Weekly Meal Plan

Happy Meal Plan Monday readers! I hope you had a great weekend. It is that time again to plan our meals for the week. Here is my list. I hope you find something that inspires you this week. I'm looking forward to tweeking the Italian Slow Cooker Roast. The recipe I have is a little sweet so I'm going to do a little fixing to make it a little more savory. I'm hoping to post that on Crockpot Wednesday.

Kwick Kielbasa Hash
Italian Slow Cooker Roast with Spaghetti Noodles
Weeknight Chicken Croquettes & Mashed Potatoes w/ Gravy
Spanish Beef & Rice
Leftover Buffet Weekend!

I hope everyone has a great week. Take a few minutes and enter my latest giveaway. I have 5 copies of Therese Borchard's Beyond Blue book for 5 lucky readers. Click over now for multiple chances to win! Want to stay informed on the latest news from The Halton Mom? Subscribe to my newsletter and never miss an update again!

As always you can visit the Orgjunkie for 100s of meal plans to get you started.
Happy Meal Planning!

Giveaway: The Not So Blog = The Princess and the Frog Soundtrack

Win “The Princess and the Frog” soundtrack! Mutliple chances to win. Click over to The Not So Blog now to enter. Contest ends at 11:59pm CST on February 16th.

Freebies: Dove © Men+Care

Dove© is in the process of introducing a new skin care line for Men! Click over to Dove© now to play the Shower Tile Scramble for a chance to win free Dove© beauty bars. Watch the Super Bowl on Sunday and be on the look out for newest Dove© commericial! I look forward to the new line. I like Dove a lot and hubby says it is too "girly" for him. So this may be the frugal change we need. I can't afford the Axe© all the time. I'm going to go play the game now. Good luck!

Friday Follow

Happy Friday Follow, hosted by One 2 Try, Hearts Make Families and Midday Escapades! Here's how YOU can join the celebration:

* Link up your blog name and URL using the MckLinky below. Only need to add to one blog linky.
* Follow the Friday Follow hostesses listed in the first 3 slots. We will follow you back.
* Follow as many blogs as you like
* Comment on the blogs telling them you're from Friday Follow
* Follow back when you get a new follower through Friday Follow
The Blog Hop is the same at each of our three hosts blogs so you do not have to add your blog at each site. Just one - but you can follow each host blog. Here is the great part, we will follow you back.


Welcome to all my new Followers from previous weeks and this week also. I'll be returning the favor throughout the weekend. Have a great one! Be sure and enter my latest giveaway while you are here!

Crockpot Wednesday: The Best Ever Crock Pot Lemon Pepper Chicken

The Best Ever Crock Pot Lemon Pepper Chicken
SERVES 2 -4

Ingredients
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 (10 1/2 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup water
lemon pepper seasoning
vegetable oil cooking spray or olive oil flavored cooking spray
additional water or milk, as necessary
hot cooked rice

Directions
Sprinkle chicken with lemon pepper seasoning to taste on both sides.
Brown (do not cook through) chicken on both sides in a pan coated with the spray Place chicken in crock pot coated with the spray.
In a bowl, mix contents of soup can, water and milk until no longer separated Pour soup mixture over chicken.
Add more milk or water to ensure liquid in crock pot covers chicken Cook chicken over low heat for 6 hours.
To thicken sauce, place in small saucepan, add a cornstarch slurry, and bring to a boil. Serve chicken and sauce over hot cooked rice.

I orginally shared this recipe during my Weekly Meal Plan. Julie one of my readers mentioned the fat content of this recipe. I do agree it is quite high, but I think that is an easy fix. Swap ingredients with low fat versions. 98% fat free soup, skim milk, and trimming the chicken of any fat can easily lower the fat content.
I also wanted to give all my readers a heads up. I'll be posting a review soon and I want you to take a moment and check out this great sponsor over at stool. Don't forget to enter my current giveaway here.
Looking for a new Crock Pot recipe? Click the button above to find new recipes or link your own!

Beyond Blue by: Therese Borchard Book Review and Giveaway:CONTEST EXTENDED TO 3/7 @ MIDNIGHT

About:
"Therese Borchard may be one of the frankest, funniest people on the planet. That, combined with her keen writing abilities has made her Beliefnet blog, Beyond Blue, one of the most trafficked blogs on the site.

BEYOND BLUE, the book, is part memoir/part self-help. It describes Borchard's experience of living with manic depression as well as providing cutting-edge research and information on dealing with mood disorders. By exposing her vulnerability, she endears herself immediately to the reader and then reduces even the most depressed to laughter as she provides a companion on the journey to recovery and the knowledge that the reader is not alone.

Comprised of four sections and twenty-one chapters, BEYOND BLUE covers a wide range of topics from codependency to addiction, poor body image to postpartum depression, from alternative medicine to psychopharmacology, managing anxiety to applying lessons from therapy. Because of her laser wit and Erma Bombeck sense of humor, every chapter is entertaining as well as serious.

Visit ThereseBorchard.com
And check out Therese Borchard's daily blog on Beliefnet.com and the HuffingtonPost.com
Follow @ThereseBorchard on Twitter."

Review:
Beyond Blue by Therese Borchard is a one of the best Self Help books on depression I have ever read. The book is straight forward and honest about depression never loosing site of society's views on the disease itself. Beyond Blue is a caring, honest, often humorous, sometimes emotional look at life from a survivor of depression. Therese boldly talks of her battles with depression sharing her time spent in mental hospitals, counseling, and despair. Therese shares her no nonsense view on treating depression with a solid foundation of her research from holistic healing to medication to shock therapy. Therese tried it all and she shares her story with a whit and courage that is often times infectious. I would recommend this book if you are questioning depression in your life or the life of someone you love.

Giveaway:
Thanks to Anna over at the Hachette Book Group I have (5) Five copies of this great book to give away to (5) Five separate readers!

How to Enter:
Be sure and leave a separate comment for each entry if you have earned 10 entries by subscribing remember to comment 10 times!
+5 Follow this Blog and leave the name you follow with.
+5 Blog about this Giveaway.
+1 Follow me on Twitter
+1 Tweet the giveaway leaving a link and twitter name (Up to 3 times daily).
+10 Subscribe to The Halton Mom via email.
+5 Post my button on your blog.
+10 Leave a comment on any other blog post on The Halton Mom and link the ones you commented on.

The Rules:
-Winners will be chosen via Random.org
-Contest Ends 3/2/2010 Midnight EST CONTEST EXTENDED TO 3/7 @ MIDNIGHT
-Contestants must leave valid email address in comments.
-Contestants must respond to email notification within 48 hours to claim prize.
-Only residents of the U.S. or Canada are eligible to win.
-No P.O. Boxes.

Special Thanks:
A huge thank you to the great people at the Hachette Book Group for sponsoring this giveaway and The Product Review Place for networking me with Anna from the Hachette Group.
Disclaimer:
I received a free copy of Beyond Blue to review. I was not compensated for my completely honest review of this book. This is my opinion which you may or may not agree with.

Good Luck!

Clean up...clean up...everything has a special place!

Good afternoon readers! I hope each of you have had a super day. I have, I feel so accomplished. After a week of feeling the winter crud and sinus infection blues. I actually got up and cleaned today. My Mom decided to keep the kids to give me a break yesterday and boy did I need it. Thank you Mommy. After getting some much needed rest and down time I realized that the house did not have a down time. The clutter, dust, dishes, and crumbs kept piling up without apologies. I decided that I couldn't possibly get everything done so I focused on the kitchen, dusting, sweeping, and mopping. I feel pretty happy sitting here with my sweet I-cleaned-all-day Pinesol smell blowing through my house. My TV is all shiny from the fresh dusting and my dishwasher is finishing up my days work for me. I just had to come share my Pinesol euphoria. Don't you love how a good cleaning of your house is like having your cake and eating it too?

Okay ladies lets talk...so what is your routine? What is your favorite products to do the hard cleaning and what do you use for the daily maintenance? Ladies do you have hardwood flooring? What do you love to use the make your floors sparkle? Looking for different maybe even better products? Check out my Scrub Club button to the left to find great new products from the great people at Soft Scrub!Have a great day and happy cleaning.