Menu Plan 10/21-10/27/22: Feeding the Family

 Happy Monday!  We spent this past weekend at Family Weekend at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.  It was such a blessing to spend time with our two boys.  I miss them!  We had a really nice time.  They'll be home in a month for Thanksgiving and I can't wait. 

We stayed at the same place we stayed last year, Hueston Woods.  It's a state park and it isn't anything fancy, but the choices by the school are limited.  It's very nice and I highly recommend it.  It's a bit dated and has a 1970's vibe to it, but the boys describe it as "cozy" and I agree.  The restaurant there has decent food, and the best part is that they are able to cook for J and his food allergies.  We are hoping to stay there again next year.

This week's menu is bit thrown together, but we will still be feeding the family:

Friday:  Out at Hueston Woods (I shared fried pickle chips with M and M and had a Greek Flatbread)

Saturday:  Out at Hueston Woods (I ordered house made potato chips with pulled pork, but was still too full from tailgating so I ended up taking them to go and gave them to the hubby),

Sunday:  Dirty Rice

Monday:  Slow Cooker Beef Stew

Tuesday:  Turkey Tacos

Wednesday:  Cavatelli 

Thursday:  Clean up

Saturdays Tailgating Menu:

We have a Camp Stove (similar to Blackstone) and we made cheeseburgers, bacon wrapped footlongs, and loaded tater tots (which were the biggest hit).  I also made chili at home and brought it along with the slow cooker.  My car has a "plug" in it but we discovered that it only works when the car is ON and the car shuts itself off after a few minutes.  That part of the plan ended up being a bust.  We did heat the chili on top of the griddle, but I would skip the chili for future tailgating.  It was more of a pain that it was worth.

I brought the 5lb bag of tater tots and we cooked 1/2 a bag at a time.  Start cooking the tots first in a little oil.  While those are cooking, fry up the bacon (the tots will cook in some of the bacon grease, and it makes them even more delicious).  You have to keep flipping the tots to get them all crispy.  It also helps to smash them down a little bit once they are fairly cooked.  Add the bacon, cheese, and green onion to the top and cover to melt.  The boys have already requested these again for next year and I'll probably bring two 5 lb bags of tots.  

I bought all beef footlong hot dogs from Costco and wrapped those in bacon (1.5 slices per dog).  The boys LOVED these too.  And I made 16 quarter pound burgers using the easiest burger maker on the planet (will post that at a later date).  They boys were full when they left, and we sent them home with extra burgers and dogs.  

I hope you have a wonder week!!

Meal Plan 10/14 to 10/20/22: Feeding the Family

 Hi all!  Happy mid-October!  Football ended last Sunday.  Unfortunately, the boys lost their final game and that took them out of any playoff contention.  We have no sporting events this week.  But basketball will be starting the beginning of November, so the reprieve will be a short one.  Such is life with kids.  

My goal right now is to stock up our freezer while trying to get our grocery budget in check. This is not an easy task, but I'm working on it.  I'm trying to get an organized database of our favorite, most used recipes and a grocery list to go along with them.  This is something that will take time, but I think it will help me be more organized.  Stay tuned for progress updates.  

This Sunday is trunk or treat at the school.  But that's all we have scheduled right now.  I would like to take the young one to get his pumpkin to carve, so maybe we will do that on Saturday after trunk or treat.  The weather has been absolutely gorgeous here.  I know it won't stay that way, but I'm soaking up every last bit of it.  

This week's menu plan:

Friday:  Clam Chowder (moved from last week's menu plan):  I had a lot of left-over lunch meat, so I changed last week's menu plan around.  I also had an unfortunate incident with the stew meat (you cannot leave meat on the counter all night and use it the next day.  Oy.  I can't believe I did that).  

Saturday:  Sausage and pepper bake.  I need to use the rest of the peppers from the garden.  

Sunday:  Salisbury Steak, potato, and veg

Monday:  Food Nanny's Chicken Soup, rolls (from the Food Nanny Saves Dinner Again Cookbook)

Tuesday:  Low Carb Mexican Casserole with coconut lime rice

Wednesday:  Quiche and hashbrowns

Thursday:  Clean-up Day

Baking:  The Ultimate Healthy Banana Muffins from The Ambitious Kitchen

We are trying to cut sugar out of the young one's diet.  He's been on a cookie and milk kick and eating too much Halloween candy.  The muffin recipe above is low in sugar.  It uses honey instead of regular sugar.  I have recipes that use alternative sugars (like Stevia) but I'm just not sure I want to use that with him.  I've read conflicting data on safety, so I prefer to stick with honey, maple syrup, or low amounts of sugar.  

Speaking of too much Halloween candy, the school had Trunk or Treat on Saturday.  He cleaned up.  I will have to dole this out.  

Have a blessed week!!

Five On Friday

 Five on Friday

Five of my favorite family friendly Halloween movies:

1. The Addams Family (1991) 

2.  Ghost Busters (1984)

3.  Hotel Transylvania

4.  The Haunted Mansion

5.  Coco

Added because I just can't leave these out:

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Monsters Inc.

Although all of these are mostly family friendly, ages of kids who are comfortable watching these will vary.  I know the Haunted Mansion traumatized my 5-year-old.  Parents, you know what your children are comfortable with.  And movies like the Addams Family and Ghost Busters are really for older kids (tweens/preteens and older).  

Meal Plan 10/7 to 10/13: Feeding the Family

Well, hopefully last week was the last week of football.  They are playing right now, and if they win, they may go to play offs.  I'm home with the dog since she can't stay home alone that long.  I'm torn.  Part of me hopes they win.  But part of me hopes that football season is over.  Don't tell him that I said that.

This week I tried to do a Walmart pick up.  When it came to my pickup time, I received a text that said my pickup was delayed.  I was already on my way there since I made my pickup time for right after school.  We went anyway since we were almost there, and we waited 45 minutes.  I didn't receive any updates, so I cancelled the order and just headed home.  I could have just gone into Walmart and shopped, except that I had the puppy with me and couldn't just leave her in the car. Yesterday, I shopped at Heinen's instead.  I spent more than I would have at Walmart, but I really do love the selections of produce, meat, and high-end products that Heinen's has.  

This week's menu plan:

Friday:  Mrs. T's Pierogi's and fruit.  These were such a hit a few weeks ago, I thought I'd take the easy way out again.

Saturday:  Pizza Night:  Traditional pepperoni, and white pizza with portabella mushrooms, green pepper, fresh mozzarella, goat cheese, parmigiana, Romano, and asiago cheeses.

Sunday:  Cheesy Chicken with Spinach, roasted veggies, salad, and rolls (chicken recipe from the Food Nanny Saves Dinner Again cookbook)

Monday:  Turkey Tacos

Tuesday:  Slow Cooker Beef Stew.  I was scheduled to make a Meal Train meal for a church family on this day, but the person who was scheduled for last week, requested that we switch due to her having some sick littles at home.  I made my Meal Train slow cooker beef stew last Thursday, but I'll be keeping our schedule for beef stew today.

Wednesday:  Clam Chowder, rolls, and salad.  At least I think this is what we are having.  The recipe is from the Food Nanny Saves Dinner Again cookbook and it only calls for one can of clams.  That doesn't seem enough to me, so I planned on buying two cans.  But the grocery store was completely wiped out of canned clams.  The clams were on the very top shelf and standing on tip toes, I managed to find one can knocked to the very back of the shelf, so I bought it.  I'm just still not convinced that one can will be enough, so we'll see.

Thursday:  Cleanup day or Poor Man's Meal

Have a blessed week ahead!!

XOXO

Little House and the Long Winter

 

My little guy and I have been listening to the Little House series via audio books.  It's been a nice experience to share these books with him.  I enjoyed reading them as a child, and my older boys were just not interested in reading them with me.  But the little guy enjoys them.  

We are currently listening to The Long Winter.  We aren't very far into it, but it's affecting me in ways that are causing me to worry about our own long winter.

We went from summer to fall as if someone flipped a switch.  The last several years, we've had very warm weather well into October.  This year is different.  We went from 80 degrees to 50 degrees in a day.  And I noticed the trees starting to change in September.  The leaves are now taking their sweet old time changing at the moment.  But they did start early.  It made me wonder if we were going to have an earlier and harder winter.  

In The Long Winter, the Ingalls family are finding themselves ill prepared to deal with the blizzards.  Right now, they are running out of coal, oil for the lamp, and meat.  It's making me think that maybe I should be increasing my stock of essentials for our own long, Ohio winter.  Of course, we'll be fine with coal and lamp oil, but meat and other food staples could be an issue.  I went through my freezer stash over the summer when I was trying to get the grocery bills lower, but now I'm thinking that I should build it back up again.  Not so much in a hoarding sense, but just in a "be prepared" sense.  

I notice that the supply chain issues are still with us.  Businesses are still having a hard time finding employees.  But while it can be annoying, it's not really an issue because we have enough items to substitute with unlike during the pandemic.  If the store is out of brown rice, I can still find white rice.  During the pandemic, there was no rice.  I'm not too worried about that happening again (but maybe I should be).  I just want to make sure that I have enough staples on hand that if I can't get to the store for a week, I can still feed the family. 

Items I like to keep stocked in the pantry/freezer:

1.  Beans- canned and dried
2.  Frozen veggies
3.  Boxed stock
4.  Bread - in the freezer
5.  Rice/Quinoa
6.  Meat in the freezer- ground and sausage
7.  Canned tomatoes - diced, diced with chili's, and whole
8.  Dried pasta
9.  Crackers/granola bars
10. Canned fruits/frozen fruit
11. Canned tuna

With the above items, I can make several different meals or soups.  I have canned fruit, but I don't really use that often, so I have to make sure to rotate that out.  The other things I use weekly so it's never a problem using them up before any expiration dates.

I always have olive oil, spices, and condiments so I don't worry about those.  With the pantry/freezer stocked up with those 11 items, I don't worry about feeding my people.  For other families, I would suggest nut butters too, but we have a nut allergy in our house and the little guy won't eat PB and J so I don't worry about keeping those in stock.  

I also like to keep a package of each size batteries in the house for things like flashlights or Xbox controllers (if you have kids, you understand how important that can be).

We also keep a small gas can of gasoline for our generator.  We have one that is portable and will run certain things like the heat, a few lights, the refrigerators, freezers, and our well and pump (no power means no water from us). If I ever hit the lottery, I would love to get one of those automatic whole house generators.  Our neighbors have one and it's great.  But right now, I'm thankful for our portable one.

Since we have a child with asthma, I also like to make sure that we have extra asthma medication in the house just in case.

It's always good to be prepared, but there is no need to overdo it.    If there is one thing that the pandemic taught us, it's that there are things that can happen that can be out of our control.  We don't need to stress out about it, but it's good to make sure that we have enough items on hand, that we can fend for ourselves if we have to.  

The Ingalls could have benefitted from a stocked pantry during The Long Winter. As the homemaker and keeper of the family, I'm going to make sure that I've got us covered.   

Menu Plan 9/30 to 10/6: Feeding the Family

 Happy October!!  I cannot believe it's October already.  The "Ber" months seem to go so quickly to me.  I really want to enjoy October and all its beauty.  It's one of my favorite months.  The weather can be cool, or it can be Indian Summer.  The leaves are spectacular.  October usually has the best combination of warm sun and cozy cool.  And on a side note, I saw my first Christmas commercial on October 1st.  It made me laugh.  Too Soon?  Yes, too soon.

I have all of my Halloween decorations up.  I managed to get that done Friday.  I ordered a new Halloween candle Saturday evening and I hope it gets here soon.  I wasn't going to do it, but I just couldn't help myself.  

I know that I said that last week was the final week of the little guy's football, but the joke is on me.  They added another week.  So, THIS week will be the final week of football (at least I hope so). The oldest was home this weekend for a power lifting competition.  He got 3rd in his weight class.  We are very proud of him and all his hard work.  I feel so blessed to have him home.  I miss my big boys. The Middle stayed at school, but then went to Ohio State over the weekend to visit friends and go to the football game.  He seemed to have a good time.  I'm so glad that he is enjoying college.  He's acclimated very well.

 

The following is this week's menu:

Friday:  Slow Cooker Mac and Cheese (from @brunchwithbabs on Instagram) and the rest of the bag of fish sticks from last week.

Saturday:  Hamburgers and turkey dogs on the grill Ore Ida French fries

Sunday:  Pearl's Chili
This chili is fast (only takes an hour from start to finish) but it is so good.  It's from the Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook.  I tried to find the recipe online to share with you, but I could only find a half plagiarized one.  I don't specifically follow the THM plan at the moment, but it is really good, and that cookbook is amazing whether you follow the plan or not.  And you can always check it out at the library.

Monday:  Quiche Lorraine and hash browns.
I haven't actually made a quiche for the family before (the middle sons egg allergy made it unsafe).  I really hope they like it.

Tuesday:  Sheet Pan Taco Chicken Fingers

Wednesday:  Grilled footlong turkey and bacon sub and homemade coleslaw

Thursday:  Clean Up Night    Egg Roll In A Bowl and Slow Cooker Beef Stew for a church family

I did another Walmart pick up this week.  It's just too easy.  I wish my area had the delivery option.  I would totally pay for that.  But we are rural, so we don't have that yet.  I took Daisy with me for the first time, and although she doesn't look thrilled in the photo, she actually loved it.

Thank you for checking in!  I hope you have a blessed week ahead.