Making Do

Tis the Season!

2011-12-28T13:41:00.002-05:00

We are in the midst of the holiday week. What a great time for our family! We had Christmas Eve at our house, a moving worship service at Ascension, Christmas Day with the In-laws, and the day after with my extended family. It was good to see everyone.

Then we got wonderful news about DH's cousin's wife. She had surgery on Tuesday and a large benign mass was removed from her abdomen. No cancer, thanks be to God. She will recuperate and continue to be the healthy, productive, creative and joyful person we have come to love.

My presents were wonderful. Mom gave me a trip to Paducah to the quilt show this spring! We will travel by tour bus, stay in a hotel, see the show, the National Quilt Museum, the Eleanor Burns quilt tent (a special treat), and many other things. It will be fantastic!! I have to get new shoes in March so I can break them in, as there will be a LOT of walking in those 2-3 days.

I also got a fabulous 6 qt cast iron dutch oven. I have wanted one forever, and this one is going to be put to frequent use. My youngest gave me a huge sack of books (My bedtime ritual requires a bit of reading each night, and books are expensive! I do a lot of re-reading because of it, so new books are always welcome!), a great knife block with very nice knives, a beautiful sand painted ornament for the tree, and a limited edition collection of a capella music by my SIL and her family. They are talented vocalists and the CD is a wonderful way to share the music they have been performing at church and other functions. Oh yes, I got a great gift certificate from my boss, and friend, at the quilt shop. I am so going to have fun spending that!!

We are just so blessed. I admit that 2011 seemed to pass quickly, but I look forward to 2012.

Twas the Week Before Christmas

2011-12-19T23:32:00.002-05:00

Well at our house the weekend is really Sunday and Monday due to Hubby's schedule. We had a fairly productive weekend. Though I felt lousy, we got the carpet cleaned in the living room and the hallway. Thanks again to my brother and his magic carpet cleaning machine! The whole livingroom is clean, the tree is in the process of going up, the windows have been flocked with nifty pictures of snowflakes, wreaths, pine trees, and Santa. We got the entertainment center moved to the Daughter's room to hold her game console (a vintage Sega) and the old TV. The rug is out and cleaned for the middle of the living room floor. Tomorrow evening I will wash and dry the Christmas Flannel quilt for the back of the couch, and put the table runner out (that matches the quilt)

We got a bit done to the kitchen, but not as much as I had planned. Frankly, there were just so many things that kept getting in the way. However, the dishwasher was run, many things were put away, and the trash went out. Progress was made, but its slower than I wanted it to be. Still feeling icky in the tummy is keeping me from accomplishing as much as I would like. Tomorrow evening we will attack it, and conquer part of the mess, Wednesday we will finish it up.

The hardware finally arrived for our bed frame. Crazy but true, the whole things arrived without a single screw or nail or directions! I guess we are supposed to put it together intuitively? That is what we will attempt. I am hoping to be able to keep the bedroom door open and show off the bed. We will see.

The In-Laws are back from their cruise. They have been down the Pacific side of South America. I am sure they had fun. Who doesn't have fun on a cruise ship? But I am glad to have them back in the US.

Noteworthy things that happened this weekend: The last of the US troops left Iraq. Kim Jong Il died in North Korea. There is a big time snow storm hitting the Southwest and Central Plains.

I think we have the shopping done. Once the tree is up and the kitchen is clean, I will feel like we can enjoy Christmas. Usually I am at the last minute doing stuff, but this year might just be different!

Counting your Blessings

2011-12-06T20:50:00.003-05:00

Well, I guess I should be stressed and worried. The rear axle went out on the car, broke actually. That's gonna be expensive. The house is a mess because its time for the annual crazy cleaning before Christmas, and this year everyone comes here for Christmas Eve. The oven is still not working, so I can't bake cookies.

Crazy but I am extraordinarily happy. This year the shopping is nearly completely finished already! Its getting colder, and we might have flurries. That's a good thing. I think this year I am in a different frame of mind. I am okay with Advent, I have a plan for family gatherings, and I am just so pleased with life. My kids are happy and healthy, my grand-baby is just adorable. My husband is working at a job he likes, and I have a part time one that I love.

Sure things could be better, that's always true. But there is virtue in being content and in knowing, deep in your bones, the real reason for the season. God has blessed us immeasurably, and I am so grateful.

Back to the Beginning

2011-11-09T16:34:00.002-05:00

I have been very lax recently about keeping myself accountable regarding the money spend at the grocery. This has to stop or there will be no Christmas at our house! So... I am rededicating myself to getting myself organized.

We had a great mega sale or two in the last month at Kroger and I have stocked up on a lot of things. I did a search for a Pantry Inventory (in all black ink, because the color is shot atm.) and found one that I can use. I have also been checking out some new online resources for frugality. I am adding a link to Frugal Living, a great forum site where there are many knowledgeable people who have good ideas and wisdom to share.

Now I will spend a few hours filling out the pantry inventory. I know we have plenty of food here and we shouldn't need to hit the store for a good 3-4 weeks, except for fresh milk. Though I dislike not having diet cola available, mostly for the caffeine but the bubbles are helpful too when I am fighting sinus issues, it looks like iced tea will be the drink of choice here.

I have the crock pot going. Got a whole fryer for .69 cents a pound today and its baking away with carrots, celery, potatoes, and onions for dinner. Will be yummy and make a fabulous pot of soup for tomorrow too. The dehydrator is working away on celery.

I am pondering how to best reorganize the kitchen storage spaces so that the appliances all have a home. These small things, the crock pot, the blender, the dehydrator, the bread machine, the electric skillet, the electric can opener, I love these things. They do make my life easier. But honestly, I just don't know where to put it all!

Now that Angel Food is no longer operating (*sob*) I have to find a new source for sturdy and unwieldy boxes. My food box boxes have been wonderful for storing canned goods, but I need more than I have.

I have been working on a customer quilt, and working at home on Christmas gifts. I have been checking the Screaming Penny newsletter daily for wonderful deals on quality gifts for seriously less money. I love that email :) Faithful Provisions and A Smart Shopper are also great for sharing gathered deals out on the web and at local stores. I highly recommend checking them out!

Enough for today.

Book Review: 100 Day Pantry

2011-09-12T15:40:00.003-04:00

This month when I went to the site to order my Angelfood I found a message saying they will not be doing a September distribution. They have been hit by the financial crunch too, and are reorganizing so they can continue the program. I hope they are able to do so, but I was faced with the knowledge that I have to plan on not having access to the program in the future.

I started looking around for recipes that would let me work with what I do have access to, and found this book: 100 Day Pantry by Jan Jackson. All of the recipes are put together using canned and dried food. They are adaptable to situations where clean water is not readily available. This intrigues me so we are going to give these recipes a whirl and see how it goes. I went to Save-A-Lot and got several flats of vegetables and soups. We have plenty of pasta and rice.

As I try them I will document the results here. Since the massive bronchitis attack ate up most of my summer I was not able to tend the garden as I wanted. We got pretty much nothing, couple of peppers, 3 small tomatoes and a few herbs. I am watching for things to dehydrate, and organizing the cabinets to hold more veggies for soup. Potatoes are going to be big for the dehydrator over the next few weeks.

Got to spend a bit of time with my Oldest and her Hubby Sunday. It was SIL's birthday and we had some ice cream cake to celebrate. The grandbaby was charming and babbles a lot now. It was nice to see them.

Seasons of Life

2011-09-04T23:22:00.002-04:00

Its Labor Day weekend. A really busy time for us. Usually we have a birthday gathering for my MIL, and a family reunion. However this year, we had a funeral. My SIL's mother went home to her reward after a valiant struggle with cancer. She was quite a woman. Very devoted to her family and her church.

As a result I have been pondering life and death. Weighty subjects for a mere human, I know. I ran across a quote by C. S. Lewis yesterday, "You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." What an interesting perspective. I think on some level I have always believed this, because cemeteries hold no comfort for me. I don't return to graves to seek a connection with the people I have loved. What is left feels like a shell to me, kind of like a cocoon. Its never been the being dead that worried me, its the transition that piques my curiosity and trepidation.

My oldest came home this weekend for the services and brought the grand-baby. What an amazing cycle God has given us. She is so tiny, so helpless, and yet she grins and all is right with the world. Ginny is be coming such a good momma. I am proud of her.

This post rambles around a bit, but then that is the state of my mind tonight.

Who's laughing now??

2011-08-30T19:41:00.003-04:00

Well Irene has come and gone, leaving destruction in her wake. Millions of lives have been disrupted, vacations ended early, homes destroyed by flooding, infrastructure damaged. I am in Kentucky, so I didn't suffer any issues from the hurricane, but it has opened the eyes of some people regarding the necessity for emergency preparedness.

I saw a commercial on CNN suggesting that people should have a 72 hour bag together "just in case". It was great! My family thinks my cousin and I are kind of crazy for storing food to prepare for market instability/disruption. Now I have to tell you, my cousin has a better handle on this than I do. Our life circumstances are different and she is able to invest in her food storage on a much larger scale than I am. And with both hubby and I out of work, we have had to rely on ours more than she and her family have. But boy am I glad that I have purchased and stored up.

So this week, I am blessed to have my Angelfood in the freezer. We had burgers and fries (AF) yesterday with fresh garden tomato. We grilled pork chops (AF) and had mashed potatoes and green beans (AF) the night before. And tonight I opened the 2lb package of chicken breasts (AF) and made some awesome soup (one of 3 chicken breasts, 3 potatoes diced up, and a bag of frozen veggies[AF]) and corn bread (AF).

Now you may not know this about me, but I have a very specific idea of what corn bread is supposed to taste like. Growing up we always used water ground white corn meal. Mom make baked corn bread with buttermilk and an egg that was just to die for! Fish was always accompanied by scalded corn bread (boiling water, corn meal, and an egg). It tastes very differently than yellow corn meal, and I was an adult before I ever tasted corn bread with actual corn kernels in it.

But tonight I have found a way to enjoy yellow corn bread! Not having any fresh milk, or buttermilk, in the house, I used a Jiffy corn bread mix (courtesy of a previous Angelfood purchase), an egg, 1/2 a cup of Magic Mix, and enough water to make a batter. Oh my... its a little sweeter than any corn bread I ever made but it was a real hit here. Hubby crumbled it up into the soup and was mightily impressed. I bet we do this again!

Seems like whenever we are pressed for funds I turn to soup making. Yes its a comfort thing, but its also excellent food thrift. All the left overs can go into the pot and with a little love from seasonings and some broth you have a wonderful meal. I am going back to youtube to check out the dehydrate2store lady's videos on crockpot soups from dehydrated food. I think I need to be looking at what should go into the dehydrator since we have such lovely weather (I load it up and plug it in outside so the heat doesn't tax the AC in the house).

Pantry and Freezer to the Rescue

2011-07-21T20:35:00.003-04:00

Well, with the Hubby's unemployment checks messed up, and my paycheck "in the process" of being direct deposited, life is very tight at our house at the moment. So I did an inventory of the freezer, and the food storage, and turns out we will be able to eat. Yes, we have to cook, much to Hubby and my Daughter's chagrin. They don't mind to cook, but its not... well...instant, ya' know?

So this morning it was pancakes, hot off the griddle, and scrambled eggs. Not sure what they did for lunch, but dinner is foil packet grilled flounder and yellow squash (who knew that was in the freezer?), lemon dill rice (with fresh dill from the garden), I will have 2 flounder steaks left over so they will probably be my lunch tomorrow. Wonder what tuna salad is like with flounder? Hmmmm, I'll let you know.

Oh yes, I made a batch of Magic Mix Chocolate Pudding. That will be a nice cool treat later this evening.

My green beans are producing, but only a meals worth at a time. I am thinking that is not going to be a canning project from garden this year. Maybe next year. I will have to buy beans, and I just don't really want half runners. Maybe once I have money again there will be some other types of beans at the farmers market.

Since I have sick for the last 7 weeks I have not been out much. Blood work shows that I have a very low level of vitamin D. Well yeah, I haven't been outside for weeks! No sunshine. But I will have to take prescription vitamin D for 6 weeks and see if it helps. Its no wonder I am worn out, can't shake this bronchitis, and my memory is bad!! I am taking a multi vitamin too with extra minerals. Between the two I should be back in the game in no time. Why not just go outside? Yeah, well I have these brown spots developing on my face from sun shining through my glasses, the humidity is horrific for asthmatics, and so I am not getting out like I usually would.

I did go to the store today and purchase:
medium eggs for .88
1 gallon of milk for $1.99 (marked down due to date, but no trouble for us to get through)
1 package of margarine .78

The other thing the test results showed was that my cholesterol has gotten too high. Not terribly, but enough to take action. The doctor would like me to take fish oil capsules but I just can't make myself do that... ick! So I am going to eat oatmeal every day for breakfast, eat low fat food, and get a bit more exercise. That will be good for me all around. I think I can manage this. We will see. I have read that yoga is better for stress relief than anything else, and stress hormones will raise your cholesterol too. So its Wii and yoga for me...

6 Weeks of Bronchitis

2011-07-19T17:31:00.003-04:00

Well, the week after I came home from helping my daughter and son-in-law with their new baby I got sick. At first I thought it was just a sinus infection, sore throat and on again/off again low fever. Two rounds of antibiotics and 6 weeks later I am now on a z-pack and waiting for test results. Its crazy, I can sleep for days at a time, still coughing up infection. I am so ready to be well again. My garden is suffering. I have completely lost all my snow peas and lettuce. The cilantro has gone to seed (otherwise known as coriander), and only the tomatoes and green beans are producing. I just don't have the energy to go breathe the humidity heavy air and take care of them. Its doubly annoying because I finally got hired and have gone back to work. I hate the idea of missing training because I am ill. I don't even have enough energy to do much in the way of posting. We will see how the test results come out tomorrow.

Life altering moments

2011-06-10T19:10:00.002-04:00

Its been a couple of weeks since I posted. We were waiting for the arrival of our first grandchild, a precious little girl named Maggie. She is simply perfect. She was born last week after 33 hours of labor. Momma and baby are both doing well.

I was incredibly blessed with the opportunity to be in the delivery room when she was born. It was, without question, the most amazing experience of my life (short of knowing Jesus). Her little fingernails looked like she'd had a french manicure just for her appearance! I do not know how anyone could not believe in God after seeing a baby born. Its the most amazing thing.

Being a grandmother is quite different from being a mom. I was told that by several lovely grandmothers, but until it happens you just don't really understand. I stayed with my daughter, son in law and the baby for a week, and it was such a good time. They were able to rest, I got my baby fix (for the moment), and they are ready to settle in and have some family time.

While I was gone, DH faithfully watered the garden plants for me. The volunteer pumpkin has taken root and is beautifully green, the yellow squash is up, the tomatoes are surviving and the Roma tomatoes I planted from seed are up. They will need more thinning. Tonight I picked a few buttercrunch lettuce leaves, baby snow pea pods, baby radishes, and a scallion. They made a nice little salad.

I am sorry to say my broccoli all bolted, and the spinach is not thriving either. The cauliflower is barely hanging on. I think one of my tasks this week is to replant those sq ft areas. Maybe beets, carrots, and potatoes. We will see. The mint has taken off tho in the pot.

I have had an opportunity pop up that will mean I go back to work, assuming that it is approved higher up the chain. If that happens I will be back to balancing everything again: work, home, quilting, church, etc. Its not that I can't do that, its just a busier life than I prefer to have :) Still, one needs insurance and a regular pay check comes in handy!! DH is trying to determine what his next venture in life will be, and while he does that I am going to go back to work. Should gasoline climb much higher we will have to reconsider, since this would be an out of town, 40 mile round trip undertaking. For the moment I am focusing on being thankful that I had no job for several years and now I may have 2! When God provides, He provides abundantly.

This week I will be: watering the garden, weeding the garden, completing the beading on a sweater and sewing in a modesty panel on a wedding dress, finishing one quilt on the machine now, and finishing another by Thursday, starting work on Wednesday if everything works out. It will be a busy week.

Couponing

2011-05-21T23:16:00.005-04:00

I recently attended a class on how to save money on groceries and household products. I thought I knew a lot, but let me tell you, there is always room to learn some more! Andrea Charles, of A Smart Shopper, was the speaker and she brought a slide show. It contained pictures of her "storeroom", info about coupons, and lots of information about drug store savings. I highly recommend visiting her site, because we could have spent an entire day going into more detail than she had time to tell us. A few important things that I learned:
1. Buy on sale
2. Use coupons
3. Use store promotions
4. Shop drugstores

Also: Kroger will double a coupon up to .50 cents. They also do not provide rain checks for items on sale that are not itemized in their weekly ad. Wal-Mart will give the same deal on their store brand that another store offers (Kroger soup = Wal-Mart soup) along with matching prices on name brand items.

Be proactive - you will save money if you stock up when things are on sale. though I didn't have a coupon for it, recently during the mega sale at Kroger I found organic cold cereal for .99 a box. I bought 16. Yes, we feel a bit run over by cereal at the moment, but I don't have to worry about breakfast for a few months. Also we found coupons for pasta ($1 off 2 boxes) and the pasta was on sale for .49 each. You just can't beat FREE!

Coupons CAN work in your favor. Here is an example:

Jiff Peanut butter regular price $2.99
On sale for $1.49
Coupon .35 cents off/doubled $.70
---------------------------------------
Final cost to you: $.79

Yeah, its addictive!

Always get the coupons in the Sunday paper*. If you know someone who takes the paper, ask for their coupon inserts. If necessary buy a copy or two for yourself. I have started purchasing them, taking out the coupons, and offering the paper for free to other shoppers. Cut them all out, because if you catch a sale, have a store coupon, a manufacturers coupon, or possibly both (yes you can use one of each on a purchase for more savings) then name brand shampoo might be cheaper than your usual brand.
*There are no coupons on holiday weekends.

Every month there is a magazine called All You. You can only purchase it at Wal-mart and it has a LOT of coupons in it. On the cover it will give the total coupon savings for that month. Its worth the money.

Now what to do with all these coupons? Andrea has hers in a small-ish note card box, separated by type of item (dairy, meat, condiments, etc) and keeps the ones with the closest expiration dates in the front of each category. After checking her pantry, the sales flyers to see what is out there, and her coupons, she makes a grocery list, pulling the coupons and putting them in a section at the front of the box titled "Use today" or Use at Wal-Mart", etc. She also uses websites that track the coupons (when they came out, what weeks insert had the coupons, etc). Really, go read her site! Its amazing.

In the meantime, the garden is growing. I looked out the window the other day and there was a big, fat groundhog in my yard! So, I did a quick search & found out they dislike peppermint intensely. I don't have peppermint but I did happen to have a bunch of spearmint that my Mom had pulled. So I laid it around the bag garden to ward off the critter. So far it seems to be working. We will see...

All this plus customer quilts! Life is good, even tho it is a bit uncertain right now.

Busy Busy!

2011-05-10T22:03:00.002-04:00

Lots of things going on this month. Just got back from a great weekend in Tennessee. We have a cousin getting married and there was a bridal shower. I am so fortunate that I married into a family of people I really enjoy. Now we add another who is just as sweet and kind as the rest of them.

There was also a shower for my oldest daughters best friend. She is a sweet young lady and she is marrying a very talented and upstanding young man. So I got to spend some time with the friends I have made in Richmond. Janie hosted the event in her beautiful new home. Her girls were very gracious, the food was yummy, and I learned a wonderful new recipe for frosting cupcakes! One smaller size cool whip (8 oz I think) mixed into one can of frosting. OMGosh! Its great!

After the shower got to spend the afternoon and evening with the oldest daughter and her hubby. We don't get to spend enough time with them, and so it was nice to just sit and visit. Plus there were baby presents to open - always a plus :)

Today I made more detergent. Turns out that my bucket had developed a leak and I have clothes soaked with detergent... I am going to spread them out with other loads and not have to use more of the batch I made today. Everything I made (that didn't leak onto the kitchen floor) is in the new bucket. Now I will have to mop the floor to get the soap up, but then again, no cleaner will need to be used.

Picked up the comforter from my daughter. Now we can decide on a paint color for the bedroom, and start getting the rooms moved around.

In the meantime, I have also been out to the garden. Picked some more whirly-gigs out of the containers, and checked on the beans. They are just now peeking out. The peas are about 5 inches high, and the radishes are taking off great guns.

What a Weekend!

2011-05-01T23:02:00.003-04:00

The weather has been lovely!! Saturday we spent most of the day dealing with outdoor tasks. Hubby mowed the yard - no small task since its rained so much it was getting tall and shaggy! I cleaned up the back patio and worked in the square foot garden. It was full of oak tree whirly gigs! There was a bit of grass in there too. Then I made a trip to Wal-Mart and, using my gift card from my SIL, I purchased flowers and top soil bags. I set up the green beans (4 bags of 6 bush plants) and 2 pepper plants in the top soil bags. I have 2 large pots and 2 small pots of flowers. After that, I watered everything with a diluted mixture of Miracle Grow. Mostly I did that because the topsoil was a lot of sand, and I want to be sure they get a good start.

According to the Farmers Almanac, one of the best days to plant is the 4th of May. On that day we are not supposed to have storms, so I will get more top soil bags and set up the rest of the green beans, the cucumbers, and the tomatoes. I also want to set up a new trellis system for these plants that involves pvc pipe and 6 inch netting. Its like working with tinker toys, you make a 3 sided box with the pvc, poke the 4th side down into the ground, and spread the netting over the top. This is fairly low to the ground, about 12-18 inches. on the corners you use a 4 pipe connector so that later you can add another tier as the plants grow. I think this is so ingenious! Also, I have the bed ends of a baby bed with slats, so I can use that for cucumbers or yellow squash. I have been learning a lot of tips from the My Square Foot Garden site. check it out!

Now, for a little non-personal life update: They just announced that Osama Bin Laden is dead. They have apparently verified this with DNA testing (using some of his relatives to compare it to). I personally am opposed to the death penalty but I have to agree that there are times when someone who is *really* bad has to die. I felt that way about Saddam Hussein and I feel the same way about bin Laden. I hope this will provide closure for families of the 9/11 disaster, the U.S.S. Cole bombing, and all the others who have suffered under the activities of this terrorist.

Houston We Have Seedlings!

2011-04-19T19:26:00.002-04:00

Well, thanks to Mother Nature for all the rain. Now the spinach is perking up, the broccoli and cauliflower are nice and green, the radishes are all sprouted, as are the dill, scallions, cilantro, oregano, rosemary, thyme, and basil! The strawberries actually are flowering and putting out little berries! I am so excited :0)

We have been moving and setting up my quilting studio this week. Heritage Quilting Studios will officially open next Monday. At first I am just going to get my moves back by doing family quilts. Then its on to samples and hunting down decorators. I am getting excited about this venture. I believe that I can make this profitable enough that I can quit sending out resumes. Honestly, I wonder if there is anyone left out there who hasn't read my name off my resume! After 3 years of hunting, I am ready to stop waiting on someone else to recognize my potential and just utilize it myself.

We are having all kinds of bad weather lately. I will be glad when spring finally settles in and things are a bit more stable.

Early Garden Doings

2011-04-03T16:16:00.002-04:00

It's beautiful today! Light wind, sunny skies, its just a nice breath of spring. We went to church this morning. Though I really dislike penitential seasons (Lent and Advent) I understand why they are necessary. We are almost through Lent, and every Sunday that brings us closer to Easter. Usually this is just something that happens, but this year I feel a real sense of anticipation. God is doing something in our lives, I just haven't quite figured out what it is yet :o)

The square foot garden was my project today. I have turned all the soil, added compost, and planted early crops. Mom had a baby bed that I used to make a trellis. I took the sides, tied them together and set them up in the north corner for the sugar snap peas to climb. There are 2 kinds of lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, and radishes in the garden. The herbs are in pots, as are the strawberries (though that may have been a mistake. There might not be enough room for them.) I won't be putting anything else out until May. Then the green beans, tomatoes, white and sweet potatoes, peppers, carrots, squash and cucumbers will get their start. I have 2 medium and one large dog food bags for the potatoes to grow in. I'm going to get 40 lb bags of tops soil for the other veggies.

Yesterday I dried red, yellow and orange peppers. They turned out well. I should have something else in the dehydrator, but I am not sure what yet. I want to do a bunch of onions so I don't have to purchase dehydrated minced onion.

As for now, I think I will just enjoy this beautiful day.

Spring :)

2011-04-02T18:43:00.004-04:00

Today was chilly but sunny. The wind was up, but 60 degrees felt pretty good! I have completely cleared the sq ft garden, and tomorrow I will be adding compost and some early vegetable seeds. I have 2 types of lettuce plants (iceberg and butter crunch), spinach, broccoli and cauliflower plants to put out. There are also sugar snap peas to go into the ground, along with radishes and beets.
After hearing about the new baby bed standards, mom decided she shouldn't use the crib that has the moving sides. I took that off her hands and am going to re-purpose it into a trellis for the peas. As a bonus the head and foot of the bed are also railed, so I can use them for cucumbers or squash!

Our Kroger is having a sale on yellow, orange, and red peppers. I bougth 2 of each and they are in the dehydrator even as I type. Strangely enough the oranges did not make the house smell all orange-y but the peppers are sure perfuming the place! They are mild and sweet though, so I don't mind.

Today I had a box in the mail. This is my birthday month and as a present to me I bought 2 books: Cooking with Food Storage Made Easy by Debbie G. Harman, and Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D. and Zoe Francois. Both books are AWESOME! I love the idea of bread that does not have to be kneaded. Frankly I just don't have the counter space for that kind of activity. This is based on dough that you make once ever week or two, and then bake daily. My kind of think ahead thing! And the food storage book is full of good advice and recipes. The idea behind this is that if you eat whole foods (grains, beans, veggies, etc) you will be healthy and the cost of your food will be significantly less than you spend on processed food. I used to think there was no way that could be true, but I am finding it to be true. I don't have to run to the store constantly for that 1 missing ingredient. The recipes are not complicated and my family likes the food. Often they don't even recognize the ingredients are food storage items.

Tonight I will need to cut the bottoms off the rest of the 2 liter bottles. They will be placed over the plants tomorrow in the garden to protect them from the cold for a few more weeks. I am really looking forward to planting my beans and potatoes. I just love blue lake green beans, and I plan to can a lot of them this year. I also want to put up chili base and pizza sauce. I was not so fond of the spaghetti sauce, but I may do some of that too if I have a good tomato year.

Had a good time yesterday with Mom and her friends. We made laundry detergent, and swapped tips on how to save money. Lets face it, anyone who lived through the depression, or lived with someone who lived through the depression, has a lot of knowledge. The detergent worked well, the company was good, and Mom fixed a yummy dinner. We had a good time.

Oranges

2011-03-29T15:13:00.002-04:00

I love the flavor of oranges. I hate the feel of oranges in my mouth. It's just part of the wonderfulness of me, as my Hubby says. But I love the idea that I could flavor things with oranges. So, since the youngest daughter is not eating up the oranges quickly enough I have sliced those puppies up and they are in the dehydrator! This should be interesting. Even if I just use them in Sangria they will be worth the energy to thaw them. I need to do this same thing with lemons and limes... maybe a few bananas too. I have read that other folks just love to nibble on dried zucchini and yellow squash chips. I want to try it, but honestly! Yellow Squash is currently almost $3 a lb in my part of the world!!! That will have to wait until they are back to 80 cents a lb. I need to be putting the lettuce and peas in the ground. Its hard to go out there and dig around in the cold and wet. I think I am waiting until the end of the week because I need a bit of sunshine to spur me on. We are rapidly approaching the last frost date for Ky, so I can start putting out veggies. The bread machine will be going today. I am so looking forward to the oven element arriving! I didn't fully appreciate the convenience of baking until I couldn't do it anymore! It should be here by the end of the week and we will celebrate with a nice tasty casserole and brownies :)

Snow on the Daffodils

2011-03-26T18:33:00.003-04:00

It appears that winter is not done with us yet. Tonight they are forecasting an inch of snow by morning. It shouldn't stick to the roads, since we have had several days of 60-70 degree weather in the last week. My neighbors daffodils have come up, and Mom says it always snows on the daffodils and crocus. Personally, I am ready to see the end of Winter. Bring on Spring! I can't seem to get warm today.

I picked up the Angel Food today. Turns out this church is no longer going to be a host site. Its possible that one of the other churches in town will step up and take on the job. If they do not then we will be traveling to Winchester to pick up our monthly order. I am sorry that it has come to an end. It was a great ministry, and the food was both healthy and less expensive than the grocery stores. Even with the gas money to travel for pick up it will still be cheaper than going to Wal-mart.

My daughter called today with news of an online coupon for pasta. Kroger had it on sale already for .49 cents a box. The coupon was $1 off 2 boxes, so essentially it was free! I came home with 4 boxes of whole wheat thin spaghetti, 3 boxes of spirals, 4 boxes of penne, and 2 boxes of linguine -- for $0.00!! Cant beat that! We also had a coupon for a free container of Philadelphia Cream Cheese flavored for cooking. Saved $3.00 on that item. There were a lot of buy 10 for $10 deals on soup, and we got canned fruit on sale also. Since we got the pasta for nothing I spent $4 on containers at the Dollar Tree to put it in. They have a tall canister right now that is perfect for spaghetti/linguine.

I will be dehydrating bell peppers this evening. They were also on sale. Our splurge was a marked down blackberry cobbler for $2.50 and a box of vanilla ice cream for the same price.

All in all, without the coupons or discounted items for "store members" the total was just over $100. With the coupons and discounts we paid about $58.00. How can that not be a good day???

Looks like I am going into business. I have a long arm quilting machine, and I am going to rent space from my brother. We will set up in a street level apartment building, and I will quilt quilts for people, make bedding (comforters, bedspreads, pillow shams, and bed skirts). I hope that I can work with decorators so that I have several and the work is steady. I am putting together a price list and sorting and packing up my supplies here at the house to move them out. I will gain a bedroom here, and hope to do better than break even. My cousin is making quilt tops which we will sell as completed items online, or at Court Day (the local fall festival).

Visiting Family

2011-03-23T21:54:00.003-04:00

This week my Mom and I took a trip to visit my cousin Rebecca and her family. I am the oldest of this generation, so while my children are grown hers are just little ones. I had forgotten all the joys and aggrevations of having children under 5 under foot. They do some adorable things. The youngest crawled up in my lap and asked why I had washed my hair? I said, "Because it was dirty. Why do you wash your hair?" She dipped her head and looked up at me and said, " So I am pretty for you!" How can you not love a kid like that?

We have wandered around discussing garden layouts, trellising, and how to keep the chickens out of the garden. The chickens have been very entertaining. The weather was pretty for the first few days, so the kids played outside. I got to meet Becca's buddy Jen, and we talked about soap making. Unfortunately we did not get to make soap this trip, but maybe next time.

Becca made up her white bread recipe and my light whole wheat. They are both really good! Becca is working on a quilt top that I will quilt (for sale). We are hoping that we can make a business of it and help both our families out with a little extra cash.

Through all this female bonding Becca's husband Mike has been kind enough to cart the kids up to the "upstairs" and keep them there overnight. Its allowed us to have some really great belly laughs in the evening, and quieter conversation too.

I have been checking out the Excaliber Food Dehydrator that Becca just got. It is a sweet little machine. My dehydrator puts out a lot of heat, but this one is more temperate. Her broccoli is just drying up beautifully.

We played a new board game called Blokus by Mattel. Its a lot of fun and even the little kids can play (with a bit of assistance). I think it might be on my future list of purchases.

Tomorrow we head home, and though it will be good to sleep in my own bed, it was a very good visit!

Bread Machine

2011-03-13T00:58:00.003-05:00

My "new-to-me" bread machine came home yesterday and I have made 3 loaves of really nice light wheat bread! I used the dough setting and baked them in the oven, and they are a wonderful texture. Here's the recipe:

1 cup warm water (I use tap water from the hot side of the spikot)
2 tsp sugar
1 package yeast (I buy this in bulk, and used 1 1/4 tbsp)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups bread flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp salt

Though it flies in the face of conventional wisdom, combine the water, sugar, and yeast in the bread machine and let it sit for 10 minutes. This allows the yeast to feed on the sugar. Then add the other ingredients. Set bread machine for dough cycle if baking in the oven, or light crust white bread if baking in bread machine. Brush tops with butter or margarine and bake in oven for 45-50 minutes at 350 degrees. (Note: Usually I have read you can tell if your bread is finished cooking by thumping it. If it sounds hollow its done. This bread does not sound hollow.)

I have small foil bread pans, so I took the dough out of the machine and pinched it in half. Then, holding one half, I folded the edges under, turned the dough, and folded again so that I could shape the dough. Because I did not knead the dough, there were not big air bubbles in the bread. Then for the third loaf I used the full amount of dough in one pan and it worked well.

My other "experiment" this weekend was to use the Magic Mix to make chocolate pudding. It was easy and tasty. Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup sugar
1 cup Magic Mix
2-3 tbsp cocoa
2 cups water
1 tsp vanilla

In a medium size sauce pan, combine sugar, MM, cocoa, and water. Stir over medum heat constantly until the mix is disolved and begins to bubble. Remove from heat and beat in vanilla.
I found that I could start with a whisk, but had to go to a different utensil to get all the edges of the pan. Definitely stay with it because it will thicken and scorch if you don't. Pour into serving bowls, cover with plastic wrap on top of the mixture, and chill.

Magic Mix

2011-03-09T21:12:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite food storage sites Everyday Food Storage has a basic white sauce/cream sauce recipe called Magic Mix [(MM) scroll down a bit on the page for the recipe and video]. I have read about it several times, but just recently decided to make up a batch. The recipe calls for 3 ingredients and has to be stored in the refrigerator. Tonight I made a cheese sauce with it for a chicken, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrot one pot meal. I think I am going to like this stuff! It is very true that you have to add flavor to it. Next time I will make it with broth instead of water, add more onion powder or celery seed, etc depending on what recipe I am using. Crystal (creator of the EFS website) has some really great how-to videos, and a multitude of recipes for using MM.

This site has all kinds of great recipes for using things like powdered milk and beans in recipes. Many of them are not even recognizable in the finished product, for those of you with picky eaters :) I especially am intrigued by the idea of cooking and puree-ing yellow squash and using it in cheese sauce for mac and cheese! She also has a recipe for pecan pie that uses beans. I haven't tried that yet. I am working my way up to dried beans, LOL!

Youngest daughter called today. She has a boyfriend at school now, so she is not so anxious to come home. She is also getting to do some dessert baking at school this week. This is a great thing because her goal is to be a pastry chef. I am glad she is starting out with something of interest. I don't think the transition is quite complete, but she is making progress. I am so proud of her.

Today is Ash Wednesday. I really wanted to go to church today but have had a terrible sinus headache since early this morning. Mostly its been a sleepy day, but I did wash up the pots and pans and run the dishwasher. The oldest daughter is coming to visit for a few days. I am looking forward to that.

Check out the EFS and see if there is not something there to pique your interest. There is also a Facebook page that allows for conversation with others. Worth your time :)

A Working Wednesday

2011-03-02T17:13:00.007-05:00

This has been a very productive week. We have really focused on getting things cleaned up. Much of the laundry is done (as in folded up and put away in drawers!), the couch has been cleaned off and the slipcover put back in place. And it has stayed that way nearly a week! Today I spent disinfecting the kitchen sink, counters, and stove top. Hubby volunteered to take on the pans that wont fit in the dishwasher, bless his heart. The living room is not cluttered with dishes because they go into the dishwasher when they are finished being used. And all the walls and ceiling have been dusted - no more cobwebs! Its simply amazing how much nicer things are, and we haven't finished getting any one room completely clean yet. I think we let the job get away from us and then got discouraged when the clean spaces got dirty before we got the rest of the job done.

I have also been mourning the loss of the bread machine. Something was dropped on it and broke the window in the top of the machine. Fortunately my brother has one that is not used at his house. He would rather have the storage space, so he is going to bring it to me. Hurray! I love fresh bread. Even better I have bread flour, and bulk yeast, and so it doesn't cost anything but a little electricity to have more bread. Now that we don't have to worry about food allergies any more with the kids out of the house, we have had a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich every day for lunch!

When our oldest daughter left for school I had a hard time readjusting my cooking to accommodate 3 people. We always had a serving left of veggies or whatever the starch was. Now that the youngest has gone to school I am finding that two people eat significantly less than three. Our food is going to stretch much farther than I thought.

In the morning we are doing the massive refrigerator clean out. I want to get rid of all the mystery food and disinfect it. Since the trash will be picked up on Friday, nothing will stink too long in the trash cans! I am also going to tackle the issue of OTC medicines in various parts of the house, and disinfect the bathroom. Then its time to sew. Though I hate the thought of being inside when the weather is finally sunny and somewhat warmer, I need to get the maternity clothes ready to fit on the oldest girl. She's suddenly got a belly, and needs something to wear. :0) I would like to have several things already together except for hems.

Hubby and I took long walk around the neighborhood. It was good to be in the sunshine for a while. Of course we stirred up all the dogs in the neighborhood, but the exercise was nice. Its almost time for church (the Anglican Rosary service is tonight) and then we will come home and have some dinner. Tonight I think we are having chicken Rice-a-Roni with chicken nuggets, snap peas and carrots, and baked apples for dessert. I think it may be a movie night here too.

Starting March

2011-02-27T20:06:00.003-05:00

So much in one week! Lost a bone spur - yeah! It was painful. My plates are annoying and I never thought I would be buying denture adhesive before I was 50!! But slowly and surely my mouth is healing. Still can't chew much at all, but I did manage to tenderize a small piece of steak yesterday evening so I could eat it. It was luscious.

I am still grieving the loss of the bread machine but I am going to try some no-knead artisan bread and see how it works. If I like I think I will purchase the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day . I love the idea of NOT kneading bread.

I made a double batch of laundry detergent this week. We were down to the last dregs. This time I heated up the water before I added the grated soap and I think it worked better. I wound up fixing it in the hot water bath canner and that worked out well. Mom said several of her friends are interested in learning how to make it, so we are planning to make a morning of it one day soon.

I picked up the Angelfood, with the help of Mom. The freezer is stocked, the pantries are full, and all we need is milk. Its a fabulous feeling not to have to worry about that.

This week we are going to eat a big batch of chili and cornbread. Partly because its soft, partly because its filling, and partly because this end of February/beginning of March weather is so yucky that the chili will be comfort food. We may have chicken and dumplings again (for the same reasons). I want things that are easy to have extra servings of, easy to warm up individual portions, and keep me from messing up the kitchen. It is on the list of "things to do" this week - to really houseclean the kitchen. The fridge needs to be cleaned out and the floor mopped.

I have been investigating the purchase of a pressure cooker/canner. First of all, it would be great to fix food that quickly. Secondly, I would like to be able to cook and can some non-acidic foods.

Oh good news - Save a Lot had strawberries, grown in the USA, for 2 bucks a package! I am so happy to see them. I really need to plant my own. I have been eating oatmeal with brown sugar and french vanilla non-dairy creamer with fresh strawberries and its delicious!

Enough for now, the Oscars are on :)

Empty Nest

2011-02-21T00:07:00.003-05:00

Today we became "empty nest-ers". Our youngest daughter became a "college girl", and the oldest has been out on her own for just over a year (married, expecting a precious baby girl). Suddenly I have no children to be responsible for right this minute.

It feels kind of strange!

However other events in our lives are changing the finacial picture for us. Hubby is about to be laid off. I have only found part-time work and have no unemployment left. And now the Making Do slogan is a very real aspect of our budget. I have been stocking up a little at a time on canned goods, and boxed food (hamburger Helper, cake mix, pastas, etc). We do have a small freezer which already needs to be re-organized and a few "fishing" meals designed to get the oldest stuff out and used up. So, this week, as we clean our house without someone under foot moaning and groaning or refusing to help out, we will also be planning some major meals.

To that end I have just ordered Angelfood for February. We chose the $41 Bountiful Blessings Box and the $25 Sirloin Steak box. That, with the turkey we have frozen, 2 chickens, several bags of green beans, and atleast 3 bags of filling for fruit pies or cobbler, all mean we will not starve.

I have a sad event to share. The bread machine has died. It was located on the counter and I opened a cabinet door only to have a piece of corningware fall out and land on the glass viewing window of the breadmachine lid. I can report the corningwear came out much better from that tussle than the machine did. So now I am gathering recipes that do not require kneeding. Fortunately there are a lot of them out there. And we have all the bread making stuff, so we will have bread for sandwiches.

As I shared last time, I have been recovering from oral surgery. The good news is I am getting used to the plate. The bad news is that I still can't chew. So I anticipate a menu of very soft foods this month. With the exception of the steak. If its not soft and tender it will take spin in the blender!! This diet of mashed potatoes, eggs, ice cream, oatmeal, and yogurt really really needs something in it I can chew. I may puree my honeydew melon so I can eat it too!

So next post will list the meals (Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner). This should help me get back on track. Also its time to make laundry detergent. Mom and her friend want to learn how to do itt, so we are all going to meet at her house and I am going to teach them the "recipe".

I have also been considering making bar soap. I love lye soap. It sounds so harsh but its really not. Its a lot of work, but I feel like making soap and candles would probably good survival skills.

Its been a while...

2011-02-14T00:17:00.003-05:00

Oh there are many reasons I could give for not updating. Lets just stipulate that we all have life stuff happening and let it go :)

The end of February is beginning to tease a little spring like weather our way. I would be perfectly glad to have a few weeks of moderate temperatures and a little rain. Makes starting your garden much easier. This year I am moving to a completely backyard garden. Turns out travelling back and forth to the farm was not a realistic expectation. Now I am pondering what type of containers to use, and how easily they might be in the even that we have to move mid season.

Had some major dental work done a few days ago and am still sore and dealing with the on again off again pain. But I have been surfing around looking for new things to try to reduce the money out the door. I will up date this next week with more info.

Ordering day for AngelFood Ministries is approaching next weekend. Check out their site and consider ordering.

Its the End of Summer!

2010-09-22T13:07:00.004-04:00

How did it get here so quickly? Today is the last day of summer. The garden is bare, except for the potatoes which need to be dug. Most of the food is put up (still have pumpkins to can). Time just seems to fly.

Course the normal stuff is happening. School has started for the oldest married daughter. Youngest will be heading out soon to start her culinary career. Just like the turn of the seasons, the life cycle is moving right along. The married daughter will be having our first grandchild sometime in May. As my Aunt says, "Its a good thing she is a multi- tasker!" as she will be doing finals, presenting her Honor's Thesis, performing her Senior Recital, graduating from college and having a baby all in the same month! :)

We can't know yet if its a boy or a girl, but I am quilt planning like crazy for this little one. In the meantime, in the last month I have bound 2 quilts, a table runner, a wall hanging, and pieced the younger daughters new quilt. When I have nothing to bind I have been crocheting too. Its almost like the nesting instinct when you are about to go into labor, I just feel like I have to be creative non-stop. I am not sure where this is coming from. Previously I would have told you I hate piecing and binding, but now I am wishing for something to bind every evening. So I am getting out my Double Wedding Ring quilt, which my Mom made for me, and I am going to work on that. It should be good for a couple of weeks of binding as it has a scalloped edge. I have some Christmas stuff in the works too, so its a busy needlework time.

We have had such a nice month food-wise. With the double order of Angelfood last month we haven't hardly had to go to the grocery store except for milk and lettuce. This month we are doing the bigger box option and it will be nearly the same. I forsee purchasing some meat this time, because I am hungry for some things that usually don't appear in the menu. But still, we are keeping our grocery bill much lower than it was a year ago this time, and more than 50% lower than 2 years ago this time. So I feel like we are making progress.

Last weekend was the Daughters of The King women's retreat. We always hold it at the Cathedral Domain, a wonderful camp on the top of a mountain. Everything is so real there. The air is cleaner, the grass and trees are deep green, the food is amazing, and the company is comforting. Spending time occasionally with women who have true hearts for Jesus is like quenching a deep thirst. Very satisfying. I am trying to be a better daughter, following through on my commitment to a life of prayer and service, but I fall miserably short most of the time.

We ran out of dishwasher soap the other day. Fortunately I had found a recipe online for making your own at home! Its one tablespoon of Borax and one tablespoon of baking soda per load. You can also use white vinegar in the "jet dry" rinse container. Its amazing how well it works. I happened to have Borax because I make my own clothes washing detergent (which also works really well). So now I have a plastic container made up of just dishwasher soap. I am going to the Dollar Tree and get another set of measuring spoons so that the ones I cook with are not always needing to be washed because they are being used to measure detergent!

Labor Day

2010-09-06T19:27:00.003-04:00

Having a full freezer has been such a great thing :) I know I should be making a menu, but I have enough of just about everything to do me for the month, and I am enjoying saying....Hmmm I feel like having chicken/beef/pork tonight. Plus we are doing well with the balanced diet.

Due to my insomnia the doctor wants me to stop drinking caffeine. When he told me I just about cried. Literally. Though I cannot claim taste doesn't matter to me, primarily I drink caffeine for the "stay awake" effect, and to chase away the "lack of caffeine headache". So, I am trying to wean myself down from drinking too much of it. He, the doctor, tells me that anything consumed after noon is going to affect my sleep. That may be taking it a bit far, but I have moved more to water, and Crystal Light type stuff, the rare soda and less tea everyday. Those things, along with Ambien (pure golden stuff, IMHO) have let me get some rest. Its been wonderful.

Today I went out poking around the stores with my Mom. We live right here in the same town, and we don't see each other as often as we should. Even though I am 47 years old I think we are both still learning how to be Mother and Grown up Daughter :) We are doing well though.

Tonight we probably should be grilling out. Labor Day brings up those kind of thoughts huh? But I didn't want to clean the grill, and I was out and about so I didn't get the hamburger out early enough to thaw for tonight. So instead, using hamburger I already cooked and froze in portions, we are having sloppy joes, on Poor Man's Rolls , glazed carrots, roasted potatoes and seasoned broiled zucchini slices. Should be a yummy dinner, with plenty left over for lunch tomorrow. The bread machine is working away on a new loaf of bread even as I type.

Full Freezer

2010-08-30T12:30:00.002-04:00

Thanks to the Angel Food order the freezer is full. That is a good feeling. So, with plenty of food for the month its time for some pre-planning. Yesterday I baked 4 kinds of muffins (for breakfasts), the Amish Friendship Bread, and a loaf of sandwich bread. Because the bread machine doesn't make large loaves of bread I will have to bake a new loaf every 3 or 4 days.

Speaking of the baking of bread, I recently learned a bit of science behind the process. Check out the handout for bread. You may have to scroll down a bit. If I make whole wheat bread I will definitely follow her suggestions for dough enhancers. There is a LOT to learn about self-sufficiency and working in the kitchen from this website. Check it out!

I have a big bag of apples and I am going to attempt apple butter in the crock pot today. I just love apple butter, and I think that would be a great thing to have when the snow flies, I am going to get out a liner for the CP and see how it works. I will probably do that on Thursday as I will be doing some part time work Tuesday and Wednesday. I think I want something easy for dinner those two nights, possibly in the crock pot. Once I have a menu today I will update this post.

Angelfood for September

2010-08-24T16:58:00.003-04:00

There is a new offering from Angel Food Ministries in the month of September. Named the "Bountiful Blessing Box" it is 24 items for $41. This is an additional offering, not replacing the Signature Box which is 17-18 items for $31. I think this is going to be well worth the investment. There are 3 of us at home right now and I think we can eat diner for 14 days, plus lunch for Hubby for 8, just on the $41 box!

It includes:
28 oz. Fully Cooked Pot Roast (Pot Roast in Gravy with Red Wedge Potatoes, Carrots, Celery and Pearl Onions)
3 lbs. Family Tray Pack Split Chicken Breast
28 oz. Fully Cooked Broccoli, Rice and Chicken with Cheese Dinner Entree
8 ct. Bean and Cheese Burritos
1.5 lb. Hamburger Patties (4 x 6 oz)
1.5 lb. Center Cut boneless Pork chops (6x4 oz)
1.5 lb. Breaded Chicken Breast Nuggests
1 lb. Lean Ground Beef
1 lb. All Beef Sausage (liked smoked sausage)
1 lb. Crunchy Breaded Fish Wedges
1 lb. French Cut Green Beans
1 lb. Garden Pease
1 lb. Sliced Carrots
1 lb. Whole Kernel Corn
1 lb. Broccoli Florets
1 lb. Cauliflower Florets
24 oz. Natural Cut French Fries
1 lb. Pasta
25 oz. Pasta Sauce
6 oz. Corn Bread Stuffing Mix
5.5 Pancake Mix
32 oz. 2% Shelf Stable Milk
1 Dozen Eggs
6 ct. Fried Apple Pie Sticks

All this for $41! I will have to do some research to see if the Fruit and Veggie box is cost effective. The only item in the box I haven't ever purchased is the avocado, and we should try something new now and again. If the grocery store can't beat the price I will probably order that as well.

August 23-28

2010-08-22T19:56:00.003-04:00

Well, due to out of whack medication my organization has gone out the window this month. Its kept me either dragging my knuckles or super charged. When I drag I sleep, and when I'm charged up I clean. So far I have a clean kitchen and a mostly clean living room. We have company coming on Thursday, so I want it all cleaned up and presentable.

In the meantime we have to eat, so here's the menu:

Dinners:

Chicken and dumplings (includes peas and carrots)
Taco hamburger Helper, salad
Oven-fried pork chops, au gratin potatoes, broccoli
Chicken pot-pie
Steak, dill potato salad, corn on the cob
Pizza -homemade crust and sauce, salad
BBQ chicken pie with cornbread crust, green beans, pineapple crumble

Angel Food arrives on Saturday. We ordered 2 boxes so we will have an abundance of meat and frozen veggies.

Lunches will be:

Leftovers, Ramen, salad, tuna croquettes, pasta salad, and pb&j

Breakfast will be eggs, oatmeal, grits, waffles, or whatever we scrounge up

Menu 15 - 21

2010-08-13T23:31:00.002-04:00

Sunday August 15

Crockpot Chicken, Green beans, Yellow Squash and Onion Casserole

Monday August 16

We will be travelling during the day at lunch time, so this is an eating out day.
Dinner will be Pork Chops, Baked Potatoes, and Broccoli

Tuesday August 17

Left over Chicken, Dill Potato Salad, Corn on the Cob

Wednesday August 18

Steak, Rice with Peas and Carrots, Homemade Bread

Thursday August 19

Chef Salad for the Daughter
Hamburger Helper and Salad for Hubby and I

Friday August 20

Pizza night

Saturday August 21

Breakfast for Dinner: Pancakes, Eggs, Bacon, Fruit Salad

Tonight was Friday so it was pizza night. We ordered in though because I spent my day at the quilt shop. It was nice to be some place that was not home, and to do something creative for a change. Plus I needed to get my sewing machine looked at. It is old, but should hold up for a little longer. When its broken I may not have one for a while. In the meantime I am trying to finish up some of my UFO's.

Bread Baking

2010-08-12T16:48:00.003-04:00

I have a bread machine and that is the only way I bake bread. I would love to have a heavy duty mixer with bread paddles, and counter space to knead dough, but its just not happening in this place. I have to admit I am still trying to figure out how baking it at home is cheaper than buying it at the store (store brand is usually $1 a loaf). But it does taste better, and if I can find a decent sandwich bread then I will drag out the bread machine more often.

Today I am baking a "rebel" bread. I call it that because the instructions say to ignore the recommendations of your bread machine maker and add the ingredients in the order they are listed. GASP! Ignore the rules? Well, there is a little bit of rebel in all of us :) The recipe comes from Allrecipes.com and is named Best Bread machine Bread Recipe.

I'll post tomorrow and let you know if its going to be "the one".

Chicken Pot Pie - the easy way

2010-08-06T20:57:00.003-04:00

I just wanna say, dinner tonight was darn good. Yes, I fixed it, so I should have known it would be, but that is irrelevant. :0)

I pondered a few recipes today. Then I thought, surely there is something in the kitchen that I can throw together and make a meal. Yup. Last night I baked a bag of chicken tenders. Tonight I took 3 of those, and chopped them up very finely. Mixed with a well rinsed can of diced potatoes, frozen peas and carrots, dehydrated onion, a can of cream of celery soup and 1/4 cup of left over chicken gravy (from a mix), and topped with a bit of biscuit mix made a wonderful chicken pot pie.

Tomorrow is an experiment day. I am going to make Boston Baked Beans. I have never been a big fan of beans, and never made them from scratch. Fortunately dried beans are cheap so if they don't turn out to be our "cup of beans" then its not a financial crisis!

I am also going out and pick the few pumpkins that grew in the garden so they can be processed and canned. This fall we will have wonderful Caramel Pumpkin Pudding Cuupcakes ala Hungry Girl. They are wicked good, decadent, and fabulous warmed up for breakfast on a cold, snowy morning or with vanilla ice cream for a tasty dessert. Last year there was a pumpkin shortage, and some parts of the country had trouble getting it on the grocery shelves. I heard this was true, from Hungry Girl and on my next visit to the store I stocked up! Don't want to be without my pumpkin :0)

I am working on the menu for next week. Also we have coffee hour at church on Sunday. That means tomorrow I will be making coffee cake, fruit dip, and gathering/prepping apples. Might do one other thing, but not sure yet.

The garden, other than the pumpkins is pretty much done for the year. No beans, they just didnt grow. The corn was spotty, some of it apparently didn't get pollinated. The beets did pretty well. I may find a few more baseball bat sized zucchini, or a yellow squash here and there but that's all. Even the cucumbers were a disappointment this time. Thank goodness for the Farmer's Market and Angel Food!

Successful Pickles

2010-07-29T18:16:00.002-04:00

I decided I need to get the dill pickles canned but I didn't want to heat up the house with the hot water bath canner. My cousin suggested that I put it out on the grill. It was, I thought, the perfect solution!. So the water went into the pot and out to the grill. I really didn't think it would take that long to reach a boil, but I had not figured in a nice breeze. The water was on the grill for 2 hours and never really got to a boil, even with the burner set on high. But after an hour I decided I would put the jars in anyway, because otherwise they would cool off too much to be processed. So in they went. And hour later, still no boil, but it was VERY hot water. Finally I decided these would be the most expensive pickles in town, having been processed on a gas grill, so I took them out and set them on the counter to cool. Every single jar pinged and they are good to go :) Some are chips and some are slicers. These were made with actual cucumbers, but the zucchini chips will come about soon. The Cousin sent me this recipe, from the Ball Blue Book:

Zucchini Pickles
2 pounds of Zucchini, sliced (8 small) 2 cups sugar
1 sm-med onion sliced 2 t mustard seed
1/4 cup canning salt 1 t celery salt
1 t turmeric 3 cups vinegar

Combine zucchini and onion; sprinkle with with; add cold water to cover. Let stand 2 hours. Drain; rinse and drain thoroughly. Combine remaining ingredients in a large sauce pot. Bring to a boil. Pour vinegar mixture over zucchini and onion. Let stand 2 hours. Bring all ingredients to a boil; reduce heat and summer 5 minutes. Pack hot vegetables and liquid into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Remove air bubbles. Adjust 2-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling water canner.

She made a batch of these and thinks they are wonderful. The zucchini is abundant, cheaper than cucumbers, and I am also going to try it as bread and butter pickles -- some day :).

Yesterday I did a baking day. I made a loaf of Irish Soda Bread, a batch of homemade brownies, a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and blueberry muffins. The Soda Bread was very dense. I don't know if it is supposed to be or not. Still its good as long as you have it with something juicy (soup, stew, gravy). Half the brownies and half the cookies go to the freezer for later, and the others are for lunches. It's hard to cut the food bill if we are always buying snack stuff while we are out and about. And to be fair, if there is nothing planned for lunch, the the Hubby has to forage - either at the grocery store or at a fast food place. Both are direct hits on the reduced grocery budget.

Today I made some homemade soup for the Daughter. diced tomatoes, carrots, peas, mushrooms, onion, barley and a bit of broth. She had it with cheddar garlic biscuits that we really good. Also, spent a bit of time browsing at Hillbilly Housewife today. She has a new budget menu up for $75. I think its supposed to feed 4 or 5. It is a little heavy on the fried food side, but similar to what we grew up with (I remember my mother saving the bacon grease to use to pop popcorn in, or fry cornbread).

Zucchini Recipes

2010-07-26T13:17:00.004-04:00

Because the most prolific produce in our garden is the zucchini, I have been collecting recipes for this veggie from all over the net. I want them in one place so I am not constantly looking for that special one I saw but failed to copy. All links will take you to the site where the recipe is located, so you can also check out the other recipes and articles there. I have found a wealth of information at these sites, so they are worth spending a few minutes poking around!

White Zucchini Cake with Broiled Frosting

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

No Fail Zucchini Bread

Veggie Minestrone (You'll have to scroll down a bit for this one)

Zucchini Brownies

Zucchini Apple Pie

I will update as I find new recipes.

Freezer Count

2010-07-26T13:12:00.005-04:00

So far in the freezer:

1 quart of Blackberries
1 quart of Blueberries
4 quarts of Strawberries
4 quarts of Peaches
3 2.5 cup containers of beets
8 2 cup bags of shredded zucchini
3 2.5 containers of Peaches and Cream corn
2 2.5 cup containers of salsa - added August 2, 2010

Dehydrated:
3lbs of carrots
2 lobs of mushrooms (marked down to $1.99) added August 2, 2010

Also:
8 pint jars of Plum jam
7 jars of Dill Pickles

I will update this as things go in, then I will have a list of everything that's been put up so I can put it on the fridge and mark things off!

Regaining Equalibrium

2010-07-26T12:45:00.002-04:00

This past week was a very difficult one for our family. The details are not for public consumption, but lets just say menu planning was completely NOT on my radar at all! So, just like every Monday, we begin again. As a reminder (for me and anyone else who happens to be following along), here is the basic plan:

Sunday BBQ/Grill
Monday Salad night
Tuesday Crockpot
Wednesday Church (make something to take for the meal)
Thursday Casserole
Friday Pizza
Saturday Baking Day and Leftovers Day.

Sunday: We had Baked Parmesan and Rice Krispie encrusted Tilapia with baked sweet potatoes, mixed steamed veggies, and sliced home grown tomatoes. Okay, *I* didn't eat the tomatoes, but the Daughter and Hubby did. Since the Daughter is now sticking to her vegetarian adventure I have been working hard to figure out how to feed us. It used to be I could throw a little bit of a lot of things together, call it a casserole, and everyone ate. Now I can't do that because we are eating meat and she doesn't want to. It makes meal planning much more challenging because I have to keep the meat apart from the rest of the meal.

Monday: We can't do salad tonight because this week we have a meeting to attend at dinner time. We will be in transit, so its sandwiches while we are on the move.

Tuesday: Even though today is Monday, I am loading up the Crock Pot with beef roast, potatoes and carrots. It will be ready to eat when Tuesday rolls around and will let Hubby have some of it for his lunch. Daughter will have mac and cheese (leftovers for lunch later in the week)with frozen veggies cooked with the pasta.

Wednesday: Church

Thursday: Casserole - Chicken, rice, mixed veggies, and cream of chicken soup. Served with fresh salad, tomatoes, and Poor Man's Rolls Daughter will have fish nuggets with her salad.

Friday: Pizza night! This will be my first attempt at homemade pizza - no Chef Boy-ar-Dee kit this time. We will see how it goes :) Of course, part of the pizza will be just veggies, but Hubby and I will have turkey pepperoni on ours.

Saturday: Will be bread making day, and I want to try some muffins for breakfasts. This is farmer's market day so there will be veggies to buy and put up. Most notably, corn (which didn't do so well in our garden) and green beans (if I can find blue lakes). I also need to put some apples up because I have a bunch of "simple syrup" to use. (The recipe was supposed to say 2 cups sugar/1 cup water but it was backwards and doubled... so I have all this sugar water left over to use up.)

Thursday Musings

2010-07-15T23:15:00.005-04:00

Well, I was in the garden yesterday. Brought home a few cucumbers and a couple of zucchini. There is very little in the world better tasting than a fresh cucumber. Its just one of life's little pleasures.

Today was casserole day. I cut up a chicken breast and cooked it with dehydrated potato slices, a can of cream of mushroom soup and a soup can of water. It made a nice thick gravy to serve over biscuits. A mix of broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots helped round out the meal. Dessert, something we don't do all that much, was low fat brownie bites with SF chocolate pudding and FF cool whip. I am getting better with serving sizes because there should be 4 servings of pudding, and there was one left for Hubby to take for part of his lunch tomorrow.

Tomorrow is pizza day and I have no pizza making stuff. Instead I think we will have oven baked tilapia crusted with rice krispies,

I spent my day deep in laundry. I have nearly found both the floor of my kitchen and the floor of my laundry room again. It just builds up so fast. I have eliminated a few things along the way (unrepairable, irreparably stained, or no long fitting a body at our house), which is also a good thing. I am starting to think in terms of yard sale items as well. There's a lot of junk here that could live somewhere else and not truly be missed.

DOK Installation

2010-07-11T13:54:00.003-04:00

I am happy to report that the Installation service went very well today. It was a beautiful and moving thing to stand with my sisters in Christ and add to our numbers. Horton did a good job with a difficult task. Its not easy to stand in front of your friends and tell them personal and intimate things. She managed gracefully, with sincerity and laughter. Sally's music was, as always, beautiful. Ann and I read the Old and New Testament readings, and Cindy did all her priestly things, including the blessing of the new members crosses. I don't know that I have the right words to express how I felt at the altar. There is something so fulfilling about sharing the love of Christ.

Our reception afterward was a hit. We had berry trifle, brownies, french toast, grenadine sandwiches, tomato and cucumber salad, and cordon bleu crustini. I was pleased to see the crustini and the salad were well received. I believe they will be permanent additions to my recipe book.

Baking Day

2010-07-10T14:28:00.003-04:00

Last night we had spiral pasta with pizza sauce, turkey pepperoni, mushrooms, and a little diced ham. Sprinkled a little Parmesan on top and it was good. I had 1/2 a box of whole wheat/high fiber pasta, and a box of tri-colored which I mixed up. I put some aside for pasta salad today, and served the Daughter's first without the meat. The high fiber pasta was the trick because for the first time in ages no one asked for seconds, or went foraging in the kitchen later in the evening! It was filling, and okay on the taste front. All in all, I would rather have some pizza.

Today is my first designated Baking Day. I am trying to decide what to do. I would like to put several things in the oven at once and get the best use of the oven heat. I think there will be brownies or oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin muffins, and perhaps some bread in the bread machine. I will freeze half of the goodies, so we have them later. I found out that the zucchini bread will definitely go bad if you don't keep it refrigerated! So maybe I will do a batch of that as well and freeze it.

Next week I will plan better. It kind of snuck up on me, this being the first week. I planned to go shopping for table decorations for my in-law's 50th wedding anniversary party but the Daughter woke up sick. I think its a UT infection. So she is guzzling cranberry juice and lemon lime soda, and I am doing laundry and working in the kitchen.

I am also dehydrating today. I have chives to dry and I think I will do some diced carrots too. That will be handy this winter for soup, and I have a bag of carrots just sitting there wishing someone would use them. Because of dental issues no one here can eat raw carrots unless they are grated up, and I am just not up to another grating day quite yet.

I will head to the garden tonight when Hubby gets home to check on the produce. I hope to find enough cucumbers and tomatoes to do the Tomato and Cucumber Salad for church tomorrow. My Cousin is talking about making pickles out of zucchini, which sounds like a plan to me because we have plenty of those!!

Of Peaches and Syrup

2010-07-09T19:21:00.002-04:00

I am not sure my peaches turned out the way I intended. I was trying to make a light syrup, which I thought meant it would be slightly thick. Not so much. So, I added more sugar, and though the recipe said to stir until it dissolves, and then take it off the heat, I also added 1/2 a bag of light brown sugar, and let it boil a while. Finally I gave up on thick and put the peaches in freezer bags with some of the syrup and got them into the freezer. I have a quart and a half of the syrup left! Its going into the freezer and I will use it over some other fruit. Maybe for apple pie?

Today its been peaches and laundry. Mac and cheese for lunch, but we had eggs and toast (plus bacon for me), for breakfast. Its pizza night but I don't have a Chef Boy-ar-Dee mix so I think we will do something else.

I have decided to try something with my menu planning. Now I have assigned each day a certain type of meal.
Sunday BBQ/Grill
Monday Salad night
Tuesday Crockpot
Wednesday Church (make something to take for the meal)
Thursday Casserole
Friday Pizza
Saturday Baking Day and Leftovers Day.

I think this will make things a little easier. Time will tell.

The Farmers Market

2010-07-07T08:10:00.001-04:00

Its a beautiful thing. Even early in the season, all those lovely vegetables and fruits, lined up waiting to go home with someone. I got Yellow squash 3 for a $1, cucumbers 3 for a $1, 5 lbs of little red potatoes for $4, 4 onions for $1, a gorgeous cabbage the size of a bowling ball for $2, and 14 ears of peaches and cream corn for $4. We will eat like kings this week!

The other great find of the week was at Kroger. They had grain fed sirloin beef roasts for $1.99 a lb!! For $20 I got 9 nice big steaks and a good 1 1/2 lbs to cut up as stew meat. That is cheaper than Angel Food (per pound) and with the Daughter not eating meat, those 9 steaks will feed the Hubby and I 9 meals with no problem.

So, now its time to put the food away!

UPDATE: Okay...I have 1/2 the cabbage shredded, with carrots and onion and the slaw dressing is cooling on the stove. I have 6 bags of shredded zucchini (2 cups each, pre-measured for bread). Honestly, this is my first foray into zucchini bread, but I am thinking I can flavor it any way I want (chocolate chips, peanut butter, fruit, etc). That should make good muffins in the fall too. Once I get the slaw put up I will start on the peaches. They are a little more time intensive since they have to be blanched, peeled and pitted, cut up, and the syrup has to be made. I may run out of freezer bags and containers.

So today looks like a productive day. Its just about 11 am and I have accomplished a lot. Still need to water the garden, later when it cools down, get the chives and carrots into the dehydrator. Then I am going to take a nap before church.

2ND UPDATE: Shew! The coleslaw is all in the freezer. I made 2 batches, because the head of cabbage was so large. Even so, with a huge cabbage, l lbs of carrots, and 2 medium onions, I have 6 24 oz. containers of freezer slaw. Still have not tackled the peaches or the corn...but I am wearing out! They might have to wait for tomorrow.

I have no idea why the time stamp is not coming up correctly. I am in Eastern time and I just posted at 2:37 PM EST. Strange.

Productive Weekend

2010-07-06T23:49:00.001-04:00

Well, lets see. I have frozen 3 pints of beets, 4 quarts of strawberries, and now I have peaches to put up, zucchini to shred and freeze for bread and soup later and freezer slaw to make. Not bad huh? I will probably make more zucchini bread. The first batch was good, but I ran out of brown sugar and I believe it needs what is actually called for. The recipe can be found here.

The freezer slaw, a wonderful recipe, was posted by a fellow quilter named Andi on the MQResource website.

Here's a good recipe if you have some fresh cabbage you would like to save for another day:

1 med. head cabbage, shredded
1 carrot, grated
1 green pepper, chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tsp salt

Toss together, let stand one hour

2 cups sugar
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp mustard seed
1 cup vinegar
1/4 cup water

Combine in saucepan. Boil one minute. Cool until lukewarm. Pour over cabbage mixture, stir until combined. Freeze in covered container. Thaw about 45 minutes before serving.

I can vouch for it -- its yummy! I don't put the green peppers in because I don't like them, but feel free if they are your thing :)

Sunday we are having a reception after church to welcome our new members of The Daughters of The King. I am going to take a couple of different things: Zucchini bread with flavored spread (not sure yet which flavor but probably a cream cheese thing), Cordon Blue Crustini, and a cold tomato and cucumber balsamic salad. I think that will be good food to celebrate adding sisters to our membership!

I worked in the garden this evening. Becca and I have found a way to separate the green beans from the Johnson Grass... the bane of my gardening existence! There were even a few beans on Mom's half runners! We pulled a few more beets for Becca to take home, and several zucchini for me to shred up for the freezer. We have lots of green tomatoes, and several miniature cucumbers on the vines. Oh, there are a few pumpkins too. I look forward to those. I want to can them up the winter. the potato vines died away but we do have some small red potatoes. Hopefully they will rest easy until we are ready to take them out of the ground.

I also hit a sale at the JC Penny outlet and for $5.50 I got 2 dress shirts and 2 pairs of pants for the hubby, a pair of jeans for the youngest daughter and a pair of khakis for the oldest daughter! Pretty sweet! We (Mom and I) also found 4 pair of twill pants for my brother so he has some nice work clothes also. Gotta love a bargain!

Tomorrow is up early, hit the farmers market before hubby heads out to work, shred and preserve all day along with laundry and planting a few blue lakes in the garden up here. I hope that they will take. We should have enough time for them to grow before the season ends.

Ta-ta for now!

Rotating Taste Buds

2010-07-01T21:48:00.000-04:00

I have heard that your taste buds completely "rotate" out every 7 years. This is why your parents tell you that you will like something better when you grow up -- you might indeed! This explains why I like squash now, tomato sauce stuff hardly at all, and onions are now friends. It also explains strawberries. I just sugared and Fruit Fresh'ed 2 1/2 containers of fresh strawberries... and man are they yummy!. They went into the freezer, along with 2 pints of blueberries. They will be wonderful when the snow flies. If I find more on sale I will put them up too. Now that we have the small chest freezer I can do that :)

Checking in

2010-07-01T17:39:00.000-04:00

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.

2010-06-26T10:24:00.000-04:00

The Angelfood has arrived. I bought 2 regular boxes and one grill box. Total cost was $84.00 and it included:

2 dozen eggs
2 large bags of chicken breasts
2 lbs of breaded fish nuggets
2 lbs of lean ground beef
12 rib-eye steaks
4 pork chops
4 turkey medalions wrapped in bacon
2 frozen mac and beef entrees
2 lbs of frozen mashed potatoes
2 bags of frozen vegetables with peppers
2 lbs of chicken fajita strips
2 boxes of smoked sausage
6 lbs of Idaho potatoes
2 cans of spaghetti sauce
2 lbs of spaghetti
2 lbs of rice
2 quarts of shelf stable milk
8 honey buns

Not too shabby I think :). I had to send some of it home with Mom to tuck away in her freezer because mine is now full. Since the daughter is not eating meat now, I think that we will not have to purchase meat for the whole month of July! There will be a few trips to the farmers market for fresh fruit and veggies though. At least until the garden starts producing.

Now for a menu. I have discovered that I don't like being told (even by myself) what I have to eat on a given day. Maybe its the rebel in me, but some days I just don't feel like eating whats on the menu. So, since I have to eat what I have, eventually all the planned meals will get eaten. I am just going to do a list of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners... and except for Friday night, which is ALWAYS pizza night if I can manage it, we will pick and choose as our tastes dictate.

Breakfasts:

oatmeal
toast
grits
eggs and bacon
sausage biscuits (we have these frozen from the previous shopping trip) - primarily for the Hubby to eat on his way to work.
pancakes
cereal and milk

Lunches:
Sandwiches (lunch meat, cheese)
vegetable soup
grilled cheese
salad
fish nuggets (for the daughter)
carrot and celery sticks with dip
stuffed peppers for hubby
Pasta salad - veggies, hard boiled eggs, whole wheat pasta, Italian dressing, Parmesan cheese
Hamburger mac entree (for Hubby's lunch)

Dinner:
baked chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, baked apples
Pork chops, rice, broccoli
baked potatoes - sour cream, shredded cheese, chives, fajita chicken
pizza - turkey pepperoni, mushrooms, onion
BBQ chicken, roasted potatoes, salad
burgers, oven fries, stir fried veggies (zucchini, yellow squash, carrots)
steak, baked potatoes, broccoli/cauliflower mix

I have low fat brownie mix and a couple cake mixes if we want dessert. Also a great recipe for Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies.

I have made one attempt at cleaning out the fridge. It went well but I didn't really have time to wash out the drawers, etc. I need to do that so the produce stays nice. Also I bought some "forever bags". These are bags that do not trap the gasses that veggies, bread, meat and fruit let off as they age. If they are not sitting in these gasses they stay fresh longer. I usually have to pay through the nose for them, but I found a great deal at Big Lots (25 bags for $3!!). So, I am hoping that the food will last longer. That means fewer trips to the grocery and frankly less opportunity to blow the budget :)

Its been a while, huh?

2010-06-25T16:37:00.000-04:00

Well, I was working, we had family visiting, and nothing was normal here for about 2 months. The youngest child had prom, graduated from high school, the oldest moved to a new place, and my brother's family came from Alaska to visit. This means that all the cousins showed up too, and we had a wonderful time. There was a lot of BBQ, and sweet tea made, and many meals of "bring what you've got, and we'll put it with what I've got", LOL. I am so glad they came.

My temp job has hit a wall and there is no work. Now the Congress is fighting unemployment extensions (which they should, fiscally its a bad move) so I am a little freaked out about how we will pay our bills when that is no longer available. I am reduced to 'work at home" schemes, mystery shopper jobs, and whatnot. After 18 months I cant even get a job interview, let alone become gainfully employed again. And heaven help us when the folks in the Gulf have to start applying for benefits because they will need them for a LOT longer than I have at this point. Their way of life is just destroyed.

In this midst of all this, we are raising the monster garden from Hades. Its huge. Its so much work, and the heat and humidity have been so oppressive that I can't hardly breathe when I go out there. Becca has been up a few times to stay and since she is right there she can get out in the early morning and late evening and weed. I am always waiting on a car to come home, or the rain to stop, ... its just been very frustrating. And we are not yet to the never ending harvest part. I know its coming, and I know that its beneficial to us to harvest everything we can get our hands on. Still, other than the fact that we will be able to visit while we pick, shuck, cut, can, bag, etc, I am not looking forward to it. I am, I guess, basically lazy. However, what does the Bible say? Neither does a man work, nor shall he eat... or something like that. So...

Saturday is Angelfood day. I have forgotten at this point what we are getting! Its been that kind of crazy time here. However, I am making a grocery list of staples, preparing to make bread again to get us through, and buying up dry milk so we can still cook even if we don't like it to drink. I know we are getting 2 regular boxes and 1 grill box. So we should be good for meat for a while. Plus I have 5 lbs of hamburger frozen at Mom's just waiting to come home and be made into something. The youngest has decided she wants to be a vegetarian, naturally since I have all this meat, so I am trying to accommodate her by cooking more veggies, and making things that don't necessarily include meat. I have been cruising recipes that are specifically vegetarian, thinking we could use them as side dishes while she uses them as main course items.

**** Brief Pause****

Just got back from a run to my brother's apartments. We had to put an AC unit in the 3rd floor apartment. I can't tell you how proud I am of what he has done with that place. He's a good landlord, takes care of things in a timely manner, and has really made apartments homes for those who rent there. Its amazing what he has accomplished.

Anyway, last night we did the "foil package" thing. Salmon brushed with Dijon mustard, zucchini/potatoes/Vidalia onions with seasoning sprinkled on and a small dollop of margarine, and saffron rice. It was pretty good stuff. Surprised me, I will admit. I don't know why the daughter will eat fish and not consider it meat, but anything that gives us protein and still meets her criteria is good with me. Guess we will be eating more seafood (just when it goes sky high because of the mess in the Gulf huh?).

So tomorrow I will have the Angelfood here and put away and I can work on some menus. Will post again soon ;)

Menu and Grocery list

2010-05-23T19:03:00.000-04:00

A trip to Walmart later I am reminded that A) for the things I buy I can shop cheaper at Kroger, and B) you should always shop alone -- other people expand the list LOL!.

I knew this, but... sometimes you gotta go with the flow. So here's the menu:

All Week:
Breakfast: Cereal and Milk
Lunches: sandwiches, salad, fruit... or leftovers

Monday, May 24, 2010
Dinner: Cream Cheese Crockpot Chicken

Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Dinner: Casserole [cooked, chopped chicken, water chestnuts, mixed veggies and left over squash casserole (made with stuffing mix)], chicken gravy, green beans

TO DO: Marinate cornish hens and move to fridge for Thursday. Bake pineapple upside down cake for Wed. night.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Dinner: Church... take pineapple upside down cake.

Thursday, May 27, 2010
Dinner: Grilled cornish hens, veggie skewers on the grill, saffron rice.

Friday, May 28, 2010
Dinner: Baked Pizza Pasta ( rotini, sausage cooked and crumbled, mushrooms, pizza sauce, cheese), broccoli, brownies.

Saturday, May 29, 2010
Lunch: Orange scented Carrot Soup, Popovers
Dinner: Burgers on the grill, Grilled Corn, oven fries.

Shopping Trip:

Toilet Paper $6.18
Mixed Veggies $1.00
Broccoli $1.00 x2
Carrots $0.98
Cream Cheese $1.62
Mushrooms $2.98
Zucchini $1.02
1 Orange $0.64
Corn on Cob(3) $0.57
Lettuce $0.94
Water Chestnuts $0.94
Vidallia Onions $3.09 --- Yes that's expensive, but worth ever morsel :)
Ckn Noodle soup $0.98 x2
Tomato soup $0.48 x2
Cr. of Ckn soup $0.78 x2
Ckn Broth $0.48 x 3
Pineapple rings $0.98
Ckn Breast $6.48
Milk gallon $2.48
Cake mix $0.98 x 2
cake mix $1.16
Sour Cream $1.14
madarin oranges $0.82
Trop. fruit salad $0.98 x2
Ajax dish soap $0.97
trash bags $2.47
Coke $0.99 x5
Dr. Thunder $0.66 x2
magazine $4.49
nail polish $2.00
------------------------------
total: $67.53

So, yes, we spent more than I intended. No, we didnt buy much in the way of meat, just chicken. But we have hamburger here already. Yes we bought mostly name brand pop, but it was on sale so it was worth it. And it will go to work with us this week so there wont be so much vending machine purchases.

Tonight we have hamburger helper, some broccoli, and whatever else i can scrounge up on commercials. Cause lets face it... tonight its all about LOST!!!!

May 23 - Catching up

2010-05-23T17:04:00.000-04:00

Going back to work completely shot all my good intentions about menu planning. We have been in the midst of "catch as catch can" for several weeks now. I even got busy and failed to order Angelfood! Now I have to be really careful, as I don't have all that cheap food to count on.

What I do have is a good deal of rice, enough potatoes for several meals, 3 or 4 boxes of pasta, a couple of cake mixes, and a few "add meat" meal helpers. So we will not go hungry, even though I can't spend much at the store.

We are making a grocery trip so there is a list in the making. When I get back I will tally the total up and get a menu on the screen. Definitely time to start using the crock pot. Not just for convenience but because the weather is warming up. I love to grill out and slow-cook when its hot.

Back in a bit with more info!

Menu May 2-8

2010-05-01T21:33:00.001-04:00

Okay, as promised here is the new menu:

Monday May 2
Breakfast: crock pot breakfast casserole
Lunch: Salisbury Steak (AF) and mashed potatoes with peas for Hubby and Daughter; Salad for me
Dinner: Broccoli cheese soup (made using the shelf stable milk from AF), ham and cheese muffins

Tuesday May 3
Breakfast: crock pot breakfast casserole
Lunch: Sandwiches and left over soup
Dinner: Pineapple chicken in the crock pot with rice and broccoli

Wednesday May 4
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Lunch: Salisbury Steak and mashed potatoes with peas for Hubby and Daughter; Salad for me
Dinner: Church

Thursday May 5
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Lunch: Sandwiches, cupcakes, fruit
Dinner: Maple Dijon Chicken with sweet potatoes and green beans

Friday May 6
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Lunch: Sandwiches, cupcakes, fruit
Dinner: Pizza

Saturday May 7
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Lunch: Crock pot fried rice
Dinner: Burgers, grilled, oven fried potatoes, slaw

Sunday May 8
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Lunch: Pork Chops, pasta salad, melon

Not sure about the following week. I am going to start using the crock pot more though. Not only will it save on heat in the kitchen but man I am whooped when I get home and I don't wanna mess with cooking!

I have been perusing the recipes at A Year of Slow Cooking for ideas. She's got some interesting stuff there, including things like how to make Rice Krispie treats in the crock pot!! I guess you just never know until you try right?

May 1- Derby Day

2010-04-30T23:26:00.000-04:00

Though it has never happened before, its possible that the Derby will be rained out tomorrow. We are supposed to get a big soaking rain which may make the race impossible. Already there have been tornadoes in Arkansas and Missouri (I think). Flood warnings are out for Sunday afternoon through Monday morning.

Though I would love to go to the Derby Party at my church friends home, tomorrow is my only weekend day to do laundry and clean house. Not that these are my preferred activities! This week of getting up early and working all day has been a real trial for my body. I'm just so out of practice that having a job to go to has really kicked my.... but today is Friday, and I am still awake at 11:30 pm. So I must be adjusting.

Because I have come home every day and gone to bed, there has been little in the way of menu discipline. However that is over. Tomorrow I will make up a practical menu, including all the breakfasts and lunches because we cant spend our money on fast food. Its a bit of a challenge for me as I frequently am on the road at lunch time and cant really juggle a salad or a cup of soup and the steering wheel. Yet I am not at all okay with a sandwich every single day! We will see how that gets resolved.

With the big rain coming again (it rained Monday through Wednesday constantly, and dried out a bit over yesterday and today) and flood warnings for Sunday through Monday I am wondering if our garden will get washed out. I sure hope not. It was a lot of work (specially for Becca). We do have all the seed we need except for corn, and we would have to buy the tomatoes all over again.

Today we had a case where part of the proceedings were sealed. It was very interesting to see how the law works when the public is not in the room. Fascinating. Every day is something a little different, which I really like. Also I may be able to stay in town on Monday and type, which I also really like. Travel all the time is tiring.

More to come tomorrow... during a break from Cleaning and Laundry!

Of Jobs and Courts

2010-04-26T21:13:00.001-04:00

Well I had my trial run today as a court reporter. Its going to be very interesting. I go out again tomorrow, this time alone, and I am looking forward to it. It does make a change in my plans though. Now I have to specify what I am having for lunch cause I might have to take it with me. Tonight I am fixing beefy mac stuff for the Hubby and Daughter to take this week as lunch. I will make a ham sandwich for me, and while their beefy mac is cooking I will bake some cookies (pre-made Angel Food item). That will make a nice break. And I believe I will do some breakfast casserole in the crock pot so we can all have something warm in the morning. This spring rain is very chilly. It will be interesting as we have no cheese in the house. Improvisation will be the key :)

As this was my first day of work, the Hubby, who was off today after working 10 hours of OT yesterday, fixed dinner. We were off the menu but it was so nice to have someone else do it I don't mind. Apparently the breaded chicken tenders were not of sufficient quality for AF to send them out. They substituted 2 lbs of fajita chicken. Hubby used half of it in some Asian Fried Rice Chicken Helper. Should be an interesting fusion of East and South West.

The rain is supposed to continue tomorrow and Wednesday, then kick in again over the weekend. I hope we don't have a lot of weeds in the garden, as it will be muddy. The tractor turned the ground so very well that it will be ankle deep mud I am afraid. Here at the house we have some large interesting mushrooms growing around the square foot garden! The cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower are looking good though. Perhaps at some point I can post pictures.

Planting, chapter 1

2010-04-21T23:50:00.000-04:00

We got a lot done today. We planted 9 rows of corn, 3 rows of beans, a row of tomatoes, a cantaloupe and 3 rows of white potatoes. We still have herbs, mustard and kale, zucchini and yellow squash, 2 kinds of pumpkins, and a mess of lavender to get into the ground. Once some of the plants come up we can put in the posts and string up the supports for the beans and tomatoes. This is of paramount importance to me because I just am not good at crawling around on the ground hunting for beans! Last year we had a LOT of rain, and the tomatoes suffered from blight. I am hoping having them up off the ground will allow them to dry out properly between rains and we can get some fruit. Lord knows that if we can get it all to harvest its going to be a major undertaking to get it all put up. I think I will start buying more jars every payday so I am ready for processing.

I came home, took a shower and a nap and have decided the garden hating has not yet begun. Maybe in a few weeks... LOL. We are going to lay cardboard between the rows once the plants come up so we can help keep the weeds down. We had a nice visit today with my uncle, mom, and Linda (a friend that Becca introduced us to).

The Hubby had to pull up the blog and check the menu to fix some dinner tonight. I am so grateful he was willing to do it because I was flat worn out. After my nap I have about enough energy to post and clear the email, then I am headed back to bed!

Of Gardens and Menus

2010-04-20T21:10:00.000-04:00

Spent the day walking and planning the garden with my cousin Becca. Tomorrow we do a quick trip to Lowe's for a few last minute things, and start planting. Its an ambitious undertaking, and will quickly become something I dread doing. I hate the doing and the putting up, but I love the food when the snow is flying and the smaller grocery bill when I don't have to add all those canned or frozen veggies to the cart. I expect tomorrow night I will be exhausted!

At the moment we are planning:
Corn, 3 types of green beans, 2 types of tomatoes, red and white potatoes, pumpkins, watermelon, honeydew, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, onions, carrots and beets. Becca is planting greens (mustard, kale, etc) and we are going to plant some herbs out there also. In the back yard here the cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower are coming right along, and the onions are looking good. I expect to have to purchase a flat of jars every pay day between now and harvest to put it all up, because the only think I prefer frozen is corn.

Here is the menu for the next week:

Tuesday April 20
Breakfast: cereal and milk
Lunch: Michaelina for the Hubby, school lunch for the Daughter, and salad for me
Dinner: Chicken and Cheese Biscuits, Chicken Gravy, steamed cauliflower, green beans

Wednesday April 21
Breakfast: cereal and milk
Lunch: Michaelinas for the Hubby, PB&J sandwich/fruit for the Daughter, hamburger/potato salad for me (grilling out with family)
Dinner: Hamburger Helper, green peas for Hubby and Daughter, salad for me

Thursday April 22
Breakfast: egg/hashbrowns/sausage torte
Lunch: Michaelinas for Hubby, chicken salad lettuce wraps for Daughter, Salad for me
Dinner: BBQ pork (AF), boiled/buttered potatoes, broccoli

Friday April 23
Breakfast: leftover torte
Lunch: Lunchmeat sandwiches, pudding, fruit for Hubby and Daughter, leftovers for me
Dinner: Pizza (mushrooms, sausage, pepperoni) before the oldest daughter's opera performance

Saturday April 24
Breakfast: oatmeal w/apples and brown sugar
Lunch: Breaded chicken tenders, oven fries
Dinner: Breakfast for dinner (biscuits, scrambled eggs, bacon)

Sunday April 25
Breakfast:
Lunch/dinner: Grilled cornish hens, saffron rice, something green (LOL)
Snack: Popcorn for movie night

Monday April 26
Breakfast: Muffins
Lunch: Sandwiches, Carrot sticks, pudding
Dinner: Pork chops (grilled/bbq), buttered boiled potatoes, green beans

Tuesday April 27
Breakfast: oatmeal
Lunch: Michaelinas for hubby, salad for daughter, chicken pot pie for me
Dinner: Chicken soup (homemade crockpot- carrots, peas, potatoes, celery, onion, mushrooms), poor mans biscuits

4/19 Surprise Surprise!!

2010-04-19T15:18:00.000-04:00

Well with spring comes the need to garner some semblance of control over ones life. Happens every year. I think, well its time to start walking and eating a more healthy diet. Its time to get back on track with the finances. Its time to rebuild the emergency fund, organize the sewing room, clean up the yard. Every year I say it, sometimes I even attempt it, and every year I have let it go by the wayside. This year is different.

This year I asked The Hubby to get involved. We have a Wii, so we have agreed to use it every day and/or walk the neighborhood. This, plus the garden several days a week should help me get some much needed exercise and sunshine. I just feel dull and uninspired and I am over it. So its time to start looking at how to change it.

So I got on the Wii and much to my surprise, I have lost 5 lbs this month!!! I was sure that would not be the case! So... a little drop in the ol' BMI is good for the motivation.

We also have an annual tradition. Every year on Memorial Day weekend we have a BBQ. It happens to coincide with the youngest daughters birthday(and this year also graduation), and recently my niece and nephew from Alaska have been in the state during this time. As a result there is a major house cleaning effort to get ready for the party. Today we decided that we also want to have a big yard sale and get rid of a bunch of stuff that really needs to go out of our home. So... to further both events we are going to take a week for each room, clean, sort, determine what stays and what goes. This will let us get everything cleaned up and be ready for the yard sale (which will definitely happen AFTER the party).

I found my Weight Watchers books again. While I am not going to try to go all out with the program, there are some good recipes out there. Also there is an explanation of what a real serving looks like in the books, and we are going to start using that. Its a new dimension to menu planning, whoopee! (Yes that was a bit "snarky". This menu planning is really taking over my life some days.)

We did order Angel Food again this month. Pick up day is on Saturday. So we need to get some of the frozen stuff out of the freezer.

Updates:
Wii--30 minutes

Oops! Just realized its time to do another week of menus! Well I will try to get to that tonight, in the meantime dinner is Chicken Fried Rice (Banquet everything in a box for $3), fortified with some kind of additional frozen veggies. We have white cupcakes left for dessert with sliced strawberries and fat free cool whip. Should be good.

Thoughts on Lemonade Chicken

2010-04-17T19:34:00.001-04:00

Turns out that I don't really like Lemonade Chicken! It sounded so good in the recipe but it smelled like Swiss steak while cooking and that little dab of ketchup really took over in the flavor profile. Even some strong sweet and sour sauce didn't really save the day for me. The daughter and hubby ate it without complaint though, so it just might be my dislike of tomato that is the issue.

Was a pretty day, but we have a frost advisory tonight so the garden must be covered up.

April 15th

2010-04-15T13:54:00.001-04:00

Today is my birthday! Gonna have a good time...

Well ok, so the song doesn't translate well to written word, LOL! Really, the weather is beautiful, there is a Tea Party event in Lexington this evening I will be attending (who knew I would love being politically active?), and even though it is tax day I just don't mind so much.

Its also new menu time, so here we go:

Wednesday, April 14 (yeah it was last night but I didnt get this posted in time)
Dinner was: grilled steak, potato salad, steamed broccoli and corn on the cob

Thursday April 15th

Breakfast: cold cereal and milk
Lunch: the daughter got it from the cafeteria, the hubby had Michaelinas, I had a sandwich
Dinner: marinated and grilled chicken, saffron rice, green peas

Friday April 16th
Breakfast: cold cereal and milk
Lunch: fruit salad, sandwiches, chips
Dinner: pizza with sausage, turkey pepperoni, onion and mushrooms with salad

Saturday April 17th
Breakfast: cereal and milk, Orange Julius
Lunch: Yakisobi mac and cheese with peas and carrots and ham added
Dinner: Lemonade Chicken (recipe below), rice, green beans

Sunday April 18
Breakfast: at church
Lunch/Dinner: pot roast (beef, carrots, potatoes, onions) cornbread, broccoli
Snack: popcorn

Not quite a full week, but thats as far as I have planned at the moment. I will add more as I get there :)

Lemonade Chicken

(recipe from Allrecipes.com_

Ingredients

6 (4 ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
3/4 cup lemonade concentrate
3 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons cold water

Directions

Place chicken in a 5-qt. slow cooker. Combine the lemonade, ketchup, brown sugar and vinegar; pour over chicken. Cover and cook on low for 2-1/2 hours or until chicken juices run clear.
Remove chicken and keep warm. For gravy, combine cornstarch and water until smooth; stir into cooking juices. Cover and cook on high for 30 minutes or until thickened. Return chicken to the slow cooker; heat through.

What a Great Day!

2010-04-12T00:55:00.000-04:00

So it was beautiful again today. We went to Sunday School, and Church. Both were edifying :)
Came home, took a short nap (necessity as I hadn't slept well the last 2 nights) and then worked on some sewing. Went to Richmond to see, follow me now, the married daughter's best friend's recital. She did a wonderful job, btw.

Home again and Skype with the family in Alaska. That is one slick program and I love being able to see and talk at the same time. Makes Fairbanks seem so much closer to Kentucky!!

The menu is all hither and yon. Because I was away from home on Friday night, the hubby and daughter had beans and franks (originally slated for Monday night- as in tomorrow). Then today we had lunch meat sandwiches or salad for lunch and really didn't eat any dinner. That is unusual here. I will have to juggle the other dinners and fit them in before menu planning again. And we HAVE to eat the salmon. Its frozen, so it won't go bad, but still. I keep planning it and I keep not fixing it! We like it just fine, so I don't really know why its such an issue.

I have discovered that yet again convenience costs more money. Eating cold cereal in the mornings is going to cost us in milk. However, since only the hubby actually drinks milk on purpose, and we could use the calcium, I am not going to fret this new development until there is no milk AND no money!

I read something interesting the other day. Another blogger mentioned that cutting portion sizes was really helping her budget. She got the amounts for a "regular" serving of different foods, and then started filling plates based on those amounts. The family ate less, but didn't seem to notice all that much, and they lost weight while staying healthy. This sounds like a good plan to me. Heaven knows we could use the weight loss at this house.

I know that it is spring finally. Not because the grass is lush and green, or the tulips have bloomed, or the birds are all back and raising a racket outside. Nope, its because I want to eat cantaloupe. Yup this is my "spring has sprung" craving. It is so strong that here I am tonight, wishing for something to eat ( having not had supper) and the only things that sound good are steak and cantaloupe. I have potato chips and I_ don't _want _them!!! Amazing huh?

I think instead of eating I will just go to bed :)

Nothing is Where I Left It!!

2010-04-08T19:01:00.000-04:00

Well, I had occasion to visit Walmart for groceries today. I usually try to avoid shopping there because, for the things I purchase regularly, I can't save as much money as when I go to Kroger. Probably I should have gone to Save-A-Lot, but they don't carry my brand of toilet paper and I only had one check in my checkbook.

If you sew you probably know that Walmart is phasing out their fabric department. They used this as an excuse to rearrange everything in the freakin store! Not only that, they changed out all the shelves: white metal shelving is apparently "out" and black is "in". I am not sure what the psychological reasoning is behind that, but there you go. So there are chips and paper/foil products where the shoes used to be, and items have been rearranged on the shelves and isles. It makes shopping take so much longer when I can't find what I am looking for. The poor check out girl said, dutifully, "Did you find everything you were looking for?" Bless her heart, I laughed out loud. She understood, so I am sure I wasn't the only one with that reaction today.

The daughter and I had our day out. Most of spring break we were at home, but today we went to Nannie's house to play with the cousin. My girls were the first grandchildren on both sides of the house, and their cousins came along several years later. As a result, there is a big gap in their ages. However, my youngest has a real affinity for younger kids, so they play well together. We celebrated by going to Wendy's for salads. Good grief!! When did 2 salads with drinks start to look a lot like $15 ??? But it was a good thing. Sometimes you just have to spend a little money and time with a child. The rewards outweigh the cost.

So today at Walmart:

Cottonelle TP $7.97
Great Value 1% Milk, gallon $2.48 (saved $1 with store promotion)
2 bags of frozen Broccoli bits @ $.98 each
2 Tomatoes, on the vine $1.21
1 Cucumber @ $ .68
3 very small Yellow Squash $.67
1 small Zuchini $.68 (Just realized that the cashier rang this up as a cucumber.)
2 Hillshire Farms Beef Smoked Sausage @ $2.50 each (Coupon for buy 2 save 1$1.00)
10# Russet Potatoes @ $2.77
1 jar GV Light Mayo @ 2.18
sliced fresh Mushrooms @ $1.88
1 container of fresh Strawberries @ 1.50
1 large bag of Malt O Meal whole grain Cereal @ 4.42
1 package of Saffron flavored Rice @ $.66
1 can pineapple bits @ $1.16
1 can mandarin oranges @ $.82 each( rang up 2 but I only brought home 1-probably evens out the zuchini)
4 cans Chef Boy Ar Dee Pasta @ $1.00 each (coupon for $1 off a 4 can purchase)
1 tub Country Crock Margarine with Calcium @ $2.28 (Coupon for .30 off)
1 head of Lettuce @ $1.28

Total: 45.37, including tax.

Not bad all in all. The fruit will all go together in a container and be used for the daughter's lunch next week. That, along with sandwiches on fresh bread should be a good lunch. Also there are now plenty of salad options if she wants to switch it up.

Frustration

2010-04-07T15:12:00.000-04:00

Well, I find that this is far more complicated a task than I had anticipated. Not only is it hard to stay on track with making and using the menus, but my spouse is spending money on food that I am not able to track. (Not fussing really, he is in the habit of picking up soda or chips, etc, and bringing them home, or spending money eating out when there are things here to take for lunch). I believe that I will have to focus first on the menus and shopping, and though I will continue to track the spending I do, I just have to admit that I am sure its not the complete and honest total. I have also come to accept that breakfast is a faster, easier, and better loved meal if there is cereal in the house. So after posting here I am off to hunt for cereal coupons. After all, this is MY project, not really his.

So to the menu:
Note: (C) denotes a coupon purchase, (G) denotes produce from the garden, * denotes an Angel Food purchase.
Wednesday April 7
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Lunch: Left over chicken pasta salad from yesterday
Dinner: bacon wrapped chicken grilled *, cauliflower, peas

TO DO: Bake Bread, 2 loaves

Thursday April 8
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Lunch: Sandwiches, sliced apples*
Dinner: Broccoli Cheese soup *, Bread sticks, low fat brownies

Friday April 9
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Lunch: mac and cheese Yakisobi noodles (C) with ham and veggies added
Dinner: Pizza, salad

Saturday April 10
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Lunch: Sandwiches, sliced apples
Dinner: Hamburger Helper, hamburger, leftover veggies (cauliflower, peas, corn)

Sunday April 11
Breakfast: cereal and milk
Lunch: egg salad sandwiches, pineapple,
Dinner: Salmon, grilled, Broccoli (C), Saffron Rice (C)

Monday April 12
Breakfast: cereal and milk
Lunch: Sandwiches (ham or turkey), salad
Dinner: baked beans (crock pot pork and beans*, hot dogs) , corn bread

Tuesday April 13
Breakfast: cereal and milk
Lunch: chef salad (lettuce, carrots, cucumber, ham/turkey, peas, green onion)
Dinner: Spaghetti *, sauce*, hamburger, Bread Sticks (C), green beans (G)

Menu 4/1- 4/15

2010-04-01T18:51:00.000-04:00

This post will be incomplete when submitted, and then updated. Life has been very busy at our house and I haven't done my menu planning. I have my coupons, and I have plenty here in the way of food, but have been distracted by the nice spring temps. Had lunch with a friend today, a rare event that I would like to perpetuate, and planted early crops in the raised garden bed out back. Being that I am woefully out of shape, that was quite an adventure (getting up and down LOL). But there are now broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower planted. Turns out I have a left over carrot sprouting so I went ahead and planted another square foot of them, and the rest of the sq ft that was carrots last year. The onion sets went into a large pot on the back porch. I have more than I need, and the rest may go to waste... I hate that but is it more wasteful than growing them and never eating them?

Spent a little time with my Mom yesterday. We had lunch, wandered the yard to look at her flowers, and pondered family politics. I don't spend enough time with her. I need to fix that.

So tonight I want to make a major dent in the skirts I am altering, make my menus up and post them, and finally convince my family that clean, folded clothes belong in drawers and not hampers in the living room!! So I will be back with menus...I know you await that info with bated breath LOL!!

4/2/10
Yeah, so I didnt get back here and I didn't get a menu up. In fact, I didn't get it written either! So I will try to get that done tonight after a little with my Sims 3 (haven't played in months and I have a yen to build some houses). Today I went to Lexington with my Mom and niece. We hit the fabric store and two needlework stores. It was fun. I got out hamburgers to thaw for the grill. When hubby came home we went to the store for some "grilling meal necessities" and bought a few other things that were going to be on the list but were on sale today. So here's how it looks:

Kroger:

Ball Park Franks (2 pkgs) @ $3.49 (total cost with .75 coupon= 6.23
Sliced Kroger sandwich cheese $2.18
General Mills All Purpose Flour $2.69 (with store card-1.49, and coupon .75 =total cost $1.15
Lays Chips 2@ $3.21 (with store card -$1.98 each)
Yakisobi noodles 6@ 1.00 each (coupons $.50 off, total cost $3.00)
big K diet cherry cola 2@.79 each
A&W Cream Soda $1.50
Speed Stick Antipersperant $3.29 (store card discount final cost 2.00)

Total cost with no discounts: $32.44
Total cost with Store Discounts: $25.99
Total cost with Store Discounts and coupons: $21.49

So tonight we are having grilled burgers and chips. Next week is the daughter's spring break. So definitely will need to have a menu. I will do it and post shortly.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

2010-03-30T14:45:00.000-04:00

Well, my cousin has been making this stuff for a while now. She says it saves her serious money & cleans as well as what she can buy in the store. I like the idea that I can control the scent and artificial color, both of which are problems are our house. So I decided to give it a try today, since the store bought stuff is just about gone.

I went to Making Homemade Laundry Soap to check out the directions. Then I headed out to the store and found:
Fels Naptha Soap $1.29
Washing Soda $2.16
Borax $3.89

I also purchased a bucket, with a lid, for $1.27

My detergent is setting up even as I type this. I do use Oxyclean spot remover when I have something really hard to get out. I also have some of that Crisco looking stuff that mechanics use to take the black grease off their hands. That is wonderful for grease splatters. But I wont know for sure how well it cleans the clothes at our house for a couple of days. I will post back with the results.

I also picked up a one dollar Cranberry Mandarin scented candle in a jar. It smells wonderful!!!
Like Spring :)

The best laid plans

2010-03-27T14:08:00.000-04:00

Yeah so I haven't made bread or pancakes yet, and I was able to get AF so it altered the menu a little. The sun is shining and I wanted burgers for lunch. With some home fries, sprinkled with steak dust. Should be yummy. Laundry to do (always). I have decided to try to make my own laundry detergent. My cousin does it, and it is cheaper than what she can buy, cleans the clothes just as well (she has toddlers), and for us the lack of color or scent will be a bonus too. I just have to find a tub with a lid. I used to have several, so I know they are here somewhere!

And to top it all off, Hubby's weekend starts tonight, and UK plays UWVa tonight in the Elite Eight.

Life is good :)

Friday, 3/26 updated

2010-03-26T14:07:00.000-04:00

Because I thought that I would not be getting any AF this month, I hit the grocery last night. Here's the damage (Updated):
1 bag hash browns $1.79
Pillsbury Grands Biscuits 2 cans @ $ .98 each*
Pillsbury Bread Sticks $1.25*
2 cans Turkey Chili @ $1.41 each
2 Yakisobi noodles @ $1.00
1 bag tortilla chips $1.00
1 can frozen lemonade $1.29
1 bag shredded cheese $2.29
Kroger brand Drink mix (Crystal Light type) $ 2.00
1 box rotini $1.25
Italian Dressing mix $2.19
1 box Saltine Crackers @1.25
2 cans of soup @ 1.00 each
Turkey Breast lunch meat (1 lb) $3.49
Ham lunch meat (1 lb) $3.49
2 rolls sausage @ $1.59 each
2.5 dozen eggs $2.99
Hamburger, store ground 4.62 (marked down 50%)
Hamburger, store ground 4.64 (marked down 50%)
Canola oil $2.99
Bananas $.65
1 Smoked Sausage $2.00
1 can beets $ .50

Total: 53.54

With store discounts and coupons my total saved was $8.89
*I had one coupon for $1 off 3 Pillsbury products (biscuits and bread sticks)
I spent $53.43. Also ordered my coupons from the grocery savings site. That was $5.45. That money gets me coupons for $54 off products. I really had to select carefully. Many things I purchase are store brands or generics, but there were quite a few things available to me that I do purchase name brand. One of them was Chef Boyardee pizza kits. Can't turn down a $1 off those, since I do the cheese kits and add my own turkey pepperoni. I ordered 5 of the coupons. I have till the end of May to use them, and that will keep us in pizza for quite a while.

While at the grocery, I ran into my friend Martha who heads up the AF endeavor in our county. Turns out they order a box or two extra, just in case, and I will be able to get one! I am very happy about that. So this meat should really carry us through for most of April with the AF meat added to it. I have separated the hamburger into 5 one lb. sections and 2 1/2 lb sections. Its in the freezer. This will let us have spaghetti twice, and we can either do burgers, Hamburger Helper, or casseroles with the other 5 lbs.

I found myself standing in front of displays and saying "Just because its on sale doesn't mean I have to buy it now." I have to tell you, its hard to walk away from a good deal. Perhaps if we ever get a freezer I will feel like I can do that.

In the meantime, my cousin and I are planning our garden. Over the next few months I will start buying up jars, lids, etc. I want to put up chili base again, lots of green beans, corn, potatoes, and onions. I want pumpkins to put up too, and beets even though I am the only one that eats them here!

Tonight is pizza night. I look forward to that pizza. Also I made the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies! Here is the recipe from All recipes:

Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups quick-cooking oats
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Mix in the quick oats, walnuts, and chocolate chips. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets.
Bake for 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

I used Country Crock margarine, and the cookies worked better that were chilled in the fridge than the first batch in the oven. They didn't look like they were completely done but set up beautifully. We will have these again, because I am always looking for a way to add grain to our diet. Oh yes, I use the long cooking oatmeal, not the fast stuff, because its what I had. seems to be fine.

Revised Menu 3/24

2010-03-24T22:10:00.000-04:00

Ok, as promised here is the revised menu for the next week.

Tonight: assemble and cook breakfast casserole in crock pot

Thursday 3/25
Breakfast casserole (crockpot) [hash browns, eggs, chives, cheese, sausage]
Lunch: Broccoli cheese soup, crackers, carrots and celery sticks
Dinner: Asian Fried Rice (an all in one boxed Banquet meal), slaw, pineapple

Prep: Bake 2 loaves of bread (one for sandwiches, one for French Toast. They are small loaves, so its not as over the top as it sounds); Make pancakes (mix in syrup) and freeze in portion sizes

Friday 3/26
Breakfast casserole
Lunch: Peanut butter and plum jelly sandwiches, apple
Dinner: Pizza (Chef Boyardee), salad

Saturday 3/27
Breakfast: French Toast
Lunch: chef salad, banquet chicken pot pies
Dinner: Grilled chicken, squash casserole *recipe below, green beans

Sunday 3/28
Breakfast casserole
Lunch and dinner will be away from home--FIL's birthday party

Monday 3/29
Breakfast: pancakes
Lunch: pineapple and cottage cheese, sandwiches (turkey or ham)
Dinner: baked chicken and rice, mixed vegetables (CA mix), Baked apples

Tuesday 3/30
Breakfast casserole
Lunch: lunchmeat roll ups in tortillas, potato salad
Dinner: bbq shredded pork, fries, broccoli

That gets us through the week. Next month will be even more of a challenge as I was so busy getting ready for DC I failed to order AngelFood!! I am distressed but I will just have to watch the flyers and buy meat on sale. I still have plenty of rice and potatoes. Veggies are pretty cheap frozen and canned, and we will manage right along :)

Baked Squash (from Busy Woman's Quick and Easy Recipes):
5 cups cooked squash (I had an abundance of yellow squash last year. I shredded it and froze it, meaning to add it to vegetable soup but forgot. So I have plenty of squash LOL)

3/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 (10 ounce) can cream of chicken soup
1 (6 ounce) box stuffing mix

Prehead oven to 375.
Place cooked squash in mixing bowl and season with a little salt. Add cheese and soup and blend well. Mix dressing according to package directions and place half dressing in spreayed 9*13 baking dish. Spoon in squash mixture and sprinkle remaining dressing on top. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes.

I will let you know if its yummy!

Weekend in Washington DC

2010-03-22T11:34:00.000-04:00

Well, this weekend was a bit of a washout when it comes to the menu. Thursday evening, about 10:30 pm my daughter called with news that we could go with the 9 12 project to Washington DC to march on the Capital; and the tickets were very cheap to ride the bus. As a result, I hit the streets of Washington DC rather than staying home and working the menu. Politics aside, it was the most amazing event. So many people willing to give up their weekend and exercise their guaranteed God give right to peaceably assemble and share their opinions and desires with their elected representatives. Let me just say, there is no doubt we were heard by Congress. The problem is they chose not to listen. DC is such a historical city. The very act of being there fills my heart with awe and amazement at all that have come before, sacrifices made in the name of liberty. It gives me great hope despite the fact that Congressmen caved and the Senate Health Care bill passed.

So, today I have to take stock of the pantry and freezer contents, and create a new menu plan for the week. I will post them here later today.

Amish Bread for the Bread Machine

2010-03-18T15:09:00.000-04:00

I tried a new recipe last night for bread. I love it! Now I have to figure out why it fell in the center, so this loaf doesn't have perfect bread shape. I also used bread flour, where previously I had used self rising flour. The taste and consistency are very different. I found the recipe on All Recipes website. You can use the link and peruse other great recipes, or just read on to see the one I linked to:

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups bread flour
1/4 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
18 tablespoons warm water

Directions

Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select White Bread cycle; press Start.
When the dough has raised once and second cycle of kneading begins, turn machine off. Reset by pressing Start once again. This gives the dough two full raising cycles before the final raising cycle prior to baking.

A conversion offered by a commenter says:
Just to add a note, about this fantastic bread, 18 TBS is 1 cup + 2 TBS.

I sliced this for a tuna salad sandwich today and it was yummy. I did this on white bread/light crust setting, and failed to turn off the machine and restart for the 2nd round of rising. That might be the reason the center fell. Also, I just put one package of yeast in, and I think I should have measured it out... so next loaf I will do that.

Coupon Fun

2010-03-18T14:53:00.000-04:00

Well, the coupon fairy has smiled upon me :) I went to the mail box and Kroger had sent me 3 substantial coupons for Cottonelle toilet paper! There are a few things I just prefer be name brand, and toilet paper is among those.

I also occasionally print coupons from the internet. There are a lot of websites that gather coupons in one place. I have found that they usually all have the same coupons though, so I don't visit multiple sites. I also get a newsletter from Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, etc. , and they sometimes provide coupons as well. Its nice to occasionally be able to purchase something name brand because the coupon makes it the same price as the store or generic brand.

Also, I recently heard an ad on the radio for a Nelson survey of grocery shopping habits. I called the 800 number and signed up. It was $7.95 to join (lets you waive the $99 sign up fee) and they sent me info this week. There is a website that lists all the coupons offered in my area. I select the coupons I want, and pay 10% of the worth of the coupon. So, a .40 off coupon costs .04. The good part is I only pay for coupons I will actually use. I can do this until I have used $2000 worth of coupons! I think that's a pretty good rate of return, and I don't have to purchase multiple copies of the Sunday paper, or spend a lot of time cutting out coupons. With this plan I have to think far in advance to ensure I have the right coupons for when the items are needed. It will either help or complicate, or both, the menu planning process.

Speaking of menus, it has come home to me that I need to plan for a bit of junk food in this menu. Lets face it, sometimes potato chips or chocolate are just an absolute necessity to sanity. Not all the time, but sometimes. So I am reviewing the menu and the budget to see where we need to adjust. The goal here is to spend money wisely, provide nutritional meals, and not bore us to tears if possible. It may take a while to get all the wrinkles ironed out.

Life Laughs at My Plans

2010-03-17T17:25:00.000-04:00

It is said God laughs when men make plans. If that is the case, I expect He has really enjoyed the last 48 hours.

I am not certain exactly where we went off course. Maybe it was the realization that the money spent by any member of the family on food was part of the budget and had to be documented? Or perhaps it was the unexpected job interview that kept me so focused on being prepared I failed to fill the crock pot with breakfast casserole. That one snowballed into everyone spending money on breakfast food, gas we hadn't planned for, and driving close to 3 hours round trip. I wanted to buy fast food and come home and nap, but I didnt. I came home and made a burger (with hamburger that I am sure was supposed to be in some other meal.) . I didn't rebound well from that change in schedule, and then we had to get to the candlelight vigil in Lexington at our congressman's office in support of his No vote on the Health Care bill. That required picking up the daughter, driving to pick up the Hubby, and then eating in the car at Sonic because that was the only way to get everyone in place on time. Hubby just let me know hes not feeling well, so church is probably not happening this evening. Fortunately I haven't cooked for 2 days so I can steal a meal not prepared for tonight.

So, nothing has happened per menu for 3 days. In fact, I am not sure if I still have all the receipts. I suspect we have spent a good $75, on either junk or meals out, just dealing with this week. Its only half over too!

Still, I am determined to get back on track. Tonight, I will make bread and I will fix the breakfast casserole. The dishwasher is running, and dinner will be thawing just as soon as I figure out what its going to be. (I don't keep the menu in my head, its on here. I have to go look and see what was on the list LOL)

There will be times like this again. Hopefully I can get better organized as time goes by and these situations will not throw such a monkey wrench into my plans.

SEC Champs and Menu Mar 15th - 27th

2010-03-14T18:43:00.000-04:00

The University of Mississippi gave us a heck of a ballgame, but the University of Kentucky won the SEC tournament by one point in overtime! There were many many mistakes on our part, but we hung in there and hit a couple of crucial shots that saved the day. Those young men will be exhausted and have a week to recuperate before the NCAA starts. I hope during that time they will figure out how to consistently pick up rebounds, because that and the need to put the ball into the basket rather than toss it gently up and over will help them considerably in the next couple weeks.

Its been a gray and lazy day. We went to church. Hubby chanted the Psalms today, and did a bang up job, if I do say so myself (everyone else said so too!). Afterward we came home so I could make pizza. Once it was done and everyone had changed out of their Sunday clothes we drove over to Mom's house. Happy surprise, my cousin and her 3 boys were visiting this side of the state and were able to join us. A little later my sister in law and niece showed up too. My brother didn't make it till the game was just over, but it was good to have so many of us in the same place.

We dropped the daughter off at home, picked up the grocery list, and headed out for the store. It is now confession time. First, I knew the hubby was still hungry and took him with me anyway. This means we bought a few things I would probably not have purchased, and that contributed to exceeding the budget. However, I do not blame him. This menu planning and budgeting is new to us both, and I pretty much have a soft spot for him. If he asks for something I feel like I need to figure out how to work it in. He doesn't ask for much, and he's the one bringing home the money. Second, I didn't write out the menu first, building on what is already in the house, and that is how I mean to do this going forward. So this 2 weeks I will be working backwards. Third, I want to use more coupons. I have a few that I forgot to bring to the store, but I have a coupon keeper now, so I can keep them all together. I love coupons :) Finally, we did go over budget. By how much we will see once I list everything and add it all up. But I already know we went over.

I may find this $200 limit is too small. With 60 gone for AF, is that going to provide enough that $30 a week is all we need to supplement? I am doubtful, especially since gas went up about 35 cents a gallon this week. It doesn't take long for the food to start reflecting the higher transportation costs.

So, first store: Save A Lot
18 eggs $2.38
73% lean ground beef (almost 3 lbs) $5.66
Ajax dish detergent $ . 99
Bananas (1.70 lbs) $ .57
Flour tortillas $ . 99
Banquet Chicken PotPies (4@ .59) $2.36
40 oz frozen Chicken Tenders $4.99
Cr of Mushroom soup (2) $1.18
Cr of Chicken soup (2) $1.18
Cucumber (1) $ .89
3 lbs Golden Delicious Apples $1.50
Lettuce (1) $1.19
Light Ranch Salad Dressing $1.29
Light Mayo (32 oz) $1.99
8 oz Fresh Mushrooms $1.50
Peanut Butter (18 oz) $1.49
Frozen Shoestring Potatoes $ .50
Vegetable Shortening $2.99
Yeast (2 @ 1.19 each) $2.38
Tomato soup (1) $ .49
Vegetable soup (1) $ .59
Chicken and Rice Soup (1) $ .59
Mixed Indiv. Chips (12 bags) $3.29
---------------------------------------------
$40.98
We also bought a package of toilet paper to donate to the Episcopal mission house: $3.79. We decided this would not come out of our food budget.

Second store: Kroger
Cabbage (1) $ .94
Cottonelle TP $7.67
Bread Flour $2.69
Starkist Tuna $ .55 (coupon was for up to 2.00 off)
Kroger sliced cheese $1.50
Country gravy mix (2) $1.34
Kroger Instant Potatoes $1.85
Chef Boyardee Double Ch.Pizza $3.69
Kroger Baking Mix $2.28
1% Milk, gallon $2.19
Grands biscuits (2) $2.00
Kroger hamburger buns $1.19
Big K diet cherry cola (2) $1.58
-------------------------------------------
$31.52

Grand total: $72.50

So the goal was to stay under $60.00, which we did not do. On the other hand, a trip to one store is usually about twice what we spent, and so we did very well. There will not be another big trip to the store until the first of the month. We will buy more milk I am sure, and possibly eggs but that should be all.

Now I have to "make a plan", as we are fond of saying at our house. :)

Menu for March 15 - 20th

Monday:
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch: for school- leftover pizza and salad, for home- lunch meat sandwiches, individual chips
Dinner: Spaghetti (pasta, sauce, 1/2 lb browned ground beef) broccoli, toast

To do: prep crock pot for breakfast casserole before bed, cook on low overnight; bake Lasagna and portion for lunches, bake bread

Tuesday:
Breakfast: Breakfast casserole (eggs, hash browns, leftover bread/cubed, sausage, green onion)
Lunch: for school/work lasagna and salad, home-tuna salad sandwich
Dinner: Chicken casserole (2 chicken breast tenders, cooked and shredded, 2c cooked rice, 1c frozen veggies, 1 can cream of chicken soup), put all in crock pot to heat, on low 3 hours.

To do: bake mini cupcakes

Wednesday:
Breakfast: Breakfast casserole
Lunch: for school/work lasagna and salad, cupcakes; home-tuna salad ( tuna, hard boiled egg, pickle, mayo) sandwich and salad
Dinner: Church *

Thursday:
Breakfast: Breakfast casserole
Lunch: left over chicken casserole, carrots and celery with ranch dressing for dip, mini cupcakes; home: frozen individual chicken pot pie
Dinner: Asian fried rice, cole-slaw

To do: Make Pasta salad for lunches

Friday:
Breakfast: scrambled eggs and grits
Lunch: Pasta salad (pasta, veggies, Italian dressing and Parmesan cheese)
Dinner: Hamburgers, buns, oven fries, green beans

Saturday:
Breakfast: biscuits and gravy
Lunch: Homemade chicken soup and biscuits
Dinner: BBQ ribs (AF), poor mans rolls, steamed cauliflower, pineapple rings with cottage cheese

To do: bake bread

Sunday:
Breakfast: cheese tortillas
Lunch: sandwiches
Dinner: rib eye steaks (AF), baked potatoes, corn and peas

Menu for March 21- 27th

Monday:
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch: lunch meat sandwiches, individual size chips, carrots/celery
Dinner: BBQ meatloaf muffins, saffron rice, steamed broccoli

To do: bake pumpkin muffins for breakfasts. Bag carrots and celery.

Tuesday:
Breakfast: Pumpkin muffins and OJ
Lunch: Left over spaghetti, salad
Dinner: Chicken casserole (cook 3 chicken breast tenders, save one and broth for tomorrow, cooked and shredded, 2c cooked rice, 1c frozen veggies, 1 can cream of chicken soup)

To do: bake chocolate chip cookies

Wednesday:
Breakfast: cheesy tortillas
Lunch: left over chicken casserole carrots/celery, choc chip cookies OR lunchmeat and cheese sandwich, chips, carrots/celery, choc chip cookies; chicken soup (1 chicken tender, chopped finely, broth, cabbage, leftover veggies, barley)
Dinner: Church*

Thursday:
Breakfast: Pumpkin muffins
Lunch: left over chicken casserole, carrots and celery with ranch dressing for dip; chicken pot pie at home, cookies
Dinner: glazed salmon bake, Parmesan noodles, mixed veggies

To do: bake bread, cook pasta for tomorrow's lunch

Friday:
Breakfast: scrambled eggs and grits
Lunch: Pasta salad (pasta, veggies, Italian dressing and Parmesan cheese), choc chip cookies
Dinner: Chef Boy-ar-dee pizza with mushrooms, turkey pepperoni, sausage

Saturday:
Breakfast: quiche (eggs, cheese, gr onion, bacon, pie shell), pineapple
Lunch: Sloppy Joes, buns, salad
Dinner: BBQ pork (baked and shredded) (AF); potato salad,

Sunday (28th):
Breakfast: biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs
Lunch/Dinner: We will probably eat lunch on the go as we will be celebrating my Father in Laws birthday.

* Every Wednesday our church has a meal. In warmer weather we grill, and everyone brings side dishes to share. Once a month a group of local teens come and cook dinner as part of an outreach project we do to help prepare them with life skills. During Lent we have a soup and salad meal after church and prior to the Lenten study.

As for snacks we have popcorn, bananas, apples, some vanilla protein powder we add to smoothies (made with powdered milk, ice, and fruit).

So there you go. Two weeks of menu planning. As we go through the week I will post recipes.

Saturday

2010-03-13T20:58:00.000-05:00

Today was the semi finals for mens basketball in the SEC. Anyone who lives in Kentucky knows there are no more passionate fans that the Big Blue Nation. While I try to be gracious regardless I just have to say, the University of Tennessee is rivaled as THE team to beat only by the University of Louisville. Out of state vs in-state :) UT put up a good fight so it was a good game. One more game for the SEC title. Both teams will be tired from playing 3 games in 3 days. And as always, the best thing about NCAA men's basketball is any team, any night, any floor can win.

We didnt get up early enough to fix breakfast so our main meal at home was lunch: tricolored rotini pasta, mixed veggies, and crumbled bacon mixed with light ranch dressing. It was yummy.

Supper is going to be chicken alfredo (Banquet brand, everything in a box, for $3) and some kind of vegetable.

I also went to Walmart and picked up the following:
Homestyle Chicken Alfredo $3
Chef Boyardee Double cheese Pizza box $2.98
Turkey Pepperoni $3.14
1 can Good Value Mushrooms $.58
2 Sams Club Zero Cola @ $.78 each = 1.56
1 two liter Diet Dr Pepper $1.50
1 two liter A & W Rootbeer $1.00

Total spent: 13.76

Yes, we drink too much soda pop. Most households drink coffee, a fairly economical source of caffiene. We do not. We do drink a lot of iced tea (it's a southern thing), Crystal Light type drinks, and water. Still, we buy generic, to cut the cost, and as long as there is money for it, I will not feel guilty about it. Everyone should have their one luxury.

With the ball game going on, a visit from the married daughter and her spouse, and an unplanned but much needed nap, there was no bread baking today. I will do that tomorrow after the ball game, along with the cupcake baking.

Mom is throwing a ball game party complete with pizza for lunch. I have some weird digestive issue that prevents me from eating any kind of commercial pizza, so I will be making mine after church and bringing it along. This is a relatively new thing and I am relieved that Chef Boyardee pizza doesnt make me have stomach pains.

I will do some grocery shopping tomorrow afternoon also. The AF order has to go in also, but that cost will go on the April food bill, even though it gets spent now. We dont get the food until then so I will always start my month out with less than $200 to spend. I dont mind, because the AF is such a good deal. Tomorrow will also be the big menu setting day (prior to the grocery run) and the big "clean out the fridge" day. Busy busy, but necessary for staying on track with this frugal food plan.

Planning our Garden

2010-03-12T21:55:00.000-05:00

Well the menu worked well for the most part. I forgot to make pudding before hitting the bed, so there was no dessert for lunchboxes. Everyone survived, so I am not feeling terribly guilty :) I also realized this was the first round of the SEC. I went to visit my Mom and watch the University of Kentucky beat Old Miss (go CATS!) and completely skipped lunch. So no salad for me today. Tomorrow we play the University of Tennessee and I may pace the floors instead of eat again!

My cousin and I are planning a garden this year. Our family owns a farm where not much farming is actually going on at the moment. We figured this would be a good plan, to put the ground to use and save some bucks at the store. It worked well last year. Though the tomatoes were pretty much a bust (too much rain caused them to rot on the vine) the blue lake green beans are just perfect and we had some great potatoes. The corn didnt do enough to put up, just to eat occasionally. I learned that when you raise cucumbers and yellow squash you better put them where you can check on them daily or they get way out of control! Those will be planted at home instead of the farm this time, in my Square Foot Garden. I love this way of gardening. I know exactly what is in the soil, and I have almost zero weeds. I have a plot that is 4' by 8' so I can do quite a bit here at home. I also have 3 large pots that I can use for container gardens. Last year I raised chives and basil. This year I want more herbs and maybe a few flowers. Anyway, I believe the corn, green beans, melons, potatoes, beets and onions will be out at the farm. At home I want cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, butternut squash, watermelon, herbs (parsley, basil, thyme, rosemary), chives, maybe some lettuce and celery, cauliflower if I can get it to grow. Didn't work out well last year but I am an optomist.

Now the truth is, last year when weeding the garden I swore I would not do it again. When harvesting I was thrilled and couldn't wait to plan for this year. Then when I was trying to can tomatoes, shew! the smell was horrible all through the house and I was back to never doing this again! But, I have to say, I like my green beans in jars better than frozen, my corn frozen rather than jarred, and I found a mix for chili base that is out of this world! So, I will raise tomatoes for chili mix and sandwiches for the family (none for me, thanks!). I also will visit the farmers market for a few things that I want but not so much to put up--like zuchinni and peppers, and for fruit, which I can't raise here. It is also time to make dill pickle "stackers" again. Since rarely anyone but me eats pickles I only have to do them every 2 years. It takes me that long to go through 8 quarts of pickles. This year I made bread and butter pickles also. I tried relish but it didnt work out all that well.

I did dry mushrooms and apple slices and the chives in my cousins dehydrator. It will have to go back to her house soon though. She has a pressure cooker, but I haven't made that investment yet. Maybe later this year. I would feel better about doing canning with one to ensure that everything detrimental is dead :)

The menu for Saturday is in flux. I had planned to have chicken at lunch but the bag we thawed only had 4 pieces, not 5 like the last bag (packaged by weight I suppose). That means we don't have chicken for tomorrow night. Alas, our mashed potatoes were instant, and there is very little I like less than warmed up instant taters, so the extra serving got tossed. But the left over green beans will be great in my chef salad tomorrow. So... new plan for Saturday. :)

Breakfast: Might do French toast. Haven't done that in a while and it would use up the bread that is not working out so well for sandwiches, eggs (AF)
Lunch: chef salads for the daughter and I,
Dinner: glazed salmon, rice (AF), mixed veggies

It will be a bread baking day, so I will look up a new recipe to try. Also a dessert baking day, so I will bake something TBD. I have several reduced sugar cake mixes and some brownie mix I think. I also have a bunch of recipes my mother had saved for years and passed on to my daughter (the aspiring chef). I will spend some time looking through those too. The married daughter and SIL will be by for a bit in the morning, and there is plenty of laundry to do while the ballgames are on. UK vs UT at 1 pm EST on CBS... should be a full day even if we get more rain.

Ye Old Menu Planning Sheet

2010-03-11T22:35:00.000-05:00

I suppose I really should have started this blog at the beginning of a month, rather than in the middle. Something about "day one" and starting fresh, ya know? The month of March is about using up what we have. Its a smart thing to do, though it is hard on me to fix and eat what is available rather than what I am hungry for!

I found a great menu planning sheet online. I am not organized enough yet to have a Household Notebook, but if you think that's the way to go for your house, check out the other printable pages available here: Organized Home. There are many sites that offer free printables. I recommend doing a search and checking them out. For the cost of the paper and ink I did a great Household Tips and Tricks bridal gift for my daughter.

I like the menu planning page with the shopping list, because I can keep everything in one place. Also it is handy for reminders (i.e. fix 2 extra for tomorrow night or to start something in the crock pot with enough time for it to cook BEFORE its time to eat it, LOL). One caution though: Unless you are organized to a fault, don't write in ink on your menu! I cant tell you how many times I have had to remove items, swap meals, change the plan, etc.

One of the good things about writing all of the meals out is that I am very aware of how much less food we actually NEED to purchase. Man we ate a LOT before and frequently threw away left overs. Now I see that I was overdoing it with all the extras (chips, and various other junk).

I do occasionally mourn the loss of the quickie meal. The one where you don't really have to plan ahead to get a decent meal together. Or one that zaps up quickly in the microwave. Because actually cooking the dinner is cheaper than buying it and reheating I am doing a lot more cooking. Some time I am going to do a cost analysis on the all in one box meals. I mean, $3 for a box that has everything you need for chicken fried rice, pizza bake, or chicken and dumplings just doesn't sound all that extravagant to me.

Back to the planning sheet... I try to tie in one dessert bake and one lunch menu bake a week. For example, in my Angelfood box this month I got a frozen lasagna. Personally I have come to realize I just don't like tomato sauce all that well, but my daughter and husband are fine with it. So, on Sunday night I baked up the tray of lasagna, let it cool and divided it up into containers for their lunches. It worked out so well that when I did my grocery shopping I checked out a different flavor and brought it home for this week. Because I purchased 2 regular AF boxes they will have lasagna again next week. With some salad and a little dessert thats a nice lunch.

This week I made dessert bars (chocolate cake mix, caramels, and oatmeal). They were pretty good, with a nod to healthy by including 2 cups of oatmeal, and they worked well in lunches. Unfortunately I didnt plan well for after school snacks, and as a result they are gone but the week is not quite finished! I guess the dessert for tomorrow will be sugar free pudding. I will make it tonight so it has a chance to set up and be cold in the lunch boxes.

I also am using my bread machine. Currently I am on a quest to find the perfect sandwich bread recipe. So far I have tried one white bread and one potato bread. Both were perfectly fine bread, but neither are quite what I have in mind. When I find my favorite I will post it.

I have been in my cook books, and sites online looking for innovative things to do with ordinary ingredients. Most of them work out well, some not so much. I tried the breakfast ice cream on The Sneaky Chef. I think it didnt work for me because I have a blender and it calls for a food processor. This site has some wonderful ways to get veggies into your family without them knowing about it. I have only seen the commercials and checked out the site, so I can't speak to the taste, but I love the idea. We don't have a lot of picky eaters here so I don't have to sneak nutrition in usually. Still, the results of the breakfast ice cream were put into the freezer and were eaten the next day by my daughter. She said it would be nice if the bananas were better broken up (thus the need for the food processor) but it was pretty tasty.

Starting on Monday I will put the menu up for the week. I will also be shopping on Monday night, and as it is the 15th of the month, I will start listing the items and their cost. Who knows what was spent before, but for the rest of the month the goal is at or less than $100. I think we can do it easily since there are still plenty of things here in the cabinets.

Todays dinner menu: ribeye steaks (AF), roasted potatoes (AF), and a bag of California mixed vegetables.

Breakfast for tomorrow: cheese tortillas (shredded cheese melted on tortillas in the microwave)
Lunch to go: ham or turkey sandwiches, individual bags of chips, and pudding
Lunch at home: chef salad and Italian dressing
Dinner: oven fried chicken breasts (AF), green beans (from last years garden) and mashed potatoes (AF)

First Things First

2010-03-11T00:59:00.000-05:00

The best thing that has happened to our food budget is Angelfood Ministries (AF). We have been ordering from AF for just over a year now. If you haven't ever heard of this organization you should check it out. This faith-based organization has partnered with the federal government to help ensure families can purchase quality food for reasonable prices. At their site you can search by your zip code to find the closest host site to your location. Every month they have a "regular box" of about 17 different items including meat, fresh/frozen vegetables, pantry staples, and a dessert item. They also have several other "boxes" to choose from, and you can order as many as you like. The regular box is advertised as enough food for a family of 4 for one week. I find it stretches a bit more than that if I am careful.

Here's the trick: You have to plan ahead financially for this program to work. During the first 2 weeks of the month you order and pay for your food. Then near the end of the month you pick up your food at the host site. This means you are paying now for food you will receive later. If you can get into the budgeting habit of freeing up the cash to pay ahead, this is a great program.

I do recommend that you look over the pricing and compare what your local stores are offering to the pricing for each month. I haven't found it yet, but my cousin is able to regularly get 5 lbs of skinless, boneless chicken breast for $6.50. For her, 20 lbs of chicken breast doesn't feel like a great deal at $20. For me its a great deal!

Also, if you have a food item that just has to be a name brand, you will want to purchase it outside of AF. I used to have a thing about spaghetti sauce--had to be Prego with mushrooms. I have since gotten over that and had been buying store brand in a can. So getting a store brand, canned sauce in my regular box was not a big deal (though I do miss the mushrooms).

You will never know for sure what the dessert item will be until pick up day. Its just a little surprise! Sometimes its a pie or a cake, sometimes cookie dough. We have had jello, graham cracker bears, lemonade cake (the seriously yummy stuff you can get at Starbucks), you just never know.

One of the offerings is a fruit and veggie box. This is sometimes very cost effective for our family. Fruit is one of those things that used to never made it on my grocery list. Oh the occasional canned pineapple, sure, but not a lot of fresh fruit. Now we are trying to include it more in our diet and this box helps. Sometimes I learn a totally new skill when I bring home the food, like how to peel a real pineapple, lol. But then again, the aggravation is offset by the fact that I also found out how much I love grilled pineapple rings. I mean, come on, once you have done all that work you cant just plop a scoop of cottage cheese in the middle and call it a side dish! LOL

There are also several boxes which are primarily or completely meat. I don't know about anyone else, but there would never be steak served here if we didn't get it through AF. Usually there is a steak box, and some type of chicken box. Recently they have offered an allergy free chicken box, and a box of frozen convenience meals. If you have the space in your freezer, they make handy lunches for about $2 a meal. Definitely cheaper than the dollar menu at your local drive through, and nutritionally much improved from a burger and fries.

Several people have said to me, "I think Angelfood is a good deal, but I can afford the grocery prices and I don't want to take it away from someone who needs it." Well thats not how this program works. Sure if you want to spend more on food, then that is your prerogative. But you are not taking food from someone who might need it more than you do. The organization obtains the amount of food that is ordered, so no one has to do without because you got a great deal. On the other hand, the organization doesn't have to deal with things that don't sell because they only purchase what is needed to fill the orders.

I have started purchasing 2 regular boxes a month, and supplementing it with grocery runs. Our family needs more than a quart of milk a month, though we often get a quart of shelf stable milk in the regular box. I use it to make soup, or for cooking, but my brother likes it cold and drinks it straight from the box! I also purchase some additional hamburger, lunch meat, sausage and/or bacon, and beef roast when on sale.

As I go through this experiment I am going to list the AF items we get, grocery items we get, and their cost. Then I will have a record, and will be able to see if any progress is being made. I will list the store names, and if any coupons were used too. The menus I create will be added, and updated here also. With any luck I can do this with one trip to the store (saves on gasoline) and part of one evening a week to update the blog. We'll see.

Welcome to Making Do

2010-03-11T00:34:00.000-05:00

Everyone needs a goal. When I was working and raising kids, my goals pretty much all revolved around those two things. Living in a 2 paycheck family (decent paychecks) we got used to being able to spend without watching every penny. I have to admit, it was nice. For many years when the girls were young we really had very little liquidity. And to be honest, we didn't always use what we had wisely. Through a lot of trial and error, we eventually got to a place where we made better decisions. Movies in the theater were not an unheard of activity. New clothes because we wanted something new, not because we needed something new were not so much a luxury as an ordinary occurrence. Eating out was no longer an special occasion.

Then I got laid off. In the last year the car died, one girl got married (not a cheap event, let me tell ya, and we did much of it ourselves and had help from our families too), and I am still unemployed. Grateful as I am for unemployment insurance, I really want to see us get in the habit of holding on to what we have, rather than pushing the end of the funds every month. While I can't cut the rent, or the cost of gas, I do have control over the menu and the shopping. I want to see that line item on the budget move steadily down without compromising either our nutrition or my need to not eat the same thing all the time.

I don't know that this will be of interest to anyone but me. Still I want to keep all the data in one place, and I think I will stick with this longer if I put it online. There is the added advantage of not having to keep up with paper menus and recipes if they are all in one spot. So this is my purpose. I may stray into adventures in coupon-ing or the trials of johnson grass in the garden occasionally too.

There are 3 of us at home now. I really have no idea how much money we were actually spending before, but it was in the neighborhood of 450 a month, including fast food. I would like to see that cut in half, with less fast food and more preplanning.

And this is the crux of the issue: I am not a planner when it comes to food. I get up and say, "Hmm, I think I feel like having fried chicken tonight". Going to a menu and seeing that its spaghetti night just hasn't worked for me in the past. But now I have to manage in a different way. I am still fixing portable lunches for 2 people 5 days a week. Can't do that with left overs if you don't plan ahead for them, right? Also, we were eating a lot of processed food and pure junk that shouldn't be in our diets anyway. With everything preplanned, I can decide ahead of time and keep the nutrition on track.

So this is my goal--better food, less money, and no one gets bored. Check out my links list for the other sites and bloggers who have inspired me. I have learned a lot from them and maybe you will too. I suppose there should be a time limit on this experiment (I'm thinking of Julie and Julia, cooking for a year) but I think the goal is going to be to continue to reduce and refine from now on. We will see what happens :)