Recipe Review

This week I made only one new recipe. The first was a great one to do with the left overs from a great Sunday night meal. Sunday Big A smoked a salmon and we had baked potatoes. It was delish. It left us with about a half of a salmon fillet. So, Monday, I whipped up this bad boy called a smoked salmon pizza. I got it from this website - http://thatssomichelle.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-09-11T14%3A21%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7. You have to scroll down to it. It was wonderful. I made a few adjustments to this recipe since I had not a clue what a shallot was. I had to google it and that can't be a good sign. Wikipedia said it was like garlic and the picture of it looked like an onion so I came to the conclusion the garlic powder and onion powder would do the trick - and it did. I also could not find capers at my local Target so we went without. This thing was amazing and when I say amazing I mean the hubs called it "gourmet." I suggest this to anyone that loves salmon and cream cheese. Again, I will say this thing was amazing.

I also made the jalapeno poppers with this recipe again - http://aisletoaloha.blogspot.com/2011/01/pop-em-like-theyre-hot.html. I have so many jalapenos from our garden that made more than the recipe called for. They were eaten in a day and again were absolutely delish.

Meals In Review

As a proudly proclaimed Pinterest addict I have found a new love and it's in the kitchen. This is a huge step for me as I have never been one to enjoy cooking or to do it well for that matter. Pinterest has changed that for me and I feel like a more accomplished mom and wife at the same time. I have found that cooking and providing good meals for my family is highly rewarding. We aren't eating out as much and we aren't living in an endless circle of hamburger, tuna, chicken helper on repeat. This week was a very tasty week that in my opinion needed review.
Monday: clean out the fridge day. Going to be keeping this beauty around. I came up with a fantastic meal in no time with what I had on hand and left over from the week before. I put a roast in the crock pot, chopped up some yellow and white squash from the garden, found some carrots that I needed to chop up. Put it all in the crock pot together, added a cup of water, some salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Cajun powder and let it cook all day. It was fantastic over some mashed potatoes that evening.
Tuesday: turkey hot dogs and jalapeno poppers. I used this recipe: http://aisletoaloha.blogspot.com/2011/01/pop-em-like-theyre-hot.html for the poppers. They were amazing. I also used jalapenos grown in our garden so it was even better since they were FRESH jalapenos!
Wednesday: I took the night off from new adventures and we ate a late lunch so I just whipped up some roast beef sandwiches which kept us from heading out to fast food.
Thursday: Another crock pot day. I made sweet and tangy meatballs using this recipe: http://sixsistersstuff.blogspot.com/2011/06/slow-cooker-sweet-and-tangy-meatballs.html. I served it over rice and it was delicious. My picky step daughter even liked it!
Friday: Taco Pizza using this recipe: http://realmomkitchen.com/5301/taco-pizza/. I forgot olives at the store so that was missing and my step-daughter doesn't like green onions so I left those off. It was very good. The only thing that I plan on changing on this recipe in the future is that I think it needs a little more spice. So, after I add the refried beans I think that I will add a layer of salsa before adding the rest of the ingredients. And, I will definitely remember the olives. Little Lady loves olive but my step-daughter doesn't so I will do olives on half.

Chores

This week is Little Lady's first week of completing her chore chart. I found two very helpful websites while perusing Pinterest: the first is http://parentingsquad.com/45-chores-young-children-can-do and the second is http://www.money-and-kids.com/age-appropriate-chores.html. I used a few ideas from both and a little creativeness of my own and knowing my daughter and came up with what I thought would work best for her. I decided to give her two chores that would remain the same for the entire year she is two adding another when she is three another at four...The two that will remain the same for this year are making her bed and putting clothes in the hamper daily. I will also give her one more chore that will change weekly. This week it is using the sticky roll on the couch and the kitchen table chairs. She already likes to do this so I thought it would be a good thing to kick off her chart since she will be rewarded for doing so. She has to complete this chore whenever I vacuum the downstairs this week. I made her a chart on construction paper that I will re-do every Monday with her permanent chores and her changing chore. I made five squares next to each chore and she will get a sticker when she completes them. I am choosing to only make her to do them Monday through Friday and give her the weekend off - since I don't even typically clean on the weekends. If she completes her chores and fills her chart with stickers then she will get to visit the $1 bin at Target and pick something out. Some weeks I may choose to give her $2 (her age) in cash as a reward, but again, until she gets the hang of it I will choose the Target option for now. I'm really thinking that this will be a good thing for her especially to start it now so when she is 9 I won't hear as much whining and to teach her the responsibility of picking up after herself and helping around the house.