Weekly Menu July 29th 2013

Our weekly menu is not a set in stone schedule that we follow, sometimes we do all the meals and sometimes we barely follow it at all. On those weeks where the menu just doesn't fit our taste or schedule I will push those meals on to the next weeks menu. So if you see the same meal for a couple of weeks that would be why, or I guess we could just really like that meal but it's usually the first of the two.

Here's our weekly menu for July 29th ( I can't believe it's almost August!)


1. Sweet & Sour Chicken with roasted broccoli and jasmine rice (roll-over from last week)

2. BLT's with roasted potatoes

3. Baked Ziti with corn, garlic bread and a salad

4. Vegetable Stir Fry with jasmine rice

5. Breakfast for dinner (usually omelets and bacon, I might make some muffins too)

Zucchini Bread

This past Saturday I tried my hand at making some zucchini bread. I only have had it once before, I think, and I remember loving it. So when my parents handed over some of their excess zucchini I knew I had to give it a try for myself.

I browsed online for a recipe to go by since I didn't have one on hand. I came across this recipe and after reading the comments (which I always do if available) I decided to give it a try. I did make a few tweaks as I went along but I'll explain later.

I started out getting all my ingredients out and making sure I had everything I needed. Minus the zucchini which I had already shredded and just forgot to place in the picture.

 

Then it was time to get going. I started with placing all the dry ingredients in a bowl of their own.

 

 

 

And I placed the remaining ingredients minus the zucchini into another bowl. I went ahead and placed these directly into my mixing bowl, because why not? Here is where I made a few changes. Instead of a full cup of vegetable oil I did half of a cup vegetable oil and half of a cup of apple sauce, purely for the health benefit. I also used some brown sugar instead of all white sugar, I did one cup brown and the rest white. The sugar was my own personal preference. 

 

While my wet ingredients and sugars were mixing, I stirred the dry ingredients together. Then I slowly spooned the flour mixture into the wet ingredients, stopping to scrape the sides as I went.

 

 



 

Once all that was mixed together I got out my zucchini and folded it into the ingredients. And here's where my next change comes in. I didn't have loaf pans to bake this in so I used my muffin pan instead. I wasn't quite sure how'd they turn out but it worked great. I baked them for 25 minutes instead of the recommended 40 because they're a lot smaller than loaf pans would be. I also didn't realize it until I just now looked at the recipe again, but I baked mine at 350 degrees instead of 325. Oh well, I guess it turned out alright either way.

 

 

 

 

 

Next time I might try upping the apple sauce to maybe 3/4 cup and 1/4 vegetable oil. I also might reduce the sugar by 1/4 to 1/2 of a cup.

 

I couldn't be happier with how they turned out. I ate a couple of them right after they came out of the oven, with a generous helping of butter for each, that's my favorite way to eat them. I filled the muffins about half way with the batter and I ended up with 3 dozen of them.

 

 



Bathroom Decor

Before our company (that is now gone) arrived I new I needed to do something to the wall above the toilet in our guest bathroom.

I used to have a shelf up in about the middle region, but as much as I wanted to love it I didn't. It bothered me every time I was in there, so I took it down one day. But then I was left with an empty wall, and while there's not much, decoration wise in there, I knew that wall needed something. The problem was that I'm not sure what direction I want to go in the space, décor wise. So I didn't want to  invest a lot of time or money into a project that I might would be taking down in a few months, plus I just didn't have the time for a large project.

I decided to do two pictures frames, stacked on top of one another. I didn't have any pictures I wanted to use in there so I decided to do scrapbook paper. It's an easy change out when I get bored with one design, and easy to change for the holidays as well.

 

I picked up two of these frames at Wal-Mart for I believe $10 to $12 each. They come "ready to hang" with a picture in them. The boat picture isn't bad, but they had a brown frame there with a picture of a green rolling pasture, I really did like that one. I went with the black one instead though because for one I wanted black, and I also like that the black ones had the mat to them, the brown didn't'. 

 

I also went by Hobby Lobby to pick up some scrapbook paper. I was initially going to go for a neutral tan or gray but I thought this green print was pretty and the room could use a little color. 

 

I just placed the glass on the paper and traced the outline. I made sure to use the same corner of each paper so that the design would match up as much as possible.



 

 

I also went ahead and took the mats out so that they'd make a bigger impact. The frames were about $25 total combined and the paper was on sale for under $1 for all three sheets ( I got an extra just in case). It's nothing marvelous but it's a little pick-me-up the bathroom was needing. As I said, I have no clue what I want to do with this room and who knows when I'll get around to it but for now this is holding me over. 

Weekly Menu July 21st 2013

Company is gone and my life has returned to normal, I love it. I was able to plan out a full five days of meals and I couldn't be more excited to be eating some home cooked meals again. Give it about a week and then I'll be dreading it but for now I'll take advantage.

Last week I mentioned making zucchini bread for the first time. Well yesterday I gave it a go and I loved how it turned out, although it's not really bread but muffins instead. I'll share later this week the recipe I used for it and some little tweaks I did to make it work better for us.

They were tasty

Here are the meals I planned for the coming week:


1. Baked chicken with brown rice, butter beans and a salad

2. Fried Rice with either egg rolls or some chicken thrown in

3. Beef tips & rice with green beans and rolls

4. Sweet & sour chicken with jasmine rice and roasted broccoli

5. A large salad with roasted corn and black beans

Homemade Seasonings

I've always wanted to try my hand at making my own seasonings, for multiple reasons. For one thing, it's cheaper for me because I have all the spices on hand already. And secondly, it's much healthier than the pre-packaged seasonings that have so much salt in them.

The two main pre mixed season packets we use around here are taco seasoning and ranch mix so I thought I'd start out with those.

The taco seasoning I did before I thought about taking a picture of the process but I used this recipe  for it. I honestly can taste no difference between it and the pre-packaged ones we used to buy. We love it. I think I used probably 2-3 tablespoons for the pound of beef I was cooking. I just kinda went by sight and taste.

 

 

I bought a set of four of these little jars at Wal-Mart the other day and they work great. I already used some of the seasoning so it made a good bit.

 

For the ranch mix I used this recipe.

 

 

 

 

 

I haven't tried it when making dressing yet so I can't say on the taste for that, but I did give it a try with making some seasoned oyster crackers and it tastes just fine. One problem I see with it though is that the powder products tend to settle to the bottom and if you're using all the mix it's not a problem but if you're using just a spoon of two it can be kind of difficult to get it all blended in together. I've got to play around with it a little more to figure it out.

 

 

 

The oyster crackers were the whole moving force behind me finally getting around to trying out the homemade seasonings. I used this recipe to make them and they're so simple. 

 

 

 





Weekly Menu July 14th 2013

Well, company is still in town until Thursday so it's another small weekly menu. I've enjoyed having them here but I'm also ready to get everything back to normal, it's pretty tiring having company around.

This post wasn't up yesterday because my husband and I took advantage of the nice weather and went floating. We haven't had any substantial rain in about a month so we wanted to go while we still could.

These bluffs are my favorite part of the float

 

 

I'm only planning on two meals this week:

 

 

1. Alfredo, spinach pasta and some garlic bread

 

2. Steaks grilled out, baked potatoes, corn on the cob and a salad

 

 

My parents are growing a garden this year, like they have past years, and they had plenty of zucchini so I took some home with me and I'm thinking of trying my hand at some zucchini bread. I love eating it, I've just never tried making it myself before. If it turns out ok I'll share it here. 

Dish Towel Dilemma

The kitchen in our house isn't exactly huge, not even big really. I have limited drawer and cabinet space. We're talking two upper cabinets here, and I don't count the ones above the stove and fridge because I can't reach those easily. Drawer space isn't much better. But what I lack in kitchen storage I make up for with closets around the house.

Well one space that had been bothering me was the drawer I stored my kitchen towels in. It always felt cramped and mushed together, if they were all in there I could barely get it shut. I had been toying with the idea of getting some type of basket/box to put them in and to store said basket/box in our pantry. You might be wondering why I would want to give up my precious pantry space for towels, but as I mentioned before, I have plenty of closets and I've turned one close to the kitchen into a kind of second pantry. I'll show it in another post one day.

I didn't take a shot of the drawer before I got started on this because I was too excited once I got home with the basket.

I picked it up at Wal-Mart for about $5.00, it's the same style as the basket I picked up to store some small toiletries for guest, I showed it in this post. 

I pulled out all my dish towels and worked with it for a few minutes trying to figure out how I wanted them set up. I'm not certain I'll keep using this basket for it or if I'll switch to a more square style down the road, it might be a little easier to get the towels in there. But for now this works perfectly fine.

It'll be interesting to see how long it stays like this though

It's sitting on the bottom shelf in my pantry for now. I messed with the towels some more as you can see. As for the extra drawer I have now, I have plans for it that I'm still working on. I'll share when I get it complete. 



A Repurposed Pitcher

The ole' white porcelain pitcher turned flower vase. I'm a little late to the party on this one but I've had it in my head to do for over a year now so I finally gave in and spent the ten minutes to get it done.

I was helping my mom pack up her house one day and she had this pitcher tucked away in the back of her china cabinet never being used. Normally I wouldn't have cared for it at all, it's not quite my style, but it dawned on me that it would be great for a little DIY project I'd seen all over the internet.

I dug her out of the closet this past Sunday and set up shop in the garage. It took quite a few coats, those flowers did not want to go away. And then I quickly realized that the flowers were not going to fully go away. They're indented into the pitcher a little bit so now I have a white pitcher with outlines of what I know to be flowers, but to others it probably looks like I did a massively horrible job of painting it.

I did a few more coats than need be, just to try and fill it in a little bit. Unless you're up close to it you can't tell much, and really it's just my husband and I here mostly and we don't care. I'm still happy with how it turned out.

I knew I wanted it to be on a piece of wood somewhere because I really love the look of a rich wood and white together. Our coffee table is about the same color as our table is, but the flowers sat up just a little to high to look right, so on the table it goes.

The pitcher was free and I probably could've dug out my spray paint somewhere but I have no clue where it is so I just spent the $3.50 and got a new can. And of course I had to buy flowers for it. I couldn't have it sit there all by it's empty self. 



Weekly Menu July 7th 2013

Company is still in town so my menu planning is all out of whack still. I'm only planning out a few meals and doing the same as last week, just picking up some items if we have an extra free night.

Here's what's on our list for the week of July 7th - July 13th

1. BBQ Chicken (on the grill)  with mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and a salad

2. Spaghetti with green beans, garlic bread and a salad

3. Balsamic-Ginger Chicken lettuce wraps with jasmine rice (slow cooker meal)
    

I've been on a bit of a salad kick lately. My husband is a big blue cheese fan, I never really gave it a try until we were out to dinner one night when I decided to suck it up and try a bite of his salad. Well, turns out I love it. So the next night we went to the store and picked up some to try and we've pretty much had a salad every night since then.

My husband always talks about it being hard to find a store bought dressing he likes but we gave this one a try and we both really liked it.

Excuse the not perfectly clean stove, it was dinner time.

 

 

 

What I Take to The Lake

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July and that you're still enjoying the weekend. We had a pretty low key day over here Thursday. We got up that morning and went out to the lake early to get in some sun and beat the crowds. We stayed for a few hours and then headed back to grill out and spend a relaxing evening at home.

The water was so calm and peaceful that morning

 

 

We had a surprise guest show up at our house that evening too.

 

 

The dog, not the cat

 

He lives at a neighbors house down the street probably a mile or so, but there are a lot of turns and streets in that mile so we were quite surprised to see him all the way down here. He hung out in the front yard a bit, lounged on the back porch for a while....all while being stalked by our cat. She didn't let him out of her sight the whole time.

 

But anyway, back to the point of this post. We go to the lake or floating on the river pretty often in the summer, at least we try to. And for a while there it was a learning and guessing game as to what I should've/shouldn't have brought with us. I think I finally have a set main list of items that I think come in really handy and that we use each time, so I thought I would share them.

 

If we go floating we have to bring foods that are pre-made, like sandwiches. If we go out to the lake we might grill and that entails a few more items to remember.

 

If we're grilling out we bring:

 

-Charcoal, a long lighter and either lighter fluid or you can get the charcoal with it already coated

-A brush to scrape off the grill or some wadded up foil works handy too, I take foil either way because it's good for keeping pesky fly's off the food.

-Tongs/Spatula to grab or flip the food you're cooking

-Extra baggies to store any opened foods like hot dogs and cheese

-Trash bags, we just use Wal-Mart bags

-Paper towels or napkins, utensils and paper plates/bowls

 

I store paper towels, utensils and extra baggies in a large bag to make it easier to find

 

-Wet paper towels/wet wipes/baby wipes... just something to wipe those hands off with because they get sticky and dirty quick ( I also bring some hand sanitizer)

-Any condiments the food your cooking might need, and don't forget spices like your salt and pepper

-As for other snack foods, we bring those individual chip bags, fruit like grapes and melon, maybe some fruit snacks. For drinks we bring plenty of water, some juice and whatever adult beverages we might like. Don't forget to stop and get ice for the cooler!

 

As for some miscellaneous/personal supplies:

 

-Sunscreen (duh). I also bring face sunscreen and chapstick with SPF

-Sunglasses and any supplies you might need for contacts if you wear them, like a case and solution and maybe an extra pack if yours get ruined

-Face wipes because at the end of the day I'm ready for a fresh face. You might also bring a few make-up items if you think you might go somewhere after, maybe some concealer and mascara

-Hair items to keep it out of your face. Clips, bobby pins, ties

-Extra set of clothes, and extra towels for the car ride home.

-I like to take a bottle of Advil and some Band-Aids for minor things that come up

 

This is the little make up bag I use to keep some of the items corralled.

I also have a little brush/mirror combo because wet hair can be a paid sometimes

 

Obviously the cold items go in the cooler, but for the rest of it, I try to keep it contained into one bag if I can.

 

 

I like that the bag has the outside pocket so I can keep sunscreen, keys, and a wallet handy and that the inside is a material that is so easy to wipe down. It's really one of those insulated bags for buying cold items, but it works great for this too.

 

Speaking of wallets, I don't carry my purse or my wallet with me. I take one of these....

 

 

My ID, a credit card/debit card, and some cash (I try to always take some small bills too) is all I take with me. I can clip my keys to the outside and have all I really need.  

 



 

 

 

 







A Shower Curtain Finally

It only took us almost two years but our master bathroom finally has a shower curtain and is fully functional now. For the longest time the bathroom sat like this...

I genuinely had no problem with it the way it was, not at the time anyway. Ever since we moved in we've just used the shower in the guest bath. I'd take baths in our bathroom because of the larger tub, but I'm not sure we've even turned on the shower head to make sure it works.

As you can see, we have a little window in our bathroom that I love. It makes me very happy when bathrooms have windows in them, and ours is even better because there are no neighbors on that side so no need to keep it covered for privacy. I was a little worried that adding a shower curtain would block out some of the light from the window, depending on which side you kept it on I suppose.

But alas, the time finally came where we decided we really need to get one. As mentioned in some previous posts, we had company come in for a visit and thought it'd be nice if we didn't have to scramble around with four people using one bathroom.

It hasn't been used yet, hence the candle and diffuser that are still inside

We knew we wanted to get a curved rod for the space since our tub curves as well. I must say, I want to change out the rod in the other bathroom now because these curved ones are awesome.

I knew I wasn't going to even consider an even semi dark shower curtain, I wanted to keep it as light as possible without going with plain white. The curtain I picked out was from the Threshold line at Target for $19.99 I believe, they have some really cute designs.

A big problem we found though is that when the curtain is closed, it gets really dark inside the tub.

The curtain is only half closed there but you can still see it's starting to get a little cave like, and that's during the day with the added help of the window! We're going to have to get a second rod to hold the decorative curtain while the curved one will hold the liner.

It's just a small change to the room but I'm happy to have it done and maybe it'll give me the push I need to get started on decorating this bathroom.