Busy Hands Busy Minds: November 2012

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Thanksgiving Menu

How many of you have already planned out your Thanksgiving menu? Are you taking advantage of great sales prices to stock up. Butter, cream cheese, turkey, ham, and cranberries are just a few of the items I have been finding at great prices right now.

This year my oldest daughter, Lauren, has decided to host Thanksgiving dinner at her home. They also live out in the country and have a nice lake just out their back yard. I'm sure some canoeing and shooting will be going on as well as eating lots of good food and chasing little ones. I am so thankful that both of my married daughters live close enough for easy visits and we can still be together for one of our favorite holidays.

Our Thanksgiving menu rarely changes through the years. I'll be baking a turkey and ham, a sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes and a dessert that my food allergic boys can eat. Devin will be making our sweet and sour beans and another dessert. Lauren is going to try her hand at dressing this year. She called yesterday wanting the recipe. Does anyone really use a recipe? Years spent watching my mamaw and my mama make dressing and being the taste-tester taught me how to make it. I made a few changes here and there, but we love our dressing. She'll have to get experience and make it her own. She also mentioned a caramel apple cheesecake. Oh, my!! Grandmother will be bringing rolls and our traditional cranberry/apple casserole. Here is a link to some of our favorite holiday recipes. I would love for you to share some of yours with us!!

Chocolate chess pies, blueberry cream cheese pies, sweet and sour beans and cranberry apple casserole recipes are here.
http://busyhandsbusyminds.blogspot.com/2009/11/more-thanksgiving-dinner-recipes.html

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Menu for November 11-17

A little late, I know!! I'm trying to reduce some of our meat consumption on a daily basis while adding in more vegetable dinners. Some of my guys are not liking the changes....and I am not surprised. I suppose I have been changing things up a lot with our foods, but for years I have cooked almost two seperate meals at times trying to make sure my food allergy kids had plenty to choose from. Now I pretty much cook one main dish that all can eat and fill in with sides. That means most of our dishes no longer have any dairy, egg or wheat products. We still consume dairy and egg, but not in our main dishes for the most part.

Breakfasts this week are baked oatmeals (I do make two pans...one with no dairy or egg and one with)...this morning's has some blueberries added in. GF DF EF pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs and grits.

Lunches are leftovers or soups....beef stew, French onion soup, potato soup, chicken soup.

Dinners

Sunday-after our small group book study we headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant

Monday-lentil rice casserole, roasted root veggies (carrots, sweet potatoes, rutabaga and turnips), roasted red potatoes and onions, green beans and turnip greens

Tuesday-white bean chicken chili with tortilla chips and salad (making a few variations with the recipe...using a whole shredded chicken, dry beans and homecanned chicken stock)

Wednesday-ground beef hash and green beans

Thursday-stir fry beef and broccoli with rice, egg drop soup

Friday-homemade pizzas and salad

Saturday-chicken pot pie, English peas and salad

Sunday-pinto beans topped with chopped onions, shredded cheese and sour cream, corn cakes and salad

Monday, November 12, 2012

A Few Wedding Snapshots

We are trying to get back into a normal routine with school and home. Devin and Justin are back home from their honeymoon and both will resume teaching today. Here are just a few snapshots from the wedding. Hopefully we will have some more by the end of the week. We had two great photographers taking pictures and are very pleased so far.