This Week's Menu

When I think about food this week, I want to complain about Whole30.  It's no fun to do, and I'm sure that no one out there wants to read it.  Let's just keep it simple.  I started posting my weekly menu here as a combination of many reasons: I have my recipes linked in one spot, I see what I've been making, I get to browse old menus for ideas for when I get stuck.  Here it is, what we're eating this week:

Roasted chicken, sauteed green beans, rice styled cauliflower

Cilantro lime tacos

Pintos, sweet potato fries, broccoli

Cowboy breakfast skillet

Rice-Style Cauliflower

Thank goodness I have a supermom of a friend who is doing this Whole30 thing as well.  She is like Sherlock Holmes when it comes to finding good recipes, and she is swift to text and facebook me when she finds them.  (Nova, I'm talking about you!)  She has sent me recipes for spinach artichoke dip, pancakes, rutabaga hash browns, and, of course, rice styled cauliflower.  She said her whole household devoured them! I thought I would share the recipe here.

Things to know about them:

1. They make great leftovers.

2. My kids loved them (I feel bad because I called it rice, somewhat tricking or teasing them to try cauliflower.  Next time, I'll be upfront with them because I'm not one for hiding foods.)

3. John only so-so liked them, but he ate them.  He'll eat anything, but won't give his stamp of approval on everything.  (That stamp being a label called "make again.")

4. I made this along side roasted chicken and used the juices from the chicken on top of the cauliflower.  This added some serious awesome flavor!

5. This recipe is not my own.  Nova found it online and can't find where she got it.  It's so easy, she sent me the recipe my memory.  

6. I ate three helpings.  Yum.

Here ya go:

olive oil

1 onion, diced

salt and pepper

cauliflower, riced*

1. Heat oil in a pan.

2. Add onion.

3. Saute until translucent.

4. Add cauliflower.

5. Cover & reduce heat to medium low.

6. Wait 5-8 minutes.  

7. Lift lid and wa-la. 

*To shred the cauliflower, we used our food processor with the shredding attachment.  We cut the white parts into chunks and shredded the pieces in batches.  I think that finely chopping it or shredding it by hand would work.

Move over Velveeta  you're not the only way to make cauliflower appealing.  My mama friends and I got your number.  We've got this vegetable thing.

Looking For The Dove & Olive Branch

This post is brought to you by Bacon, Dryer Fuzz, & Rain.  Well, they're not paying my anything to write this, but those are the themes of my days lately.  We're a little bit happy, a little bit rowdy, a little bit vitamin D deficient (that's the vitamin we get from the sun, right?), and a lot of bit ready to get outside and play.

I'm not one for blogging about the weather, but good gracious!  It's been raining for at least a week straight and that is so rare for us.  We played outside a little bit last week during the breaks, but this week I'm just trying to stay dry.  Actually, I don't know how much outside time we would be having if it was sunny and cold because I don't like the cold very much.  I just don't like being rained on as I run for groceries.  The picture above is pretty telling of our days.  Good old fashion play.  

One upside to the indoor time is that I'm getting creative with the kids.  By getting creative, I mean that I bought two boxes of noodles for the kids to use to play.  I even let them dump them out and use my measuring spoons and toys and spread them out in the den.  I'm a wild Mama and I'm hope for mother of the year on that activity.  

Completely switching topics and upgrading the conversation, I.love.bacon.  What this Whole30 diet lacks in bread and cookies, it totally makes up in bacon.  I made bacon, eggs, and sauteed spinach for breakfast this morning.  The kids loved the bacon, so much so that they were completely quiet while they devoured the pieces.  I snapped a picture of Fern and the glisten from the grease is right there on that chubby little hand.  We.love.bacon.

Speaking of dryer lint, we're really rethinking how we use our space.  We were sick of the washer and dryer being efficiently beside each other, so the dryer was moved to the dining room.  Just to shake things up.  Not.  The dryer started making this awful noise on Monday (aka, laundry day) so no clothes were washed.  John is really awesome and resourceful when it comes to this stuff, so he pulled it out and took it apart and diagnosed the problem in 35 minutes.  He ordered the new part and it arrived today.  I'm so excited to do laundry, sort of.  

We have had to redefine what "dirty" means around here, but just temporarily.  I will not become one of those women who hates the dryer or feels like Americans are too clean.  Not yet at least.

Need some baby eye candy?  Here are a few pictures of the babies.  They were all dressed up for my mom's "little party at the restaurant," so I put them in the chair together and snapped some pictures.  Burl is all about NOT taking a picture these days.  He either hides, looks away, or makes funny faces.  This is his rowdy face and his sad face.  Fern just thinks he's funny.

Those two are sweet, alright, but put them together and I just can't handle their cuteness.  

Here I am, being all crazy during nap time.  I'm eating rice-styled cauliflower with chicken.  Whole30 goodness right there!!!  It makes me giddy, and I'm going to share the recipe tomorrow.  It's incredible!

Until next time, send me any funny Noah-and-the-ark jokes about the rain.  My favorite so far was, "Hey, I just saw a guy with two of each animal.  What's that about?"  

Catch you on the flip side, peeps! Bacon.

Cousin Dinner, 2012

I can't believe I haven't blogged about one of my favorite nights of Christmas this year: Cousin Dinner.  We range in age from 31 to 15 and just about all of us are a rowdy good time on our own, but get us together and the laughter is epic.  It takes us all of 30 seconds to get back to where we left off.  With about half of us living out of the city, it is a rarity that we are all together at one time.  I'm not going to get all mushy about how much I love seeing them.  That would be totally weird, because that's not how we roll.  If I would get all mushy though, then I would explain how for the longest time it was me, then four boys.  While we had fun playing hide and go seek and taking over McDonald's play areas, I really wanted a sister or girl cousin. My grandmother would pray that I would get one girl in the family and, lo and behold, the next four cousins were girls.  Really awesome girls.  I loved it.  We have a great combination.  I'm so proud of each of my cousins!

The Highlights of the evening were:

{laughing as my little brother and younger cousin decide that there wasn't enough room at the "big table" and pulled up the kid table and chairs.}

{seeing Burl get that it was a time to be fun and rowdy}

{watching both my babies, mainly Fern, get totally absorbed with Alex, my youngest cousin.  They were so happy just sitting in her lap.}

{finding random pictures of funny faces on my camera after leaving it with the girl cousins}

{welcoming Whitney to the cousin club.  She's our second addition, the first being my John 9 years ago!  She brought me flowers and a handwritten card for hosting...love it!}

{snapping pictures of Burl feeding a noodle to the least receptive but very willing cousin}

{playing several crazy rounds of Pictionary and cracking up the whole time}

{my favorite: retelling the same stories we always do like it's the first time we've heard it.  and laughing the whole time!}

These cousins of mine, they're the best.  Hopefully, they enjoy the dinners as much as I do.  I can't wait until they're all here again so we can have another night to laugh!

...........................................

sidenote: I forgot to get photo cred on my last post.  Last week, my cousin, Abby, babysat while I got my hair did.  She helped herself to my camera and took a few pictures of little things about my house.  It was fun to see what she snapped.  It was more fun to hang out with her when I got home. ;)