Blogging FAIL....

Okay, I'm soooooo behind on posting!  Arrrgh!!!!

Here's a list of posts I need to catch up on:
1. Recipe Recap from last week
2. Last week's "Try Me" Thursday which is actually going to be a post on buying produce at Aldi
3. Menu Plan for THIS week
4. Trip #5
5. Aldi ad I got in the mail today/getting Aldi email newsletters

Wow, that's a lot.  Good thing Snowpocalypse is coming, I'll be able to get these done!

So, here is #1, the Recipe Recap from last week.  To start with, I'm officially taking White Chicken Chili OFF the menu for awhile.  I just don't want to make it.  Have you ever had a recipe like that?  One you put off for no other reason than you just don't feel like cooking it?  It's nothing personal, White Chicken Chili, we just never "connected."  We didn't have that spark.  I'm just not "feeling" it.  Moving on, I chickened out and didn't  make the breakfast casserole from last week, either.  Just too weird to make with the cranberry pecan stuffing mix.  I can picture the disappointed faces (John's and the kids!) when and if they sit down to this in front of them.  It's also been moved to "not going to make for a long, long while" status.  AND, I didn't make the ground beef lo mein!  I'll put that on the menu again, though.  Good grief, did I cook anything last week?

Okay, here's what I DID cook....

Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Potatoes:  This was very good.  I made this marinade, but instead of the sherry, I used a really, really good blueberry balsamic vinegar that I bought this summer at an olive oil and vinegar shop in Branson (there's actually another one in Lee's Summit now, but I haven't been there yet).  I know it sounds a little weird, but it was so good.  The blueberry vinegar wasn't really sweet, but the fruity flavor was there.  I also eliminated the cinnamon.  I only marinated it a couple of hours; I read somewhere that pork shouldn't marinate longer than that, and I tend to agree--I think it gets mushy if it goes much longer than that, BUT that's just my opinion.

Chicken Alfredo Pizza:  Good.  It was pretty well-received by everyone.  Not remarkable, but good.  If we as a family eat anything "alfredo," nothing compares, in our opinion, to good, basic, heavy cream, real butter and parmesan cheese alfredo sauce over pasta with blackened chicken.  We've spoiled ourselves for anything else with the term "alfredo" in the title, no matter how hard it tries to substitute!

Tostadas:  We love tostadas at our house; this is one of our favorites.  To streamline and make it a little faster, I used some ground beef that I pre-cooked with onions and froze.  Just thaw and add taco seasoning.  The part of this recipe that takes the longest is the prep work...you have so many things to get ready, meat, beans, all the toppings, fry the tortillas, etc.  A note about the tortillas:  Aldi has corn tortillas that are already fried and corn tortillas that are not fried, like the flour ones.  They are all in the same place.  I've tried the pre-fried tortillas and they're pretty good.  They will be fine if you're in a hurry or don't like to deep fry.  They're a little bit more expensive, BUT when you factor in the oil and time/energy costs to fry the others, it probably all works out to be the same.  We just prefer the taste of the home-fried ones better.  So this is a simple recipe that's a lot of work, does that make sense???

So there you have it, another Recipe Recap!

What's up next???  Oh, yes, produce!