How about two favorite Midwestern topics for today? Especially during the winter months, the main topics tend to be weather and food (also, television and sports but let’s save those for now).
So for my Five on Friday, a recap of our crazy weather week along with mostly pictures of what we ate for dinner each night. Before we begin though, a random picture of my Valentine’s Day flowers still going strong. 
Okay, onto tidbits of the week, the weather, and what we ate. Oh, and by the way, I didn’t follow the menu plan from Monday at all.
ONE: Monday we ate tacos!
Monday was a holiday here but my husband and G still had to work. Honestly, I can’t remember much about the day but I know we had tacos for dinner. And we were watching the weather because of winter storm/extreme cold warnings. The time of the storm kept shifting.
TWO: Tuesday I tried new recipes. Pork Chops and rice plus applesauce bread!
With the storm starting and the cold temperatures, I knew I wanted to use the oven a lot this week. So I decided to give this Easy Baked Pork Chops and Rice recipe a try. Everyone seemed to enjoy and it was a nice cozy meal for a crazy cold, snowy evening.
As an added bonus, earlier in the day, I made this applesauce bread as well. I knew I was making pork chops but hadn’t decided on recipe yet. Apples always compliment pork. 
Random fact about our family: We all with little exception hate applesauce. Apples are yes, applesauce is a NO. However, sometimes I have some in the pantry and found 3 containers on a pantry clear out. (probably leftover from when the husband had dental work and there are only so many soft foods…)
THREE: Wednesday was an unexpected working day for me so I put the husband in charge of dinner!
Hotdogs and onion rings were an odd meal on a freezing cold night. The real temperature was 8 degrees while he was out there grilling! And yes, without a coat. Welcome to living in the Midwest!
Since my work day was unexpected (I only said yes because a teacher had an unexpected loss in her family), I had put together a French Toast Casserole the night before planning to cook it for breakfast and freeze the leftovers for future quick heat and go breakfasts.
Also, unexpected, lunch at work on Wednesday: hot dogs! SIGH. Had no idea that’s what we’d end up with for dinner.
They have that meal too often at my work. I’m currently not scheduled again until next Friday and guess what’s on the menu for lunch? Yep, hot dogs! I’ll be taking my lunch but I do feel for the kids. It’s one of my current gripes, the menu has gone downhill in an effort to cut costs, I get food’s expensive but come on, do better!
All that to say, I ate French Toast Casserole for dinner on Wednesday evening as I didn’t want hot dogs twice in one day. G had some French Toast Casserole for dessert as well.
FOUR: Thursday was the coldest day yet and another (this one scheduled earlier) half-day of working for me. I settled on stuffed peppers for dinner.
I made sure to take a screenshot of the temperature when I woke up to show the crazy cold.
Oddly, I was actually warmer at work yesterday than on Wednesday. I think because I was in the other classroom with a smaller front door. It’s weird when you go outside to go home and 12 degrees feels warm! Once home, I debated on dinner for a bit before landing on stuffed peppers mainly because I remembered I’d bought peppers (on sale!) at the store on Sunday for that purpose.
Orange ones because the red ones didn’t look to be in great condition. Plus they reminded me of sunshine and warmth. Finished product, I was hungry yesterday and almost forgot to take a picture! 
I just use the classic Betty Crocker recipe for stuffed peppers only changing it slightly. I like my peppers crisp so I don’t parboil them and also, I use colby-jack cheese as opposed to mozzarella. Did you know as a kid I was not a fan of this meal at all but now I like it.
FIVE: Better Weather, Spring Cleaning Bug, and No Idea About Dinner
Happy Friday! This morning a cat paw in the face woke me up right on time though I didn’t need to go to work. She used to just sit on the nightstand and purr but she’s figured out that pawing at my face works while purring loudly works really well to make a person get out of bed and do her bidding. Sometimes her bidding is she just wants me to sit in the living room while she looks out the windows. SIGH.
So,cat paw until I got out of bed. Then, had to go to the downstairs for milk since we were out upstairs and oh, yay, stepped in cat puke on the steps. Was I barefoot? Yes. That really wakes a person up fast!
Perhaps, that’s what triggered my spring cleaning bug. Started a bit, as soon as I finish up this post, I’m back to that. Right now, some scented candles going in attempt to refresh things a bit.
And sticking with the food theme, still not sure about dinner but thought I should show a couple healthy things consumed around here. Just so you know it’s not all Oreo hot chocolate all the time.
And of course, I still have no idea what we’ll end up with for dinner tonight.
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Whew! This turned into a long post! Thanks for making it this far if you’re still reading. Wanted to give a shoutout to Rachel over at Living Better One Day At A Time for inspiring this post with her pictures of what we ate this past week on her Monday posts. I always enjoy seeing the plates of food. And to Carrie over at Northwoods Scrapbook for her Wordless Wednesday post mentioning weather as a conversation topic and of course, for introducing me the amazing French Toast Casserole. Finally, I can’t leave out Cathy from My Creative Life for bringing back Five on Friday as well as her kitchen post from last week which also inspired this post.
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