Menu Monday

Well I had a yummy meal in mind for today, and at the last minute, changed it up! Why you ask... well my goal is to give easy recipes that are fast and can be done with kids/mulit-tasking. I am living proof of how easy it is to multi-task while making this delicious meal... I woke hailey up, fed her with one arm, checked Dustins online banking (while still feeding HB!) and talked on the phone while cooking this meal. haha! Now of course it did not have to be this complicated... but when do we ever make things easy at the Floyd house! Here it is...


Sausage (Grnd turk!) Corn Bake
6-8 Servings
Prep 15 min Cook time 30-40 min

1-1/2lbs bulk pork sausage (i subst grnd turk)
1 md grn pepper, chopped
1 md onion, chopped
4 tbls butter, divided
3 tbls all purpose flour
1/2 tspn white pepper
1/2 tspn salt
1-1/2 cups milk
3-1/2cups (10 oz) egg noodles, cooked and drained
1 can cream style corn
1/4 cup shrd cheddar cheese
1/2 cup dry bread cumbs

IN a large skillet, cook the sausage, grn pepper, and onion over md heat until no longer pink; drain and set aside. In a large saucepan, melt 3 tlbs butter over md heat. Stir in flour, salt and pepper. Gradually add milk; stirring until smooth. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 min or until thickened. Stir in corn. Add corn mixture and noodles to sausage mixture. Mix in cheese.
TRANSFER to a greased 13x9x2 baking dish. *Melt remaining butter; *stir in bread crumbs. Sprinkle over casserold. BAKE, uncovered, at 325 for 30-40 mins or until heated through.
*Two things that I did different and to make it easier is, we like crunchy toppings and french fried onions are cruchier and a little tastier than bread crumbs... so if you want this texture, try those. To skip a step, just sprinkle bread crumbs without melting butter and use spray butter once you have topped casserole.
**You can also add bread crumbs and mix in the casserole to give it a thicker consistency... we liked it much better this way.
***If you are feeding a family of two and thinking this recipe needs to be downsized.. here's a tip: Go ahead and make the full serving size and bake half now and place the other half in a foil baking pan and freeze it for up to 3 months! (don't sprinkle bread crumbs until thawed and ready to bake)

Enjoy!

~**~Nicole~**~

Menu Monday

I have been enjoying trying a lot of new recipes lately and have decided to start Menu Monday! I love going to different sites where people have a certain day for certain things.... and so I came up with Menu Monday. I will try (and don't hold me to it EVERY monday!) to put a new recipe up every Monday. Most of these will be easier recipes that don't take too long or you can BAKE, my favorite!! Being a new mom has provided new obstacles for me in the kitchen, so I love new recipes that are easy to do! I found this recipe at Kraft Foods

Cheesy Chicken Italiano
Prep time 10 min Total time 20 min
Makes 4 servings
You will need:
3 cups rotini pasta (or whichever is your favorite!)
4 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1lb)
1 jar (14oz) spaghetti sauce
6oz. VELVEETA pasteurized prepared cheese product, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

Make it:
COOK pasta as directed on package
MEANWHILE, heat large skillet sprayed with cooking spary on medium-high heat. add chicken; cook 2 min on each side. add sauce; cover. simmer on low heat 10 min, or until chicken is done (165 degrees) add VELVEETA; cook and stir until melted.
DRAIN pasta; top with chicken and sauce.

ENJOY!

~**~Nicole~**~

We're on the move!

It's now official.... HAILEY IS CRAWLING!! We have been waiting for this for a while since she has been up on here knees since before Christmas. We knew it was just around the corner, and it is now here! We are so excited and anxious at the same time. Needless to say we haven't been on the ball about "baby proofing" the house... so there is much to be done now. She is still a little wobbly, but she is doing so well getting to where she wants.(yes I am being that parent!) She just started doing this today. She has been moving her hand since wednesday, but not really getting any where. She would move one and then go to move the other and fall on her belly. But she is now going all the way across the living room! I got a video of it so that everyone could see. I am home by myself tonight because Dustin is downtown helping dad break down everything at the World of Wheels from this weekend.. so the video is a bit close... I am sure there will be many more to come!

I can feed myself mommy!

Hailey is turning into such a big girl. She has been doing better and better everyday with eating her food. She has been trying all kinds of new treats and is loving all of them. As you saw from past videos, she is not to fond of the veggies, but we are working on it. In fact, tonight we had peas for dinner. I usually have to mix applesauce with them to get her to eat them, but I just had it ready on standby just in case she wouldn't eat the peas by themselves. I had to coax her the first couple of bites and show her that mommy liked them too! She was loving them by the third or fourth bite and ate the whole thing gone! yay for HB! Can you tell that mommy is excited that she is finally eating well now?!? I usually give her some puffs as a "dessert" because she loves them so much. Tonight I tried letting her feed herself and showing her how to put them in her mouth. After about the fifth try she had it down! We got a video of her putting one in and after each one she would give me a "high five"! She was so proud of herself and it was too cute :)

Give me a five!

HB has now learned how to give you a five. It is usually a high five, but she is givin some low ones in this video. Took me a minute to get her to do it because she is infatuated with our video camera and stops whatever she is doing when we pick it up (go figure)... but I got her going again.

Mommy makes me laugh

HB thinks it is the funniest thing when someone sneezes... even the dog. She was in a super funny mood, and I sneezed for real one time and she started laughing so hard. So we decided to tape it.

I don't want to eat my veggies!

Here is a funny video we took of Hailey. It is actually chicken mixed with veggies... which i have to admit smelled terrible! Here is mommy's little trick to get me to eat it :)