Menu Plan - January 31

Last week I did not have a chance to post after my menu plan!  It was a busy week and we have yet another one ahead.  I am keeping my menu simple this week but with lots of variety - it is amazing how easy preparing dinner can be when you plan ahead!  Below I have added some tips to help you get an idea for how I get these dinners done despite a busy work week. 

Highlights from last weeks menu plan:  I roasted my first whole chicken and it was INCREDIBLY easy (I cannot believe it took me that long to try doing this)!  I purchased a whole Smart Chicken from Cub which was already tied with kitchen twine and ready to go.  I followed the recipe to the letter and the chicken and potatoes turned out perfect.  I had almost enough chicken left over for the white chicken chili, which we had tonight and was SO flavorful and took only about 30 minutes to prepare (and was ready 30 minutes after that, although it tasted like it had been simmering all day long.  I also switched the beef kabobs from last week to this week - we had plenty of leftover soup from Wednesday to eat on Thursday!

Please let me know if you have any questions, suggestions or ideas.  It's fun to hear from you about the recipes you have tried from my menus - thank you for all of your feedback!  Check out orgjunkie's post for lots of other great recipes!

Monday:  Salsa Meat Loaves (sub 1.5 tbsp olive oil for eggs) with roasted squash and green beans
tips:  prepare meat loaves the evening before, wrap in plastic wrap; roast squash evening before and heat up before dinner

Tuesday:  Pennsylvania Pot Roast (I'll add potatoes and parsnips to the crock pot)
tip:  prepare crock pot the evening before and pop it in the fridge, plug it in the next morning!

Wednesday:  Leftovers with green salad

Thursday:  Enchilada Bake (from my freezer)
tip:  when making a casserole or soup/chili, freeze leftovers or double the recipe to freeze so you can incorporate these meals into future weekly plans!

Friday:  Date night!

Saturday:  Grilled beef and veggie kabobs with rice 

Sunday:  GO PACK!    Beer Brats (Thousand Hills grass-fed beef hot dog for the little guy), sweet potato fries and green salad

Menu Plan: Week of January 24th

Happy Monday!  Last week flew by!  It was so nice having my mom in town - she left today and I already miss her!  Looking forward to trying a couple of new recipes this week and falling back on some old standbys.  On Wednesday, I will be making some beef kabobs from Von Hanson's, a great little meat shop (many locations in the Twin Cities).  I made my beef stew with their kabob meat (already cubed which makes it extra easy) and it turned out so tender.  I recommend checking out this great little shop for quick and easy dinner options (they have pre-marinated kabobs and free range chicken breasts, too!)

Please let me know if you have any feedback or questions!  I am so excited to hear that many of you are trying some of the recipes from my menu and that it is making your lives a little easier and adding some variety to your week!  Check out Orgunkie's Menu Plan Monday post for more recipe inspiration!

Monday:  Friends over - Pizza dinner
Tuesday:  Banana Pancakes, Sausage and Easy Homemade Apple Sauce (I will triple this recipe!)
Wednesday:  Crock Pot Minestrone with noodles
Thursday:  Beef Kabobs with green salad and Roasted Root Vegetables *toss veggies with appox. two tbsp apple cider vinegar, 2 tbsp maple syrup and 2 tbsp olive oil
Friday:  Roasted Chicken with Carrots and Potatoes
Saturday:  Leftovers
Sunday:  White Chicken Chili (FYI, takes a few seconds for this link to load sometimes!)

52 Weeks of Organizing - Week 3!

With my mom being in town, I have been enjoying evening time relaxing with her, so have not tackled my project this week - but I will be doing it this weekend and will post an update once completed!  As a preview, I plan to organize my spices!!  I am sure many of you are in the same position...  a cabinet full of spices, many that have been sitting, inactive, for over one year (or more).  I have the cabinet in addition to a whole spice rack.  Most of the spices have gone unused for a long time.  My goal is to narrow them down to ten "everyday use" spices and organize them on two magnetic racks on the side of our fridge (picture below) from the Container Store.  I am sure there will be a few that I will keep in bottles in the cupboard, but I will try to keep those down to five or less (big bottle of peppercorns, etc.).  I have found that purchasing spices in bulk is definitely the way to go - there is a Coop near my inlaws' cabin that sells spices for very affordable prices and I can pick how much I want to buy.  I also buy in bulk at Cub foods (pre-packaged, near the bulk foods area of the store).  Using your own spice containers allows you to buy in bulk and is definitely the way to go budget-wise!  More to come!  For more organizing inspiration, check out orgjunkie's weekly post! 

Spice Rack from The Container Store

Interesting (Foodie) Reads This Week!

My passion for cooking for my family (and my family's allergy-friendly cooking journey) drives me to read a lot about food and cooking - there are so many awesome resources!  I plan to share some of my favorite articles, news and sites along this vein as often as I can.  I hope that this will be a great go-to resource for you and your family, too!  You can also check me out on Twitter @elevatewellness (see my feed to the right) for some of my favorite daily posts!  Please email me or send a Facebook message with any sites or news that you think would be great additions to this type of post!

Thanks to one of my Facebook friends, Bridgett, for making me aware of this news on Subway adding gluten-free options to their menu!  Maybe the beginning of a movement towards more intolerance and allergy-friendly food choices at restaurants?!

My family LOVES Chili in the wintertime!  Check out this post from Shaina who writes a blog called Food for My Family (a fellow Minnesotan and food lover!) (via babble.) 

Check out Karina's Kitchen on Facebook here.  As she explains, her FB page (and blog!) is "a dynamic gluten-free food blog for families living well with celiac disease, gluten sensitivity, ASD and food allergies. Vegan friendly."

As you know, I am a big quinoa fan - these seeds can add big nutrition to your meals!  This article elaborates on the benefits of quinoa!

Eating seasonally and sustainably - the more I learn about this movement, the more passionate I become about it!  This article (and recipes!) at Simple Bites got my attention!

I hope you enjoy these reads!  Any feedback or suggestions would be appreciated!

Menu Plan Monday - January 17 (with chili recipe!)

With another busy week ahead, it feels so great to have my meals planned and grocery list made!  We actually followed our plan without any variation last week.  All of the meals turned out great, but I was most impressed with the Sweet Potato Chili.  It was a wonderful vegetarian variation and it was a huge hit with my little guy!  My mom will be visiting this week starting on Wednesday, which will relieve a bit of our day to day grind.  Looking forward to some great meals and a Saturday night out with my hubby!  As always, check out many menu ideas via Org Junkie's MPM posting.  Let me know if you have any questions or feedback! 

Monday - Homemade Pizzas
Tuesday - Coconut Curry Chicken with Rice and green beans
Wednesday - Slow Cooker Beef Stew
Thursday - Turkey Burgers (edit: NO soy sauce) with sweet potato fries and salad
Friday - Leftovers or take-out
Saturday - Night out!
Sunday - Crock Pot Chili (Football Sunday!  GO PACKERS!  See recipe below, this is a family favorite!)


Recipe for Crock Pot Chili:
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup chopped sweet yellow onion
1-2 jalapenos, seeds removed, diced
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 to 3 teaspoons ground cumin
2 lbs. lean ground beef or turkey
1 teaspoon dried leaf oregano
2 bay leaves
2 (14 oz) cans diced tomatoes in juice (note: I prefer fire roasted tomatoes)
1 1/2 cups water
1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 can (16 ounces each) black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can (16 ounces each) garbanzo beans (or other favorite bean), drained and rinsed
grated cheese, sour cream, chopped parsley, diced avocado, green onion, or other garnishes

PREPARATION:
Heat the oil in a large, non-stick skillet and saute the onions, garlic and jalapeno. Cook 1 minute, then add chili powder and cumin and cook 2 minutes, stirring. Add this mixture to the crockpot. Brown the beef in the same skillet, drain and add to crock pot.

Add all remaining ingredients except canned beans and garnishes to the crock pot, stir well.

Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Add beans 1 hour or so before serving. Serve with garnishes.

52 Weeks of Organizing - Week 2

This week, my goal was to clean up our guest bedroom, specifically, the book shelf.  This dresser/bookshelf has become the dumping grounds for some of the decor that we no longer have use for in another part of the house, lots of old books and miscellaneous photos (I'm sure this scenario sounds familiar to many of you, haha).  As I mentioned last week, our guestroom was also our makeshift office while we finished our basement (which was completed in early summer 2010, ugh).  Last week, I finally cleaned up the desk area and we donated the old desk to Goodwill.  This week, I rolled up my sleeves and purged or donated much of what was on the bookshelf.  It feels SO good to finally have the room back.  This weekend, we will move the bookshelf to the opposite side of the room and it will actually look like a welcoming guest bedroom again!  (Just in time for my mom to visit next week).  Yay!  (See before and after below)
It took me less than one hour this week to get this done, amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it!  I'd love to hear about any organizing projects you completed.  Feel free to post your organizing successes at I'm an Organizing Junkie, as well!



BOOKSHELF BEFORE





BOOKSHELF AFTER



ROOM BEFORE

ROOM AFTER

Elevate Wellness

As I mentioned, I am new to blogging and since I am going to take some of my (limited) down time to share information here, I want it to be focused and helpful to those who are reading it (and for me to refer back to)!!  As I thought about this, I wanted to find a way to express what I am trying to communicate overall.  Wellness is one word I could use to encompass this blog, but I think it is more than that.  In the past year and especially in the past few months, I have had to think about wellness in a whole new way - a heightened awareness around how to keep both me and my family WELL (physically, emotionally, financially, etc.)  I had to elevate wellness in my life.  So, my mission is to elevate wellness through this blog - to share this sense of awareness around wellness that has come to be a part of my day-to-day life.  Again, food and recipes that cater to kids' health, especially those with food allergies and intolerances, will be the focus.  But beyond that, as moms, dads, and busy professionals, how do we keep ourselves well while balancing our day-to-day?  I plan to write about my ongoing journey on this front, too.

What is really cool is that after drafting this blog post, I was able to secure the Twitter account @elevatewellness.  I was apprehensive about Twitter at first but have found it to be a quick one-stop resource for news, recipes, health-related articles, etc.  So, if you are a Twitter user, follow me @elevatewellness!  I will share my blog updates and any other relevant articles and information there (from time to time!) 

I had a conversation with a friend today that reminded me to remind anyone who is reading this to refer this blog and my contact information on to any parents out there that have kids with food intolerances or allergies (or who are trying to provide more balanced meals to their kids in general, for that matter)!  It can be a daunting thing and although I am not a professional, I would love to provide any information or referrals I can to help them!

Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions, I'd love to hear what you would like to see here!