket Lasagna, Bread
Friday-Grilled Tilapia with chimichurri and pico de gallo, rice, Steamed Broccoli
Saturday- Mushroom Stroganoff, Bread, Salad

~I've seen two movies in the past week.
Blind Side was great!
Julie and Julia also great! I kinda wanna be Julia Child. Living in exotic places, enjoying great food with complete abandon, decades of wedded bliss. But add children. I wouldn't want to be without them.

~I'm currently reading two books at once which is something I don't usually do.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is making me see the produce department in a whole new light. I'm also wishing we lived on a farm.

How to Hug  a Porcupine. I put this book on hold at the library back in September. Someone suggested it when I had a run in with a "porcupine" in my life. It must be a popular book because it just barely became available a couple weeks ago. I'm finding it VERY enlightening. VERY. In some good ways. In some uncomfortable ways.

~I didn't forget weigh in this past Sunday. It was 141. I'm going to start keeping a log of my maintenance weigh ins over there on the bottom right of the blog. I'll stop boring us all with the weigh ins in the blog itself.
I will say that maintenance is going very well and pretty easy. I haven't counted points in a few weeks. I have been indulging in a bit of holiday fare but not too much. If I do indulge then I go lightly later to make up for it. It's looking like I'll make it through the holidays without getting above my goal range. Yay!

~Vocabulary lesson for today:
Desowasons= Decorations in Jaxon speak. I LOVE toddler talk. Makes me smile. :)

Simply Restful

The master bedroom is as done as it can get till after Christmas.
I was hoping to make a pad for the top of the hope chest. But I was surprised to find that my sewing machine has gone on strike or something. It was working just fine last time I used it. Not so much now. :( I'll have to take some time to try and figure that out.
There aren't a lot of before pics because, well, that would be embarrassing. What a bunch of clutter and junk there was!
So here's one "before"

But really, I had already done a LOT of purging of junk when this one was taken.
Trust me, it was BAD! As I mentioned before, it was getting hard to even rest in there with all the visual chaos. And it was nearly impossible to find anything. So I cleaned, organized, purged and decluttered for about two weeks. And then started changing the look of the room.
Here's where we are now!

Ahh....that's better!

That canvas over the bed, along with my intense need to simplify, was the inspiration for the whole room. 

The biggest changes were painting the accent wall and getting rid of the ginormous computer armoire that was in the room.

The smaller changes:

My little brother and I found this mirror in the attic of a house we lived in in the early 80's. It was already old when we found it. It's heavier than at least one of my kids. There may be mercury in it. That would explain my loss of brain cells as the years have gone on, huh?

It might be valuable if it was in better shape. I don't know why I like it but I do.

The frame was pretty beat up and it had a cherry colored stain on it.

So I taped off the mirror and painted the frame with black satin spray paint.

Roger is a pack rat sentimental guy and he likes to keep little trinkets that the kids and I give him over time. Several years ago I bought this cute little cabinet for him to collect his treasures in.

It also had a cherry finish with a dark glaze over it. So I painted the outside with black acrylic paint. I figured that hand painting it with a brush would be less tedious than taping off all the little pieces of wood. And it was. But the acrylic paint left the finish too dull. So I wiped the whole thing down with a rub-on satin poly. Much better!

And I even convinced Roger to sort through his treasures and make room for new ones. :)

I wanted to make a little seating area in the corner with the hope chest. Nothing fancy, just someplace to sit and put your shoes on.

I framed (old frame, spray painted) this piece of art that Kenzie made in 8th grade. It's been sitting inside the china cabinet for 3 years but it looks GREAT in our room now. I hung it with a framed verse that she gave me for Mother's Day.

On the other wall in this corner I put up a collage frame that the kids gave me for my birthday three years ago.
I finally updated the pictures as well so that all the kids are in it now.

I couldn't give up my preggo belly pic though. I just love it! Especially since it was the last time that will ever happen. :P

So here's that corner now. Just needing that seat pad (grr!) and a pillow or two.

See that purple fabric on the hope chest? I'll cover the pad with that. I also used it to recover our freebie cheapo motelish headboard that came with the matresses we bought a few years ago.

I upholstered it a long time ago with a greenish chenille. Now it's covered with this yummy purple fabric.

$4 per yard and a staple gun can take you far!

Here's something that isn't working.

We drink responsibly. Which means we have a mini fridge and a wine chiller in our room where we can lock the booze up when we need to keep it out of the hands of people who shouldn't have it.

But I don't want to SEE them all the time. Small appliances don't really fit in with my idea of simple and calm.

They MUST go in this corner of the room.

I had an idea that I could hang a curtain over them that is close to the same color as the wall paint to make that corner sort of "go away".

Only the fabric didn't really match that closely once we got it home and hung it up.

Anyway, I'm not liking the way it worked out.

Got any suggestions for me on that?

As I said, the canvas over the bed was the inspiration for the room. But it wasn't enough by itself. I had considered hanging a large monogram on each side of it. Roger didn't like that idea too much. I was still planning to try and convince him but then I made my very first trip to Hobby Lobby (WOW!!!) while I was in Logan this weekend. I found these small framed monograms and the square umm... what would you call those?...things. I bought four of the "things", no two the same, because I wasn't sure how many I would want to hang there. I really like the look of the monograms and the two "things" with the canvas. I'll find another use for the other two "things".

Paula and I decided that the pretty script and ribbons added a little romance. :)

Next to deal with was this window.

First I machine washed the dry clean only drapes. They were so covered in dust and cat hair (when did we get rid of the last cat? 4 years ago? 5 maybe?) that I figured it was worth the risk. I would rather spend money on new drapes if necessary than on dry cleaning these old ones. They survived!

I bought those corbel rod hangers a hundred years ago on clearance at  the Bed Bath and Beyond outlet store. I think I paid about $5 for the set of them.

But the color is all wrong. It disappears into the wall.

So I went after them with the same black satin spray paint I have been using.

AND I found this cool other "thing" at Hobby Lobby to hang over the window.

 

Are there technical terms for these "things"? I'm a much better cook than decorator. *sigh*

See the purple glass ball hanging in the window?

I bought that in Park City when my sweet mother in law was in the hospital. My sister in law and I took a short break from her bedside and drove up to Park City for some shopping. The witch's ball is supposed to bring positive energy and joy when the sun shines through it. I really needed it then. And it can't really hurt now, huh? So it stays.

So, as far as this room goes, there is now a place for everything and everything is in it's place.

Here's the other thing I need help with.

Accessorizing.

I HATE to dust. HATE it! With a fiery passion.

So I don't want a bunch of "stuff" just for the sake of filling up space.

Everything in this room either serves a purpose or has sentimental value. Ideally both.

Like the bedside lamp that isn't really quite the right shade of purple. But it serves a purpose AND it was a gift from my mother in law. So I love it and it stays.

I bought this cute trunk at Ross for just a few dollars to hide office stuff in. Stapler, calculator, envelopes, that kind of thing.

I like to keep some hand lotion by the bed (I'm getting dry old lady hands!) but a lotion bottle isn't very pretty so I got this soap dispenser to keep there instead.

Incidentally, I've heard great things about Aveeno lotions. I've only tried them once. A few years ago I managed to get acquainted with chiggers when we were picking berries in West Virginia. The medicated Aveeno lotion was the only thing that brought relief from the maddening itch. Ugh!!!

After that incident, Aveeno conjured up bad memories.

But I finally got over it enough to try this Stress Relief lotion and IT. IS. GOOOOOOOD!!!! Mmmmmm...

'scuse me, I'll be right back.

*returns rubbing hands and inhaling deeply*

So, I need some accessories. But not too much cluttery stuff. I have a few pillar candles. I want to buy some nice chunky candlesticks for those.

What else should I add?

My friend, Paula, assures me that I can dust using a "wool fluffer duster" without having to move each thing.

BTW That is her technical term, not mine.

I need things for the top of the TV armoire

~The oil lamp was my grandmother's and I'd like to keep it and find a way to make it prettier.

~The tin bucket with grapes on it serves a useful purpose and must stay.

~Those are the candles I bought this weekend. Need some candlesticks for those.

~The clock must stay. It gets Roger and I up for work every day. Love/hate.

And I need things for the bookcase

~The brown box with ivy on it can go as soon as I find a prettier option for filing receipts which I need for rebates. (To help pay for all this shopping I've been doing!) Maybe I'll just use one of the purple photo boxes that are on top of the armoire right now.

~And I'll replace the two binders with some that are prettier as soon as I find some.

~The mostly empty shelf is where we park our laptops.

~I guess I don't really need anything else on the bookcase but I wish the pretty things on there showed up more. I thought about making the insides of the shelves another color. Maybe yellow or white? What do you think?

So, that's it. Might not seem like much without seeing the disaster that it was before.

But you'll just have to trust me on that.

Feel free to leave me some comments with any suggestions you might have.

Just remember, our makeovers are MINI till we get out of debt. Then we'll go MAX!

So keep 'em cheap. ;)

Linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick's Before and After Party

December 8, 1985

That's the day I became a Mom.

This sweet little baby came into the world to a 16 year old mother (18 year old father) and was too tiny and innocent to be terrified by that reality.

I remember leaving the hospital with her and thinking, "Are they really just gonna let me walk out of here with this baby? Really? No training? No background check? No big test? Not even a note from my Mom?!?!"

We had record snowfall that day. 18 inches.

Guess what came today?

(This picture is to make Mel feel a little better about HER patio table this morning. ;) ) 

Twelve inches so far today. 2/3 of the way to that 1985 snowfall.

They did let us take that baby home. And we all figured things out together over the years. And she grew into a beautiful woman with two adorable daughters of her own.

 

 Happy Birthday Kayleigh!

I love you so much!

Thanks for being so easy on me those first few years while I figured this Mom thing out.

This and That

~Another week of lots of cleaning, decluttering, redecorating last week. Having SOOOO much fun!
I just have to finish up a few things in our room today and then it'll be as done as it can be till after Christmas.
Pics and requests for suggestions coming soon.

~I spent the weekend in Logan with my totally awesome friend Paula. First we went to a PYP party that turned out to be much smaller but just as fun as expected. Then we shopped all day Saturday, went out to a great dinner, back to the hotel where we shared a bottle of wine and lots of great conversation. I forgot how nice it is to have an uninterrupted conversation. LOL Breakfast on Sunday and then more shopping. Budget? What budget? And then the drive home listening to and singing along with some loud 80's tunes. Good times!

~I missed weigh in yesterday. This morning I'm at 140.8 which is pretty impressive considering the way I have been eating for the past few days. I was especially gluttonous with some warm brie, grilled bread and salad greens with dried cranberries. HEAVEN!!!!! But I'm back on the wagon today. Gotta get back to the high 130's in preparation for the next holiday! LOL

I'm off to finish up the bedroom now. More spray paint!
Emily has a band concert at school tomorrow. Tomorrow is also Kayleigh's birthday. Traditionally, that's the start of the holiday season for our family.
I'm excited to start decorating for Christmas. I've been in a funk for the past couple of months but I'm BACK! This weekend away was the final touch to lifting my spirits and I'm excited to get everything all sparkly for the holidays and enjoy it with all the wonderful people in my life!

Life is good! See ya soon!