Menu Monday! Lots of new recipes

I'm excited to share our Menu Monday today because I cooked Monday-Thursday (Friday is left over day)!

Herb Crusted Chicken

I've made this chicken before but for some reason it was much better this time around. You can find the original recipe here. I had to change a few things because I didn't have the exact bread crumbs and spices it called for. Basically I used regular bread crumbs and instead of the "perfect pinch" seasoning, I used an Italian season. It still was great! J was pretty excited for this dinner and he thought it was delicious! I thought it was great too but kind of heavy for a summer meal (I hate half of the portion of chicken shown above).

Turkey Sausage

Tuesday was supposed to be shredded beef tacos but we didn't find the beef we wanted so we went with plan B. I always have a backup of Eckrich Turkey Sausage in the freezer. Usually when it's on sale, I purchase two. It's an easy backup and always tastes good. You can also do a lot with it. For my turkey sausage, I just cut it up however J likes to be fancy and eat his like a hot dog.

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The mashed potatoes were left over from the day before. Let me tell you, best mashed potatoes hands down! I grew up on boxed mashed potatoes and honestly, it took me a long time to start liking real mashed potatoes. Now there's nothing better than Pioneer Woman's Delicious Creamy Mashed Potatoes.

The recipe makes enough for 10 people. TEN! There are only two of us. So I used three (smaller) potatoes and then cut down the rest of the ingredients.

Pioneer Woman Mashed Potatoes for Two

(this gave us left overs--so really for 4 people)

*3 potatoes (we just used Idaho)

* 3 oz of cream cheese

*4 tablespoons of butter 

*1/8 cup of half and half {this is half of 1/4}

*Lawry's Seasoned Salt (to taste)

*Black pepper (to taste)

You can find the rest of the instructions here. Remember, you can always go back and add more but you can't take away.

Southwestern Chopped Salad

with Cilantro-Lime Dressing

This was basically my lunch all week and it was delicious! The chopped salad can basically be anything you want. I added corn, black beans, red peppers, cucumber, and cherry tomatoes.

The salad dressing is out of this world. It is so easy to make too! The food processor has definitely become my bff lately. Also, I doubled the recipe so I would have dressing for two weeks. Definitely glad I did this!

Ingredients:

*Cilantro (stems removed, chopped)

*1/2 c. plain greek yogurt

*2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (I used the whole lime)

*1-2 cloves of garlic

*1/4 c. olive oil

* 1 1/2 tsp. white vinagar

*salt (to taste)

Put everything in the food processor and go to town! I tasted it after blending it a bit and added a little more salt. Also, you can change the taste up a bit by adding other spices. Check out this website to see what they used.

Turkey Cowboy Burgers

I totally made up the cowboy burger name. I'm sure I saw something similar on pinterest but I thought if they had a fun name J would like them better.

Basically, you make a turkey burger (I use ground turkey, 1 egg white, bread crumbs, onion powder, garlic powder). Then I added bacon and melted cheddar cheese on top. To make it a "cowboy" burger you just add BBQ sauce. I just went with ketchup for mine, which was still delish, but I knew J would appreciate the BBQ. We also had french fries (just frozen ones--I know, slacker), and a small salad with the lime dressing (above). Great summer meal!

Grilled Cheese

Last Sunday, when I sit down to do my meal planning, I asked J want he wanted for dinner on Thursday. He said grilled cheese and tomato soup. 

Okay.

I don't care for tomato soup and to me it's so weird to eat it in the summer! So instead of soup, I had another delicious salad--I'm kind of obsessed. The grilled cheese was great! We used cheddar cheese and an herb bread I bought from Yutzy's Farm Market (if you're in the Columbus area I highly suggest this place). The bread was a little hard to toast but the flavors made the grilled cheese 10x better!

Hope you enjoyed this week's Menu Monday! Don't forget to link up with Rachel!

6 months ago today...

...we found out we were pregnant!

Sometimes it still seems so surreal to me. And six months? That seems like forever ago!

J and I knew we wanted kids. I wanted a spring baby because of my teaching job. I wanted to have the baby in March and take off the rest of the school year. Well, you know what happens when you try to plan something--nothing.

We decided not to worry about it and just enjoy our time together. We figured it would happen eventually and we were not going to stress about it. Stress usually (not always but can) lead to more problems.

Then one day I was shopping in Target. I started not feeling well and thought I was going to pass out. I ended up going in the little girls section and sitting down for a minute. That's how bad I felt. I have a history of passing out and knew that if I sat and passed out I would be okay. It's the falling that hurts you. I called my mom so I would have someone to talk to. She asked if I ate. Yes. Maybe I'm dehydrated. Maybe. Then she asked the last time my little friend visited me (she was really hoping for a baby). I assured her it should be here any day but in the back of my mind I knew it should have already made its visit.

After a few minutes, I got up, picked up a pregnancy test and checked out. I was so embarrassed to buy a test. I felt like everyone was looking at me! I know a lot of people in town plus I'm a teacher. The last thing I needed was someone to see. {Not that they would have cared but I freak out like that}

I called my friend Katie on the way home telling her what happened and that I had a feeling something was up. She had just announced her pregnancy and was hoping I'd be joining her. She told me to go home, take a test, a call her back. So I did. And it was negative. I was kind of disappointed although a little relieved because it wasn't my "spring baby". Katie told me that I had to take one in the morning. They are best in the morning.

So on December 14th I woke up bright and early, got ready for school, and took another test. I was shocked to see that I was pregnant. J knew something was up. I had told him that I purchased a test but it was negative. He told me not to worry and that it will happen on it's own time.

Believe it or not I didn't take a whole lot of tests. I knew there were not many false positives. But I did try both the word and the symbol kind :)

I woke J up right away and showed him. I think we were both in shock. He gave me a big hug and was very excited. Then I had a little meltdown. What was I going to do with a fall baby? How could I take off work? How were my students going to survive? Over a few days I became okay with a fall baby. In fact, now I find it as more of a blessing.

What I have learned from being pregnant with a fall baby:

• I have summer off to prepare. This would be more helpful if we knew if we were moving or not...
• No stress (or little stress). If I were in school I know I'd be stressed out. Every time I went to the doctors after work my blood pressure would always be high. Once they gave me a few minutes, it would go back down. Glad to have summer off!
• I don't have to worry about fall conferences (hopefully)
• Fall walks with J, Hadley, and Oliver will be amazing.
• Less money spent on clothes. I have two maternity dresses, 2 pairs of pants, and one pair of dress pants. I also have about 10 shirts. I refuse to buy any more because I'm not working every day.

A baby is a blessing no matter when it comes.

Every day we are so thankful to have Miss Hadley in our lives, even though she's not quite here. The best thing that ever happened to us was this little surprise we wanted to come but was not expecting six months ago. This has probably been the fastest six months of my life. I feel like the end of August will never get here but at the same time I feel like it's right around the corner.