I am bound and determined to get it in gear this week. My goal is to get back on the Fly Lady bandwagon, gain control of my diet/exercise program, and to commit to menu planning again.

I used to participate in Menu Planning Monday over at the Organizing Junkie. There is something about putting your weekly menu plan out there for all to see that makes you a little more committed to sticking to it each week.  For your viewing pleasure, here is what is on the menu at the Dine & Dish household this week.

• Monday: Chicken Chilaquiles from Cooking Light (using leftover rotisserie chicken from Sunday)
• Tuesday: Steak with Golden Zucchini from Real Simple Magazine
• Wednesday: Spaghetti and Meatballs
• Thursday: Fajita Skillet from Simple & Delicious Magazine
• Friday: Homemade Pizza
• Saturday: Sausage and Pepper Calzones from Cooking Light Magazine
• Sunday: Beef & Veggie Stir Fry (lunch), Tilapia Piccata (dinner)

Earlier in the day yesterday, we had told the kids that in the evening we would light the outdoor fire pit and make S’Mores. It had been fairly cool all week, but of course last night it turned out to be sticky and warm, so my hubby felt like it was too warm to light the fire pit. I had a couple of disappointed kids when they heard the news that there would be no marshmallow roasting. When we came inside, I looked at all the S’mores ingredients laying out and suddenly remembered the cookbook I borrowed from my sisters house this summer. It was a Pampered Chef cookbook called Delightful Desserts. The recipe that I remembered was for oven S’mores, called S’mores Galore. I adapted the recipe to fit a 9×13 casserole dish and just played things a little by ear. As gooey as campfire s’mores with the same roasted flavor, this is one dessert that will turn disappointed tears into cheers.

S’Mores Galore from the Delightful Desserts Pampered Chef Cookbook

10 whole honey graham crackers — (about 5 x 2″), divided
6 bars milk chocolate — (1.55 ounces each), coarsley
chopped
1 package mini marshmallows — (16 ounces), divided
6 tablespoons butter or margarine — divided
3 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 350º.
Arrange a single layer of graham crackers to completely cover bottom of bar
pan, breaking crackers to fit. Toast in oven 2 minutes. Remove pan to
cooling rack.
Coarsely break remaining graham crackers into large bowl. Set aside.
Combine 3 cups of marshmallows, 3 tablespoons of the butter and milk,
microwave on high 1 minute. Stir until smooth. Add half of the chopped
chocolate. Stir until chocolate is completely melted.
Spread marshmallow mixture evenly over graham crackers in pan.
Melt remaining 3 tablespoons of butter. Toss with remaining graham crackers.
Add remaining marshmallows and chopped chocolate. Toss lightly.
Spoon mixture evenly in pan.
Bake 8-10 minutes or until marshmallows are lightly browned. Cool 15
minutes. Cut into bars.
Serve warm or cool.

S’Mores are so popular! Check out what our fellow food bloggers do with some of the most simple S’Mores ingredients:

• S’Mores Cupcakes from Cupcake Bakeshop
• South of the Border S’Mores from Kids Cuisine
• S’More Pie from Smitten Kitchen
• S’Mores Pancakes from Baking Delights

A Little Bit of Housekeeping

My husband and I have an ongoing disagreement about hand me downs. When our children outgrow their undies, I do not believe they should be passed on… to a younger sibling, to Goodwill, to cousins.. to anyone. Yes, I know they are washed and clean but I just have issues with that kind of undergarment being passed on. His argument? It is what they did when they were growing up, and so that’s that. Why should it be any different with his kids?

Am I the only one who thinks that this kind of hand me down is a bit icky? Help me see the light or give me a good argument to go back and set my husband straight. And for those of you thinking, “Geez, don’t they have better things to argue about than this?”, we do.  Like which direction our trash can should face, or how far up in the garage I should pull the van in and my favorite… why do I get a Netflix subscription and then let the movie sit on our TV for 2 months. Lots of important arguing going on in the Doyle household, but this issue has been gnawing at me for some time now, so I just need to bring some closure to it

I do believe that hand me downs are great, but not of the undie variety. Some of the best recipes in our repertoire are hand me downs from others. One of my favorite wedding shower themes is where people share their family recipes with the bride. What a great way to start off your marriage, with a collection of favorite recipes from those you love.

My mother-in-law recently passed on the recipe for her fruit turnovers. She makes these often for breakfast when we are home (didn’t I marry into a great family? Pie as a breakfast food… genius!). What I love best about hand me down recipes is the verbage in the recipe. I’m going to share this recipe with you, exactly how she gave it to me. If you decided to make these and need some clarification, feel free to contact me and I’ll pass on to you my interpretation.

These turnovers are great for breakfast, dessert, or as a hand held picnic treat, which is why I am including them in the Waiter There’s Something In My Picnic Basket event over at The Passionate Cook.

Fruit Turnovers

2 cups flour
3/4 cup butter
Pinch of salt
10 tbs ice water (might need more)
Canned Pie Filling

Use pastry blender to blend flour with 1/4 cup butter (get crumbly) in a stainless steel bowl.
Add 10 tbs of ice water to make a plyable dough, use fork to keep mixing in until a dough ball forms.Add more water, a bit at a time if the dough ball doesn’t form right away.
Cover with damp, clean dish cloth. Chill about 15 minutes.
Remaining 1/2 cup of butter leave out until plyable and easy to work with.

Roll out the dough on lightly floured surface and then place the butter over the top of the dough - spread butter around surface of dough until thick
Pull up one corner of the dough and bring it over so corners meet (so butter to butter). Keep folding until butter starts to seem through. Keep doing this (roll, fold, fold, fold, roll, fold, fold, fold) until the butter is well incorporated into the dough. (Essentially, this is the way you knead the dough). It will be slimey.
Chill overnight in covered bowl (Kristen here - I’m an instant gratification girl and skipped this step with great results)

Roll out on flowered board, cut it into squares. Place fruit in center, fold over and seal your edges. Canned pie filling works best because it is soft and won’t bust through the dough. For apple, use one apple per turnover and a little bit of the gel. For other fruits, one small tablespoon of filling/fruit works well. Jam - use one heaping teaspoon full.
Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes. Once cool, feel free to use a powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, milk drizzle or glaze.

A Little Bit of Housekeeping

• If you haven’t already, make sure to sign up for the Dine & Dish Adopt-A-Blogger #2 event! Space is limited, so sign up today!
• The family is heading back to school and life on the home front is a bit crazy lately. Check out what the Dine & Dish kids are up to these days. Visit Dishing it up Family Style.
• Are you on Twitter? I had Firefox issues the other day, Twittered about it and had a reply and solution from Firefox instantly. Awesome! Follow me on Twitter by clicking here.
• Do you want to get the most recent Dine & Dish updates right in your email inbox? Click HERE.
• And finally, my favorite bit of news… my 75 year old mom has started a blog! I’m so excited for her to be capturing her memories from growing up and her perspective on life in the world today. Hope you will head over and visit her at On the Inside Looking Back.

Carol’s cookbook, Table Talk, continues to be extremely popular in my house. My love for this book has only increased with each recipe I try! I have decided that it would only be fair to give one of you the chance to win a copy of this fantastic cookbook. For dinner tonight, we had Tried and True Meatballs with Zingy Red Sauce. My husband’s comments, “These were the best meatballs with sauce and pasta you have ever made!”. Want the recipe? Get the book

Gathering together at least once a day for a family meal is very important. Because of that, I am also going to include in this giveaway Food for Talk by my friend Julienne Smith. Food for Talk is a box of conversation starters for families and friends to use at meal time to get the conversation flowing.

Entering to win is simple. First, head over to Carol’s website and check out Table Talk. After you have done that, come back and leave one comment on this post. Please fill out the form with your name, email address and blog address. If you don’t have a blog, that is fine. Just make sure you let me know how I can get a hold of you.

All entries must be received by Midnight CST on Wednesday, July 23rd.

LyB from the blog, …and then I do dishes. The Random Number Generator selected the #1, which corresponded with LyB’s comment! Congratulations LyB!

If you weren’t the winner this time, stay tuned for another great giveaway coming up! Also, make sure to check out Miss ‘N Nick Designs. I love to support independent stores and artists and hope you will join with me in recognizing their talent. Nicole has some fantastic things, so pass the word on about her website!

I am a sucker for office supplies and paper goods. I have drawers full of pens, pencils, sticky notes, notecards, markers, scissors, etc. I have no idea what draws me in, but this obsession of mine is slowly taking over not only my desk, but the drawers in my kitchen. I think part of the reason for the plethora of pens, scissors and paper in my house is that I grew up in a house quite the opposite. If you needed to write down a phone number or a message, you would have to search and search for a pen and paper to write on. And, if you were having a really lucky day, the pen you would actually find would work! Imagine that!

Now that this obsession is out in the open, it will come to no surprise to you all that when I stumbled upon the website of Nicole Howard, I fell in love. Nicole is the owner and designer for Miss ‘N Nick Designs. Her stationary designs are sophisticated, yet whimsical. The cupcake note cards got my attention right away… what a perfect little note card to send out to all of your foodie and non-foodie friends! This is why I chose the Box of 10 Cupcakes Note Cards as the 2nd Dine and Dish Giveaway.

If you are interested in participating, simply leave a comment (please include your email address and link to your blog in the contact form) on this post by midnight CST on Saturday, May 31st. If you don’t have a blog, leave a comment and email me with a link to your favorite blog… just to control trolls. The random drawing will take place on June 1st and the winner will be announced sometime that day.

While you are taking a look at Miss ‘N Nick Designs, head on over to Nicole’s food blog too. Her blog, Art and Ailoi ( a blog about art, food, and the art of food) has quickly become a favorite!

Thanks for entering and good luck!

I think it is high time that we have a giveaway here at Dine and Dish. Don’t you agree? My dear and enormously creative friend, Julie, recently opened an Etsy store to showcase her fun and whimsical new aprons. She brought me over one last week as a gift and I knew just then and there that one of her half aprons would be the perfect first Dine and Dish giveaway. Julie’s aprons are high quality, well crafted, and they have so much personality… just exactly what we want in the kitchen!

I thought and thought and thought about how I should conduct this giveaway when it hit me. I need some help from you all, and if you help me you will be entered into the drawing to win the “Honey I’m Home” apron from Julie’s store, Simply Aprons.

I recently started a weekly column over at the family friendly site, Blogged In. The new column is a fun one and is all about weekend cooking. Our weekday schedules are hectic, but as time passes and the kids get older and more involved in things, the weekends are catching right up. The new column, Dishing It Up Weekend Style, gives me the chance to share some of our favorite weekend menus with you. The concept is to share ideas that will help families to gather around the table, even on the weekends when the door is revolving with people running in and out.

This is where you come in. I would love to have you share with me some of your favorite weekend recipes. In return, I will promote your blog and recipes in my column giving you complete credit, and you will be entered to win the prize. Please take the steps below to be entered to win:

• First, visit Julie’s Etsy store and take a look at her gorgeous aprons. She will be adding more designs soon, so go ahead and bookmark it now as a favorite. Oh - and Mother’s Day is coming up! Julie’s aprons make a great gift for Mom!

• Email me at kristen at dineanddish dot net (replace at with @ and dot with .). In your email include the link to at least one main dish recipe and one side dish or dessert recipe that you think makes a great weekend dish. In the email, please include:

Your name and your blog name (with link)
The names of your recipes, including the permalink to where they are on your blog
A written note within the email that gives me permission to link back to your blog through my column, and if you are oay with it, to use your recipe photo on the printable recipe sheet (with credit back to you).

• Leave a comment in the comments section of this post saying that you have emailed me your recipes and would like to be included in the drawing
• All entries to win this apron must be received by 11pm CST, Friday, May 9th. The random drawing will be held on Saturday, May 10th and the winner will be notified by email.

I am excited to see what kind of things you all cook up on the weekends! Thanks for participating.

We lost a friend to cancer yesterday afternoon. Crissy was the wife of one of my husbands high school best friends. She had a daughter, Gracie, six years ago and then found out just shortly after that she had cancer. Cancer has been a part of her life since then. Crissy fought a very valiant fight… always keeping things real and soldiering on.

Tonight, as I reflect on Crissy and her life, I cannot help but think what power cancer has over people. The power of cancer is a scary thing.

• Cancer has the power to make a woman who is full of life… outgoing, boisterous, and funny… lose all of her external spark and vibrance.
• Cancer can make a mother, who knows that her time is short and fearing the memory of her will be lost, plead with people around her to “No matter what, please let Gracie know I was a great mom and I loved her very much.”
• Cancer has the power to make a man throw out the notion that showing emotion is not acceptable. Distraught at the thought of life without his partner, cancer has the power to make a man overcome with the desire to make things better and to wish that he could do anything to turn back time. A widower at the age of 34, cancer has the power to make us all realize how truly unfair life can be.
• Cancer has the power to make a husband cling to his wife. After spending time and being witness to what his friend is going through, cancer has the power to make a husband plead with his wife “no matter what happens, please don’t die before me.” Cancer makes us realize how lost we would be without one another.
• Cancer has the power to make a precious six year old girl, who has never known her mom without cancer, be forced with the harsh reality that this time it is different. Mommy won’t be coming home with you tonight to tuck you in and dry your tears.
• Cancer has the power to bring people together, to fight for the cause and to hopefully bring a cure home soon. Like the LiveSTRONG day A Taste of Yellow Event, hosted by winosandfoodies…I can guarantee the food blogging community will do their part to raise the awareness of the devastation and power of cancer.

I know that Crissy is now a spunky, beautiful angel, lighting up heaven’s gates. Crissy will be missed by all who knew her, and will be remembered for her strength, smile, character and most of all… the impact she made on her daughters life in the short amount of time.

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

45 min | 20 min prep | SERVES 10 -12