Cranberry Orange Chicken Casserole and Roasted Broccoli

I love the flavors!

Mix frozen vegetable medley (carrots, corn, peas, green beans) with cream of chicken soup and some sour cream, put in 9x13 pan. Put cooked chopped chicken breast over the mixture. Prepare box of stuffing (if it takes 1 1/2 cups of water, make it 3/4C water and 3/4C frozen orange juice concentrate). Toss into the stuffing some craisins and chopped pecans. Spread the cooked stuffing on top of the chicken and bake. YUMMY! (I think it would be even better with two boxes of stuffing).

Morning Shopping

So much has changed since my last post. One of the big things is that I'm eating more salad! The other is that I am doing the shopping now...and in the MORNING, no less!

I've been really bored lately with the menu, so I've been getting some recipe books from the library to spice things up a bit. My son ASKED for me to make meatloaf this weekend, yay!

New Shopping Day

Grocery shopping on Sunday evenings just haven't been happening the past two months...it worked fine over the summer but with darker evenings, we just aren't getting John off to the store. So we're trying something new...Monday and Thursday nights.

I'm still using my same planning but I admit, I need some new recipes! Or maybe just high carb, high fat, high calorie meals would be more tasty!

Cranberry Chicken Bake

This turned out delicious! We used my mom's fresh cranberry/cherry sauce from Thanksgiving over chicken breasts and baked it. Superb! The kids LOVE the crescent rolls, so I've been doing those every now and then. Super tasty meal!

Who IS This Person?!

I am notorious for bringing pre-packaged foods to potlucks and social eating events (nothing home-cooked EVER)...mini-muffins, packs of cookies, bags of caesar salad, grocery store deli veggie trays...you name it. But in this new cooking life as a cooking diva (ha!), I found myself searching online for "halloween party food ideas" the other day. That was definately strange but even stranger...I DID IT. I collected ideas and selected a few and produced a robust result of FRESH, HANDMADE FOOD for this costume party with friends.

I'm in SHOCK.

Here's the photos to prove it! It is astonishing exactly how much I've changed...not to mention the satisfaction I had taking my creations to bless my friends. The apple smilies, mummies (lil' smokies in crescent rolls-yum!) and candy corn veggie tray (a small pumpkin held the dip but isn't in the photo). Since I've been allowing TIME to plan and prepare as a habit, it wasn't really difficult to put this together...what fun!

And that's me as a Lego brick and my husband as the real Buzz Lightyear! What a fun costume party!

Herb Roasted Salmon

Oh.my.word. Second dinner in a row that was SO tasty...and I quote Daniel, "The salmon is wonderful".

WHAT?

Huh, were YOU talking to ME?

I am still in shock. The boy doesn't like much and usually asks, "how many bites do I have to take"? HE ATE IT ALL! SALMON!!!!!!!!

The TSG Citrus Dill seasoning is awesome PLUS I added a smidge of my new favorite food "Newman's Own Low-Fat Sesame Ginger Salad Dressing". Insane, it is so good I could drink it!

So I made some notes on the recipe for next time so we can duplicate this one!

Beef Burgundy-No Crockpot!

Well shiver me timbers, I can still taste this DELICIOUS meal just looking at the pictures! The turkey bacon is insanely delicious and flavored the pan right away. I added a little olive oil and garlic and tossed in the meat, then the can of tomatoes and let it simmer then tossed fresh carrots and frozen peas on top...WOW, this turned out SO GOOD without the crockpot! I didn't have mushrooms but who cares because the flavor was outstanding! The TSG seasoning that goes in here is incredible! We all enjoyed the tender meat!

This TSG recipe was prepared in June (read about it here) and it wasn't anything like this because I cooked it in the crockpot (aka-boiled meat). I used BEEF bouillon instead of chicken tonight...wonder if that made a difference, too?