August 11, 2013

Today I have to get the zucchini relish started.  I am going to get the recipe from megan for some salsa and try a new crockpot recipe.  Yes, that is a full day.  I am also hoping to be able to make a ton of zucchini bread and shred the rest of the zucchini on the counter besides a couple to eat this week.

I also need to cut and use my first broccoli.

Today is the day to start pureeing our meal for my son.  We will see how it goes.  He love the mashed potatoes.  Can't wait to keep giving him new foods.

I am almost finished with my meal plan and I need to finish the spreadsheet.  I didn't realize how low I am in the pork tenderloin roast.  Only one more week of meals to put in the calendar and it will be ready until Thanksgiving.

We tried the Smothered Pork Chops.  They had plenty of flavor, however, it was not our favorite.  But, the mashed potatoes were really nice.  I also cut up the last cucumber and some ripe tomatoes mixed in rice vinegar.

I spent the rest of the day with the kids.  Great day.

August 10, 2013

Spent the day hanging out with my kids..not cooking.  We went to see my cousins for a cousin dinner.  I watered my garden well, picked some more tomatoes.  We had a great day.  Trying some new food for dinner tomorrow night.  Hope that it goes well.

August 9, 2013

Ok, so it is now 2:23am and I am just sitting down to writing this.  I am going to be exhausted tomorrow.  I spent the day with the goal of cleaning the surfaces.  It went well.  I love our new house.  I can plug in one the vacuum in one outlet and vacuum the whole house.  It is just the right sized house for me to keep in order.  Not too big, not too small.  I can at least see all the floors well to keep things off of it when my son wants to put something in his mouth...which is like every ten minutes.

I went shopping for the next three months today.  Ugh.  I hate that much shopping.  Besides the fact that it is just hard, it takes hours after being home to get everything in the freezer and cupboards.  When I buy chicken I always cut off all the tendons, fat and stuff that I don't want to eat.  I marinated some chicken with Chipotle Pepper and froze it.

We bought more hamburger meat, cheese (both cheddar jack and mozzeralla) and hot dogs to freeze.  I organized the big freezer but i have more of that do to tomorrow since I need to get half of the freezer in our kitchen pulled out and put in the deep freezer.  I bought one too many boxes of milk, so I will be waiting to completely organize the little deep freezer until the middle of next week when I have used up that box.

Got more to write but I am exhausted.  Seriously off to bed.

August 8, 2013

Camping went great.  Loved using Russ stove.  We made Chili boats late last night.  Cooking was interesting going everything one after the other this morning.

Things that we need for our next camping trip:
Basic seasonings S/P containers
Any other seasonings
Mayonnaise Packets
Roast Sticks, Skewers
Ketchup Packets (but unnecessary)
Hot Pad
2nd Stove
Pam
Camelpack
Powered Powerade

We did Eggs, Sausage and Hashbrowns for breakfast.  We used eggs from Shelf Reliance.  Yum.  Definitely a great taste.  We boiled the eggs in bags.  It was interesting but worked great.  Glad I brought the apple juice.

For lunch we did hot dogs on the tailgate of the truck, Cheetos, powerade, apples, oranges, and homemade fruit roll ups.

We are worn out from the sun and I haven't figured out dinner yet.  That might take a while since I am sunburned from being in my swim suit for 20 minutes and being out in the sun.

We used about 3 gallons of water between all the water bottles the camel pack, cooking and cleaning the dishes.  Overall it was a great trip.  I learned a lot.  I am hoping that the next time we are able to have a pack that is just for camping stuff that we can just grab and go so packing doesn't take so long.  It was really great to have a night away and doing something we don't normally do.  Next time we will not hike.  Camping is just fun enough with the kids.  Remington was all squeals in the tent and played great in the play pen while we ate.  Madalynn had some fun looking for various things on the forest floor.  It was great.  There were some Racoons that totally scared me and tried to get in the tent, but they couldn't.

Well, I will write more tomorrow.  I am going to costco sometime in the next few days to get all the things that we need.  Hopefully I will get my spreadsheets done too.

August 6, 2013

Yep, a total flop of a day.  We ate a loaf of zucchini bread for breakfast, grabbed a piece of pizza at Sam's club for a late lunch and went to KFC for their free root beer floats.  Russ and Madalynn had leftovers late at night.  Remington had some garden green beans that I had frozen last weekend and some pears I froze as well.  

I went and got a dual sam's club membership with Aunt Bonnie and spent a while writing down the prices of things we usually buy at Costco so that I can compare quantities and amounts when i go this week.  We will see how that goes.

I am going to have to pack for our camping trip tomorrow.  I am planning chili boats for dinner, eggs and sausage for breakfast and still need to figure out what to do for dinner on our hiking trip.  I hope that madalynn does well in her shoes since she has outgrown her tennis shoes.

I spent an hour today organizing the racks in our food storage again because we have used/added to it so many times and I have not put things in the order that they should go in.  I will be glad that all that stuff will be in the spreadsheet because I totally forgot how much I have of certain things.  

My garden is suffering from weird watering and the heat.  I can't wait until we get home on Thur night.  I am going to be cutting the eating our first broccoli.  It is going to be awesome.  Everything in a garden tastes different from store bought and I can't wait to see how different broccoli tastes.

Well, that is all for now.  Looking forward to some sleep. Hopefully Remington feels the same way tonight.

August 5, 2013

Tonight was a quick night.  We grilled up hamburgers and cut up garden cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and carrots for a side salad.  It was yummy of course.

I spent my first morning off work for a few weeks putting together spread sheets.  I am determined to be a little more organized, know exactly what we are spending our money on and exactly how often I have to buy groceries.  My best friend has been doing this a while and she can honestly feed her family of 4 on $36 a week with a $50 budget a month for bulk groceries for the food storage.  That includes all necessary household products and food.  Once I go back to work in sept I will be back to once a month grocery shopping, crockpot meals and lack of time to plan and budget.  This summer has been a great time.  I have read more books and blogs than ever.  I work around 45 hours a week during the school year and while coming home and trying to be a mom I also have to still take care of household chores and basic other life necessities like baths and such.  That leaves no time for planning.  Usually that is when our good eating goes down the drain and I put on weight like crazy.

THAT IS NOT HAPPENING THIS YEAR!!!

Yep, that is my main goal.  I am hoping that i will have a night of work like last year where I sit behind the piano for little kid classes and have time between ballet exercises to double check my meal plans and my grocery lists.  I set up some Google calendars yesterday.  When I told my husband that I would be sending him links to the calendars so that he would know what to help me with dinner each night he gave me that look..the look that says, "Are you serious?"  Yes, yes I am.  I have linked the recipes that I am using to each night and additional instructions for each meal.  He should never have a question about anything...granted, he has to open and read it.  He usually gets home before me in the evening since my work is mostely later evenings during the school year.

I am also starting the long and tedious process of putting everything in our food storage and cupboards in a spreadsheet.  This will include the prices I bought each item for, when I bought it, quantity, when I froze it and if I used a coupon.  I have been keeping track of this in my little black book and taping in receipts for many months.  At least in a spread sheet I can adjust quantities and keep better track of how I am doing rotating the food in the deep freezer.  I am also hoping that it gives me a better idea over time about how often I am spending on certain items, like: dishwasher soap, laundry detergent, toilet paper, flour, sugar, etc.  Those are basic necessary essentials, but if I know how often I go through them, I know which sales I should watch for and timing on when to buy things.

This is going to be a several day process.  I put all the recent information about all the things that I buy in bulk at Costco in the spreadsheet and at Walmart in the computer today.  I started the lists of things in the deep freezer and the food storage racks.  I am secretly hoping to get Russ to help me quickly count things tomorrow after I get the lists in the computer.  We will see.

Other than that, I taught a lot of piano today and didn't get anything else done, but there is plenty more on my list.  I did spend some time looking up reviews of baby eating products on Amazon.  I have decided that I need to buy a Kidsme Food Feeder.  I have been wanting to get something that doesn't make me as nervous to let Remington try chunks of food and I am hoping that this works.  I have a $25 gift card for Amazon that I got through my rewards with Huggies.com.  With replacement parts it will come to $.55 more that my gift card.  If it doesn't work i can return for free.  I will sleep on it and look at it again tomorrow, but I think that this might be my answer to the feeding problems I am worried about.  Madalynn, mostly due to the lack of teeth, couldn't really chew anything hard for a couple years and still struggles with things like carrots at 3 yrs old.  I just hope he can hold it easy.  That seems to be one of the biggest cons in the reviews.

All right, well off to bed to start again tomorrow.  I am going to sam's club with my aunt to get a membership tomorrow and hopefully that means I can start getting their coupons too.  As the week goes on and I make a big Costco trip I will write more about the things that I buy in bulk..based off the needs and eating routines of our family.

Recipe list I want to try

I have been looking through the cookbook 365 days of crockpot.  There are a ton of pork chop recipes that I want to try but I need an online place to keep the list to look through while I am making meal plans.  Well, duh.  That is why I have started this blog is for lists like this.

So here is my list.  Most of the ingredients in these recipes I already have in stock.  Bonus.

The first link is a complete list by cut of meat recipe list on her website.

Smothered Pork Chops

Pork Chops and Mustard-sauced Potatoes

Pork Chop Dinner

Pork Chops and Scalloped Potatoes

Sour Cream Pork Chops

I can look at the complete list for all the other recipes.  I can't wait until sept when I am cooking only in the crockpot again to try some of these.

August 3, 2013

Ok, so it was a pretty busy week.  As a result of working long hours, I didn't cook much.  We had leftovers one night, went out to eat super late one night and had dinner with Russ great aunt and uncle another night.  On Monday and Tuesday I went by the Robinsons and picked a couple cucumbers while I was up near Cedar Hills.  I found a hidden Zucchini that was about 6 inches around and 2 feet long.  I made 15 loaves of Zucchini bread with it tonight.  She also told me that I could pick some corn.  Yum.  Fresh corn in the best.

I have dehydrated tomatoes non-stop all week.  I now have 1 1/2 pints of powder.  My tomato plants are coming on strong.  It is awesome.  My green beans and broccoli are really starting to produce now and I love watching the plants.

As a result of having a garden I am learning new ways to use, keep, and preserve my produce.  I have to say that while making Madalynn a PB&J sandwhich tonight I tried some of my freezer jam for the first time since I made it a couple months ago.  Wow!!!  Yum.  I couldn't really believe the difference between that and the store bought.  The flavor was amazing.

So tonight while Russ watched the kids, my brother and sister-in-law dropped their kid off for us to watch (he slept the whole time) and Aunt Bonnie visited I:

Pureed and froze baby food in ice cube trays: green beans, carrots and zucchini
Blanched and froze corn on the cob
Got a new batch of Roma tomatoes in the dehydrator
Sliced and froze 15 Bell Peppers
Prepared about 3 pints worth of green beans for canning in the morning
Shredded and made now 23 loaves of Zucchini bread.  We will freeze most of this for breakfasts come Sept when I go back to work.

If I had some more time I needed to chop up and freeze 12 onions.

My feet are killing me from being on them sooooooooooo long.  I really can't wait to sleep.  As I was putting frozen zucchini in the deep freezer tonight I was realizing just how different our deep freezer is now.  When Russ and I bought our first deep freezer it was full of mostly pre-packaged frozen meals from costco.  Our favorites were the chicken/pasta meals and frozen lasagna.  It wasn't terribly bad stuff, but it wasn't great either.

Then we started freezing milk and breads.  I have learned how to thaw both of those and it works out great.

I remember the first time that I froze zucchini and it just didn't work.  Now I know better that it did and I was completely crazy.

Then Madalynn was born and our whole freezer was full of breastmilk.  Ya, so glad that those days are over.  I could never find anything in the mess.

That is when I invested in some baskets for our deep freezer to help separate each of the foods to keep order and help rotate.  Two years ago we purchase my grandparents deep freezer from my grandpa.  I am glad that we did.  Now I can keep all my milk and my meats in one deep freezer and all my fruits/veggies/jams and other stuff in a 2nd deep freezer.  This made it so that we could store a lot more meals and breads and pre-cooked meals for easy cooking.

Last August I went through and cooked and froze 3 months worth of meals so I didn't have to cook when I went back to work.  It was a blessing.  I was 7 months pregnant when I went back to work and those meals really saved our lives.  When I am pregnant I just can't get the energy in any way to cook ANYTHING!!  We stopped eating out so much, saved tons of money and that was the beginning of our new eating habits and lives.

I am planning a cooking week in two weeks.  I have to wait to use my costco coupons that start next sat. for some new ziploc bags before I do a cooking fest.  For the 1st august in our entire married lives we actually have enough money to spend on groceries this month.  Usually we just live off all the things I have been putting aside all year while we use our money to pay for the other bills.  As a result I will be able to fill up our freezers with everything that is low before I go back to work and I just don't have time to do anything anymore.  It is a blessing, truly.

Well, it is only 1:30am and I think that my last loaves of bread might be cool enough to put in a container, so good night all and see you tomorrow.

July 26, 2013

Today I asked Russ what he would like for dinner.  I guess that he didn't like the stuffed zucchini as much as I did because he asked for meat and potatoes tonight.  That would be a total guy meal and a very safe meal from his point.  So I thawed a couple Tri-tip steaks I froze a while ago (really really large but super thin ones) and marinated and grilled them up.  We got some potatoes from his aunt Tracy's house a while ago.  So I made mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and peas as sides.  Yes, peas.  I love peas and couldn't live without them.  Seriously.  If there is no small vegetable I always boil some up to put on the side.  That is actually the first thing that Madalynn ate up on her plate.  She has learned to love them like me..thankfully.  I use the McCormick's Montreal Steak seasoning again.  Definitely a great mix.  It was totally worth whatever I paid for it. Next time I will have to buy one of the large containers at Costco to put in the food storage.

After Russ left with the kids today, I cut and dehydrated some bananas.  Madalynn had some yesterday and really love them so I bought a whole bunch at the store and they have been dehydrating all day.  I was trying to do it on a day when Russ would not be home since he really doesn't like the smell of bananas, but he got to smell them anyways.  That is what happens.  It should last me a while.

Russ sister is coming to stay for a few days and so I will be cooking for two more people. That should be nice and great for using up the meals I make.  We are in serious need of a left-over night now.  Maybe that is what will happen tomorrow and Sunday for lunches.

I am in the process of making more Zucchini bread tonight.  It is amazing how little zucchini two batches of bread uses.  I shredded up 4 zucchini and 2 batches barely made a dent.  I might dehydrate some of the shredded stuff tomorrow to see how it goes.  I could use it like I can use the tomato paste.  We will see.  The first few loaves will go to the ladies that I visit teach.  In the LDS church we are assigned different ladies in our congregation to go and visit once a month to see how they are doing and give them a spiritual message.  It is nice to get to know other ladies out side of my own friend circle and work.

I know that there was more that I would have liked to write about last night, but none of it is coming to me right now so I am off to get other things done.

Original Recipe for Zucchini Bread

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate (2 blocks), melted

2 c. grated zucchini

2 c. all purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

3 eggs

1 c. sugar

1 c. brown sugar

1 c. oil

1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Prepare two 8x4-in loaf pans by greasing and flouring or by lining with parchment paper. Melt 

unsweetened chocolate and set aside.

Wash and grate zucchini; set aside. Measure flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and 

cinnamon into a bowl, stir, and set aside. Place eggs in mixing bowl and beat. Add the sugars, 

oil, melted chocolate, and vanilla; beat until creamy. Add the zucchini and stir together. Mix in 

dry ingredients until incorporated. add the chocolate chips and mix in. Bake at 325 degrees for 

45 to 50 minutes. Makes 2 loaves.

For our bread I did not add any of the chocolate.  I put the bread in my silicone 4 small 
loaf pan so it cooks for 25 minutes.  Other than that, my husband likes it pulled out when
the top is not quite cooked so it is a little googy.  We freeze probably 30 loaves a month
during zucchini season for Russ to eat for breakfast.  He loves the bread just out of the freezer.  

July 25, 2013

Well, I got all gun-ho about keeping track of all the food I am eating, planning and preparing and then we came home from vacation in California and things got a little out of control.  We weren't home, we started eating out again for a week and killing our budget, but we are on track again.

To review that last couple weeks.  I started using my dehydrator.  I have now dehydrated kiwi, bananas, zucchini, and fruit leather.  The outcome:  The kiwi is incredibly tart, but ok.  LOVE the bananas.  In fact today I just bought some more bananas to dehydrate some tomorrow.  The zucchini chips...well, I do like them, but not a lot at a time.  4 Zucchini sliced in my salad shooter make one quart bag of chips. My instruction book says that I should not leave them on the shelf for more than one week, so I better get eating them.  I tried one with a little salt on in...I didn't care for it, but maybe that is because I don't like salt.

The fruit leather.  Well, Madalynn likes it.  I can't figure it out.  I have tried applesauce and banana, plain strawberry and strawberry and peaches.  It just comes out tooooo thin and tasting like paper.  It really just melts on the toungue.  When she finishes eating what I have already made I will try to make it thicker when I put it on the tray and see if that helps.  So far, the dehydrator is awesome.  It doesn't put out any heat.  The fan's motor is a little loud for my taste, but I am glad that it has a motor so I am not complaining, just frustrated with the sound.

Well, this last week we have eaten several meals with the lettuce from my garden.  The problem with leaving town is I couldn't keep on top of pulling the outer leaves off the plants and so they bolted.  Oh well.  I have planted so new lettuce for the fall and will be pulling up what I have planted right now and planting some new things for fall.  I spent sunday pulling things from the garden and prepping it for the week.  I am so glad that i bought a cheap salad spinner from IKea a little while ago. It was great for helping with the lettuce.

I also picked around 15 green bell peppers.  The main dish that we eat peppers with is chicken fajitas.  I really hate the time that it takes to make fajitas, but I love them.  (To anyone out there that says it takes no more time that any other meal...you are right.  I just hate standing in the kitchen cooking, and this just has too many things to watch to make sure they finish on time.)  So I made 4 meals worth of fajitas.  We took and froze the rest of the meals and put them in our deep freezer for sept-nov when I work too much and don't have time to cook.  The next month is going to be about making meals to big and freezing them.  The rest of the bell peppers that I did not use to make the fajitas I also froze sliced up.

(Sunday) In our fajitas I cook the chicken in strips in a frying pan with the fajita seasoning from the store.  I added a bag of onions I froze back in May, canned mushrooms sauteed separate adding minced garlic and bell peppers also sauteed separate.  I don't like my green peppers too cruchy so I cook them forever.  It was a good meal.

(Monday) Then the next day I made a crockpot broccoli and chicken.  It was YUMMY!!  Here is the recipe.  I have been wanting to make this recipe forever, but I never had cream of cheddar soup.  I bought a couple cans a while back and finally got to making it.  This is another meal that I would freeze and get ready for the fall.  It was great because Russ could add the broccoli and sour cream when he got home from work before me and it was all ready when I got home.

(Tuesday) Next day...I finally got the grill turned on again.  On my way home from Seven Peaks with Madalynn we bought hamburger buns and I grilled up some hamburgers.  It was great.  We made salad to go with it with garden lettuce, grated carrots from the garden, tomatoes (they are coming off my cherrySo tomato plant in heaps right now), olives, black beans and homemade ranch dressing.  It was a great meal.

(Wednesday) So, as is always the case with me...once I start something again I am thinking about it and I grilled up steaks.  I pulled out two steaks I bought a while ago and marinated them with some McCormicks Montreal Steak seasoning.  It was super great.  We got some cucumbers from Aunt Teri's garden..so we had salad again on the side.  So grateful for all the salads I have been having for lunch and dinner.  We are eating a lot more veggies and fruits each day.

(Thur)  Tonight we made stuffed mushrooms and stuff zucchini.  YUM!!  I sort of combined a lot of recipes and it turned out great.  The homemade spaghetti sauce that I made and canned a month ago is super tasty and full of lots of seasoning.  Russ doesn't want me to add back in the scooped out part of the zucchini next time and I think that he hopes I won't make them again...but what is a woman supposed to do with 20 zucchini.  I can only make so much zucchini bread this week.  Haha

So I should never get behind in my writing.  I still have so much to keep track of and no time or energy to do it.  I have to get to bed so that I get some sleep before Remington wakes up.  He is teething again and therefore having a hard time sleeping all night right now.  I am in the middle of playing for the RDA choreography conference right now and it is time consuming and energy zapping.  Hopefully i will have time to put down the zucchini bread recipe that I have finally found that my husband likes.  We have a lot to make in the next two days with all the zucchini coming off our plants.  I will also have tons of roma tomatoes coming off this next week.  Glad that i got that dehydrator.  It is going to make storing all my fresh produce so much easier.  I am also going to dehydrate some bananas tomorrow as well.

Now only can I talk about the meals that we are making, the fruits that Madalynn is constantly asking for for treats, but also the food that I am making for Remington.  Our magic bullet is certainly getting lots of use this time around.  I am soooooooo glad.  I am hoping to give him our first green beans from our garden tomorrow.  We will see.  Good night for now.

July 11, 2013

Well, today we are on our way out of town.  I went through the kitchen and pulled out all the fresh produce from the fridge to bring with us or get rid of.  I am taking the corn, zucchini and radishes to Brandy in Vegas.  I cut up the watermelon to bring with us and I put all of the oranges in a cooler in the car.  I wish that I could have had time to  dehydrate the kiwi before we left, but that just didn’t happen.

I brought a ton of recipe books to sort out at least a month’s worth of meals while we are on the road too and from Utah to California and back.  While I was at work this morning I started looking through the cookbook 365 days of crock pot.  I follow her blog 365ofcrockpot.blogspot.com.   I have always loved all of her recipes however, I think I might be asking for her cookbook for my birthday.  I was so nice to look through a cookbook that used basic things that I have in my cupboard already and give me new ideas about how to prepare food.

For example: on all my beef chuck roasts when I come home I need to pack them cut into strips.  I rarely cook a beef roast.  I just don’t like beef that much.  I prefer pork to beef any day.  However there are meals like beef and broccoli that I do like.  All of those kinds of meals are made with roast cut into strips.  I realized that I also need to cut up a few chicken breasts before I freeze them.  Some meals call for chicken thighs or cut up chicken breast.  I just don’t understand buying thighs and drumsticks.  I am just not a fan of drumsticks, so I stick to chicken breasts and that is what we eat. 

As part of my constant searching for new things to cook, esp. with a crock pot I have a list of things that I need to stock in my kitchen to make new meals.  I have been esp.  interested in making some new Thai meals.  

In a slow cooker revolution by America’s Test Kitchen I found some great information about various seasonings and ways to prepare meat and vegetables.  The following paragraph is from their book.

“Curry Paste, which can be either green or red, are a key ingredient for adding deep, well-rounded flavor to Thai curries.  They are made from a mix of lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, shrimp paste, ginger, garlic, chiles (fresh green Thai chiles for green curry paste and dried red Thai chiles for red curry paste), and other spices.  So it’s not surprising that making curry paste at home can be quite a chore.  We have found that the store-bought variety does a fine job and saves significant time in terms of both shopping and prep.  It is usually sold in small jars next to other Thai ingredients at the supermarket.  Be aware that these pastes can vary in spiciness depending on the brand, so use more or less as desired.”

I now want to know what lemon grass is.  

July 10, 2013

Well, today is left-over day.  Thankfully.  I am running around getting the oil changed in Russ truck, the rock chip repaired in the windshield, getting our phone plan changed over. While I was waiting in American Fork for Russ to finish work we end up at McDonald’s so Madalynn could play on the toys.  What a waste of time.  It take her forever to eat and therefore she got a total of 15 minutes to play before we had to go.  Russ watched the kids while I went and taught piano students.  We finished all our leftovers.  Yep, cleaned out the fridge.  And that is how our cooking life rolls.  I love when we make good meals that everyone enjoys the second time around.  Most meals I make a quantity that is meant for 4 adults, in the hopes that I only have to cook a few meals a week.

I didn't and won’t have time for the kiwi.  Hopefully some of them are still good for dehydrating when we get home on Monday.  I was have been nervous using my machine for the first time and leaving it going without being home to monitor. 

I will have to freeze the shredded zucchini and use it for bread next week.  Other than that I think we are ready for leaving tomorrow.  I will have to pack up the food to take with us at the last minute and finish packing it up.  I am hoping to be able to meal plan on our drive to California  Friday or on our way home on Sunday.  If I can do that I think that I will be set for a while.  

July 9, 2013

The kids woke me up early.  Russ was still home…so thankfully I had time to throw a pork stew together.  Carrots, pork, mushrooms, dry onion soup, onions, potatoes and cream of mushroom soup.  I made sure to set it and got out of the house to get my kids to the babysitter.

Well, at least I had a couple granola bars before my day just started out terrible.  I am sitting at work and I get a 1-800 number calling me.  Of course I am working and can’t answer.  Then Russ calls me about ten minutes later and leaves a voicemail.  I listen to it between exercises I am playing and he is upset that my bank has called him.  I couldn’t figure out why my bank would be calling me.  So I actually get out my bank card and between exercise I call the number on the back.  I knew that there should be a couple hundred in my account and there was a negative balance.  I was freaking out.  Sure enough if I had just checked my email I would have seen the notices.  My card had been compromised.  Ugh.  I hadn’t even used my card since April and couldn’t remember the last time I used it before that.  I almost burst into tears right in the bank.  A written dispute and 10 business days and I should get my money back.  So, there went the cash for our trip this weekend. 

After spending a few hours at Abby’s house sewing, I came home and tried the stew.  Um, I labeled the kid of meat wrong…it was beef.  When it isn’t what you are expecting it was a little rough for a moment, but everyone loved it and there are leftovers for tomorrow.

Then we were up half the night doing laundry, getting a book put on our IPod and packing to head to California this weekend.  Yep, up until 2am, up again with Remington at 4am, and then getting up and getting out the house at 7am.  Great night.  Super tired mommy, but that is just how it goes sometimes.

July 8, 2013

Well, so much for meal planning.  It really becomes  a total loss when you don’t realized that you aren't going to be home all day.  I thought that I was going to have time after work to pick up the kids and drive home to put dinner in the crock pot before I had to teach.  When I went to pick the kids up we had a little incident with Remington.  He was playing outside with the babysitter while Madalynn was drawing with sidewalk chalk.  I looked down and saw that he was chewing on something.  So, I lifted him up, fished in his mouth but I couldn't find anything.  We had both been watching him and had not seen him put anything in his mouth.  After ten minutes of watching him still chew on something and not seeing it I tried to put the bottle in his mouth to see if he would open wider.  He sure did, but still nothing.  That is when he inhaled the leaf and it got stuck in his airway.  He started turning blue as I am reaching for my phone to call 911.  Then suddenly he threw up and his airway opened up.  It was terrifying.  However, the leaf still didn't come out.  However, in the process of throwing up and chewing with his tongue the leaf came to the side of his mouth and I glimpsed it.  I immediately started fishing and about a minute later finally got it out.

Two weeks ago I watched Russ aunt and uncle calmly deal with a split eyebrow of their son.  After it happened and the blood was flowing the son told them something was wrong and they calmly took him inside to clean it up and take him to get stitches.  Since then I have wondered how I would act when I am under serious stress over something happening to my kids.  All through the ordeal with the leaf I have to say that I kept looking at the babysitter talking in normal and out loud going  through all the questions that I had about what was going on.  What is he chewing on?  When did he put something in his mouth?  Is there actually something in there or is this just a new behavior?  As he threw up…well, maybe that will help.  It made me remember being wheeled down the hall in the hospital when I had the emergency c-section with my son.  I was super super calm when the nurse looked at me and asked if I knew what was going on.  I told her calmly, “yes, I just need to you to get my baby out quickly.”  Of course there was no question where I was going when they couldn’t get his heart rate to come back up and it was stopping, starting and beating far far too slow. 

So that whole incident left me with too little time to drive home, get the crockpot started and then get back to teaching students.  It was a bummer.  Not only was I going to get dinner ready, but I was going to change out of my sweatpants, get activities for the kids to do, grab the playpen for Remington and get dinner started.  Luckily I had an activity packet in the car for madalynn and barely enough formula to feed Remington for the whole afternoon.  Teaching piano with my kids is intense and I am grateful that I don’t have to do it too often anymore. 

So, for lunch I got pizza and we took it to where Russ was working and found a tree to sit under and have a picnic.  We don’t do that often enough.  Thankfully it was close to Utah lake so the breeze was in the air and it was nice in the shade. 

When I got home I don’t know why but beef stroganoff popped into my head.  That is what we made for dinner.  I tried this recipe…yep didn't like it too much.  After tasting it I realized that the mayo was just wrong so I added a can of cream of mushroom soup and added some Worcestershire sauce.  It made it edible.  I made extra noodles so I could us them with the extra spaghetti sauce in the fridge.  I used fresh mushrooms to use them up.  Yep, that is really the only way to eat mushrooms.  Russ and Madalynn both liked it.  Madalynn end up eating hers after we left the house.  She had napped right before dinner and wasn't ready to eat when we needed to leave to head up to see Uncle Tom and Aunt Sandra to get a garage heater that they were selling.

Ya, the heater didn't come out, we came home late empty handed and the day was over.

The best part of the day….my dehydrator ARRIVED!!!!  I can’t wait to use it.  It was fun to open it and get it out.  I knew that it was big, but I have to say that I was surprised with how deep it fits on the counter.  I will have to find a good place for it to go while it working.  Maybe I will get to dehydrating the kiwi before we leave town on sat.

Meal Planning July 8-14

So, each week I would like to make a list of my meals that I am planning and how I come up with those meals.

So, to begin.  I think about all the produce in my fridge, got thought eat type of meat that I am going to use for meals and then make meals.  Once I have the meals planned I think about how big they are and decide when we will have a leftover night.  During the school year leftover night is on the night that I work a very long day.  During the summer it tends to be Sunday afternoon.  Our church hours are just not the greatest for eating meals so we usually have leftovers when we get home from church.

This week I only need three dinners.  We are leaving for Vegas and then California on Thur night after Russ gets off work.
Meat:
I had one chicken, one pork, one beef and two fish meals last week.  I don't really want another meal of fish for a while.

Produce:
I obviously have tons of zucchini, but I still have a few more heads of corn that I bought.  I have a watermelon that I need to cut up and either eat or bring with us in the cooler.  I also have 4 bananas to freeze.  My dehydrator will be coming tomorrow and I wanted to make some fruit leather to bring with us and i have a whole box of kiwi to do that with (or freeze the kiwi for later).  We will need to have salads because I already have lettuce and radishes that are picked from the garden that I don't want to go bad.  Last but not least I have a whole tub of mushrooms that we need to use.  I also have 1/3 a 5lbs bag of potatoes that has been in the cupboard a while.

Breads:
I have no buns to use and I don't want to thaw any when I am going to be leaving town.  I do have some loaves of bread i need to make into bread crumbs or croutons before they go completely bad.  I will hopefully be making zucchini bread one day so we have that for breakfasts.

Leftovers:
I usually have some rice or noodles or leftovers that I need to incorporate in meals for the week, but thankfully Russ ate all of them today so we are starting with almost a clean fridge.  I have some spaghetti sauce we made last week that I would like to use.

So, 1st I would like to find a meal that uses pork, mushrooms and I have some baby carrots in the fridge.

So:
Monday: Crockpot Pork stew with fresh mushrooms, carrots and the rest of the potatoes.  Hopefully i have pork stew meat, if not I know that i have beef stew meat.  With the pork stew we use cream of mushroom soup as the base.  If it is beef stew I will have to use beef broth.  I don't like it that runny but it will work if we need.  I can also pull out a bag of frozen onions from the freezer and use lipton onion noodle soup.

Tuesday:
I need to make a meal using a salad of lettuce, radishes, cucumber, tomatoes and Russ needs to make homemade Ranch dressing.  Hm, chicken would be my choice of meat, but the only marinated chicken I have in the freezer is chipotle pepper and that doesn't really work with a green salad I don't think...well without the green salad having cilantro.  (So, this paragraph is my completely though process through how I am choosing my meal.)  If I do a shredded chicken salad I would also like black beans, but we may forego that this week so I don't open a can and then have leftovers in the fridge while we are gone.

Ok, so I have settled on this link.  It is an all-purpose shredded chicken recipe.  Sounds great and seems versatile.

So, if monday I freeze the corn for later use, I don't think that I should have any produce left over that needs to be used on Wed.  I don't know if there will be leftovers.  I am hoping that there is a little leftover chicken so wed should be leftover night this week, or fend for yourself

I am thinking
Wed:
Chicken Quesadilla's either plain or with taco seasoning and sauteed zucchini.  So I may need to do two bags of chicken for Tuesday night's dinner.

Well, there it is.  We will be on the road for almost 24 hours this weekend, so exercise and planned meals will be rough to say the least but at least we will be going to the beach with the kids for the first time and that will be super fun.  Until next week.

July 7, 2013

Well, Sunday is a day of cooking or eating.  Today we decided that we weren't going to his cousin's baby blessing.  Just too much driving, we had church obligations and we were just exhausted.  So I finished cleaning the kitchen up, cut up the last cantaloupe and looked through our fridge.  For lunch we finished all the leftovers in the fridge which is super nice.  Russ had a great lunch.

I have been wanting to still try some grilling things, sooooooooo I tried yet again.  It was another horrible dinner.  I am going to stick with cooking in the kitchen tomorrow.  I tried potato Parmesan slices- totally burnt.  I tired small chuck roast steaks- too chewy, but they were medium rare like we like.  I may not be doing well with too much on the grill but at least I CAN get a steak medium-rare.  I have finally learned the hot spots and cool spots on the grill.  It is not even.  I also tried corn on the cob.  It was uncooked.  I can't get the temperature to stay right in the grill and right now I don't know how to get it to stay even.

I am going to go and feed Remington come cantaloupe with oatmeal.  We will see how it goes.  I picked a ton of Zucchini in the garden and I am going to shred it tonight.  I don't think that I will have the energy or time to cook the bread tonight, but at least it will help me make the mess tonight for making it between my jobs tomorrow.

Madalynn hated dinner.  That is a good indication about how it went.

I have found a few new crock pot recipes that I will have to try this week.  That will be nice.  The crock pot tends to be safer for me..but i have had a lot of practice with it over the past two years so things work out a lot better.

So that is that for now

July 6, 2013

Today was a total cooking flop.  I had to work (which is completely not normal for a sat).  Then I had to go pick up my kids from my mom's house in Sandy.  So while I was already half way to salt lake I decided that we would go to the children's museum at the gateway.  I bought a summer pass.  I also wanted to buy a cheap salad spinner because of all the lettuce that i have been pulling from our garden.  So after Russ got off work we met him at Ikea, had lunch, bought a few things.  Then we went to Schells to try and ride on the ferris wheel.  It was an hour wait so we left my car and got on the freeway.  Russ suddenly decided that he wanted to go the NPS store.  Glad we did.  We bought a few things for cheaper that I have been wanting, like a large container of poppy seeds and beef broth.  I also got a few other things that were a little cheaper than walmart.

Following that we went to the children's museum and played until it closed a 8pm.  Russ and Madalynn had a great time playing with the huge foam blocks that were like a tinker toy set and some pipes on a magnetic wall.  Me...well I really enjoyed watching my son play without being bothered by his sister.  He can play with the same toy for over ten minutes when she is not bothering him.  My phone was sprayed with water and wouldn't turn on.  That ruined my mood.  We don't have extra this month for a drive to California for Cindy's wedding next week and a new phone.  Luckily it dried out and turned on again later.  We headed back to stand in line for 30 minutes at Schells to ride the ferris wheel.  Madalynn went with Russ first and then Madalynn and I end up on the last ride of the night.  Some teenage girls talked the kid running the ride to go forwards and backwards and then let up stay on longer.  It was super awesome.

When we got home, we still needed dinner. My kitchen was a mess from the night before.  I have been very good at our new home cleaning up after dinner.  I only slack on the nights where dinner didn't turn out and I just have no more energy because I am feeling down from a total waste of cooking time.  So we got out our coupons to I Hop and we end up eating dinner at 11pm.  Madalynn didn't finish her dinner and fell asleep for the night on the bench.

Yep, wasn't a great day, but I also wasn't home all day.  During the school year if I know I won't be home all day I do a much better job about cooking in the crockpot.  After so many grilling flops I think that I will return all the grilling cook books I checked out and try something else instead this week.  I have been looking at Lasagna Wraps and they look super great.

That is all for now.  Good night.

July 5, 2013

As part of my post today, I am going to continue to detail my organization in shopping and our food storage. The first year that we were married I had a very strong feeling that we needed to build our years supply of food storage.  So many time as we have been rotating it over the past 6 years I have been super glad that I have been building it slowly over time.  It takes a lot of planning, space and is completely worth it.  As a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we have been admonished to slowly store a small amount of savings, food storage for at least three months-year and water.  We have the water barrels and I would like for us to put water in them soon.  We just need to figure out where we are going to put them.  I know that we can live off our food storage for a while since we kind of tried a little last year.  I have our long term food storage of MRE's and #10 cans, but our most valuable storage is what we rotate all the time.

I have bought rotating storage racks from Shelf Reliance.  I added on to them when we moved in here.  We keep the following on those racks:
Cream of Chicken
Cream of Mushroom
Tomato Paste
Mandarin Oranges
Green Beans
Enchilada Sauce
Chiles
Olives
Pears
Peaches
Tomato Sauce
Black Beans
Evaporated Milk
Tuna Fish
Canned Chicken
Pineapple Chunks
Corn
Canned Chili
and
Chicken Broth.

That is the beginning of what we have in our rotating food storage.  It is very helpful when you don't have any money to buy grocery's for a month.  I will be adding to it more and more this summer as we do have work.  I will be canning pears, peaches, green beans, tomato, dehydrating tomatoes and storing bread and such in the deep freezer.

We have lots of other stuff that is stored like cake mixes, noodles, rice, beans of various types, apple juice, salad dressings, extras of all the things I use in the kitchen (oils, sugars, flour, soy sauce, etc).

Sooooooooo, dinner sucked.  I tried to cook zucchini and it burned.  Stuffed mushrooms on the cedar plank and they were the only thing that was ok.  I melted mozzerella cheese inside, and I wish that we had some sausage.  I am going to have to remember to buy some.  However, the grilling on the cedar plank did not go well.  I cut up a lemon into small slices and put it under the fish to cook.  The lemon smell was really really wonderful, but I couldn't figure out when the swai was done and overcooked it and it took twice as long to cook.  I didn't have a spray bottle for the flare ups so the plank burnt to embers.  It was just great.  ya, right. I am glad that that is over.

July 4, 2013 Happy 4th of July

So, today was a cooking day.  I got up made breakfast of waffles, sausage links and scrambled eggs.  It was so nice to have a morning that was not Sunday to be home as a family.  We got a bunch done in the yard and a couple things around the house.

The 4th of July is about heating up the grill right?  First thing this morning I realized that I forgot to close th propane tank the other day when I had grilled.  Not good.  It was the most awful smell ever!!!  Glad I did find it though so it didn't get worse.  Well, I made hamburgers and grilled up some zucchini.  Thankfully Russ will eat the zucchini, but we are going to have to work on madalynn eating zucchini.  It took some tears and work to get it done.   I will have to practice on the grill because things turned out ok, but not great.  

other than that, we are not party people unless we are going somewhere with family.  We hung around the yard, did yard work, figured out what we are going to do with our phone plan, took pictures of the kids on the front porch, drank root beer and I am trying to convince my husband that we need to take the kids to see a fireworks show.  We will see if that happens.  I pulled another 4 zucchini from my garden so I really need to get making some zucchini bread tomorrow or sat.  Unfortunately I can't make it in the morning when I am a little cooler in the house because I work the next two days.  It is just terribly hot and too hot to think in the house today.  That is what happens with no AC or swamp cooler outside.  

I am planning on grilling again tomorrow.  We are going to do salmon on a cedar plank.  I hope that this time works out better than the last time I tried it.  We will see.  I am excited to try a fresh lemon not just lemon juice. 

My dehydrator that I ordered should be here soon.  I am getting excited to try and use it, esp. on some fruit leather.  I bought some kiwi at costco yesterday and I would like to use it in the fruit leather and also in some homemade popsicles.  Hopefully I will get to all that in the next couple days.  Off to try and get my husband to go to a fireworks show.  

July 3, 2012

So I have decided that I am going to try and keep all my information about shopping and planning on here as well.  I have been wanting to keep track of how much I am spending on each thing, when I fill up on what we are missing and their prices.  I am not very good at charts or spread sheets and so maybe this will be a good start to keeping better track.

Today started just horrible.  I went back to bed at 5:45am after I put Remington back in bed.  I turned my phone sound off so I missed every alarm.  Russ was 40 min late to work, but he did stay and help me get out of the house.  Because I didn't get the homemade granola bars that I wanted to do this week, we just didn't have breakfast.  I did grab an orange and slice it yesterday morning.  That was super awesome, but I just didn't have time this morning.  What normally takes me 40-45 min round trip from my house to the Robinsons to work, I managed to do in 25 min this morning.  It is amazing what can happen when you hit all the lights green.

On my way to pick the kids up I did a very very quick grocery run.  We buy all our milk for the month on one trip and we freeze it.  We go through about 10 gallons a months or more.  I also stocked up on chicken and brats in the deep freezer.  I bought 19 dollars worth of chicken and then I came home cut off the fat, bones and tendons and put them in separate bags to freeze.  I always put 1 1/2-2 chicken breasts per bag.  I end up with 8 bags of chicken between the two packages.  It does take time to do this, but I learned early in our marriage that frozen chicken was best for me to cook because then I could just pick it out and use it and if Russ gets something unpleasant in a bite to eat it ruins his appetite.

In our deep freezer storage we always have:

Chicken, whole chicken's from my in-laws, plain chicken breats, marinated chicken (that I mix and put in each bag before it freezes) and chicken patties
Beef- hamburger meat (frozen in 1 lbs bags), steaks (that I find on sale), pre-made hamburger patties (Russ favorite is the private selection provolone and mushroom from Smith's which we only have on rare occasions), brats, sausage links and patties, stew meat, pre-made meatballs and a couple roasts I found on sale.
Pork- stew meat, pork chops, and tenderloin roasts
Fish- Salmon (I stock up on the frozen pre-packaged individual servings when they are on sale at Costco), fish sticks and Swai from Walmart.  I almost got cod for fried fish yesterday while I was at smith's because it was such a great price, but i will have to wait until next month to consider it.
Random: hot dogs, corn dogs and lunch meat

We have been looking at purchasing a generator for a while because all our meat food storage is in our freezers and that would be bad if it thawed.  But we buy things in bulk and then package them into small bags the size of one meal.  We have two deep freezers.  One is just for milk and meat.

When I go grocery shopping I have been trying to buy in season fruits and vegetables.  After I get home I have to figure out what we are eating first and either cut it up or prepare it for meals.  I try and put everything in easy to access.  It has made it a lot easier to grab things.  It makes the afternoon I come home from shopping long and tiring but worth it.  For example I cut up the cantalopue, washed mushrooms, etc.  The list just gets long and not worth writing.

While we had fresh milk, chicken and eggs I had Russ help me make Pad Thai.  It is crazy just how much works goes into such a meal.  However, it was probably the best time we had ever made it.  My job is the chicken with fish sauce, rice vinegar and sarachi hot sauce.  Russ does the eggs, noodles, bean sprouts and crushes the peanuts.  I got out the fresh carrots we picked and thinned from the garden and shredded them to put on top.  It was an awesome meal.  Madalynn needed some real coaxing just to be able to eat, but not getting some homemade root beer that we made last night did the trick.  Yep, we ended the night making homemade root beer for drinking and floats for the 4th of July.  It was awesome.

July 2, 2013

Well, this is a quick post.  Basically we had a quick and easy meal today.  I didn't want to cook.  I threw a pork tenderloin roast in the crock-pot with 1 cup salsa and 1 cup brown sugar.  This is probably our favorite quick prep meal.  It cooks until shredded...about 4 1/2 hours on high in my crock-pot.  We always have this on tortillas with our favorite toppings: sour cream, cheese, olives, lettuce, tomatoes, and avocados.  I put it in in the early afternoon and after we got home from Seven Peaks with the kids at 8pm we had a great dinner already ready.

The rest of the day I read a new chapter in my spices book while I was at work.

Then, we spent an hour in kitchen doing some produce prep.  This is what I call the time after we pick things from our garden.  Madalynn came outside with me to pull: radishes, carrots, zucchini, lettuce and kale.  I have so much kale, but I just don't have time to make the smoothies/green drinks that I wanted to try this summer.  It just takes more time than I have in the morning.  I just have to get a little more organized for that kind of stuff and maybe I will be able to do them later this summer.  I did try to make some kale chips..um, I think that other versions of kale must taste better than Red Russian Kale because that was just awful...the smell, the eating, the everything. I threw them out.  However, now I know that they don't work.  Russ couldn't believe that I even tried.

I always take and wash everything and store them where they need to go.   It just takes time.  When I pick lettuce I usually do it on a week that I am going to be planning salads.  I had hoped that we would have a little shredded pork left over to go in the salad, but after Seven Peaks we were both so hungry that we just ate and ate.  I am gaining back the 5 lbs that I lost in the last month so I need to start eating smaller portions again.

Well, that is it for now.

Monday July 1, 2013

Well today was a total bust for breakfast and lunch..but then mondays always are if I have to get the kids to a babysitter.  I work from 8-4:30 on Mondays and Russ used to take the kids to the babysitter halfway through the day.  But he is working full-time again thankfully.  Seriously I couldn't be more thankful right now.  However, that doesn't leave me enough time when I can finally get out of bed in the morning to get all my kids stuff ready for the day and my breakfast and lunch.

However, I did make dinner.  I decided that it was a spaghetti night.  I really wanted to open and try some of the spaghetti sauce that I canned last week.  While I was cooking dinner I tried the sauce and about threw up.  I really put a LOT of seasoning in the sauce.  However, we always add sauteed mushrooms and meat to the sauce and those two things really made all the difference.

One of these posts I will post the recipe to the sauce I canned.

For spaghetti at our house we have:
Noodles- always angel hair, since that is what Russ likes best
Sauce: home canned sauce with mushrooms and brats tonight.  I didn't season either of those since the sauce already had plenty of sauce
Parmesan Cheese
AND
Peas.

I can't eat spaghetti without peas on the side.  It is a very weird thing i know, but that is how I am.  I also can't eat spaghetti without a glass of milk to go with it.  Madalynn finished her dinner super fast tonight.  She had only been asking for dinner for an hour when I finally got up to make it.  When she finished she asked for more. I got her some more noodles and sauce.  However, she wanted peas and asked me to make some more when I explained that they were all gone.  Such a good girl eating her peas.  I love that she loves them so I can feel justified eating them all the time.

Well, besides that I started a book about the history and uses of spices today.  I couldn't put it down.  I could not believe how sucked in I was while reading about Mustard.  It was rediculous.  Can't wait to read more.  Sometimes I can't wait for the day that Madalynn can read on her own because then I will get to spend reading time reading my own things.  But that day will also be bitter sweet because I will want to her to sit in my lap for some cuddle reading time and it won't happen.  So, for now a few pages a day will have to suffice.

I have no idea what I am going to cook tomorrow, but I will be home to do it and it will include some more zucchini.

Sunday June 30, 2013

After spending a few days trying not to cook in my kitchen because it creates far too much heat in a house without AC/swamp cooler and 102 degrees outside, I broke down and cooked for lunch and dinner.  Our Zucchini are starting to come up.  I mean we will ONLY have 19 zucchini coming off our plants this week.  I have been picking them small in the hopes that we can eat them quicker and they won't become overwhelming.  I have been pinning zucchini recipes on pinterest for months in preparation.  I went through and made a board "Zucchini Laden" last night.  Yes, I will be laden with zucchini and hopefully so many good recipes that I will enjoy eating as many as we can this summer.

I made a Zucchini Linguine with olives, garlic, etc.  Here is a link to the recipe.

The bread crumbs didn't turn out super great because I didn't let them cook long enough.  We cut the olives in half, but we should have sliced them.  The red pepper certainly has a kick and Madalynn didn't like that a lot.  I am not an olive oil and noodles fan, but maybe that is because I had far to much regular vegetable oil poured on noodles while I was living in Uruguay as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Note to self: read all the instructions before cooking so you don't dirty more pans than necessary.  I also added crumbed bacon bits on top.  I wish I had remember to put those on while I was cooking the zucchini so that they were softer.  It was a great option for lunch.

For dinner I realized that I had an entire bag of red potatoes that I bought like a month ago in a cupboard.  It has been hard to find a new spot for my fresh produce since Russ took over the toaster oven area making his cookies.  So, once in a while I do forget the produce that I have bought.  He asked for oven roasted potatoes with Lipton Onion noodle soup mix. They turned out the best I have ever made them!!  I was so excited.  In the future I used 5 larger red potatoes with two packets of seasoning and I scraped and turned them over at least every ten minutes.  I cooked up some frozen broccoli (totally forgetting I was going to make a salad to use some lettuce from the garden and at least one of the remaining tomatoes we got from Vegas last week) and of course added cheese.  It was Sunday.  I am allowed to add fattening ingredients once a week.

Each night I think about the meat that we have stored in our deep freezer: beef, chicken, pork and fish.  I decide which one we have not had in a while and then figure out what sides will go with it.  I have not ever been a mustard fan, so when I read honey mustard recipes I usually don't pin them or try them.  Well, i googled Swai recipes and the first one that came up was a honey mustard recipe.  It was AWESOME!!  I will have to try honey mustard again.  One of the reviews said they had to double the cooking time because it was watery when they opened it.  That is what I had to do.  After the original amount of time I opened up the foil and I left it open while I doubled the time.  Madalynn even liked it and usually she won't eat fish.  It was a hit.  I will have to make it again.

Here is the link.

Russ made Root Beer Floats, Chocolate Chip Cookies and it has been a great night.  I look forward to some adventure tomorrow.

My kitchen blog

Ok, so here we go.  This is simply a blog to help me remember what we are cooking from day to day.  What we liked and disliked.  It is also a way to keep tabs on my eating habits to help me keep my family nurished and healthy.  I hope that I can keep up with it at least every couple days, but we will see.

This all started back in Dec.  After my son was born I had a renewed vigor and a lot more energy again.  I forgot how much I lack energy to do anything besides get to work and get home while I am pregnant.  Well, we moved into our first purchased home the day before Christmas Eve 2012.  It was the first time I have ever had space to unpack all my kitchen things.  Not only that, but I have space to put everything away.  It is so much easier to cook when everything has it's own specific spot and there is no clutter in the kitchen.

I made two goals.  They were somewhat specific but I was ok if I didn't follow through completely.  I think that that was the key to getting me to where I am today.

1.  No more eating out.  I needed to create a meal plan and eat in everyday.  Of course we still go out once in a while, however, while I was pregnant we ate out at least 2 meals a day nearly all nine months.  It was awful.  It is never a wonder how I gain weight during pregnancy.

2.  I needed to learn to cook.

So the 2nd one is just such an obvious part of "cooking" however I didn't know how to cook anything.  I mean, I could boil noodles, brown meat, saute a vegetable..but I was always nervous in even doing some of that.  I only EVER used garlic salt, salt, pepper and onion powder to season.  If something called for parsley that I would throw it on top, but seriously I had seasonings in the cupboard and didn't even know what was in there.

The best part of my seasonings cupboard is the home we bought already had great little shelves in the door.  I finally put labels on them a couple weeks ago, organized my seasonings and now can find anything I want.  I just need hooks for my teaspoons and Tablespoons so I can find them with ease when I am cooking.  But that is a post for another time.

As part of my cooking meals, I simply needed to find the excitement to be in the kitchen or a mentality to think through meals ahead of time so I actually cook.  I can honestly say that in the last 4 months I have not made Mac and Cheese once!!  I think that I made it every other day while I was pregnant.  I always put meat and vegetable in my Mac and Cheese sooooo maybe it is not soooo bad right?

So, now that I am writing this all down I am trying to come up with a time frame when everything happened and how ours lives have been changing.

I think the first thing that really happened comes from my old library card.  I went online to the Salt Lake County Library system and checked out/put holds on all sorts of crock pot cook books.  It wasn't so much to find specific recipes but just to find some overall new techniques of cooking the same things I knew how to cook.  During the school year my crockpot has to be my best friend.  I just don't have the time to cook once I get home.  If there is not a meal made then we look through our fast food coupons and grab  something to eat really late at night.

I found a bunch of my old meal plan calendars while I was trying to put together my recipe keeper.  It was interesting to note that I had 4 years of meal plan calendars; however, I really only do a good job filling them out for about 2-3 months a year and then it goes out the window.  Can't say i did any better this year but filling them out has helped me to plan in my head a lot better.  I also had a 4 hour shift a week at the studio I work at to plan and think through my meals.  Having time just to sit think and prepare has been helpful.

My first goal was to try and use up all our food storage in our deep freezers.  I have been storing food
and reading about freezer meals and such over the past year.  I did make and freeze three months worth of meals in August last year and will certainly do that again for this fall.  It helped me start on this path of consciousness and meal planning.

Then I began realizing how many different ways there were to cook the same thing.  I mean, I had heard about all of them in passing before, but I had never really thought about doing any of them myself.  In the past six months I had done all the following for the first time

Used and cooked with a smoker
Grilled on our camping grill and now on our new gas grill
Made salad dressing from scratch
Fried anything (yes, I had never fried anything in a deep pot of oil before)
Breaded my first meat
Grew and went out to pick vegetables straight from my garden to put in a meal right then
Canned Tomatoes
Used a Pressure Canner
Separated an egg
Made a soup from scratch (I have always opened a can from the store and just warmed it up)
Cooked a 20 lbs turkey
Cooked a steak
and made my first stir fry without a recipe.

Those might seem like small things to most people, but they are a huge deal to me.  I know that I have done a lot more things for the first time, however, I just can't think of any right now.

In buying our 1st home, I also felt like I could grow my own garden for the first time.  Before I simply didn't know how long we were going to live somewhere so I never planted anything.  I spent at least 3 months reading and reading and reading about plants and vegetables and what I could plant in our garden.  Then I had to prepare the ground (which took forever), plan my rows and plant.  On top of preparing and planting a garden, I had to research ways of cooking/using/preparing and preserving the food that came out of my garden.  Pinterest is my best friend for doing this.  While I think that some of my followers might hate how i seem to get on and pin like crazy, but pinterest is my visual bookmark list.  I actually do cook a lot-most of the things that I pin and they are there to find later when I want to find them again.

This week I checked out some more crockpot cook books, canning books and grilling recipe books.  I am the most excited about a book on herbs and seasonings I checked out.  I think that the more familiar I become with them the more likely I am to use them.

So there is a basic overview of my learnings and where I am today.  As I remember other things I will have to put them down.  Well we will see how this blog goes.  I have a sewing blog that i have not updated in forever, but I still take pictures of everything I make to put on there.  Eating and food is something that i have to do everyday of my life and therefore I need to make a journal of what we are making to keep track.

So, on we go on this journey.