Good ideas

I keep thinking of things that would be good to blog about and then don't get around to it and don't really remember entirely what I wanted to say if I can even remember the subject I wanted to blog. But here are the things I do remember:

Updater blog. I came across this idea and thought it was great. Because my blog is private the only way to know when I blog is to check...maybe some people check a lot, maybe some don't. But because I'm pretty random with my blogging frequency I thought it would be a good idea to have this blog so you can either put it on your blog list or if you use google reader you can "add a subscription" and be alerted that way of when I post. So if you are interested in doing that here is where you can find the Bennett Updater blog.

Since having Arya we have blown out our budget both months. Mostly on groceries and eating out. Whenever we do this it's generally because I become really lazy with my cooking. I don't love this about myself because it seems to happen in cycles where I will do great, shop smart, and cook thoughtfully, but then inevitably I get lazy again, we eat out a lot and because our meals aren't planned we spend more.

Since my sister Becca has been here we have been watching a lot of the Food Network. I think I should watch this more often because it inspires me to cook more and that will save us money. There's this one lady who cooks something and then uses something from that meal for 2 or 3 other meals for the week. Well I like variety and so using something for that many meals in a week is not my cup of tea, but I liked the idea of it. So this week I got to work and here's the menu I came up with that I feel is quite efficient:

This week had,
Monday: Chicken Cordon Bleu-wiches(BTW this is the yummiest meal, not even joking, in my opinion it is so much tastier then regular Chicken Cordon Bleu. You can find the recipe here. Because I don't like swiss cheese I use extra sharp(white) cheddar which is DELISH and I made a creamy dijon sauce)
Tuesday: Donair burgers(just a spin off of the delicious donairs that are from Mark's mission)
Wednesday: Rigatoni with homemade spaghetti sauce and corn(this is where the efficiency comes into play. We had some giant cans of tomatoes and tomato sauce laying around so I made a bulk batch. I heated it up with some onions and garlic took about a third of it out for homemade bbq sauce and made the other 2/3's into spaghetti sauce. After our meal we bagged 3 more meals worth of spaghetti and 3 meals worth of bbq sauce. Yay me!)
Thursday: Carrot cake waffles(pretty much it's what it sounds like. Waffles with shredded carrots added to the batter as well as nutmeg and cinnamon and just to be extra unhealthy I made a cream cheese icing for them)
Friday(yesterday): Ranch pizza, bbq chicken pizza(we doubled the dough recipe which made us 2 pizza's for last night and another pizza crust, which I froze, for next week and balls of dough which will also be used next week for scones.
Saturday(today): Meatball Sandies with Cheesy Pastini(courtesy of Giada who is one of my favorite Food Network "stars." We will be making a large batch of meatballs so we will have extra's for next week's dinner)
Sunday: In-laws house

Next week we will have,
Monday: Homemade Mac and Cheese and broccoli(using the leftover extra sharp cheddar from the cordon bleu-wiches
Tuesday: Roast Beef Marinara, potatoes and carrots(for this we'll be topping the roast with some of the spaghetti sauce that is saved up in the freezer from the previous week. Also carrots from the carrot waffles. The extra beef will be shredded and frozen to be used for another meal the following week)
Wednesday: Scones and eggs(like previously noted the rolled up balls of dough will be used for the scones)
Thursday: Meatballs and gravy over rice with green beans(we will use the frozen meatballs made the previous week)
Friday: Mexican Pizza(we will use the pizza crust made the previous week)
Saturday: Eat out(well because it's nice to have a break :))
Sunday: BBQ chicken, potatoes, carrots and green beans(for this we'll use the saved up bbq sauce and carrots from the previous week. I mention the carrots because well whenever we buy carrots they end up sitting in the fridge for like 2 months unused and of course they go bad. So this time they were bought with a purpose :))

Sorry, that was probably painfully long but congrats if you made it through. I am proud of myself for this planning and our shopping list for next week only consisted of like 10 things which is amazing considering the amount of times I was sending Mark to the grocery store per week before I was doing this. I really hope I can keep this up. Not gonna lie it's so much easier with my sister here helping me out. She is oh so helpful and quite willing to help. I love it. Not to mention she will be going to Culinary school so I think this is good practice for her. I am so excited for her and quite thrilled that she chose this path for her continuing education. :)

Here are some new pics of my adorable girlies


And that's as far as my memory is going to take me today. It's time for me to go whip up a bunch of meatballs :)