Yummy Chicken Dish

Sorry it's not the best "food photo."  It tastes better than this photo looks.  :)

Since we are so busy right now with eating on the road or needing meals to be ready when we walk in the door late from a ballgame, I have dreamed of making a cookbook just for busy moms during the sports seasons.  I find myself really having to look thoroughly through recipes to find something that I can cook easily, package well and try to keep it hot (but it still tastes good if it turns lukewarm) to take on the road and eat during this busy season of 2 football teams and cross country.  

I made this last week in the crock pot and love it although I would like to change the name to Taco Chicken because that's more what it tasted like.  It's easy.  It's inexpensive and everyone loved it.  Give it a try!

recipe

More Meal Plans

I know August is almost over and I'm just now posting our meal plan, but I wanted to show you what I did this summer.  I have loved my meal calendar so much!  I wanted to add recipe cards to the system that are tried and true that I use over and over.  It led me to the site, where I have shared before, that has a monthly meal plan for Aldi grocery store, another one for Aldi in the fall and a last one of all Crock Pot meals.  I cut and pasted from the www.momadvice.com site and put into a document.  I made small cards for my calendar for each meal, using the guides that the web site gives for side dishes.  I tried my best to color code them based on the cardstock I had.  It didn't take me too long and I'm so glad I did it. 

For August I planned for us to eat 1 week from each new menu.  I left a week open for leftovers, breakfasts meals and meals on the run.  These are tried and true recipes that my family has loved for years.  It was well worth the effort.

Now that school is in full swing, our schedule is looking a bit crazy.  Beginning next week we will have a cross country meet every Monday, a middle school football game every Thursday and a high school football game every Friday.  That means 3 days a week we will either eat really late dinners or dinners that I need to pack on the go - otherwise we could have some huge eating-out expenses.  I'm hoping to go through my recipe files and find great recipes that I could pack for the games.  I plan on making a list of these recipes and then filing them together for On-The-Go menus.  It requires that I stay on top of my game, but it's essential to get us through the  next 10 weeks....until wrestling & basketball.  :)

Recipe cards

August  meal plan

Dinner On The Run

Soccer season has begun and the Fish Fam is finding ourselves on the run about 2 nights a week.  Because our school does not have a home soccer field yet, our games have been about 1 hour away, meaning that we leave straight from school and get home about 7 p.m.  This calls for me to be prepared for dinners so that we don't have to spend $50 on our family at McDonald's or some other fast food restaurant.

All it takes is a little bit of pre-planning to feed your family a healthy, inexpensive meal on the run.

For our first soccer game, I made sub sandwiches and individually wrapped them around lunch time and packed them in a cooler with a bag of chips, water bottles and a small bag of mini peppers.

Last soccer game I boiled 16 hot dogs, placed each in a bun and wrapped individually in foil.  Threw in a can of Pringles and a bag of baby carrots with a carton of hummus.  The hot dogs were still warm when we ate them during half time.  I had a baggy of mustard and ketchup collected from fast food restaurants that were perfect for everyone.  There were enough hot dogs to feed a couple, hungry soccer players on the way home too.

For tonight's supper I just browned 2 lbs. of ground turkey with 1 chopped bell pepper.  Put it in the crock pot with garlic powder, salt, pepper, a few small squirts of mustard, a couple tablespoons of brown sugar and 1 1/2 cups of ketchup.  I set it to simmer on low until I go to pick up the kids at school - in about 3 hours.  I will put the Sloppy Joe meat on hamburger buns, wrap individually in foil, throw in a bag of pretzels and baby carrots and there's supper!

I buy popcorn seeds in bulk and will pop a large pot of popcorn, toss it with sea salt and Parmesan cheese to pour in a paper grocery sack for snacking during the game.  We always have plenty to share.

So remember this the next time you have an afternoon/evening filled with ball games.  You don't have to spend tons of money to eat out during the season.  Just do a little bit of prepping and you can feed your family for a fraction of the costs.  Who wants processed chicken nuggets and greasy fries when you can have yummy, homemade Sloppy Joes??

New Crock Pot Recipe

I'm trying a new recipe tonight that looked really good and uses things I had on hand.

I found it at Lynn's Kitchen Adventures.  She has a great site with yummy recipes and oftentimes free e-books.  I've been a subscriber for a few years.

You can find this easy recipe here for Slow Cooked Tamale Casserole.  I'm going to add some fried okra and we will be set!

Plethora of Pinterest

If you have checked out my auction on our adoption blog, you can see I've been busy. 

I used to be a huge crafter.  I sewed, crafted and scrapbooked through every single Fish Stick nap.  Those days are long gone but it was really fun having a personal deadline to get crafting and sewing done to post items to auction.  Pinterest came in real handy as I searched things to make with things I had on hand.

Here's some of the things that I got off line:  rick rack Christmas tree cards, snowman t-shirt, knit woven bracelets, hair bows, tree button shirts, & the reversible purse pattern. 

I have lots of fabric from my curtain sewing days, so we used that to make the grocery bags.

I sew with knit all the time because the blog Make It and Love It has gotten me hooked on knit.  The cheapest way to use knit is to buy jersey knit bed sheets at Goodwill for $2.99 a piece.  I have knit in just about every color and it costs me a fraction of the cost going that route.  There's so many fun things to do with knit.  I stocked up on t-shirts of all colors and sizes last year as I anticipated opening my Etsy shop to make reversible applique Africa tees.  My Etsy shop didn't take off like I anticipated and so I am left with loads of t-shirts.  It's been my standard kid birthday gift this year.  I searched Pinterest to come up with cute ideas, other than Africa, to make t-shirts.

And to add to my month of Pinterest Craze, I have been doing the freezer bag meals that I pinned.  I think I already have 8 meals in my freezer and one cooking in my Crock Pot as I type.  That's the kind of meal planning I LOVE!!!  Anyone else tried those out?

Day 1

The Halloween candy is put up and we are geared up to start Day 1 of our month of "real foods."

For breakfast, I made Lorrie's Lazy Granola the day before.  (Recipe coming tomorrow)

The Fish Sticks ate it over plain yogurt with honey and I had it with some milk with sliced bananas on the top. 

 For snack we had 3 slices of blocked sharp cheddar with 4-5 Triskets.

Lunch was natural peanut butter with fruit spread on whole grain bread, hummus with carrots and grapes.

Side note - I bought these things at Aldi and although the peanut butter and fruit spread have a small amount of sugar, they are free of corn syrup and about 1/4 the price of the 100% natural things I found at Kroger.  It was worth the purchase to save the money.

For supper, I have pintos brewing in the crock pot for my favorite refried beans, ground turkey with taco seasonings, and all the trimmings for a Mexican buffet.

So far so good, if I can get my 5 year old to understand "Mommy said NO HALLOWEEN CANDY!"  :)

Meals for October

Right now our weeks have quite a schedule. 

Cross Country meets and football practice on Mondays.

Sports practices on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Football games and cross country practice on Thursdays.

Speech and football practice on Fridays.

With a schedule like this, careful planning is important for meals.  Our first football game sent me in a panic to plan better after paying $20 admission for our large family and then putting down almost another $20 for hotdogs and a bag of chips for everyone.  Not very filling or cheap! 

I'm geared up and ready with a plan now.

This month I'm doing Mom Advice's meal plan for Crock Pot for a Month.  We might not get to every meal for the month, but I'm happy to have those meals easy and ready.  For the first 2 weeks we will have:

Week 1:
1.  Roasted chicken with vegetables
2.  Sloppy Joes with raw veggies and pretzels (great one to take to a game!)
3.  Italian veggie and pasta soup (My Man has asked me to try to fix soup in a homemade bread bowl - hmm - maybe I'll post results later) with bread and salad
4.  Pork Chops with homemade rice-a-roni and broccoli
5.  Beef Stew with biscuits and salad
6.  Sticky Chicken with baked potatoes and corn

Week 2:
1.  Italian Sausage Spaghetti with rosemary cheese breadsticks
2.  Sloppy Giuseppes with chips and apple slices
3.  Tacos with corn chips, salsa and refried beans
4.  Chicken Italiano with broccoli and angel hair pasta
5.  Finger Lickin' Pork Chops with mashed potatoes and peas
6.  Sour Cream Salsa Chicken and rice

Check out her meal plans if you haven't already.  I'm a big fan.  Easy, healthy (for the most part) and what can be better than crock potting every day????

Beware of Mushy

Years ago when I began my love affair with my crock pot, I quickly learned that the recipes that called for rice turned out pretty gooey and yucky.

As you know, I have been cooking in my crock pot for this month from Fix-It and Forget-It cookbook.  They have been great meals and it's been so nice to throw them together early in the day and avoid the pre-supper rushing around during homework time.

Tonight my recipe was a chicken rice with broccoli.  I decided to switch the recipe up a bit and actually cook the rice in the broth with the chicken instead of adding cooked rice like the recipe said.  I kept an eye on it for 2 hours on low and then added the other ingredients according to the recipe.

I'd love to tell you that all was wonderful with fluffy, white rice instead of mush, but as you can see in the photo, we had some mush.  I even had a Fish Stick call it gooey, another one mushy and another one soggy.  *SIGH*

So my idea didn't exactly cure the rice in the crock pot problem.  I will say that it was less mushy than it would have been if I had followed the recipe and I will also add that it still tasted pretty good.

So there's my warning if you have never used rice in your crock pot.  DON'T!  The only remedy that might work is to add the cooked rice in the last hour on LOW.  I just might give it a try and let you know how it goes.

And BTW, I worked on my meal plan for April - just getting a week ahead of myself - and I can't wait to share some great information that you will LOVE if you like having a meal plan but don't have the time or desire to work on one.  I'll try to give you time too to plan it for April yourself.  I bet you'll love it as much as I do!

Crock Pot Desserts

You might remember that my meal planning this month was 20 meals taken from the crock pot cookbook Fix-It and Forget-It.  We have thoroughly enjoyed all the meals.  Some I was a bit hesitant about but we are pretty adventurous eaters and so far there were no bombs.  I think my favorite was the chicken curry with onions and sweet potatoes!

I also wrote down some crock pot desserts because in all my years of loving on my crock pot, I have neglected to try desserts.

I planned on sharing some great and easy crock pot dessert recipes with you, but since the blog is titled "Feeding the Fish Sticks," I assumed that maybe one prerequisite would be that the Fish Sticks love the recipe that I share.  So far they haven't been a big hit with them or My Man.  There have been a couple that I LOVED and everyone else just said OK about.

This one pictured was pumpkin pudding and I thought it was great....no other such sentiments in the Fish House.  I tried a chocolate peanut butter pudding cake.  Same response.  Then I did an apple cobbler.  The cobbler part was soggy instead of crunchy and caked together in chunks...edible but not worth repeating.  I've got 3 more to try.... Lemon Pudding Cake, Chocolate Fudge Cake and Blue and Black Berry Cobbler.  I've got my fingers crossed that maybe one of those will be blog worthy.  I'll keep you posted.