Week #29 Menu Planner

Hey!  What's cook'n, Y'all?!

I've got another fabulous week's worth of menu's for you and your family and friends.  Planning is really important when it comes to saving money, time, hassle and even more importantly, eating healthy.  I've found the more stuff I've got in the pantry, the less I want to go out and spend even more money in a restaurant, while my food at home is get'n old.

One thing you want to remember, this is just a guide.  Any menu plan should be a guide.  Life does sometimes get in the way.  Don't pressure yourself too much, that you fall out of planning.  I rarely eat everything on the menu, every week.  There is always something that has to change.

That being said, let's see what's up for Din's this week.  I'm doing it a lot like I did last week.  My pantry and fridge is still full of food and to save cash and time at the grocer's, I'm going to plan this week's meals around what's already in the refrigerator.  At this time, I have no meat, but absolutely everything else.

Meatless Monday: pasta, baby

I've got some delicious, fresh pasta still in the refrigerator as well as some yummy tomato sauce.  Today's meal is a no brainer.  My kids never argue over pasta and there are so many alternative pastas for those of you who may be cutting back on gluten.  I love quinoa pasta.  There is also rice pasta and gluten free as well as whole wheat pasta.  I do know that fresh is by far the best tasting and not all dried pasta is created the same.  Some are just plain terrible.  Try all different kinds!

Tuesday:  bangers and mash

Hehehe...I've got a lot of fresh veggies in the refrigerator.  I've got witloof (Belgian endive) and leek which are not the kids favourite. So, I'll be cutting those up fine along with carrots and mashing it all up with the potatoes and  serving it up with some delicious sauce from all of the drippings of the sausage as well as the water from the potatoes and veg.  The kids will be over the moon and they'll have no idea they are eating all of those other veggies.

If you wanna check out the true, English bangers and mash, check out the link I've got ya hooked up with.  Just do NOT use the sugar in the sauce.  Balsamic is sweet enough and sugar is bad.

Wednesday:  slow cooker ribs

I specifically asked for beef ribs at my local, fresh butcher and he obliged.  My hubby grilled up the first batch.  I'm off  to try and show up his recipe with a slow cooker recipe.  Grab your favourite BBQ sauce, onion and your ribs.  You could use chicken breasts, beef, pork...it'll all work.  Slice up your onions and lay them in the bottom of your cooker.  Place your meat on top of the onions, pour your sauce over and dinner's ready when ya get home.  Serve your BBQ with the traditional BBQ fare of corn and baked potatoes. The image is hooked up to a recipe as well.

Thursday:  fish, quinoa or rice and veg

This recipe is so darn easy!  Chili, lime and cumin with your fish.  The rice would taste great with this sauce, too.  Maybe some green beans or broccoli?  I really love broccoli with fish.  If ya find rice not easy to make, consider a rice cooker.  I love mine!  Dump in your rice, pour water over your rice and turn it on.  BAM!

Fun Food Friday:  hoagie buffet

My boys are true Belgians.  Many, many Belgians eat sandwiches.  They eat a LOT of sandwiches.  Typical Belgian families eat them for breakfast and dinner!  They ain't American style sandwiches, though.  Hehehe...  We all love hoagies.  Set up a buffet of sliced tomatoes, lettuce, sliced onions, sliced cheese and the sliced sandwich meats or salads your family loves and let them devour it!  Consider stopping off at the baker and grabbing fresh hoagie rolls for a healthier alternative.  I'll be wrapping my goodies in some form of lettuce or just make a salad with the buffet and adding the meat.

Saturday:  shrimp and pasta formaggio

This recipe it totally awesome!  If you don't have the dosh for shrimp, then use chicken!  Perfect!

Sunday:  Belgian Waffles

I HAVE to give you this recipe.  If you have never made your own waffles from scratch for the family, well!  Honey!  It is time to start.  You can serve them with fruit, ice cream eggs, use the waffles and sandwich something up, too.  Waffles are made in minutes.  I mean they are really so easy to make, I'm baffled why people buy the very unhealthy prepared kind or conservative crap filled, prepared batter.  Yuck!  You more than likely have all of the ingredients in your house already!!! If I like making mine with butter milk.

Just give it a try and see how easy it is and how much the family loves them.  If you don't have a waffle iron, well, this recipe just may change that, but you can still make waffles without a waffle iron.  Check out this site to see how.

All right!  You are set with a wonderful week's worth of ideas.  Get cook'n folks!

Have a fantastic week and until next Monday!

Free Fall Card

Welcome, to The Cherry On Top!

It's Fall, Y'all!  Today, Sunday, October 5th is Card Making Day.  The Cherry has got you covered.  I've designed a little goodie from my own stash, mostly comprised of Digital Scrapbooking Studio Designers.

You can use it for a lot of different projects.  The first image is an empty frame.  You can insert a favourite picture, like I did in the image below that.  That's a Fall grouping on my front porch.  Another idea is to insert a magical saying or quote about the season and print and give to friends.  The image should print as 5"x7", but check or even change your settings to print as desired.

The first image is all hooked up with your FREE automatic download. THIS IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.

This images below, are found over on my Facebook Page.  Click on the image to be sent over there.  Look to the right, under APPS and click on the little arrow to see all THREE FREEBIES.  The first two will be changing very soon.  So grab them while you can!

Thanks for coming over to The Cherry!  I've got loads of free stuff on all of my social outlets.  Scroll through older blogs and finds dozens of freebies or head to Pinterest or Facebook where I post free goodies daily as well as recipes and all kinds of other crafty fun.

Have a great day!

Build A Book Challenge And A Prize

Welcome to The Cherry On Top!

I entered the Build A Book challenge from The Scrapbooking Studio.  We had a couple of weeks to finish 20 pages for a scrapbook.  I did our most recent trip to Spain.  I used all kits from one designer in hopes of giving my album a cohesive feel and I also used the same font throughout the book as well.  I chose A-Manda Creation, not only because she's an artist at The Studio, but her kits are really full, awesome, quality kits that are very well thought out, too.  

I think this would be a great cover for my album.  It's the view from our apartment balcony.  Don't ya just love the way the sea and sky match the kit?!  I ended up using the Americana kit a lot.  Although, the intended theme is Fourth Of July, you can see that it works for anything.  I love that!

For my first double layout, I went with a really fun, bright Water Park kit from A-Manda Creation.  These colours are choice and the ellies are perfect.

In the beginning of the challenge, I wasn't doing double layouts and I found I was getting a little behind until I thought of going double.  Hehehe...It worked great and I do prefer to have my side by side pages match for in the album.

For the next three layouts, I went back to the Americana kit. Towards the end I was panicking that I wouldn't get enough pictures in my album.  I took care of that really fast, but I still would like so many more in there.

This climb the boys did was insane.  I am so glad I didn't go!  They do not have any safety measures going up this huge rock and at any point in time, my boys could have tumbled down to their deaths.  My GOODNESS!!!  I still hate to think about it.  Not a lot of people venture all the way to the top.  Apparently, coming back down is a lot worse.

Here we are having at the pool.  Looks like he's sucking it in a bit as well as showing off his diving skills!  Hehehe...

The layout above is pretty unique.  I really wanted these pictures in the album.  JJ's amazing climb to the top of this rope thing and Liam's reluctance to reach the top.  Hehehe...He is so lazy!  Hehehe...

The next couple of layouts, I used the kit, Cache Me.  It's a collection of fabulous small kits that all coordinate with each other and have a lovely, natural outdoorsy theme.  Check out all of this fabulous texture and warmth in this kit.  I really like it!

You can never get a perfect picture, right?!  Each shot has someone not doing what they are supposed to! Hehehe...

For this layout, I'm sporting my brand new dress I bought on the boardwalk.  It covered up my protruding belly.  Hehehe...  Those berries are in the kit, but not as such.  I used a graphics effect to give them a little bit more of a summer feel to go with my page.  The word art was another freebie from The Studio.

Keeping with this gorgeous kit and going big on a really nice photo of me and my boy.  Ya just can't get enough cuddling in one day, can ya?  I used some folded ribbon under and around my frame to make it stand out from the like coloured background paper.  I kept the softer, summery colours from the kit for this one.

I was lucky enough to work with some kits that were not even released yet.  Giving the folks at The Studio a chance to see a new kit before the rest of the digital world.  This one was one of them.  Carve Up Some Fun is still not out in the store, but will be on October 10th.  Obviously, it's a Fall themed kit, but once again, I pulled out the fun, bright colours that went perfectly with my Spain photos.  The elements as well.  No problem.

"Vriendje" is friend in Dutch.  The bird came to visit twice, everyday.  JJ called him his, "Vriendje".  He would shout so loud, "VRIENDJE!" then wrap his arms around himself and swivel.  It was so darn cute.  He would light up like a Christmas tree when his friend came to visit. "Moeten we echt weg? means, Do we really have to leave.

Another new kit I got to work with was Fall Frolic.  The orange representing the sun and the blue the sea and sky, made it also a great match for this album.  My hubby dared me to post a picture in my bathing suit.  Hehehe...

We found this awesome, little carnival down the street from our apartment.  We took the kids there three times which, according to them, was not nearly enough.  They loved it there so much and I took a ton of fun photos documenting those unending smiles and laughs.  I've never seen them this happy and it still brings a smile to see the pictures. I've got a bunch more on my phone, but don't know how to get them on to my computer.  Hehehe...

This double layout is made with the kit 2014.  A New Year's Eve themed kit.  Can't ya tell?!  NO!!!

Take a look at these smiles!  Totally awesome!  That's the thing with Autism.  These kids are either elated or totally ticked.  There is not a lot in-between.  I kept with the bright and fun colours, but used another new kit and that's Plum Perfect, isn't it?!  Hehehe...

A-Manda Creation really knows how to choose her colour palettes.  How about these next few layouts.  They are not the same kit, but they will look nice side by side.  This first one is from Pretty As A Peacock.  I used a couple of the prompts that The Studio was giving away in hopes of keeping us motivated to finish this daunting task.  It worked!

Liam's smile was a bit scary there!  Hehehe...

I used Blue Berry Patch for the next layout because the colours matched my photos really nicely.  Once again, the elements were so NOT themie, that I could even use them in a fun boy's layout.

Below, is how we started the trip off.  Leaving Belgium and traveling south through France via Paris. One of the lovely stops to fill up and pee.  Just as expected!  Yuck! 

Is this kit not gorgeous?!  Fancy Free is also relatively new and man, is it up my alley!  I love purple and pink.  This blue green is totally making it pop as well as the splash of red.  I love this kit and this layout!

Once again, I used the free word art that The Studio provided.  They had all kinds of word art and templates for those on the challenge.  Nice, eh?

That's different!  I wanted to show a variety of scrappy styles as well as use a lot of kits.  The kit is Super Teacher.  I thought it went great with the graffiti, so I stuck with an urban touch to my layout.  I have no idea how my hubby could be so relaxed in a Parisian traffic jam!  How about $2 for a liter of gas!

My last layout here is created with the kit, Perk Up.  A coffee themed kit.  Look how awesome that golden colour goes with our beer!  Hehehe...See me there?  My laptop, an ice cold beer in an ice cold mug...IN SPAIN!!!  These things are my most favourite things about Spain.  Sun, food and family.  What a trip?!

Now, you know I would never have you come all of the way over here to check out this insanely long blog without giving you something in return.  Thanks to my gal, Amanda.  I've made up some encouraging word art for you that you can use to start your album.  Just do it!  You know, every time you look through it, all of those memories will come flooding in and you'll smile and get warm fuzzies.  Do'cha love those?!

Enjoy your freebie and thanks for hanging out with The Cherry!

Weekly Menu Planner #28

Welcome back to The Cherry On Top's weekly menu planner!

Let's dig right into it, shall we?

Monday:  Fire Cracker Chicken

Is this image just not beautiful? Man, it makes me hungry just looking at it!

Click on the image to get the recipe.  Feel free to cook the rice the way you always do.  I love my rice cooker.  Remember basmati and Thai rice are the best for health reasons and they cook quickly, too.  Stay away from long gran rice.  The varieties of rice are just insane.  Be adventurous and try out a new one!

Tuesday:  Huge Salad

That's right!  Don't be chinsy on the good stuff either.  I'm no fan of Iceburg lettuce. I like romaine and rucola.  Chop up some onions, hard boiled eggs, cucumber, tomatoes,  croutons, ham, chopped chicken...The most dangerous thing you can add is your dressing.  Make something fresh!  An Italian dressing is always easy and healthy.  You may find a lot of recipes for this and they put in sugar, but DON'T do it.  Stay away from sugar as much as possible.

I've got the image all hooked up to this Greek salad recipe with a lovely dressing, too.  If you are laughing at this thinking, "I will be opening a bag of chips 30 minutes later."  Then add some chunks of lovely Feta cheese and or some pasta!  Perfect!

Wednesday:  fresh pasta, chicken and sauce of your choice

OK,  wow!  I was going to look for a basic cream sauce and stumbled across this, baby.  I think this could be a family favourite for you!  Check it out.  Of course, you can add chicken or substitute the bacon with it, but bacon sure does add a hell of a lot of flavour.  Let the bacon be your salt.

Thursday:  M, S,V  = Meat, starch, veg or flex

This day is up for grabs.  Bring home some rotisserie chicken or steak sandwiches or heat up some left overs.  I'll be making my boys favourite which is hot dogs and rostis/hash browns.  Hehehe...

You can also go back a couple of menu's and choose something from there.

Fun Food Friday:  Ever hear of a smorgasbord or pu pu platter?  We LOVE this!  

Throw some of your favourite cold cuts and cheeses on a tray along with some fresh bread or some of that yummy half baked bread that ya just pulled out of the oven and couple that up with some nice, fresh, chopped, raw veggies like carrots, celery, peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes...You can make a sauce or dressing for dipping.  Sit at the living room table, sit on the floor, put in a good family flick and enjoy!

I've got this image linked up to a fantastic site with so many great ideas like this! A pu pu platter is just a little bit of everything really.  It's a great way to empty out the fridge, too!

Saturday:  Monte Cristo or grilled cheese or grilled ham and cheese

The image is all set with a recipe for you to follow, of course!

Sunday:  Slow Cooker Fiesta Chicken

Awwe, Man!  I'm ready to eat this now!  I love the versatility of this dish and I most certainly love dumping all of my ingredients in the slow cooker and a couple hours later, it's finished!  You have all day to take the kids to games, scouts, dance...Put it over rice, pasta, eat it as is,with some bread or on a tortilla!

Shhhooooo!   That's it for this week.  Stay away from the restaurants and all of that processed food loaded with conservatives and junk.  Cut back on sugar and feel better!  Save time, money and hassle by planning.

Thanks for coming by.  Have a super week!

(This is also week #7, if ya thought it looked familiar.  I've got a Lego party to plan.  I'll be back with pictures and very cool ideas for you.)

Throwing Some scraps Around Inspiration And A Freebie

Hey there, Happy Scrappers!

Throwing Some Scraps Around is back in action and creating as wonderfully as usual.  It's so fantastic of Jody to continually let me play with her kits and give you FREEBIES, don'cha think?!  Not to mention how insanely inexpensive her kits are.  Click on this image of her new kit and go see what I'm talking about, AFTER you've check out the inspiration and grabbed your freebie!

Here, you have how I started with this kit.  These colours matched my favourite, Spanish dress perfectly!  Yay!  Hehehe...  Now, take note of the cluster on top.  Not bad, right?!

Ya better hope not, because it's your FREEBIE!  Hehehe...It's a cropped cluster.  Something totally different.  Now, you may be asking yourself, "What on earth am I supposed to do with this?!"  I've got you covered, of course!  Silly!  Look below at the next two layouts.  I used this cluster in both.  In the last one, it's ALL I used!

Go BIG and bad with your clusters!  With good quality products like you get from TSSA, you can totally do this, right?!  Switch it up by doing a horizontal or vertical swap.

This freebie is no longer available.

Feel free to breeze through older blogs for mega freebies, visit my FB Page where I post dozens of freebies daily or my Pinterest Boards where you can find even more inspiration and free stuff.  Doesn't that sound great?!  So come on!  Do it!!!!  Hehehe...  Pushy, little critter, eh?!

There is another freebie available over on Jodi's blog, too!  Head over there and get it while the get'nz good!

Thanks for hanging out with The Cherry!  Make sure ya do it, again!

Week #27 Menu Planner From TCOT

Welcome to Week #27!

I'm changing it up a bit just to try something different.  I get bored easily and that's why I make so many kinds of different foods.  Chinese, Italian, Mexican, American, Belgian, Spanish...It's all very good! OK, you won't find too much Scandinavian or English fare here because lets' face it, I'm just not THAT brave.  Hehehe...

Meatless Monday:  Leek and Potato Soup

I just whipped up some hardy, leek and potato soup. It took me 8 minutes to prep it.  OK, it's not faster than opening a can or bottle and pouring it in the pot, but EIGHT minutes?!  That's pretty darn good and I'm a terrible chopper!  Hehehe...  With soup, you can go big.  I chopped 3 leek, 4 potatoes (peeled), a small onion and 3 smaller gloves of garlic.  I sautéed the garlic, onion and leek for about five minutes in some olive oil and butter, then added the potatoes, salt, pepper, water (just until ingredients are nicely covered) and mixed, dried herbs.

There are a couple of good things about making your own soup.  Of course, you know everything thing that is going into it and all/most of it better be fresh food!  I like most of my food with hardly any salt, so that I can control by making it myself.  This soup, I like with a little more pepper than usual, too.  Everyone in my family likes their soup different.  Rrrr...  I like mine big and chunky, like a stew.  My hubby and kids prefer their soup Belgian style, which is completely processed.  With this recipe, I dished out some before zapping it with my staff mixer.  You can also add a touch of creme to it if someone prefers and if you do a taste and think it's bland, then add a couple of pinches dried bouillon.  Mmmm...

Another thing you can do is dump all of the above ingredients (except the creme) into your slow cooker and let it sit all day.  Then prepare it to your preference when you get home.

If soup just isn't enough, consider some fresh baked bread with soft herb cheese.  Yummy!

Tuesday:  salmon (fish) rice n' veg

I didn't get around to making the salmon last week, but it was on promotion today at the store and I'll be get'n that ready for tomorrow.  You can follow last weeks recipe, which was a ginger and sesame salmon or make something completely different.  Serve it with quinoa or rice and a steamed veggie of your choice.  I've got recipes for both of these side in other menu's.

Wednesday:  pork chops and a salad with mixed greens

I bought a kick @ss pork chop.   That's right!  Just one!  It's absolutely enormous and enough to feed all four of us.  Daily requirements of meat are actually a lot lower than what most people think.  (3x 3 ounce meat servings a day is all ya need.)  The only way I like my pork chops are grilled or baked in the oven.  I bought a couple kinds of lettuce that I'll chop up with tomatoes, shredded carrots, cucumbers and maybe a little bit of shredded cheese.  Add croutons if you like and your favourite dressing.  I love balsamic with olive oil and herbs.

I've got a recipe hooked up for you.  Click the image and follow the link to a fantastic way to prepare your chops before they hit the grill!

Thursday:  lamburger Greek dish

I love lamb.  If it ain't yo' thang, then use regular hamburger.  Try to get it as lean as you can and watch out for grease.  Lamb is especially greasy!  So hold off on the olive oil a bit.  I've got my own recipe somewhere on here, but I found another one that is really similar to mine.  I do NOT use cinnamon even though it's super healthy.  I only like it with sweet stuff and my husband cannot stand it.  If you don't know about all of the health benefits of cinnamon, you may want to read about it.  Especially, in the case of diabetes!  I also really like peppers in this as well as egg plant, but you don't have to put those in there.  Click on the image, below and see how easy it is to make this fabulous meal.  I also use lamburger because it's a fraction of the cost of lamb cut any other way.

Fun Food Friday:  chicken enchiladas

Another thing I bought today was ground chicken.  You could totally use it for chicken enchiladas.  It will cook up in a snap and you won't have to shred it.  There are so many fantastic recipes for enchiladas.  I was drooling over at Pinterest!  This one is so easy, it comes with directions and a video, too.  Click on the link and see how easy enchiladas are to make.  You may be surprised!  Look for other lovely sides for this like refried beans, salsa, guacamole and Mexican rice.  I've linked up these sides up to my all time favourite recipes.

I'm gonna warn ya, here.  If you make this entree and the sides using the recipes above, you and your family may never want to go to a restaurant for this, again.  It's really THAT good!

Saturday: mini turkey meat balls in a creamy sauce

More promotions at the store today.  Something new, mini turkey meat balls.  I plan on sautéing them with mushrooms (huge chunks so I can swim around them for the kids), onions, garlic, salt, pepper and then melting in some cream cheese.  That's it!  Serve it over potatoes, rice or pasta.  This meal might take 10 minutes to make, depending on the starch you choose.

Sunday:  spekske sauce

That's right!  This is something I ate growing up in a Pennsylvania German household.  In America, we call it bacon dressing.  In Belgium it's a super popular dish called spekske saus.  I was shocked to see it here and to find there was only ONE ingredient different.  Wow!

I now have a mission!  To make the recipe, take photos and supply you with that because all of the recipes I went through are not nearly as healthy and delicious as my own.  Hehehe...  This one was the closest I could find.  I do not use celery (because we just don't like it).  I would NEVER use sugar. Eeeew!  Since you are using the totally recommended apple cider vinegar, that's sweet enough!  I used to use other vinegars, but apple cider vinegar is way, way better.  I make mine with potatoes for a fuller meal and I use the water from there to make my sauce.   You can choose any type of green that you like as well. 

So, I made you a menu this week from all of the things I just purchased at the grocers which is the opposite way than how I normally do it!  LOL!

I hope you enjoy your meals this week.  See ya next Monday!