A Little Din-Din

Last week I pinned this:

Source: eat-yourself-skinny.com via Simone on Pinterest

Which led me to this blog:

Eat Yourself Skinny

Which then led me to this recipe:

Grilled Honey Orange Chicken Salad

And then here's what it looked like when i made it:

Here are a few notes and my review of this salad: 

-The Dressing: Let me begin with the fact that I had to make due with what I had on hand! For example i used red wine vinegar instead of white wine vinegar. I also added a packet of Splenda to cut the bitterness of the vinegar. 

-The Marinade: I prepared this exactly as directed and it was great! I put it in a zip-lock and let it marinate all night! Hubs then grilled up the meat and it smelled and tasted delish! 

-Salad Greens: I used a mix of romaine and arugula. This worked out great! Loved it. 

So that's what I made this week!  By the way, hubs licked.his.plate.clean! 

I also have supplies to make a wreath that should already be hanging on my door. That may be coming soon! (BTW I know I have talked about my wreath before but starting a new school year really wears a person out for sure!) I'm linking up with Six Sisters Stuff to Strut My Stuff.... That's right, my cooking stuff!

Boo Hoo, Woo Hoo, High Five!

Hey Friday! 

If you have ever talked to me about how i feel about Friday, you would know i am not a big fan, though i do truly love the weekend! The truth is Friday can be a really rough and tiring day in my classroom. I am not just whining. Others on my campus know this as well! There is so much hope for a great weekend, but it often seems a bit murky until about 2:30 pm! 

(Can u guess what happens then?) 

Anywho, lets focus on what I love... so here's my HIGH Five for Friday link up with From My Gray Desk:

|one|

Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup | Pinned Here 

|two|

That my dear friend made a yummy LARGE Snickers cake for my husband's birthday! She rocks! Love ya Jen! 

|three|

NPR! I especially enjoyed the This American Life episode this week! Check it out HERE 

|four|

Yummy Asian Noodle Salad | Pinned HERE

|five| 

Treating my husband to a fun surprise this weekend! Plus the other stuff i did to reall try and make the day more than just an average work day! Love that man! 

&

Recipe Review

I feel a review is in order... A review of last weeks menu items. I am contemplating this becoming a weekly part of this blog, but not sure it will be as regular. 

So, this week I found a fresh salad from Veggie Belly, you can find it HERE. 

My version of Mango Blueberry Quinoa Salad is one where i just used this salad as a topping to salad greens. Also, instead of the mango i saw at the grocery store, i used dried mango that i chopped up. I added the suggest garbanzo beans as well and made my own dressing. 

Here was what i did for the dressing:

Orange Muscato Vinaigrette

Ingredients: 

2 Tb. Orange Muscato White Vinegar (from Trader Joe's)

1 Tb. Olive oil

1 Splenda packet

Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

I whisked this all up and made more as needed because i packaged up everything for lunches this week! It was nice and light for the salad. All you need is an ounce or 2 for one serving. 

Overall the salad was tasty and had lots of flavor. I really enjoyed the addition of the garbanzo beans! Overall this was a great Pinterest find! Let me know if you try the dressing or even if you try the salad! It was tasty! If you like my find you can also follow me on Pinterest! Just click the link below! 

 

On the Menu

Hey there! Hope everyone who has the day off is truly enjoying their day off in remembrance of a GREAT man! I wonder what our lives would be like without Martin Luther King Jr. 


Any who, I have spent the morning grocery shopping and getting the oil changed on my car. The shopping was in preparation for the meal planning I have done for the week. What's on the menu this week? For lunch we will be having the Candied Pecan, Apple, and Gorgonzola Salad from The Girl Who Ate Everything. I love that blog and have found some great treats and healthy options because of her great blog! For our dinners I have altered a recipe that I found on Skinnytaste. (I felt I wanted some more veggies and also, a few more spices!!!) Here's my version of a crock pot veggie turkey chili.


Crock Pot 3 Bean Turkey Chili Ala Simone
Servings: 12 

• 1.3 lb (20 oz) fat free ground turkey breast
• 1 bag of onion, chopped
• 3 bell peppers, seeded and chopped, any color will do (i used red, yellow, and orange)
• 1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes
• 1 (16 oz) can tomato sauce
• 1 (4.5 oz) can chopped chilies, drained
• 1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, undrained
• 1 (15.5 oz) can black beans, undrained
• 1 (15.5 oz) can kidney beans, undrained
• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Topping:

• 1/2 cup chopped red onion
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro for topping
• shredded cheddar to top 

Brown turkey, onion, and chopped bell peppers in a medium skillet over medium high heat until cooked through.
Drain any fat remaining and transfer to crock pot. Add the beans, chilies, chickpeas, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, cumin, cayenne, and chili powder mixing well.
Cook on high 6-8 hours.
Garnish with onions, cilantro and cheese and enjoy!



This recipe is currently bubbling away in my crockie! I will take a shot of a bowl later tonight when i serve it up for dinner! Yum! So last week I promised a screen shot of my grocery list to go along with my meal planning. Here they are: 

Here's the app that I use on my iPhone to take my grocery list with me. This prevents me from forgetting my list at home and also prevents me from forgetting items. 

So as you can see, I have items on there ready to buy for my chili and as I added each item to my cart, all I had to do was touch the item and it disappears from the list. I do this every week and I think people look at me like I am texting and shopping, but it really does work for me. This app can be found for Android and Blackberry phones! What would we do without our smart phones? I hope my hint might work for you! 

Meal Planning Part 2

Today is COOK Day! Like i said yesterday, I cook on Mondays. So after a long day of work i usually want this to take the least amount of time possible. I truly try to make it take no longer than 2-3 hours including clean up time. If it takes longer i get really cranky after a long day of work and then crash after. 

I thought that today as I cooked I would document how I do this and package all my food (and my husbands too!). So on the menu this week is Bean & Sausage Soup for our dinners (Tuesday thru Thursday) and a green salad with whatever I felt like buying from the store this week four lunches Tuesday thru Friday. 

Tonight i began with the soup and this recipe was easy! It was made even easier by buying a few items that save on prep time. I buy mirepoix to save on chopping time. If you don't know what this is - it is chopped onion, chopped celery, and chopped carrot all in one container. This is not always sold prepared, but it is used to create a vegetable base to many soups. In addition to the mirepoix, I use my food processor to help slice, chop, or even blend things quickly. Tonight I do not know what I would have done without the food processor! 

Anyway, once the soup had gotten going, I  finished adding what was needed and skipped the spinach because I will be adding that on a daily basis. Soggy spinach doesn't excite me so, I figured it will be fresher if I add it each time I heat up a bowl. I then moved on to some Sassy Water which was a snap with the food processor. It literally only took me 5 minutes to make and the longest part of the process was filling up the HUGE pitcher with water.

Our salad for the week will have red onion, red, yellow, and orange bell peppers, with celery, grilled chicken, and some white cheddar cheese that is cubed. The greens consist of Romaine and spinach! We usually package our salad dressing the morning before we leave for work. The key to all of this is keeping the ingredients with the most moisture separate from the lettuce or anything else that should not sit in moisture until it is eaten. 


After the sassy water, I moved on to salads and started by filling 8 containers (2/day for 4 days per week) with romaine and spinach.


Then I packaged baggies with the chicken and the veggies. I made 8 baggies so we can easily take them each morning. 

The cheese came last and this time I used snack size baggies and packaged the cheese separately to prevent soggy cheese. Again, soggy = not yummy! 

In the end, I put the soup into one large container and stuck it into the fridge after I served my husband a bowl with fresh spinach! The soup got good reviews, so I hope you night try it some time! 

Hope you enjoyed reading!