Last day of January

This year seems to be going by really fast!

Breakfast: Get whatcha want, I think.

Lunch: I made those delicious chewy pretzel bites again. SO good!!!

Dinner: Ham and bean soup with cornbread.

Daddy picked up some groceries this afternoon, bringing the grocery budget total to $179.01. However, I also got paid today! Which brings it up to $629.01.

What we ate yesterday

Because it's so fascinating... or not.

Breakfast: Get whatcha want - more or less.

Lunch: Left-overs

Dinner: Rosemary beef dish over rice, green beans on the side.

Last weekend of January 2012

Saturday:

Breakfast: Left-over chocolate cake!

Lunch: Macaroni and cheese

Dinner: Mama, Luke, and I were home alone, so we just grabbed whatever left-overs we wanted.


Sunday:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want

Lunch: Curry chicken and rice, green beans, fudge revel bars

Fellowship: Minty moussie chocolate brownies ... things.

Gyros!

Breakfast: ... Kind of an unusual situation there... I had cereal, and followed that up by making a batch of oatmeal for some of us. The others got whatever they wanted, I guess.

Lunch: Claire made macaroni and cheese.

Dinner: Gyros! Daddy was inspired by the latest Beaverdam Creek Farm newsletter.

AND...


Today was National Chocolate Cake Day! Daddy was planning on satisfying a chocolate cake craving of his anyway, so this was a wonderful coincidence.

Did y'all celebrate National Chocolate Cake Day?

The twenty-sixth of January

Breakfast: Get whatcha want. I had yogurt.

Lunch: Guacamole!!! I threw it together, tasted it, tweaked it, tasted it, etc... all in an attempt to recreate Chuy's guacamole. I think I came pretty close! All I did was mash together avocados, salt, sour cream (just a little), salt, salsa (not very much), salt, lemon juice (a nice splash), salt, and more salt. In the end I thought it could have used perhaps a little more salsa, maybe some cilantro, and possibly more salt, but I didn't add any of that. I decided to let the others tweak their own servings to their own tastes.

Dinner: Roast, potatoes, fried apples, and green peas. I put the roast (covered) in the oven after lunch, and baked it at 300* all afternoon. With the roast, I had the potatoes, a thinly-sliced onion, the remains of a bell pepper that had been in the fridge for a while, and various seasonings. Oh, and a hearty slab of butter. Hey, I knew it couldn't hurt!

The Menu of Yesterday

Breakfast: Get whatcha want (I think?)

Lunch: Left-overs

Dinner: Jambalaya

Girls' shopping day

Breakfast: Biscuits and apples

Lunch: Soon after breakfast, Mama, Claire, and I, along with a couple of other ladies from church, went to Fayetteville to go to Sir's Fabrics! I so did not need more fabric, but I came back with 3 more pieces nonetheless. Anyway, it takes a while to get to Fayetteville from here, so we had lunch at a local soup and sandwich place there before digging through fabrics.

Dinner: Daddy made pizzas!

Monday, the Twenty-third

Breakfast: Get whatcha want. Or, improvise when you realize that what you want requires milk that we do not have available for our own consumption...

Lunch: Kyle and I had sandwiches; not sure what the others had.

Dinner: Pancakes, sausage, fried eggs. Andes mints cookies for dessert.

Jambalaya, Crawfish Pie, and File Gumbo

Well, just jambalaya... Yesterday's menu:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want

Lunch: Jambalaya, apples, gooey brownies

Dinner/Fellowship: Olive-artichoke dip and crackers

End o' the week

So, didn't get around to posting yesterday. We went grocery shopping, as planned, and I was exhausted when we got home. We went to Walmart and Sam's; had to renew our membership at Sam's as well. In all we spent $516.39. The new total is $210.09. Ouch. Hopefully we won't have another trip like that for a long time.

Friday:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want, if I remember correctly.

Lunch: Mama and I were in between Sam's and Walmart, so we grabbed 9 Fruits and added a couple of Twix when we were done at Walmart.

Dinner: Claire, Kyle, and Luke were busy here at home while the rest of us were out, so we had popcorn, bacon, pepper jelly, cream cheese, and crackers. I think we're going to have to start doing two pounds of bacon when we do that sort of meal...

Saturday:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want again.

Lunch: Left-overs.

Dinner: French onion soup!!! I've had such a craving for that lately! I always get cravings for expensive meals...

Hope y'all have a great weekend! Be back Monday, Lord willing!

Pay day!

I like pay days! Especially when I haven't used too much from the last pay day! The new total is $726.48. Yeah, we're going grocery shopping tomorrow...

Breakfast: Yogurt and granola + whatever else you wanted

Lunch: Cream soup... it had chicken, mushrooms, and onions in it, but it was mostly creamy... No real name, obviously. Oh, and biscuits.

Dinner: Beef stroganoff, green beans (left over from the other night), and apple sauce.

And today was Thursday, which means I made cookies! ... Well, it doesn't always mean I make cookies, but I try to. I did today. I made THESE, and they were good (and gone way too fast!)! Yes, I have an obsession with salted caramel chocolate/mocha things. One really awesome thing about these cookies is that they didn't have any eggs in them! That was awesome because we're running dangerously low on eggs. As I said, we're going grocery shopping tomorrow.

Family Night!

We've made a new family resolution! We're going to make Wednesday nights, whenever possible, family nights - where we'll play games!

Breakfast: Get whatcha want (ideas were put out, but it was just suggestion.)

Lunch: Rice, bean, sausage stuff that Claire made

Dinner: Steak, rolls, butter beans, with panna cotta for dessert! Oh, man! It was good!

Plan ahead

That is such a wonderful concept, and oh, so convenient... when I can remember to do it. Yesterday, I did it. Somewhat. Sort of.

Breakfast: Bacon, cream of wheat, cereal, etc.

Lunch: Tomato soup with macaroni noodles. That's my go-to meal when we're out of time, and are nearly out of everything -  including left-overs. Unfortunately, we're now pretty much out of tomato products (well, we still have a ton of paste, but that doesn't quite work...). Thankfully we're going to go grocery shopping Friday.

Dinner: I knew I was going to do something with chicken, so I'd gotten a whole chicken out and thawed in the morning. After sticking it in a sink of hot water (BEST way to thaw something quickly, by the way), I searched Pinterest for "whole chicken." THIS recipe came up, and was well reviewed in the comments. I love crockpot meals, so I thought I'd give it a try. I will admit that I was a bit skeptical. I usually cook whole chickens roasted in the oven so that the skin gets nicely browned. To my delight, this chicken turned out not too noticeably different from the oven roasted version, and, of course, the crock pot was a great deal easier to clean than the roaster! Along with that chicken, we had THESE rolls, and green beans. One tip: start the rolls before 4:45pm if you want to eat dinner before 7:00pm... Circumstances beyond my control prevented me from doing so. We ate late, but the rolls were good!

Monday's menu

Breakfast: Waffles

Lunch: Chili, left-over from yesterday

Dinner: Tacos

This past weekend

Saturday:

Breakfast: Sausage balls

Lunch: Left-overs

Dinner: Left-overs, after which we gave anything remaining to the dogs. It was "Clean out the fridge day."


Sunday:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want

Lunch: Chili, crackers, "glorified milk duds"

Fellowship: Cucumber sandwiches.

The Importance of Being Earnest

Today we're finishing up Claire's birthday celebration, and she had requested cucumber sandwiches for her dinner.

Breakfast: Oatmeal

Lunch: Tomato soup

Dinner: Cucumber sandwiches and macaroni and cheese

We're now eating brownies and getting ready to watch "The Importance of Being Earnest," the movie that inspired cucumber sandwiches.

Thursday

Daddy and I went into Nashville yesterday, and while we were out we picked up a few necessary groceries. That trip cost the grocery money $125.55, bringing the total to $276.48.

Breakfast: Get whatcha want.

Lunch: Daddy and I had sushi from Publix. Mama and Luke didn't have lunch. Don't know about Claire and Kyle.

Dinner: Hamburgers!

Wednesday's menu

Breakfast: Get whatcha want

Lunch: Mama, Claire, and I went thrifting, so we were in town for lunch. We three split a cinnamon-battered Monte Cristo at The Bunganut Pig in Franklin. It was too intriguing to pass up, and it was really quite good.

Dinner: Chili with peppermint snickerdoodles for dessert.

What happened today

Daddy went into Centerville today and picked up some groceries; that makes the total: $402.03.

Breakfast: Left-over scones

Lunch: Get whatcha want

Dinner: Pasta with a cream sauce and grilled kielbasa.

Yesterday's meals

Breakfast: Get whatcha want

Lunch: Nachos

Dinner: Cranberry scones and country ham

Birthday weekend recap

Saturday afternoon we celebrated Grammy and Claire's birthdays.

Breakfast: English muffins, bacon, eggs

Lunch: Corned beef, cabbage, potato salad, and apples. Dessert was a variation on Baked Alaska.

Dinner: Left-overs, get whatcha want.

Yesterday:

Breakfast: We pulled a loaf of pumpkin bread out of the freezer.

Lunch: Roast with potatoes and carrots, green beans, CCBB's

Dinner/Fellowship: Egg rolls and mini quiches.

What was on the menu yesterday

Breakfast: Cream of wheat, yogurt, get whatcha want

Lunch: Popcorn + whatever you wanted while watching one of Luke's Christmas presents: Spy Kids.

Dinner: I think I mentioned that we froze the left-over spaghetti casserole earlier this week... Well, we had that, those of us that were home.

Today we're celebrating Claire's and Grammy's birthdays!

Just another Thursday

I got paid yesterday. I should first add that my budget has been adjusted to $450/pay period, and that when Mama made the withdrawal, she picked up some things. That makes my total for the next couple of weeks $431.05.

When it came to meals yesterday, I kind of failed, but here's my full confession:

Breakfast: Mama and Daddy started juicing yesterday, so they had that. The rest of us had yogurt, eggs, get whatcha want.

Lunch: Left-overs, yogurt, get whatcha want when you want it. My only excuse is that were struggling with colds around here, and we're very lethargic...

Dinner: Red beans and rice. My first time doing beans like that. I did them as if they were in a crock pot, but they were in a pot on the stove instead. Our good bean-cooking crock pot has been missing for months. Still, it worked fine on the stove.

50lbs of carrots

Crazy? I think so, but let's not go there. Whatever happens with them in the end, we now have 50lbs of carrots to use; I am given to understand that they will be used for juicing. Why? Again, not too sure about that one. As I type, Claire is making carrot muffins with the left-over pulp from the first juiced batch. The next few weeks - if it lasts that long - could be very interesting; perhaps we can use it for something more appealing sometime. Like carrot cake. Or starting a compost pile. Anyway, the carrots cost $37.65, and it's been what? something like 3 months since I started this project. So, I figured I should take what's left over quarterly. This time I'm left with $600.57, which, frankly, I'm having a hard time believing... Faulty math in there somewhere, perhaps, but I hope not! I could use $600 right now. I'm supposed to get paid soon. We'll start from square 1 then, so this total really has very little to do with anything except my own personal finances right now. :)

Okay, now that we've got the money issues dealt with, here's yesterday's menu:

Breakfast: Eggs, yogurt, smoothie, get whatcha want....

Lunch: Left-overs, spanikopita

Dinner: Chicken, rice, green peas, apple sauce

What's the menu today?

Breakfast: Eggs, yogurt, get whatcha want.

Lunch: Chewy pretzel bites. If you haven't tried them, do. They're amazing. Particularly if, like me, you "accidentally" use almost twice as much butter as it calls for! :)

Dinner: Beef stew and cornbread. Remember my attempt at cheater beef bourguignon? I posted about it HERE. Well, I tried it again today. Again it got rave reviews. I like rave reviews. The difference this time was that I used 2 chuck roasts, more carrots, and added some green bell peppers and a little bit of celery to the onions as they were browning. Oh, and I only used one can of mushrooms - I think that was all we had... And I don't think we had quite as much old wine for me to throw in this time. If I had to notice a significant change it the dish, I would say that it didn't turn out quite a rich as the last one, but I am almost of the opinion that that's because the old wine I had available this time was VERY old, and a much lighter-colored red wine. Of course, my knowledge of wines is limited at best, so this is really all conjecture. Whatever the differences may be, it was still good! Unlike the cornbread, which I choose to blame on the fact that we're out of buttermilk...

Now I'm going to go and see if I can get someone else on my line of thinking that we really need to have peppermint hot chocolate this evening. REALLY.

AND She's Back!

Taking a break from blogging over the holidays was awfully nice. I apologize right now for those of y'all who were curious about what we at throughout the past 2 weeks. To be completely honest, I would be embarrassed by publicly announcing how little cooking, and, therefore, how few actual meals, we really did eat. We coasted on left-overs quite a bit - to the point where now, just a little over a week since the Christmas festivities, we're pretty much out of those left-overs. Weird. Anyway, here's yesterday's menu:

Breakfast: Eggs, yogurt, get whatcha want

Lunch: Egg rolls

Dinner: Left-over spaghetti, re-fixed into a 9X13 casserole. We had enough left to somewhat fill a 9X9 that got put into the freezer for future use sometime when we're not all home - or maybe for lunch someday.

This year I'm hoping to do more freezer cooking, but in a way that works for me. My plan at the moment is to prepare about twice as much for each meal (or at least some meals) than I normally would, and stick what's left into the freezer. This plan seems good since it won't take that much more effort on my part, and, if we decide to have folks over at the last minute, we'll have enough food to support that decision. We'll see how it goes.