Welcome to the first day in Jenny’s kitchen. We are very excited to see and share her week. From what I know of Jenny, she really likes to cook, and she’s pretty good at it, too (we’ve tried some of her recipes and they’re delicious!). We hope you enjoy spending this week with Jenny.

I’m so excited to get to share my week with ya’ll. I’ll try not to bore you to death so I’m hoping to throw you some nice tidbits along the way to keep your interest up.

This week is Vacation Bible School at our church so our schedule is going to be a bit different than normal. This is my first time not helping out so I’m really looking forward to enjoying 3 hours every morning with just Lil Blue. I feel like a free woman.

Breakfast this morning was short and sweet. We’re talking cereal, instant oatmeal and bananas. How’s that for exciting?! Oh, and coffee for me. What can I say, we needed something fast with as little clean up as possible.

By the way, do any of you buy the big box of assorted instant oatmeal from Sam’s Club? Well, if you do, you may find yourself in the same predicament as I do… 1/3 of a box of plain oatmeal that no one wants to eat. Here’s what I do. My kids love the apple/cinnamon flavor the most so I just transform the boring, don’t-want-to-touch-it-with-a-ten-foot-pole plain oatmeal into the apple/cinnamon. Dump the plain oatmeal into the microwavable bowl, add a couple tablespoons of brown sugar, a dash of cinnamon and chopped up pieces of skinned apple slices.

Add a bit more water than normal and cook it about 2 minutes (30 seconds longer than normal) to help get those apples softened up. My kids love it just as much as the packaged apples/cinnamon oatmeal.

We had to be out the door by 8:15am and I’d just like to point out that I not only got the b-fast dishes thrown into the dishwasher, the table wiped down and the floor swept but I also showered! Yep, you read that right. Just don’t look at my legs because a 7 and a 1/2 minute shower leaves my leg hair in a less-than-desired condition. But at least I was clean… AND I was able to put on a little make-up and semi-do my hair. Look! I can prove it!

I’m not excited over this fact at all. Now, don’t hold me to this standard for the rest of the week though. Because as we all know, some days you get a shower and some days your smell greets your hubby at the door before he even sees you.

Below you’ll find my quiet time application for the day. I keep them up on kitchen window sill where I spend a lot of time.

After picking up the kids at noon we headed home for another quick and easy meal… pb & j baby! To make it a bit healthier we also had cantaloupe and grapes. YUM! I love summer for all the cheap, fresh fruit.

For dinner I fixed Sloppy Joes. This is a recipe I found on one of my favorite sites www.allrecipes.com. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the exact title of it in order to give the right person credit. Sorry!

Sloppy Joes

• 1.5 lbs ground beef
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/4 cup chopped green pepper
• 1 2/3 cup crushed tomatoes (puree)
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon vinegar
• 2 Tablespoons worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika

Brown meat and drain. Saute onion and bell pepper until soft. Mix all ingredients together and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

That’s it folks. Super easy. Today I didn’t have any bell pepper so I substituted zucchini (from our garden) in its place. It blended beautifully, I was pleasantly surprised.

Look how great the onion and zucchini enhance the texture of the sloppy joes… ummm, yum!

To put it all together, I toasted some hamburger buns with cheese, cheddar for the kids and pepper jack for us grown ups. I’ve found that I love using pepper jack to spice up a meal for Hubby and I. I’ve started using it a lot. I also added some leaf lettuce and served the joes with a side of raw baby carrots.

Tonight, the cooking continues but I’ll have to post pics of that tomorrow. I’m making some chocolate chip cookies (another allrecipes.com favorite, you DON’T want to miss this recipe!) and chicken enchiladas to take to a friend who just had her first baby.

I’d better get cracking and get kids bathed and put to bed so I can get started.

Make sure you stop in throughout the week to see what other adventures Jenny is up to in her kitchen. And don’t forget to stop by her personal blog, Runningamuck. Thank you for your willingness to open your kitchen to us all, Jenny. It is going to be another interesting, humorous, and enlightening week!

If you are interested in participating as a guest blogger for this 3 Moms feature, please leave us a comment or send us an email at 3moms@happytobeathome.net. We are looking for a variety of women willing to open their kitchens for one week to all of our readers. You do not even have to have your own blog in order to participate.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Filed under: Kitchen of the Week