Monthly Archives: February 2013

Recipe Review: Coconut Lime Chicken

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I think I’m on to something here….sharing my recipe reviews on a Friday…just before you {I} do my weekly meal planning and shopping over the weekend!

 

Level of Difficulty: Pretty simple, really…mix up some sauce, marinate your chicken in it, cook chicken, boil sauce for serving over rice. Doesn’t get a whole lot simpler than that.

What I did Differently: I did a few things differently. First, I used already thin chicken breasts, cutting out the step of flattening {what a pain!}. I also marinated overnight because that’s what works best for my schedule…no way I’m putting this together in the morning before work. Cooking wise, I broiled it instead of pan frying it…I also think it’d be great on the grill. Instead of the chili pepper it called for, I used red pepper flakes…mostly because I forgot to pick up a pepper at the grocery store.

Serving Suggestions: I served this with jasmine rice and bell peppers I broiled alongside the chicken.

PROS: Easy to put together, the meat is thin enough it cooks pretty quickly. It’s a great weeknight meal that’s got loads of flavor and tastes like you spent hours preparing it!

CONS: It did have a bit of a kick to it…not bad for us, but some may not care for that.

Would I Make it Again?: Oh yes. Last time I made this, Andy was out with some friend for the evening. I know this is a dish he’d really enjoy. As a matter of fact…I’m going to put this on the meal plan for next week!

I always thought there’d be three.

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It was something we talked about long before their was ever an engagement ring on my finger…Three kids.

Now fast forward about ten years, a giant mortgage and two kids later…a lot has happened in the last ten years…especially the last 5. Three kids is no longer in the cards for us. For a variety of reasons, really. We don’t think it’d be fair to Rylee at a minimum of 6 years old to be starting over, again, with a baby. Where would we physically put three kids? Then there’s the whole money aspect of it all…our financial situation is much different than we thought it would be during those dreaming years. A third child means we’d need a new car….new cars cost money. And three kids in daycare, well, that’s a lot of money too. We want to pay for our kids to go to college…putting three kids through college wouldn’t be an option. We want to retire someday…preferably before we’re in our seventies. Not to mention we’ve already got two weddings to pay for someday.

There’s a number of people that have told us to do it anyway. That we’d figure it out. If there’s one thing about us, it’s that we don’t rely on the “we’ll figure it out somehow” rule. If that were the case, our girls would be two years apart and not four. We would’ve bought a new car years ago instead of driving around the ghetto-fabulous Buick.

These girls of mine are growing so fast. Rylee will be starting kindergarten in the fall. She can’t wait to ride the school bus. She wants to get her ears pierced. She’ll be transitioning to a booster seat before long. Reese is a crawling machine. She’s got three teeth. We just bought her size 3 diapers. Andy walked into get her after nap one day and she was sitting up in her crib. She pulled herself up to standing the other night.

I used to sort of make fun of moms that talked about getting all emotional and weepy going through and getting rid of their baby’s outgrown clothes. Now I get it. I’ve become that mom. As I go through all of the outgrown baby clothes, I hold up nearly every piece. Think about the memories each one holds. Both my girls wore these. I’ve set aside my favorite pieces to hold on to for my sisters when they have kids. I’ve also set aside a few of my very favorite pieces, like what they wore home from the hospital, to keep in my cedar chest.

Last week when Reese was sick she didn’t want to nurse. At first I thought no big deal, but as the days went on, I wondered if she was just done with it and my heart sank.

I knew right then and there in my heart, I’m not ready for this journey to be over.

It’s a very surreal feeling…coming to terms with being done having kids.

My heart is absolutely full, overflowing even, just watching my 2 girls together, but there’s still that little part of me that thinks…I always thought we’d have three.

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Recipe Review: Oven Fajitas

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In the last two weeks, I’ve tried a handful of new recipes. I’m always on the lookout for easy, tasty and healthy-ish recipes that my family loves…and I figured, hey maybe you are too! And if you’re like me, you’ve got a bunch of great looking recipes pinned on your food board on Pinterest, but you never get any further than that. Trying new recipes is scary…what if the whole family hates it…what if it takes way longer to cook then anticipated…etc, etc. So I figured when I try a new recipe, I’ll do us all a favor a write up a quick recipe review! I did this a while back with a few recipes and I’ve already looked back on it and thought,”oh yea, I forgot how good and easy that recipe was”.

This week? Oven Fajitas.

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Level of Difficulty: Um, you guys? To quote Geico…it’s so easy, a caveman could do it. I’m not even kidding. I prepped this dish the night before, including the seasonings. Tossed everything in a 9×13 baking dish, covered it in foil and put it in the fridge. When I got home from work the next day, I preheated the oven (400 F), removed the foil and popped it in the oven. I stirred once halfway through and 20 minutes later, dinner was done!

What I did Differently: Confession time…while I pinned what I can assume is an official recipe for this, I never actually looked at a recipe. I just used the picture on Pinterest as a starting point. The picture showed chicken being used, I used steak.

Serving Suggestions: While the fajitas were baking I heated up some black beans and made some guacamole. Then served it traditional fajita-style with tortillas, cheese and sour cream. Then next day for lunch, I had leftovers of steak, peppers and black beans…healthy and hearty.

PROS: I mentioned this to a couple of coworkers, I will never make fajitas any other way. Seriously…it was just too easy. It was also really good. The peppers didn’t get mushy. In fact, since it was cooked uncovered under high heat, they even got a little browned. And, it was a great way to “spice up” our Taco Tuesdays while still sticking with the general theme. Oh and double bonus? Anytime I made fajitas on the stove there were pans that had to be hand washed. Making them in the oven means less work during cleanup!

CONS: There really weren’t any. Unless you count the fact that Rylee didn’t eat them. But she’s kinda picky and I wasn’t expecting her to in the first place.

Would I make it again: ummm…YES! Absolutely. One hundred and eleventy percent. Probably sooner as opposed to later.

Now…Go forth…enjoy the revolution of oven fajitas! You’re welcome in advance.

Reviews to come: chicken enchilada pasta, peanut sauce chicken, coconut lime chicken and ranch chops.

A four year age difference…7 months in

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I’ve recently had a few people ask me what it’s like having little ones that are 4 years apart. And while I touched on the subject early on {here, here and here}, I figured now that we’re 7 months in and Reese is much less blob-like these days, I’d give more of an “official” real-life review.

My girls are 4 years and 2 months apart. Obviously I have nothing to compare this age gap to, but I will tell you, so far I am SO happy it worked out this way.

Lets start with the obvious…not having two kids in diapers is so amazingly awesome.

For the most part, Rylee has outgrown the resentment she had toward me at the very beginning. Every once in a while it’ll rear it’s ugly head, but for by and large, it’s smooth sailing and seriously? I couldn’t be happier about this, because that stage was just flat out hard and it actually kind of hurt my feelings.

Even though we try not to abuse this, it’s so nice having a kiddo that can help with things from time to time. Stuck in a chair nursing? Hey Ry, can you go get me a clean burp rag? Cooking dinner and the baby is fussing? Ry, can you please get your sister her binkie? Have to run to the other room for a second to take your jewelry off before your curious baby rips it off? Ry, can you keep an eye on your sis real quick while I run to the other room? “Okay mama!” A few minutes later…”Moooom, Reesie is headed for Dante’s water bowl!”

I love how much rylee wants to help out. And we try to accommodate as often as possible, but Sometimes the constant wanting to help can be annoying. Like, automatically add in and extra 10-15 minutes no matter what the task is. And sometimes, if its just not feasible for her to help out, or if I just don’t have the patience, Rylee’s feelings can get a bit hurt.

I’ve already mentioned the girls adore each other, which is great, but I say “Rylee get out of your sister’s face!” more times than I can count. If I had a dollar for every time I said that, I’d easily be a thousandaire right now. I’m sure she’ll get it…eventually. Hopefully before Reese is old enough to shove Ry out of her face on her own.

The toys can be an issue. Number one, 4 year olds have tiny toys. For example Rylee is into Legos. And not the big, toddler kind. The real, little, step on one in a dark room and you’ll jump to the ceiling kind. Talk about choking hazards! We’re in full on toy segregations & baby gate mode right now. Then there’s the issue of Reese’s toys…anytime Reese gets a new toy or we take a toy out of storage for her, Rylee is all up in its business. For now, Reese doesn’t care. Heck, it’s even kind of nice because Rylee can show Reese how to use it, but I definitely see this becoming an issue in the future.

Reese is currently in the “easily distractable” stage of nursing. Which can be annoying when your busy little four year old is jumping and dancing around. But, Ry is also old enough to understand when I tell her I’m going to feed Reese in her room and she needs to play in her room or watch a movie or whatever.

I suppose we can’t leave out the fact that Reese has watched more tv in her short 7 months on earth than Rylee did her entire first two years. Oops.

Even 4 years apart the girls are close. No one can make Reese laugh like Rylee can. Reese hears Ry’s voice and looks for her instantly. If Ry is having a rough afternoon, Reese is always there to try and make her smile. These girls are as thick as thieves and watching them together seriously makes my heart melt.

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So, yea…kind of all over the place, but long story short? A 4 year age difference is great. The minor “annoyances” are far, FAR outweighed by the awesomeness of watching them together.

Now…ask me again in another 6 months to a year when Reese can run around and steal toys. Ha.

 

Meal Planning Calendar {Free Printable}

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So, step two in my meal planning is monthly meal tracking. After the month is over, I transfer all our my weekly meal plans onto a month calendar.

I started doing this about 4 months ago and I’m already questioning why I hadn’t started this earlier. There have been multiple times that I’ll flip back to previous months to see what we’ve had for dinner if I need to fill a slot on my weekly plan. It’s also a tool I use for keeping track of, and rating, any new recipes I may try.

It’s also kind of a fun way to look back and notice any patterns in our eating habits. For example, based on previous months, we eat turkey burgers, spaghetti or lasagna and roast chicken at least once a month.

Anyway, since making my weekly To Do/To Make/To Buy printable, I wanted something a little bit nicer (and more coordinated) than my current system of drawing crazy non-straight lines on a piece of notebook paper. Seriously…I can’t handle the crooked lines. It also wasted a lot of space…I don’t need an entire page for one month because I only keep track of dinners. So I created my sheet with 2 months on one page. {and people say I’m not green. Ha!}

Since my first printable seemed to be a hit, I wanted to share this one with you as well…

Monthly Meal Tracking

Download it: Monthly Meal Tracking Calendar

Download it – print it – use it – share it – do your thing

And I think it’s generic enough that you could use it for things other than meal planning as well.