Thanksgiving Tuesday

Its Thanksgiving week.  We are travelling to visit my mom in Wisconsin on Thursday.  We are flying out of Jacksonville instead of Tallahassee (cost difference of about $200/ticket!) so we are heading out tomorrow night.

Due to all the travel, I don’t have a weekly menu to share.  However, tonight the kids and I are attending a Soup Potluck with some church folk.  So I am going to share with you one of my favorite soup recipes.  Broccoli Cheese!

I craved Broccoli Cheese soup all.the.time when I was pregnant with Will. I know it’s a pretty popular soup too.  But what I hate is when you get the restaurant soups, they are all usually overly salty, or made with super processed velveeta type cheese. 

I got this recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook I have.  I have made one small modification, but otherwise I pretty much follow it exactly.  It does not have a lot of salt (unless you use canned broth – which I like to use my own), and you can use vegetable stock to make it vegetarian.  I bet if you really wanted, you could try using coconut or almond milk to make it vegan even (omitting the cheese).  Which, someone should try and let me know how it turns out!

Ingredients:

3 cups chopped broccoli (you can use frozen)

1 carrot, shredded

1 can (14.5oz – just under 2 cups) broth (chicken or vegetable)

3 TBSP flour (this is my alteration – original recipe uses 2.  We like it thicker)

¼ cup cold water

1 cup half and half

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (optional)

Salt & pepper to taste

 

Directions:

Add broth, vegetables, and salt & pepper to pot.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook 6-8 minutes, or until broccoli is tender.  Meanwhile, mix flour & water in a small bowl.  Once vegetables are cooked tender, add flour mixture to pot, stirring constantly.  Bring to a boil and cook 1 minute.  Reduce heat and add half and half.  DO NOT ALLOW TO BOIL.  Cook until hot.  Once hot, add cheese gradually, stirring until melted & mixed completely.  Enjoy!

Throwback Thursday

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Since I didn't do Wordless Wednesday, I'm doing a Throwback Thursday!

Here is Uncle James and Grammy meeting Sydney Jade for the first time. November 27, 2010. 

Menu Monday

Veggies!

So, it's been awhile since you heard from me. Next week my daughter turns 3 AND it's Thanksgiving! Time is flying. I think Jes and I are trying to find our groove again. Life just gets overbearing at times. 

For me, a lot has happened since I last posted, including my husband losing his job (which impacts our food budget) and an update on his doctor visits and what the will mean for our family. It's been a roller coaster of emotion and events. I found myself breathing goofy a couple of times, which I can only attribute to some form of panic attack. I'm better, but when I get to thinking about things and feel a sense of being overwhelmed, the goofy breathing manifests itself about 30 minutes or an hour later. It's really a bummer but I'll make it through.

As far as our food budget, it's really taken a cut. I've made it a point to be strict about the amount we spend at the store. I've split our costs between Bountiful Baskets and HEB. I've been pretty successful thus far, but it's only been about 3 weeks.

Here is what our family will eat this week. 

Monday - Breakfast for dinner. Bacon, potato, egg, and cheese tacos.

Tuesday - Cheesy Chicken and Rice Bake

Wednesday - Spaghetti w/meat sauce

Thursday - Out

Friday - Pepperoni Pizza & Salad

Saturday - Baked Potato Soup & Grilled Cheese

Sunday - Sloppy Joe's & Fries

This week's menu isn't ultra healthy, but it's easy on me. Also, I realize I have a lot of potatoes in this week's menu. But we got a TON in our basket this past week and I have to use them up! I will also be making lots of mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving!

Hope you have a great one!

Wordless Wednesday: ONE!

Halloween Princesses

Last year was Abby’s first year Trick-or-Treating.  It left such an impression on her that she talked about “getting candy for her pumpkin” all.year.long.  So she was super excited to learn that yes, Halloween did come again!

I asked her what she wanted to be.  She said “I want to be a princess like Foofa” – which, if you haven’t seen or heard of Yo Gabba Gabba! you’re missing out.  In the Halloween episode Foofa is a fairy princess.  A few weeks later, she very specifically told me she wanted a “purple princess costume.”  Well.  There you go.  I was sort of hoping for a superhero but what can you do.  A purple princess it is.

I knew this year I wanted to make her costume – so long as she didn’t ask for anything too elaborate, haha.  And while a princess wouldn’t have been my first choice for her, I knew it would be a fairly easy costume to make.  I soon found out that Christina’s little girl, Sydney, also wanted to be a princess for Halloween.  And, since I was in the crafty/creative mood, I volunteered to make her a dress too!  Yep.  Two princess dresses.  I went to Joann’s and got lucky in finding some great pink princess dress remnants.  But I had to buy Abby’s purple princess fabric full price – which…nothing is ever really full price at Joann’s, since, I used a coupon!  Anyway, supplies and all I think I spent maybe $25 for BOTH dresses.  And if you think about what they charge for those Disney princess flimsy fabric costumes, this was a deal!

Here is what I used:

2yds of fabric per dress (1yd of each color) – this is probably a generous amount, but since this was my first attempt at princess dress-making, I wanted to make sure I had extra in case I mis-cut something (which, I did!) 

Gold Ribbon (for both dresses)

Pink Ribbon (for both dresses)

Matching bias tape (one for each dress)

Matching thread (one for each dress)

Velcro (for the back closure)

 

I did a lot of web and Pinterest searches for princess dress tutorials.  It was tough at first, because I couldn’t seem to find one that had everything I wanted for the dress.  So, I decided to mix & match two of them. 

I made the front of the bodice from this tutorial: Rapunzel

I made the back and the sleeves from this one: Cinderella

And, I pretty much winged the skirt – but I followed the second tutorial mostly for construction ideas. 

The whole process was much easier than I thought it would be.  It was a little tough working with the satin, but, I figured, since these dresses were meant for 3 year olds, they weren’t going to be critiqued too harshly! 

They came out SUPER cute and I felt very “domestic” that I was able to create something so fun!

Menu Monday!

Sorry we’ve been gone. 

 

I’ve been extra busy at work (had a huge project due, which has finally been submitted) and Christina has been busy trying to juggle her usual tasks on top of issues that have come up with Scott. 

But, we are hopefully back.  And I’m super excited because the holidays are here!  We had a great Halloween (I’ll share more on Friday), and we are travelling to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving and to NY for Christmas.  Looking forward to all of it.

This also means its crunch time to get gifts out!  I’m trying to do a lot of handmade gifts to save a little bit of cash.  I’d share more, but, I can’t because some of my gift recipients will be reading this!  But I will share after Christmas!

In order to make time to work on all these crafty things, I prepped a bunch of meals yesterday.  Here is our menu for the week:

Monday: Chicken Tikka Masala w/ Peas & Jasmine rice

Tuesday: Southwestern Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie*

Wednesday: Drunken Pork Chops (recipe found by Christina!)

Thursday: Meaty Spaghetti Squash Casserole

Friday: Crock Pot Beef Stroganoff (over whole wheat egg noodles)

Saturday: WILLIAM’S FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY!

*added to freezer stash