Food & Growing Up

Well, I am going to combine two posts cause I didn't get around to blogging last night. I had such a bummer headache, I called it an early night. However, Monkey didn't think sleep was really needed last night as she woke every 2 hours. Eeek. It wore her out though cause she has been napping off and on today. Hopefully she will still sleep tonight. I finally have time to post as I have caught up on much of what has been put off the past few days.



Post 1:
Pot Roast Fans & Healthy Decisions
First - the pot roast because it is NOT part of the healthy decisions but it sure tasted good. We are huge pot roast fans but we like to try different pot roast meals instead of doing the simple beef roast, potatoes and carrots and a simple gravy. SO, I turned to my 2009 Taste of Home Annual Recipes book and got the following recipe.

Pot Roast with Gravy
1 beef bottom round roast
6 TBS balsamic vinegar, divided
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp pepper
2 TBS oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
4 bay leaves
1 large onion, thinly sliced
3 tsp beef bouillon granules (I just used 1 beef bouillon cube)
1/2 c boiling water
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
4 TBS cornstarch
1/4 c cold water
1) Cut beef roast in half; rub with 2 TBS vinegar. Combine salt, garlic powder, and pepper and rub over meat. In large skillet, brown roast in oil on all sides. Transfer to large crock pot.
2) Place garlic, bay leaves, and onion on roast. In small bowl, dissolve bouillon in boiling water; stir soup and remaining vinegar. Slowly pour over roast. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or until meat is of correct temperature.
3) Remove the roast; keep warm. Discard the leaves. Whisk cornstarch and cold water until smooth; stir into cooking juices. Cover and cook on high for 30 min or until gravy is thickened. Slice roast and return to slow cooker until heated through.

Things we will change next time - with the remaining 4 TBS of vinegar, use 2 TBS apple juice and 2 TBS vinegar because it was a bit strong for the kids. I thought it was great but I love vinegar.

Now for the healthy part of the day:
It may have been 90 degrees yesterday but I decided to walk to get Bullfrog from school and took along Johnny. I realized it is 1.7 miles TO the school, which makes it 10.2 miles driving to and from the school all day. I am trying to find ways to trim our budget up even more as I am done watching the extra child in 3 weeks and we will lose a good chunk of money, more specifically, we are losing the money that pays for my gas card! Well, I am going to try to walk to get Bullfrog unless the weather is just too hot for Monkey or it is raining. Then we are going to let Peanut walk home. I went to get her yesterday since ding-a-ling wore sweatpants. *note - I am SUPER sore today and it seems to get worse as the day goes on so I am thinking that I need to drink a LOT more water before and after!

Post #2
Peanut is a big girl
Well, today was the big day for Peanut. Yesterday when I picked her up, I drove the route I wanted her to walk home. I was very nervous about her walking by herself even though it is a heavily traveled route by kids and roads that are designed to slow traffic down. Luckily, her bff's dad has been walking to get his kids every day after school and was willing to let her walk with him. Jeremy dropped some Gatorade off for her when he got Bullfrog at 11am. I waited for her and in she popped about 45 minutes after school got out. She was beet red and super hot. She grabbed a damp towel and laid on the floor cooling down. After a cool shower, she started talking about how she wanted to walk home from then on. I have officially opened the door that can't be closed. *sigh* I am not ready to think of my baby girl being old enough for this but I am not surprised either. She would ALWAYS chose walking/running/biking over getting a ride anyway. She was super excited to learn we were doing fish and rice for dinner since it is healthier. We made Garlic Lime Tilapia from Eat at Home Cooks blog but we used Swaii. It was so good that EVERYONE got seconds. I am really the only huge fish eater but that is very slowly changing! Here is the recipe Garlic Lime Tilapia. I am really liking the fact we are doing more meals than just chicken or just ground beef. Oh, and this recipe was less than $10 for 6 servings, we even paired it with rice that I cooked in a rice cooker and put some lime juice and seasonings in the water to have the flavor mix through with the fish.