St. Valentine's

Here is what i made for son 1's class. So cute! Son 2 didn't want them for his......

January 22nd to the end...

I cannot tell a lie. This was by far my poorest performance in the Eat at Home Challenge and I'm very disappointed in myself. It's not even that we ended up eating out it's that I forgot to take pictures of my meals (more often than not), I didn't find time to try new recipes as I normally do during challenge month, I didn't blog often enough and we ate an awful lot of leftovers from the freezer which were often too repetitive or too boring to mention.
I do have a few things to report in the last week though...one night Paul cooked butter chicken sausage from our local market with sautéed shrimp, saag (a curried spinach dish) and pickled mango chutney.
Another night I made a pork & broccoli stir fry plus I've recently discovered a love for home made cooked oatmeal. This had apples in it with a blueberry syrup drizzled over top...YUM!
Though we didn't exactly end the month with a bang, we did start February off well by contributing home made treats on Superbowl Sunday. We made a cooked tex mex dip (1lb ground beef browned with 1 packet taco seasoning and 7.5 oz of tomato sauce, 1 can refried beans, 500ml sour cream and 200g shredded Kraft Habanero cheese). Layer in a 12x8" flat dish in the order above and cook at 325 until bubbly. Eat with tortilla chips!
I also made a flourless chocolate torte with white chocolate raspberry buttercream and dark chocolate ganache since one of Paul's friends is gluten intolerant. Lastly, I made a giant chocolate chip cookie and decorated it with PC Dark Chocolate Sundae Sauce using a piping bag.
Hooray! I finally did some creative cooking/baking. Too bad it was in the wrong month!

RoundUp: Park Household

Well on the first day of Feburary we did eat out.  Nathan went to his coveted Tim Hortons and had a donut.  He was so happy and it was so delicious.

All in all we did fairly well.  With two incidences through the month.  The first was when I went to the movies and had popcorn.  Movie popcorn is irresistible.  And then this week I had to go to Medicine Hat for a student and stay over night.  Well I ate out then too.  Darryl suggested I get a frozen dinner or cook something in the coffee maker, but I enjoyed a delicious dinner out.

Thanks everyone for participating and for lots of new good ideas and recipes. It was a hard month, but if I remember correctly it usually is.  But it does get me in the routine of planning ahead.  Having snacks in the car is important as well as bring snacks where ever we go.  It probably where we spend most of our eating out money.  When we aren't prepared but hungry.  Not very often do we "plan" to eat out.  It happens more out of hunger and necessity. 

One interesting thing of note is Darryl and I use Mint.  It's an online/app money management system.  I LOVE it!  Keeps all your banking together and helps you manage a budget.  When we first signed up it looked at average spending and set a budget for us.  If you are looking for a new way to manage your money I highly recommend it.  One of the interesting things about it is that our budget for Coffee Shops (which includes my Davids Tea) is 120$, Fast Food is 140 and Restaurants is 120$.  So in total last month we saved: $380.  That's huge.  And I did spend 39$ extra on groceries but still that's lots of money saved.

Jenn 

Yum, cookies

I might have forgot a photo for Monday and Tuesday's dinners but I didn't forget to take one of my yummy cookies that son 2 helped me make. One of my favs. Soft pumpkin spice with icing ( creamcheese of course). Ignore my work papers in the background.

Monday Jan. 28 & Tuesday Jan. 29

Monday we had homemade Lasagna. I make a mean lasagna. Just out of my head now because I make it so often. Son 1 especially likes lasagna. Son 2 tolerates it. He likes the smell more than that actual dish. Tuesday was a rushed kind of night. I had leftovers from Monday, Son 1 didn't have leftover because he has it already in his lunch. For them I made rigatoni pasta. Son 1 has red sauce just "slopped" on top and not mixed in and son 2 has butter with parmesan cheese. If it's not made like how Lesley used to make it then look out! BH isn't home this week so that's why I made the lasagna. His diet doesn't allow him that kind of a dish, too bad for him...... Sorry no photo, I forgot.

Day 29 at Chateau Beck

Tonights dinner was Hamburger Soup. It was sooooo good! Just what we needed on such a cold, cold day!

Park Household 24-28

We are in the homestrech people!!  I already have Friday planned as a night to eat out!! I'll have to see if the kids have some where they would like to go.   I wonder if Nathan will pick Tim Hortons.  =)

Day 24 I think I had something wonderful planned, but didn't feel like it so instead we made nachos.  Which is always a good standby.  As long as we have sour cream around. 

Day 25: I worked so it was perogies for the boys (not my favorite) and leftover roast beef for me. 

Day 26: Now that I think back to it I'm not really sure we had dinner on Saturday.  Lucas had some at a birthday party.  And when Nathan and I got to the birthday party we got a cupcake, so maybe that was our dinner.... not very healthy I know.  That night we also had a bunch of girls from the eat at home challenge over for a movie night.  We made popcorn in the popcorn maker and Lesley brought buffalo chicken dip (yummy) and I made the cream cheese/caramel/skor dip with apples. 

Day 27: Darryl made a delicious steak dinner and we had a bunch of people over. It was Dad's belated birthday celebration.  I tried to make the "pinned" roast brocolli with it, but Costco didn't have brocolli (not shocked, stupid Costco) so we had brocollini, it wasn't as good as I was hoping, but I'll have to try it with real brocolli next time. 

Day 28: Mondays have started to become a gong show for us.  I teach a class till 5, then get home and Lucas has karate at 6.  So we need to have something made when we get home.  Thank god for slow cookers!!  Yesterday morning I smorgy-d a recipe that I have done before.  It was 2 chicken breasts, half a container of cream cheese (leftover from movie night) corn (leftover from steak night) 3/4c salsa and some black beans.   Let it cook on low all day.  When we got home we shredded the meat and then put it in wraps.  Nathan preferred it with nacho chips.   It was delicious and fast and easy. 

Jenn