Tales From the Minivan

I have been feeling so energized lately! On a whim 2 weeks ago, I moved Finn’s crib into Liam’s room. I was really overtired and rundown, don’t get me wrong I’m a huge advocate for co-sleeping it really worked well for us, but when you’re sick you get desperate! The first evening was not too bad, I had a lot of trouble getting him into the crib without waking him, as the railing was too high for me. When I lowered it everytime I’d raise it back into a locking position it would wake the little guy! He woke up about 3
times between 8pm and 12am, and Andrew went in to settled him down, he’d pick him right up and cuddle him and once he was back asleep he put him back down. From midnight until 8am….he slept right through! The next night, he only woke up once around 10pm and since he has slept through each night for 13 hours! He has dropped one daytime nap but I’m OK with that! Here’s a well rested Finn:

Since I’ve been so well rested I’ve been trying some new recipes, and my pal Sarah recommended this one! It was so good, I decided to take photos and show the steps! She’s a big fan of Rachael Ray and tries a lot of her recipes. The original recipe can be found here: Turkey Stuffin’ Meatloaf

I made a few modifications to it, as a few of the ingredients were American and I made due with what I had in the house. Here’s my version:

4 T butter
1 large Carrot diced (not in original recipe, but I added for colour)
4 stalks of Celery
1 large onion (I use a sweet vidalia, I love these)
5-7 cups of stale breadcrumbs (I seasoned mine with Bell’s season..a combo of marjoram, thyme, sage etc and baked them in the oven I also added salt and pepper)
1.5 lbs of ground Turkey
3 cups of chicken broth (may not need all of this)
2 eggs
EVOO- extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

I started by preparing the stuffing to set aside to cool before adding it to the ground turkey. Melt butter over med-high heat, once the butter is melted add carrots, celery and onion and cook until tender. Add breadcrumbs and broth and combine with veggies, you may not need all of the broth as you don’t want the stuffing to be too gooey.

Here’s a pic of the completed stuffing:

Once stuffing is complete set aside and let cool. For the next step I used my Kitchenaid mixer, but I’m sure you can do it by hand just as easy, I just love to put my mixer to use! Once the stuffing has cooled down a bit mix the ground turkey , 2 eggs and stuffing mixture together until combined. Make 2 long loaves, I set down plastic wrap to form the loaves and lined my pan with non-stick foil (I love the Reynolds Release Wrap!) then drizzle the olive oil over the loaves.

Bake at 375F fr approx 1 hour until the internal temp reaches 165F, I find a meat thermometre is one of the most useful kitchen gadgets I have!

Here’s a shot of the finished product. I made smashed potatoes as a side dish, they were really easy.

1 Bag of Mini Red skins potatoes
3/4 cup sour cream
1 onion sauted with 1/4 lb bacon (you can substitute bacon bits)
3/4 cup of grated marble cheese

Boil Potatoes with skins on. Once cooked add the remainder of ingredients and mix well. I found a mixer with combine them the best. Once they are smashed together put in oven safe casserole and bake for another 20 minutes! Enjoy!

It was a big hit with Andrew Mackenzie, Finn and myself! Liam on the other hand told us, “His brain wouldn’t let his hand feed it to him!” , and Ciaran filled up on the “tatoes” his favorite. I think the only reason he would try the meatloaf was because Liam wouldn’t. ARRRRGH!

I am REALLY getting into this meal planning! This method has really made it enjoyable! I love that I’m finally getting to try some recipes in some of the great cookbooks I have. I love to cook and try new things, but in the past whenever I wanted to try a new recipe, I found there was always an item or two that I didn’t have. Planning these meals out before grocery shopping has insured that I don’t miss something, plus it’s saving me money! I now don’t have to make that trip to the grocery store for an item I was missing and walking out spending more than I needed to.

So onto this evening’s dinner, I did a baked rigatoni. It took a little under 30 minutes to prepare and 20 minutes to bake, not bad! I did have to add a little something for the boys that the recipe did not call for, but was a great addition. The boys love pepperoni, so I bought a stick of it and sliced some coin sized portions to add. I also added some Italian sausage to it as Andrew and I like it and it was on sale this week. I bought a really large tray of them, so what I did was boiled them then let them cool, removed the casings and sliced them into coins, then froze them. This makes it really easy to throw them into a pasta dish for a little extra flavor. Here’s the recipe for anyone that’s interested!

BAKED RIGATONI
1 T olive oil

½ lb of lean ground beef

2 mild Italian precooked sausage sliced into coins (optional)

1 diced onion

1 diced red pepper

1 can of tomato sauce

1 cup of cottage cheese

3 cups of rigatoni, cooked

1 cup of shredded cheese

¼ cup of romano cheese, grated

Preheat oven to 350F

In a Skillet heat olive oil and sauté onions and peppers until translucent. Add ground beef and cooked until browned and crumbled, add sausage and continue to stir often. Next add tomato sauce and cottage cheese and rigatoni to the sauce and mix well. In a 11x 13 casserole add the rigatoni mixture and top with the two cheeses. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until hot and cheese is melted.

After such a successful week of meal planning and no last minute scrambling at Dinnertime last week, I decided to take Saturday morning and review the grocery store flyers for sales and plan around any deals. For me this really works well, and I find saves a lot of money. I figured out that we were actually spending less than $100 a week on groceries. I’m curious to see if this number will go up over the next little while as our family “Fixes Dinner” and eats out less often. At our Family Meal Planning Meeting I gave everyone an opportunity to choose a meal (well 5 of us anyway ;)…Finn doesn’t get a say yet!) After the meals were chosen, I used Sandi’s Cooking for the Rushed-Custom Grocery List I made my list of 5 meals, then added any ingredients that I did not have on hand to the list. One thing I did do and made a small star on any items if they were on sale and what store (I normally always go to both major chains as they are very close together.) What I like about this list is that the items were grouped together and it was easier to make sure you didn’t miss anything. I almost always forget something and have to make a trip mid-week to get something I’ve missed.

Off I went Sunday afternoon (all alone believe it or not) armed with my list, and I’m am so glad I had a plan this week! Sunday night the stomach flu hit, first Finn, then two days later Ciaran. Let’s just say, a LOT of laundry has been done this week. In the past something like this would have totally thrown me off and I would have been scrambling at Dinnertime or asking Andrew to pick something up, but since I had everything I needed on the list and my meals set for the week, it was one less thing I needed to worry about! So here’s how the week played out!

Monday- Memphis Rubbed Chicken (recipe below) Roasted with Root Veggies

This was my choice for the week and is super easy. Small whole chickens were on sale, and my plan was originally to make two using our “double beer can stand” (see pic below) but I completely forgot that I was decluttering the kitchen this summer and gave away the only roasting pan that it fit into. So I decided to freeze one of the chickens and roast the other using a dry rub, and throw in some cubed, red skin potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and turnip into the roaster with the chicken. I added some chicken broth to the roaster as well, then baked until my chicken had reached 180°F ( a meat thermometer is a necessity if you cook a lot of whole chickens and turkeys like I do) by then the veggies were nice and tender.

Memphis Dry Rub Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

1/4 cup paprika

1 tablespoon packed dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon white sugar

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon celery salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste

1 teaspoon dry mustard

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

DIRECTIONS

In a small airtight container, mix paprika, dark brown sugar, white sugar, salt, celery salt, ground black pepper, cayenne pepper, dry mustard, garlic powder and onion powder. Seal and store in a cool dark place until ready for use.

Outcome: Delicious!!…lots left for lunch the next day, and the left over chicken will be used for Tuesday’s Dinner! Liam, once again wouldn’t try anything. What am I going to do with this boy?

Photo of Beer Can Chicken with Memphis Dry Rub

Tuesday- Chicken Fajitas

This was Andrew’s pick for the week, and was super easy as all I had to do was wash, slice and sauté the peppers. Once they were getting tender I added in some Epicure Fajita Seasoning (for those of you not familiar with Epicure Selections they are a Canadian Company that have fantastic seasonings and spices and offer home parties, I had a party last fall and fell in love with their stuff). After the seasoning was added I threw in the leftover chicken, and that was it! I must add, that I have never been more happy to chop lately. I got a new knife at a Pampered Chef Party, and I love this little green knife called the Color Coated Santoku Knife, I will warn it’s super sharp, but cuts so nicely through everything! I was planning on spending big money on a really good quality knife, but I think I’d rather buy a few of these for $23 each, I’ll let you all know how it holds up.

I served the fajitas with whole wheat flat breads, grated marble cheese, salsa, sour cream, and since there was some leftover jasmine rice, I added some fajita seasoning to it and microwaved it to add into the fajitas.

Outcome: The boys would not touch a bite, by now Ciaran’s flu had set in and anything put in front of him was turned down. Liam, just keep helping himself to the grated cheese!

Wednesday- Rachael Ray’s Spaghetti and Meatball “Stoup”

INGREDIENTS:

2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 Carrot peeled and diced

1 medium onion diced

2 celery stalks

3 cloves of garlic chopped

1 large can of tomato sauce

1 box of chicken broth

Optional Ingredients if making own meatballs:

1 lb of ground beef

1/2 cup grated parmigiano or romano cheese

½ cup Italian season breadcrumbs

1 large egg

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

½ lb of spaghetti broken (or whatever pasta you prefer)

1 cup of fresh basil leaves (I did not add this)

1. Preheat a medium soup pot over medium heat; add olive oil, carrots, onions, celery, garlic and saute 5 minutes.
2. Add tomato sauce, chicken stock and cover pot; turn up heat and bring to a fast boil; while soup comes cooks make meat balls.
3. Mix ground meat with cheese, bread crumbs, egg and parsley; roll into 1 1/2 to 2 inch-balls. ***I used frozen Italian style meatballs)
4. Remove lid from soup and SLIDE balls into soup; bring back to a boil then stir in spaghetti; reduce heat and simmer soup 10 minutes more, until pasta is tender and balls have cooked through; Stir in basil and remove’Stoup” from heat, serve soup with bread and cheese.

This soup was fantastic and Mackenzie’s chosen meal for the week. It’s called “Stoup” as it’s thicker that soup, but thinner than stew. I decided to make it a little more Liam friendly and added tricolor fusili and some organic alphabet pasta. I also threw in a couple of mild Italian sausages to make it a little more heartier.

Outcome- Success finally! Even Liam was asking for more “Stoup”! This will go into the rotation!

Thursday- Breakfast for Dinner

This was Liam’s choice for the week. He wanted Bacon and Eggs! Dinner consisted of a pound of maple bacon, 6 eggs and homemade hashbrowns fried with Vidalia onions.

The bacon, and eggs I did in the oven. My dad showed me this trick as long as you have a pan that is deep, to spread the slices of bacon on your sheet and bake in the oven at 375F the bacon cooks perfectly and rarely burns, and it’s much less messier than frying it on the stove. The eggs I found a recipe in CPO’s- Canada Cooks called Baked Eggs Toasty Cups and baked in the oven along with the bacon. My dad stopped by for a moment and was impressed with the smells coming from the kitchen. I get my love for food from him, thanks Dad! I must show one more gadget that is really useful, also by Pampered Chef. I used this to chop my potatoes to make the hashbrowns, it took just a couple of minutes to dice 8 potatoes and an onion! It’s called the Food Chopper and is amazingly easy to use and can be thrown into the dishwasher. I love doing carrots, celery, and onions with it for soups, it’s so quick!

Tomorrow Friday- Shepherds Pie

This is Ciaran’s pick, well his pick was “Mashed Tatos” but will eat this since the potatoes hide the extras in it! This reminds me I need to go take out my ground beef to thaw!

I really hope that by tomorrow Ciaran is finally feeling a bit better, this has been 3 days now of not keeping anything solid down. It’s days like these when I’m happy he’s still nursing and getting nutrients that way.

I’m always looking for great family friendly recipes, so if you have some send them my way or submit them to Canada Cooks!

After a wonderful week in Grand Cayman, I really felt that I’ve recharged my batteries and ready to jump right into the Challenge! I thought I’d share some of our meals from this week and let you know how things went!

Monday: This was a Holiday, and our first day home, so luckily dinner was leftover Turkey at Andrew’s Moms house. YUMMY! Turkey is my favorite!

Tuesday: Spaghetti and Garlic Cheese Bread (chosen by Mackenzie)

This was actually a really easy meal, as I generally make a huge batch of spaghetti sauce, then freeze it flat in large zipper freezer bags. Another thing that would work well, (as I’m trying to cut down on plastic bag use,) is to freeze the sauce in a circular container like an icecream container and place it in your crockpot for the day to warm. I made whole wheat spaghetti and picked up a fresh loaf of French Bread for the Garlic Cheese Bread.

Outcome: Well accepted by everyone, but Liam, but he did actually have a few bites, this is a start!

Wednesday: Beef in a Bag

Another easy meal that I really enjoy! I have mentioned this before on one of our MomTalk Podcasts called “What’s for Dinner?”. It’s made with a product from Club House, called “Bag n Season” it’s found in the garvy and sauces secion of your grocery store.

I threw in an inside round cut of roast beef in the bag along with an onion, potatoes, carrots, turnip and sweet potato, I tried something a little different and put in a can of beef broth in with the season mix and set the oven to use the delayed start, so I wouldn’t get side tracked and forgot to put it in. About 2 hours later, it was all perfectly cooked and delicious. If you’d rather use your own seasonings for your roast, you can also buy oven bags made called Look! You can usually find these in the area where freezer bags, plastic wrap and tin foil are found in your grocery store.

Outcome: Mackenzie, Ciaran and I all went back for seconds, Liam, would not try anything. He ended up having a ham sandwich. I did tell him, that if he wasn’t eating what everyone else was, that he’d have to wait until we were all finished before he got his. We’ll keep trying!

Thursday: Old Fashioned Potato Scallop and Ham

This recipe is so easy and came from a cooking course I took many years ago at a family resource centre in Nova Scotia.

Old Fashioned Scalloped Potatoes

Ingredients:

8 medium potatoes
1 onion thinly sliced
2 T flour
2 T margarine
2 cups of hot milk
1 cup of cheddar cheese (optional)
Salt and pepper

Slice potatoes into thin, coin shaped pieces. Slice onion into thin slices.
Layer 1/3 of potatoes in bottom of roasting pan (I use a 9×13 glass casserole). Cover with 1/3 of onion. Dot with margarine and sprinkle with 1/3 of flour. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and 1/3 of cheddar cheese. Repeat layers until all ingredients are layered. Pour hot milk over all ingredients, place into oven uncovered. Bake at 350 F for 1 hour, or until potatoes are baked through.

The ham was one I picked up on sale that I threw in the freezer, I took it out to thaw in the refrigerator Tuesday night. It was one that was already pre-cooked so all that had to be done was heat in up. I sliced it and placed it in a casserole dish and drizzled on some pure maple syrup and baked it in the over for about 15- 20 minutes.

Outcome: Liam would not touch the Potato Scallop, but gobbled up a really thick piece of ham.

Friday: Yellow Thai Chicken Curry with Jasmine Rice

This sounds like a really complicated dish, but I use a shortcut…canned vegetables! I know that they can be a little higher in salt content, so I make sure to rinse them first! I used to be able to find a really great curry paste at a local Asian market, but they don’t sell it anymore! I decided to try a can of PC’s Thai Yellow Curry Sauce (see photo below) and it’s really good! It’s extra hot so I add a can of coconut milk to it along with the vegetables (sweet potato, baby corn, potatoes, water chestnuts) and about 3 chicken breast that were already sliced and cooked.

Outcome: Everyone enjoyed and although Liam would not eat and of the vegetables in the curry, he did have a big bowl of Jasmine Rice with the curry sauce on it, it’s a start!

Now off to plan a family meeting on this week’s meal plan! I’m so proud of myself for sticking to the plan all week, this challenge is just what we needed!

Yesterday, we spent the day at the resort enjoying the pool, taking a few walks on the beach, reading and relaxing. It was truly heavenly. I decided to do a little video of the resort, so hopefully this will work for you. As well here’s a few pics from our day relaxing.

Coral Sands Resort Video

Dinner Fix Cayman Style
My original plan was to blog my families experiences with the Dinner Fix Challenge, but this opportunity to come to Grand Cayman came up so quickly, I haven’t had time to start the Challenge. I did however, get to make a really nice dinner here last night, and it happens to be one of Mackenzie’s favourites. I ended up cheating a little bit and used a seasoning I bought in the grocery store made by www.atasteofthai.com ‘s Chicken & Rice Seasoning as well as canned vegetables to prepare it quicker.

Thai Chicken & Rice One Pot Dinner
INGREDIENTS

DIRECTIONS

I’m really looking forward to participating in CPO’s upcoming Dinner Fix Challenge! It’s for those of us that have been struggling with getting dinner on the table and a helping hand to get our families back to the table. Starting October 1st CPO will be featuring a 6 week community challenge to help us all get back into meal planning and eating healthy.
The challenge will offer a step by step approach to putting together meal plans with the help of Sandi Richard, Canadian Mom and professional meal planner. I was mentioning the Dinner Fix Challenge to a friend of mine the other day and mentioned that Sandi Richard was going to be helping us, and she instantly got excited. She religiously uses Sandi’s first book “Life’s on Fire- Cooking For the Rushed”, and accredits Sandi with “teaching her how to cook”. Sandi is also the host of the Food Network Canada’s show “Fixing Dinner”. Needless to say I’m very excited about this!

Other than getting organized with a meal plan and sticking to it, our biggest challenge is getting everyone to eat the same meal when it’s served. You see, Liam is an extremely picky eater. My mother jokes that he’s payback for what I put her through when I was a child, as I too was a picky eater. He’d be more than happy to eat a bowl of cereal at every meal if he had the choice. What I need are some kid friendly recipes for a picky eater, so if anyone has any to share I’d love for you to post them in The Dinner Fix Challenge Board.
Here’s one recipe that everyone in the family loves, it’s my recipe for homemade pizza dough. I’ve scoured the Internet for good recipes and combined different ingredients to get a really good combination. I’ve mentioned this one on our recent What’s For Dinner Podcast. This recipe is easiest made using a kitchen mixer with a dough hook, but can also be made by hand, but you may need to do a little more kneading.

Cara’s Easy Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

Approx 6 cups of flour (you may need more or less)

2 cups of warm water (not too cool, it should be hot but still comfortable test with your hand)

2.5 Tablespoons of Yeast

1 Tablespoon of Honey

2 Tablespoons of Sugar

½ cup of Olive Oil (I usually mix this half Canola, Half Olive Oil

1 tsp of salt

Directions:
Pour in water. Add Honey, Sugar and Salt. Stir until dissolved. Add yeast and mix for about 10 seconds. Add 1 cup of Flour and mix. Next add Oil and mix until blended. Add the rest of the flour a little at a time and mix for a minute or two, using the dough hook in your mixer the dough should start to ball up. If not you may need to add a little water until it does. If you mixture is still very sticky and wet, add more flour. You’ll know when it’s the right consistency because it will form into a ball and look like dough. At this point you can knead the dough, or just leave in the bowl and let it rise for about 45 minutes in a warm place. When you return it will have doubled in size. Give it a punch and spread out on your pizza pans. Bake at 400 degrees for approx 17-20 minutes.

For a change we like Chicken and sweet peppers as our main ingredient and an alternative to tomato sauce. My husband like salsa as the base sauce, the some chicken cooked with taco seasoning, sweet peppers (orange yellow & red) and some grated marble cheese. Mackenzie’s favorite is BBQ chicken, we use our favorite BBQ sauce as the base with all of the same ingredients. The boys like classic pepperoni and I generally make them they’re own personal size mini pizza’s on my mini pizza stones.

If you end up with extra dough, why not make up and extra pizza and freeze it?