The Kitchen Whisperer

Archive for the ‘Weekly Menu’ Category

Get out of that same ol’ recipe rut and try one of these delicious and easy recipes this week! This week I highly recommend making the Ultimate Pork Cutlets and the BBQ Meatloaf Stacks!

Happy Sunday TKW Family!  Now that Fall is here in the ‘burgh, we tend to gravitate more towards comfort foods. Where I live the leaves are falling and are EVERYWHERE, the days, while still warm turn to chilly at night. The weather is odd to be honest. If you leave the house in the morning, you need a sweater or light jacket but by say 10:30am you’re hot and when you leave work you put on the AC. By 6:30pm you’re cold so on goes the furnace, fuzzy socks and sweater. I wonder what it’ll be like when we finally move out West and we don’t have to deal with these types of things. For those of you that were used to the 4 seasons or snow at Christmas and moved out west, was it hard to get used to?

I used to say “I could never imagine Christmas without snow” but I honestly can’t remember the last time we had a white Christmas. It’s like our winters with snow don’t really happen until February. Oh sure we get the butt-cold weather (seriously that’s the worse) but no real snow. *shrugs* But right now, our focus is on the leaves. Having 5 acres where you HAVE to pick up the leaves simply put, sucks! You can’t leave it on the ground as they kill the grass. My next house – I want a non-shedding tree, non-growing grass and no bugs. LOL So yeah, pretty much I’m living in Lego-Land!

This weekend I was (still am) super busy in the kitchen working on recipes and upcoming posts. Like right now I have pizza dough proofing in a cast iron skillet for maybe a breakfast pizza. I haven’t decided on that yet. Plus I have 2 casseroles to make and a chicken sheet pan dinner. But I’m tired today. Last week was just busy and we traveled all over the place to get these bar stools for the downstairs. So they opened up an At Home store here and if you’ve never been in one, you MUST!  They remind me of a way larger Home Goods (which you all know is my favorite store) but with a little bit of everything. So you all know Mr. Fantabulous HATES shopping (he doesn’t count Home Depot or Lowes as shopping as that’s necessary stuff – I guess underwear or milk aren’t necessities?!) but when we were out the one day I told him I wanted to check out the store to see if they had items we could use for the house once we’re finished with the remodel.
I need a week of Sundays!

Get out of that same ol’ recipe rut and try one of these delicious and easy recipes this week! This week I highly recommend making the Cowboy Meatball Sliders and the Delicious Pressure Cooker Beef Barbacoa Taquitos!

Happy Sunday TKW Family!  I’m tired. Like did you ever get so tired that you’re lying in bed, that the thought of getting out of bed to go to the bathroom is something you actually contemplate? No for real. Like you know you have to tinkle but your body is like “but this bed is soooooooooooo comfy and you ache ALL OVER. Ignore that urge, it’ll go away”… and you actually think you can ‘fool’ your bladder. You do the leg cross, then you roll over and start to ‘rock’ yourself thinking about everything else BUT the fact that your bladder is going to burst. That was me this morning. Like I legit laid there in bed, rocking myself (actually I think I got in a pretty good core workout), ‘ignoring’ the urge… yeah that lasted about 3.2 seconds. By the time I took 4 steps I knew there was no going back to bed for this girlie.

<deep sigh> Perhaps it’s for the best as I have so much to get done today. 4 new recipes I HAVE to create today and take photos. Oh yeah, Mr.Fantabulous also said that WE need to go to Home Depot and Lowes because WE need a date day. Um… no, I’m breaking up with you then as I don’t want those dates. LOL Actually I do need to go out that way as I need a few things from Sam’s Club to which I did say “Honey, while you’re out there can you just stop in and get the stuff?” The man looked at me like I had 3 heads them simply said “Oh no sweetie, I could never cheat on you and go to your store without you.” LOL such a brat!

So how was your week? It was a ‘Week of Mondays’ for me last week. It just never seemed to end. And just when I thought I was finally ahead of the whole work thing more crap came my way. But I do love what I do so I can’t complain too much ya know? Do you like your job/what do you do for work? I’ve been fortunate as I truly love the work that I do – between my ‘day’ job and TKW. I’ve never worked a job that I hated; a company – not necessarily hate but I was rather happy when I left.

So the Fantabulous In Laws spent most of the weekend here again. It was such a great time as always. Mama Fantabulous made her meat sauce (Mr. Fantabulous likes hers better than mine but loves my Sunday Gravy better than hers – we call it ‘dividing the love’ lol). It’s funny as there are only 2 differences between her recipe and mine is oregano and water. She doesn’t add oregano at all (which is odd to me but whatev) and she adds waaaaaaay more water than I. I like a thicker ‘gravy’ sauce but as long as he enjoys it so be it. I can make both sauces (mine version for me and her version for him).

Can we just have a weekend do-over? I’m beat!

Get out of that same ol’ recipe rut and try one of these delicious and easy recipes this week! This week I highly recommend making the Potato Gnocchi in a Bacon Cream Sauce and the White Chicken Chili!

Happy Sunday TKW Family! I hope this finds you well. We’re both chugging along. Mr. Fantabulous still isn’t back to his normal healthy self but this, whatever he has, is just going to take time. His doctors are on top of it so all we can do is pray and keep investigating what is making him so ill. But that man, I swear, he’s a machine. He doesn’t let it get him or his spirits down. I, on the other hand, have on the brave face. “Think positive, Lori Ann” is all I keep hearing in my mother’s voice. So that I shall.

Last week was pretty busy, but then isn’t life busy?  I guess for us, we tend to not lead a “normal” life. Like he has his own company, as do I, but then I also work a full time job on top of that. His “other” full time job is the complete renovation of this house. Plus our grounds aren’t your typical lawns. It’s like everything we have to do that is normal life for everyone else – cutting the grass, weeding, sweeping even is a project for us. It’s funny as our version of retirement is literally coming home from work, having dinner and the only thing we have to do that night is figure out what to watch on tv. On the weekends just a couple of hours in the morning to do the yard or housework and then we literally have the whole weekend to do anything we want or nothing at all. Like it’s literally been almost 9 years since we’ve sat on a couch in our media room and watched tv. God how I long for that day. Where most people’s version of retirement is no work, travel, freedom to do whatever.

What’s your vision of your retirement like?

Retirement…<deep sigh> someday.

What does your retirement vision look like?

Get out of that same ol’ recipe rut and try one of these delicious and easy recipes this week! This week I highly recommend making the Crock Pot Eye of Round with Mushroom & Onion Gravy and the White Bean and Corn Veggie Burgers!

Happy Sunday TKW Family!  How was your week?  Mine was pretty busy both at work and here at the house. Since we’re both starting to feel better it was time to tackle some of the house chores. I will say this, I will never EVER have 5 acres of property again to maintain. OMG it’s unreal!  Growing up we had 41 acres but there was also 8 of us. This place, I swear it has magic grass and weeds that as soon as you cut them they’ve already grown an inch!  I used to scoff at folks for having fake grass planted but I’m telling you what guys, those people are on to something ingenious!

But I know me, I cannot go without real grass in my yard. I’m a Pennsylvania girl. I need to feel see grass even though it’s hell on my allergies and I don’t like the feeling of it touching my bare feet. But then again I’m that weirdo that hates being barefoot. Like I need socks or shoes on. Yet growing up my sister would never wear shoes. We had about a 900′ driveway that was made out of red dog rocks. Those things were sharp and hurt like the dickens. Dianna would walk barefoot on the driveway to get the mail. One time Dad busted her cutting the grass barefoot!  Stupid, I know!  When he asked why in the hell she was doing that she simply replied “I like the feeling of the cut grass on my toes.” Dad just “If you don’t put shoes on right now you won’t have any toes to feel that grass!”

Unfortunately Mr. Fantabulous overdid it yesterday as his chest started hurting again and it was hard for him to catch his breath again. I’m worried about him. All of his tests have come back negative thus far (which is good) but the tests for that Valley Fever still aren’t back yet. He goes to see the Infectious Disease doctor this week so I’m praying they know exactly what caused his sickness and if he’s on the right treatment path. Today I told him he’s to lie in bed and take it easy. Of course, being stubborn he’s fighting me as there is so much work to get done but his health needs to come first.

How are you spending your Sunday?

Get out of that same ol’ recipe rut and try one of these delicious and easy recipes this week! This week I highly recommend making the Apple Crumb Cake with Apple Cider Glaze and the 10 Minute Pressure Cooker Chicken Barbacoa Soft Wraps!

Happy Sunday TKW Family!  How are things in your world?  Dish – what’s the best/most funnest (yes I said funnest – go with it) thing you did and or ate?  For me I’d say it’s two things:

1. The Fantabulous in-laws spent the weekend at our house.
2. The second best thing was the Italian Braciole I made for them.

I absolutely love my in-laws to pieces and would love nothing more than to have them move in with us. They are both in their 80’s and while they are as spry as can be, their house is just too much for them to take care of. Since we live an hour away it’s not like we can just pop over and do their grass after work. Now Mama Fantabulous tells me she’s not going anywhere but I just smile and tell her “That’s okay Ma. I’ll just kidnap you one of these days.” And that’s when she tells me she’ll put a hit out on me. Hahaha… gotta love that woman!

The second thing was the braciole. So Mama Fantabulous for years would talk about how she always use to make it but that she hadn’t made it in years because it’s just the two of them and it’s time-consuming. So I took to Google to see what braciole actually was. First I had to figure out how to spell it. All I’m going to say is “thank you google for understanding what’s in my head when I butcher the spelling of words”. LOL Once I got that and realized it’s honestly nothing more than just a piece of flattened beef, stuffed with “stuff” and then rolled up super tight like a cinnamon roll. Once you do that you deglaze the pan, add in some tomatoes with sauce, put the rolls in the pan, cover and bake for 1 1/2 hours.

Yeah, it’s that easy. And what’s great about it, is you get to stuff it with whatever you want. You want bacon, cheese and chopped veggies – go for it. For me, I decided to more of an Italian route. I toasted up some pine nuts and breadcrumbs. To that I added some cheeses, peppers, golden raisins and a few other items. Mama Fantabulous helped me tie it up. Normally you would pan sear it off then do the whole tomato/tomato sauce thing and put it in the oven but we had other plans. I took Mama Fantabulous shopping.

Of course we hit up Home Goods which is my all time favorite store. Next, I took her to At Home which is brand new to Pittsburgh. She was awestruck. Seeing her face light and up and hear her say “Oh Lori, look at this!”, “OHHHH Look at that!!!” was priceless.
Take today to be lazy!