tonyandkirsten.org

Items for the 12 Days of Christmas, as decided by Madeline (with a little help from me adding adjectives to better fit the tune of the song):

1 silver and red bell

2 blue balloons

3 little chairs

4 bags of salt

5 ceiling fans

6 pretty paintings

7 kids to play with

8 Suzy Pigs

9 brand new toys

10 DVDs

11 tiny buttons

12 real horses

It’s been just a little over a month now since we started using cloth diapers, and I am definitely still sold on it - more than I really expected I would be! Within the first couple weeks we had figured out our routine.  I’m not changing Erik quite as religiously every two hours as I did at first.  I learned that most of the time, all that happens if I have to wait longer for some reason is that his pants get a little wet, so I end up doing a little more laundry due to extra pants being worn.  And sometimes, depending on what else is going on in my day, that is a better alternative to dropping everything at a particular moment for a diaper change when two hours has passed on the clock.  I’ve learned how to add extra layers to Erik’s diapers at night, and even at nap time, so that he can sleep as long as he needs to without an overflowing diaper waking him up.

I’m generally doing diaper laundry once every two to two-and-a-half days.  All the wet diapers get thrown in a plain cotton laundry bag, which also gets washed with each diaper load.  When we’re out and about, I throw the wet ones in a ziplock bag.  You can get some nice washable “water resistant” fabric bags to use for this purpose, but so far we’ve only actually used two ziplock bags (drying it out in between uses).  A friend lent us some extra supplies, and having a couple more covers and some thinner flannel prefolds (to use as those extra “doubling” layers when Erik sleeps) makes a big difference in being able to go as long as 2.5 days without doing diaper laundry.

The system of using “pocket diapers” at night and prefolds with covers during the day seems like a good combination for us.  Lately we’ve been fighting off various colds and other bugs in our house…and when those dirty diapers are looking more greenish purple than the normal colors…I am glad that those nasty messes are generally in my $2-ish prefolds rather than my more expensive pocket diapers.  I am just less paranoid about the stains, knowing that if we have to replace a few because the stains get too bad, it won’t be a huge expense (and some of those stains might “sun out” in a few months when the weather warms up and I can actually try drying them out in the sun!).

And we got a diaper sprayer…which has already seen three incarnations.  This has turned out to be the most unexpectedly exciting part of our cloth diapering adventure.  Having seen pictures of diaper sprayers on the web, Tony was pretty confident he could build one for less on his own.  Soon after having installed the first version of the sprayer he realized he had purchased the wrong type of tubing.  It was working for the time being, so we left it installed, happily spraying off those messy diapers.  Tony told me to keep a close eye on it, and sure enough, after maybe 2 or 3 weeks of use, the tubing sprung a leak.  I was able to act quickly and shut off water to the toilet.  Only a small wet mess was made in the process, and Tony was able to purchase new, stronger tubing later that same day.

Then, disaster struck.  The very night that Tony installed the new tubing on the sprayer, something happened in the middle of the night and the sprayer head came off the tubing.  Unfortunately, we were deeply asleep when this happened and had a humidifier running in our bedroom so we didn’t hear anything right away.  I was awoken by the sound of our downstairs neighbor banging on our door and yelling for help.  Hearing this noise combined with the random noises coming from the bathroom due to water shooting out the end of the diaper sprayer tubing, I immediately came to the conclusion that our house was on fire.  Why I thought this when there were no smoke alarms going off I will never know, but that is how my brain processed the information! This might not have been such a bad thing, because me yelling “fire” several times actually woke Tony up and got him out of bed quickly.

As soon as we were both out of bed we quickly figured out what was really going on, and Tony got the water turned off at the toilet…but not before a big mess had been made in the basement apartment below us.  Tony helped our downstairs neighbor clean up the worst of the mess right then.  Luckily there is kitchen tile right below our bathroom, so most of the damage was contained to wet, soggy ceiling tiles, which Tony went ahead and replaced the next day.

Wary of having anything constantly under pressure and connected to our toilet, Tony devised a “hook on to the sink” version of the diaper sprayer that is working really well for us.  It only takes a couple of seconds to hook it on to the bathroom sink and turn on the sink water…and then a few more seconds at the end of the spraying process to disconnect and drain the sprayer hose.  But now we can sleep easier knowing there will be no further middle-of-the-night floods…or curious children finding a sprayer and making a real mess in the bathroom (which never happened in the two or three weeks that it was connected to the toilet, but I kept envisioning that some day it was bound to happen!). We can also take this sink-based diaper sprayer with us when we travel, if we chose to take cloth diapers with us on our trips.

This whole process proved costly, in that we had to buy all the parts for the three incarnations of the sprayer, plus ceiling tiles to replace the soggy ones in the basement. It’s not to say a DIY sprayer attached to the toilet couldn’t work with the right combination of parts - we just didn’t get that right combination in time! Buying one of the commercially-available sprayers is probably the best bet for most people!

The middle-of-the-night diaper sprayer crisis actually made me realize how I am really feeling about the cloth diapers.  While Tony was in the basement cleaning up water puddles at 4am, I was lying in bed awake, worrying that Tony might tell me that we would need to be done with cloth diapers after this fiasco.  And that made me fairly sad.  I decided I had actually become somewhat attached to the idea of cloth diapering.

Tony was more than willing for us to continue with our cloth diapering, and I have had some time to think about why I am enjoying cloth diapering so much when it is actually more work (though not as much work as I feared it might be before we started).  It’s definitely not just about the money savings - I rarely think about how we’re saving money by not buying lots of disposables.  It might be a little bit about not having to make so many trips to Target just because we needed diapers, and about having Erik’s diaper rashes heal two or three times faster and stay away longer.

But I think the main reason I enjoy it is the appeal to the “do it yourself” side of my nature.  Maybe it’s the same thing that causes us to bake our own bread when it doesn’t necessarily save any money over Aldi bread and may in some ways be less healthy since our bread is not “whole wheat”.   I just like having something I can take care of myself and use over and over again.  Even in the midst of a huge snowstorm or some other crisis I could keep Erik in diapers and not have to worry about running out.  Just watch, the next thing you know we’ll be grinding our own wheat or roasting our own coffee…err, wait we already roast our own coffee. 

Needless to say, we plan on cloth diapering baby #3 as well.  I am thinking we might use disposables for the first week or two while we get used to the grueling schedule of waking up for middle-of-the-night feedings and while we will probably have family around who will want to help out with things like diaper changes.  But, I am looking forward to the continued adventure that having two kids in cloth diapers will bring!

We’re down to about two months, or about eight and a half weeks, until baby #3 is due to make his appearance.  This pregnancy has gone by very quickly, and I am sure at least the next month will go by quickly as well as we get ready for and celebrate Christmas.

I am not so sure how quickly those last few weeks will go by.  The thought of being nine months pregnant in a frigid Minnesota in January is about enough to make me want to stay inside for those last three or four weeks (or at least not go anywhere with just me and the kids).  I’m sure we’ll venture out occasionally…with a great deal of paranoia on my part as I wonder about what would happen if I went into labor while out somewhere by myself with the kids.  (My labor was right around two hours long total with Erik, so I have at least some degree of reason to be worried — I need to be able to act fast once I do go into labor in case my body wants to go through that process quickly again!).

I still have quite a few items on my “to do” list of things to accomplish before the baby arrives.  All the infant clothes are still in boxes in the garage.  I haven’t purchased any smaller cloth diapering supplies yet.  We haven’t quite figured out our final plan for how we will arrange things to fit sleeping accommodations for our third child and a third child’s clothes (along with all the clothes and beds we already need) into our two small bedrooms.  We still need to try and get our stand-alone freezer fixed so I can fill it with extra food to have on hand once the baby comes.  I’m thinking I need to find a larger diaper bag, because the one I have barely fits one child’s cloth diapering supplies for outings of any length — cloth diapers for two and other miscellaneous infant and toddler supplies would never fit (at least not for any outing longer than a quick trip to the store and back, or something like that).

While I’m sure we’ll tackle at least a few of the items on our checklist in the next couple of weeks, I have a feeling we’ll be spending those first couple of frigid weeks in January making our preparations.

It’s a “two week edition” of Menu Plan Monday for me this week! Since next week involves Thanksgiving and travel and would make for a short post (and I’ve planned my menu for the rest of the month anyway), I decided to just go ahead and post it all today.

Here’s what I have planned:

Monday: Heavenly Ham and Potatoes and a veggie du jour

Tuesday: Chicken Alfredo Lasagna - I’ll use this recipe as a base, but use Alfredo sauce made from packets instead of jars, and I’ll probably do something a little different with the veggies (adding broccoli and possibly other veggies too).  Maybe garlic bread or garlic biscuits and a salad with it.

Wednesday: Salmon Patties and baked squash

Thursday: Hearty Beans and Rice (see recipe below), and a veggie du jour

Friday: Thanksgiving potluck - I’m making the turkey, and possibly other items (depending on how many people are coming and what they are bringing!)

Saturday: Meatloaf (see recipe below), baked potatoes and a veggie du jour

Sunday: Dinner with extended family, so we’re not cooking at home

Monday (11-24): Tator Tot Casserole

Tuesday (11-25): Pork Chops, a pasta side dish, and a veggie du jour

Wednesday (11-26): Cheesy Tuna Crescents and a veggie du jour (recipe bumped from this past week since we ended up eating out one night)

Thursday (11-27): Thanksgiving night - we’ll either be eating up leftovers before our trip or having something easy like pizza.

Friday through Sunday: Traveling to see family

Hearty Beans and Rice Casserole (source unknown - a recipe from mom)

1 lb. ground beef or ground turkey
½ cup chopped onion (optional)
1 16oz. can baked beans
1 16oz. can light red kidney beans
2 cups cooked rice
¼ cup brown sugar
½ cup ketchup
1 tbsp. vinegar
1 tbsp. mustard

In a large skillet, brown ground beef or tukey and onion; drain. Add all remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour into casserole dish and cover. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until bubbly. Some people like to put hot sauce on it when it is done.

Meatloaf (this is just approximately “how I make my meatloaf” so I am not sure the quantities are 100% right on!)

1 lb Ground Beef
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup ketchup
1 tbsp Worcestshire sauce
1 chopped onion or minced onion to taste
Seasonings to taste (salt, pepper, garlic, chives, etc)
½ to ¾ cup oatmeal
Additional Ketchup for top (optional)
Bacon slices for top (optional)

Mix all ingredients, except Oatmeal.  Add oatmeal until mixture achieves desired consistency.  Place in greased loaf pan or other small pan.  Add additional ketchup and bacon for top if desired.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until well cooked. Allow to stand for a few minutes before serving.

Visit “Menu Plan Monday” at “I’m An Organizing Junkie” for more great menu ideas!

This past weekend, Tony was gone at a conference for work.  And lucky for the rest of us staying back home, we all got sick! While I had pondered planning lots of adventures for us over the weekend while Daddy had his own adventure in Boston, I had settled on some fun activities that would mostly keep us home.

I didn’t expect, however, that we would be staying inside the entire weekend! I realized Saturday morning that Madeline wasn’t quite acting like herself - and sure enough, she had a low-grade fever.   Erik had already had a cold for a few days and was generally coughing and sneezing a lot.   We canceled our plans to attend our small group and declared it “Pajama Day” at the Hill house.  Here’s the kids having fun in their jammies:

I had already planned a “slumber party”-style evening for the three of us: watching Madeline’s new Tinkerbell DVD while eating popcorn and mini pizzas and drinking hot cocoa in the living room.  So, those plans fit perfectly with the theme for the day.

As Sunday morning rolled around, I had high hopes that Madeline would be feeling well enough to go to church.  But, she was still not feeling 100% and not quite acting like herself (i.e. choosing to curl up on the couch under a blanket rather than eat pancakes, her favorite breakfast food!).  So we stayed home from church too. I also realized on Sunday morning that it was finally time to turn the heat on.  Yes, we made it until November 9th without it! I saw the kids choosing to have their fun under a warm blanket and thought that maybe the kids would enjoy the house a little warmer than the 60 degrees it was at with no heat (notice Madeline carefully studying the Target toy catalog, pen in hand!):

By afternoon Madeline was ready for some craft projects, so we made a paper chain to count the days until Thanksgiving (we’ll add loops soon to count to Christmas), and a “Thankful tree” with things we are thankful for written on each leaf. (Pictures courtesy of Madeline!)

We ventured out briefly on Sunday night to get another movie to watch.  By late afternoon it was clear that the kids were mostly feeling better…but now I was the one sick with a cold! I had hoped that we could play at the McDonald’s play land or something fun like that on Sunday night, but all I could handle was curling up at home and watching another movie.

It was a fun weekend at home just the three of us, but we were very excited to pick up Tony on Monday morning!

I’m posting my Menu Plan Monday on a Monday.  What a novel concept! I’ve had a big, fat head cold for the last 36 hours or so, and the last thing I wanted to think about was planning a menu and writing about it.  Luckily, I had “pre-planned” the first couple days of meals for this week during a trip to Super Target late last week, so I could begin my week on auto-pilot!

Here’s what we’re having this week:

Monday: Indian Spinach and Tofu (Palek Tofu), with rice and Naan.  This is in the crock pot right now! It’s the first time I’ve cooked with tofu since my brief attempt in high school at vegetarianism.  My attempts with tofu so many years ago were not particularly successful, so I am nervously optimistic about this tofu recipe from my favorite crock pot blog.

Tuesday: Java Roast in the crockpot (using a chuck steak I got a good deal on at Super Target), baked sweet potatoes, and maybe a salad and/or bread if it seems like the meal needs it.

Wednesday: Dinner and a prayer meeting at church, so we’re not cooking at home

Thursday: Chicken Spaghetti Bake (see recipe below), and a veggie du jour

Friday: Shepherd’s Pie w/ground beef and probably a salad.  I don’t use a recipe for my Shepherd’s Pie — I essentially make a rue using flour and butter, and then add beef broth.  I season this (pepper, garlic, etc) and add to the ground beef.  I then mix in whatever frozen veggie I feel like adding, and put this in the bottom of a baking dish. I then add a layer of (usually homemade) mashed potatoes, and bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes until it looks bubbly!

Saturday: Cheesy Tuna Crescents and a veggie du jour

Sunday: Black Bean and Salsa Soup and Quesadillas with lettuce, tomato, sour cream, etc on the side

Chicken Spaghetti Bake

(another recipe from a 1970s casserole cookbook…I still need to look up which one it is from and I’ll add that to the post!)

8 oz. Spaghetti
3 slices bacon, chopped
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove minced garlic
3 tbsp. flour
1 16oz. can chopped tomatoes
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 cups cubed or shredded cooked chicken
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Break spaghetti pieces in half. Cook according to package directions. Meanwhile, cook bacon, onion and garlic until bacon is crisp. Blend in flour. Add tomatoes (undrained), soup and milk. Cook until thick and bubbly. Add shredded cheese and stir until melted. Stir in cooked pasta and chicken. Pour into 2 1/2 quart greased casserole. Top with parmesan cheese. Bake covered at 375 for about 30 minutes.

Visit Menu Plan Monday at “I’m an Organizing Junkie” for more menu ideas!

For this week’s Menu Plan Monday, I am once again taking a lot of inspiration from the “A Year of Crockpotting” blog - I have three recipes from there on the menu this week!  If you’ve never visited that blog you should really check it out - the variety of crock pot recipes available there is amazing!

Here’s my menu for this week:

Monday: Crock Pot Rotisserie-Style Chicken, sweet potatoes and broccoli

Tuesday: Sour Cream Chili Bake (see recipe below), a veggie du jour and maybe some corn bread? Or maybe I’ll try and come up with clever titles for my menu items to make them somehow election-related!

Wednesday: Creamy Corn and Spinach Enchiladas (in the crock pot, using leftover chicken from Monday) and tomatoes, avacado, etc. on the side

Thursday: Crock Pot French Onion Soup, with bread and a salad

Friday: Deluxe Baked Macaroni and Cheese (except I make mine with cheddar cheese instead of American as the linked recipe indicates) and a veggie du jour

Saturday: “Slumber Party Night” — Tony will be gone for the weekend at a conference for work, so the kids and I are going to watch a movie and eat popcorn, mini pizzas and some other fun party food!

Sunday: Tacos (just your basic ground beef tacos with lettuce, tomato, cheese, etc).

Sour Cream Chili Bake

(From “Better Homes and Gardens All-Time Favorite Casserole Recipes,” c. 1977 - my comments/changes are in italic.)

1 lb Ground Beef
1 15-ounce can Mexican Chili Beans (original recipe called for Pinto beans)
1 10-ounce can Enchilada sauce
1 8-ounce can Tomato Sauce
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (original recipe called for American cheese)
1/4 cup chopped onion (use more or less to taste)
6 ounces corn chips
1 cup sour cream
Addt’l 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese for topping

Brown ground beef and drain. Stir in beans, enchilada sauce, tomato sauce, 1 cup shredded cheese, and onions. Set aside 1 cup of corn chips. Crush remaining corn chips and add to meat mixture (If you are starting with a bag bigger than 6oz, I think it’s about 2-3 cups of chips you want to crush). Put mixture in greased 1 1/2 quart casserole dish. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes, covered. Spoon sour cream atop casserole and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Sprinkle reserved chips around the edge of the casserole.   Bake another 2-3 minutes, uncovered. (Or just serve the extra cheese, sour cream and chips on the table!).

As always, for more great menu planning ideas, visit Menu Plan Monday at “I’m an Organizing Junkie“.

While the month of October isn’t quite over, our “home preschool month” is pretty much done.  Madeline is spending a couple days this week at Grandma Karen’s house, and then we’ll be busy with Halloween activities the rest of the week - baking and decorating pumpkin and leaf-shaped sugar cookies, going to a “trick or treat with the seniors” event at a nearby retirement home, attending a costume party put on by my MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group, and probably making some pumpkin-themed crafts.

At the end of last month, we were just starting to dabble in some “learning to read” programs on the computer.  After doing free trials of Headsprout and Reading Eggs, as well as checking out some CD-based reading/phonics programs from the library, we decided to have Madeline continue on with Reading Eggs past the two week free trial.

Headsprout was a great program (at least for the three episodes Madeline got to try), but it was pretty spendy - it would cost about $80 to purchase just the first half of the program.  The CD-based options from the library were pretty junky and not very helpful.  Madeline completed about 10 lessons of Reading Eggs in her two week trial, and seemed to be learning a lot and enjoying the process.  Buying a six month subscription cost $35, and we decided this was worthwhile since she would likely finish the entire program in that length of time.  While in some ways I would have rather spent that $35 on something we could have used over and over again, there is something to be said for paying for something that your child really enjoys in the learning process.

Madeline’s desire to learn to read, and her desire to spend time each day working on her Reading Eggs lessons, threw me for a loop in handling the rest of our preschool lessons.  With her working on reading skills on the computer, it didn’t make sense to focus a lot of time on doing other language-related lessons from our curriculum.  Also, the daily lessons for the math and language sections in our curriculum have moved on to actually being about 50% handwriting lessons.  I knew this was coming and hoped to spend some time working on doing a bit of writing with her…but with a lot of her energy and brain power going toward learning to read, she was even less interested than usual in practicing writing.  That completely made sense to me, so I didn’t want to push it. We did a few other things here and there from the daily curriculum lessons, but each week’s folder (I divided up the lessons into folders before the school year started) contained only a scant few lessons that seemed appropriate given what else was going on.

We finished up our unit on “Fall” at the beginning of the month, and I attempted to start a unit on Nutrition next.  It was only “attempted” because Madeline did not take to this at all.  She got bored of the books I picked out half way through, and wasn’t very interested the other activities I thought up either.  We didn’t even do very many science experiments or character-topic lessons this month, because when I didn’t have a specific day in mind to do them, I found it easy to put it off thinking we would do it a different day…and often that “other day” never came.

We did enjoy a lot of time this month playing educational board and card games — something that I think can be just as valid a method of learning as any for preschoolers.  Madeline really enjoys “go fish”, so we played with playing cards, alphabet cards (matching an upper case to its lowercase equivalent), and cards I made with numbers from 11-20.  We also enjoyed games of Memory, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders and Cranium Cariboo.

My plan for next month is to ditch the file folder system that I had been using to organize my lessons plans for the week.  Instead, I am going to take a three-hole punch and stick all the pages in a binder.  That way, we can move through the activities in each subject at an appropriate pace and not be constrained to doing a certain number of pages/daily lessons per week.  We might move through several weeks of math activities if many of them are easy, while taking our time on the language lessons if Madeline is still spending time each day doing Reading Eggs.   That organizational method will also allow me to more easily move around the curriculum to pick and chose character areas to study, and to maybe include a few Bible activities that I will match up with what we are reading in our bedtime Bible reading times.

I’m also going to assign our lesson areas other than math and reading/language arts to various days of the week in hopes that this will cause us to be more faithful to doing them.  For example, we might do a character topic lesson every Monday, a science project every Tuesday, etc.  I’m sure these daily plans will end up re-arranged some weeks, and that’s okay.  I think it’s kind of like menu planning - it saves me a lot of time to plan something out for each day of the week ahead of time. But,  I do it in pencil and feel free to re-arrange if I’m not going to have time to make something on a particular day, or if soup sounds better on the coldest day of the week rather than what turns out to be the warmest.

Heading into November, we’ll also try some new unit studies.  Of course, in the latter part of the month we will study Thanksgiving.  In the first part of the month, I had planned we would do a unit study on Fish.  Hopefully Madeline will find that a more enjoyable topic than our attempt to study nutrition!

This morning marked the completion of our first full 24 hour period of only using cloth diapers.  Yea! We started Erik in his first few cloth diapers on Thursday afternoon and evening.  Due to lack of supplies (the rest of everything I purchased didn’t arrive until yesterday afternoon) and plans to be out of town from Friday night through Saturday afternoon, I was only able to do a few cloth diapers each day from Friday through Sunday.  But on Monday I started the day with all six prefolds clean, and by early evening I had washed all my new supplies and could even put Erik in cloth overnight.

When I first got my prefolds, I tried the “easy” way of using them and just folded it in thirds and stuck it in the waterproof cover.  Apparently this works for a lot of people, but somehow it didn’t work for us.  Every time we did it, Erik leaked badly - some of this may have been not changing him soon enough, but I don’t think that was the whole problem.  I instead started using the slightly more complicated method of wrapping the prefold more into a diaper shape around Erik and using a “snappi” to fasten it before putting the diaper cover on him.  I don’t think we’ve had any leaks since I started doing this, and it only takes a bit longer.

However, I think it would be rare that he would last more than a couple hours with the prefold/cover combo, so I knew it wouldn’t work overnight without some kind of insert or doubler to increase absorbancy.  I had read that a lot of people who do prefolds during the day like using a pocket diaper with stuffed with lots of absorbancy for overnight.  We did a “fuzzi buns” diaper with two full inserts overnight last night, and it seemed just about perfect.  However, I know this means I will need a couple more inserts or doublers, since I only have three total right now and I am aiming to have enough to do laundry once every two days or so.  The pocket diapers are so easy to use that if I find a good deal on some, I might get a couple more for babysitters or others to use — since I wouldn’t expect the average person to be able to figure out the prefold/snappi/cover combo without having seen it done before.

I managed to avoid changing my first poopy cloth diaper until Monday afternoon. With only using cloth part time over from Thursday through Sunday, I just lucked out that all Erik’s dirty diapers were disposables during that time.  Even though Tony hasn’t had a chance to install a sprayer yet, dunking the offending diaper in the toilet wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The smell wasn’t much worse than when changing a diaper in general.  Don’t get me wrong — the diaper sprayer will be really nice — but I can survive without it until we get one.

Right now, especially once I can get on the routine of only doing diaper laundry every-other-day, I am not thinking the laundry will be much of an issue.  I did lots of laundry the past several days with prepping my new purchases and trying to get the most out of the few supplies I had while I was waiting for the rest to arrive.  I am finding it’s almost easier to know I have some laundry to do every day.  I think I might try doing a load of laundry every weekday morning and just alternating between loads of diapers and loads of clothes or towels/bedding.

It’s time for another Menu Plan Monday.  As we were eating our goulash for dinner tonight, I was thinking that maybe I should have saved this meal for Halloween and we could have said we were eating “ghoulash”…oooh spooky. Instead, I guess we’ll settle for maybe having our sandwiches shaped like pumpkins if I am feeling motivated. Here’s our menu for this week:

Monday: Salmon and veggie Pad Thai (Madeline will be at Grandma’s house for a couple days this week, and I always try and have Pad Thai when she is gone because it is her least favorite of all the meals I make. Originally this meal was supposed to be Chicken Pad Thai…but the grocery store was already out of the really cheap chicken that was supposed to be on sale starting today. Instead I found some “reduced for quick sale” fresh salmon fillets with a “use by” date of Monday! I’m not sure the salmon would taste good in the Pad Thai, so we’ll have it on the side.)

Tuesday: Cabbage Au Gratin Casserole (see recipe below) and sauteed zucchini

Wednesday: Beef Roast in the crock pot, mashed potatoes and a veggie du jour

Thursday: Egg, Shrimp and Rice bake (see recipe below) and a veggie du jour

Friday — Halloween: Homemade Tomato Soup (Bloody soup in honor of Halloween?) and grilled cheese or possibly another kind of sandwich…maybe shaped like pumpkins if I am really motivated! This will be my first time making tomato soup from anything other than a can.  I have one recipe from a friend, but I am still taking tomato soup recipe suggestions if anyone has a recipe to share!

Saturday: Chicken Tetrazzini (see recipe below) and a veggie du jour.  I’m still hoping to get some of that sale chicken if I stop back at the grocery store later in the week!

Sunday: Dinner with extended family, so we’re not cooking at home

Recipes for this week:

Cabbage Au Gratin Casserole (source unknown - it’s a recipe I got from my mom)

1 lb ground beef or ground turkey
1½ tbsp butter
½ head cabbage, chopped
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
½ cup sour cream
¼ tsp dill
½ cup dry bread crumbs or french fried onions

Brown ground beef or turkey; drain and put in a large bowl. Melt butter in skillet and add cabbage. Cook until crisp and tender (about 5 minutes). Put cabbage in bowl with meat. Add 3/4 cup cheddar cheese, sour cream, dill weed and stir.  Put in casserole pan and sprinkle with bread crumbs or french fried onions and remaining cheese. Bake at 325 for 30 minutes.

Turkey or Chicken Tetrazzini (source unknown - another recipe from mom!)

1 8oz. package spaghetti
6 tbsp butter
1 small onion, chopped
¼ cup flour
2¾  cup milk
1 can mushroom pieces
1 chicken bullion cube
½ tsp salt
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
4 slices white bread
2 cups chopped, cooked turkey (or chicken)

Cook spaghetti. Meanwhile, cook onion in 3 tbsp butter until tender. Stir in flour until blended. Gradually stir in milk, mushrooms (with their liquid), bullion and salt. Cook, stirring, until mixture is slightly thickened. Remove from heat and stir in cheese. Tear bread into small pieces to make 2 cups bread crumbs. In a small sauce pan, melt 3 tbsp butter. Remove from heat and stir in bread crumbs. Preheat oven to 350. Add sauce mixture and turkey to spaghetti. Gently toss to mix well. Pour into greased baking dish and top with bread crumbs. Bake 20 minutes or until heated through

Egg, Shrimp and Rice Bake (from a circa 1973-ish Betty Crocker cookbook)

9 hard-cooked eggs
3 tbsp. Mayonnaise
2 tsp. vinegar
½ tsp. mustard
Dash Worcestershire sauce
Dash pepper
1 can mushroom pieces, drained
1 can (4.5 oz) tiny shrimp, drained (or a small package of frozen salad shrimp)
¾ cup milk
1 can cheddar cheese soup
3-4 cups hot cooked rice

Cut peeled eggs in half length-wise. Slip out yolks and mash with fork.  Mix in mayo, vinegar, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and pepper.  Blend well.  Fill egg whites with mixture, heaping up it up lightly.

Heat oven to 350.  Heat mushrooms, shrimp, milk and soup until just boiling, stirring occasionally.  Spread rice into ungreased baking dish (11.5×7.5 fits perfectly).  Arrange eggs in three rows on rice.  Pour soup mixture over eggs.  Bake uncovered for 15 minutes.

As always…visit Menu Plan Monday at the “I’m an Organizing Junkie” website for more menu ideas!