Photo 106: Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall!

Today was a Saturday at home, which seems to now mean spending some time during the day to do some food prep for the days ahead. A little extra work on the weekends goes a long way to make the weekday meals less stressful!
Today was saying goodbye to summer... as I took the dwindling supply from my basil plant to make some pesto for the winter, BUT
I welcomed fall with a batch of apple sauce and pumpkin scones!

The apple sauce recipe can be found here. I made another batch a couple weeks ago, but had some extra apples so decided to fill up a couple more jars to stick in the freezer.

The pesto recipe can be found here. I mixed in some leftover spinach I had, used walnuts, and mixed in a little parmesan. Hmmm... can't wait to pull these out of the freezer to use on pizza or for a quick pasta dish!

The pumpkin scone recipe was found here. They were delicious! I made two batches--one I baked right away and another I stuck in the freezer! The recipe said you could take out a couple at a time and then bake them right up. How perfect is that? The spice drizzle is AMAZING! I think I want to put it on all desserts now! Will and Alex both gobbled some right up (and Will had said earlier he wasn't much of a pumpkin fan!)

Happy eating! :)

Photo 49: Mac and Cheese vs Edamame

Alex finished up his edamame so reached to get some off of my plate!

really?! edamame over mac and cheese?

He finally realized that the noodles tasted good too so ate his up,

but I think he ate more edamame then Will and I combined!

This was a homemade macaroni and cheese recipe from Will's mom. She has an Italian and American version...this is the American one!

you need:

1 1/2 cup macaroni

1/4 cup butter

salt and pepper

1/4 cup flour

1 3/4 cup milk

2-3 cups of cheese (i used a mix of cheddar and mozzarella

optional: 1/2 lb ground beef or another meat of your choice

• brown beef and put to the side
• boil macaroni noodles
• in a small pot melt butter. add some salt and pepper
• blend in flour on low heat, stir constantly until mixture is smooth and bubbly
• Remove from heat and add milk.
• put back on heat and heat until boiling. 
• Remove from heat and stir in cheese
• put beef, noodles, and cheese sauce in a casserole dish.
• heat in oven at 375 for 30 minutes.

enjoy! :)

Photo 23: Happy 5th

5 wonderful years. 

2 houses.

Several different jobs.

a delightful son.

challenges, joys, pain, laughter.

in all of it we have learned to trust in God's unfailing love and his faithfulness.

The verse we used at our wedding was 1 Thessalonians 3:12

May the Lord give you a love for each other that grows, and grows, and even overflows. 

We are thankful that God has continued to strengthen our love for each other!

We are excited to see what the next five years hold.

we opted for a dinner in to celebrate. Will took Alex to his parents and we enjoyed a quiet evening, with AMAZING steak, grilled peaches, and some expresso!
Grilled peaches are a new favorite! We both agreed we would have been fine without the ice cream (although it was a nice touch).

Photo 21: Alex eats

and eats
and eats

but lately, he cries during the eating time, then eats like a horse afterwards...
mangoes are a favorite (of all of us, alex didn't eat those all himself!)
also eating by himself, in a big chair, not his highchair.

sigh.

Photo 6: Homemade goodness

Pinterest does it again!

Rocks my world.

Because I found a recipe to make this.

My all time favorite taco bell menu item. 

You can find the recipe here.

Four reasons why you should make your own:

1. You know what it is made out of.

2. You can control better what goes into it.

3. You don't have to leave your home to get it 

4. It took less then 30 minutes

(including prep and feeding a toddler a snack)

Photo 4: 6 meals in 2 hrs

The last thing I want to think about every day on summer vacation in cooking! So during Alex's nap time (and then during his lunch time) I put together some freezer meals that I can dump into the crock pot when I don't feel like cooking that day!
I found the recipes here (Teriyaki Chicken and BBQ chicken) and here (Cilantro Lime Chicken). I chose those ones because I already had some of the ingredients for them on hand, and I went shopping over the weekend for the rest of them. Today was a big chopping day, but I got the bags ready first, put them in a bin. I went through and cut up veggies that all three of them had and then added the chicken and next the unique ingredients for each one. Now I can have easy meals for later...I just need to pull them out of the freezer and put in the crock pot! :)