This week's menu...

Posting early, but we shop on Sundays usually, and we're shopping on Saturday this week, so...

Sunday: Beer Can Chicken. I like beer. I like chicken. I have all day on Sunday with no plans. Done.

Monday: Enchilada stacks. Super easy stacks of tortillas, cheese, enchilada sauce, onions, and leftover chicken. Sounds like good power food for our softball double-header.

Tuesday: Pasta with Pancetta and Leeks. See link here. I recently discovered a love for leeks and I haven't made pasta in a while, so I think we're due.

Wednesday: Dinner Frittata. I love eggs and frittatas are basically a quiche without the hassle of a crust. This one has a leek, mini potato slices, and spinach in it. Yum.

Thursday: Leftovers. I'm betting we'll have some by this point.

Friday: Pita Pizzas. Whole wheat pitas were another thing I discovered this year that I love and Heidi loves as well. My friend uses hers as pizza crusts and that sounds like just the right kind of easy and fast dinner we like for Friday nights. I'm getting some toppings for Hawaiian versions and a sausage and veggie one. Can we skip right to Friday?

Saturday: Who knows? We were invited to a card get-together so it may end up just being munchies. And it's our anniversary, so maybe we'll go out for a treat. Or likely, something will come up one of the other days this week and we'll have to move one of our other meals here.

Blackberry Farmer

I've decided to quit my job and become a blackberry farmer. Okay. Not really, but I could. We have this hill behind our house, and to the sides of our house. We don't use it for much, other than walking up when Josh wants to check for deer on the top of the hill. And blocking the house from wind. This is our 6th summer of living in this house. And sadly, only the 2nd summer that we've been aware that there are blackberry brambles upon blackberry bushes covering our back hill. There's really no excuse for us not knowing, so I like to pretend that these blackberry bushes miraculously sprouted there 2 years ago. Even worse, this is the first year we've picked more than enough for one pie.

This year I've picked probably 3 gallons myself, and friends have picked a couple of gallons. It makes me sad to picture the blackberries drying up and not getting used. So far I've made 15 jars of blackberry jam, a blackberry pie, blackberry bars, and frozen 2 bags of blackberries. I have another probably 3-4 bags of blackberries to be frozen in the fridge yet.

There's just something about picking berries. It's completely miserable with the swarms of mosquitos, pricker bushes upon prickly bushes, and the heat (oh how I hate wearing blue jeans in the summer). But there's just something about watching your bowl fill up and thinking of all the delicious things you could make with the berries. The finished product isn't bad either.

Menu Plan Monday 7/26

In the midst of watching my 7-year-old nephew (along with my 2-year-old darling) and planning a quick salad to throw together for the Grandparents' 55th anniversary, I managed to throw together a cheap (we're talking $50 in groceries for the week cheap) and what I might say sounds delicious meal-plan for the week.

Monday: Venison roast, red potatoes, carrots (all thrown in the crockpot with some tomato soup, pepsi, worcestershire, and some of that thickener stuff, can't recall the name of it). Here's the link I roughly followed (I didn't have tomato sauce, so I subbed soup). Okay, let's be honest, I went to get a venison roast out of the freezer and there weren't any, so I used a couple bags of venison steaks that were in there. We'll cross our fingers that it turns out.

Tuesday: Grilled chicken fajitas. I'm forgetting right now where I got the recipe for the marinated chicken, hopefully out of my grilling cookbook. It was going to be regular ol' chicken tacos, but my aunt set me up with a bunch of red, orange, and yellow bell peppers, so we'll cook those up and make fajitas instead. Yum.

Wednesday: Barbecue Meatloaf, steamed broccoli, macaroni & cheese. This is actually a weight watchers recipe. I'm not on weight watchers, but my mom is. She said it's super-yummy (and only 5 points per serving).

Thursday: Grilled pork skewers over brown rice w/green beans. I made these a couple weeks ago when friends were over. They were pretty tasty. I'm going to try to cut my roast the right way this time (is it against the grain or with it?) so that they're not quite so tough.

Friday: Leftovers. Waste not. Want not.

Saturday: Frozen pizza, salad.

Sunday: Beer can chicken w/some kind of potato. Perhaps those grilled potato skins. Those were yummy. Confession: not included in the $50 because I added it yesterday when I decided I'd need some leftover chicken for one of next week's recipes.

Genetic Code

What she gets from Daddy:

• Love of the outdoors
• Love of animals
• Her newborn looks, she was definitely Daddy's clone on day 1
• Long arms and legs, 90th+ percentile in height all along
• Brown eyes
• Love of Gatorade
• Need to always be on-the-go

What she gets from Mommy:

• Love of purses and shoes
• Chubby cheeks
• Impatience
• Ability to walk in the grass barefooted
• Love of the farm

What she gets from both of us:

• Love of naps
• Silly personality
• Sweet tooth
• Love of going for walks

Not sure where these came from:

• 6 o'clock wake up time
• Love of afghans

Menu Plan...er...Tuesday

Mondays surely don't count on holiday weekends, particularly when you were camping from Thursday through Monday. We'll get to the grocery store at some point today and here's what we've got on the menu this week...

Tuesday: Asparagus Ham Rolls (from my Guilt-Free Cooking cookbook)

Wednesday: Spaghetti & Meatballs (homemade spaghetti sauce using Wildtree spaghetti seasoning, and homemade Meatballs from the G-F cooking cookbook), salad, bread w/dipping oil

Thursday: Maple glazed salmon w/steamed broccoli and probably mac-n-cheese

Friday or Saturday: Pork Skewers, Chicken Drumies, Grilled Potato Skins

That's all I've got this week. I'm also searching for a recipe for some fiber muffins and possibly going to make and freeze some oatmeal pancakes for easy breakfasts around here.