Must go get Vitamin D!

The sun was shining, no rain in sight, and it was in the 60s today in our neck of the woods.  This is a rare occurrence in the Pacific Northwest, especially in March.  As usual, there was a lot of things I needed to cram into this busy school night like dinner, homework, and a Boy Scout pack meeting.  The kids didn’t want to come in after getting off of the school bus, but we didn’t have much time to spare playing outside this evening.  Instead of dragging my kiddos inside, we came up with a way to get done what must be done and get some Vitamin D from being outside in the sun.  I had my son practice his spelling words in the driveway with sidewalk chalk that my older 2 kids got for Easter!  IMG_1624He was still able to get in the practice he needs while being outside so that I could keep an eye on my toddler pushing around her bubble mower that she got for Easter.  Everyone was happy with the extra playtime outside and my son didn’t feel like he was doing homework.  It had an added benefit that my son worked extra hard on his words because he didn’t want the other kids playing outside to see that he had misspelled any of the words.  After the spelling words were practice, I moved on to dinner…we grilled of course.

I wanted to run to the store today to stock up on half price Easter candy.  Cadbury creme eggs are my husband’s favorite.  While I was at the store, I checked out the other clearance sections and stumbled upon some ground beef marked down to $2.99/ lb.  I will not spend more than $2.99/lb on any meat unless it is for a holiday meal.  IMG_1626Mostly we eat ground turkey instead of ground beef because it is cheaper and healthier, so the ground beef was a real treat.  I served up the flamed grilled burgers with oven baked sweet potato fries, and a cauliflower and broccoli mussgo salad from bits of veggies and a few slices of leftover bacon hanging around in the fridge.  Although we didn’t have much time to play outside in the gorgeous sunny weather, we did get to enjoy spending time outside going about our daily routine.  Life is what you make of it, so might as well make it fun!

-Mussgo Momma

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Weekly Meal Plan 4/1-4/7/2016

I like to write out what I plan to have for dinner for the week.  I find this helpful for two main reasons.  First of all, I know exactly what ingredients I will need for the week so that I only need to pack up the kids to go grocery shopping once. This ends up saving me time and money by reducing unnecessary trips to the store and the resulting impulse purchases.  Secondly, some nights I have so much I must go do that I don’t want to have to think about planning out a well balanced a12143231_10154084315378685_1799075924803857664_nnd nutritious meal for my family.  I have a reusable menu board (an Amazon review item) I write our meal plan out on so that I can see the day before if I need to get meat out of the deep freezer to defrost or mix up a bread dough that needs and overnight rise.  As you will notice, I like to know what to anticipate, so we generally follow a kind of themed night most nights of the week.  My son helped me come up with these names, so we generally have Sit Down Sunday Dinner, Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday (Mexican), Water Wednesday (seafood), Mussgo Thursday (leftovers), and Fun Friday (pizza or other take-out style food).  Saturdays I leave unplanned because we are always out on new adventures.  We will either eat a meal I didn’t manage to cook earlier in the week, have Mussgo again, or grab a homemade meal out of the freezer from when I make double batches for busy nights.  I generally do my shopping on Thursdays, as it is the days I can score a military discount at the local grocer, so I start my meal plan with Friday’s meal.  Here is what I have planned for this week…

Friday

  • Homemade pizza : Fig jam, fontina cheese, salami, and arugula salad and classic cheese and pepperoni
  • Mussgo salad: green salad with veggies topped with the leftover hard-boiled Easter eggs that must go
  • Chocolate cupcakes with cookie butter icing

Saturday

  • Missed meal from last week, Mussgo, or freezer meal

Sunday

  • Whole  roasted garlic chicken
  • Roasted root vegetables: fresh beets, parsnips, and sweet potato
  • Spinach salad with dried cranberries, toasted pecans, and feta with honey mustard dressing

Monday

  • Vegetable laIMG_1300sagna: whole grain noodles, zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, ricotta and Mozzarella cheese (make extra pan for freezer)
  • Homemade garlic bread: makes 2 loaves, one to stash into the freezer
  • Arugula salad with fresh shaved Parmesan

Tuesday

  • Ground turkey tacos with all the fixings
  • Fresh tomato and avocado salad with small diced red onion and cilantro vinaigrette
  • Refried beans topped with melted cheese

Wednesday

  • Pan fried tilapia with lemon and fresh herbs
  • Fluffy baked potatoes
  • Steamed broccoli with cheddar cheese sauce
  • Angel food cake with slice strawberries and whipped cream

Thursday

  • Mussgo: Leftovers straight out of the fridge or revamped into another dish
    • Leftover roasted root veggie go great with a over easy egg on top and a side of salad
    • Make taco stuffed baked potatoes using leftovers from Tuesday and Wednesday

 

 

Eat what you love and love what you eat! – Mussgo Momma

 

 

 

 

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