Picture Perfect Cooking

Welcome to this week’s edition of Menu Plan Monday!  Please join me and many other planners over at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday where you can see what other people are cooking this week, too.

C & I have enjoyed this beautiful weekend which heralded in the first days of Autumn.  The sun shone and the sky was so very blue.  We celebrated this glorious weather by pressure washing the house.  Yay! (Sarcasm, there.)  At least it is pretty much done for the year and I am so thankful for that.  There are a few little outside cleanup projects that we want to do this fall, but the washing was the big one.

This week’s plan includes a couple of dinners that I had planned for earlier in the month, but they didn’t get made for one reason or another.  Also, my dad’s side of the family is having their annual reunion next Sunday and we are planning to attend.  It is potluck with the meat provided so I will probably take homemade cookies and chips of some kind. 

Cheesy steak sandwiches with oven fries (2 nights)

Bubble-up enchilada bake (2 nights)

Shredded pork bbq with curly fries

Pizza night

Mississippi mud cookies (reunion)

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What does menu planning mean to you?  For me, it means knowing in the back of my mind that I know what I am making for supper when I get home from work and that I have the ingredients to do it.  The time it takes to sit down and make out a weekly or monthly plan is so worth it for the peace of mind and stress reduction that I get out of it. 

Most of the time, I can also plan for lunches this way, too.  Since I am usually cooking for just C & I, a lot of the main dishes will produce enough leftovers for at least one lunch.  This saves us from running to the local fast food joint and, over time, saves us time, money and calories.  I highly recommend it!

That’s not to say my plans never change because it happens a lot.  I just save the meals that don’t get made for another time.  This week is a pretty easy week with one new main dish and one new dessert.  I hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed week. Happy menu planning!

Salsa sloppy Joes (new) with oven fries

Baked ham slices with butter roasted potatoes

Taco ring (2 nights)

Pizza night

Basic meatloaf with curly fries

White chocolate raspberry cake (new)

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

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Welcome to another Monday, everyone!  I hope all my readers had a wonderful weekend and are looking forward to a good week.  C & I had a nice quiet couple of days off and enjoyed it by getting outside with the dogs and taking a few long walks with a little yard and housework thrown in.  It just went by way too fast!

I am keeping it pretty simple this week with a couple of new sweet treats planned for the weekend so I hope to have plenty of time to enjoy this beautiful fall-like weather.  Have a great and blessed week!

Walking taco casserole (new)

Grilled hamburgers with oven fries

Basic buttermilk pancakes with bacon

Baked rotini

Pizza night

Homemade sloppy Joes with curly fries

Chocolate frosted sponge cake with frozen cranberry salad (new)

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

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Welcome to Menu Plan Monday!  It is hard to believe that another week has already gone by, but it has.  We finally had a cool down here in the Bluegrass and this past weekend’s weather was just perfect.  The sun shone, there was a awesome breeze and the temperatures were in the 80s.  I spent a couple of evenings just lounging on the deck reading a book.  Aah , the good life!

I also completed my first furniture refinishing project on Saturday.  There was a dresser and chiffarobe left in my late great-grandparents’ house that my grandmother very generously gave to me and I have painted them to use in our upstairs purple bedroom.  I put the finishing touches on them and packed all of the drawers upstairs.  Now, we just have to get the big pieces up there and then there will be a great reveal and how-to on here.  This project has been a lot of fun and if I had more free time, I would love to do more furniture like this.  It is especially sweet that these are pieces that have been in my family for generations.

Anyway, back to food…I also made homemade tomato sauce for the first time Saturday morning and it is delicious, BUT, after spending hours of time and using over four pounds of tomatoes, I only ended up with 3 CUPS of sauce.  Not 3 pints or 3 quarts…3 CUPS!!!  It is really good, but I’m not sure if it is worth the time investment or not.  Opinions?

Here is what I plan to cook this week:

Grilled pork chops with oven baked fries

Cheesy steak sandwiches with oven baked fries (2 nights)

Pizza (2 nights)

Cheesy meatloaf minis (new) with butter roasted potatoes

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

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Welcome to the first Monday in August, everyone.  Wow, where did June and July go?  School started back in our county last Thursday, so C is hard at it again making sure all of the computers and other technology work for the teachers and students.  We may not have kids, but we still feel the crunch of back-to-school time just from a different perspective.

Today is a first for me…I work in the judicial branch of government in our local clerk’s office and, like all government agencies, the budget is TIGHT!!  So tight, in fact, that during the last six months of this year, all non-elected judicial employees are being forced to take three unpaid furlough days to help balance the budget and today is my first one.  I don’t mind having the time off, in fact, I love it.  The problem is we don’t get paid for them! It wouldn’t be so bad if waste in government wasn’t so obvious and it seems like it should be easier to find ways to trim the fat without furloughing lowly office workers like me.  Oh, well. 

I plan on spending this furlough day going to the grocery.  Doesn’t that sound like fun?  I haven’t been to Wal.-.mart in two months and we are running dangerously low on some household essentials so today is the day.  Last week, I sat down with a calendar and made a rough menu plan for the whole month, so hopefully I can get most of what I need except for some perishable items.  Here’s what is on the menu for this week…

Grilled pork tenderloin

Grilled steakburgers with oven fries

Baked ham slices with butter roasted potatoes and fresh cucumbers

Italian sausage bake with fresh cucumbers

Hot ham and cheese rolls with quick and easy veggie pasta salad

Pizza night

A-1 Swiss steak

Chocolate chip comfort cookies (new)

Orange fluff Jello salad

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

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Is it Monday again already?  Wow, where did the weekend go?  Oh, yeah, now I remember…I worked Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon, C & I went to another RC airplane show in nearby Bowling Green.  Sunday was spent going to church, attending a 10th birthday party for Chad’s cousin, and dinner at my Nanny’s.  Whew…I am tired just thinking about it.  I can’t complain though because we had a lot of fun and spent some good time with family and friends.

I am still working on cleaning out the fridge and freezer this week before heading to the grocery next week.  I will need to stop and get a few essentials, but I think most of our meals will be made with ingredients we have on hand.

Paula Deen’s tacos (new)

Grilled steaks with oven fries and fresh cucumbers

Grilled pork chops with grilled potato slices and fresh cucumbers

Pizza night (should have enough for leftovers the next night)

Easy shredded pork BBQ

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

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Good morning, my dear readers!  Did you miss me last Monday?  Sorry I was MIA with my menu plan, but we had a little computer problem.  Never fear though, C came to my rescue and now our PC is up and going again.  Gotta love having a tech-savvy hubby!

Since I didn’t have a chance to catch you up with our goings and doings from last weekend and week, I’ll do it now.  Saturday before last, we went to Jets Over Kentucky in nearby Springfield to watch some world-class (literally…there were pilots from Spain, Great Britain and Canada) pilots fly their very fancy and very expensive remote-controlled jets.  C loves RC planes and this show was a treat!  Admission was only $5 a person per day and it lasts several days.  I will have a Thoughtful Thursday post later with photos! 

Also, last week was my birthday and it was my last one in my thirties.  Yikes!!  That means I will be forty next year.  That just can’t be right!  It was a great day and I look forward to many, many more.

Here is this week’s menu plan.  It is close to the end of the month so I am trying to use ingredients I have on hand before going to the grocery.

Sausage Bake with fresh cucumbers

Baked ham slices with oven baked fries

Taco ring with cucumbers

Pizza night

Honey butter pork loin (new) with oven baked fries

Please join me over at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

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Please join me over at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday, where I and many many other great bloggers, tell you what we are having for supper this week.  We are still in the throes of a major heat wave and dry spell here at home.  It has been weeks since the last time it rained and the yards and fields are brown and crunchy.  I am watering my little garden beds and planters so they are still doing fairly well despite multiple days with temperatures well over 100 degrees.  It’s just HOT, folks, there is no other way to say it!

This week our wonderful country will celebrate its birthday and I hope everyone has a happy and safe Independence Day.  Watch out for those fireworks…we don’t want any fires getting out of control.  C & I are planning on seeing the new Spiderman movie that day if all goes well.  We saw a preview of it at the Imax theater in Newport and it looked awesome!

Grilled pork chops with oven fries and apple coleslaw (new)

Philly cheesesteak sloppy Joes (new) with oven fries

Country ham and biscuits with roasted potatoes and fresh veggies

Pizza night

Baked ziti

Peanut butter bars (new)

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