What's for dinner

Someone asked to see how I did this and I thought I'd copy it here too...

Here are my menu ideas for this year.  It takes me a few really good days of brainstorming to get the list and then its just a graph of the year.  I fill in birthdays and holidays and then rotate in the things my family will eat.  The first 7 are the only things everyone likes and the rest are either things only some people like or are seasonal, so I don't do them as often. I usually write the ideas on my calendar and when I make a shopping list buy the stuff I need for the next week or two.  I rearrange A LOT and sub in new ideas or quicker ideas often, but this helps :)

Menu ideas

1.     Hawaiian haystacks 

2.     Tacos

3.     Meatloaf

4.     Chicken nuggets

5.     Chili-Halloween

6.     Alfredo

7.     Pizza

8.     Potato latkes (pancakes)

9.     Baked potatoes

10.  Potato wedges

11.  Pork chops Fathers Day

12.  Meatballs

13.  Puffy pancakes & sausage

14.  Waffles

15.  Egg fried rice/peas & carrots

16.  Baked chicken

17.  Pollo verde & mashed potatoes

18.  Beans & rice

19.  Cobb salad

20.  Tsuvan - cabbage , onion , carrots , broccoli ,steaks & noodles

21.  Buuz –for New Years & AJ’s Birthday

22.  B.L.T.

23.  Chicken enchiladas (corn tortilla & green chillis)-D’s Birthday

24.  Stir fry

25.  Tuna Casserole /Tuna & Crackers 

26.  Teriyaki Chicken

27.  Grilled Cheese

28.  Paella/Cheesy Spanish Rice & Chicken

29.  Burritos

30.  Taco Salad

31.  Pesto Pizza Southwest Alfredo chicken pizza

32.  Bourbon Chicken n rice

33.  Chicken n rice

34.  Stuffed Peppers

35.  Soup (potato, lentil, chick noodle, zucchini, minestrone, tomato)

36.  Cabbage bread Husband’s Birthday

37.  Mom’s peasant style risotto Mother’s Day

38.  Hearty Vegetarian Rice Skillet

39.  Tatertot casserole

40.  Spaghetti

41.  Sausage spinach rotini

42.  Boy Scout Tomato hamburger pepper onion corn over rice

43.  Cheese rice and broccoli and chicken

44.  Stuffed Poblanos

45.  GSG Coconut Rice

46.  Fried eggs/ breakfast sandwich/ breakfast burritos

47.  Santa Fe Breakfast Skillet (chilli,hashbrowns, salsa, egg, chicken, cheese) My Birthday

48.  Macaroni & Cheese J’s Birthday

49.  Corned Beef-St Patricks Day

50.  72 hour kits

51.  Egg Salad Sandwiches/deviled eggs-Day after Easter

52.  Skillet Lasagne

53.  Bratwurst-fourth of July, AP's birthday?

Saturday-leftovers, nachos, quesadillas, pizza, ramen, etc.

Click on the pictures to see them full size, notice I did it in pencil.  That way I can easily make changes.

Update:  Its June and my oldest daughter and I decided to go on a health kick and cut waay back on meat.  Instead of redoing the whole year's menus, I just thought up a bunch of healthier menus and substituted those into my menu in place of the least healthy dinner ideas.  It was easy and didn't take much time at all.

Creamy Garlic Sauce for Papa Murphy's Gourmet Vegetarian Pizza

 Papa Murphy's Gourmet Vegetarian Pizza Copy Cat

I made this pizza for a vegetarian family get together, but all over the internet, copy cat recipes said to use Ranch salad dressing for the sauce (sounds strange eh?).  I did that and well, it tasted like a salad on pizza crust.  It wasn't the addictive pizza I remember, so I came up with my own creamy garlic sauce and made another pizza.  This one was MUCH, MUCH better and tasted like what I remember.  We did half the pizza with veggies and half with southwest grilled chicken (taco seasoning + chicken).  They were both delicious.

Creamy Garlic Sauce for one 12" pizza.

1 1/2 Tbs butter
1 1/2 Tbs cream cheese
3/4 cup milk
1/2 Tbs cornstarch
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp parsley flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper (optional)
pinch of dill (optional)
2 1/2 Tbs grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Melt the butter and cream cheese together over medium heat, it might not completely combine, but it gets close.  Dissolve cornstarch into cold milk.  Stir milk into butter/cream cheese mixture and bring to a boil.  Cook until thick then add seasonings to taste.  I just guesstimated how much to use.  Remove from heat and stir in parmesan cheese.  I think you could add minced garlic at the beginning with the butter too.  There are so many variations possible.

Pizza Veggies
-baby spinach
-sliced zucchini
-chopped onions (red and white)
-chopped tomato
-chopped mushroom
-artichoke hearts

Mozzarella and Cheddar cheese

The crust I used in the picture above is a great gluten free crust that I found here.

Holler

My daughter told me I needed to update my blog title, so how about Wiggle, Poke, Giggle, Sit, N' Holler.  No, not nearly as catchy.  Anyway, Number 5 seems to be sleeping quite well at night, but during the day he is captain fussy.  We love him, but he's a challenge.

Some Best Ever Thanksgiving Baking

 Thanksgiving is my favorite Holiday.  I like to make crescent rolls and pie.  I always have.  This year I I made my fluffiest, prettiest crescent rolls ever (and then didn't eat any, oh well).  My family was in heaven.  I made some gluten free ones that were yummy, but not really picture worthy.

I was going to buy Cosco pumpkin pie, but my kids begged for this raspberry cream-chocolate pie and I thought I'd make it gluten free and have some myself.  It was delicious.  I also made a gluten free pumpkin pie and it was my favorite pumpkin pie ever.  I can't say why I liked it so much, but it was definitely better-crust and filling (even better than the raspberry pie which was super yummy too).  I used the King Arthur gluten free pie crust recipe and highly recommend it.

Vernal Utah Trip

Hiking McConkie Ranch Petroglyphs on family vacation October 2012.

My Birthday

I've been off gluten for 8 1/2 months, so that has cut down on most desserts for me, but I made a gluten free birthday cake for myself and it was so yummy, better than a white flour cake for sure.  I ate too much and it didn't even make me sick (maybe not a good thing after all).

Lego Art classes

Just finished Arts Festival again. It is one of my favorite things to do all year. Classes run for two weeks and are one hour per day. I taught two sections of Lego Art ages 5-7 and one section of Ultimate Lego Design ages 10-16. The younger class learns different styles of art through Lego. Students in the older class learn basic Lego design genres and how to identify their own personal Lego style (brick artist, vignette, diorama, kit designer, MOC designer, etc) then they work on incorporating important design elements from that genre into their projects.

I liked this, it was done by another class than mine.

This was "mixed media" day

T-rex "sculpture"

Garden sculpture

This mosaic made me laugh because it looked so much like D

On LEGO Game day, the kids played LEGO bingo and then built their own Lego games.

This was wings and color theory. I thought this little boy did a nice job of color coordinating his plane.
Race track:banquet table with one set of legs down.

This student build a lot of MOC (my own creation). MOC is a style where the designer tries to put pieces from different sets together in new visually entertaining ways.