Tonight's dinner was baked macaroni and cheese and barbecue ribs. Delicious!


Baked Macaroni and Cheese

1 13.5 oz. box of elbow macaroni
1 cup of milk
1 cup of cream
4 tbs. butter
4 tbs. flour
2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter your baking dish, mine was a 2qt. size one. Cook macaroni according to package directions and drain. In a large sauce pan melt butter and stir in the flour stirring constantly so that it doesn't burn or clump up. Add the salt and pepper. Slowly add the cream and milk and keep stirring constantly. Bring to a boil for 2 minutes and then lower the heat to a simmer and keep stirring for another 5 minutes. Turn heat to low and add the cheese slowly while stirring. The trick to this recipe, stir stir stir. Once the cheese has melted turn the heat off and add the macaroni and, you guessed it, stir. Pour the cheesy goodness into your baking dish and bake for 20 minutes.

The ribs were last nights dinner revisited. I made ribs in the crockpot yesterday and had leftovers for today. I placed them on a baking pan covered them in sauce and baked along with the mac and cheese.

Slow cooker Barbecue Ribs

4 lbs. country style ribs
1 bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce
Onion powder
Garlic Powder
Salt
Pepper

Rub spices onto ribs. Place in crockpot.  Cover with a bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce. Cook on low for 9 hours. The ribs were falling off the bone, well seasoned and saucy. Super easy!

Here is Penelope's snack box for the next few days. She tried feeding Timber another olive and he spit it out. He really does hate those things!


Oats and honey granola bar, blueberries & raspberries, Cuties, dates, smoked almonds, dark chocolate covered pomegranate seeds and olives.

Broccoli Rice Casserole

1 cup of rice uncooked rice
1/2 of a 10 oz. bag of frozen broccoli thawed
1 10 oz. can of cream of chicken soup
1 egg
1 cup of Colby jack cheese
Salt & Pepper
Butter
French fried onions

Cook rice according to package directions. I always do 1 cup of rice to 2 cups of water. Let water boil pour in rice lower heat and cover for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a baking dish with butter.

 In a bowl combine all the ingredients reserving 1/2 cup of cheese and the french fried onions. Put rice mixture in pan and top with remaining cheese and french fried onion.



 Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until brown and bubbly.

Italian Pasta Salad

1 lb. Cavatappi cooked
1 6oz. can black olives sliced in half
Sopressata diced in small pieces
Prosciutto diced in small pieces
Asiago cheese diced in small pieces



Dressing

1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tbs. Italian seasoning
1 tbs. grated Parmesan
Salt & Pepper to taste

Mix the salad ingredients together in a large bowl and refrigerate. In a small bowl whisk the dressing ingredients together. Pour dressing over the salad and mix well. Serve cold.

Penelope asked for a special surprise lunch today so I came up with this quick bento.


Top Tier: Ham and provolone froggy sandwich w/ nori cut-out face. Cucumber lily pads and dark chocolate covered pomegranate seed flies.

Bottom Tier: Dark chocolate covered pomegranate seeds, blackberries, date, potato chippy's, and the extra container is Ranch for her lily pads.

This was Penelope's first official date. ;p She loved it and said it tasted like syrup. Then she proceeded to say the following bits of wisdom "this is a date mommy, you know a date, like the date, today's date, you get it? haha that's funny". I love this girl!

Were you aware that Home Depot offers a FREE kids workshop Every first Saturday of the month? I remember hearing about it in the past but we never actually went to one until last Saturday. Every month is a different theme and Home Dept provides all the materials to create a project. They also give each child an apron and commemorative pin that they can collect for each workshop finished. After they have completed their project they receive a certificate of achievement and a special gift. Here is Penelope at last Saturday's kids workshop where she created a bird feeder.

This weeks theme for Muffin Tin Monday over at Another Lunch is It's a Jungle Out There! Here is Penelope's muffin tin lunch.


Top Row: Tomatoes, a Cutie, cheese snake on beef stick tree branches

Bottom Row: Pistachios, gorilla turkey and lettuce sandwich, olives.

You can check out some more muffin tins here.

This was the other bento box I found at Target the other day.


I am curious if any of you also purchased these boxes from Target? Here is the snack bento I made for Penelope today that this box inspired.

Or at least we tried... It's just Pen and I today so I made a small amount of batter. Since I only have one of those jumbo muffin tins that makes six oversized muffins. The batter didn't quite reach the top and therefore the popovers did not pop over. However...they were yummy anyway.





Cheesy Popovers

1 Egg
1/2 Cup of milk
1 tbsp. Melted butter
1/2 Cup flour
1/8 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. Basil
1/4 tsp. Oregano
Shredded Colby Jack cheese

In a bowl mix egg, milk, melted butter, flour, salt, basil, and oregano until well blended. Put bowl in fridge and let cool for about 2 hours. Preheat your oven to 425 and butter your muffin tin so the popovers will easily pop out. Pour batter into each muffin cup to the top of the tin and then sprinkle generously with cheese. Bake in your oven for about 15 minutes. This will make 6 popovers as long as you use a normal size muffin tin, If you want to make more just double the ingredients for a dozen.

I think the next time I make these I am going to add ham or bacon and serve them as a quick breakfast.

Last week we took a short but very windey drive to Lake Isabella and Bodfish, CA. Lake Isabella is in the heart of the Kern River valley. To be honest with you the drive was prettier then the actual destination. It seems the lake has been drained in order to fix the dam and it looked pretty shallow. Not to mention  the surrounding brown dusty hills were not the most picturesque. I wish I would have taken a picture just to show you. The town of Lake Isabella is small with a population of around 4000. We had lunch and then played in the park and checked out the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial. After we visited the neighboring small town of Bodfish and the Silver City Ghost Town.

During the late 1960's and early 1970's the Dave & Arvilla Mills family began hauling in historic local Kern Valley structures, (many of which were slated for destruction) to the present site in Bodfish. "Represented in this composite town are over twenty historic buildings (most not visible from Lake Isabella Blvd) from the mining camps of Keyesville, Whiskey Flat, old Isabella, Claraville, Hot Springs, Miracle, Southfork and other local frontier settlements" Silver City was closed for over 15 years until it was purchased by the Corlew family in 1990 and re-opened to the public shortly thereafter.

It is now operated as a museum and believed to be haunted. We checked out all the cool antiques in the shop and the photos of those so called ghosts on the wall. The resident cat also decided he didn't like adorable 5 year old girls and scratched and bit one. OUCH! Penelope was tough though and didn't shed a tear.

On our way back we decided to pull over and head down to the river where we got some pretty shots and Timber was ambushed by a very playful lab and then almost drowned in the river. I thought dog paddling was instinct...

Here are some pics of our day...