A Good Home Cooked Meal

It is now time to share our delicious meal from last week, just as I promised. After spending the better part of the day out running errands and shopping (Old Navy had their jeans on sale, and we DESPERATELY need new ones) I returned home and spent the better part of the evening in the kitchen preparing dinner. What was on the menu you ask?? We had meatloaf, home style mac-and-cheese, baked zucchini chips, and all of that followed by a no bake Snickers pie. All this equals TWO, yes two, hours spent in the kitchen. But it definitely was worth it. 

Meatloaf (courtesy of my mom)

1 lb. ground beef

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup Italian bread crumbs

1 1/2 cups milk

basil

garlic salt

Parmesan cheese

1-2 cans beef gravy

1-2 cans mushroom gravy or fresh sliced mushrooms (that is if you like mushrooms)

Mix all ingredients together until sticky. Place in pan with beef gravy spread over bottom of pan. Cover the meat loaf with mushroom gravy or beef gravy and add fresh mushrooms if you so choose. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes or until cooked thoroughly.

Home-Style Mac-and-Cheese

 

Now, I have to be honest. I really was going to make my mom's recipe, but I decided to go the easy route. And thank goodness I did, could you imagine 3 hours for a weeknight dinner?!?! So, while at the grocery store, I grabbed a box of Kraft's Home style Mac-and-Cheese. Super easy to make, and just a delicious as Mom's.

Source

Baked Zucchini Chips

This was a recipe that I found on Pinterest. So easy 

to make and again, yummy yummy. I think these might end up showing up a lot at our family dinner table. For the recipe, click here.

No Bake Snicker Pie

Another Pinterest find. All you need is:

1 pie crust

1 can condensed sweetened milk

8 oz. cream cheese

2 cups whipped cream

1/4 cup caramel sauce

3-4 Snickers bars

All you do is mix the milk, cream cheese, caramel, and whipped cream together. Chop up the Snickers bars and sprinkle some on the bottom of the pie crust, put some in the batter, and sprinkle the rest on the top. What I did was use 1 on the bottom, 2 in the batter, and the last one on the top. I also drizzled some more caramel and a little bit of chocolate on the top before sprinkling the remaining Snickers. Then you chill in the freezer for a few hours. And ta-da! Done...easy as pie! (hah...yeah, I'm a dork). source.

**On a side note about this, I did not realize that you don't have to take the pie crust out of the aluminum holder thing. So when it did, it broke. Instead of running back the store, I continued to crumble it up and then sprinkled it on the bottom of one of my glass pie dishes. So, I suppose this is more of a truffle thing rather than a pie, but either way, it's freakin' amazing!**

And there it is, our yummy...maybe not so healthy dinner. But at least we were at home! Wonder what's on the menu for this week...hmmmm...

Mid-month Review

Well, the month is almost over, dear friends. I debated on just waiting to update at the end of the month to go through everything we have been up to, but I just can't wait! (Plus there is just too much for one single post!) So here's a quick recap of our past couple of weeks, before I get to the recap of the month.

First, Valentine's Day. In previous years, Josh and I have never really done anything for Valentine's. But, this being our first year married, I was actually looking forward to doing something; especially since I was actually off from work for it. However, Josh ended up having to work AND he got so busy he had to call me into to help him! There I was, one minute sitting on my couch, then next driving down to Sing It or Wing It to work. BAH! But at least it was with Josh, and he took me for a late (very late...like 1 AM late) dinner and some drinks. That's our life, but at least I've got Josh.

Our trip to Nashville was last weekend. Josh and I took Friday and Saturday off to go visit with Chris and Kittie. Friday night we went to Marathon Music Works for an O.A.R. concert. We had a blast singing along and dancing the night away...and we even ran into our friends from work; Angie, Lisa, and Josh (known as "G") at the Beer Sellar before their Moe concert. Unfortunately, I did not get a group picture at the bar..but here are a couple of the four of us at O.A.R.

Yay, O.A.R.!! (Fourth time seeing them!)

Saturday morning we slept in for awhile, and then got up to Chris making a huge made from scratch breakfast of biscuits and gravy, southwestern scrambled eggs, and bacon. The rest of the day was spent laying on the couch watching movies; followed up by a steak dinner grilled by master chef Chris. Granted we didn't really do that much in our visit, it was really great to spend some time with friends and family. Even if it was only 2 days, they were 2 days of much need fun and relaxation.

I've also been pretty busy at home makin' my way through February's goals. I have two new pillows finished for our living room. SO EASY TO MAKE! Seriously. Take two pieces of fabric, sew up three sides...leave a hole big enough to use to stuff the pillow on the fourth side..stuff pillow..sew up hole. The end. I need to make 2 more like these, and then I have this fabric to make a few small rectangle ones. And done. I'll show pictures when they are all done, so stay tuned!

On Wednesday I made an outstanding dinner. But, there's too little space left in this post, and too little time (Gots ta work my friends). I will be letting you know all the specifics of dinner. But for know, I'll leave you with a hint to part of dinner.

Project #1 and #2

Friends, I have two projects under my belt!

Project #1.

Remember last month when I decided to make these cash envelopes from etsy?? Well, they are done!

With the use of my brand new sewing machine, these bad boys were a piece o' cake to make. And here's how I did it:

First, go to a local craft shop and pick out any fabric you like. I went to Jo Anne Fabric and found these 5 fun designs and not only are the super colorful; they were super cheap..I picked from their scrap fabrics. Doing it this way is easiest, because it's just the right amount of fabric.

Now, once you get home, your gonna wanna iron your fabric to get all the wrinkles out and it makes the fabric much easier to work with it.

After the fabric is all wrinkle free, fold it so that the brightest side is on the inside; that way your seams will be on the inside of the envelope. At this point, I cut the fabric down to an 11 inch piece and began pinning three of the edges to sew up

.

When I started sewing I used the 1/2 inch guide on the sewing machine and then cut the excess fabric and turned it inside-out.

We're almost done! Next I measured the pouch again and made it 9 inches long. With the top of the pouch still open, mark off were 8 inches would be and fold down the top in order to sew it up.

After you have that sewn, using the 3/8" guide on the machine, fold in have "hot dog" sytle and sew up the two sides so that the top is open.

And there. You're done and have a colorful, organized way to manage your money!

Project #2

I got our family binder done. Well, done for now. Since this will be a tool I plan on using a great deal throughout the years, it will be something that is always changing as our lives and needs change. But for the time being, I think I have everything I need to start organizing the O'Dell household.

It was super easy to put together, and luckily I had all the supplies at home. I used the binder I had used to organize the wedding plans and scrap pieces of paper from the craft box. Other than that, it was just printing off sheets and fillling in information. Easy, but time consuming. I got a lot of my resources from a link off of this website, along with custom made some sheets, as well as modify templates to meet our needs.

So that's what I've been up to. Hopefully I can get a few more things done before the end of the month creeps up on me. Hope everyone else is getting some stuff marked of their lists!

February Goals

I'm going to try to be a little less ambitious. Start small and go from there. It is a short month, after all.

HOME:
-Finish cash envelopes
-Finish family binder
-Put together living room pillows
-Find fabric to reapholster dining room chairs
-Make something new for kitchen shelf
-Organize kitchen

COOKING:
-1 new recipe
-1 family favorite
-1 new dessert

ME:
-Read 2 books
-Eat 1 piece of fruit a day
-Drink 4 glasses of water

FUN:
-10 pictures for the month
-Trip to Nashville

MONEY:
-Save a least 25% of weekly earnings
-Pay off one credit card.

Maybe I'm being just as hopeful. But it really doesn't seem like much. Wish me luck!

January Recap

Alright...so I was super pumped about January and starting off fresh. I did really well in the first couple of weeks, but then work got in the way...again...and I ended up not getting everything done. But then again, I was super ambitious, right??? Well, let's just see how far I really got on this list.





HOME


-Make my cash envelopes:
I in fact have 2.5 done. For my birthday (which I never posted about, I'm sorry.) My mom
bought me a sewing machine. While we were out I picked out the fabric for 5 envelopes. They are really easy to make, but with scheduling..I only got half way done.
-Make "Our Week" frames : CHECK! Aaaand I even posted about it here.
-Create household planner: I pritned everything I think I need for it, but have yet actually put it all together.
-Start decluttering and organizing house: I failed. I failed so bad, I don't even wanna talk about it.
-Put away Christmas decorations: CHECK!

CRAFTS

-Make new pillows for living room: I got all the supplies for it, just need to get it done.
-Make new wreath for front door: CHECK! I actually just used one of the wreaths from our wedding, added a couple other flowers to it. And a brand new wreath!

COOKING
-Meal plan: The only "mealing planning" I did was last week when I made chili and sloppy joes for Josh to reheat for dinner while I was at work. And I bought a ton of groceries so there would be plenty for us to eat. So, half check?! I think so.
-1 new recipe: CHECK! Remember my Pesto Chicken Pasta? Yup, brand spankin' new!
-1new recipe: I made cookie/brownies one night while Josh made fried chicken. Delicious!

FUN
-1 date night with Josh: I didn't document it, but I'm pretty sure this is a CHECK. We stayed home a lot. Cooked dinners, made desserts, and watched movies. So yeah, CHECK.
-Celebrate 26th birthday: OH Lordy, CHECK! I know I never posted about it, but it was a blast. Good times with friends and family.
-Take at least 10 pictures: I haven't gone through my pics yet, but I'm pretty sure this is a CHECK.

ME
-Find a work out regime and work out 2 times a week: FAIL.
-Read 2 books: I finally finished Water for Elephants (fantastic, by the way) and started The Carrie Diaries
-Have a lunch date with 1 friend: I didn't have lunch, but the other week we had Amy and Jonathan over for dinner and games. That counts, right???