day one meatless monday, homemade mac and cheese

I have posted about my mac n cheese several times on this blog, but it really bears repeating...I absolutely love mac n cheese and looked for a very long time for the perfect one...this is it...and I keep making it again and again...the cat liked it and so does everyone else in the family...

the original recipe called for beaten eggs to be added, but I do not like eggs, as it seems to kind of curdle at the end of cooking...

here is what I do...

1 box of elbow mac, cooked till just al-dente
2 cans of evaporated milk
2 cans of cheddar cheese soup
1 stick of melted butter
8 ounces of sour cream
seasonings to your taste
cheddar cheese to your taste...

mix all together, and put in 13 x 9 inch baking pan, reserving some cheddar cheese for the top...

I bake at 350 for about 25-30 min...

I put the cheese on top after it has cooked for the 25 minutes...

to let you know, it appears that it is "soupy" when putting in pan, but I promise that it does cook down...
this can also be cooked for 2 hours in slow cooker...

yum

very rainy day here, cold and nice to have oven on...

apple crisp, hubby's favorite

this was hubby's all time favorite dessert and he would request it for his birthday instead of cake...I had started to make this for our anniversary but didn't feel good enough to finish it up so this morning
I got up early...and by 7 am I was on my scooter going to the store (and fraps too) and was determined to make this dessert for dinner...

before he passed I had started making Sundays all about family dinners and now most definitely want to make sure I continue the tradition, no matter what...

I was shown that life can go by so quickly for a reason and I do not want it to be so fleeting without me at least trying to do some good for my family...I have always felt that I show a lot of love with my cooking and baking...

so every Sunday I want to make a nice dinner for everyone, I would also like to bake something then too and to make some kind of breakfast since Tim is off on Sundays...so, so far I am good for today...dinner is all prepped, breakfast was made and eater (hashbrowns, eggs and sausage) and the apple crisp is in the oven...and all of this when I am not at 100% (I really need for my oxygen levels to come up and stay up, hard to do all I want to while also wearing oxygen...)

here is how I made the apple crisp...

I already had a can of apple pie (from Comstock) and so I layered them in a round cake pan and then mixed together 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar, 1 1/3 cups of flour, some cinnamon, 1 stick of melted butter, and 1 1/2 cups of oatmeal...once mixed together put on top of the apples and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes...

we will think of hubby eating this tonight

million dollar spaghetti casserole

http://www.thisgrandmaisfun.com/million-dollar-spaghetti/


this is not the recipe I usually follow when making this, but it looks about the same...
this is Sam's favorite dinner and she helped me make it as it is a little labor intensive...

we made extras to take some to our old neighbors also...

yummy...

so I decided to try this one as I liked the blog site since it is 3 grandmas writing the blog and they have all sorts of other good ideas that I cannot wait to try...

Weekly menu posts from 2/26 through 3/______

Thinking ahead, waiting to go to sleep...

Saturday........we had chicken salad sandwiches
Sunday...........a Samantha request for million dollar spaghetti (making extra for our old neighbors too)
Monday.........rice bowls
tuesday .........mac and cheese
Wednesday....tuna casserole
Thursday.......chicken lazone
Friday...........sausage, noodles and cabbage

so without the cat here, Tim and I really want and need to eat a lot more healthy...so we want to have as many meatless dishes as possible, hence the mac and cheese and the tuna casserole and the rice bowls...so three nights with no meat is pretty good to start with...

sounds good to me...follow along

chicken salad from leftovers

on Sunday we made roasted whole chickens...and we made double so that we would have leftovers...tonight is the night to use them...LOL

I have several different recipes for chicken salad and I have a favorite one, but not everyone in the family likes this version...http://chindeep.com/2011/07/19/chickadee-cottage-chicken-salad/

I love the concept of the macaroni in this and the surprise ingredient always wows people (cool whip) but I cannot imagine the recipe after tasting it, to be without it...

the one I made today is simple...

cut up chicken, chopped walnuts, cranberries, diced celery, seasonings and mayo to taste...

everyone will be happy tonight when they get home from work...hubby even liked this for a treat...

hamburger soup

today would have been our 43 rd anniversary if hubby had not passed away...a sad day for all of us...if he were still alive, we would have celebrated by going to Famous Dave's for BBQ...and he would have complained that why could our anniversary not fallen on a Monday when the restaurant offers a military discount on Monday...

I particularly did not want to eat out tonight with us being sad and all and I had hamburger out so I made hamburger soup tonight and everyone loves it...Tim had bought a nice apple bread at the bakery by his work and that is what we had to go with it...

I have posted about this soup many times before and I make it fairly often as everyone likes it...hubby liked it too...

5 cups of water
1 pkg onion soup mix
32 oz can tomato sauce
tons of seasonings

then I add 1/2 box of macaroni (I used elbows tonight) and 1 pkg frozen mixed vegetables...

we needed down home comfort tonight and that is what we got...

pot roast sandwiches

today I had a roast cooking all day in the slow cooker with some onion soup mix and when I went to finish it for dinner (I had wanted a full on pot roast with gravy and mashed potatoes) I discovered I had no potatoes and with my eyesight acting up, was not going to the store...

so we had the roast in sandwiches, I toasted the buns, cut the roast in small bite sized pieces, dunked the meat in some of the juice and added provolone cheese to the top...everyone loved this and said they wanted it again...(I had bought the roast marked 1/2 off the day before...)

paired with tator tots and a terrific green salad with kale...

great dinner

new chapter: weekly menus for 2/19 through 2/25

we are starting a new chapter in our lives after the death of my husband a month ago...my husband was a huge lover of food but, only what he liked to eat...and if he hated something I made, it usually ended up in the trash...I usually made him what he liked, but there were also days that the kids and I wanted something and we could sometimes change his mind whether he liked it or not...
when we first married, he made it very clear that he was a meat and potatoes kind of guy...he loved his steak (rib eye) and french fries...he also loved his Italian food as his mom was a terrific cook...she would start spaghetti sauce in the morning and leave it simmering all day long on stove top and throw any meat that was left over from the week into the sauce...so good...and we always had lasagna for Christmas Day dinner...
so he was very set in his ways about what he wanted to eat...but I got him to try and then love things like chicken pie, mac and cheese, my american style of spaghetti and many other types of down home comfort meals..he hated breakfast for dinner and he was not crazy about soups or salads for dinner either....he did not especially like me trying out new recipes and would usually turn up his nose, until he tried it...sometimes it was a sucess and sometimes not...

so when making these weekly menus I thought of him and wondered if he would approve them or not...

Sunday.............roasted chicken, scalloped potatoes (healthier) and snap peas
Monday...........slow cooker sausage and potatoes and green beans
Tuesday...........homemade mac and cheese
Wednesday......hamburger soup, artisan bread
Thursday.........meat loaf, mashed potatoes, maple glazed carrots
Friday..............teriyaki rice bowls
Saturday..........breakfast

Trader Joe 3 grain rice medley

Tim happened to buy these from Trader Joe for Christmas and I fell in love with them...they are so versatile and so so yummy...so I started thinking how I could incorporate them into main meal ideas and the possibilities are endless...,

one night we had the rice medley with cut up chicken, shredded carrots, almonds and some teriyaki sauce...

for lunch I love to have a bowl of the rice mixed with some cranberries and almonds...Zoie also loves these and I have to make sure we keep a couple of boxes in the freezer at all times...

new chapter...roasted whole chicken and scalloped potatoes

it is really hard to go on with life and I feel guilty doing so too...but at the same time we do have to go on and we do have to eat and we cannot eat out every night...I love to cook and I love to blog and so maybe this will get our minds off of his passing too...I still think about him every time I cook and will think to myself, will he eat this?  or do I have to make him something else?

Sam has been staying here since before Christmas and it is good to have the help until I can handle this on my own...and she Tim and I are all under the same agreement that we have to eat better than we have been and I will be trying to put a healthy spin on the recipes I post from now on...but also while I am feeling good (having an oxygen tank with me while I am in the kitchen is limiting) we need to think easier meals too...

whole roasted chickens sounded like they would fit the bill tonight and we made enough for plenty of leftovers for chicken salad too...
Sam put an onion and lemon half into the cavity of each bird and seasoned the outside well with pepper, garlic salt and onion powder...put them into a brown in bag and roasted for 1 1/2 hours...

for the scalloped potatoes, she thinly sliced red potatoes and layered them in a baking dish, seasoned them well and added lower fat half and half, covered with foil and baked for 1 1/2 hours...

fresh pea pods with carrots complete the meal...

thanks for sticking with me and still reading my blog through life happening to us...

easy meals when all is not well

not feeling 100% but we still have to eat so have been trying to come up with easier meals I can make with lowered energy...

1.    ham in the slow cooker, mashed potatoes, green beans

2.    hashbrown casserole

3.    chicken and wild rice casserole (made this for Valentine's Day)

4.    creamy pasta, bacon and peas

5.    korean beef with peas

6.   grilled cheese sandwiches

trying to get on with life, a new chapter

it has now been 5 weeks since my husband died and a lot has happened in those weeks...

we had his service on Saturday the 28th of January...since he was a Past Exalted Ruler of the Riverside Elk's Lodge, they were so wonderful to put on the service for us and they had a nice luncheon afterwards also...before he passed my husband always used to say that no one would come to his service and boy, were we shocked for him...the place was packed...we could not have asked for a better turn out...it was a very nice service...all of his family came, tons of Elks, teachers and parents from Magnolia School, Press Enterprise people and a lot of personal friends that we have know for a long time...the Press Enterprise sent a photographer and he took some really nice pictures...some of the grandkids came out so wonderful but they are also pretty sad...the photographer at one time found my 8 year old hiding under the food table crying and that just broke my heart...I cannot look at the pictures as they just break my heart...

so anyway, the next day we were just going to stay in jammies all day and take it easy but I needed some new meds at Target and then we came home and had leftovers from the service for dinner and about 6:30 or so, I started feeling not so good...trouble catching my breath and then chest pain, etc.  and it got so bad we had to call the fire dept...ended up being COPD (maybe all of the stress?)...in the ER they found that I did not have enough oxygen in my blood and so was on a Bipap machine for 3 days...was in hospital for a week...

now, 2 weeks later I am struggling to keep oxygen levels up and am on oxygen 24 hours a day and it is driving me crazy...I have a pulmonology appointment tomorrow and I sure am hoping to get good news so I can begin building this new life of mine...

have been back to cooking a little as energy permits...