What's For Dinner? December Week 4 - January Week 2

World's longest post title, right? Haha ;-)

I'm getting behind on these.

Actually, I'm getting behind on food organization in general.

Don't worry... we're eating. But for the first time in years, we are running to the store more than once a week because I haven't had my act together and don't always know what the menu will be for the given week. Holidays, perhaps? Disoriented from the cessation of our CSA bags? Who knows? But as with every new year, the month of January has me motivated to get back on that horse...

Just not until next week... Haha!

So I'm going to do the best I can at recapping the past three weeks. I always write down the recipes I plan to make for the following week right on our grocery lists (which have been in a notebook since about August) so it's pretty easy for me to go back and see what we had... But I have no idea what kind of fill-ins I used for extra days.

{Week of December 24-30}

On Christmas Eve, I made a green salad with mandarin oranges and candied almonds to take to Craig's family Christmas. And then on Christmas morning, we ate the cranberry nut coffee cake.

Christmas night was at my aunt & uncle's house where we planned a very casual Mexican food theme. I brought fresh salsa and a fruit tray to contribute.
The day after Christmas, I had off from work. It was a very productive day, and very much needed. I cleaned A LOT! For lunch, the kids each had their own plates and then I gave them this to split:

And for dinner, we used up the remaining salsa from the night before to top some beef and bean chimichangas that I pulled from the deep freeze. This is one of my favorite recipes to freeze.

Later in the week, I made a 13x9 pan of my grandma's chili mac, which provided lots of leftovers to follow, as well as my favorite butternut squash soup.

{Week of December 31 - January 6}

On New Year's Eve Day, I made one of my favorite, simplest meals for lunch: Smitten Kitchen's black bean tacos with feta & slaw. Same as before, I just use flour tortillas plain (not "crisped"). Love this! It's so easy and healthy and fresh.

For dinner, we got together with friends at Craig's sister's house and I brought my lasagna and some Weelicious garlic bread to share.

New Year's Day was a completely wasted recovery day. Not from alcohol... from sleep. We were useless all day. We ate leftovers. I don't think Monday was much better.

But on Tuesday, I managed to throw together BBQ Beef Stew. Actually, I did it the night before and my mom put my crock pot on for me.

We also had omelets with corn, tomatoes, green onions and cheese one day.

Whole wheat waffles and "Sunshine Shakes" last weekend for breakfast.

"Sunshine Shakes"

6oz unsweetened frozen orange juice concentrate

3/4 cup milk

3/4 cup water

1 tsp vanilla

6 ice cubes
Blend.

We had the Skees Christmas on Sunday the 8th and I took my signature white bean dip with pita chips plus the fixings for amaretto floats. I first printed and made the float recipe in 2005 with our friends and sporadically since then. But it just sounded kind of fun and festive for our party so that's what I brought. They are DEVINE. I've been enjoying the leftovers this week. ;)

This week, we've had a really yummy Ham and Swiss Bread Pudding (not a new recipe, but a good one that I forget about often):

I had some Swiss cheese to use up and not that many recipes that call for it... so I selected this one. Plus it uses Hawaiian sweet dinner rolls for the "bread" and those are Craig's fave. So this dish was a hit.

And finally, I tried a new recipe from Food & Wine this week called mustard-baked chicken with a pretzel crust. I thought it was just okay. The kids LOVED it.