MPM # 20 - Five months of sharing!

I can't believe that I've been linking to Org Junkie's Menu Plan Monday for twenty weeks - or five months! Although I've been planning for many, many years, it was 20 weeks ago that I took the first step in changing everything!

First off, thank you for coming and checking me out - it makes my heart sore each time I check the 'Feed-it' and see visitors from far and wide (and close to home too) and to see my first two "non family" followers resulted in an exuberant celebration both in my workstation and later at home with my husband and TroubleMaker. The comments tickle me pink - thank you!

As I sat in my chair at the end of August preparing to plan our September menu, I visited Cooking Up a Family's blog and she presented an idea I hadn’t thought of – “Theme Night” meals… Themes like “noodle night” and “Salad night”. Back ‘in the day’ (that’s code for “before TroubleMaker”) I would very often plan a theme night dinner and make all the food specific to one country – we did countries as our theme - like Cuba, Italy, and China. I also recall I always did them on Saturday as they were usually all day cooking events for me and required special ingredients and often trips to quaint out of the way shops in different areas in town.

I liked this idea and imagine my surprise when a couple of days later (with the thought of another month of meal planning ahead of me) I received an email from Kraft Kitchens outlining the same idea but with quick, easy one course meals for different countries!

I knew September was going to be a great month at the Barefoot D’s household - and the food will be even tastier! This week is my salute to Courtney at Cooking Up a Family's and my thanks to the cooks at Kraft Kitchens for allowing me to marry "Theme Night" with a visit around the world!

Here is our delicious tour of the globe meals for the week of
September 20 to 26

Monday England Shepherd's Pie
Tuesday Mexico Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas
Wednesday France French Onion Soup & Caramelized Onion & Olive Tart
Thursday India Chicken Biryani
Friday China Pork Lo Mein
Saturday Italy Sausage & Tomato Rigatoni
Sunday Spain Vegetable & Cheese Empanadas & Roasted Red Pepper Chicken Skewers

Lunches
TroubleMaker will be spending the next six weeks or so at the babysitters during the day so I can save up my lunch ideas!

Breakfasts
Toast, bagels, muffins & cereal (quick, easy things my Husband can give to TroubleMaker before heading off to the babysitters for the day!

And if you are still with me, I'd like to thank you one more time for coming to visit! Have a great week!

TroubleMaker's fall portrait from September 2009 - Fall Harvest

Photo courtesy of Blackstone Images