wow, this would have been a great shot if I got the whole bug in it
Yes, Spring is here, and so are the ladybugs.
For my bug-loving five-year old daughter, this is her most favorite time of year. Let the ladybug round-up begin as my Brooke catches and keeps- as pets- hundreds of ladybugs like last year…. and the year before.
Brooke finds a passion for catching bugs at the age of three
She has every type of ladybug habitat out there, not to mention the ones she makes on her own. Hey, where’s my tea steeper? I actually found my tea steeper hanging on a branch in our yard with bits of grass in it. Clever girl.
Brooke's First Ladybug of the Season
the ladybug was moving too fast for me to focus the camera!
Brooke's ladybug
No worries, after a few days I release the poor creatures back into the wild while she’s sleeping and explain to her the next morning that they had to go home to mom and dad for dinner. So please, no letters from PETA, thank you.
Well- besides my vegan friend- who doesn’t love fried chicken?
For subscribers to The Organized Cook, Ranch Fried Chicken is what’s on the menu this week and it’s a family favorite for me.
Ranch Fried Chicken by The Organized Cook
Doing something as simple as adding ranch dressing mix to the flour coating can make a classic meal like fried chicken something to talk about. This week’s menu is all about the classics:
Kid Favorites
This week’s menu is both healthy and kid friendly with items like fried chicken, quesadillas and pot pie. Making dinnertime fun for kids is the trick I find to help get them out of ruts. Dress up chili with bowls of fun things for them to garnish:
Kid Friendly Chili
Garnish Chili with Shredded Cheese
Whole Grain Goldfish Crackers
And, for all you vegetarians out there…. stuffed pasta shells.
Helping Hands In The Kitchen
Stuffed Pasta Shells is another perfect meal that’s easy for kids to help. My girls love to help me in the kitchen, and sometimes it feels like more work finding something for them to do. At 7 and 5-years old, stuffing pasta shells with cheese mixture is easy and fun. I enjoy sharing my passion for cooking with them.
Stuffed Pasta Shell by The Organized Cook
Stuffed Pasta Shell by The Organized Cook
Reincarnating The Leftover
What to do…. what to do… with that leftover fried chicken. Using a simple technique I like to call “reincarnating the leftover“, that leftover Ranch Fried Chicken- with a little help from my good friend, frozen puff pastry- is now reincarnated into Chicken Pot Pie. Every time I say or hear “chicken pot pie”, I either hear that chicken from the movie Chicken Run say (in Brittish accent), “I don’t want to be a pie.” Or, I (depending on who is around) immediately say, “chicken pot pie and I don’t care”…. I’m not sure why, but I can’t help it.
Chicken Pot Pie by The Organized Cook
Saving Money on Family Dinners
This week’s Weekly Meal Plan will only cost you about $90 in groceries- that’s without sales or coupons. I would love to hear back from my readers who cooked this week’s menu about how much they spent on groceries with this week’s shopping list. Just leave a comment below, or email me at to**@***********ry.com, or on Facebook.
Subscribe to The Organized Cook
It’s not too late to get this week’s Weekly Meal Plan. Subscribe now to The Organized Cook. Remember, you can cancel at any time, but you won’t want to- it’s that good.
When I began writing The Organized Cook, my goal was to save as much time as possible in the kitchen. As a busy mom of four,
Saving Time with The Organized Cook
one child with special needs, I needed to prepare dinner as efficiently as possible while creating healthy, delicious balanced meals for my family.
By creating a balanced menu each week using my special algorithm that reuses my time, ingredients and leftovers, what I found was that I was spending very little on my grocery bill.
Balsamic Chicken by The Organized Cook
After finishing The Organized Cook, I found that each of my Weekly Meal Plan menus will feed a family of four or five dinner for a week for about $100 a week- and most often less than $100 a week. That’s less than what it costs to eat out just one night!
The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that families who eat dinner at home save 50% in dinner costs than families who mostly eat out. Combine that savings with other techniques like menu planning through The Organized Cook and families can slash their food budget even more.
The Organized Cook is a monthly subscription that provides a Weekly Meal Plan including menu, grocery shopping list, easy-to-follow instructions and lots of time and money-saving tips.
Family meals are important. Iʼll show you easy ways to spend less time and money at the grocery store, less time in the kitchen and more time with your family.
Three months of our most popular menus from The Organized Cook™ Weekly Meal Plan System including grocery shopping lists, cooking instructions and lots of time and money saving tips in one book that's easy to fit in your purse.
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