We had an incredibly productive weekend, and it feels so good! Saturday was absolutely gorgeous – I’m talking one of the nicest days I’ve ever seen in Colorado in my 10 years of living here. The fall colors are just brilliant this year, and the weather has been phenomenal along with them. Since the weather was so nice on Saturday, we spent the morning playing with the kids, cleaned up the yard and cleaned out the garage during their epic 3 hour double nap, took a long afternoon walk together, and invited friends over for dinner (who happen to be the parents of Stella’s BFF) to watch the baseball game on Saturday night. Charlie is from St. Louis originally, so it’s a big deal in our house when the Cardinals are in the playoffs. Perfect day.
Yesterday the weather was a bit more erratic (for example, I’m pretty sure nobody listened to Pastor Harry’s sermon because we were all enthralled by the weather happening outside the massive window behind him – glittering sun, howling wind, dashing rain, and pummeling snow — all within a 30 minute window). Overall the weather was nice though — albeit a bit cooler — so we still had a great day. After church we had lunch and put the kids down, and though it was a short nap that time (maybe an hour? boo!), we were still quite productive. I cooked and I cooked and I cooked, and even once the kids were awake, Charlie tackled pumpkin carving (and painting) with Stella and watched over Harvey while I finished cooking. It was awesome!
- I prepped a big batch of Beef and Butternut Squash Stew that was all ready to just set into the crockpot warmer and turn to COOK this morning before I walked out the door. Dinner tonight is done. BAM!
- I thawed the shrimp that have been in our freezer forever (trying to be fiscally smart and use up freezer stuff instead of always buying fresh) and made a Spicy Parmesan Shrimp Pasta for dinner that was so good (& light!) that Charlie asked me to print the recipe and keep it in our regular rotation.
- I cooked an amazing frittata for easy breakfasts this week that had spinach, goat cheese, and a sweet potato hash crust. It is hands down one of my top 3 meals I’ve made of all time. It’s SO easy and SO delicious and just as good cold out of the fridge as warm out of the cast iron skillet. I highly recommend it – as does Harvey!
We are trying to stretch out our time between grocery store runs to cut down on our grocery bills, and it has been good for me to type in a list of ingredients (like “stew meat, butternut squash, carrots”) and see what comes up. I’m not a fantastic cook by any stretch of the imagination, but I can follow a recipe, and it’s so nice to have some meals pre-prepped and ready to go!
Nice work on all the cooking. I’m excited to get back into crockpot season (lasts nine months here :/ ) I know it is SO much easier at the end of the day when everyone (myself included) is tired and fussy and I have to worry about dinner. But still, it is work and planning to get something together early enough in the day.
I just printed the Frittata recipe! Looks amazing.
OMG, I just ate some as a late night snack while I watched Survivor b/c it’s so damn good I can’t stay away from it. At least it’s pretty healthy! (317 cals per serving – 4 servings per recipe)
What a weekend 🙂
I love my crock pot! It’s the only reason we actually eat a meal some week nights. I’m a big fan of those meals because there are usually leftovers that I can freeze (my favorite is a weight watchers chicken taco stew I found of Pinterest). Then, if I don’t feel like cooking or if there is a day we’re slammed with stuff to do then we aren’t resorting to frozen pizza or going out 🙂
I’ve started going grocery shopping every 2 weeks instead of 1 and I spend at least, if not a little less, than I did when I was going every two weeks. I’ve noticed recently our bill is higher than it was. I don’t know if that’s due to trying to feed L healthy stuff or if prices are going up more than I thought or both. I need to do better about planning breakfast and lunch, but I do plan out two week’s worth of dinners before I go to the store. It helps!
I just printed out the beef and butternut squash recipe to try!
oops, my comment about the shopping makes no sense. Once I divide the total I spend buying 2 weeks of groceries, it’s about the same as going every week — sometimes a little less 🙂
Yeah, if I space out our grocery trips, I’m better about planning meals ahead of time, eating leftovers, and using supplies from my pantry/freezer too. Our cost has definitely gone up with all of the fresh produce we buy for the kiddos. Worth it though!
I just resubscribed to my Emeals weekly meal planning site. I switched planned to the “Simple Gourmet” and can’t wait to hit up Wal-Mart and get groceries! We only grocery shop once a month, and then do fresh foods locally to save $. So far, it works great for us! If you ever need some new ideas, I’m happy to share my emeals meal plans with you! I’ve never made a frittata, can you use any skillet and just put it in the oven? Or does it have to be a specific “oven safe” one?
I’ve NEVER used our cast iron skillet before – was always intimidated for some reason. 🙂 So no, it’s not necessary to have/use one — often I cook frittats on the stove top in a regular pan, then transfer to a pyrex for the oven, but I didn’t want the entire thing “mushed” together in this case b/c of the sweet potato base, so I decided to use one pan for the entire thing. Different pots & pans sets are different, but ours have rubber handles that aren’t oven safe. Maybe yours are?
I just love pictures of where you live! In fact, being from another country I adore pictures full stop of places where you guys live! It’s like a little insight to another world! Stunning!
Ditto to you, my dear!
I love when days/weekends fall into place like this and you look back and think holy crap we got a lot done! You have me intrigued to try the frittata even though that is something I would never have considered making before.
Sounds like such a perfect weekend! I am jealous of that nice long nap the kids took on the Saturday. Oh naps, why oh why did my child quit them so early?! Although I won’t complain too much because on the rare occasion she takes one, bedtime is awful. Mmmm that frittata looks awesome.. unfortunately almost none of those items are available here, but yum!