Picture Perfect Cooking

In the Christian community, of which I am a proud member, this week is Holy Week ending with Easter on Sunday.  Every Easter that we can, we attend church services in the morning to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then fellowship with family in the afternoon and evening with some delicious food!  I usually make at least the dessert and, because it is springtime, I am drawn to strawberry flavored delights.  This year is no different and hopefully this new recipe will be a hit.  You will see it below in my food list.

I hope everyone had a good week and weekend.  We had a good but very work-busy week and am glad that it is behind us.  The weather has also been crazy, with lots and lots of rain and strong wind.  I am hoping for some nice, warm, calm weather for a change!

Here is my food plans for this week.  I will list my Easter dishes separately at the bottom.  Happy Easter!

Homemade sloppy Joes and oven baked fries (I made enough last week for 2 nights.)

Grilled hot dogs and chips

Grilled pork chops & butter roasted potatoes (The pork chops did not get made last week because I had to go to the grocery that night.)

Cheesy corn chip skillet

Pizza

Steak/seafood night

Southern Plate’s Apple Spice Muffins (new)

Easter menu: Citrus crock pot ham, butter roasted potatoes, sweet potato casserole, Strawberry cupcakes with “perfect” cupcake frosting (2 new recipes)

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Welcome to another week here at PPC, and since it is Monday, it is time for another weekly meal plan.  Have I said lately how much I love having my dinners and desserts planned ahead of time?  It makes life after work so much easier!  To know that I have the time and ingredients to make a delicious and (most of the time) healthy supper for C & I makes me a less stressful person and, believe me, that makes everybody happier! Ha,ha!!!

I finally made the lemon chiffon cake that I have been teasing you with for weeks now, and it is like every other Martha Stewart recipe that I have made.  It has a little something, hmm, I don’t know, missing.  The taste was good, but the texture was not quite as light and fluffy as I had hoped.  I also didn’t have the right size pan, so I had to use a slightly bigger one which made for a shorter cake.  It was good, but I probably won’t make it again.  The sunshine salad on the other hand was awesome!!!  It will definitely go into my regular rotation.

Hamburger stew

Chili (I still have a little left in the freezer.)

Taco ring & salad (Hopefully this will cover 2 nights.)

Grilled pork chops & roasted potatoes

Pizza

Steak/Seafood Night

Homemade sloppy Joes

Alton Brown’s Devil’s Food Cake & Frosting (new)

Easter is just around the corner, folks, and that means it is holiday cooking time again!  Yay!!  Come back to see what I have planned.

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Good Monday morning to everyone!  Time sure is flying by here since we are well into April already and there is so much that I want to do in the coming weeks before the weather gets way too hot.  There just never seems to be enough time with these perfect temperatures to get everything done outside that I would like. 

Even though Saturday was C’s birthday, we took care of a few chores around the house and nearby.  My dad, aunt, and Nanny came down so we could rake and seed Mom’s grave before it got to hot to sow grass.  It is hard to believe that Mom will be gone a year on Tuesday.  Sometimes it seems like I just saw her yesterday and sometimes it feels like she has been gone for years.  I miss her just as much now as I did a year ago and I so wish I could talk to her here on this earth again.  I am so thankful that when my time comes (hopefully about 100 years from now) that we will meet again in heaven and be together for eternity.

I also thinned my strawberry bed Saturday.  Nanny and Dad both wanted a few strawberry plants for pots and I told them I could give them a few, thinking that I should have about 5 or 6 extra.  Boy, was I wrong!!  I hadn’t cleaned the bed in 2 years so there was a bunch of runners that had rooted.  When I got done, I had moved 22 plants down the wall for us and had 16 for Nanny and Dad.  That’s not counting the original 25 that I planted two years ago that are still there.  I had 38 extra plants!!! 

The only chore that I had planned on doing that I did not have time for was to seed a few bare spots in our front yard, so I plan on taking care of that one day this week after work.  That is why I have a couple of easy meal nights this week.  I just hope the weather cooperates.

We also cheered on the University of Kentucky Wildcat men’s basketball team as they played in the Final Four.  Alas, they fell to the University of Connecticut, but they put up a good fight until the end.  Just wait until next year!!

Cheesy steak sandwiches with oven baked fries

Grilled hot dogs with chips

Cheesy corn chip skillet

Pizza night

Steak/seafood night

Famous pork chops with butter roasted potatoes

Lemon Chiffon cake (I promise to actually make that this week instead of just teasing you with it like the last 2 times!)

Sunshine fruit salad (new)

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Another week has flown by and it is Monday all over again.  It is also back to cooler temperatures after a few beautiful, warm days so this week is chili/soup week one more time.  Easter is so late this year, we may have a few more chili/soup days before it stays warm for good.

Saturday is C’s birthday (love you!), so this week’s dessert is just for him!  I also have to venture to the big grocery store this week, so one evening will be used for that. Oh, joy!!!

Chili

Grilled pork chops & roasted potatoes (I didn’t make this last week as planned because I had a night of leftovers.  Yay!!)

Beef vegetable soup with cornbread

Pizza Night

Steak/Seafood Night

Beef Roast Italiano (new)

Oreo Pie

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Happy spring!!!  I am so glad that spring has finally showed its lovely face around here!  The daffodils are blooming and new leaves are starting to bust out everywhere.  I am also happy to report that C and I had a successful car shopping day on Saturday.  We purchased a 2008 Chevrolet Equinox All Wheel Drive in black and it is sharp if I do say so myself.  I do not know anyone who actually likes to car shop and I don’t either, but it was time.  It had been almost six weeks since our accident and I had spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks looking at vehicles online and, boy, are they expensive!  We still had to give a little more than I wanted to for this one, but I think overall we got a pretty good deal.  I am really glad that it over!

Back to the fun stuff…food!  The only thing I did not have time to make last week was the lemon chiffon cake since we were out all day Saturday, so I am moving that one to this weekend.  I have a 20 year class reunion meeting on Saturday (gulp! 20 YEARS!), but I should have time to make the cake as well.  Here is what I have planned:

Leftover pineapple pork loin

Sausage bake and fruit

Round Steak Italiana (new recipe)

Grilled pork chops with butter roasted potatoes

Salisbury steak

Lemon Chiffon Cake (new recipe) For some reason, I just can’t get this recipe made.  Last week, I didn’t have time, and this week I discovered that I was missing some ingredients.  Oops! 

Southern Plate’s Banana Crumb Cake (new!)

Pizza night

Neighborhood restaurant night

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Happy Monday to everyone!  It is back to the grind for me after a week of vacation.  I enjoyed it so much!  C & I spent a few days in Louisville, KY for a work conference for C and then I had a couple of days at home to catch up on chores.  I had gotten so far behind after the car accident, and it is so nice to have a clean house and all of the laundry done for a change.  I even found a little time on Thursday to trim back the Knock-out rose bushes and weed around the front porch.

While I was working outside, I hooked Ellie up outside for the first time.  We bought a 20 foot wire dog lead and I hooked one end around a porch post and hooked the other end to Ellie’s collar.  Since this was the first time that I tried this, I never left her sight.  At first, she did not seem to know what to do.  She knew that I was not holding her, but she was still limited to how far she could go.  Eventually, I think she really liked it and laid down in the sunshine for a quick nap.  She did have her first experience with a lady bug.  There was one crawling on the ground in front of her and she sniffed it.  Then she made the mistake of licking it!!!  You should have seen her face!

Anyway, here is this week’s plan.  I am back to the “clean out the freezer and pantry” stage that I always get to before I go to the grocery, so I will probably have to break down and go one night this week.

Chili

Grilled pork chops & roasted potatoes

Pizza

Grilled steak and fried potatoes

Local seafood restaurant

Grocery night (eat out)

Meatloaf

Southern Plate’s lemon bars

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It’s is Monday again and time for me to get back in the swing of things.  I haven’t been very active since C & I were involved in a car accident a couple of weeks ago, but the aches and pains are much better so I am ready to get back to my routine.  Of course, that means menu planning and cooking!  This week’s plan relies on simple familiar dishes that I can make (almost) with my eyes closed.

Cheesy steak sandwiches with oven baked fries

Tomato soup & grilled cheese sandwiches

Grilled pork chops with butter roasted potatoes and salad

Pizza night

Fish & Steak night from the neighborhood restaurant

I know that’s only five dinners, but there are a couple of nights this week that I am not planning because I am not sure what we will be doing.  This is as close as I can get this time!  I hope everyone has a great week!

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Another week has passed and it is STILL WINTER!!!!  Our area has a chance of snow almost every day this week, but luckily we are not supposed to have much accumulation.  I feel so sorry for the folks in the Chicago area and the Northeastern part of the country.  As soon as they start to dig out from one storm, another one comes down on them.  I am so glad that I live as far south as I do!

This week’s menu is a little strange because this week is a little strange.  I have to go to the grocery one night so we will probably eat out. We have tickets to watch a local university play basketball one night, so we will probably make use of a steakhouse gift card that I received at Christmas.  There are also multiple days of court at my job this week, so I might use takeout one of those nights, too.  There won’t be much home-cooking this week which means no new recipes.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but I am usually short one night of dinners each week.  We live out in the “boonies” to use a local term and there is actually a restaurant just a couple of miles down the road that serves the best fried fish ever!  We usually eat there every Saturday night so that is why I am always short one dinner, just so you know that we are not fasting that night!  🙂

Cheesy steak sandwiches and oven fries

Sausage bake and salad

Pizza night

Mandarin orange cake (This is also a Southern Plate dish, but since I have been making it for years, I am not including it in my “project”.)

Shredded pork bbq

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