When Things Don't Go As Planned & Tales of a Turkey

You can usually tell by the order of my posted menus what we are having on a particular day. But this week things have been turned a bit topsy turvy. Obviously it started with my Ham Disaster then proceeded to move on to our first Meatless Monday. The recipe was not as good as I had hoped. Here was my downfall, in my mind I was comparing it to my White Chicken Chili before I even started it. Next time I will make a white chili but it will be my recipe just without using chicken or chicken broth. I will instead use veggie broth. I'm not even going to post the recipe because it was such a disappointment. :o( I will tell you later how I made the veggie broth...sooooo easy and good for you!

So, Thursday was to be Mexican casserole but The Hubby asked me if I could switch it with next Thursday since he was going out for lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Then I looked at our calendar wrong when I was menu planning and thought Friday was supposed to be a night out with friends and it is actually next Friday so I used that meal (Grilled Pork Chops) this Friday. I will post the recipe for the Oven Fries, they were quite good! As mentioned when posting the January menu, today we are actually going to a birthday party at a local pizza place so the Grilled Hamburgers & Baked Beans will be moved to an open night later in the month or to February. I did go a head and make my turkey tho...

Cooking a turkey in a bag is AWESOME!!! I've never cooked one any other way. This bird was about 13 3/4 lbs and he cooked in 2 hours and 15 min. It took me about 30 minutes to go from this: to this:
and this:The Hubby's parents are heading to Florida this week and we don't know when they will be back so I'm taking turkey, mashed potatoes & corn to their house tomorrow after church so we can visit before they go. I took some of the prime white meat and lined it in the casserole dish and covered it with broth to be reheated tomorrow at the in-laws. As you can see, I also have both a pile of dark and a pile of of white meat to bag for the freezer as well as the skin, carcass, etc. to make into broth tomorrow. :o) Have I mentioned how much I LOVE getting more than one meal from something???

Need to scoot now, The Hubby just reminded me I have a gift to wrap and I'm not exactly sure if I have a bag big enough or any paper appropriate for a 5 year old boy....may have to make a trip to the Dollar General.

Ham Disaster

So last Sunday I spent a couple of hours babying my LOVELY ham. Pineapple, maraschino cherries, brown sugar glaze, basting every 10 minutes...you get the picture. But I learned a valuable lesson that I won't soon forget: If a piece of meat is poo to begin with, it doesn't matter how much tender loving care you give it, it's gonna taste like poo in the end. Now, I KNEW that ALL of the other cured meat from this hog wasn't that great, and in fact, didn't taste well at all. The bacon and ham steaks just weren't all that. So I should have know that the ham would be equally as blah. Silly me thought that if I spent half a day showing it how much I loved it, it would show me how much it loved me by tasting fabulous...NOT!!!!!!! Anyway, we each ate a slice and the rest went into the trash along with the other ham and one more ham steak. I did keep the last pound of bacon because it does work OK with cooked with green beans, onions and potatoes. Now I have to go to the store and buy some ham or a ham bone for my Ham & Beans.

OK, as promised, here is my monthly menu for January. We have a couple of nights that we aren't going to be home for and I've left a couple of nights open because it always seems that I plan meals for the number of days in the month and something comes up and we don't use a particular day. Leaving a day (or two) open allows for this. And of course, I didn't get this menu planned until the 8th so I'm short there too. Anyhoo, this month only includes 21 meals. As with before, I will link up to recipes for meals used before and will post other recipes as they are made.

On another note, we are "trying" Meatless Mondays which I thought was a pretty new movement but apparently started during WWI, came around again during WWII and was recently (2003) started up again. I thought, why not? I've never been a HUGE meat fan anyway (just ask my mom!) and Little Bit seems to be following suit. The hubby is NOT a fan of meatless meals but he'll eat just about anything put before him and smile...bless his heart! I think he is also planning on setting up many of his afterwork meetings on Mondays now. LOL!

Without further adue:

Baked Ham, Mac & Cheese, Corn
MEATLESS MONDAY: Great Northern White Chili
Tuna Casserole, Green Beans
Green Pepper Skillet
Mexican Casserole
Grilled Hamburgers, Baked Beans (this one is already moved to an open night since we now have a b'day party to go too-see how quickly it happens???)
Ham & Beans, Cornbread
MEATLESS MONDAY: Tomato Soup, Grilled Cheese
Tuna Patties, Mac & Cheese, Green Beans
Hamburger Helper, Broccoli--every busy mom needs a helping hand once in a while right? :o)
Stir Fry Chicken & Veggies w/Rice
Grilled Pork Chops, Oven Fries
Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Corn
Turkey on a bed of greens
MEATLESS MONDAY: Spaghetti w/marinara, salad
Round Steak in Crockpot w/noodles
Polish Sausage w/potatoes, onions & green peppers
Breakfast for supper
Turkey & Noodles, Biscuits, Green Beans
Salisbury Steaks, Mashed Potatoes, Corn
MEATLESS MONDAY: Potato soup

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!....A Few Days Late

WOW! 2010 is a thing of the past and we have now moved into 2011. Where does the time go? I know that my blogging has been non-existant here but I've decided to begin anew since noticing that there are still people who are coming to read.

I'm currently working on my January menu while still using up some meals from December that didn't get prepared for one reason or another because we ate out too much. I'm planning to inventory the freezer after posting this so I will have an idea of what to prepare while also sticking to my resolution to shop from my pantry/freezer first when meal planning.

Speaking of resolutions, here's another one:

I WILL NOT BUY SOMETHING THAT I DON'T NORMALLY USE JUST BECAUSE IT IS FREE AFTER SALE/COUPON.

I've been purging my pantry of cleaning supplies that I purchased last year, some of which remain unopened. For instance, I bought 4 bottles of Soft Scrub w/Bleach....yea, I don't even use Soft Scrub w/Bleach! I also have had about 10 bottles of Scrubbing Bubbles/refills. Now, I do use this but it's takin' up too much room in the pantry so I shared with a couple of people and now I have more room for things that I will use. For the record, I am keeping ALL of my Purex that I got April of last year. Due to the purchase of a HE front loading washer & dryer, I've still got 9 full bottles left! :o) I won't be doing this again this year (if the opportunity arises) but I will try to keep a look out for the deal if it comes up and let you know about it.

On another resolution note, I've been looking into how to remove toxins from the home. I'm going to expand on my "homemade" cleaners. I actually did find something that has eliminated my need to purchase any window cleaner at all, if you want to know about that, just let me know!

Guess I'd better toodle for now if I'm going to get that freezer inventory done. Be on the lookout for my January menu plan in the next couple of days!