We spent the weekend out-of-town visiting some friends. When we were leaving Ian told me he was angry because he didn’t want to go home yet.
Our friend made Ian a fire in the fire pit so Ian could roast his hot dog Saturday night. It was a toasty 27° out.
Sunday was spend unpacking and recuperating so I needed to make this post quickly! I did go to my Pinterest page to try to find some new things to cook.
I will leave you with a picture of Sid and the reason I usually feed him yogurt instead of letting him do it himself.
What happened to the time? Is it really gonna be a new year this week?
I have had a nice break from cooking on a regular basis, but I really need to get back into the habit. I had to figure out something to cook last night and it was torture!
It is times like those that I really appreciate meal planning.
Right now the meal planning website I use, Plan to Eat, is offering 20% off gift subscriptions.
At first I was hesitant about spending money on this kind of service, but since I signed up two years ago I have not regretted it. The service just keeps getting better.
I love how easy it is to add recipes and search for them. It makes planning my week of meals so fast!
You can put recipes in your queue making them easy to find, that way you don’t end up cooking chicken all week-long.
Another wonderful feature is that once you plan a recipe, the ingredients go into your shopping list. Which you can go through and indicate the things you already have.
They have really tried to make the program more useful by combining the same ingredients. So if you are making chicken twice in one week it will add the two amounts together.
Since I have signed up in Sept of 2011, I have spent over 51 hours on the Plan to Eat website.
This discount is a great way to get someone you love organized with their meal planning.
Ah, it’s finally the week of Christmas. Oh wait, holy cow! it’s the week of Christmas.
I was really sure I had so much more time.
The holiday week means less meal planning for me. So I decided to share a cookie recipe. We made some cookies for Ian’s school party and I decided to try a new one.
These cookies are inspired by the peanut butter blossoms. You know the ones with the Hershey’s Kisses placed in the warm cookies?
During the holidays Hershey’s makes a Candy Cane Kiss. They are super scrumptious. I’m not gonna lie, I have taken a bag (or two) to ‘share’ (with myself) before.
Candy Cane Shortbread Blossoms
Makes about 2 dozen cookies
Hershey’s Candy Cane Kisses, unwrapped
2 1/2 c. Flour
1 c. Butter, softened cut into cubes
6 Tblsp Sugar (6 tablespoon= 1/4 c. + 2 tablespoons)
In a mixing bowl combine flour and sugar. Cut in butter using a pastry blender or a blade attachment for your stand mixer. Add butter squares one at a time and blend until mixture resembles fine crumbs and starts to cling.
Form into a ball and knead until smooth.
Shape dough into 1-inch balls, place on cookie sheet and flatten. (shortbread doesn’t behave like other cookie dough so it will not flatten out when baked
Bake in 325° oven for 20-25 minutes, until center starts to set. While cookies are baking unwrapped enough kisses for the number of cookies.
Immediately press a Candy Cane Kiss into center of cookie and let cool on cookie sheet for five minutes.
Transfer to a wire rack, let cool until kisses harden.
So I am not actually planning any meals this week. We have some family in town and my days/evenings will be consumed by them. But in a good way.
So I thought I would share something else useful with you.
I love sandwiches. Love them. Eat them a lot, probably would every day if I could. Apparently I have passed this on to Ian, along with some family OCD. On his first day of school I made him a ham and cheese sandwich. Now I have to make him one everyday he goes to school, luckily he only goes three days a week.
I tried to switch it up and make it on a tortilla, or give him other things for lunch. Nope. Always a sandwich, preferably ham and cheese. Even though he likes other kinds of sandwiches. We have had a discussion about it. He has rules for me to follow.
I thought I was pretty smart when I would buy a pound of deli meat and then freeze half of it. Or sometimes I would buy more than one pound, if it was on sale.
Let’s be honest. Making sandwiches everyday is a lot of work. So I would never go through a half pound, let alone a pound of deli meat before it went bad. Lots of waste with that. (even though I love sandwiches)
When I would freeze some, I would have to remember to take it out to defrost on Sunday. Not always possible. If I didn’t take it out on Sunday night, I wouldn’t take it out that week and would end up buying more deli meat.
There was the logic for that. I most likely wouldn’t eat it on the weekend, but I might get through most of it by Friday. So if it wasn’t defrosted by Monday morning, it would just be a waste.
Even with all these problems, I still always did it this way. Buy a pound of ham, freeze half, leave in freezer while buying more ham…
Till one day. I didn’t have any normal sized zip lock bags. I only had the small snack size. But I had to freeze the deli meat. Like right then.
So I put three pieces of ham in each bag, which happens to be the perfect amount to make Ian sandwiches all week. Or enough for one adult sandwich.
I realized I could buy a pound of ham, spend five minutes putting it in to many snack sized bags and freezing them. I could pull out one bag for a week of Ian’s lunches and if I wanted a sandwich, I could grab another. It takes way less time to defrost three pieces of ham then half a pound. If I didn’t use it all then I was only throwing away one piece of ham. Way less waste. And the pound lasted longer, so I am only buying about a pound a month.
OK. I know, seems like common knowledge but I was pretty excited about my idea so I thought I would share it with you.
It’s ok, you don’t have to use the word genius, even though I know you will *wink, wink*
I Tri and Craft 