Meal Plan Monday for April 9-15
Hope your Spring is going good so far. The pollen has been a bear here but it still has been nice. I love this time of year. How about you?
I have to show you this picture I made of this little sweetie pie. Her name is Hoot.
No, I didn’t get a cat. As much as I would love one, it would be cruel to bring a cat into a house with 4 dogs.
I got to visit a friend in Richmond for a few days last week. She has 3 gorgeous, very sweet Himalayan cats and 3 tiny 1 week old kittens that Hoot’s mother had.
I have decided that the year 2012 is my year of travel. I love travelling but in the past I couldn’t do much of it.
This year, I went to Atlanta for a week in February. Blacksburg VA in March. Richmind VA last week. Next month, I will be taking the family to Disney World in Orlando for 6 days. In June, I’m going to New York City and I may be going back there in August too for a convention. Also sometime this year, I plan on visiting a good friend who recently moved to the Washington DC area.
Okay I’m sure you are probably bored with my ranting about travel so here is my weekly dinner menu:
Monday
Spaghetti
Garden Salad
Tuesday
Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Corn on the Cob
Wednesday
Meat Loaf
Mashed Potatoes
Green Beans
Thursday
Leftovers
Friday
Fast Food Friday
Saturday
Grilled Steak
Brussels Sprouts
Baked Potatoes
Sunday
Shish-ka-bob made with beef, mushrooms, onions, red, yellow, orange peppers
I’m going to tell you how I make my meat loaf. There is no real measurements involved as I just developed this recipe over the years of making meat loaf and never actually measured anything.
I mix a pound of very lean ground beef with a chopped onion, 2-3 stalks fo chopped celery, a few large chopped mushrooms, a few handfuls of oats (either quick cooking or old fashioned, it doesn’t matter), 2 eggs, a large squirt of mustard and catsup, and some spices (I usually use garlic salt, pepper, parsley, and a pinch of oregano). Sometimes I will add a can of drained, chopped tomatoes and if I do, I don’t add catsup.
Just mix it all together really well and put in your loaf pans. I usually have enough for 2 loaf pans so one I will wrap up and freeze for later. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour 20 minutes or until done.
Okay, hope everyone has a great week.
Do any of you have any plans to travel this year? If so, where are you going to go?
Cute Deviled Egg Chicks for Easter
I love to make a fun food for each holiday. After my kids grew up, I stopped making silly, fun holiday food. But now that I have a 2 year old granddaughter, I have a new generation to make these things for.
Now I actually saw something similar to this on Pintrest and I thought I had repinned it to show yall. But now I can’t find it so I guess I didn’t.
Anyway the original was made with your traditional deviled eggs, you know where the yolks are mixed with mayonnaise and maybe a little mustard.
I like my deviled eggs more chunky, like egg salad with lots of chopped veggies. So I wondered if I could make cute chicks with the chunky consistency. Only way to find out was to try it and I think they came out pretty cute.
Below I show you how I make my deviled eggs. Feel free to use your own deviled egg recipe if you want. Also I really don’t have many measurements for my deviled eggs. I just eyeball and taste test until they are just right.
What you will Need to Make the Chicks
- Clean egg carton
- Eggs (as many as you want to make)
- Pitted Black Olives ( I only used 1 for this)
- Carrot (I used just part of 1 baby carrot to make 8 eggs)
- Ingredients to make Deviled Eggs (or make them the way I do- see below)
What You Also to Need if You Make Chunky Deviled Eggs Like Mine
Along with the eggs, I also use:
- Mayonnaise
- Mustard
- A Dill Pickle ( I used 2 dill pickle slices)
- 1 Stalk of Celery
- 1 Small Onion
- Paprika
- Salt and Pepper
Boil Your Eggs
- Put your eggs into your pan in one layer and cover with water.
- Put a splash of vinegar and sprinkle of salt to keep the egg shell from sticking to the eggs while cooking.
- Bring to a boil and then turn off.
- Let eggs sit on burner for 15 minutes (If you use a gas stove, leave them on low heat for 15 minutes).
- After eggs are cool, gently crack the shell and remove it.
Prepare Your Eggs
- Cut your egg as shown in the photo above. Leave enough at the top for the chick’s “cap”.
- Gently spoon out the yolk, being careful not to tear the egg white.
- Put the yolks in a large bowl. NOTE: If you do tear the egg, just chop it all up and add it to the deviled egg concoction. I sacrificed 2 of my eggs this way.
Prepare The “Deviled” Part
- With your electric mixer, mix the yolks with mayo, mustard, paprika, salt and pepper to taste. I don’t have set amounts for these ingredients but usually it’s around a tablespoon of mustard and 2-3 tablespoons of mayo.
- Chop your veggies and add to the bowl with the yolks. I used my food processor to finely chop my celery, onion and pickle.
Your egg mixture should look something like this:
Make Your Chicks
Now comes the fun part!
Fill the egg whites with the deviled egg mixture. Make sure you over fill so you have the chick’s “head” coming out of the egg white.
Add the faces. Just chop up tiny pieces of black olive for the eyes and a carrot for the beak.
Now just add the caps and your done!
MayMay loves eating these cute little guys. In fact, we made these about 4 days ago and she has asked me every day for more “eggy chickies”.
If you make these, please let me know how they turned out. I’d love a picture too and will add it to this page.
Happy Easter!
The Lorax Tree
When I went to visit my sister a few weeks ago in Blacksburg Virginia, she and my nephew CJ gave me a bookmark that they got from Ihop. I’m sure you have seen the commercials for it.
Here’s the bookmark minus the attached seed thingie that my grandbaby MayMay already pulled off.
MayMay was so excited to get to plant this tree. But first we had to put it in water and let it soak for 24 hours. She must have asked a dozen times if it was time to plant the tree yet.
Finally it was time to plant!
Wow! May actually emptied a good sized bag of dirt all by herself. She loved feeling like a big girl by doing this all on her own.
Next she planted her seed.
Then she watered her seeds.
What fun! She played in dirt and didn’t even get in trouble for doing it! Of course that was also a problem. After she was done, she still kept wanting to dig up the seeds and root around in the dirt. I had to put the planter up high to keep her out of it.
I have no idea what kind of tree this really will be. Of course MayMay is assuming it will look like one of those fluffy, pastel trees in The Lorax. Hope she isn’t too disappointed when it turns out to be just an ordinary green tree.
