Back into the swing of things. And My menu plan, returns!

It's Monday. Time to get back into the groove of things. We had a great time enjoying our family. My mom and dad did Thanksgiving dinner at their house. As my kids feel is a "tradition". Which it is. But, my parents are getting older. They wear out very easily. Not sure how much longer we can keep this "tradition" up. You know that old saying, "Everything tastes better at Grandma's house". My kids believe that 100%! And I'm a good cook!

The run down of our weekend went something like this: We ate too much. Did some laundry. Watched too much TV. Went shopping on Black Friday. Did TONS of Ashleigh's laundry. Did some online shopping. Did some more of Ashleigh's laundry. Made a couple of batches of Christmas cookies. They weren't the homemade kind though. Paul saw the Pillsbury Sugar Cookies at the store. The one's that have imprints of a Christmas tree and a reindeer and he just knew Carly would love them! She did. But, daddy loved them more! Long weekends are great. But man they really throw me off.

On Saturday, I made a turkey. Paul's boss gave his guys each a turkey the day before Thanksgiving. He purchased them from a turkey farm. So it was a fresh turkey, not frozen. I decided to just to go ahead and make it. That way, Ashleigh would have plenty of left overs to take back to school with her. I must say, that turkey was delicious. The stuffing was yummy. The gravy so tasty. We even had cranberry/orange relish...Mmm! The only real difference in our turkey dinner, and the one we had at my mom and dad's, was in terms of potatoes. My kids requested that I make Hash brown Casserole.

Carly is home from school today. Actually, she was home on Wednesday of last week too. I had gotten a note from her teacher, last Monday, that Carly had been pulling her right ear quite a bit. She also told the teacher it hurt. Although, she didn't seem to be bothered too much by it on Monday night. I sent her to school Tuesday and already had planned on taking her to the doctor Wednesday. By Wednesday Carly had developed a nasty sounding cough with runny nose...Sure enough, she had an ear infection and junky sounding lungs. The doc put her on Omnicef for 10 days. She is doing much better. Still has a nasty sounding deep cough, but the coughing isn't coming as often. I expect she'll be back to school tomorrow.

Now that things are beginning to settle down a bit with the school. I can get back to my menu planning. It really is so much easier to have a menu in place. I've missed it. Although, through the next month, I will only be doing it weekly. Too much going on to plan out that far ahead.

This weeks menu:

Monday Chili and corn muffins

Tuesday Pork chops, wild rice & candied carrots

Wednesday Hot turkey sandwiches

Thursday Potato soup, rolls & salad

Friday PIZZA!!

Saturday Baked beans with franks (hot dogs), fried potatoes & veggies

Sunday Crock pot chicken, oven roasted potatoes & veggies

I leave you with this recipe of my roasted potatoes. Keep in mind. This is my version of roasted potatoes. Meaning it's totally made up, by me. Oh, but it's so good!

Get out your 9X13 baking dish. Spray with Pam, or whatever cooking spray you use. (you can, and I do quite often, use EVOO to 'grease' the baking dish. In stead of cooking spray).Wash several (like I said, I made this up) red baby potatoes. Leaving skins on. Sometimes, I chunk these up. Other times, I leave them be. Dump some EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) into a large plastic Ziploc storage bag. I sprinkle in quite a bit of Sea Salt, (We love the taste of the Sea Salt and EVOO combo) Pepper and Italian seasoning. (I use McCormick) Seal the plastic bag. Shake up contents. Pour into baking dish Sprinkle a bit more Sea Salt, Pepper and Italian seasoning. Place in oven at 325 bake until potatoes are tender. You will need to drizzle a tad bit more EVOO on the potatoes during the baking process. I usually do it a couple of times. Being these are baby potatoes, it doesn't take long for them to bake. These are delicious. I came up with this due to the abundance of these yummy little red potatoes from our garden.

Have a great Monday!