Pantry Challenge 50%

I think this space is going to have more food talk than usual this month.  Don't worry, I'll get back to the usual children and chickens in February.  Except for that Mystery Quilt.  Watch for updates on that soon.

Tonight was Baked Corn Dogs, a recipe Holly sent me.  You can see it on my Meal Plan Sunday post.  Mine look nothing at all like the ones in the recipe.  The recipe woman must have used the world's most absorbant flour if her measurements are correct.  My cornmeal dough was more like a thick batter and almost unusable.  I added at least 1/4 cup more flour and was able to get the dough around the dogs.

 

All that said, my family really liked this recipe.  It was almost like a corn dog but much lower in fat.  I served a trio of fresh vegetables with it.

 

That virtuousness was kind of undone by our dessert, and I went to the store to get it too.  Root beer floats hit the spot after our yummy corn dogs.

 



Pantry Challenge

Tonight's dinner came from our pantry and evolved as the day went on.  My menu said beans and rice.  I had kidney beans in a bag in the cupboard, so I used those instead of the intended pintos.

Red beans looked like chili, so I pulled out a can of tomatoes, a jar of homemade tomato sauce, a fresh onion and bell pepper, and a few seasonings and made a nice vegetarian chili, then topped it with sour cream and sharp cheddar.

 

To go with that I made some cornbread with a bit of whole wheat in there, and drizzled it with honey.

 

Everyone liked it very well and it moved a bag of beans out of my pantry, as well as tomatoes I'd had for a year or so.  In addition we finished the carton of sour cream and got it out of the fridge.

Sophia's ears

Sophia's ears have suffered injuries and she is a no-earring girl now.  We're hoping her ears will close up and she can have them repierced in a few years.

 

Those are my hands holding her hair back, by the way.  She didn't suddenly grow six sizes!

 

 

I'm putting the pictures here so I can compare them in six months, a year.  If they don't close, we'll have to figure something out.

Meal Plan Sunday

Monday:  Root beer pulled pork on buns, baby carrots and dip

Tuesday:  Beans and rice

Wednesday:  Baked corn dogs [everyone like this--I recommend adding at least an extra 1/4 c. flour to the corn coating]

Thursday:  Not-soggy nachos (using pintos from Tuesday)

Friday:  Pizza

Home teaching visit

Today our home teachers from church came by for our monthly visit.  One of them is a delightful elderly gentleman who speaks multiple languages, served in WWII, and is one of the smartest people I know.  The other is a new companion to the older man, although we know him fairly well.  He is very friendly and I can see we will have many pleasant visits from them as the months go by.

These aren't our home teachers, but the visit looked something like this.  I don't know why, but in the past we have not asked our children to be present during the home teachers' visit, although they are here to visit the entire family.  We decided to turn over a new leaf and the children will join us each month for the visit.  (They did great today.)

Pantry Challenge

This week I made two food purchases and one was at Costco.

I picked up

10 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breast
flour tortillas
chocolate chips
2-pack maple-flavored syrup
5 dozen eggs

I spent $45.

The other purchase was 4 gallons of milk at Walmart, price matched to Albertson's.

I spent $7.

Friday night date

Bill's and my friend is an Edward Jones agent (investments) and took a booth at the Home Show in our town.  Along with the booth came a handful of admission tickets for his friends, including us. :-)

It has probably been a couple of decades since I've been to a home show and I was surprised at how aggressive the people in the booths were.  Either I'd forgotten or things have changed.  Or maybe the last time I went to one I was a teenager and obviously didn't have a home or money of my own anyway!

At the far end of the hall were Bill's and my favorite booths (other than the good chat we had with our friend).  I caught the end of a cooking competition when the chefs were describing their dishes.

Bill was especially interested in about a dozen classic cars on display.  The cars were really beautiful and I took a quick look at them after I watched the cooking.

After that we went to the Olive Garden for dinner.  Well, except for the 1 hour and 45 minute wait, that is.  We weren't interested enough to wait that long so we took ourselves to Golden Corral.  Kind of down-market, but it sure was tasty.

Surprise hike!

About a year ago I attended a Homemaking Meeting in which the speakers told about interesting places to go in our city both as a family and as a couple.  One of the speakers said a good activity was to see what was at the end of Speedway Boulevard.  She wouldn't say what was there, just winked and said go find out.

I needed to get the girls out of the house so the housekeepers could do a quick and efficient job, so I decided today was the day to find out what is at the end of Speedway.  I hoped it wouldn't be a dead end in a residential neighborhood, waiting for the housing market to improve so they could extend the street and put in more houses.

I was spared that one as it turned out Speedway ends at a private ranch (ignored that) and a public trailhead.  I hardly dared hope we would find a new (free) place to hike, but we did.

It was a little breezy and cool, but we had three jackets/sweaters with us and three bottles of water, so we had plenty.

This saguaro has three nice new arms on it.  Scientists don't know what triggers arm formation, but saguaros usually are about 50-60 years old before they start growing them.

I teased Elizabeth that this area was the home of native American Indians in the distant past and she might be running along the trails in the same sort of shoe they wore.  In fact, her shoes *are* Indian.  Yes, the kit Bill made them from was made in India.  LOL

It was a really fun morning and all of us are planning to take Bill there one of these Saturdays soon.

Cinderlite, Carson City, Nevada

Sophia wore this shirt a few days ago and I realized it was the last time.  Just a little too short and skimpy on her.

So it's a gray T shirt with the name of a gravel hauling company from Carson City on it.  It wouldn't seem to mean much, right?

This shirt represents an interesting time of my life.  When I was 36 weeks pregnant with Sophia, and Caroline and Elizabeth had just turned two, we moved from Idaho to Carson City, Nevada for Bill's job.  Right after Sophia was born, David came to live with us and that was a dream come true for me.

Unfortunately, Bill's job ended unexpectedly in the early Fall, but he immediately got a job in New Mexico.  Problem was, David had just started his Senior year of high school and I wouldn't even think about taking him out right after he'd started at a new school.  So Bill headed off to New Mexico, leaving me in Carson City with a teenager, twin two-year olds, and a new baby. 

It didn't really seem too hard at the time, but I knew I had a lot of stress taking care of everything and making the budget stretch to cover two households.  Except for David who has always been good company, and phone calls/occasional visits from Bill, I was pretty lonely.

There was a small park about a ten minute walk from the house that I used to push the stroller to often.  It had low equipment that was perfect for my small daughters.  One day about ten mothers showed up with their little children.  I found out they were part of a mothers' club and they invited me to join.

I had never joined a community group like this, but I was very disappointed with the one the church ladies had organized, so I decided to join.

It was not long before we moved, but I remember going to other parks, going horseback riding, going to an interesting book presentation sponsored by PBS, and going on a field trip to Cinderlite.

Yes, a children's field trip to a gravel yard.

The tour guides had obviously done this many times because they knew the right stories to tell, the right place to stop so the children could play on a thirty foot pile of gravel, and so forth.  The last part of the excursion was a trip to the scales with a prize for the mother who could guess the total weight of the truck, trailer, and all of us.  I happen to excel at down-and-dirty mental math and came up with a very close number that won me this Cinderlite T shirt.

It was *way* too large for any of my girls, so I folded it up and put it in their drawer.  Eventually Caroline was big enough for it, then Elizabeth, and finally Sophia.  Every time I saw it on them it reminded me of "making it" on my own in Carson City (with financial support from Bill, of course ;-) ), of meeting really nice people in an unexpected place, of the pleasure of having David at home that year, and of having my three little girls.

See why I'm a little sad it's been outgrown?

New Year's Day Outing

After doing a lot of home partying and snacking last night, we decided to get out of the house today.  We love the zoo, so we headed there.

 There was a docent leading a table full of children in making party hats from recycled supplies. 

Aren't my girls cute?