Suzy Homemaker

I am not! I should get an A for effort, but I definitely get an N in conduct because I really can't cook. I try I really do, but somehow something always seems to go wrong. Now my mom is a really good cook and she has taught me many things throughout my life, but the whole cooking and baking thing just never took. There are however a few recipes that I can make from scratch by heart that always seem to turn out great, but there are usually more mishaps then beautiful masterpieces.

How can we forget the great Valentine's day cake mishap of 2011. If I can screw up boxed yellow cake then there really is no hope for me I guess. But I have made a vow to change. Change is good right? For a while there at the beginning of this pregnancy there really wasn't a lot of cooking going on in the Doyle household and even when I do cook it is usually the same things every week over and over and over again. I think Brent might be ready for a change. I know I am.

Here is the typical Doyle weekly menu:
Monday- Spaghetti (plain old boring spaghetti with Prego sauce. I have tried jazzing it up the past few weeks with Italian sausage but Brent hasn't cared for that).
Tuesday- Turkey Taco Tuesday
Wednesday- Whatever Wednesday
Thursday- Crock pot Night
Friday- Date Night Pizza

I would like to stick to a schedule like this, but I want to shake things up a bit. Instead of just plain old spaghetti on Monday I would like to try a new pasta recipe each week. Tuesday I would like to stick to the Mexican theme especially after baby love comes. I can just imagine a delicious Corona or Pina Coloda to accompany whatever delicious dish I decide to prepare that night (now I am drooling). Wednesday will probably still be a left over night or a fend for yourself night. Thursday will continue to be a crock pot night, but I would like to expand my crock pot repertoire . And Friday will still be Date Night, but I would like to try new pizza recipes (I might even try my hand at homemade pizza dough).

I of course will update all of my efforts here so you can all laugh hysterically at all of the wonderfully executed mistakes I am bound to make. The main reason for the menu changes came when Brent and I decided maybe we would try shopping each day for what we would prepare that night (we will see how this goes once baby girl gets here, but I think it might work for us. We will continue to buy staples and breakfast/lunch items for the week, but the big ticket items we will try to buy each day or so. This is kind of the shopping schedule I developed after becoming pregnant because I had to decide each day what sounded good or what I could stomach that day. It has worked out pretty well because I get out of school so early so I will try to keep it up (like I said we will see how things go once baby girl gets here). We are hoping this will help us save some money and not waste as much food (we are not well known for this in the past, but we will really try our best.

My main reason for wanting to try new things was coming across one of my new favorite blogs Annie's Eats. There are so many quick and easy recipes and most of them seem Roxanne proof. There are easy to follow instructions and since I am a visual learner there are also beautiful step by step pictures.

So here is the tentative menu for this coming week:
Monday- Chicken Parmesan (provided by my wonderful Mother In Law)
Tuesday- Fajitas
Wednesday-Leftovers
Thursday-Crock pot Chicken
Friday-Spinoccoli Pizza

I will let you know how it all turns out.