Weekly Menu || Number Sixteen

My weekly menu, number sixteen ~ Summer edition. 

Up this week - Simple and easy; a scramble, mac and cheese with a delicious fruit board, and a fast any night pantry seasoned grilled chicken.

Weekly Menu || Number Fourteen {Summer Edition}

My weekly menu, number fourteen ~ Summer edition. 

Up this week - Easy homemade BBQ sauce, bean burritos with a pocket of cheese, a delicious one skillet dinner, and the perfect summer dessert!

Weekly Menu || Number Thirteen

My weekly menu, number thirteen ~ Summer edition. 

Up this week - Grilled Corn, Jalapeño, Cream Cheese, and Bacon bites, and Coconut Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies!  

Weekly Menu || Number Thirteen 

Homemade Brown Sugar Caramel Sauce and Brownie Ice Cream Bars

Homemade Brown Sugar Caramel Sauce! Oh my goodness, it's the stuff sweet tooth dreams are made of! Once you try it, you'll daydream about everything you can pour it over. 

>> Must Make >> 

Weekly Menu || Number Twelve

My weekly menu, number twelve ~ Summer edition. 

Last week was awesome! We had a friend visit us from Colorado. She was going to be here for two and a half days. This is what I planned for her visit and how I use up all the leftovers when she departed. Also, a delicious local preserves and a brown sugar caramel sauce you have to try!

_____

>> Guest Menu >>

Weekly Menu || Number Eleven {Summer Edition}

My weekly menu, number eleven ~ Summer edition. 

This week BBQ Pineapple Quesadillas, a super quick dinner under a $1, and Salted Caramel Frosting!

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>> Weekly Menu >>

Weekly Menu || Number Eleven
{Summer Edition} 

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>> Monday >>

BBQ Chicken Quesadilla with Pineapple and Jalapeños

Weekly Menu || Number Nine ~ Summer

Happy June! 

We've been planting, weeding, mulching, and seeding for the last three weekends. Now it's time to keep up the watering and weeding and hopefully things grow! 

I'm trying a garden for the first time and am super excited! I'm doing a mini container garden to test it out. 

My beginner container garden 

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>> Weekly Menu >>

We eat light and easy during the warm weather months, I'll be featuring my favorite recipes and trying some new ones.  We also have a bunch of house projects we'd like to do, so I'm attempting to cut our food budget for June, July, and August from $300 to $200 a month; as close as I can get will be wonderful, all extra money will go to the home project fund! 

Here's my weekly menu for the first week in June.

Weekly Menu || Number Nine ~ Summer 

Weekly Menu || Number Eight

My weekly menu from the third week in May. 

I'm changing the name of my weekly plans to "Weekly Menu", I think meal plan sounds like a diet and if you've followed any of my posts you defiantly know we are not dieters. I like simple delicious foods, I do a lot homemade but will use boxed or other options if it tastes good! We have a monthly food budget of $300, so all my weekly menus fall within that dollar range. Majority of the recipes are not mine, I'm not a chef, I just love food and love to cook and bake; I'm an excellent recipe follower! I'll link to all recipe that are a must try, so you can make them too!

Weekly Menu || Number Eight 

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>> Monday >>

Veggie Rice Bowls 

Fav Five Friday

>> My favorites this week  >>

Photo ~ Plum Pretty Sugar

I 

wish 

this 

was 

in 

my 

yard! 

Photo & Recipe ~ Style Me Pretty 
Living ~ Ombre Chocolate Covered Cherries 

How 

cute 

are 

these!!!

Photo ~ The Pretty Blog 

Perfect

for 

a 

Spring

wedding.

Photo ~ Flickr Maggie Mason

Summer

trips? 

Sephora or Ulta  

My 

favorite

summer 

cheeks.

Beautiful

color 

with

a 

dewy

finish. 

xoxojolleen

{you are beautiful and wonderfully made}

Meal Plan || Number Six

My Weekly Meal Plan

Must make fajitas and a Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe taste off! 

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Meal Plan || Number Five

Hi Everyone! Here is my weekly meal plan from last week. Buffalo Pork Chops, Lasagna, Tacos, Black Bean Soup, and for dessert S'mores! 

Weekly Plan || Number Five 

Microwave Smores || Perfect 10 Second Treat

I love S'mores and as much as I'd like to start a camp fire in my backyard to make this delicious treat...sometimes that just doesn't work.

So I make them in the microwave, perfect fast treat!

Yummy! Gooey S'more

Fav Five Mondays

Happy Monday, here's my five favorite pins to inspire our week.

Jacques Torres’ Chocolatey Chocolate Chip Cookies - Bakerella

These look so amazing, can't wait to make them! I love this blog too, if you love baking it's a must. 

Watermelon Blueberry Salsa - Love and Olive Oil

How fun...what a cool combination, another awesome blog.

Cheese Puff Toss

Love a good game.

DJ Yoduh

Perfect gift for your awesome nerdy friend.

Creme De La Creme - Atlantic Pacific

I love love love this look and maybe found a new blog to follow.

Have a lovely week everyone!

xoxojolleen

Edible Cookie Dough Truffles?!?!? Yes Please...

I mean it has cookie dough in it, how could these not be good?Let me tell you, they are delicious! I originally saw these posted on a blog I follow called Bakerella if you love really cute cake pops or fun sweet treats, I recommend following her...I'm always amazed at the stuff she can make!

But for this post she was trying these Edible Cookie Dough Truffles out of a new cookbook called The Cookie Dough Lover’s Cookbook (click here for recipe) the cookbook looks awesome!! I have it on my Amazon Wishlist, lots of fun stuff and just like the title says everything has cookie dough in it!YUM!! The book was written by Lindsay of Love and Olive Oil which was an awesome new blog find for me. They have really great recipes right now for the hot summer weather.

Edible Cookie Dough Truffles

Anyways I tried this and I love how they turned out, and they were really easy to make too. They recommend using popsicle sticks, but I had these pink flamingo toothpicks leftover from something else so I decided to use them up. I would like to try then dipped in dark chocolate next.

Let me know if you try this or if you have The Cookie Dough Lover's Cookbook what is your favorite recipe to make?

xoxojolleen

Chocolate Ice Cream, No Churn????

No churn ice cream, I know I had to try it too. Let me tell you, it was delicious! Super rich and creamy almost like a custard.

Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream

Easy Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream - 5 Stars

• 1 teaspoon instant coffee 
• 1 tablespoon hot water
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate chopped fine
• 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Pinch salt
• 1 1/4 cups heavy cream cold

1. Combine coffee powder and hot water in small bowl. Let stand until coffee dissolves, few minutes. Microwave chocolate, sweetened condensed milk, and coffee mixture in bowl, stirring every 10 seconds, until chocolate is melted, about 1 minute. Stir in vanilla and salt. Let cool.

2. With electric mixer on medium-high speed, whip cream to soft peaks, about 2 minutes. Whisk one-third of whipped cream into chocolate mixture. Fold remaining whipped cream into chocolate mixture until incorporated. Freeze in airtight container until firm, at least 6 hours or up to 2 weeks. Serve.

Have a great day! Hope you try this!!
xoxojolleen

Frozen Goodness! Chocolate Peanut Butter Dipped Frozen Banana Bites

I've seen a few chocolate dipped bananas on Pinterest lately, perfect for summer hot days. I became obsessed with finding the best recipe after much searching and trying I've combined my favorite parts from a few different recipes to make what I think to be the winner. Hope you love them too! And they look so cute!! YUMMY!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Dipped Frozen Banana Bites

Chocolate Peanut Butter Dipped Frozen Banana Bites

Ingredients

• 3 Bananas
• 2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup peanut butter creamy or crunchy
• 2 tablespoons peanut butter for drizzling on top
• a few peanuts, chopped optional for topping

1. Start by slicing the bananas into 1/2-inch pieces. Place pieces into the freezer while your chocolate is melting. (You can do larger slices if you'd prefer)

2. Melt chocolate chips and 1/2 cup peanut butter on the stove, using a double boiler. While melting chop nuts, set aside. When done melting remove from heat.

3. Dip each of the banana pieces into the melted chocolate/peanut butter using a toothpick, and place dipped banana bites onto a wax paper covered cookie sheet.

3. In a microwave, melt the 2 tablespoons peanut butter in a container, watch careful maybe only 10-15 sec. Using a spoon, drizzle the melted peanut butter over the top of your banana bites. Top with chopped nuts.

4. Place back in the freezer until frozen, minimum 1 hour.


This is the perfect warm weather dessert!

I hope you love these as much as I do...
xoxojolleen