Cheese Toasty or Grilled Cheese

The debate over cheese toasty or grilled cheese is one that is going strong in our house.

Reed believes it should be called grilled cheese.

He is of course wrong but gained a few points by coming up with a awesome twist of the cheese toasty.

It doesn't have a name but it's super yummy.

So here's what you do.

Butter your bread like normal.

Then you use mozzarella for your cheese and while you're there why not throw on a few pepperoni.

Ahh I'm getting hungry just typing this.

Then of course you have to get it to the perfect toastiness.

I'm pretty picky about my toast but that's a whole other issue.

You really need to try this for lunch.

I have to say my hubby is amazing at coming up with super yummy food.

Or as my kids would say so nummy!

I know there are a lot of twists on the good ol' cheese toasty so what's your favorite?

Just A Super Quick Lunch

 I don't know if you're obsessed with Pinterest like I am

but if you are maybe you've seen this genius idea.

I hate fixing lunch.

It's on the list with drying my hair, changing diapers, and being cold

and those things are no where near the top of my fun things to do list.

However, I do like to eat.

Most days it's just me and Mason home for lunch and most days I find myself just making him something and skipping it for myself.

Not anymore people!

Enter ready made salads.

And I mean ready.

Better then the Wendy's open the dressing and put it on ready.

Say hello to Mr. Salad in a jar.

One reason I don't make a lot of salads is because there are so many ingredients.

I mean I can't be opening and closing all kinds of jars

(Sorry for my little Brian Regan reference.  If you haven't heard of him you should look him up. Funny funny stuff)

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is if I can have lunch made in 1 minute then why not do it!

Here's the deal with this.

You put your dressing in the bottom of the jar.

Then add you're other ingredients.

I have red onion, mushrooms, tomatoes, and then lettuce.

It doesn't matter what you put in as long as the dressing and lettuce don't touch.

And if you're going to do croutons you probably don't want them touching the dressing either.

These will last for about 3-4 days.

So I made a few for me and Reed on Saturday and we'll be good to go for a few days.

Mmmm doesn't that look delish.

If you're trying to be a little more healthy in 2012 maybe this could help you out.

Classic with a twist

Last night was the first night of December!

Which means the countdown until Christmas begins.

The first activity on our Advent Calendar was to watch a Christmas movie and eat popcorn.

I must say that the Christmas spirt took over right away because they agreed on a movie without any fighting!

But before we could watch the movie we had to make the popcorn.

But not just any popcorn

Peppermint Popcorn

I kind of had mixed thoughts about what it was going to taste like but I thought it was worth a shot and it would at least be festive.

I found the recipe on Pinterest (favorite site EVER!!!)

But it comes from the blog Plain Chicken

Peppermint Popcorn

You need to take one bag of microwave popcorn and pop it. ( She uses plain popcorn but I used butter and it tasted good too) Then crush up 6 candy canes and pour on top of popcorn. Melt half a package of Almond bark and and 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract to the melted almond bark. Pour it over the popcorn and mix it all together. When it's all mixed up spread it out on parchment paper until the chocolate is hardened. Then break apart and eat.

Overall it was a pretty good success.

Braeden who normally doesn't eat popcorn, ate some and both kids asked for some first thing when they woke up.

And of course Mason chowed down as much as he could.

(Some of my pictures just won't flip no matter what I do)

So after our snack was ready we relaxed to the glow of the Christmas tree and watched Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Can't really ask for much better than that for the first night of December.
Well except for Reed being home to enjoy it with us.

So how did you spend your night?

Pretzel Art

Whew has life been crazy lately.

Braeden's out of school

Baseball and Soccer are in full swing

and Mason decided to start crawling and pulling himself to stand in the same day!

I really should have babyproofed ahead of time.

But today we are trying to get into a new summer routine.

I'm going to try and do some kind of craft with the kids every day.

This craft is also a snack so awesome double duty!

I started by making pretzel dough in the bread maker.

But then I left the room to put Mason in bed

and came back to this...

So tip number one would be to not leave the flour on the table! lol

So after we had our pretzel dough ready we rolled it out into strips.

And then I let the kids get creative making the pretzels into any shape they wanted.

We ended up with snakes and flowers and balls and butterflies and so much more!

 They actually asked to make more dough when we finally ran out.

Now that's success.

Just brush with egg whites and water and sprinkle with kosher salt.

Bake then enjoy.

I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours...

I'm talking about recipes people!

I've been working on my menu for the next 2 weeks and I'm feeling in a rut.

We seem to have the same thing over and over again.

Part of it is my fault.

I really only like to make things that I have the recipe memorized for.

Kinda puts a limit on things.

The other part would be my picky family's fault.

There is nothing worse than slaving away in the kitchen and then no one liking what you made.

And then you have to make them something else.

I make my kids try everything I make but if they don't like it I don't force them to eat it.

I don't like being forced to eat something I don't like so why should I force them.

Feel free to disagree but that's just how we do it here.

Anyway...

I have one recipe that we all LOVE so I wanted to share it with you 

But in return I'd love for you to share with me your families favorite meal.

I think that's only fair

Right???

Creamy Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients

1 pkg. (8 oz.) Cream Cheese, cubed

1/2 Cup Chicken Broth

1 lb. cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed (I use canned chicken which makes this recipe a breeze)

16 oz. Frozen Mixed Vegetables, thawed

1/2 tsp. Garlic Salt

1 egg

1/2 Cup Milk

1 Cup All Purpose Baking Mix

Make It

Heat oven to 400 degrees F.

Cook cream cheese and broth in large saucepan on low heat until cream cheese is completely melted and mixture is well blended, stirring frequently with whisk.

Stir in Chicken, vegetables and garlic salt.

Spoon into 9-inch pie plate.  Beat egg and milk in medium bowl with whisk until well blended; stir in baking mix just until moistened.  Spoon over chicken mixture.  Place pie plate on baking sheet.

Bake 25-30 min. or until golden brown.

And there you have it.

Quick, cheap, and easy on the taste buds.

Next time I make it I'll add a picture.

I hope your family enjoys it as much as mine.

Two of our favorite things

Once upon a time a beautiful 18 year old girl followed her

charming man out west.

He would get his learn on at BYU-I

She would fail miserably at focusing on anything besides him at U of U.

While on this adventure of love she would stumble across an amazing restaurant.

Cafe Rio

It would steal her away and he would be left broken hearted.

The End

Ok not exactly how it ended but it's kinda exciting that way.

When I was out west I fell in love with Cafe Rio.

And of course they are not anywhere near Indiana.

So when I came across a recipe claiming to taste like theirs I had to try it.

And it is 

AMAZING!

Disclaimer: It has been 6 years since I've had Cafe Rio.  So I don't really remember the exact taste.  I just know it tastes GOOD and I know that this recipe tastes GOOD.  So that's what I'm going on.

Oh you wanna know the best part about this recipe?

You make it in the crockpot!

LOVE

Now for the recipie.

http://cjaneinthekitchen.blogspot.com/ 

3 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken

1 1/4 Cup Italian dressing

1 Tablespoon Chili powder

1 Tablespoon minced garlic (I usually don't put this much in.  Just play with it and see what you like)

Juice of 1 lime

1/4 Cup cilantro

Place chicken in slow cooker.  Pour dressing over chicken and sprinkle with chili powder and garlic.  Cook on low for 7-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours.  Remove the chicken from crockpot and shred using 2 forks.  Then put it back in the crockpot.  Cover and cook additional 30 minutes.  Add lime and chopped cilantro.  Mix together and let cook another 10 minutes.  Serve with nachos, burittos, quesadillas, taco salad , or whatever.  It's very versatile and great as a leftover.

 It's seriously HEAVEN.

So now that you have the perfect meal, you need the perfect drink.

Henry Weinhard's Root Beer or Cream Soda.

This here is some amazing Root Beer.

Creamy and Delicious.

This was part of a Christmas gift I made for all the guys in my family.

Seriously best guy gift ever.

I'll write a post about that later.

But if you want to find some yummy Root Beer to go with your chicken

make your way to Meijer.

They seriously have a huge selection of bottled sodas.

Hope you have an amazing meal, I know I am!

Fun Food Monday

This didn't really work out as well as I had planned.

I wanted to do a little more with it 

but the kids were STARVING.

You know how that goes.

I also thought Reed had picked me up some toothpicks 

at the store 

But...

yeah he hadn't.

So I did what all mothers do best

IMPROVISED

Todays lunch is a

Tuna Salad Sailboat

Ideally you would use toothpicks to hold the sails up.

I however had to use field goal post small food stabbers.

(That's the name Reed and I came up with for them.) 

HaHa we are so classy.

One thing I am quickly learning is that my kids

think the food is AWESOME

no matter how horrible I think it looks.

Efforts all that matters 

and if you have older kids I'm sure they would have fun making there own.

Go give it a try

Your kids will LOVE you for it.

Fun Food Monday (a little late)

Ok I realize today is not Monday but

Reed has been home and he is a little bit of a computer hog.

I guess you could say that looking for a job is more important than blogging

but he's kinda cramping my style.

Anyway that's something I'll get over later.

On Monday I made the kids a fun Lion lunch.

Before I show it to you I need you to understand that I have the artistic ability of a 3 year old.

If you don't believe me look back at the FHE we had a few weeks ago and the awesome animal pictures Braeden drew.

I don't lie (often)

So here is our lion of a lunch.

I used a pear for the head, hot dog for the mane, and pretzel for the face.

I drew the body with food markers.

See I wasn't lion (haha) I have no artistic ability.

I'm sure someone who does could make it look really awesome.

But my kids LOVED it.

Ava actually asked if she was allowed to eat it lol.

Hope you enjoy.

Smoothie Goodness

My brother's school was selling Schwan's foods as a fundraiser last week and while I was looking at all the yummy goodness I found smoothies.

At first I thought it was just a mix but the description said microwave and go.
So I thought I would try to make my own
And it turned out GREAT.
Go Me!
Just buy some disposable cups with lids
make up some smoothies however you like them
I just use frozen fruit, yogurt, and milk.

Then pour it in your cups and put it in the freezer.

When you're ready to use them just take them out and microwave for about 30 sec.
Stir it up and if it needs it nuke it for a few more seconds
Now grab a straw and you're ready to go.
I know we will be using these a lot this summer running to baseball and soccer.
Hope you enjoy!

ChaChing!

No I didn't win the lottery.

We are getting our tax return this week which feels like a mini Jackpot.

Humm...what would I do if I did win the lottery???

New house...

Dirt bike...

oh and of course I would share :)

Anyway...

You wanna know what jackpot I did win??

The FOOD jackpot.

I think this might be better than money.

I really REALLY dislike lunch.  I don't mind eating it, I just hate to fix it.  

I think part of the reason is because I'm at home with Ava and she never eats anything I fix.

But I came up with something 

YUMMY

EASY

CHEAP(ER)

HEALTHY(ER)

They are homemade Hot Pockets!

So here's what you do.  I made pizza ones this time but you better believe we are going to go crazy with these. (ham and cheese, bacon egg and cheese, the possibilities are endless!)

Make up your favorite pizza dough recipe, I made mine in the breadmaker which made it SUPER DUPER easy.

Roll it out into a rectangle then cut into rectangles.  I made 6 and 2 mini pizzas.

Then you put on the toppings of your choice. 

I can't wait to make breakfast ones.

Now I don't have a picture of this because I'm not that talented.  Take one side and pull it out as you fold it over.  Then repeat with the other side.  Then fold up both ends. (Hope that makes sense)

They should look something like this.

The one in the top left corner was a trial and ERROR.

Put them in the oven and follow the directions for the dough. And when you take them out they should look something like this.

Yummy Goodness.

Now the best part.

They FREEZE!

Let them cool then throw them in a freezer bag and they are ready to reheat for lunch!  Well if your husband doesn't eat them all in one sitting :)

Hope you enjoy!