Menu Plan Monday

Bacon wrapped corn on the cob for dinner on Sat - thanks Drew & Jena

Happy Monday Everyone!

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend – I know we sure did! Since I was little we have been spending summers down at Black Mountain Ranch. Now I can happily say that my brother, sister and I have our very own place to make memories with our little ones!

There is a lot of work to be done to modernize the space, but I’m confident that elbow grease and Pinterest will provide us the tools to make the updates for little or no money. You’ll definitely be seeing some makeover projects on the blog, so get ready!

My niece Belles and I hanging out in the pool :)

On the menu this week

Monday: Turkey Calzones, yam fries and roasted red peppers
Tuesday: Shake N Bake Fish, rice and veggies

Wednesday: Baked Ziti and Rachel Salad
Thursday: Turkey Meat Loaf, scalloped potatoes, beans and Rachel Salad
Friday: The hubs’ favourite! KD and Farmer Sausage
Saturday: Dinner out with Friends – going to see Batman!
Sunday: BBQ burgers, new potatoes and corn on the cob (I might even wrap it in bacon, like we had last weekend!)

Hope you all have a great week! My girls are at camp this week, having many fun adventures, so hopefully I'll be able to get to some projects around the house.  I'll be linking up the menu at Org Junkie's Menu Plan Monday.  Come check it out!

Chore Cards



Eila Bean playing the matching game with the pile of shoes at the front door
(Sorry for the crappy Iphone photo quality!!)

I know it’s probably not the best parenting technique out there, but let me tell ya, bribery works. At least it works in my house. I am not a fan of giving a kid candy just to keep them quiet in a store (though I have been known to keep sweets and treats in my purse to use as a pre-emptive strike...). I do think that the promise of reward for good behaviour works in keeping the good behaviour on track.

Source

I know that some parents use an allowance system, and I think I probably will too when the girls get a bit older. My friend Alana of Alana Joy Photography made up these adorable save, store and spend jars for her girls, and I think I’ll make them in the fall for my girls.
I always had an allowance as a kid and loved saving the money from my piggy bank and using it to buy fun and exciting things, usually at the ice cream truck or the toy store. For my kids, this summer anyway, I’m going to try something a little different; we’ll see how it goes.

I went out and purchased a bunch of inexpensive prizes at the dollar store. Then I made up these babies:

They are chore punch cards. Once the girls finish their daily chores, they will get one punch on the punch card. If they volunteer to do extra chores, they can extra punches. I made some extras for my friends kids, in case they want to try them!

Once the punch cards are all filled up, they can redeem the punch card for a prize from our prize basket.

Here are the extra chores the kids can do to earn extra punches on their card:
* Empty the dishwasher (and stack the dishes on the counter)
* Match all of the shoes from the front door (and help put them outside)
* Sort the laundry
* Water the garden, front and back
* Put away groceries

Hopefully the girls get really excited about their chores and work hard to get them all done!  I'll let you know how it goes!!

No Bake Caramel Apple Trifle

With the chaos of our weekend, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to make all of the ingredients necessary for this dessert – which actually turned out fantastic, because I managed to make a humungous, delicious dessert without having to turn on the oven!
The original recipe calls for baking a 2 layer yellow cake from a box, but due to time constraints and general laziness, I went with purchased sponge dessert cups (the kind you use for strawberry shortcakes).
When I brought the dessert to a friends’ engagement party, I was greeted by the complaint of “oh no, I don’t eat trifle” which is usually my reply to a trifle dessert being served. Traditional trifle calls for sherry or some other kind of liqueur being soaked into the sponge, causing it to be mushy and kind of gross.

I made the nay-sayers (Natalie!!) try it out and they came out with the same answer as I did. This recipe ROCKS! On the somewhat healthy kick that I’m on right now, I wanted to make this recipe as low fat and low cal as possible. I used fat free caramel ice cream sauce, fat free cool whip and fat free pudding mix. The only “regular” calorie items are the sponge cake and the apple pie filling.

I wasn’t sure how many of the dessert cups I would need, so I bought four packages. I ended up only needing three packages (could have done it easily with two packages, but I wanted the big bowl FULL!), so I used the last package and a little bit of the caramel, cool whip, pudding and apple pie filling to make individual trifles. SO GOOD!!

Almost Empty Bowl at the End of the Party

I hope you try this recipe out, I know I definitely will be making it again! The recipe made a H.U.G.E. bowl of trifle, probably enough to feed 40-50 people. I ended up taking the little bit of leftovers home and we had it the next day, and it was still fantastic!
Caramel Apple Trifle
Adapted from here

Ingredients
3 packages of sponge dessert cups (6 in a package for $1 at Walmart!)
1 bottle of fat free caramel ice cream topping
3 packages low fat vanilla pudding mix
6 cups milk
1 tsp apple pie spice
2 cans apple pie filling
3 containers fat free cool whip
Optional: Skor bits to sprinkle on top, just for effect
Instructions

In a large mixing bowl, combine vanilla pudding mix, milk and apple pie spice. Mix according to the package directions. While that is mixing up, break up the first package of dessert sponge cups and arrange them in the bottom of a big glass bowl. You could use any type of bowl you like, but the glass bowl lets you see all the pretty layers in the recipe.

Drizzle the caramel topping all over the first layer of sponge cake. Scoop 1/3 of the pudding mixture on top of the caramel covered sponge.

Spread the pudding around so it makes a lovely gooey layer. Open the two cans of apple pie filling into a bowl. Spread 1/3 of the apple pie filling over the pudding layer. Do the same with most of a package of cool whip. You might not have to use your entire package in each layer, but I like a big thick layer of whipped topping between each cake layer.

Repeat the above two more times and sprinkle the top layer with the skor bits and a good drizzle of caramel sauce. 

I used about a handful of skor bits over the top of the entire dessert, just to pretty it up a bit.

Caramel Apple Trifle

Chocolate Trifle

If you like this recipe, you might want to try another one of my family faves – Super Amazing Totally Irresistible Chocolate Trifle. It really is that good.

Summer Dinner Menu



Another glorious weekend has come to a close and the promise of another fantastic week ahead of us! We spent the weekend enjoying the weather, having a wonderful party for a good friend’s engagement where we had a delicious dessert of caramel apple trifle (recipe to be posted soon!) and enjoying the kiddie pool in the sunshine all day yesterday. 


Aidyn and Calvin hanging out in our street pool!

It was amazing!

Source

At the engagement party, my friend Natalie made a delicious, tasty Quinoa Salad. I tried it out yesterday, making a big batch for dinner with the neighbours and it was awesome! Even some of the kids (not mine of course!) ate it, and loved it.

Source

This week, work is back to normal, the kids are on a regular schedule of Summer of Fun Chart activities and schoolwork, with a few water park adventures thrown in for good measure. I’m hoping to avoid the oven as much as possible this week, so it looks like a bunch of grilling recipes and summer salads are coming our way.

On The Menu This Week

Monday: Grilled BBQ chicken breast with quinoa salad (recipe to come this week!)
Tuesday: Turkey Calzones (these were on the menu last week, but work got in the way and we had take out instead!!) with spicy yam fries & caesar salad
Wednesday: Chicken Macaroni bake and Rachel Salad
Thursday: Brinner (breakfast for dinner!)
Friday: Dinner on the road – heading out of town for the weekend, maybe Subway?
Saturday: BBQ at the Ranch
Sunday: BBQ with the neighbours when we get home
Hope you enjoyed this menu! Come check out a ton more at Org Junkie’s Menu Plan Monday.

Summer Schedule

Well, a week into summer vacation and the girls and I are loving the warm weather that is finally upon us! I sure hope the sunshine sticks around for a while; we’ve been drowning in rain for far too long.

I think it’s really important for my girls to have a schedule in the summer. Even though most of their days are spent playing outside or doing activities from the Summer of Fun Chart, we still need to make time for chores and school work.

Miss A will be going into Grade One this September, and even though summer flashes by in a minute, I know my girl and I know that if she doesn’t practice her school skills, it’ll be a learning curve getting back into the school groove this fall.

I picked up a couple of “bridge” books for the transition from Kindergarten to Grade One. We are going to keep one here at our house in the homework basket, and send the other one to my mom’s for the days when the girls are over there.

For chores, my girls are still quite little, so the chores on their chore list are pretty simple. Both girls have to make their beds in the morning (Miss E gets a little help, but she needs to participate), they need to set the table before meals, clear the dirty dishes after and help clean up crafting and playtime messes.

So the girls have some structure, I’ve put together a Summer Schedule so the girls know what is coming up for the day. I’ve made sure to allow for some TV time, though with the beautiful weather coming our way, hopefully most of the days will be spent outside adventuring and exploring!

Here is a look at our summer schedule. As you can see there is lots of time for crafts and outdoor play, but also some quiet time, and time for reading books.
Check in this weekend when I show you a great idea I found on Pinterest to make the girls more excited about doing their chores!

Eating from the Pantry

Oh I so wish the weather in this neck of the woods would make up its mind! There is a heat wave in most of Canada and the USA, but we are here, in the pouring rain, just begging for a hint of sunshine to poke through in the afternoon!  (We got sun this afternoon, that's how this photo came about!)

This week we managed to make it through kindergarten graduation,

The last day of school - Miss A was a little upset that her teacher is moving to a new school in the fall

And Canada Day! The hubs had to work, so the girls and I went to a BBQ at church and then had a picnic in the park.

We have also started to work through the activities in our summer of fun chart!
One of the blogs I follow, Life as Mom is having a Pantry Challenge this month. I think it's a great idea! The basic idea is to plan our family menu around food already in our fridge, freezer and pantry, which shouldn't be a problem! Anyone who knows me, knows that in the event of a nuclear apocalypse, you should come here for food and drinks, we'll be able to feed the neighbourhood!
On the Menu This Week:
Monday: Beef Tacos and roasted red peppers
Tuesday: Turkey Meat Loaf, Perogies and steamed veggies
Wednesday: Baked Ziti and Rachel Salad
Thursday: Turkey Calzones and fries
Friday: Chicken Macaroni Bake and Rachel Salad
Saturday: Dinner out with friends
Sunday: BBQ with the neighbours
If I manage to stick to this menu plan, then literally the only ingredients I will have to buy for the week are bread for toast in the morning and a spring mix salad for the Rachel Salad. Cheap grocery week for me ahead! Woo hoo! I'll be linking this week's menu plan up with Org Junkie's Menu Plan Monday - a great planning resource! Check it out!

Breakfast Muffins

This week I made one of my favorite bulk cooking breakfast recipes. I was down in the states last week and eggs were on sale for $1.18 for an 18 pack! Since I bought two packs I thought I better get to making a big batch of breakfast food!
A friend of mine from high school (thanks Kim!) mentioned this recipe on Facebook last year and I knew that these would be an instant favorite. I have made them a few times since then and they are always snapped up in a few minutes.

This week two dozen of these babies made into my office for breakfast. I put them in the oven just in time for them to be ready when I was walking out the door, so I got to work and they were still warm and delicious.

This recipe can be modified to any taste, made vegetarian or not, with added veggies, or not, however you want to make them, they'll turn out great!
Breakfast Muffins
(this recipe made 30 muffins)
Ingredients
2 boxes Stove Top stuffing
30 eggs
1/2 cup real bacon bits (or crumbled cooked breakfast sausage, or veggie sausage, or anything really)
2 cups grated cheese


Instructions
Make stove top according to package directions.

Spray your muffin tins with A LOT of Pam. I mean A LOT!! This is a sticky mess when you take them out of the pan if you don`t really spray your pan. Trust me on this one.

Scoop 1-2 tbsp of stove top into a muffin tin, and press down into the pan. Make sure not to over fill these, because the eggs take up a lot of space in the pan!

Crack an egg into each muffin cup.

Sprinkle bacon pieces (or sausage, or anything else that you like) over the top and add some grated cheese.

Bake in a 400F oven for about 20 minutes, until the yolk is cooked through.

Serve hot and delicious.
Hope you enjoy this recipe!