Menu Monday!

by Katie @ Cup of Tea // May 19, 2014 // 17 Comments

Hey hey! I’m looking forward to this week. Basically because there aren’t major appointments! I love looking at the calendar and seeing nothing on the schedule. Lovely! It’s a chance to catch up with some things.

Hope you had a nice weekend! We were pretty busy. I was sick all day Friday (bummer), but recovered completely by Saturday. Saturday we had church, a birthday brunch, and then a 1 year old birthday part in the afternoon. We were pretty pooped. Sunday was fairly quiet. Hubby was working on a presentation all day, and I caught up on some housework that I would have done on Friday.

This week’s menu cracks me up! It’s basically a repeat of last week 🙂 We had dinner at a friend’s house on Thursday, I was sick on Friday (no one would want to eat what I cooked!), and I planned on cooking dinner Saturday (silly me!), so we had several meals that I had ingredients for already. So why not? It’s also my turn to host my good friends and their sweet babies for our weekly play date/lunch gettogether, and I just have to make that Kale, Black Bean & Avocado Burrito bowl again. It was SO GOOD!!

For more information on how I menu plan, look at this.

Monday:
Tomato Pesto Pasta
(My own recipe, but adapted from an old Cook’s Illustrated)

Tuesday:
Vegetarian Meatballs and Wild Rice
(My MIL’s recipe – our favorite comfort food!)

Wednesday:
Mexican Scrambled Eggs with Tortillas and Smoked Cheese
(From Fields of Greens, pg. 292)

Thursday:
Kale, Black Bean & Avocado Burrito Bowl
(From CookieandKate.com – Making this for our play date and eating leftovers for dinner)

Friday:
Haystacks
(Our version of build-your-own taco salad)

Saturday:
Butternut Squash & Black Bean Enchiladas
(Adapted from this recipe found on Pinterest)

Sunday:
Mexican Pizza with Salsa Roja & Cilantro Pesto
(From Fields of Greens, pg. 180; this recipe makes a double batch of the sauce,
so making the pizza a second time is pretty easy! Plus, it uses that smoked cheese.)

*Grocery store this week: Trader Joe’s

Hey Hey! It’s Friday!

by Katie @ Cup of Tea // May 16, 2014 // 12 Comments

Yo – Friday.

Yes!

Anyway, on to the highlights!

1. We had a fun Mother’s Day on Sunday. The highlight was breakfast out. Breakfast is my favorite time to go out to eat. Yum!

2. I’m so excited for my tripod and wireless shutter release for my iPhone (in case you’re looking to buy the tripod, FYI, you need to buy an additional phone holder. I learned the hard way)! I take all of my pictures and videos with my iPhone5. I plan to use the tripod to take videos for the blog. Plus, I’m planning on taking some outfit pictures to wrap up my Wardrobe Refresh series. Not to mention we can finally take a family photo (we don’t have one! Shocking!).

3. Speaking of blog fun, I bought a new planner! I love planners. One of my favorite things is buying a new planner, sitting down, and filling it out. I plan on using it specifically for blog planning. We’ll see how it goes! May be a blog post in the future.

4. The little one turned 7 months on Sunday! I did an update about what she’s up to. But she’s such a delight!

5. If you’re ever wondering “Katie talked about making ____ recipe on her last Menu Monday. I wonder what it tasted like?”, well good news! This week we had the Kale, Black Bean & Quinoa bowl for dinner Wednesday night, and yum! It was SO GOOD! I actually woke up Thursday morning thinking, “Yay! Leftovers!”.

6. Yep, a sixth. Just wanted to give an update, in case you were wondering. Elizabeth’s sleep study that was done on Monday night was…. fine, I guess. I mean, what do you expect when you take a 7 month old and stick little wires all over her, including a little probe up her nose? She hardly slept, which means I didn’t sleep at all. But I don’t anticipate any negative results. We just had to go home from the sleep study to get some sleep. Ironic.

I wanted to end by talking about a Facebook group I am apart of, called Blog 101 for Moms. It’s a small group, made up of blogging moms (some newbie bloggers, others experienced). It’s a fantastic support group! It’s a closed group, so we can feel comfortable asking questions about blogging with the other members, swap post ideas, and share tips. We also share our daily posts with one another, visit one another’s blogs, leave comments, and support. If you are a blogging mommy, and are looking for a small blogging support/networking group like this, feel free to check it out! Request to join! I hope to see you there!

So that’s it!! What were you up to this week?? Share! Share! Put a link in the comments if you have a similar post, and I’ll swing by and say hi! Spread the blog love!

Linking up with:

Quick Home Organization | Refrigerator

by Katie @ Cup of Tea // May 15, 2014 // 10 Comments

I have “little piles” around the house. You know what I mean? There are disorganized areas that bug me. I could rattle them off – office desk, laundry room counter, husband’s under sink cabinet in our bathroom…. blah blah blah.

I tackled one on the list a few days ago – the top of our refrigerator! I was inspired by my friend Vanessa over at Mamma’s Happy Hive. If you haven’t visited her blog, do! She highlights fun Montessori-inspired activities for her sweet boy Little Bee and has amazing organization tips!

Vanessa shared this post about ideas for organizing her kitchen, and she mentioned putting baskets on top of her refrigerator to hide stuff.

I literally DOL (that’s Duh Out Loud, in case you’re not in the know).

I have a problem with clutter on top of my refrigerator. 1) We don’t have a pantry inside our kitchen, which means I’m always looking for a place to stash perishables. And 2) my husband likes quick access to tortilla chips. So we’ve been keeping miscellaneous food items up there for a while. I was also storing some random eating-related items that Elizabeth hadn’t quite grown into yet.

It was a mess.

I went to Home Goods for a wander (bad idea – Home Goods is like Target for me. I just can’t wander in there. My car trunk will get full…) and I came across a large basket, perfect for the top of the refrigerator! It’s large and deep, which means I won’t be able to see the tops of packages. The basket also had this fun plaque detailing. It looked like it might be a chalkboard slate, but it’s not. Oh well. It may be a pain to haul down, but it’s pretty! Hey, for $16.99, I can put up with anything!

Once I got home, I took everything down and sorted through it. What needed to stay up on the refrigerator? What needed a home elsewhere?It was clear the food items should stay up on the refrigerator (quick access to chips!), but the baby things needed homes elsewhere. Once I got that sorted, the food went into the basket, and the basket went up to its new home up on the refrigerator.

And it looks great!

Much better, right?

Husband has already complained it restricts his access to the tortilla chips. I get it. You have to haul down this basket any time you need something from there, but hey! I’d rather do that than stare at the jumble.

Ready for a before/after? Ta-da!

Any recent Quick Home Organization projects at your house? Did you blog about it? Share a link with me in the comments! I’d love to stop by and visit!

Elizabeth’s 7 Month Update!

by Katie @ Cup of Tea // May 14, 2014 // 14 Comments

Elizabeth is 7 months! Holy schmoly. Where has the time gone? Does it always zoom this fast? I swear, tomorrow she’s pulling out of the driveway to go to college.

Anyway, our little ham posed for her 7 month pictures on Mother’s Day, and it took all of 2 minutes to snap about 15 pictures. They were all a hoot! I couldn’t pick just one to share.

Height/Weight: As of last week, she’s 14 lb 13 oz (16%) and 26″ (35%). Following her little growth curve perfectly!

Routine: Elizabeth is still on the same routine she was a month ago. FYI – I’ve been loosely following Moms On Call’s schedule app since the day we brought her home from the hospital. I’m not sure if the schedule helped her sleep well and stick to a routine, or if she’s just naturally a routine person. Who knows!

7:00am – Wake up, diaper change and bottle.
7:30am – Play time! Right now she loves her bead maze.
8:00am – If it’s Monday, Wednesday or Friday, we do a bath. We used to do baths in the evenings, but we’re both so tired in the evenings, it wasn’t pleasant for either of us. She’s still not a bath fan.
8:30am – Down for first nap of the day, and usually finishes off whatever was left in her bottle.
10:30am – Wake up, diaper change and into her clothes for the day, and then bottle.
11:00am – If we’re running errands, we go now.
1:00pm – Down for the afternoon nap, and finishes whatever was left in her bottle.
3:00pm – Wake up, diaper change, and bottle.
4:00pm – She plays while I start dinner. Right now she loves sitting on the floor playing.
5:00pm – Husband’s usually home by now, and we all three sit down for dinner. We do Baby Led Weaning!
6:00pm – Get ready for bed! She changes into jammies, and gets her final bottle.
7:00pm – Lights out and asleep! She’s usually in bed and lights out earlier, but this is the absolute latest she goes down.

Sleeping: Still sleeping amazing *knock on wood* and a full 12 hours. When she’s fussy, it’s usually because she’s tired. And she doesn’t like to be messed with when she’s sleepy. So at nap and bed time, we read a story, bottle, and right to bed!

Eating: She’s still eating 6-8oz of formula each bottle session (there are 4). All’s fine there. Baby Led Weaning is still going on. We’re really only doing one meal a day, and it’s usually dinner time. Sometimes it’s a little bit of what my husband and I are eating, and other times it’s a batch of roasted vegetables I’ve pre-done. Her favs right now are carrots, avocados, and eggs.

Sizes: Elizabeth is still between sizes. She wears 9 month PJs because her legs are long, but they are still big in the body. She rocks 6 & 9 month dresses. She also is wearing size 2 diapers.

Milestones: Each day Elizabeth wakes up and has something new to learn! It’s awesome!

She loves sitting on her own now, and enjoys a laundry basket as a fun play area.
She tried the first the swing for the first time and loved it!
Elizabeth doesn’t really enjoy tummy time still, and doesn’t really show an interest in crawling. But she enjoys trying to stand up! We may skip crawling and go straight to walking.
Peek a boo is a sure-fire way to get her to giggle. And she’s started to cover/uncover her own face, whether it’s on purpose or on accident!
Again, Elizabeth is such a ham! The minute she sees my phone pop out, she knows it’s time to pose for a picture.
AND she seems to know her name is Elizabeth. At least that’s what it seems 🙂
She seems to be more vocal. She loves blowing raspberries, laughing, and this pterodactyl-like screech. That last one is awesome at church.
She had several firsts this month – first tornado warning (see pic below), first vacation/stay in a hotel (well technically, hotel closet. Her pack-n-play fit perfectly in the closet, so she had her own little room), and first fire drill (at previously mentioned hotel).

Cup of Tea Recipe | Tex Mex Black Bean Quinoa Casserole

by Katie @ Cup of Tea // May 13, 2014 // 4 Comments

Oh man, this was an easy recipe!! I found it while cruising on Pinterest, and adapted it a smidgen for us.

We ate this as our main entree, but this could easily pass as a side dish if you’re having a Tex Mex themed dinner. I wish I had made this recipe for the Mexican birthday bash we had for my husband. It would have been perfect.

I followed the original recipe pretty close, with a few exceptions:

1. I subbed 1 cup of salsa for 1 of 3 cups of water to cook the quinoa for more flavor (ratio of quinoa is 1.5 cup quinoa and 3 cups liquid)
2. I used Olive Oil instead of Coconut Oil
3. Next time I plan to use 1/4 cup diced red onion instead of 1/4 cup green onion (but still used the 1/4 cup green onion for garnish)

Check out the original recipe at iFoodReal.com for more precise instructions. I’ll give you the shortcut version!

The specific ingredients you’ll need are:

1 1/2 cup quinoa, dry
2 T oil (I used Olive Oil, original recipe suggests coconut oil)
12 oz can corn, drained (could use frozen if you’d like)
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 medium bell peppers, diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and diced
1 T cumin
15 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup plus 1/4 cup (for garnish) cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup plus 1/4 cup (for garnish) green onion, chopped
1 1/2 cup plus 1/2 cup shredded cheese, either Mexican blend or Cheddar
3/4 cup coconut milk
1/4 tsp salt

Yes, coconut milk! I thought that was nuts, but it actually tastes good. The dish still tastes spicy/Tex Mex and not too sweet.Cook your quinoa according to package instructions (ratio is 1.5 cups quinoa to 3 cups liquid. I used 1 cup salsa and 2 cups water). Undercook the quinoa by a few minutes. The quinoa will finish cooking in the oven. While the quinoa is bubbling, you’ll want to sauté all the veggies together (bell pepper, garlic, jalapeño, corn & cumin) in a skillet over medium heat.Once your quinoa cooks, put it in a bowl with the black beans and green onions. Then when your veggies are sautéed, you’ll add them to the quinoa mix, along with the cheese, cilantro, coconut milk and salt. Then stir it up!Pop the mix into a prepared (sprayed with non-stick spray) 8×11 casserole dish, and then top with the 1/2 cup extra cheese. This goes in a 350 F oven for about 30-40 minutes, uncovered.Yummo! Finished product! We served our quinoa with some avocado, and then I sautéed some kale and carrots together for an easy side dish.This kept well in the refrigerator post dinner. The next morning, I used leftovers with a few eggs to make some breakfast quesadillas. Really yummy! This is a satisfying vegetarian main dish OR a great side dish.

Hope you try it out! If you do, and you make other revisions, let me know. I’d love to hear it! Don’t forget to check out the original recipe at ifoodreal.com to get the more precise directions.

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