Carrot Walnut Salad

Carrot Walnut Salad, adapted from Flat Belly Diet by Liz Vaccariello.

1/2 cup golden raisins
2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 Tablespoon canola oil
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon honey
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 large carrots, grated (or 1 bag preshredded carrots)
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup chopped parsley (I omitted this and it was just as yummy)

Soak the raisins in hot water for 20 minutes to plump them.  Drain.  In a small bowl whisk together vinegar, oil, lemon juice, honey and salt.  Combine the remaining ingredients and dressing in a medium bowl, toss to coat. 

Menu Monday 8/8

It has been a hectic week in our household.  Last week my dear hubby and I ended up out of town for a night at a wedding without the kids.  Along with a ton of other life things I got super busy.  This week our church is hosting a VBS.  Next week's menu will probably be even less exciting since I'm feeding my kids in the car a couple of days as we go from swim lessons to picking up extra VBSers then to Panda mania.  So here's last week's menu posted for this week.  Enjoy.  If you're looking for something with a little more spunk, check out the menus at I'm an organized junkie.

Sunday-Life Group Black Bean Brownies and Spinach dip with veggies

Monday-Play date with a friend, my contribution was sliced watermelon

Tuesday-Cheeseburger sliders

Wednesday-turkey sandwiches with carrot walnut salad

Thursday-Baked Spaghetti

Friday-Grandma's in charge.  I can only imagine what they ate. 

Saturday-Rotisserie Style Chicken with rice

Cheeseburger Sliders

I did not invent the idea of sliders.  Actually, I've tried a few recipes such as sliders at Krista's Kitchen, mushroom & swiss sliders at Pioneer Woman, or oven baked cheeseburger sliders at Make Dinner Easy.  I just adapted the concept with what I had readily available.  Although it has cooled off a bit, I really liked making these on the stove top. 

1 pound ground beef
1 Tablespoon minced onion
1/2 Tablespoon garlic salt
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire
2 slices of cheese, your choice on the type
8 mini-sandwich rolls
Burger toppings of your choice such as fried onions, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and selective condiments. 

Mix ground beef with onion, salt , and Worcestershire.  Divide the beef in half.  Then divide each half into 4 equal mini burgers, for a total of 8 burgers.  Cook for about 5 minutes on one side and 3 minutes on the other, in a skillet on the stove top.  Cook until no longer pink in the center.  Put on the rolls and top with desired toppings.  I served this with a mock spinach salad (much like this one but much easier) and cucumber slices.

Menu Monday-Batch cooking

Batch cooking is a great way to have meals ready either in your fridge or freezer.  Having meals at your finger tips helps prevent those impulsive trips through the drive thru.  This is also super helpful when things are really warm and you don't want to heat up your kitchen every night of the week.  Batch cooking is one of the ways that I can survive as a working mom with a husband who does shift work.  It's so much easier to get a home cooked meal on the table when a lot of the prep work has already been done. 

chicken breasts to be used to top salads or for a chicken salad sandwich
meaty calzones
Use this concept I made...
Meaty Stromboli using meaty pizza sauce
BBQ chicken Stromboli using easy shredded chicken
Beer Brats
Brat and Tot Casserole
ABC Muffins
More homemade salsa
peanut butter chocolate chip granola
Lemonade
Homemade Iced Tea

Be sure to check out my menu and others like it at I'm an organized junkie.

Easy Shredded BBQ chicken

It's always good to have very simple go to recipes that can be versatile, prepped quick, and served without a fuss.  This is one of those recipes.  Here is a recipe that is equally as yummy but is not quite as easy and the 3 ingredient recipe.


1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs
3/4 cup store bought BBQ sauce
1 onion, chopped

Place chicken, BBQ sauce, and onion in the crockpot.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours.  Shred chicken.  Use chicken for BBQ sandwiches, calzones, or Stromboli.

ABC Muffins

These were adapted slightly from Nikeletta's version of ABC muffins.  I am not a huge muffin person, but there are really yummy.  They are perfectly moist and there is just enough chocolate chips to take care of that sweet tooth.  3 out of the 4 us love these.  The one that doesn't, needs to eat a cheeseburger and only seems to want to consume fruit and crackers.  He's weird, I'm not sure where he came from.  Just kidding.  If you know Camden, he's got his own unique personality, one only a mother could love!

1 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup oil
1 cup applesauce (she uses a grated apple-which is good, too and I've made them that way)
1/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda.  Mix in brown sugar.  Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well, but not too much... over-mixing makes muffins tough.  Fold in chocolate chips.  Spray muffins tins with cooking spray.  Spoon batter into muffin cups, about 2/3 full.  Bake 25 minutes, until tops are golden brown

Meaty Calzones

 This is an adapted version of the pepperoni calzone. 

homemade pizza dough
2 cups of meaty pizza sauce
2 cups mozzarella cheese
1 Tablespoon olive oil
Garlic salt for sprinkling

Prepare the dough according to the directions.  Or use store bought pizza dough if in a time crunch.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly coat two large baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray.

Form the dough into 8 balls and roll out each ball from the center, into a rectangle approximately 5 inches by 8 inches, leaving the short ends slightly rounded.  Place a spoonful of pizza sauce onto one half of the rectangle.  Add about 2 Tablespoons of meat sauce and some shredded cheese to each calzone.  Fold the dough over and press the edges together with a fork, sealing in the sauce, and cheese.  Brush the top of each calzone with olive oil and sprinkle garlic on top.

Bake calzone in the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown on top.  Let cool slightly before serving.  Serve warm or cool completely, to place in freezer.