Weekly Dinner Menu:September 6-10, 2010
It’s been awhile since I’ve put together a weekly dinner menu online, we were a little laid back on the menus during the summer but now that school is back in session, it’s time to start focusing on routines, homework, menus and more.
Over the weekend, we enjoyed a huge treasure outing. First, we started off with the 30th Annual Labor Day Weekend Yard Sale at the Sierra Presbyterian Church. Throughout the day, we stopped in to check out the small thrift shops. Usually the first weekend of the month, items are 50% off or more. You can usually find me somewhere in the housewares, kitchen or cookbook section. I found some kitchen treasures along the way and some new throw pillow for our couches. Here are a few of my frugal finds:
Sears Roebuck CO. Chef Quality Aluminum Maid of Honor Canisters-$3.00
They are in perfect condition, not sure exactly what year they are from. Can anyone date these?
Pampered Chef Ice Shaver/Sno Cone Maker-$2.50
It’s an older model dated in 1995 before my time as a Pampered Chef Consultant. The only thing missing is the ice maker cups with the lids. I have enough small freezer containers with lids that would work to use as a substitute. I enjoy finding and collecting older Pampered Chef products.
The Pampered Chef Favorites II and Amy Sutherland’s COOKOFF-$0.50
Two more great books to add to my collection. The Pampered Chef Favorites II is from 1994. More great recipes from appetizers to desserts. I love the recipes-Taco Lasagna, Cinnamon Swirl Loaf, Banana Split Brownie Pizza-YUM! Amy Sutherland’s COOKOFF is about her experience as a journalist taking readers on a guided tour of the vast competitive cooking competitions and the people she meets along the way. I can’t wait to read it!
And lastly, I found a Belgium Waffle Maker in perfect condition. Outside is a little faded in color but inside is in great shape. I’ve been wanting a waffle maker for some time now. This is perfect for making waffles ahead of time and freezing them. Kids can pull out of the freezer for a quick breakfast.
Belgium Waffle Maker-$4.00
Okay, enough frugal thrift talking, let’s plan the week’s menu:
Monday: BBQ Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Slow-Cooker Baked Beans, a juicy watermelon and for dessert, a French Vanilla Blueberry cake.
Tuesday: Apple Pork Chops, covered with sliced baking apples.( marinated in refrigerator the night before. This recipe does take an extra 15 minutes to cook, but it’s so worth it. )
Wednesday: Southwestern Sausage Gumbo served over rice.
Thursday: Cooked Pinto Beans with Mozzerella cheese
Friday: Pizza, fresh veggies and fruit platter
Saturday: Breakfast for Dinner–Belgium waffles, scrambled eggs, sausage and apple sauce.
Hope you had a great weekend and have a safe Labor Day!
As always, my quick and easy recipes for Busy Moms can be found on my website Noel’s Kitchen Tips.com.
Visit my A Busy Mom’s Kitchen Amazon Kitchen Store for some of my recommeneded appliances, storage and kitchen needs along with some of my favorite cookbooks and aprons to help you with your family meal planning. For high quality kitchen tools for your kitchen, visit www. NoelsKitchen.com
Would you like to join our growing Family Cooking Club? Share recipes and tips with others? Join the Family Meals Matter Cooking Club on Facebook.
Finally A New Theme Kitchen!
So I’ve been debating over the past few months on a new kitchen theme. I wanted to freshen up the kitchen and give my readers a fresh new insight on all of my kitchen ideas, recipes, family life, add some cooking videos and more. This theme was designed after a recent blog critic so my designer and I shared some ideas and she did an amazing job. Thank you Christa! Need a blog lift, visit Christa at Jensen Designs. She’s affordable, communicates very well with her customers, (I dislike when I have to wait for days or don’t hear back from a designer.) and she does an amazing job!
Feel free to leave a comment on what you think of the new design. I’d love to hear from you!
I have more fun ideas coming up and a lot more frugal and easy recipes for busy families coming up a little later so come back and visit the kitchen soon. Can you imagine making a week’s worth of meals for just $100 grocery shopping trip? Stay tuned…..
In the meantime, don’t forget to get your Friday Freebie at Raley’s. This Friday, Saturday or Sunday, spend $10 at Raley’s and get a 3 lb. bag of Raley’s Fresh Apples! Available with online coupons only. Limit 1 per customer.
As always, my quick and easy recipes for Busy Moms can be found on my website Noel’s Kitchen Tips.com.
Visit my new Amazon Kitchen Store for some of my recommeneded appliances, storage and kitchen needs along with some of my favorite cookbooks and aprons to help you with your family meal planning. For high quality kitchen tools for your kitchen, visit www. NoelsKitchen.com
Would you like to join our growing Family Cooking Club? Share recipes and tips with others? Join the Family Meals Matter Cooking Club on Facebook.
Homecooked Meals Don’t Have To Be Expensive
Homecooked Meals Don’t Have To Be Expensive
Family dinners, don’t have to be complicated or expensive. With simple ingredients you can make wonderful hearty soups for your family and stock your freezer. Today, I’d like to share a few of those recipes I created over the weekend. But first, let me take a few minutes to share why I love making soups that have simple ingredients.
Make-Ahead Freezer Meals
Soups can be prepared days or even weeks ahead of time and at your convenience. Some soups actually improve the longer they simmer, as all the different flavors blend and mingle with each other. Most of all, they freeze well! I make large batches, then freeze them in ready-to eat meal size containers or one gallon freezer bags. Every time I serve the soup, I may add different things just to vary the tastes.
Some great classic soups are Split Pea Soup and Harvest Pumpkin and Black Bean Soup. Both of these freeze well.
Here’s a brothy vegetable soup that is hearty and delicious! It’s one of those soups that tastes best when given the chance to sit overnight. The flavors really blend together.
Minestrone Soup
Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 cup onions, diced
1 cup celery, diced
1 cup carrots, diced
2 garlic cloves, pressed
1 28 ounce can organic diced tomatoes with juice
1 15 ounce can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup fresh zucchini or yellow squash
1 cup french green beans
1 cup Mostaccioli noodles
6 cups chicken stock
1 Tablespoon Italian seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
In a stock pot, over medium heat, saute onion, garlic, celery and carrots in olive oil until lightly brown. Add tomatoes with juice, zucchini or squash, kidney beans and green beans. Stir until ingredients are combined. Slowly add chicken stock and Italian seasoning. Bring to a boil and add noodles. Reduce heat to a simmer andcook for 2 hours. Rember, the longer the soup simmers, the more flavorful it becomes.
When ready to serve, grated fresh Parmesan cheese over the top or add some croutons.
Recipe Note: When soup is fully cooled, transfer to a freezable container or ziploc freezer bags. Freezes well up to one month.
As always, my quick and easy recipes for Busy Moms can be found on my website Noel’s Kitchen Tips.com.
Visit my new Amazon Kitchen Store for some of my recommeneded appliances, storage and kitchen needs along with some of my favorite cookbooks and aprons to help you with your family meal planning. For high quality kitchen tools for your kitchen, visit www. NoelsKitchen.com
Would you like to join our growing Family Cooking Club? Share recipes and tips with others? Join the Family Meals Matter Cooking Club on Facebook.
Harvest Pumpkin and Black Bean Soup
This weekend has been a cook-a-thon for me in the kitchen. Rummaging around the pantry to cook up some last minute recipes and stocking our freezer. I started off with a simple Homemade Split Pea Soup than moved onto making crepes, pinto beans and a chicken and mushroom filling for a croissant recipe I have in mind. Looking in my pantry, I had one can of black beans left and a couple cans of pumpkin puree. I’ve been craving the idea of another pumpkin soup recipe and I found this one rather tasty. It’s amazing what delicious recipes you can create with just a few simple ingredients. It’s also another quick and budget friendly meal for the family. The combination of flavors is fantastic. Very healthy too.
Harvest Pumpkin and Black Bean Soup
Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, pressed
1 15 ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 30 ounce can pumpkin puree
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes with juice
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon Spanish paprika
4 cups beef broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
Directions:
In a stockpot, saute onions and garlic in butter until translucent. Add black beans, pumpkin and tomatoes, stirring until combined. Add sugar, cumin, chili powder, pepper, paprika, beef broth and cream. Simmer on low heat for 20 minutes.
Recipe Note: This soup can be pureed in a blender or serve as is, garnished with chives, celery leaves or croutons.
As always, my quick and easy recipes for Busy Moms can be found on my website Noel’s Kitchen Tips.com.
Visit my new Amazon Kitchen Store for some of my recommeneded appliances, storage and kitchen needs along with some of my favorite cookbooks and aprons to help you with your family meal planning. For high quality kitchen tools for your kitchen, visit www. NoelsKitchen.com
Would you like to join our growing Family Cooking Club? Share recipes and tips with others? Join the Family Meals Matter Cooking Club on Facebook.
Split Pea Soup
This past grocery shopping trip, I decided to pick up a few new pantry items to make some new recipes and stock our freezer. Split Pea Soup is one of my Make-Ahead Meal Planning recipes. It’s delicious, easy to make and great on the food budget.
Split Pea Soup
Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon extra-virgin oilve oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 garlic clove, pressed
1 bag (2 cups) split peas, rinsed, drained and sorted
1 Tablespoon Spanish paprika, plus a pinch
1/4 teaspoon pepper
5 cups water
1 Ham hock
Salt to taste (if needed, I omitted)
Directions:
In a medium stock pot, saute onion and garlic until onion is translucent. Add split peas, paprika, pepper, water and ham hock. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer for 20-25 minutes. Remove ham hock and set aside. Using a hand blender, puree soup until it becomes a creamy consistency. Ladel into serving bowls. Garish with a pinch of paprika.
Recipe Note: Carrots and celery would make a great addition to this soup.
As always, my quick and easy recipes for Busy Moms can be found on my website Noel’s Kitchen Tips.com.
Visit my new Amazon Kitchen Store for some of my recommeneded appliances, storage and kitchen needs along with some of my favorite cookbooks and aprons to help you with your family meal planning. For high quality kitchen tools for your kitchen, visit www. NoelsKitchen.com
Would you like to join our growing Family Cooking Club? Share recipes and tips with others? Join the Family Meals Matter Cooking Club on Facebook.
First Day Of School:A Fresh New Start
Today is an exciting new day! I’m not sure who’s more excited us or the kids. Both our kids start school today-our son, is now a fourth grader and our seven year old daughter is now a second grader. Our two older kids have started a whole new world of adulthood and another year of teen age years in high school. Our oldest son, just turned 18 yesterday. He has become a very talented young man. He will be attending junior college while working part time and practicing with his band. Awesome talented group of young musicians. Their name…The Dehlingers. You can find them on Facebook, My Space and YouTube. They have another concert this weekened at Unity Music in Santa Rosa, CA. Concert tickets are $8.00, so if you’re in the area go check them out. Our oldest daughter, a sophmore juinior( my heart wishes she was still younger) in high school, is transitioning into more rigorous classes, has become a very talented young girl exploring music and has the love for drawing. How times flies!
Our two younger ones getting ready to leave for school:
Now that the kids will be away from the house and at school for the day, I want to be sure they have nutritious snacks and a healthy lunch. Their lunch today consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich, apple slices with a peanut butter dip, a frozen yogurt tube, pretzels and a juice.
If you’re looking for lunch ideas, try a tasty twist to that grilled cheese sandwich. This Grilled Cheese, Ham and Apple sandwich is something your kids are sure to love!
Grilled Cheese, Ham and Apple Sandwich
Ingredients:
8 slices of bread (we enjoy whole wheat)
8 slices of Cheddar or American cheese
8 slices of ham (deli-sliced works perfectly)
1 Granny Smith apple, thinly sliced
Honey mustard
1 Tablespoon butter, melted
Directions:
Melt butter in the microwave. Preheat skillet over medium heat.
Using a basting brush, lightly brush outer slice of bread. On inner pieces of bread, spread honey mustard. Place buttered side down in skillet and add cheese, ham and apple slices. Top with another slice of bread and lightly brush butter on top.
Grill until lightly brown and flip sandwich. Repeat with remaining slices of bread, cheese, ham and apple.
Definitely a classic sandwich. How could kids not give this sandwich 5 stars?
As always, my quick and easy recipes for Busy Moms can be found on my website Noel’s Kitchen Tips.com.
Visit my new Amazon Kitchen Store for some of my recommeneded appliances, storage and kitchen needs along with some of my favorite cookbooks and aprons to help you with your family meal planning. For high quality kitchen tools for your kitchen, visit www. NoelsKitchen.com
Would you like to join our growing Family Cooking Club? Share recipes and tips with others? Join the Family Meals Matter Cooking Club on Facebook.
Easy and Quick Egg Salad Sandwiches
A creamy, zesty and flavorful egg salad sandwich your whole family will love!
Easy Egg Salad Sandwiches
Ingredients:
12 eggs, boiled, cooled and peeled (click HERE to learn how to boil the perfect eggs.)
1/3 cup light mayonaise
1/4 cup light ranch dressing
1 Tablespoon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dill seasoning
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon cumin
Directions:
In a medium size mixing bowl, mash eggs with a *Mix ‘N Masher or *Mix ‘N Chop tool until egg white and egg yolk is combined. Add remainer of ingredients and stir until well combined.
Cover and place in refrigerator for 20 minutes to an hour. Serve egg salad on homemade sandwich bread, in pita pockets, on a bagel or on a tortilla. Serve with lettuce and sliced tomato.
This recipe takes approximately 10 minutes to make and would make a perfect school lunch sandwich. Our kids love it!
As always, my quick and easy recipes for Busy Moms can be found on my website Noel’s Kitchen Tips.com.
Visit my new Amazon Kitchen Store for some of my recommeneded appliances, storage and kitchen needs along with some of my favorite cookbooks and aprons to help you with your family meal planning. For high quality kitchen tools for your kitchen, visit www. NoelsKitchen.com
Would you like to join our growing Family Cooking Club? Share recipes and tips with others? Join the Family Meals Matter Cooking Club on Facebook.
Busy Mom’s Guide To Back To School
From School Safety Tips, To School Lunch Ideas, Get Helpful Back-To-School Tips, Advice And Recipes To Start You Kid’s School Year Off Right!
Are You Ready Moms!
It’s Back To School time….are you ready, Moms? If you’re anything like me, you’ll be asking yourself, where has the summer gone? I’ve spent the last couple of weeks preparing tips, recipes and helpful to-do-lists to help busy moms like you be prepared to make this another fun school year. What better way to prioritize getting ready for back to school than a simple checklist. If you start early, you can easily tackle the list a few weeks prior to school starting.
I know just how difficult it can be at time to get your kids ready for school, making sure they have breakfast, make school lunches and even getting yourself ready for the day. As we move into the school year, over the next few weeks, I’ll share with you my energy-boosting breakfast recipes, that surely will make your kids feel ready for their day.
Busy Mom’s Guide To Back To School
We know that most children are in school for at least six hours. They are bound to get hungry after breakfast or lunch. A lot of our children tend to spend more time socializing and playing during their breaks than they do eating. To ensure your kids have a healthy and quick snack, I’ve pulled together some quick snack recipes to help give your children the energy he or she needs to participate in the classroom and concentrate on learning.
How will your child be carrying these delicious snacks? Say goodbye to the traditional paper bag lunch and trade them in for lunch boxes that are eco-friendly. In this month, you’ll learn how to quickly prepare lunch meals for your children that are healthy, affordable, easy and stay green at the same time!
And lastly, I’ll share with you some back to school safety tips to help protect your children from the most frequent kids of school-related injuries by following practical, proven tips.
Grocery Stores like Raley’s, are also offering extra savings for families like this Raley’s Kids Lunchbox.
Spend $10, Get Raley’s Kid’s Lunchbox Net weight 13.5 oz. from Raley’s Deli FREE with coupon. Limit 1
Here’s to another great school year!
See you in the kitchen!
As always, my quick and easy recipes for Busy Moms can be found on my website Noel’s Kitchen Tips.com.
Visit my new Amazon Kitchen Store for some of my recommeneded appliances, storage and kitchen needs along with some of my favorite cookbooks and aprons to help you with your family meal planning. For high quality kitchen tools for your kitchen, visit www. NoelsKitchen.com
Would you like to join our growing Family Cooking Club? Share recipes and tips with others? Join the Family Meals Matter Cooking Club on Facebook.
Healthy Snacks On The Run
This morning I woke up feeling energized and refreshed after a relaxing weekend. This week, it’s back to the office and kitchen with a busy schedule.
Having that busy schedule, means I need to make sure I keep up my energy eating healthy snacks in between meals.
Fresh fruits and vegetables are always a healthy snack. Apples, carrots, celery, mangos, blueberries, kiwis and pomegranates are all great. These can also be made into juices or smoothies, of course.
Aside from fresh fruits, I also like to choose organic dried fruits and nuts. These can be purchased individually or in trail mixes. As with other foods, there is a wide variety of quality when it comes to things like dried fruits and trail mixes. When I do my grocery shopping, I look for dried fruits and nuts that are on sale so I can make my own trail mix.
One traditional snack food I enjoy that is not usually considered healthy is popcorn. Popcorn can always be a good snack food, if it’s popped naturally and is not topped offr with an artificial butter substitute. Start with organic popcorn, pop it either using an air popper or a traditional popper or pan, using a healthy oil such as canola or sunflower. Top moderately with sea salt and, if you need the butter flavor, a small amount of organic butter or, better still, clarified butter.
These are a few healthy snack food ideas that I enjoy, do you have any favorites?
As always, my quick and easy recipes for Busy Moms can be found on my website Noel’s Kitchen Tips.com.
Visit my new Amazon Kitchen Store for some of my recommeneded appliances, storage and kitchen needs along with some of my favorite cookbooks and aprons to help you with your family meal planning. For high quality kitchen tools for your kitchen, visit www. NoelsKitchen.com
Would you like to join our growing Family Cooking Club? Share recipes and tips with others? Join the Family Meals Matter Cooking Club on Facebook.
Do You Like Make-Ahead Meal Planning?
For those of you who have downloaded my new FREE Make-Ahead Meal Planning:Cook It Freeze It! Volume One: Beef Recipes E-Book, what do you think of it? I would love to hear your thoughts and comments about it.
I am considering doing more recipes in this series, like chicken, fish and pork, but wanted to see how you felt about this one.
If you have not downloaded yours yet, simply click HERE to get it!
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A Busy Mom's Guide To Family Meal Planning E-Cookbook is available to purchase NOW – just
$12.95!$8.95
Make-Ahead Meals for Busy Mom's Freeze It, Cook It! FREE E-Book
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