Weekly Menu 8/30/09-9/5/09

Last week was all over the place since we ended up going camping. This week will be busy as we both head back to work and the kids start school. Here goes.

Sunday-Roast pork, potatoes, veggies move to Wednesday
Monday-Carne Asada Tacos (new recipe will post review later) Move to Friday
Tuesday-Make your own pizza night
Wednesday-Steak Tips on the grill Move to Sunday
Thursday-Spaghetti & Meatballs
Friday-Chicken ala King w/rice Move to Monday

Yet more Vacation Photos

Scenic view stop. We let some hippie/drifter take a picture of the whole family, but apparently the camera was too much for him and it didn't take.

Cold after swimming in the river.

That water was chilly.

Just lving camping.

Trying so hard to keep her balance and not fall in. She fell in.

Campground Pictures

The Ellis River. The kids played I kept an eye out for bears.

Finding the perfect rock to skim across the river.

Awwww!

Our campsite.

More Storyland Pictures

Yeah more rides that make adults sick to their stomach.

Doesn't everyone have this picture.

Alex wanted nothing to do with having this picture taken when we were walking into the castle and waiting in line. The minute Cinderella walked over and asked if he'd like to he was like oh okay and followed her over.

Overall great day. Not badly priced $25.00 per person. Free stroller rentals & kennel for your pets if you are a camper. You can bring your own food in, which we did and saved a bunch. Did buy popcorn which was only $2.00.

Camping Pics-Pictures from Storyland

So exctied she is big enough for the big rides.

Allen got whiplash from letting Rachel drive.

Loving the Glockenspiel.

Being a good sport and letting Mom take weird pictures of him.

Sibling love!

Impromptu Camping

Originally Allen was supposed to work this past week at LPS. At least that's we expected since that's what happens every year. I always take this week off since it's the week before school starts and it gives me time to get everything organized and ready for the following week. Well out of the blue Allen got a letter from LPS that gave a work start date of August 31. Hmmmm...what to do, we actually have a whole week off together. That never happens. Let's go camping. We called a campground Tuesday afternoon and were able to get a decent site for Wed-Sat. We went shopping, packed and headed out to Glen, NH early Wednesday morning.

Now I've been to Glen as a kid. Don't really have memories of going there. As an adult I've been to North Conway many, many times. I didn't realize that Glen is right down the road from North Conway. We stayed at Glen Ellis Campground, which is right on Rt. 302 and has the Ellis & Saco rivers running right by it. We were on the Ellis side, which I think has better sites. Overall we really liked the campground. The sites were great, bathrooms clean, plenty of hot water & great water pressure, decent game room, playground & pool. And you can't beat the price $32 and some change per night.

Overall the area is great too. Plenty to do, whether it be shopping, hiking, rafting/canoeing, outdoorsy type things or theme parks. We are already planning on going back next year. Yeah it's a 3 hour trek up Rt. 125 & Rt. 16 but it wasn't a bad drive and honestly the camping and activities are worth it. I wouldn't do it for a weekend but for a few nights absolutely.

Oh yeah memorable moment from camping. We were checking in Wednesday afternoon and the staff person informs me they had a bear in the campground the day before. Broad daylight raiding a dumpster. Needless to say the city girl in me was like WHAT?. She went through he whole spiel on what to do with your food & coolers to keep bears away. Thankfully the only wildlife we saw was a frog and some chipmunks.

Recipe Review- Swiss Steak

So this recipe has been lingering in my folder for a while. For some reason I never got around to making it, boy do I wish I had. This will definitely go into the monthly rotation, it is good.

Ingredients
1 lb. top round or similar cut of beef
salt & pepper
1 tbls. flour
1 medium onion chopped
1 small can of tomato sauce
1/2 cup diced tomatoes
2 tspn lemon juice
2 tspn. Worcestershire sauce
1 & 1/2 tspn. brown sugar
1/2 tspn. mustard

cut steak into two or more pieces. Sprinkle with salt, pepper & flour. Pound meat out so it's about 1/2 it's thickness. Brown meat in skillet on both sides. Meanwhile preheat over to 350. Transfer browned meat to shallow baking dish coated with nonstick spray.

In same skillet saute onions until tender. Stir in all remaining ingredients. Simmer 2 minutes, pour over meat. Cover & bake at 350 for at least 1.5 hours or until meat is pull apart tender. Serve with mashed taters. Yummmm!!!!

Bigs!

#1 he noticed me before I could snap the first picture of him sleeping. By the way the view of your kitchen is totally different when laying on the floor. I don't recommend it unless you feel the need to be pressured into deep cleaning, which I was.

#2 He's annoyed. He's been awoken and for no good reason.

#3 He's going back to sleep despite me being there and snapping pictures.

#4 I moved my foot, he's about to attack. I believe it will be a revenge attack for waking him.

One of the website/blogs I love is Pioneerwoman.com. The woman who writes it, Ree Drummond, cooks, does photography, home schools, just randomly comments on stuff etc. One of the things she posts alot is pictures of her Basset Hound, Charlie. I tried taking pictures of Bigs today (couldn't take pics of the other two because it would be the same picture over and over since all they do is sleep). Bigs doesn't do much more but he does move a little.

Recipe Review- Marmalade Chicken

Made the Marmalade Chicken tonight. Verdict-good, it was easy to make, light, tasty. I'll make it again. And for those of you watching your waistline it's good for you. I actually got the recipe off eatingwell.com

Ingredients

1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 tbls. red wine vinegar
1 tbls. orange marmalade
1/2 tspn. dijon mustard
1/2 tspn. corn starch
8 oz. chicken tenders
1/4 tspn. each salt & pepper
1 tbls. olive oil split in half
1 large shallot minced
1/2 tspn. Orange zest

Whisk together 1st 5 ingredients and set aside. Pour 1/2 the olive oil in a skillet, over medium-high heat. Add chicken cook until golden brown on both sides and remove from pan. Add remaining olive oil and shallot. Cook about a minute, add whisked mixture in. Bring to a simmer, scraping up all those brown bits in the bottom of the pan. Cook about 1-2 minutes. Add chicken back in and stir to coat. Stir in orange zest and serve. Easy peasy.

Camp Otter

This is the picture that will be featured on the Thank You cards to out donors. To the right of Alex is Emma LaBelle, my friend Jaime's daughter, next to her is Manuel, Alex's bud from the Lawrence Y. Directly in front of Alex is Tyler who also attends St. Monica's (One grade ahead of Alex) and has very generously donated his outgrown unifroms to Alex.

Monday Recipe Review

Car Cora's Chili Cheese Rice Casserole

Verdict-Eh. It was okay, edible, seemed to be lacking something. Oh yeah taste. It has potential but definitely needed to punch up the flavor.

Ingredients

1 tbls. minced garlic
1 red bell pepper diced
1 small yellow onion diced
2 tbls. chicken broth
4 cups long grain rice cooked (or 2 cups browned hamburg & 2& 1/2 cups rice)
1 cup corn
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 small can diced chilis
salt & pepper
1/4 tspn. chili powder
cheddar cheese

In pan or skillet saute garlic, onion & pepper. About 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Ad in everything else but cheese. Mix well. Spoon mixture into casserole dish. Cover with foil bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Take out sprinkle cheese over the top and bake another 5 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes and serve.

We'll eat it. I'll even bring leftovers to work for lunch tomorrow so it doesn't go to waste. But I won't make it again. What's up tomorrow? Marmalade Chicken!

Talk about your bad mornings

So this was our Thursday morning (Alex, Rachel & myself). Oversleep, pen explodes in dryer covers all the clothes with ink, have a flat tire, Rachel gets attacked by swarm of wasps and is bit 5 times. Seriously enough to make anyone crawl back under the covers and call it a day. Thankfully Rachel was okay, she's not allergic to wasp stings. Work pretty much followed suit with member & staff issues. Friday was a much better day and now it's only one week until vacation!!!!

Trip to the ER

I forgot to post this earlier. Two Tuesday's ago Alex and I got to spend the morning in the ER at Holy Family. Why? you ask. Well while waiting for the Camp Otter bus Alex decided to jump over a tree branch. He missed and one of the smaller branches impaled his knee. He was screaming, jumping around with what I thought was a bone sticking out. I realized it was a stick and pulled it out. We went to the ER for X-Rays to make sure there wasn't any more in there and to make sure there was no internal damage.

Once again the staff at Holy Family was great. Pretty fast too. We got there at 8 am and were home at 11:30 and that included a trip to the pharmacy for antibiotics. Good news is he is fine and running and jumping around like normal.

Yeah I realize it's tough to tell what is what with all the marks on his knee. What can I say he's a 7 year old boy. It's the oval shaped one near the top of his knee with the scrape above it.

Weekly Recipe 8/16/09-8/22/09

This week is entirely new recipes. Now mind you I made up this list, went shopping, then realized we won't be in the house at least one night maybe two. So it looks like at least one is staying in the freezer. Most likely will be those poor pork chops I'm never getting around to cooking. Here goes.

Sunday-Burgers & Fries. Can't share which kind of burger because it's a test run for the 2nd Annual Burger Battle
Monday-Cat Cora's Chili Cheese Rice Casserole (I'm switching it up a bit and adding hamburg to it so Allen will actually eat it.)
Tuesday-Marmalade Chicken
Wednesday-Mojito Shrimp
Thursday-Five Spice Marinaded Pork Chops
Friday-Old Fashioned Swiss Steak

So I'm pretty confident on days one & two. Others may move around and at least one will be skipped. Being that every meal is a new one I will post reviews & recipes as I go.

Camp Otter Pics

The Y's Photog (Beth, our Marketing Director) was nice enough to forward me some pictures of my guys at Camp Otter. Enjoy!

Weekly Menu 8/9/09-8/15/09

Forgot to post last week. Don't worry you didn't miss anything.

Sunday-Spaghetti & Chicken Cutlets
Monday-Sweet Italian sausage w/peppers & onions
Tuesday-Sandwich Steaks
Wednesday-Pork Chops not sure how but am making them Changed my mind, am grilling shrimp. Not sure how think I'll peruse the Internet and find something new.
Thursday-Family Night at Camp Otter-burgers & dogs
Friday-Tacos

Becotte Family Reunion

We have Wanda, Bob, Gail, Mike & Erin

Allen, Bob & Mike

A good portion of the gang

Roland, Donald, Chanel & Bob

Alex & Allen-I love this picture!

We recently (August 2nd to be exact) rented Camp Otter out to have the Becotte Family reunion. We had folks up from Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania. It was great around 70 people or so. Good food, good times, great memories. Here are some pics.

Toasting marshmallows

Loves toasting marshmallows

She let Dad take over since she turned hers into flaming kabobs.

Back in the day we used sticks, my kids have special double skewers specifically for marshmallows.

A face full of smoke.

Look at her pose no matter what's going on.

The kids love toasting marshmallows when we camp, really what kids doesn't? Her's some pics.

Camping

Playing in the slide at the campgrI made them stand next to this display at Outdoor World. Don't they look thrilled?

Alex was up for more posing only because he got to sit in a mini 4 wheeler.

Allen chillaxing

More playground pics of Rachel.

More Camping Pics

Ah the rain. The first night featured gale force winds (which by the way with a pop up camper basically acts like you have 2 sails on the ends, fun stuff) and torrential rain which lasted well into Friday.

More of the rain. I really want you to feel what we felt.

Normandy Farms

This campground was HUGE. As far as you could see sites, two baseball fields, 4 pools (one of which was indoors) and enormouse rec hall, 2 playgrounds, bocce & horseshoes, hiking so forth and so on.

This is the Rec Hall, which also included an arcade, and 2 lofts one of which was adult only.

One of the 3 outdoor pools.

Another outdoor pool, this one only went to 4.5 feet so it was great for the kids. Really helped Alex with his insecurities about swimming.

The Rec Hall

Wow what an awesome campground. The weather wasn't great, the actual site stunk but the that's what you get booking one of the 10 best campgrounds in the country two weeks before oyu want to go. So here are so pics.