Conor's birthday

He's 21 today!

Relief Society luncheon

Our church ladies' group has a pot luck luncheon every month. It's mostly older ladies, but somehow I usually get there as well. Maybe I'm getting to be one of those "older ladies"? Today I brought the delicious Chicken Supreme casserole I made and froze earlier in the week. It sure was easy to pop that into the oven!

That's me on the left.

And my mom in the middle.

What we did this afternoon

Sophia made a tent for reading and TV watching.

Elizabeth drew pictures from a "You Can Draw Cartoons" book.

Caroline made pretzels from a recipe in the Friend magazine.

And Mom worked at the computer.

Not shown, but also done: homework.

Freezer dinners

Tonight was Chicken Supreme and I got the recipe from a site that focuses on Once A Month Cooking, so I knew I could easily freeze this dinner. I doubled it and put it in medium containers instead of large ones, so I got three dinners out of the double recipe. We ate one and I froze the other two. That gives me either two dinners without having to think much, or two dinners to give away when a need arises, or one of each.

Monday's easy dinner

I had six packages of soup mix in my pantry, so I let Sophia choose which two she wanted. She chose to combine the two singles, so we had minestrone/lentil soup tonight.

Then I walked out onto the back porch and got a bag of a dozen whole grain rolls from my freezer.

They were nicely thawed by dinner time and were delicious. I added a big salad which included sprouts my neighbor had just brought over, and that was our wonderful Pantry Challenge (dinner from what is on hand) dinner.

A sweet treat

Caroline wrote up her own recipe for apple crisp, inspired, I'm sure, by the 3 1/2 pound bag of apples I got at the store yesterday. I thought it was a good idea, but I suggested she use a quart jar of home-canned apple pie filling I had in the pantry. She made it herself and I hear it was delicious!

Meal Plan Sunday

Monday: Soup from a package in the pantry, rolls

Tuesday: Chicken Supreme

Wednesday: Cheesy Potato Soup

Thursday: Taquitos from the freezer, rice

Friday: French bread pizza

A Saturday morning with my honey

Dh was going to take older ds to the monthly "Coffee and Cars" this morning, but ds wanted to sleep instead. So I got to go. :-) Anyone who wants to show his or her car just comes to the parking lot at a high-end mall here in town and parks it. No fees, no entrance cards, or anything, just show up. Our car is the one on the left.

Some of the shows we go to now and then have more of an antique or muscle car vibe to them. At least today, this one seemed to have more of an "exotic cars" theme going on. Lots of Ferraris and Lotuses. All that said, I'm an all-American girl, so my favorites were the Chevy Corvettes. Quite a few newer ones, but I favor the C-3s and there was only one today.

One of my life's goals is to own a C-3 Corvette some day. I want a driver, not a show piece though, because I want to DRIVE it.

This one is German, but such a fun car with the surfboard on the roof and you can't see it, but a child's Lego project was on the back seat.

On the way home we drove through quite a few different neighborhoods until we were driving through one that has lots of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans living in it. We passed a grocery store that I'd heard had terrific prices on produce, so we stopped in. Trust me, even in the southwestern United States, the average grocery store doesn't have a display like this:

In addition to lots of fresh fruits, vegetables, and rice, I picked up a bag with about 8 still-warm fire-roasted New Mexico green chilis. I've never had them freshly roasted, but I knew I could figure out how to process them when I got home. All I did was scrape off the thin burned skin, cut off the tops, slit open the side and scrape out the seeds and ribs. Then I chopped them into tiny pieces and froze them in 4 oz portions, just like buying a can of chopped green chilis, except 1/5 the price and 3xs the flavor!

The last thing I saw on our way home was one of my favorite things to ever see:

My new favorite way to prepare a grapefruit

I've heard about this way to prepare citrus fruit for easy eating, but for some reason never tried it. My mistake! I think I'd still peel and section an orange the regular way unless I were making a salad and wanted only the tender centers of the orange, but for grapefruit, where you don't want the bitter rind or even the skin of the individual sections, this is perfect. Perfect! Even dh has been eating sections of grapefruit which he normally doesn't. At.all.

We're off to an "additional Relief Society meeting," i.e. Homemaking Meeting

Dh was invited to a college basketball game tonight, so the girls are coming to Homemaking Meeting with my mom and me. They really like to go to the nursery and play with their friends, so it's a win-win for everyone.

I told the girls they could bring a set of toys or some books. E is bringing Little Pet Shop toys and a few tea set dishes tonight.