Weekly Eats: Monday Jan 8 - Sunday Jan 14

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  A Very Special Birthday Edition.

Weekday Breakfasts:
Breakfast Burritos
Cranberry English Muffins with string cheese and fruit

Weekend Breakfasts:
Breakfast potatoes (the first time I've made those since moving in with my husband) topped with mushrooms, green pepper, onion, garlic, drippy eggs, and lots of hot sauce.

Weekday Lunches:

M:Veggie Burrito from last weekend's epic food prep.  I cannot tell you how happy I am with these.

T & F: Thai curry from last weekend's meal prep.
W: Spinach-mushroom-artichoke stuffed shells from last weekend's meal prep
H: The last serving of Vegetable Enchiladas from the freezer

Weekend Lunches:
Veggie Burrito

Leftover sandwiches from Saturday's epic party

Weekday Dinners:

M (family meal):  3rd kid snow day/1st adult snow day of the year.  I asked my husband what he wanted for dinner, thinking that I had all the time in the world to cook.  He picked chicken parm and I made plans to crawl out to the grocery store to pick up chicken.  All of a sudden a flurry of work came in and I ended my work day after 5 in a very frazzled state.  The last thing I wanted to do was cook, but I headed out to the store and then to the kitchen anyway.  And then 5 minutes later everything was in the oven.  Chicken Parmesan is the world's easiest meal to cook.  I used this recipe with linguine.  Thumbs up from both adults and kids on this one.

T (family meal/fend for yourself):  the kids got hotdogs and noodles, hubs had the leftover chicken parm, I had a burrito.

W (date night): Panera!  Turkey BLT with avocado (full for him, half with broccoli cheese soup for me).

H (fend for yourself night): canned soup for him, a veggie burrito for me.

F: Another snow day.  Chili mac by special request, served with cornbread muffins from the freezer (made by stepson #2).

Weekend Dinners:

S: Family Birthday Party for one of the stepsons!  We had a house full of people.  Hubs got a sandwich tray with macaroni salad and coleslaw, a veggie tray, I melted up some Velveeta with tortilla chips.  For dessert, the stepsons asked for Oreo Balls and an Ice Cream Cake.  This is my second time making the ice cream cake.  Thoughts:

• It is 10,000 times easier to make an ice cream cake in January than in was the first time we did it in August.
• The first time I didn't fully read the recipe beforehand and had to rush the freezing process.  This time I took my time:
• made the chocolate layer on Friday morning, topped it with the fudge sauce around noon.
• added the vanilla layer after dinner and let it freeze overnight. 
• Put a "crumb" layer of whipped cream on Saturday morning, let it freeze for an hour and kept the whipped cream in the fridge to get colder.
• Final frosting at noon, let it freeze until the party.
• Took the cake out of the freezer 10 minutes before serving.
• My springform pan must be shallower than the one Brown Eyed Baker has, because I can't get the full recipe to fit in the pan.  To make it fit, I use about ¾ of the chocolate ice cream and skimp on the fudge sauce/oreo filling a bit.  
• Next time I will mix the fudge sauce and oreos together instead of putting the crushed oreos on top of the fudge sauce.  When we cut the cake, the layers separate.
• Is it worthwhile to make your own ice cream cake instead of getting one from Dairy Queen?  Yes, unless you're pressed for time.   It takes a long time to fully freeze the cake, so you need to start it the day before.  But with that said, it only takes a few minutes of hands on time to make, and the wow factor is off the charts.  So yes, do it!

Su (family meal): leftover party sandwiches for the kids, chili mac for the adults, and ice cream cake for all.

Meal Prep:
Minimal, since we have leftover chili mac and sandwiches.  I restocked my cache of breakfast burritos. 

Other:

Workouts: standard fare of treadmill walks and runs, two weight lifting days.

Watching (from the treadmill): the last episode of Call the Midwife (well, the last episode that's on Netflix.  I know there's at least another season out there, so it's not goodbye, just see you later.  I loved this show so much and can't wait for it to come back).  Switched to Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries for my treadmill viewing for now.

Watching (from the couch): This is Us (meh, season 2 is just not doing it for me.  I have one more episode to catch up, and if I don't feel any differently after that, I'm bailing).  On date night we saw Tropic Thunder.  We're ISO a TV series for date nights.

Reading: The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton.

Other wins of the weekend:

New Year's Resolutions/Goals Update

Biggest success: sleep quality!  A long time ago Theodora recommended Mediation Oasis podcasts.  All it takes is 10-20 minutes of someone telling me to chill out to put me to sleep like nobody's business.

Your turn:

• What are you cooking this week?
• What are you reading and watching?
• This is Us fans: yay or nay to season 2?