50's house wife update....

Before Lacey and Logan came I had one of those awesome nesting days where I had a ton of energy and was able to work through the contractions and clean all day! I got so much done and my house was clean for them when they came. Woo hoo! The grocery shopping wasn't done... but Lacey helped me out with that when she was here. Now I need to clean it all over again :) So hopefully that will happen tomorrow.


What I also wanted to put down on the record where the two amazing meals I made! I haven't made dinner in a while so this was a big deal. The menu's were:

Friday - steak, seasoned red potatoes, our favorite salad and rolls
Saturday - breaded chicken, potatoes au gratin, corn and rolls

Friday night I made homemade rolls - which actually turned out! They weren't Dee's or Gma's recipe but they were still good. It's kind of a lot of work. I got the recipe from http://www.ourbestbites.com/2008/03/rolls-and-orange-rolls.html. I ended up using only 1/2 of the recipe for the rolls and later on that night made cinnamon rolls with the other half. I know - can you believe it?!

Then I made my favorite potatoes which are really easy. Quarter little red potatoes, melt about 3 T of butter and poor on top, season with a pouch of ranch seasoning and a little garlic salt and stir in pan to coat the potatoes with the butter and seasoning. Bake at 400 for 60 min. While baking stir every 20 min or so. So yummy!

I also made our new favorite salad. It's a bag o' salad (use the spring mix or the baby 50/50 mix.... iceberg lettuce would make this way nasty) then get a poppy seed salad dressing and a raspberry walnut vinaigrette dressing and mix together - set aside. Then in a frying pan throw in some diced walnuts and some sugar - keep stirring the nuts in the sugar until the sugar has melted onto and coated the walnuts. Poor out onto foil and let cool. In a bowl put in the salad, nuts, dice in some fresh strawberries, poor in some crumbled Feta cheese and then coat to your desired wetness of salad dressing and toss. I made this salad while Lacey and Logan where here too and they liked it as well. It's great to serve when you have people over - it seems fancy (even though it's super easy), is really yummy and great for summer.

Brian made the steak because I suck at it and he's good at it. It cooked while the potatoes were cooking. Good thing we made a good meal because we ended up having my mother-in-law for dinner and she said it was fantastic. Yeah! Even Brian said I'm a good cook! (I had to put that in writing so I know that he said it at least once :))

Saturday - I made my go to easy chicken (I learned this from my mom) - it's actually my favorite chicken recipe. I just get 2 chicken breasts (there's only me and Brian so make however much you want) and dip them in a butter bath and then in Italian seasoned bread crumbs. Bake at 350 for 45-60 min depending on if they were thawed or frozen. Just cook until juice is clear and no pink in the center of the chicken.

Potatoes au gratin - I admit, I used a box. I would suggest Betty Crocker's. I'm just not quite ready to made these babies from scratch yet :) And you can cook them same time as your chicken. Makes dinner so much easier. Even though they came from a box both Brian and I liked them.

Then I served with corn and we had rolls that I made the day before (which are really moist rolls so they were still yummy).

Yeah for me! Now I need to do something really new and out of my comfort zone..... it takes me a long time to finally try something new. Like the rolls - I've been wanting to do that forever. Finally did and they actually turned out! So hopefully I'll have a little more confidence in choosing new recipes :)