Conversations at Dinner

Happy Sunday, y'all! I hope you had a great Valentine's day... even if it was like Kasey, with your best friend, Jose.  We spent the day like any other day. My mom and brothers came over for a bit. If you follow me on instagram, you saw my brothers practicing skills of tying each other to trees. Great fun. Afterwards, me, Josh and the kids went to movie stop to find a few new movies. My "valentine's" gift was The Lucky One. I cannot get Josh to watch it with me though. The night ended with dinner at Applebee's (aka Monroe's finest "date night" facility). Ha! It really was a great day. I wouldn't change a thing. 
I'm showing up for the party on this (really cold) Sunday to
link up with Amanda (and Faith) for the super fun
My Conversations! 

To set the scene: last night we were sitting at Applebee's. It was me, Josh, the kids, Josh's best friend (for the sake of this we'll call him D) and his 2 kids. So three adults, 4 children. 
I was telling them about when I went to an NA / AA meeting to support some friends. 
Me: Yeah, when they went around the room saying first names & "I'm an addict" and stuff like that I decided to be a smart alec. 
Josh: Um... Babe? What did you do?
Me: Nothing serious. I simply said, "Hi! I'm Dory and, well um... I don't think I've ever eaten a fish!"  *all dying of laughter*
 (I've never done any drug, so me being at a meeting like that reminded me very much of Dory going to the fish anonymous meeting!) 
Me: Everyone at the meeting thought I was hilarious! 
[several minutes pass and the waitress finally comes to see us. She starts to tell us about the specials]
Waitress: Oh no! It looks like y'all don't have the salt and pepper caddy! I needed that to show you the new drinks. 
D: Were the people before us black?  (( D is in fact black himself )) --long pause-- D: I bet they stole the caddy!
Waitress: *dying of laughter* OH MY GOSH! That's the funniest thing I heard all night!
Josh: *spewed his sweet tea!* Good grief, man! You could warn someone before you make a comment like that! 
Waitress: Don't worry, I'm not offended! That was hilarious. 
Josh: But I made a mess! 
And that, friends is pretty much how the entire night went. There were several moments that we all made the waitress blush and burst out with laughter. It was a great night for sure! 
Do you have a funny conversation? Link up with Amanda to share!
These two cuties made for great Valentines 

That Time I Saved the Salmon

Y'all, I don't know about you, but I tend to run out of things in my pantry at the worst possible moment. Let's take last Sunday for example. I had every intention of making Salmon Patties for dinner. Yum, right? I thought I had everything I needed. I was very excited about this salmon, and began prepping. Salmon? Check. Egg? Check. Seasonings and onions? Check. Breadcrumbs? Umm... not quite enough. Whomp, Whomp.

This is where my quick thinking came in handy. Of course, I didn't have any actual bread or flour to substitute for seasoned breadcrumbs. Nope... that would be too easy. And clearly we did not make a trip to the store that weekend! Oops. I did, however, have triscuits. Stale triscuits to be exact. Dill and sea salt stale triscuits. Yay. How was that going to work? Thinking on my feet, y'all! That's how it worked!

What You'll Need:

+ Stale crackers. Something with a flavor or seasoning would probably work best for this

+ A food processor or grinder

+ A handy, dandy storage tin. I used the old breadcrumbs tin.

Break up your crackers into small, bite size pieces. They tend to grind in the food processor a little easier this way. At least for me they did. Also, I don't recommend filling the container to the top. This way all of the crackers get to the blades.

Blend and mix with the food processor and store everything you don't use!

It's really THAT simple. I was pretty impressed with myself . The salmon patties tasted amazing, and now I have a small stash of breadcrumbs stored up for when I decide to make something like this... or meatloaf. Because I can almost promise that I will forget to get more breadcrumbs from the store next time.
I hope this helps y'all as much as it did me! What have you done to save dinner lately?

Foodie Favorites

Dear Food Fairy, Why don't you visit my house more with meals I don't have to prepare and cook myself?

I admit it. I don't plan meals. I never have, and I know I need to. Planning meals would help me lose a lot more weight. But I don't plan- so there we have it. So I'm faced with the daily question from my husband and kids, "what's for dinner?" 

Half of the time I have no idea and I have to throw something together that's both healthy and delicious. ugh. 

The next question from me, "what do you want?" or "what sounds good?"

Common responses, "I don't know." or "I don't care."

Too bad I don't have recipes for those. 

Thankfully, I have a slow cooker. And thankfully, I have a slow cooker cookbook. So I've gotten a little bit better with planning some meals to where it just cooks during the day. 

My favorite recipe? Chili. I love chili of any form! It's so easy to make and there's so many ways to change the recipe 

This is how I prepared it most recently

Brown your meat. I used ground turkey. 

add your spices. This is what I use when I don't cheat and use a pre packaged spice blend ;)

Pick out some stuff to go in your chili. This is what I used. 

Throw everything together. 

Mix everything together, turn it on low and let it cook all day! Viola! 

Bonus? Left overs can be used with hot dogs and BAM! instant chili dogs! heck yeah!