Menu Plan–March 18

What a week… the week before spring break & temps here soared into the 80s!  Talk about spring fever amongst my students {and me}.  And, we celebrated 100 weeks of Friday Favorite Finds on the 16th.  The weather this week allowed us to grill – which, I admit was a little strange when we ate off of our winter dishes.  But, it was wonderful nonetheless. 

Our St. Patrick’s Day eats consisted of a colorful rainbow alfredo and mint cookies & cream ice cream rather than our planned green soup and bread.  I just couldn’t bring myself to make soup when it was 80 degrees. 

Now that tests and papers are behind my students and grading is ahead for me – I am looking forward to a relaxing week filled with a little bit of spring cleaning with my mom!  On our menu this week:

Sunday
Irish Soda Bread French Toast
Irish Soda Bread {new}, Irish Stew {new}

Monday
Orange Cranberry Muffins

Crockpot BBQ chicken sandwiches, 40-minute hamburger rolls, pickles

Tuesday
Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes with Blueberries {new}
Cheesy Broccoli Chicken and Rice with Bacon {new}
Snickerdoodle Cake {new}

Wednesday
Cherry Blueberry Breakfast Cake
Un-stuffed Cabbage Roll Casserole {new}

Thursday
Granola & Fruit
Chicken Spinach Quiche
Basketball Game Eats - Hot Pizza Dip {new}

Friday
Bagels
Beef and Cabbage Bread Pockets {new}, baked red potatoes

Saturday
TBD
Make-Ahead Spinach Pasta Bake

 

Find more great menus at OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday!

Friday Favorite Finds #100

Woot!!  100 weeks of Friday Favorite Finds. 

This weekly feature at Finding Joy in My Kitchen started out as a way for me to give you all some blog love – all your delicious cooking & baking was making my “to try” list of recipes grow out.of.control.  {here’s the very first one!!}

So, I started posting these recipe finds here. On Fridays.  And, you started commenting.  Out of that grew the interest in having a linky so that you all can share your recipes to try too! 

The face of Friday Favorite Finds has changed a bit over the years….

But, I find myself always looking forward to Fridays! 

Thank you so much for making this linky a part of your week.

I know there is so much going on in all our lives and in all of blogland – so it is extra special for me that you come back here week after week and participate and visit one another’s links.  You are all wonderful.

As a “THANK YOU” to you, I am going to give away an Amazon Gift Card to one of our regular participants here.  After the linky closes this week, I’ll choose one of you to receive the $25 Amazon Gift Card. The only criteria – you have to have linked up to at least one prior Friday Favorite Finds. 

For this week, I went back through my old Friday Favorite Finds Posts, pinned some oldies and want to share with you some of the recipes I’ve found… that I still haven’t made….but I was pleasantly surprised by the number of finds I actually have made!

{Note: all photos are from the author of the recipes, linked from Pinterest}

Zucchini Rotini
{From Gluten-Free Homemaker}

Source: glutenfreehomemaker.com via Finding Joy In My Kitchen on Pinterest

Springtime Shells
{Cook with Sara}

Source: cookwithsara.blogspot.com via Finding Joy In My Kitchen on Pinterest

Greek Yogurt Pie
{One Perfect Bite}

Source: oneperfectbite.blogspot.com via Finding Joy In My Kitchen on Pinterest

Bacon-Wrapped Pineapple Bites
{Tasty Kitchen}

Source: tastykitchen.com via Finding Joy In My Kitchen on Pinterest

Cherry Cheesecake Cookies
{The Changetable}

Source: changeabletable.com via Finding Joy In My Kitchen on Pinterest

 

f you were featured, feel free to grab the button below!

Please link up to a post containing your list of recipes to try -- do not link up individual recipes please, save those for other linkys.  Your links will be deleted if they are for individual recipes.  Be sure to leave a link back here to Finding Joy in My Kitchen.

Red Pepper Chicken Sausage Pasta Bake

Check out my new recipe shared over at the Happy Housewife! 

Tonight, we grilled.

Why yes, the forecast does say 83 degrees for Monday. 

Yes. I do live in the land formerly known as the Frozen Tundra.

Yes. Frog Prince and I did what any good frozen-tundra dwelling resident would do on a day when temperatures topped out in the 60s.  We grilled. 

Brats, 40-minute whole wheat hotdog buns, pickles, & sweet potato fries. We pulled out all the stops.  Even though it seemed incredibly strange to be doing so on our winter snowflake dishes.

When the average high at this time of year is barely 40, we’ll take it.  And, by the looks of things, that soup I had planned for St. Patrick’s Day might be out of the question. 

Since grilling season is apparently here, we did a side-by-side comparison of sweet potato fries made using parchment paper and a baking mat. 

Sweet Potato Fry Baking Challenge

Sweet potatoes were cut using our julienned fry slicer (thanks to my sister for that awesome birthday gift).  All fries were tossed into a large bowl, seasoned with olive oil and sea salt & pepper. 

Thus, all fries were the same size/thickness, and were homogenized before parsing onto to separate baking trays:

Tray 1: Baking Sheet with Parchment Paper
Tray 2: Baking Sheet with Silicone Baking Mat

Fries were baked at 425 for 15 minutes, tossing once during cooking at the 7 minute mark.

Here’s a side-by-side visual comparison of our trays of fries:

Tray 1. Parchment Paper Lined Tray	Tray 2. Silicone Baking Mat Lined Tray

Our verdict:
Fries baked on the Parchment paper were much crispier in the same amount of time, and had a better overall texture than those baked on the silicone baking mat. 

While I really dislike wasting parchment paper, the results really were distinct.  And, for the flavor and crunch difference, it’s worth it to us to make our fries this summer using parchment paper.  We do re-use our parchment paper – we can get about 3-4 fry makings out of the same piece of parchment paper, so I guess that’s better than tossing it after each use. 

The Bottom Line:
We’ll be making our sweet potato fries on parchment paper!  And, we’ll be grilling our potato fries. 

Linked to: Kitchen Tip Tuesday, Tasty Tuesday