Meal Planning * cough cough * Monday.. (Wednesday)

Gee where do the days go? One day its Sunday, the next it's early Wednesday! Can't quite believe how fast this week is travelling by.. Not that i'm complaining, the school holidays start in our house this coming Friday so i'm very much looking forward to that.  It's definitely been a very very long term and I think we are all in need of a break..

Meals this week;

Monday (was):  Steak Burgers with Onion, Egg, Tomato, Cheese, Beetroot, Spinach Leaves, olives and BBQ and Tomato Sauce.

Tuesday (was): Beef and Vegetable Ravioli pillows with Lean Beef and Roast Vegetable Sauce.

Wednesday:      Fried Rice

Thursday:         Eat out night to celebrate the end of school term & my son's school awards day!

Friday:              Thai Green Chicken Curry

Saturday:          Fish and Salad with homemade pumpkin and potato salad.

Sunday:            Roast of the week - Pork Roast with Roast Vegies

On the Bake List:

To bake this week;
Devils Food Cake (evil Betty Crocker packet mix I have sitting in the cupboard..)
Mixed Berry Muffins
Choc Chunk Cookies..

My take on Egg Baskets..

When I saw these on the Blog 'A Little Delightful I was super impressed and decided to give them a shot for this morning's breakfast. I had done a trial one, with one lonely egg that I had leftover in the fridge earlier in the week, but my Son turned his nose up at it (not unusual as he's not a big egg fan..)  So this morning I altered the recipe a little..

What you will need;

A muffin tray - I used a standard size.

Bread with the crusts removed, as I was feeding 6 I made all 12 so we could have 2 each.

Baking paper

Grated cheese

Ham

Eggs

Spaghetti

I started by preheating the oven to 180 degrees & then lined all of my cupcake tray with squares of baking paper. I then pushed the bread (with the crusts removed) into the baking tray to form little cups. I then placed some grated cheese into the bottom of all of these bread cups and some shaved ham.  I then made 3 with spaghetti for the non-egg lovers and the remainder with eggs.  I found I needed to remove some of the egg white as I was using XL eggs and they were overflowing the muffin tray. 

I then popped them into the preheated oven with some salt and pepper on top for 1/2 hour.

Today they were a hit.. even the spaghetti ones which tasted super yum and it goes to show how endless the possibilities are when adding ingredients.. You could try almost anything onions, tomatoes, bacon etc..

A Little Life Lesson in Money

I won this cute little fella a couple of weeks ago on the Beyond the Baby Facebook page, thanks to Money Savvy Kids  It arrived in yesterday's mail and this morning was spent, setting it up and explaining how it all worked, it was a lot of fun having the 'money discussion' (I wish someone would have had the same discussion with me, when I was younger)

The money savvy pig has 4 slots unlike your traditional money box, which only has the one - Save, Spend, Donate and Invest.. So I went through and explained each of the areas to Mr 6 as best I could (I'm not too crash hot on the save and invest myself, so I hope I covered it well!)  I'm sure I covered the spend accurately though! No,seriously.. after explaining EACH area fully (using the handy little booklet that comes with the money box) we set up some of the goal stickers that came with the piggy.  He decided in his 'SAVE' slot, he would like to save for a new craft set, he decided $20 was his goal for his 'SPEND' slot and after getting $20 in there, he would like to take it to the store & buy something, his 'DONATE' slot he is going to use to put into various charity boxes at stores and the 'INVEST' slot is so far going to be used for an Ipod (which at age 6 is a big investment of course!).  The book encourages using the INVEST slot for future expenses such as cars or education, but when explained to Mr 6, he decided to Ipod would be an excellent investment for his 2012 future, perhaps we'll tackle University at 7.. hehehehe..

We then set about emptying his old money box, into the new. 

I empty out my purse at the end of each week and give all the silver coins (20c and under) to the kids equally in their money boxes, its amazing how quickly they tend to add up, so Mr 6's money box was full of mostly 5c and 10c coins and of course the odd $1 or $2 that he gets from odd jobs or change from his pocket money.  I got out my trusty purse and we 'exchanged' a lot of his 5c coins for larger currency such as 50c, $1.00 or $2.00 coins and I found this too was a great lesson in money - IE. "How many 5c coins do you think makes up 50c?" and  "If I give you $1.00, how many 10c coins will you need to give me?"  so on and so forth..  it was a lot of fun.

So there we have it, a new piggy bank.. I'm hopeful to swap over all the kids money boxes to this style over the upcoming months, I think it may help them to learn a valuable life lesson and will eliminate finding an empty money box (such as I did in Miss 9's room today) seems she may have made a withdrawal from it for the tuck shop quite regularly of late and decided to leave only 5c behind.. (oh well you cant blame a girl for taking after her Stepmother!) but perhaps the Money Savvy Piggy Bank may help her too (maybe I should grab one for myself while I'm at it).

Some of the blogs I love!

I adore that I found the world of blogging & even moreso adore that I found lots of gorgeous blogs from such clever women that I love to read whenever I get a chance to sit with a cuppa.  These blogs give me great inspiration for craft, recipe's, my home and life in general and I thought i'd share some of my favourite blogs that I love to read with you;

Super Organiser Mum

Eighteen25

Two Little Tots (Gruber Girls)

A Little Delightful

Sunny Side Up

Clover Lane

My Pigeon Pair

Landee See, Landee Do

The Organised Housewife

Happy reading, im sure you will find something you love in each of them!

Meal Planning Monday

It seems hubby has taken over the duties of cooking over the past few nights, which has been a pleasant change, I dont know what it is about someone else cooking for you, but it always tastes much better when its popped down in front of you, minus the endless hours of slaving over a hot stove! So iv been quite spoilt the past few nights as I have been feeling rather exhausted.. But tomorrow night I shall resume my cooking duties & let hubby kick his heels up, before we all look rather rotund (his meals are always far more calorie laden & extravagent than mine! - pan gravy and all!)

This week the meals will be relatively straight forward & nothing too 'out there' and will be reliant on a lot of vegetables as my cravings have been leaning towards meat and veg lately (not to mention chocolate.. but you'll see that from my baking list!)

Monday - Tonight we had lasagna, vegetables & beer battered oven fries.

Tuesday - 
Fish and Salad inc. Baby Spinach Leaves, tomatoes, olives, asparagus, lebanese cucumber, beetroot, grated cheese & carrot.   

Wednesday-
Silverside cooked in the slow cooker with white sauce and vegetables (broccolini, cauliflower, carrots, peas & corn).

Thursday-
Lemon Pork Chops (saw this on a recipe card today & it looks yum!) with vegetables.

Friday-
No cook night!

Saturday-
Mini Pizza's made out of ciabata bread, the kids can help put their own toppings on.

Sunday-
Roast of the week - Roast Chicken with Roast Vegetables (potato, sweet potato, corn on the cob, carrot, pumpkin, zucchini and peas) with chicken gravy!


BAKE LIST:
Smartie Rainbow Sprinkle Cookies.
Triple Choc, Chocolate Muffins.
Pikelets
Chocolate Cake.
Some easter cooking..

Other recipe ideas I would; like to try this week
1. Eggs in a basket -  I saw this cute little recipe on Bianca's blog, A Little Delightful and I thought it looked so yummy!
2. Sardine, Cheese, Spinach, egg and tomato bakes (in individual ramekins)

When I work out how to add The Organised Housewifes new Meal planning button I shall, but in the meantime, check out her link to her meal planning.. great recipes!

The Organised Housewife

Hrmmm...

Well, its 5am and I really should be asleep, but I had a overwhelming desire to fiddle around with the design of my blog, so here I am.. after 3 hours, still not entirely happy.. but it will have to do for now, because if I don't get some sleep, ill be in trouble in the morning (well later in the morning in any case!) So yes, its all a work in progress.. and it will probably look entirely different in the days to come.. well here's hoping :-) 

A Lunchbox Shopping List to Cringe at..

Making lunches for 2 adults and 4 kids can be quite expensive! I actually think we use less food when we are at home, rather than packing to go to school & work - tonight I made Monday's lunches, ready for the morning and this is what I used;

• 6 Bread rolls
• 150g Ham
• Cheese
• 2 Tomatoes
• 1/2 Cucumber
• Handful of Spinach Leaves
• 10 Cheerio Sausages
• 6 Muesli Bars
• 2 x Tins of Tuna
• 1 x Box of Arnotts Shapes
• 6 x Apples
• 6 x Poppers/Juices
• Handful of Snakata Corn Chips
• 1 x Packaged Cheese dip/crackers
• 2 x Yoghurts
• 1 x tin of baby corn.

OMG! No wonder I find myself in the grocery shop every day.. And I'm not even one to use all that much pre-packaged food (I usually wouldn't use muesli bars as I typically make Muffins, but didn't get around to it this weekend as yet) as boxes of such snacks etc don't last long in our family, unless you buy in bulk.. 1 lunchtime equals a whole box of these products normally because they only contain 4-6 serves.. so I usually fill containers with crackers, cut up fresh food etc..

This term we only have my step kids every 2nd weekend, so the lunch list isn't this offensive every day, but next term when we have them for the entire term, it will be.. and then their will be another little mouth to feed too! .. Some of my favourite lunchbox snacks for the kids are;

• Cut up cherry tomato, olive and cheese.
• Sandwiches or wraps with various fillings.
• Snakata Rice Cracker Corn Chips with a container of salsa to go with.
• Various Muffins, Pikelets or homemade cookies
• Fresh fruit cut up! Grapes, Watermelon, Apple Slices, Orange pieces, mandarin, grapes.
• Cheese sticks cut up from home.. rather than those plasticy shop bought ones..
• Cheese and Vegemite scrolls.
• Tins of tuna with crackers to go with

I always pack the kids 3 individual lunch boxes for school and send along a fruit juice box/popper and a drink bottle filled with fresh cold water.  The reason I pack 3 lunchboxes is to ensure the kids have a sufficient amount of food for each break and it stops the older ones eating all of their packaged food during 1 lunch break (which I was finding to be a problem..) Kids need a sustained release of energy over the entire day and I find, this way, it ensures they aren't under or over eating at each of their breaks.

The first lunch box if for munch and crunch or brain food time, which our school participates in, where the kids are allowed a healthy snack during school time usually 10am.  For this break I send cut up fresh fruit or crackers..

The next lunch box is for first break and it contains a piece of fruit cut up and usually a muffin/cookie or yoghurt.

And the third lunchbox is for 2nd break which contains a sandwich (or equiv.. wrap, pasta, tin of tuna etc..)  some cut up olives, cherry tomatoes, cheese etc.. and a small treat such as a lamington finger/biscuit etc.. (depending upon what the other lunchboxes have contained..)

I mix these up often and the best thing I have found for the kids lunchboxes is a sectioned container which has a large part and 2 smaller parts.. perfect for 2nd break. I fill this up and add it to a zipped cooler bag with a frozen water bottle and it ensures their lunch stays healthy and fresh til 2nd break!