“Let’s keep it easy this year. Keep it simple.” That’s what I tell myself as the new school year approaches. Sometimes I’m successful, other times not so much. The problem with living low carb/GAPS is that you can’t order out on those nights when you’re not in the mood to cook. Trust me though, the temptation is there. 😈
Which is why I’ve decided to share some of my favorite go to recipes that take 30 minutes or less to cook. Trust me, I wouldn’t share these if I thought they were anything but reliable.
This is of course a recipe roundup, but it’s all recipes that we have enjoyed one time or another. As most of y’all know, I’m a huge fan of sheet pan recipes. Thankfully those can take up to 30 minutes to bake, taking all the guess work and slaving away over a hot stove out of the equation. Just add it all to a sheet pan, place in the oven and just like Elsa, let it go!
As always, I encourage you to play with the seasonings, change things up to fit your dietary needs, and make substitutions where needed. You don’t have to follow the recipe exactly, unless you want to. Plus the bulk of these recipes your kid(s) can help prepare. Hope you all enjoy and welcome back to school!!
Cubed cheese is apparently fun to play with 😉 Who knew you could build a little house and pathway?! G–Man was having some issues with the walls not sticking and standing up, so Mom–Mom to the rescue!!
There’s even a little version of Steve!
A cute little walkway and an inside view of Steve’s pad.
But when Steve’s away, the Creepers come out to “play”. Goodbye little cheese house.
And something noteworthy:
G–Man, who is not a cheese fan and has refused all attempts to try cheese by itself, finally ate these cheddar cheese cubes last Friday. He tried a little piece and suddenly he was in love! My picky eater is finally growing up!! I’m even more proud of him when on Saturday he went with my Dad to a Men’s prayer breakfast and actually ate, for the first time, an egg casserole. I had a hard time picking my jaw up off the floor when he told me this. It doesn’t stop there…on Sunday, he over to a friend’s house after church, I told him to eat whatever is offered to him that he was not allowed to be picky. He did me proud 🙂 He ate a cheesy quiche and fish, saying both were delicious!!! There is hope yet for this child, hehe!
All I can say, is if you have a picky eater in your family please do not give up on them. Keep offering them new things to try, continue to expose them to new foods and eventually they will come around. Hope you all have a blessed Monday!!
I grew up not wanting to have any kids. In fact I prayed it wouldn’t happen, mostly because I wanted to pursue a career, have my freedom and not have to be responsible for anyone but myself. I had my life somewhat planned out from a fairly young age. I wanted to do the three F’s: Learn to play the flute(check), Learn French (partial check), and go to France(never happened). It’s amazing how thing work out, once our family moved to Brazil everything stopped making sense. I didn’t know what I wanted to study in college, so I didn’t go. After we came home I floundered for a couple of years unsure of what I wanted to do.
I finally got a job at Hobby Lobby as a cashier, it was a love/hate relationship. I loved working in my favorite store but I hated being stuck behind a register for 10–12 hours a day. After some headbutting with the manager I wound up leaving and spent a month looking for a new job to no avail. The following year I never dreamed I would have wanted something so much that I was willing to give my life for…I became a Mom. It wasn’t by choice to become a single Mom, but that’s how it worked out 🙂
G–Man has certainly kept life interesting for me! There have been days where I wonder what I ever did to deserve this little crazy mess I call “mini me”.
2004
Sure it was a rocky beginning, trying to figure out how to adjust. Sacrificing my wants for his needs, there were a lot of bumps and potholes along the way that I kept stumbling over and falling into. But the one thing I never regret is choosing to keep him. I had to learn how to be his Mom and do everything in my power to make sure he would never be in want.
curls…curls…curls!!!
I miss these curls, they were soft and just melted my heart! He’s the closest thing to a green eyed redhead that I could get 🙂
When he was 3 I was convinced that everything I was as a child was amplified by 100,000! Oh what a handful he was! Climbing on everything, coloring on the walls, painting the carpet, baseboard and part of the wall in the dining room with bright fuchsia fingernail polish(it’s still there by the way, just covered up by a lovely Brazilian cabinet). There was the shampoo incident on his bedroom, apparently he wanted to clean a dirty spot on the floor, and oh the joys of summer time in the pool, back when I could still go out. He stopped taking naps at this point and the adjustments were not in my favor 🙂
Almost overnight he grew up…
…he was becoming his own little person!
Of course I didn’t want to let go, I held on as tight as I possibly could! That sounds worse than I actually meant it 😉 But I definitely couldn’t wait to see what kind of a little person he would grow into. Would he take up art like me? Would he be interested in Legos? Would his love for bugs ever end?! The years passed, we started homeschooling when he was 3 yrs old, the very first thing he learned was how to spell his name. I wanted to make sure he could do it himself in case someone wasn’t sure how to spell it for him(and believe me the variations we got to see on his Sunday School papers over the years have made us giggle). However, we officially didn’t use actual curriculum till he was K5. Yes I boogered up his ABC’s at first, teaching the names of the letters instead of the sounds. We were learning together, trying to figure out what would work best for him and eventually finding out he would be a fairly average student (FTW=for the win)!
Don’t ever let the smiles fool you, he and I are so much alike we butt heads constantly…but the one thing I have always strived to make sure he understood was that I love him with every part of my being! It may not always come out in the loving soft tones of Mrs. June Cleaver, but he’s become my world in ways I never thought someone ever could!
His humor is what I love the most, we make each other laugh over the silliest things! He says that my laugh makes him laugh 🙂 But it’s the other way around, quite honestly!
And if I could bottle up a single drop of his energy I would keep it for myself to use in my old age. He’s got a zaniness about him that’s questionable and endearing at the same time! Well, he is mine after all 😉 *looks up at the above picture* Yep, he’s definitely mine…
He calls his Grandpa “Dad”, since he’s the closest thing to a Dad he’s ever had.
It’s no lie, he’s shot up over these last few years. My little baby is no more 😦 Gone are those days of me carrying him around on my hip and rocking him to sleep. Now he’s this person with ideas, dreams, and becoming aware of the things around him. His world is expanding, as are his interests! From ninjas, to Legos, taking pictures, making videos, and showing me a thing or two on the computer!
He’s hit the big 1–0! He has arrived!!!
I knew this year was going to be exceptional, I just never thought it would get here so quickly! His birthday was special, filled with lots of memories and reflection. We don’t do big parties, we keep things simple and low key with just us here at home. His request every year is for a strawberry cake with Neapolitan ice cream. The cake recipe has been in our family for three generations. It was my favorite birthday cake year after year and now it’s his!
(Ok, I know y’all are dying to see it lol)
I opted out of candles this year, simply because they never seem to work right unless you get the extra long funky candles!
It really is a beautiful cake once you get a pieces served up, but it tastes even better! So easy to make, yet without fail something always goes wrong with the cake. It’s been that way since his first birthday, and this year wasn’t any different. But as always it came out just fine on the second try (ugh) and if I’m not mistaken, there are only three pieces left! It’s that big of a hit!!
And the night just wouldn’t be complete without Lego Ninjago toys and Halo Megablok sets. Followed by Despicable Me 2 with pizza and strawberry soda. Indeed, I have been blessed by one amazing little boy. One I’m beyond thankful that I have been given. He’s brought a lot of joy and intrigue to our lives 🙂
Test…1…2…3…check, check…Well, I’m still alive 🙂 I haven’t forgotten about you all. Things have certainly been crazy around here since we got home. And the exhaustion, I can’t get over how tired I still am. Last night I went to bed before 11pm, I know major shock! Traveling 11 hours will do that I guess.Plus I had to spend Monday doing a bulk of my Christmas shopping online. Love Cyber Mondays but apparently others do too! Will have to get the rest locally and make a few things to make up the difference. Just amazed at how slow certain sites were running.
Short notice, we decided to go down to FL to visit Dad’s folks and kept it a secret that my son and I would be traveling down with him. It sure was a surprise to everyone seeing how we haven’t seen them since G–Man was 8 months old. A lot has changed and grown up in these 9 years 🙂We enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving meal with everyone and G–Man discovered toys in one of the guests bedrooms!
He found three or four View Masters and several reels, but that was just the tip of the toy–berg. Once he found the wooden train set boy was he in heaven! He made some nice configurations that I know my Dad got a picture or two of. Will update this post when I can find them 🙂
Of course you can’t have a trip with family and not play a board game 😉
Nana was sweet enough to show G–Man how to play Sorry and patient to endure a game with his toy ladybug Mr. Greg.It was a confusing game, even I got mixed up with whose turn it was and constantly reminding G–Man that he couldn’t slide on his own color or keep sending Nana back to Start instead of Mr. Greg. Can we say cheater?! 😉
But it wasn’t all just fun any games, we did have some tasty treats along the way. Since my Grandpa is a diabetic and on kidney dialysis I offered to make some sugar free desserts but he was content to enjoy the real deal. So we made his favorite, Cherry Pudding. It was lower in sugar than the more traditional recipe, so I didn’t feel as guilty serving it to him.
I can remember my Grandma Jones (my maternal grandmother) making this and my Mom making it as well. Granted this picture doesn’t do it justice, but thankfully the link under the picture will give you a better idea, though the recipe isn’t anything like what we make. Don’t worry, that recipe is going in another cookbook 😉 Just not the one that’s coming out next May. If you’re not a fan of the tart cherries you can certainly use cherry pie filling, which is what we did. Fortunately it was a light pie filling, not very sweet which I made just a tad sweeter with 1/4 cup Stevia in the Raw. This was a nice treat for us Nole fans and would have been one heck of a victory dessert for those Auburn fans who celebrated an insane win Saturday Night! It’s great warm from the oven with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.
All in all it was a good trip, one I’m glad I finally took and G–Man is hoping to go back down next year. We’ll have to wait and see 🙂
Four Generation Picture
Thankfully Grandpa’s health is improving and will continue to do so. (And no we didn’t all plan on wearing navy blue in the picture, but it’s funny how that worked out!)
Have you ever woken up refreshed, excited to meet the new day? Yeah, I did that once too 🙂 Not that I didn’t jump out of the bed, I did especially after my alarm went off at 8:20am at a blaring volume that I swear should have woken up my son and nephew! Oy, not the best way to wake up. This week has been great, looking back over it and the memories that were made just gladdens my heart ❤
On Facebook I’ve been participating in a 31 day photo challenge. It’s something fun and different, challenging too. I had no idea something like that could be so tricky, honestly there have been a couple days where I wasn’t too sure about what I would post. You have to really tap into some creativity, think outside the box. On Instagram I share a collage of four pictures at a time of each challenge, if you’ve missed it or don’t have an IG account here’s a look at this weeks photo challenge.
From Left to Right on the top row: Day 6 was about fantasy, I struggled with this big time, so I colored a picture of sleeping beauty and wrote “waiting for him”; Day 7 was something that starts with P…I went with pecan tree, it’s on the right side of the picture. Day 8 was a quote: “There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.”― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, so I went with a picture of me and my son, he’s my “fellow creature” that I love very much!
From Left to Right on the bottom row: Day 9 was a good one, black and white. Wrote a quote up on our chalkboard. My all time favorite was yesterdays, Day 10, inspiration. It was a fun day spent doing fall crafts with my boy. Day 11 was another quote: “I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person.”― Audrey Hepburn…who better to make you laugh than George Burns, Gracie Allen, Carol Burnett, and Lucille Ball?! My favorite shows!!
But the week wasn’t just about posting pictures onto Facebook, I’ve done some baking this week both sweet and savory that has all been very successful! Last nights dinner for instance, was quite tasty! Something I literally threw together! I’m calling it Queso Dip Burrito Bake. It’s simple, easy, and takes about 30-40 minutes to bake.
You’ll need:
1 package low carb high fiber tortillas, or your favorite flour tortilla
1 can refried beans (black refried beans work too)
1/2 can of water
1/2 cup favorite salsa
1/2 can rotel tomatoes
4 ounces Velveeta, cubed
2 cups shredded cheese, mexican blend
Brown ground turkey and onions together. Add in garlic and cook for 30 additional seconds. Turkey has very little fat, you may want to add a little olive oil or peanut oil into the pan to make sure it doesn’t stick or burn. About a tablespoon or two should work. Stir in thetaco seasoning, refried beans and water. I used the empty refried beans can and filled it about half way with water. Let simmer on low. Cube the Velveeta and set aside. Pull apart your flour tortillas and get your shredded cheese ready, set aside. Remove mexican turkey meat from heat and bring over to your work area ( I like to work at our butcher block). In a 9x 13 inch pan pour salsa down in the bottom. To assemble burritos: On a tortilla place a healthy pinch of shredded cheese down first. A healthy pinch for me is four fingers full, if you’re using smaller tortillas use less cheese. Next add a healthy spoonful of the meat mixture. Don’t add too much or you’ll have issues when folding. If you’ve never folded a burrito before, here’s a picture to help.
Fold the tortilla according the above picture. Place the burrito seam side down into your salsa lined baking dish. Repeat this process seven more times. For the topping: Spoon half a can of rotel on top of the burritos, juice too, and top with cubed Velveeta and shredded cheese. Cover tightly with foil, bake in 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Remove the foil and finish baking for 10 minutes to finish melting the cheese. Do not let it brown. Let it cool for 5 minutes before diving in, unless you like molten cheese scorching the inside of your mouth 🙂 Serve with favorite chips, salsa, guacamole, and sour cream!
Knowing that one pan wasn’t going to be enough for us I went ahead and made a second pan. It was killer! You get the best of both…cheesy beef–n–bean burritos, creamy queso dip on top…out of this world!My oldest nephew certainly loved it, and he’s not a ground turkey fan. It’s all about the seasonings and how you prepare it! I hope you all give this a try and let me know what you think. It’s a keeper for my family and hopefully it will be for yours as well. Have a blessed day!
I am hooked on NCIS, I love the characters, the story lines, plots and any time it’s on, even the re-runs, I am watching it! To kick off the new season premiere last night I whipped up a batch of “bloody” thumbprint cookies!! *queue sinister music* I think Abby would have been impressed! They were amazing, soft with a hint of a crisp to them and the homemade strawberry preserves I used killed it with perfection!
The recipe comes from Simply Recipes(<—click there for recipe). I had this whole NCIS theme planned out and ready to put together but alas I could not find my low temp glue gun, uber sadness over here. But I didn’t let that stop me! I pulled together photos of each character from the show and made this collage in honor of the new season.
Since the season is opening up with Ziva’s farewell I decided to keep our dinner a little more kosher, if you will. Served up some chicken scratch chicken with baked kale chips on the side. I am uncertain if any of that is truly kosher, but since I used Kosher Salt for both I’m just going to go with it 🙂Ziva is going to be greatly missed on this show, I have loved her character from the beginning and how Cote was able to play her off of Michael’s character, Tony. The opening of this new season is definitely bitter sweet.
When I decided to make these cookies I had Abby in mind, what would she think about these deceptively delightful confections? At first a few of my followers on Facebook were unable to make the connection between the cookies and the show. After a brief explanation it clicked and the cleverness roared on! Above I just had to indulge in a couple of the cookies, it was a difficult decision to make but it had to be done 🙂 These are definitely a keeper!! @nok_amandagayle is my Instagram handle, feel free to follow me there if you like.
I did manage to catch the perp red handed…jammy fingers and all!! She was “tampering with evidence”, but I let her off with a warning 🙂 Were there any leftovers? Sadly no, it was a mob attack that descended upon this beautiful scalloped serving plate. Two narrowly escaped the delicious slaughter last night but were discovered in the wee hours of the morning and met their end in my son’s tummy 🙂 It’s a tragedy really, but they shall always be in our thoughts, our taste buds, and the recipe will forever be within an arms reach to make more 😀
In all seriousness, this was an easy recipe, I had never made thumbprint cookies before and was pleasantly surprised at how they turned out. I didn’t deviate from the recipe, other than not covering the them in nuts. I asked my child what he thought and he said he wants them for his birthday along with his strawberry poke cake! He’s taking after me, not much of a chocolate fan but loves his fruity desserts! I must say these are so much better than the store bought variety I remember from my childhood. No chemical after taste, the homemade strawberry preserves brimming with strawberry flavor and the cookie just utter perfection. Light, buttery, and melts in your mouth! You can use any jam or preserve you like (perhaps apple butter or pumpkin butter to give a more harvest vibe), but these are definitely going on my holiday cookie list (only doubled)!
What is your favorite cookie? (Share below)
AND
Have you ever honored your favorite tv show with a party and themed food? (Share below as well)
There’s still enough time to squeeze in some fun family crafts to enhance your Memorial Day weekend! Better Homes and Gardens has twenty crafts for kids and adults alike that will certainly liven up your next get together and bring the family closer 🙂
Night Owl Kitchen 