Menu Plan Monday 2/27

Still here... 40 weeks and 2 days... meaning 2 days overdue.  I went to the doctor today for a non-stress test to see if the baby is still doing OK in there, because sometimes when one is past their due date, conditions start to deteriorate and the baby stops thriving.  In my case, both the little guy and I are doing great.  So great that my doctor couldn't write me a note to stop working because she had no medical reason to do so.  So PRAISE GOD for our health.  However, if this test was for the mama's stress, I might have failed it after hearing I needed to return to work tomorrow.  I am generally up from 3am-5am, which is not cool when you get up at 5 for work, and I've been having back pain from standing all day.  But my blood pressure looks good and I feel pretty good, so back to work I go... until I have NST #2 on Thursday! 

I do have an induction scheduled for Sunday evening/Monday morning, but I'm really praying he comes before that.  Would you please pray for that? Merci :-) 

I'm doing all I can to make him come out on his own.  I am not really a fan of this whole "nesting" business.  I am not a cleaner in general, so I wondered if I would ever have the urge... and the answer: not yet.  I like to organize though... and cook... so I figure since I spent a good 6 or so weeks working like crazy at school organizing and planning to be gone for maternity leave, that may have been my way of nesting.  I honestly don't care if my kitchen floors are clean.  My husband is the one who does a lot of the cleaning, so perhaps that is why?  I however, have been very concerned about making sure we have enough food and household products to last us for awhile... because you know, we live oh so far from the store?? (hah.)

Perhaps I nested today by cooking?  I made chicken salad for lunches tomorrow, a casserole for dinner tonight and then I used the rest of the cake mix from my funfetti rice krispie treats to make these cookies: 

"ghetto" Funfetti Cake Mix Cookies

(used yellow cake mix & added sprinkles to the batter... et voila, "funfetti"). 

Oh, and we got a new camera... I don't really know how to work it yet, but I still think the pics came out ok! 

 I made my own icing though, using the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Buttercream frosting recipe.  I cut it way down, using 1/4 cup butter, 1 1/2 cups or so of powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp of vanilla and about 4 Tbsp milk.    

Here's what we are tentatively eating this week (hoping the little guy will show up!)

 It's a fiesta at our house... lots of SPICY Mexican food to try to get this little man to come out!

Sunday: Tacos & Mexican Rice, chips & salsa

Monday: Green Chile Chicken Casserole, salad

Tuesday: leftover tacos

Wednesday: leftover casserole

Thursday: more leftovers or omelettes (mine will be with salsa to make it spicy)

Friday:  Ravioli, Salad & Garlic bread

Saturday: frozen pizza

Menu Plan Monday 2/20, Tortellini & Italian Sausage Soup Recipe

Happy President's Day :-) I love having a Monday off.   I went to jazzercise, then Target (honored the presidents by spending some money), then spent some time reading/journaling at Starbucks inside of Target, crossed a few things off of my to-do list... I just keep thinking how easy it is to just do what I need/want to do and how in a matter of days my needs/wants will not be coming first. 

Thanks to Pinterest and my inability to get a dessert out of my mind once I've decided I want it, I made these Cake Batter Rice Crispy Treats yesterday: 

Here's our menu plan this week:

Sunday: Tortellini & Italian Sausage Soup (see below for recipe)

Monday: Chicken and Rice bake, green beans

Tuesday: I have a (free!) breastfeeding class at the pediatrician's office... so if Grant & I are going to eat together, it will be dollar menu date night between 5:30 and 5:50pm :-/ 

Wednesday: Ravioli, garlic bread & veggie

Thursday: Parent-teacher conferences... I won't even get home until after 8pm... sigh...

Friday: pork tenderloin, pierogies & green beans

Saturday: Baby's Due Date!! If he hasn't arrived, we are going out.

Tortellini & Italian Sausage Soup

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 medium sized onion, diced

1/2 cup green pepper, diced

1/2 tsp kosher salt

3 cloves garlic, minced

 1 lb Italian Sausage

1 28oz can diced tomatoes

1/2 tsp basil

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp sage

1/4- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 1/2 tsp parsley 

1/2 tsp sugar 

1/4 tsp black pepper

8 cups chicken broth

1 10oz package frozen spinach, thawed. 

1 bag dried or frozen tortellini (I used the tri-colored dried kind from Trader Joes)

Parmesan cheese 

In large soup pot, heat olive oil.  Add onions, green pepper and salt.  Saute until softened.  Add sausage and cook until browned.  Remove from pan and let mixture drain on paper towel-lined plate.  Meanwhile, using the same pot, add the tomatoes, basil, oregano, sage, red pepper flakes, parsley, sugar and black pepper.  Stir in frozen spinach.  Add 8 cups of chicken broth and bring to a boil.  Add tortellini and cook according to directions on the package.  When tortellini is almost done, add the Italian sausage back into the pot.  Serve immediately with Parmesan cheese on top. 

Note: this soup absorbs a lot of the liquid so you may want to add extra broth before reheating the leftovers. 

for more menu planning ideas, head to www.orgjunkie.com

Menu Plan 1/30-2/10 & Banana Oat Muffin Recipe

The game plan for the past two weeks (and probably the next two-three as well): plan meals that do not "have" to be made... in other words, meals using ingredients that will be good for a few days or can be frozen.  Also... meals that can easily be prepared by my wonderful husband, since I have been working late, going to the doctor every week and also trying to go to my 4:30-5:30 jazzercise class a few days a week, which puts me home at 6pm.  

So we've been eating...

the "easy stuff": 

- French toast & fruit

- Grilled cheese (with the addition of some raspberry preserves on the top... thank you to Grant's coworker Tom for sharing a delicious family tradition!) and tomato soup

- Chicken sandwiches & mac & cheese

- Linguine and meatballs

- Black bean veggie burgers

- whole wheat penne with some evoo and the artichoke tapenade from TJs

- pizza & carrots

the "more" complicated stuff: 

- our favorite potato & ham soup (minus the celery)

- tacos and mexican rice with homemade tortillas, because I intended to have tacos as taco salad but we didn't have enough lettuce :-/.  You MUST try making homemade tortillas.  If you have kids, it could be a fun/easy cooking project b/c the ingredients are simple and you have to roll them out super thin... and they still taste good even if they are not perfect circles.  I wanted to use whole wheat flour... but a certain man of the house (not the one growing inside me) said he'd prefer white flour.  Seriously though, these are sooooo soft, chewy and amazingly warm... I might decide never to buy them again.  How cheap is flour+water+salt+olive oil?!?

- Banana Oat Muffins (see recipe below)... as I was driving home from jazzercise, I had the thought "I want a banana muffin NOW." So of course, after we had dinner, I made these.  I LOVE nuts, but my husband is pickier about them... well, turns out he likes them on banana muffins, so I threw some on the tops.  Délicieux. Thursday night has to be the best night ever to bake something... I took one to school Friday morning and enjoyed it with my coffee before I started my first period class, got to enjoy one this morning with my cup of coffee.. and I'll have another one tomorrow morning before church. Yum. 

Banana Oat Muffins (modified from all recipes)

•  3/4 cup all-purpose flour
•  3/4 cup wheat flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 mashed bananas
• walnuts (optional)

Mix dry ingredients (flours, oats, sugar, baking powder & soda & salt) in a large bowl.  In another bowl, mix the wet ingredients (egg, milk, oil, vanilla, bananas).  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and combine thoroughly.  Spoon batter into 12 lined muffin cups.  Sprinkle walnuts on top if desired. Bake at 400 degrees for 17-20 minutes.  

Cinnamon Roll Sugar Cookies

Maybe I'm boring, but my favorite cookie in the world is a nice, soft sugar cookie, with sugar or a little icing on the top. When I was in college, I think I was the only person who went to the football games just to get a "cookie on a stick" with my meal plan.

Last winter, I saw a recipe on Picky Palate, an awesome food blog, for Cinnamon Roll Sugar Cookies and by the end of the week, I had made them. Delicious. Sugar cookie base + butter + brown sugar + cinnamon = goodness. They were a lot of work, so I did not make them again until this year, when my friend Stacey reminded me about them.

The recipe is fairly easy but the process of rolling and slicing takes some practice. The first roll I made did not roll up or slice very well. This happened last time too, and I wanted to cry. Fortunately, my friend April was over helping me this time, and she was reading the recipe much more carefully than I was and she realized you need to roll away from you, and that made all the difference... as did not rolling the dough out too think or trying to spread on butter that was not soft enough. I still have a lot to learn about baking.

Here are what the cookies looked like fresh out of the oven:
I may have eaten one or two... or three before I got around to icing them, but when I did, here was the finished product: