Another Use for a Roast

I know I'm not the first person to come up with this because I found the recipe online.  However, it was definitely a concept I'd never considered.

You saw on my meal plan that I was going to make a roast in the crockpot.  I did and it was very good.  After The Hubby and I had it for lunch the next day, though, we'd both had enough of meat, potatoes, and carrots.  I was talking to a colleague about this and she mentioned that she's made enchiladas with leftover roast meat.  Brilliant!  She said she'd send me her recipe but never did, so I didn't some Googling of my own and came across this: Pot Roast Enchiladas.  Why hadn't I ever thought of that?

The Hubby needed to run to the grocery while I was putting Baby Girl to bed on Wednesday night anyway to get milk for her at the sitter's, so I asked him to get a couple of extra ingredients to round out the stuff we already had.  We made the enchiladas last night and they were delicious!  I did my own tweaking so that I didn't use half of an ingredient or something.

My instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350
• Dice one whole green bell pepper and half of a large sweet onion and saute together in some EVOO.  Mix in one can of Rotel, about halfway drained, and the leftover pot roast, and just under 1/4 of the can of red enchilada sauce.  Cook until warm.
• Spray small glass rectangular dish (maybe 8x11ish?) with cooking spray
• Split filling approximately into eighths
• Using taco-sized tortillas, place filling in a strip across the middle, sprinkle with some cheddar, then roll up (I didn't bother closing the ends) and lay seam down in the dish.
• Repeat until all eight tortillas are filled (you'll have to smoosh them together to get them all to fit)
• Pour remaining enchilada sauce over the top.  I didn't have quite enough to cover it, so some of the enchiladas weren't as saucy as others, but that was okay with me.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes, until warm (I don't think it would hurt to cover, but I didn't.  The sauce got a little dried out, but it's alright.)

I served it with some corn (I'd planned on rice, but couldn't find the rice I swore I'd bought).

This was really yummy and an easy way to use up leftover pot roast when you don't want to just eat the same meal again.  Now what am I going to do with those potatoes and carrots, especially since I have a meal for tonight and am not cooking again until Tuesday?

Meal Plan: 9/25-10/1

I wasn't feeling very inspired this week, so my meal plan isn't particularly exciting, but it's filled with some easy comfort foods.  The Hubby balked at the thought of a roast this week--he says it's still too warm for it.  This is the same person who fixed chili in August, though...

Sunday: Stouffer's Lasagna--yummy and easy.  I'd never had it before but saw it on sale last week at Meijer, so I had The Hubby pick one up.  We really enjoyed it and it was a lot less labor-intensive than making it from scratch!

Monday: Grilled ham & cheese with soup

Tuesday: Roast, carrots, red potatoes, and onions in the crockpot

Wednesday: Spaghetti and meatballs

Thursday: Grilled pork chops & peaches & red onion w/ rolls (could do Wednesday if it's not raining)

Friday: Leftover roast

Saturday: I *think* we'll be celebrating my birthday, but I'm not totally sure.  We'll be celebrating throughout the weekend, but my biggest birthday wish each year is that The Hubby do all the planning for me since I plan all of our get-togethers throughout the year.  He mentioned last night that there could be some celebrating on Friday.  We'll see.  All I know is that I'm getting coupons from some of my favorite restaurants with free birthday meals, so I'm looking forward to lots of eating out over the next couple of weeks :)

Well, I'm glad that's over

I've been quiet and I know it.  It isn't because I don't have things to say and it's definitely not because I don't *want* to blog.  Work has been insane and, while I didn't do all of my blogging at work, my energy level in the evenings has been incredibly low.  All I want to do once I get Baby Girl to bed is zone out at the TV and go to bed early.

Our project went live two weeks ago and it's rolling along fairly smoothly.  I'm hopeful that we'll be able to dive into Phase 2 soon, but it should be much less taxing and time-consuming for me, especially now that the initial roll-out is done.  You see, I was the main Systems driver for moving our office to a paperless process, which is a HUGE shift in culture.  It's been a struggle to gain the buy-in that I needed and, as expected, we had some technical difficulties, but it's up and running and operational for most people.

This project has honestly been really exciting and frustrating at the same time.  By the time I walk out of here, I'm wiped and have no energy to devote to my own family.  I'm glad we've stabilized at work, though, since it's now The Hubby's turn to have crazy time at work.  I'm hoping after this week we'll both be able to relax in the evenings and not be impatient and testy all of the time like we've each been over the last few weeks (mostly me, I'll admit).

This isn't necessarily an apology post--I also sort of wanted an entry to remind myself of this time, where I couldn't find the time or energy to do much of anything, let alone write out a great blog post.  I hope you've all been doing well and hopefully this means I'll be around more often, writing more super exciting stuff.

Or, you know, writing about my kid and her potty training progress (she woke up dry this morning, for instance...).  :)

So good that I'm telling you about it again

I know I told you my meal plan for the week already, but I tried a new recipe that knocked my socks off tonight.

Earlier in the week we made shredded buffalo chicken.  It was tasty, but a little spicy for Baby Girl,so we let her dip in some ranch dressing which made her a little happier.  After having dinner and packing up our lunches, we set aside 2 cups of shredded chicken meat to use in this recipe.

I knew this recipe would be good because I've loved everything Cassie has posted that I've tried, but I never could have imagined how good it could be.  You see, I've always been a blue box mac & cheese type of girl.  Love the stuff.  My mom would slave over making a mac & cheese from scratch and I never really liked it.  It would be crunchy on top (in my opinion, mac & cheese shouldn't be crunchy) and I just wasn't a fan.  In early adulthood, I tried this copycat recipe of my favorite macaroni and cheese at our favorite local BBQ restaurant.  Whenever I want to be fancy with my macaroni and cheese, I'll make it and everyone gobbles it up.

So when I saw Cassie's recipe for Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese, I knew it would be yummy, but I just didn't have confidence that I would love it more than my go-to mac & cheese.

But you know what?  I loved this recipe more than any recipe I've made in months.  Seriously.  The freshness of using real milk and cheese, combined with the buffalo chicken and some spices...delicious.  I want to go pick up the pan from the stove and eat the entire thing.  I'm actually thinking that next time I make the buffalo chicken I might just freeze half and use both halves to make this dish.  The only tweak I made to the recipe was that I made it with the already-buffaloed chicken so I didn't add the wing/hot sauce.  I thought the amount of heat was perfect.

I am tempted to put this on the meal plan again next week, but I'm actually thinking I might go see what other mac & cheese recipes she has since I remember quite a few crossing my Google Reader.  But you'd better believe this dish will be back on the meal plan very soon!

Meal Plan 9/5-9/10

This weekend was all sorts of crazy, so we ended up eating out a lot more than planned.  We used coupons and gift cards to make it a little cheaper, but that meant we ended up with some leftover meals (and, even more sadly, some meat had to get tossed).  Our meals this week are a combination of leftover meals and new meals.

• Lasagna: This is my mom's recipe with cottage cheese....my favorite :)
• Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches and corn on cob
  
• Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese: will make extra slow cooker buffalo chicken to use in this
• Chicken Nuggets, Oven Red Potato Fries: Bought some panko to roll some chicken chunks in and bake
• Spaghetti & Meatballs: I always cheat and get frozen turkey meatballs and then those hang out in the freezer for days we don't have leftovers to send with Baby Girl to the sitter's
• Chicken Rollatini Stuffed with Zucchini served with pasta

Facing Forward

It's so hard to believe how quickly Baby Girl is growing up.  This weekend we sent her to her Grandma and Papaw's for Friday AND Saturday nights while Mommy and Daddy were participating in the OSU Alumni Band.  We were going to pick her up after the game Saturday, but decided (correctly) that we would be too exhausted to make the drive that day, so we let her spend another night.  She did great--I don't think she hardly noticed we were gone.  We, of course, missed her when we weren't busy or sleeping, but I think it was good for all of us.

We had installed Baby Girl's carseat into my mom's car and when we took it out to put into our car to take her home, we reinstalled it forward-facing.  Everyone but me seemed really excited. I get the feeling that my parents think some of the decisions we make for her are silly so they get incredibly excited when we decide that she can have some sort of sinful food or we let up on a rule or we turn her forward-facing.  It's annoying.  Anyway, she's now forward-facing, which she tells us every time she gets into the car.  The seat in the little car is still rear-facing and I'm not sure when we'll turn it around, but I'm not in a big hurry.  She was happy enough rear-facing, but does seem to enjoy seeing Mommy and Daddy while we're driving in the car.  And now we can see what she's doing back there, too.

It's fine, it's nice.  But the most important thing is that it's just another sign that she's really growing up.  She's wearing big girl jeans with a t-shirt and actually has pigtails in her hair and she looked like such a big girl in her carseat on the way to the grocery this morning.  I loved her as a newborn, I loved her as an infant, I loved her as a toddler, and I love her now as the little girl she's becoming.  I just can't believe it's all happened so quickly.