Hello, Friends!

I know, I know! I'm behind a day. I have had limited computer time the last few days, and yesterday was full with my very best friend coming up for a visit. She was long overdue for a haircut, and I went with her as she got a cut and donated nearly 14" to Locks of Love! Awesome! We were also blessed to have her and her two little monkeys stay for dinner. If you remember on my original meal plan, there was a baked spaghetti IN garlic bread? Well, we adjusted to accommodate three more mouths and did spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread, corn, and peas. I got the night off of dessert as Rici was so kind as to bring along some made-with-love cupcakes, made mostly by little 4 year old Gabe. They were delicious too!

Nothing too complicated with the meatballs, I used approx. 1 1/2lb of ground venison, 1 egg, probably 1/2-3/4c bread crumbs, Lawry's Seasoned Salt, a tad bit of garlic powder, garlic seasoning, and some onion powder. Baked at 350 for about 20-25 min.

Now the garlic bread... that was delish! This was Rici's idea, as she had used this spread recipe last week and fell in love with it.  I used the dough I planned on using for the baked spaghetti in garlic bread, it was a frozen bread dough, Meijer brand (Meijer brand will save you a lot of $ and is often times better than name brand in my opinion) Baked it as directed,, very minimum end of baking, I like my bread kind of dough-y. Then, then you mix up this garlic cheese spread and be prepared to fall in love with it! Most of the ingredients are items an average family home would have on hand on a daily basis. I had to do some searching to find the link for this, so without further ado...
 http://www.food.com/recipe/incredibly-delicious-cheese-garlic-bread-spread-18914

And then there are the yummy pink cupcakes that sweet Gabe wanted to make so badly for my little Cortland. We all very much enjoyed these, Thanks, Gabe! 

Sunday night dinner was just Dan, Cole and I eating, so I figured I'd make something more geared towards the adult tastebuds. We are both fans of Buffalo Chicken anything, and a few weeks back I had found a Buffalo Chicken Sliders recipe on Pinterest, using an entier bottle of Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Sauce (reserve back 2 tablespoons), 3-5 boneless skinless chicken breasts, salt, pepper, and the Crockpot. The chicken breasts cook on high for two hours or low 3-5, depending on if they are frozen or thawed. Once it is cooked through, take the breasts out of the sauce in the slow cooker, and shred the breasts in a bowl. Add back desired amount of sauce from the slow cooker. While you are cooling the chicken (before shredding), mix up some tasty slaw to go with it! One or two stalks of celery, depending on how much chicken you have, about 1/4 to 1/2 of a red onion, blue cheese or ranch dressing (maybe 1/4c. ), and two tablespoons of reserved Frank's Red Hot. Now, depending on your preference, you can either mix that into the shredded chicken or just use it on top of chicken in the sliders. You are going to want to use the King's Hawaiian Dinner Rolls, and this doesn't have to be in "slider" form, now that they sell the King's Hawaiian Buns, which we had leftover from Saturday's cheeseburgers. I opted to make a wrap instead, using a flour tortilla, and it was equally as yummy! 

Breakfast yesterday morning was nothing too complicated, it was Monday after all, and though I may not technically be "employed", Mondays are still just as dreadworthy for a stay at home mom! Not only am I cleaning up a full day's messes from the Tiny Tornado, but add in there 4 other people besides myself who are making messes for two days straight! Yes, even for me, Monday's are nightmares. I try to at least keep breakfast somewhat simple... unless I have all day Sunday to clean (which is highly unlikely). So we had S'mores pancakes.... out of a BOX. *gasp* I have, however, made these from scratch before, and it is quite simple and quite tantalizing for the S'mores enthusiasts (Me! Me!).  Basically all that is involved is the adding of crushed graham cracker crumbs to your pancake batter, and either topping the pancakes with large marshmallows and chocolate chips, or mixing mini-marshmallows and milk chocolate chips into the batter. 

And let me tell you about the perfect fall breakfast (if you're craving a sweet start to your morning)... S'mores pancakes, complimented by Pumpkin Spice coffee! 

Which leads us up to today! Woot Woot! Finally caught up...

Breakfast this morning was Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Biscuits. Great protein content for the kiddos to start the day with!

This was a pretty cheap meal too...  I got the English Muffins during the 10 for $10 sale at Meijer a few weeks back, I bought enough extra to freeze. Hey for a buck a piece, you can't pass that up! I grabbed the pre-cooked Jimmy Dean's sausage patties on sale at Meijer two weeks ago, for about $1.99, and the eggs I got free from Meijer from a previous shopping trip where a "Free dozen eggs with a $10 purchase" coupon had printed with my receipt. Of course the cheese slices, but I only used 8 out of a package of 16, and the package was on sale last week for $2. So Total cost for 8 breakfast sandwiches was about $5. When you compare that to the cost of McDonald's greasy counterpart, we saved a lot of money (and heartattacks). 

And up to the current moment, I am baking my fourth batch of milk chocolate chip cookies! I like to surprise my husband with his favorite cookies at least a couple times a month, he is a cookie and ice cream addict! I've mentioned before that ice cream is as much of a staple as flour in this home!

And this is what results in the leftovers of the night before's dinner... Dinner for The Hubby's lunchbox at work the next night. I never have to buy lunch meat or anything to compose the girls' and Hubby's lunches, there are always a few options to choose from in the fridge! 

Tonight is a volleyball night, so I think I will opt for Chili in the stockpot tonight, cornbread, and chocolate cookies for dessert! :)

Until we meet again...