Thanksgiving Favorites

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Thanksgiving Favorites

Usually I’m all about planning out a Thanksgiving feast. I research new recipes, I make a plan on when I’ll start each dish, figure out what I can make ahead…you know a game plan. However, this year I’m trying to take it easy since little baby might come anytime. Plus, standing and cooking in the kitchen for a lengthy amount of time just sounds like a backache, literally. I feel a bit like I am giving in, but I know it’s the right thing to do. Being 38 weeks pregnant for Thanksgiving is a bummer, man.

To take it easier, we decided to order a small pre-cooked turkey from Whole Foods this year. I was actually impressed that the price wasn’t as terrible as I anticipated given a raw turkey plus all the brining and cooking ingredients would come out not that far off…not to mention the price of your time and labor. Hopefully it’s delicious!

Another shortcut this year is on dessert. Our realtor, Harber Home Group, offers a free apple pie every to his past customers every year. This year we’re taking them up on it. It pains me not to make dessert. Baking is one of my favorites. If we get the pie and it’s not up to snuff, then I’m hunkering down and baking something (see below: Dessert).

I already make the stuffing and froze it, so all I need to do is defrost it. Then, I’ll make a simple side the day-off and there we have our feast. It’s just Josh, Caleb, and me so it doesn’t have to be a huge meal. Just a nice way to celebrate together and eat some delicious food.

Maybe you’re reading all this and saying, “man, I’m totally down for a huge feast with all the homemade fixings.” Power to you! I would reply telling you to check out this game plan I wrote a couple years ago . Also, How Sweet Eats timeline or the Faux Martha Cooking Schedule have some organized schedules for you.

Or, maybe you want to know some of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes. You can pick and chose if you want to make any of them. YES! I love sharing, let’s do this.

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5 Easy Week Night Meals in a Bowl

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5 Easy Week Night Meals in a Bowl

The age-old question: What's for dinner? It's a tough one. It was hard when I worked and didn't have a child, and it's hard when I don't work but have a child. I think everyone can relate to the challenge of getting a delicious, healthy meal on the table in a timely manner during the week. If you find it easy, then by all means comment and let us know your secret. ;) 

Also, you may be wondering, why in a bowl? I ask you this, why not in a bowl? Josh and I were talking about it, and we eat the majority of our meals from a bowl. It's just so handy - everything goes one dish, it's easy to scoop up the food, and each bite is exciting. Forever we used small bowls and realized it just wasn't big enough. We're hungry people! We got these bowls from Cost Plus World Market, and they are perfect. 

I have my meal planning method that I'll share some time with you. For now, in short, I plan everything over the weekend, grocery shop on Sunday, make most of the meal during nap time each day and finish up (or heat up) the dinner in the evening. It makes nap time busy, but it's worth it at the end of the day for me. 

For today, I've collected five favorite bowl meals that I make regularly. And five meals will get you through one work week (yay for math)! I do enjoy cooking, but I haven't mastered creating recipes. However, I do feel as though I'm good at finding recipes. I am mostly a true-to-recipe follower, but I do make adjustments based on ease of ingredients, my own likes/dislikes, and whatnot. I've shared what I do differently in case you'd like to try it my way.

Oh, and I get like 98% of my recipes from bloggers. Check out the sources for my recipes - I love all these blogs. Ready? Let's go.

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Recipe Love: One Bowl Carrot Oatmeal Muffins

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Recipe Love: One Bowl Carrot Oatmeal Muffins

My son is a picky eater. This really shouldn't have been a surprise for me since most kids are pretty picky eaters. And I'm pretty sure I was a picky eater. I guess I just had it stuck in my head that my son wouldn't be picky because my husband eats practically everything. Like father like son, no? Nope. I feel like I can count on my hands the foods my son will eat consistently. Wait, I think I really can do that...let's see there is yogurt, fruit, breakfast sausage, frozen yogurt (or ice cream), and pouches. Those are consistent, like 99% of the time he'll eat them. But he'll also usually eat peas, pancakes, crackers, chicken nuggets, and toast. That's about it. Did you count those on your hands? Yup. 

Honestly, I feel so defeated feeding him sometimes (who am I kidding, I feel this way all the time). I used to do more experimentation, but I've been let down too many times and I lost hope a bit. I'm really feeling like I need to launch into another effort to introduce and re-introduce some foods, but #tiredmom.

It's especially tough since I love cooking and baking and I get so excited about making things for him. Then he "returns to sender" - aka, spits it back out. At least he tried it, eh? Better than not even putting it in his mouth. 

All that said, I get excited. No, I get ECSTATIC when he eats something new. A few weeks ago I helped host a baby shower for a friend. We had some leftover baby carrots. What to do. Caleb won't eat baby carrots. Then I thought I'd bake them into a muffin and see what happens. I remembered really liking these carrots muffins in the past, so I pulled out the recipe. Guess what? He ate TWO muffins that day. TWO! That's unheard of. That's crazy. Wait, is that my child? But he continued to eat them over the next few days and he enjoyed them. "Mommy, nom nom," he would say. YAY!

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