Meal Time

I love finding recipes online and through family and friends. It's a desperate measure for me to actually open a cookbook and look for a recipe that I dont know and no one has recommended to me.  That being said, I'm trying to help us eat better and stay more organized by doing a 2 week dinner meal plan.  We try to grocery shop only every 2 weeks, so twice a month, and Mike and I both felt we weren't planning well enough to get us through meal wise the entire 2 weeks. For someone who isn't the best cook, it was a bit daunting to sit down and try to think of 12-14 dinner meals all at once, but with Mike's help we came up with a meal plan and have been implementing it for the last week or so. So far, success, minus the chicken manicotti with crunchy noodles that I served night before last (yuck!).

But, I've shared a couple recipes on our blog in the past, and have really enjoyed getting recipes from other women's  blogs, especially http://www.cookingupfaith.com/, whose Slow Cooker Tex Mex I tried a few days back and was a huge hit with me and Mike. Well, last night I took a leap of faith on a recipe I found in a magazine that appealed to me because one, its mexican food, yum, and two, because it is a make one freeze one meal and actually makes two meals in one. This particular meal actually took time and effort, unlike a lot of the easier, throw everything together recipes that I have, and I was SO worried after the crunchy noodle flop the night before that it would be another epic fail.  I had to wait to find out until almost 9 when Mike finally got home, and I usually dont eat that late, but had to try it with him, and.....it was AWESOME! Yay, jump for joy, grin on the face, awesome.

Hoping it would be food, and inspired by cookingupfaith, I took pictures throughout the cooking of the meal that I will hopefully get to share tonight along with the scanned recipe. Knowing there are leftover's in the fridge is making me hungry for lunchtime right now!