Checking in

Well we are on Thursday and I thought perhaps it would be a good idea to check in and see how the menu is going. Frankly, after 2 days of barely being able to move, we haven't done so well! (I pulled a muscle in my shoulder and its been excruciating!) However, we have hit a few things. I fixed the steak and made a big salad on Tuesday night. We took bread, cheese, and salad dressing and made our meal of it at the drive-in (it was sneak peak at Eclipse night.) We did have BBQ, but we had stir fried veggies with it. I think that was Monday. That night the daughter had some stir fried veggies and cottage cheese with sliced tomato. Several days she has had fish nuggets as part of her lunch. Breakfast has been pretty much a wash, except for one day when we had scrambled eggs and toast. I had bacon also that day.

Tonight we are doing taco salad. I have tortilla chips, sour cream, and plenty of lettuce and tomato (for everyone else) I had a package mix to make spinach dip with sour cream (which I also had). That will be my sour cream on the taco salad. We will also have some California style veggies tonight or tomorrow because I have been using them to ice my shoulder. Wow it helps so much! Or I may just mark this bag and keep refreezing it to use on my shoulder and chalk it up to a $1.00 food loss.

That brings me to something I wanted to mention. The shelves of mix packets at the grocery store can be a real boon to someone on a budget. Gravy mixes usually use water (not fat) so you can have a bit of gravy and not blow your diet. They also help add flavor to beef stew, if you don't happen to have a packet of beef stew helper on hand. And, gravy is not just chicken or beef flavored. I have used gravy mix to do white gravy for biscuits and I have seen pork gravy as well. If you have the means you can buy "meat and bag" mixes also. They come with the bag, you add the meat/veggies and seasonings in the package and some liquid, close the bag with a tie, and bake. All the seasoning is there. We also use taco seasoning occasionally. This is a small investment (between $.33 and $1.00 each) that give us a break from the same old flavors.

Last night, due to my shoulder pain, I just couldn't make supper. My IBS was also acting up. Hubby made us "customizable rice" :) Basically every one got a bowl of rice and we added what we wanted to it. He fixed his with a beef bouillon cube and steak seasoning and I have to tell you it was fabulous. Mine was plain - a little salt and butter. The daughter loves cinnamon and butter on hers. It was not the healthiest meal we have ever had, but it was meatless for all and filling. That it helped my IBS was the biggest plus for me.

Tomorrow is Friday, and should be pizza night. We don't have a pizza mix, and I think I want to have a baked potato bar dinner. I have plenty of potatoes from Angelfood, some chicken fajita meat, gravy mix, sour cream, shredded cheese... possibly those CA veggies... LOL. The daughter wants mac and cheese. I am searching for a recipe that uses a Velveta-like product to make the sauce. If I find one that turns out to be yummy I will post it.