find a recipe!

A Life From Scratch.

A Life You Adore Around A Table You Love.

Archives for October 2015

C’s picks – week of October 4th

/ By / 5 Comments

weekly menu plan week of 10-4

Oh my goodness – we are into October, and my baby is nine! Ah! I know, I know… where did the time go? So predictable, but yet oh so true. LOOK AT HIM. Sob. 

Ok. And now it’s time to work on our menu plan. Looks like fall temps are here to stay for now, so let’s work in some cozy comfort food this week, shall we?

Love the idea of this one – so versatile, super comforting, yet healthy for a Sunday dinner together. Perfect. 

Monday is a football night, which means super easy dinners. This one comes together in 15 minutes and M would looooove it, so I’m going to be a good wife and make it for him. I will just run forever the next day. 

For Tuesday let’s go with a soup; I love making them during nap time. How incredible and healthy does this one look? Drooling.

Wednesday is another football night, so let’s go with the trusty crock pot. I saw these honey sesame chicken lettuce wraps over on Imperfect Polish, and I can’t wait to try them out! 

M flies off to Florida for a long weekend, which means I get to eat this onThursday night. I can’t wait.

And that brings us to Friday, and a pending sleepover with my boys and my darling sister, Allie. Yipee! I’m thinking of making her this special meal while we dine in pj’s watching the Aristocats. Could there be anything better on a Friday night? That would be a no. 

How’s your menu plan for next week coming along? I’d love for you to share it in a comment below! Maybe it will inspire someone else!

 

Cooking club.

/ By / 23 Comments

IMG_3665

This photo literally makes my heart so happy. So, so happy.

It was a few months ago when we were deep, deep, deep in construction that I had the idea. I’d heard about people going to and from book clubs, and while that’s nice for them, I just simply can’t. Honestly, who has time to read? Am I doing something wrong?

Ah, that’s right. I’m focusing any ‘free’ time I have on cooking. Hence, the reason why cooking club was born.

See, I believe there are two types of people in this world. People who are obsessed with food. And people who are not. I am the former, obviously. Recipes and cookbooks and Food Network and entertaining, I could gobble it all up always. I wake up thinking about breakfast. As soon as I’m done with breakfast, I begin to think about lunch. And so on and so forth. It’s a never ending cycle. I will text M mid-day to discuss dinner ideas and he always responds ‘C, I haven’t even had lunch yet.’

Your point?

Obviously, he is the latter. A less obsessed with food person. That’s OK. He’s not part of the club.

But the women in the photo above? They totally are. A mix of family and dear friends and food bloggers that I hand picked to go on this little adventure with me. And I could not be more thrilled with them all.

I received interest about the club via social media, so I thought I’d share the low down, should you be interested in starting your own club. The rules are as follows, ahem:

  1. Show up. Seriously. The date goes out (one night every other month), and you show up. End of story. Leave your kids with someone from the street. I don’t care. (Tina, we made an exception for you!)
  2. For each meeting there is one head chef. This person determines the feel for the evening. For example, Catherine began with her authentic homemade guacamole, so it was Mexican night for us. Olé.
  3. I then assign the remaining items. I don’t tell people what to make; rather I split it up so everyone is in charge of an appetizer, side dish, main course, dessert, all divided up appropriately. 
  4. I don’t cook. Weird, right? As the hostess, I set it all up, including the table, and provide a festive drink.
  5. The head chef cooks her dish in front of us; the rest bring their dish ready to eat. 
  6. Everyone takes turns explaining what they brought, why they choose it, any special meaning, etc.
  7. Everyone brings a printed recipe of what they made. Or hand written, as Catherine did old school style. Love!
  8. Photographs are taken for bloggers to share.
  9. And lastly, you’ve got to end the evening with a bang as a hostess. Like, getting a call near the end of dinner to pick up your husband who has been pulled over for an unpaid (yet, it actually was paid) speeding ticket from North Dakota back in 2012. (With B!) And they wouldn’t. let. him. go.

Yep. That happened. The night got a tad dramatic, but we will never forget it. Julie, thanks for your help on that one…

Next theme is Fall comfort food; think football games, cozy sweaters, good pinot noirs. Can’t wait to get together again. The smiles in the photo say it all.

C

P.S. Want more details about the evening? Beth walks you through a pretty awesome recap, here.

Top