Monday - MPM 5/9 - 5/15

Well, another Monday is here...and almost gone. I have not had a good day. I am having a pity party for myself because my oldest child didn't take a couple of minutes to call me yesterday. Amazing how a little pity party can make you totally exhausted. I am just worn out, physically and emotionally.

I did not even have the energy to grocery shop. I still have to clean out the fridge before I do that. Thankfully, I don't need much because I did a really good job on the last shopping trip. Also, there just aren't any great loss leaders for my taste in shopping at least.

Okay, since I was so inspired by all the great menu plans posted last week, I have some great ideas for the next few weeks. Hundreds of posters post their plans at Organizing Junkie on her Meal Plan Menu weekly feature. Go check them out.

Here is what's cooking at our house this week.

Mon. - Swiss Steak, mashed potatoes and tossed salad with crescent rolls.

Tue. - Dinner at band boosters concert.

Wed. - Baked Chicken Fingers, corn, green beans

Thu. - MM Sandwiches (from Pioneer Woman), steak fries and tossed salad.

Fri. - Wrapped stuffed chicken breast, baked beans and rice.

Sat. - Steak, baked potato, okra.

Sun. - Burgers, chips.

The weather is so great, I may do a little baking so there will probably be some sweets about the house. Am also planning on doing a canning session to make some Ketchup. It is a family favorite around my house. Of course this is a result of the old cookbook I found I had. I asked my mom some questions about "back in the day" and it was so nice to see her eyes light up when she talked about her favorite "bump jelly" which was one of the hand written recipes I found tucked in the book. Grapes grew wild on and around her child hood home and they would gather those grapes while they were still green (as in not ripe) which turned a dark red (mom said she remembers them as purple, though the recipe states to cook them until they turn red) and they are were small round in size as they had no seeds so they looked like little bumps. It is comical the things that are remembered, especially by some one that is 84 and she is remembering back to when she was about 4-5 years old. We also talked a little bit about the canning that her sisters did. Her mother died before she was two, her sisters were all much older and they took care of her when she was growing up. One sister that was spinster moved back home and took over the household chores and caring for my mom. When mom was old enough to go to school, she would live with her two oldest sisters (both married) during the school year. Alternating sisters each year. It was handy, they literally lived a half a mile apart. Summers she would go back to the home place (she has always called it that) to live with her father. The home place was about 70 miles from the sisters and the closest school. At any rate, I asked her about the book describing home canning with tin cans. She said that a lot of people did that, they would can in tin cans their own meat and fruit. Her family however never purchased the equipment needed for that, they always used glass jars.

On that note, I was looking at a small pantry that I have and thinking that I really should clean it out. I notice some jars of jam and tomatoes. Now, I don't know about expiration dates of such things, my dad always joke that my aunt still had jars of peaches she canned during the war. But I know that the jars in my pantry are at least 8-10 years old. I AM NOT TAKING any chances. They are getting dumped, well the insides any way, and I will wash and sterilize the jars and reuse them. I also think that I saw my boxes of pint jars when I was out in the storage shed. A few days ago I was looking for something or other in a kitchen cabinet that is not user friendly, but did find a nice stash of canning jars in it that I didn't know I had. I found several boxes of lids, so am thinking all I have to buy is some rings. Another good note about those jars. I have an upright freezer, freezer compartment of my side by side, and then a freezer compartment on a regular fridge that we keep in the garage (mostly used for beer and milk) so you can see how easy it is to forget what I have in the freezer at times. I found a stash of whole chickens in one of the freezers and behind them was the very last of the plum juice my mom put in the freezer for making into jam. I just couldn't throw it out when we moved her out here, so in her little chest freezer we put the jars of juice, loaded it down with Blue Bell ice cream added some dry ice and it make the move from her home in Texas to here in California perfectly. Well almost, one jar broke but we won't tell mom that. She was so upset about all her work that was just wasted when we moved her, then she found out I took the juice, along with a few other tidbits from her freezer.

I bought some planters and replanted my tomatoes and impatiens along with a couple of indoor plants. Wow, three hours later they sure looked happy. I also took a long skinny planter and planted some cucumbers and lettuce. Tomorrow, I am going to go buy a hanging fuchsia plant that I spotted a few days ago and have decided I just got to have it for my patio. Am also determined to dig up my yellow miniature rose bush, well it is more like a rose stick at the moment. Imagine Charlie Brown's Christmas tree and then you are getting close to this poor guy. At any rate, I have some empty large planters laying about and am going to put that sickly little yellow rose and see if I can nurse it back to a blooming buddy. There is a story behind the little bush, and I will share it when I post photos.

Tomorrow night is my daughter's end of year band concert and the boosters sold tickets for a dinner. That means I don't have to cook. I really don't care for paying as much as we did for that meal, but am viewing it as a charitable contribution.

Guess that is about all for tonight. Need to get some rest so I can actually do at least some of the things on my "to do" list. Between my list and working out at the gym, I will be very busy this week. Which is a good thing. Also, one of the meals this week I will be doubling and freezing half of it. I am going to do this quite a bit over the next few weeks, have decided to put some meals in the freezer for my son and his wife for when the baby arrives.

Thanks for stopping in and check back again soon.

Back Then

So, the other day I took a detour in my thoughts and went down memory lane a bit. I was thinking about when I was in Jr. High and High School. Not to date my self, but that pretty much took up the last half of the 70's. Now I don't know why I started thinking about it. Oh yes I do. I took a trip to the restroom, grabbed a cook book to take with me. It was an old cook book that was my mom's, published in the 70's. One of the recipes listed a roll of garlic cheese as one of the ingredients. I remember these well. Ate many, oh so many of them. They had a little plastic ring on the back, you would cut two slits in the tube where that plastic ring was and then squeeze out the cheese. Or just cut the end off, stick a spoon in and go for it.

They are no longer available as Kraft quit making them. Personally, I think they should bring them back. But hey, who am I to be talking. At least this was a great sensible product.

Not like some of the other things that were on the market. Take the milk shake for instance. Anyone remember these babies? I always got chocolate. The vanilla wasn't bad either. They were pretty innovative for the time. Take out a cup, they were about the same size as the small McCafe Shakes, put it in the microwave and then you had a shake. Or more like thick chocolate milk, unless you left it a little too long, then you got warm hot chocolate. Of course, when you think about it, in the grand scheme of things and all, how hard is it to make a milk shake?

I mean really, we had a microwave and what did my use it for? Warming up her coffee and warming a wash rag to clean the grand babies faces. After all these years, and all those babies faces, she has gotten a little braver with the microwave, she will soften her ice cream so it is easier to scoop and make pop corn. Okay, I admit, she got to where she was heating up left overs in it too. At any rate, that trip to the bathroom with the cookbook (reading material is reading material and all I have around here is cook books, cooking magazines or craft magazines) just kind of started my mind running. Yes, it doesn't take much to get me sidetracked, I admit.

So, back to the cook book. I found another one, this one published in 1944 titled The Good Housekeeping Cook Book. It is really pretty interesting to look through, a little look inside the minds of people of the time. The country was in the midst of WWII. Rationing, blood drives, women would make bandages and most larger towns had USO dances. Especially those close to any bases. My mom and aunts would talk about those dances and the soldiers in their uniforms. Talk about your recycling efforts. How about going with out your nylon hose so all the nylon could be used for parachutes? Mom would tell me about drawing hose lines on the back of the legs for the dances and hoping you didn't sweat it off. Women were suddenly having to work the many jobs that the men normally did. There wasn't any leave back then for home visits. My dad was in the national guard, his unit was called in to the army right after Pearl Harbor. He went to Ft. Hood, had a little training, then sent out to war. His group went to Bataan, his home town lost most of that group. God took care of daddy though. He had been on a week end pass, just came back to find his outfit shipping out. They had all gotten their shots while he was gone. Instead of going to Bataan he was shipped to Africa, worked his way up to go through Anzio, Salerno, ended up in Austria. He saw Africa, Italy, France, England, Germany, Austria and a lot of places in between. The people at home pitched in valiantly. My parent's families were all farmers, living on farms, so they had it a little easier I think. People that lived in the towns weren't able to raise their own meat. Granny made sure that every family in their little town had meat to cook when their son's came home. No matter which way they came home. Dad was serving overseas for four years.

The cook book tells you what was important. A whole section, several pages, is devoted to making proper coffee. Tips and info on how to stretch your meat, stretch your butter, two egg cakes with sugar, three egg cakes in case your low on sugar. Desserts that have no eggs or sugar in case you situation is such. If even talks about a fairly new product called margarine. The first products looked a little like a block of lard, all white, and the package contained a pill that was crushed and stirred in to the margarine to give it a yellow color, to look like butter. Some of the products or ingredients called for are totally unknown to me. What is a bottled thick meat sauce? Or even Condensed Mock Turtle Soup? I get the shin bones, but you just can't go buy meat bones any more. I can tell you this much, after looking over those recipes I am so glad that we have blenders and food processors. I mean, I know what a food sieve is and remember using one to help my mom make grape jelly with it. From those brief experiences, I am so totally thankful that I don't have to sieve my bananas each time I use them for bread. Also thankful I don't have to make broth all the time. It was also a little humorous to see the description of the can sizes, jarred food sizes as compared with today's version. Of course, seeing the recipe ingredients - bottled milk - really sent me back to when we had milk delivery. Then, when we moved to a new town, we first rented a house way out in the country. A dairy was just down the road and dad would take us there to get milk, took the glass bottles back to refill them. But that was in the 70's. I imagine that in the 40's, it was all delivered if you lived in town. I almost forgot, the most wonderful thing about that cook book...found three of my most favorite recipes that my wonderful aunt would always make. All these years we were told they were her secret recipes. When ever she would give us a copy of her recipe she would leave one little something or other out so that when we made it, the recipe just didn't quite taste like hers. I am just in awe that after all these years I have them now, and didn't even know that we had them the whole time. I can tell I am going to be busy next week.

Enough of memory lane. I could easily get lost in that era, think sometimes my former life was during the pioneer days or the depression. You know, Little House on the Prairie meets Walton's. Life was simpler then, more patriotic, more faith, everyone helped each other. Right was right and wrong was wrong and every one knew which was which. Your life was built around God, family, country. Women didn't wear pants, mom's were home, life was just simpler.

Well, tomorrow is Mother's Day. Of course, once again, my husband has not planned anything. I will never forget the Mother's Day that I was 9 months pregnant with my oldest son, big as a barn, and sweet hubby goes to the store for some milk on Saturday evening, comes home with diet chocolates. Yeah, you got it. At any rate, their is a little whisper that the same oldest son is bringing me fried chicken tomorrow. I had told them that I would rather have their dad go get some KFC as opposed to going out to eat. But not really sure about that. I just know that I am not doing a thing in that kitchen but pointing tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping in to visit. Check back and see what else I find in that cook book, may even make a few of those dishes. Will try to get some photos of my little attempt at container gardening. Now that I found one of the recipes my aunt would make, that calls for lots of tomatoes, I may have to try and plant some more some where.

Thursday

It has been hot here. In the high 90's the last few days, supposed to cool off a touch on Saturday and through the first part of the week. That will be nice. At any rate, we have not gotten the air conditioning going yet so it has been pretty miserable by evening. My bedroom and kitchen both face the west and really heat up. So, I changed up the menu plan a bit to try and reduce the heat in the kitchen of an evening, by not using the oven.

Last night, hubby surprised me and took us out to eat to get a break from the heat. I had decided last night that I would pay back the kindness and make a nice meal, instead of the quick cook casseroles I had been making. I used the crock pots so as to not heat up the kitchen.
Cooked roast beef, baby red potatoes and green beans. Man the house smelled incredible all day. It was time to eat, you see my plate, and I ate all alone. Hubby told me when he got home he had football meeting to go to, daughter Miss J opted to accept a friend's invitation to go eat at the bowling alley. Go figure!

Oh well, such is my life around here. LOL

I finally got through all my receipts today and have finished my price book. I looked at a lot of different kinds that people had made, then I came up with what I think will work for me. It is a small green binder that is just the size to hold index cards. I bought colored cards and used white as well, breaking my groceries in to about 14 categories. I figured this would be easier for me to carry with me, which is what I want to do so I can check to see if the sale price is really a great price while in the store. It also has a pocket that I can put my coupons in.

The last big grocery shop I did, spent about 4 hours preparing for it. Wrote a list of what I needed to buy, different list for different stored based on sale fliers. This worked out really well as I also wrote which items on my list I had coupons for, how much the coupon was for, and exactly what I had to buy to use the coupon. OH MY GOSH was that really helpful for me as I got to one store and found out that their regular price was cheaper than the sale price. My last trip I spent a tad over $200.00 after my coupons. I actually saved about $75 between the coupons and shopping sales. I had estimated that I bought enough to make my rough meal list for 4 weeks, maybe 6. Well, I have done beyond wonderful with all my planning. We get paid again this week end and so far it is a very short list for the grocery shopping next week. This is so wonderful, will give me extra money from the grocery budget to take advantage of any sales. Only need milk and bread and of course toilet paper. I am really digging this, finally feel like I am getting my act together. I already have next week's menu plan ready to go, have a few more weeks worked up, but that will depend on the sales. Sure makes my life easier when I know what is cooking a head of time. Of course, since I changed up the menu and no one was home to eat it, there will be left overs for the week end whether they like it or not.

On to other topics. I have determined a way to have a small garden. I have no room in the back, it is all pool, hot tub and cement. Having very narrow flower beds that the four dogs love to roll around it. The front yard is not much better as in my neighborhood all the fruits of my labor would literally walk away. Because of the dogs, don't think the raised bed or square foot method would work well for me, and there is the issue of only patches of full sun. Not to be defeated, I do have my three topsy turvy planters. I have lots of places for hanging baskets that I can plant herbs in as well. We have a rotted out BBQ that really needed to be hauled off that I went out and took a second long look at. While it is no good for cooking, I have come up with the plan to use it for some tomatoes and peppers. Tomatoes in the pit part, potted peppers to sit on the little shelves that are for holding platters and such. I will post photos as I get it all going and growing. Will be buying plants on Saturday to get started.

I am too tired tonight, but tomorrow evening will get the embroidery machine out for a bit to embroidery a couple of names on the corners of some little baby blanket animals. A dear lady at our church is going through chemo for breast cancer and they are for her grand babies.

Thanks for stopping in and check back soon for recipes I am going to post.

Menu Plan Monday

I first have to say that I am so relived, happy, thrilled, to hear the news that Bin Laden is dead. I don't know if it will really make any difference with the unrest that is going on, but if feels like a just closure for Sept. 11 and the devastation that was caused to so many innocent families as a result of that attack.

It has been a really long time since I have posted a menu plan. Too long. I will keep this short since I am trying to finish up a few things and actually get to bed at a decent time for a change. I have a to do list a mile long this week.

Menu Plan:

Mon. - Chicken Enchiladas

Tue. - Tater Casserole

Wed. - Chicken Parmesan

Thu. - Tamale Pie

Fri. - Green Chile Bake

Sat. - Smothered Steak

Sun. - Mother's Day - hoping to not cook.

For more great menu ideas check out what others have posted as part of Meal Plan Monday at Organized Junkie which is a great site for all kinds of inspiration.

If I can get my camera going, will have some photos of the dishes. Will post some recipes over the week as well. I haven't quite gotten all the sides decided either, but will have it worked out before long. Am also hoping to post the cost of the meals as I work it out. Am building a price book based off of receipts so should be able to make some accurate accounting of the meals.