Menu Plan: October 12-18

The good news is that we did fairly well at sticking to the menu plan last week. Not every meal was made on the day it was scheduled for, but most were made at some point during the week. The bad news is that I don't have many meals to push to this week, so I had to come up with a whole week's worth of meals. I have to say that as we are recovering from some sickness in the house (and my hubby and I may be toying with the idea of falling victim as well) that this week's plans do not include a lot of labor intensive recipes. Today is a holiday so we are pushing last Friday's pizza to today, but we may let one of the boys invite a friend over on Friday so we will either do pizza again (I don't expect to get any complaints from the kids over this. "boo hiss, pizza twice in one week!" Nope, not gonna hear that phrase in my household.) or, if I am ambitious we will make homemade pepperoni rolls. Plan C: the least ambitious of all but just as delicious is to buy brown and serve loaves of "french" bread, stuff with pepperoni and mozzarella and then bake till golden brown. Yummy!


Monday Oct 12
Breakfast: Oatmeal, juice
School snack: Not needed --- today is a holiday
Meal 1: Homemade pizza
Meal 2: Baked Salsa Chicken, rice, brussel sprouts


Tuesday Oct 13
Breakfast: cold cereal, juice
School snack: apple slices
Meal 1: Fried rice
Meal 2: crockpot sunshine chicken,

Wednesday, October 14
Breakfast: Maria cookies and hot chocolate
School snack: seedless grapes
Meal 1: Spaghetti and meat sauce
Meal 2: BLT sandwiches

Thursday, October 15
Breakfast: cold cereal, juice
School snack: fresh fruit (whatever was a good deal at the produce market yesterday)
Meal 1: Baked potato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches
Meal 2: Soft tacos or taco salad

Friday, October 16
Breakfast: pancakes or waffles
School snack: peanut butter crackers
Meal 1: pepperoni rolls
Meal 2: leftovers

Saturday, October 17
International dinner at the church with the young people. Stephen thinks he wants to bring macaroni and cheese. Tim is undecided -- maybe a salad, or jello of some kind.

Sunday, October 18

Meal 1: Meatballs and gravy, egg noodles, salad
Meal 2: omelettes and toast.

Don't forget to head over to Laura's for everyone else's weekly menu plan. And let me know in the comments if you're having any great inspiration for this week's menu at your house.

Karen´s awesome pizza dough recipe

Homemade pizza dough (thanks again to my friend Karen who shared this with me many years ago)


2 to 2.5 cups flour
1 pkg rapid rise yeast
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 cup warm water (approx 120 degrees F)
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon honey


Mix together 2 cups flour, yeast and salt in large mixing bowl. Add oil and honey to warm water in measuring cup and stir well. Add to flour mixture and mix well. (Or if using regular yeast, sprinkle yeast over water and let stand 5 minutes. Then add oil and honey and add to the flour.)
Mix and knead on lightly floured board until elastic.
Wash, dry and oil bowl. Let dough rise in bowl until doubled in size (40-60 minutes depending on what kind of yeast you use.)
Shape and bake with your favorite toppings. 10 to 15 minutes at 450 degrees.

Getting back to menu planning (Oct 5-11)

October is here, the family is back to a full-day school schedule, and it is time to get back to writing out a weekly menu so I can avoid the daily panic of "what's for dinner?" I know that in the past this simple little step has really helped remove a ton of stress from my week. Here is my plan for the week. We are still figuring out the schedule with after school activities so I will go back to the format I used a while back of just posting meal #1 and meal #2. I will have the ingredients in the house for both meals, and decide on the day which meal will be eaten for "lunch" (at 2:30 when the kids get home from school) and which one will be "dinner" (eaten sometime between 6:30 and 7:30)

Monday Oct 5
Breakfast: cold cereal, juice
School snack: granola bars, yogurt drink
Meal 1: Cream of broccoli soup, tunafish in pita pockets
Meal 2: Toni's apple puff pancakes


Tuesday Oct 6
Breakfast: Oatmeal, juice
School snack:
Meal 1: Crockpot beef stew and biscuits
Meal 2: Quiche, salad

Wednesday, October 7
Breakfast: Maria cookies and hot chocolate
School snack: apple slices
Meal 1: Burritos and rice I may try this recipe for Burrito casserole
Meal 2: Sandwiches, chips

Thursday, October 8
Breakfast: cold cereal, juice
School snack: fresh fruit (whatever was a good deal at the produce market yesterday)
Meal 1: Homemade mac and cheese with ham, green beans
Meal 2: poached eggs on toast

Friday, October 9
Breakfast: pancakes or waffles
School snack: peanut butter crackers
Meal 1: homemade pizza
Meal 2: leftovers

Currently I have no plan for Saturday and Sunday as this is a holiday weekend and I still do not know if we are going away or planning any family outings during this time.

Check over here to see what everyone else is putting on their menu this week.

Back to School

Well, it hardly seems possible that i have not posted since May but the blog doesn't lie. We had a wonderful summer but I am ready for it to be over and for life to get back to "normal". The incredibly hot temperatures have finally gone and this week the kids go back to school. It seems that even the return to school cannot be done all at once, but rather in small bites. The first and fourth graders started back on Monday. I have been working a little at a time to finish shopping for all their text books. I still need to get some of them covered. Fortunately their classes will probably do the same as in previous years and form a class Co-op. This means as parents we will choose two parents to open up an account at a local bank. Then each parent pays 15 or 20 euros into the account and the teacher uses that to purchase supplies for the class. Last year the 3rd grade teacher not only bought the pencils, pens, crayons, markers, glue, colored pencils, etc for the class but also used the money to purchase the kind of notebook she wanted the kids to use for their class notes. I know I would have spent more money running around to buy all the stuff and this way the kids have what they need when they need it. A win-win situation for all in my book.

Tuesday I took the two older kids out to shop for their supplies ... at least the notebooks and folders they want. In secondary school the teachers are not so particular about the kind of notebooks so the boys helped me pìck out the kind they wanted .... knowing that we wouldn't even be looking at the expensive ones with the pictures on the covers. I'm sorry but i can't afford to pay twice the price just to have a Disney cover. Not when I am buying 16 or 17 notebooks!

Today, Wednesday, my second born started school. He moves up to the "instituto" this year to start 7th grade. The 7th graders had to go into the school at 10am for an general assembly, find out their class lists and meet the home-room teachers and get their school "agendas" to record their assignments in.

I thought my life would finally get back to a normal school schedule tomorrow when my oldest son heads back to school for his first day. It will also be an assembly, class list, home-room teacher, agenda day. What I found out was that in order to have this first day "orientation" for the 9th and 10th graders, the 7th and 8th graders get to stay home. So, we wait till Friday for the TRUE first day of school celebration (for Mom)Ü

Feeling Patriotic

I'm feeling patriotic today so I decided to add some music to the blog for a few days. Living overseas, we miss the typical American holidays like Memorial Day but I try to do a few things to teach my kids a little about these days so that they can build some bonds to their American culture. (As TCK's -- Third Culture Kids -- )they are immersed in the spanish and european culture, but one day will most likely live in the States and I want them to understand that part of their heritage as well. They know that today Mom will be playing band music and telling stories about what Memorial Day was like for me growing up, how their relatives are celebrating today, etc etc etc. I am also feeling "doubly patriotic" since I am preparing for tomorrow. At the elementary school tomorrow they are having a "cultural day" where the classes will learn and experience things about many other cultures (there are kids from all over the world in the school). I am giving 3 30 minute "talks" to the preschoolers and then providing some kind of american food to the classrooms of my other two children. In the preschool time I am planning on talking about the 4th of July and how it is typically celebrated in the States. We are going to listen to Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever and march around the room like a band in a parade. They are also going to be making a variation on this craft I found online. Right now I am tracing a couple hundred star shapes on Red, White and Blue posterboard and will be cutting them out later today. I am looking forward to a fun day tomorrow.

A thought about Mothers

I came across this quote from Theodore Roosevelt (1908)

"it is the tasks connected with the home that are the fundamental tasks of humanity ... After all, we can get along for a time being with an inferior quality of success in other lines, political or business, or of any such kind; because if there are failings in such matters we can make them good in the next generation; but if the mother does not do her duty, there will either be no next generation, or a generation that is worse than none at all."

How am I affecting the next generation? What about you?

Menu Plan Monday April 20-27

We've been back from Spring vacation for over a week now but I haven't done very well at the task of feeding my family. I know that things go soooo much better if I have a menu plan so here goes Plan A for the week. There will undoubtedly be revisions as the week goes by but at least I have a place to start from.

Monday 4/20
Breakfast: Cereal
School Snack: homemade bran muffins
Lunch: Baked burritos with toppings
Dinner: Local pizzeria had a deal tonight of small pizzas for 1 euro. We walked over and fed the family for 8 euros including beverages. And no dirty dishes for me.

Tuesday 4/21
Breakfast: Oatmeal
School Snack: granola bars
Lunch: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches eaten in the car on our way to the mall for Ben & Jerry's free ice-cream day.
Dinner: hot dogs and macaroni and cheese

Wednesday 4/22
Breakfast: or oil bread
School Snack: homemade cookies or brownies
Lunch: chicken and broccoli, rice
Dinner: quiche

Thursday 4/23
Breakfast: Cereal and fruit
School Snack: apple slices
Lunch: Chili and cornbread
Dinner: grilled cheese sandwiches

Friday 4/24
Breakfast: PopTarts or cereal from the recent care package from the States
School Snack: Kids' choice
Lunch: homemade pizza
Dinner: ????

Saturday 4/25
Hubby and eldest son will be gone all day at a youth event in Salamanca with the car. I'll be at home with the littler ones. We'll nosh on leftovers and maybe make chicken sandwiches (from frozen chicken patties fried up and eaten on burger buns).

Sunday 4/26
Choir practice after church will get us home later than normal. We'll have meatballs and sauce heating in the crockpot and will just have to cook some spaghetti pasta once we get home.

Don't forget to head over to Laura's to see what everyone else has on the menu for this week.