A Delightful Experience

Breakfast: Get whatcha want

Lunch: Fresh tomatoes and cottage cheese and roasted green beans

Dinner: We were all gone in separate directions. I went to Nashville with friends (for a Trinity College Choir concert - it was AMAZING!!! If you get a chance to go, do so!), Claire and Kyle had practice, and the others went to Dickson for the evening.

Haying

Yesterday was quite a busy day for us here. My brother and I raked and baled our 22 acre hay pasture (it feels WAY bigger than 22 acres, trust me...), but that's not really applicable here.

Breakfast: Get whatcha want

Lunch: Nachos

Dinner: Beans and cornbread, slaw, kale, with strawberries, shortcakes, and cream for immediate dessert, and ice cream and cookies for later dessert. :)

Another Monday Done

Breakfast: Rice, bacon, and diy eggs

Lunch: Mama, Claire, and I were over at our friends' house; Daddy was at work, and the boys went to town. So, I guess none of us ate lunch at home!

Dinner: Popcorn

Beef Stew ala Julia Child

Because I'm too lazy to look up the real spelling of ... anything right now. :P

Breakfast: Well, I was out of the house before most of the rest of them were up. I had a couple cookies (and then doughnuts at the neighbors!).

Lunch: I was still gone, so I'm not sure what they had here at home. I had pb&j.

Dinner: Julia Child's French beef stew - Mama made it; 'twas good! I guess I rarely get tired of beef stew prepared like that; it's so rich and tender and flavorful!

Busy Monday

We spend most of yesterday preparing delectables for a sort of party we're hosting this evening, so we didn't spend a whole lot of time on meals yesterday.

Breakfast: Most of us slept in really late (that happens when you don't get to bed until nearly 1:30am), so I don't really think we had breakfast. If some did, it was definitely get whatcha want.

Lunch: Claire made a macaron and chicken dish.

Dinner: Gyros!

What we eat when we go to the dentist

Yep, we went to the dentist yesterday. We live 1.5hrs away from our dentist, so we generally have at least one meal in town. Which we did. We also got quite a few groceries (for some hospitality things we're hoping to do in the next few days), but I haven't figured all the receipts out yet, so that part will have to wait.

Breakfast: Get whatcha want, and get it fast. We left at 8:30am (not a good day to have gotten to bed late the night before... oops. Oh, and the cows had to be milked...).

Lunch: Harris Teeter sushi with Sam's pretzels/pizza/ice cream to supplement. We can recommend the Spicy Mango sushi from Harris Teeter; it we really quite good. The avocado one wasn't bad, but it had carrots in it. I find that I prefer my sushi to be carrot-less; the carrots sort of throw off the texture of things, in my opinion.

Dinner: Daddy made dinner! Cubed steaks in a tomato-y sauce, fried okra (from okra we'd frozen a couple years ago!), and rice.

I've put if off long enough...

Well, I didn't get on here and give an update last night, so I reckon I'd better do it this morning before I get too behind again. I just don't really want to know... You see, we went grocery shopping yesterday. It was one of the biggest grocery shopping trips we've had in a really long time, and, with it being Christmas and all, we were more inclined to impulse buy. I'm sure the total will be rather high. But first, the menu:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want. We were all rushing around trying to get away as early as possible.

Lunch: Mama and I had Taco Bell, conveniently located right next to Walmart. I understand the others had ruebens. Yes, I'm jealous.

Dinner: We didn't really have dinner, now that I think of it...

$425.79 is the sum of everything we spent yesterday. That was using some coupons, and our Costco rebate check. Ouch. The grocery total is now, according to this blog $253.43, but according to what I just counted $250.60. I think this is probably from the use of much of the change on the vending machines at Costco as we were leaving. I never got a total for how much that was. So, I'm going to blame this discrepancy on that.

Confession

It'll come in a minute...

Breakfast: Part get whatcha want, part omelet.

Lunch: Broccoli soup. I do not like broccoli. <-- There's the confession.

Dinner: Roast, potatoes, carrots, and apples.

Today Daddy and I made 3.5 gallons of apple cider! *Joy!* Grammy and Granddaddy also brought a country ham by. They picked it up for us, and it cost $98, bringing the grocery total to $685.81. We now have pork in the freezer!!! Yeah, it's been a good day. :)

Busy Day!

We spent the day finishing the living room renovation project!

Breakfast: Bacon and whatever else you wanted

Lunch: Bread, grapefruit... get whatcha want. What can I say? We were busy!

Dinner: Daddy, Luke, and I are the only ones home, so we had left-over chicken and rice soup (and root beer floats to celebrate the newly-finished project!!!).

And no one was home...

The house was empty yesterday. We were all busy, busy, busy! Claire and Kyle were in the studio with the band; they're beginning to record another album! Daddy was working, and Mama, Luke, and I went grocery shopping for some things we'll need for Thanksgiving. Of course, we did some other things as well. :)

Breakfast: Get whatcha want.

Lunch: Mama, Luke, and I had Chuy's!!!

Dinner: Popcorn.

We spent $178.01 on groceries yesterday. That brings the total to $438.71.

Wednesday had come and gone, and now it's Thursday

True, no?

Things are getting done around here!!! Yesterday, Claire and Kyle moved everything out of the living room into the dining room, and they painted the living room ceiling! Today the walls are getting their turn. I did my best to keep the rest of the house running while Mama did school with Luke and bookkeeping.

Breakfast: Get whatcha want.

Lunch: Bread. I made fresh bread! and I was exhausted after doing so. It takes me forever to recover from stomach things...

Dinner: Seemed like a good day to do chicken soup of sorts again. We have a ton of greens as well, so I did the chicken and rice with greens soup again. That certainly was better for my stomach than the chili we've had the last couple of nights!

Daddy did some grocery shopping for us yesterday too. He spent $114.71, making the new total $116.72. I got paid today, so the current grand total is $616.72.

Quickly about today

Today was the biggest day in our church's Reformation celebration, so we were with some of our favorite folks all day!

Breakfast: Oatmeal

Lunch: Barbecue catered by Whitt's!

Dinner: Chili

As it's 10:45, I will be brief, but I wanted to ask y'all to pray for our church family, friends, and community. There's a stomach bug going around, and I'm sure the sick ones would appreciate prayers for a quick and full recovery. Also, there are several of us who haven't gotten it yet, and we would most definitely appreciate your prayers that we would somehow continue to avoid it and whatever other sicknesses are around.

Thanks!

Catchin' up

Again. Sometimes life just gets too busy to post about what we've bought and what we've eaten! First off, Claire went to town Saturday morning to pick up some things at the co-op, so I sent some grocery money with her. She picked up some eggs, milk, and hot dogs for us a Save-A-Lot for: $17.95 making the new total: $378.81.

Saturday:

Breakfast: I don't hardly even remember Saturday, so I'm thinking it was probably another get whatcha want meal.

Lunch: Lunch was more official. We all sat down and had enchiladas!

Dinner: The band members had a gig at another band member's church, and there was dinner. We all decided to go! We had to go in the truck, so it wasn't the most comfortable ride ever, but it was good to be together as a family.


Sunday:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want, I think.

Lunch: We took potato soup/mash (oddly enough, we ran out of milk, so the soup wasn't very ... soup-like.), hot dogs, and apple pie.

Dinner: I don't think we had anything in particular for dinner. Apple pie, maybe...


Monday:

Breakfast: Daddy and I left at 6am, and I don't think we had anything to eat (though we did grab our favorite coffee concoctions on the way out the door). I don't know what the others had.

Lunch: Daddy and I and another good friend we picked up on the way went to my uncle's house to disassemble and haul away a tower he had in his back yard. Uncle Craig is, by profession, a chef, and he fed us very well on potato soup!

Dinner: Claire made stew, greens, and bread.

A forgotten purchase

Or rather, a purchase that I forgot to record: $50 for 5 bushels of organic apples (2 bushels of Jonagold, 3 of Mutsu - Mutsu being our favorite!)! We picked them up a couple of weeks ago, and we've been enjoying them ever since! That brings the grocery money total to: $396.76.

While I'm on, here's yesterday's menu:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want.

Lunch: Bread, apples, apple butter, etc. (We were deep in the middle of canning apples at the time.)

Dinner: Spaghetti, winter squash (cut in half, seeds removed, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg, microwaved for 10 minutes, baked until we were ready to eat.), and bread.

We got 14 more quarts of apples canned yesterday! That used up all our quarts, surprisingly. I'm guessing they're all being used with green beans. We may can some more, but they'll be in pints instead. We're also really hoping to do some cider, but our cider press needs a little work before then. So, we'll see, I guess! In the meantime, we'll have apple pies! I've got 2 in the oven right now, and I should probably go check on them...

Another day on the town!

Yesterday we went to Cheekwood! It was an absolutely beautiful day to do it, too!

Breakfast: Get whatcha want (and quickly!). We were on our way by 9:45 or so.

Lunch: Loveless Cafe. Very expensive, and only mediocre, but none of us had ever been, and it's a Nashville icon, so worth a one-time trip.

Dinner: Left-over creamy, poppy seed chicken.

Today is the beginning of the third month!

Being November first and all...

So, today:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want. Again. Perhaps someday we'll get better at "doing" breakfasts...

Lunch: Tuna salad on crackers + left-overs (if you wanted them)

Dinner: Creamy, poppy seed chicken and left-over turnip greens

Claire and I spend almost all afternoon up at the guest house canning apples! Yes, we finally got around to doing some of that! We had time to do 3 water bath batches, or 21 quarts. Still being relatively new to this whole canning by ourselves deal (without Mama and/or Grammy), we weren't entirely confident about what we were doing, but I'm staying optimistic and hoping that the jars won't burst or not seal. ... I exude confidence, don't I? Oh, well. The green beans worked, so perhaps these apples will too.

We canned them in a very light sugar syrup. Our method, step by step (you were anxiously awaiting this, weren't you?):

• Got the canners and sugar syrup heating up. We had one canner on a propane burner on the deck. The other canner and the large pot of syrup were inside on the stove.

• I started using the handy-dandy apple peeler-corer-slicer to peel the apples (the corer-slicer part isn't functioning correctly, but thankfully it still peels well!), while Claire mixed up the sugar syrup and prepared the jars.

• Claire cut the apples into eighths (unless they were really small, then just quarters), and cut off the cores. I continued peeling, and the pots continued heating up.

• Once the sugar syrup finally got to boiling, we added the apple eighths. Then we did more peeling and cutting as we waited for it to start boiling again.

• Once the apples in the sugar syrup were hot, we pulled out the jars (which we stored in the oven - set at 170* - after we washed them.), and started filling them. I usually tried to cover the final apple slices with a little syrup, but after seeing the final product, I'm not sure that was as good an idea as it sounded at the time.

• The canner on the deck had long since started boiling by this point, so we filled that canner up first. Takes 7 quarts to fill a canner, so once we got all those filled, we dropped the rack into the water, put a lid on the canner, and started the timer for 20 minutes. I'm thinking we'll try 15 minutes next time... IF today's have sealed.

• Then we repeated the steps above. Filled the canner on the stove. Then the canner on the deck again.

• We put our finished quarts on towels on a table. That way they won't leave sticky rings on the table, and clean-up's only throwing the towels in the wash.

So, that's what we did. We'll see if we like them, if they seal, and if they keep as the year goes on.

Another day, another menu

Yesterday was another typical Friday. No gigs this week for the band members, so I went out instead! (Only for about 4 hours in the afternoon.) Thankfully, I'd already thrown most of dinner together, so the folks at home could finish it for me since Mama and I got back a bit after 6:30.

Breakfast: Get whatcha want. I believe I had left-over apple pie.

Lunch: Left-overs. I chose the chicken noodle soup.

Dinner: Roast, potatoes, carrots, gravy, and green beans. I browned the roasts (one of the huge 2-packs from Costco. One's for Sunday!), then threw them into a roaster with potatoes, carrots, and appropriate seasonings. I let that bake at 375* for an hour or two, then turned it down to 300* when Mama and I left for Columbia. Daddy finished preparing everything for me (have I mentioned that he's awesome?), and I'm very happy to report that the roast was very tender and, as far as roasts go, pretty moist! Success!

For Wednesday

I just realized (and fixed) that in the last post, I called it Wednesday when it was really Tuesday. It's been a long week already... But here's yesterday's/Wednesday's/that-day-that-felt-like-Friday's menu:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want, I think...

Lunch: We didn't really have a formal lunch either. I believe I had yogurt, and the others probably had left-overs.

Dinner: Chili (with all the fixin's!) with a bunch of friends! Oh, and apple pie for dessert!

Cookies, Bread, and Purees - Oh My!

Lame attempt at a clever title, I know. Moving on! Yesterday was a very busy kitchen day for me, and if I had to guess, today probably will be too. The morning began with a batch of chocolate chip cookies (I use the recipe on the back of the Hershey's semi-sweet chocolate chip bags; I've found that to be our family's favorite so far.). Before I'd even washed the dirty dishes from those, I did a batch of bread. While the loaves rose, I caught up on the dishes, and even had a couple minutes to sit down! Once those when in the oven, I started dinner: Crock Pot Chicken Enchilada Soup. Then we had a brief-ish lunch interlude, and finally the real project of the day began: deal with the many butternut/honeynut squash we've acquired recently. But first, here's the menu:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want - I had yogurt.

Lunch: Fresh bread

Dinner: Chicken Enchilada Soup

Now the project description ('cause I know y'all are just dyin' to hear about the last 6 hours of my day yesterday). I combined my own meager knowledge with several online descriptions of ways to do this type of thing. I came up with the following, probably inefficient, way of doing it:

Dinner in the crock pot, squash in the food processor and microwave!

- Rinse squash, slice in half lengthwise, scoop seeds and string-y stuff out. (BTW, the disposal doesn't like squash seeds very much, so you might want to put them directly in to the trash or compost.)

- Place meat-side down (or skin-side up, if you prefer) in a glass dish

- Cover and microwave for 10 to 15 minutes, until it's soft.

- Scoop squash out of skin, and place in food processor

- Once the food processor is about half-full (or a little less), process until thoroughly ... unstring-y. I took each batch about 5 minutes in the food processor, and it came out about the consistency of peanut butter (for the honeynut - a bit soupier for the buttenut)

- Bag up and freeze! I did a gallon or so this way.

Playing Catch-up. Again.

Well, hello there! Life happens. Sometimes crazily. Monday we went to Nashville, and I was utterly exhausted when we got home. So no post here. Yesterday our internet was somehow exceeded. I swear it wasn't me. So again, no post here or anywhere. I didn't even check my email yesterday afternoon and evening. Catch-up time!


Monday:

Breakfast: Hazelnut-cinnamon scones

Lunch: Left-overs, as we walked out the door to go to Nashville (Cheekwood isn't open on Mondays; just FYI)

Dinner: Mama made delicious potato soup!


Tuesday:

Breakfast: Quesadillas and left-over hazelnut scones

Lunch: Quesadillas - they weren't left-over; Mama and Claire are just enjoying having tortillas and cheese.

Dinner: Stew - left-over from Sunday (fixed up)