This next week...

This next week is going to be busy - the FUN kind of busy, mixed in with the hard kind of busy. We have a couple days of fun things (date night, dinner and fall party with friends, play dates, i'm doing some more secret shopping) and then hubby heads out of town for three nights for work. :( I think this time is going to be especially hard on me, as the days he is gone are the days I watch these other 2 girls out of my home. So it might be tiring. For one of the nights he's gone, at least I found a sitter so I can go to a MOPS meeting. So I'll get some fellowship with other mamas, which is always wonderful. I even have a phone date I'm setting up with a friend, so I'll have some things to look forward to.

I thought I'd post our meals for the next week, in case I don't have time to write! Well not really meals, but rather dinners, since I don't cook during the day. I'm doing pretty good eating raw until dinner, about 75% of the time. Real life happens, and somedays it's not perfect, but I keep aiming for it, and I figure that's what counts.

SO here are some of the dinners for the next week. Tonight however we are doing something special. Elijah checked out this cute 50's style cookbook for kids at the library. I had to chuckle that he has been having me read him recipes at night in place of bedtime stories!! ha! just like mama. So we've been talking about what it means when it says "bring to a boil", and what a "dozen" versus a "baker's dozen" is, and other fun things. He has also decided he wants to write his own recipe book with his favorite recipes on it, so I can't wait to see that. We've made Split Pea soup out of it (2 thumbs down, then again I have never liked it on the stove, unless my MIL makes it, I only like it in the crockpot otherwise). So it's mostly all homestyle comfort food in this book of course. The other thing we made was cinnamon sugar toast ( that took me back to my childhood for sure!! my kids had never had it!). So I told him to pick two more recipes before we have to return it, and he picked Baked Macaroni and Cheese, and Brownies. :)
SO I bought WW noodles today and the other ingredients, and we're going to make it tonight with a garden salad and some steamed green and wax beans. It's our date night tonight and we are eating out anyway, so they'll have a fun special kid's dinner. :)

For the rest of the week, here are three things I'm making from scratch at home.......I'll probably take the kids to eat out once while Rob is gone, and I always plan a night or two to finish up leftovers.

Polenta-Sausage Bowl
my kids LOVE polenta, and usually I serve it on the side with a mushroom sauce over it. But they said this looked good, so it will be a rare time I actually purchase meat! Unless they can recommend a suitable meat-substitute, which I'm hoping. Plus the "Under 20 minutes" appealed to me since Rob will be gone :)

Farro with Butternut Squash, Hazelnuts and Swiss Chard
doesn't this just SOUND like it will taste like Fall? yum! Another recipe from the Whoel Foods Budget Recipe Challenge. Because, hey, who isn't on a budget these days?

Smoky Penne with Corn and Cherry Tomatoes
I got this in a free E-recipe Book from Vegetarian Times, but I found the recipe somewhere else on line so I don't need to type it. We got a jar of yummy looking Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce and have been trying to find something to do with them. This looks great!!

Happy Eating!