Menu plan for the week of November 27

Hi everyone.  How was your weekend?  My parents were visiting for Thanksgiving, and we had so many leftovers from guests who had arrived earlier in the week that they only got to eat three original meals.  Out of eight.  The rest were leftovers.  On the up-side, they didn't seem to mind, we still have enough leftovers for Hubby to take to work this week, and we actually have room in our refrigerator for new food.

I'm exhausted, y'all.  We had a houseful of people, and I realized for the first time that introverts don't just get emotionally drained by being with gobs of people; we become physically drained as well.  Cheers to learning new things (although one would think I would have learned this earlier in life--I guess I never noticed before)!  Not that I don't love visiting with family--it just happens to be a lot of exhausting work, too.

Another thing I learned is that Bubby's bedroom is much more conducive to sleeping-in than mine is.  I thought I was no longer capable, after years of children waking me up before 6 a.m., of sleeping past 7.  But the combination of sleeping in Bubby's bedroom, along with the people-induced exhaustion, proved me wrong.  I'm thinking of asking him to switch with me.

You would think, after feeding up to 11 people three meals a day for 7 days, that it would be difficult to think about food.  You would be right.  This week, we will have even fewer people around than normal.  Hopefully it'll be a good recovery week.  Here's what's on the menu:

Supper:

• Pizza (sauce, crust), salad
• Wild rice casserole, green beans, applesauce
• Beef & potato stew, rolls
• Chicken broccoli braid (we use 1/2 t each celery salt, garlic powder, dill seed, and dill weed instead of 2 t all purpose dill mix), mandarin oranges
• Nachos, guacamole, taco toppings (what toppings to you like on your nachos?)
• Hamburgers, buns, chips, carrots
• Chicken nuggets, mixed vegetables, pears
• Beef stroganoff, green beans, applesauce

Other (I'm not really sure I'll feel up to making anything extra, but just in case I do, I wanted to get these down, so I remember what the extra things I wanted to make are):

• Cinnamon rolls
• Oatmeal chocolate chip walnut cookies
• Rolo pretzels
• Turkey stock
• Canned black and pinto beans

Bluefield Sausage Stuffing

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.  This stuffing is my favorite part of Thanksgiving.  Well, aside from spending time with family, watching football, and watching the fam play ultimate Frisbee during halftime.  I got the recipe from my mother in law, but I've tweaked it a little to make it slightly healthier and less likely to cause food poisoning.  This year I'm doubling the recipe, since everybody seems to like this (and our turkey is huge).

Bluefield Sausage Stuffing

(click here to print)

Ingredients

• 1 loaf whole wheat bread, torn into small pieces (we like to let it stale a bit so it can soak up all those yummy juices, so we tear it the night before and let it sit overnight)
• 2 t. salt
• 1/2 t. ground black pepper
• 1 t. poultry seasoning
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 egg
• 1 lb. pork breakfast sausage, cooked, crumbled, and cooled
• 1/2 c. butter
• 2 c. milk

Instructions

1. Mix together first seven ingredients.
2. Combine butter and milk, and heat until butter is melted and the milk is warm (we use the microwave, but you could do this on the stove)
3. Gradually add the milk mixture to the bread mixture and mix until combined.
4. Stuff mixture into your turkey and cook turkey according to instructions.
5. Extra stuffing that doesn't fit in the bird can be placed in a covered casserole dish in a 325-350° oven until heated through, about 30 minutes.

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Menu plan for the week of {Thanksgiving} November 20

It's Thanksgiving week here in the U.S., friends.  Thanksgiving is the holiday where we give thanks by making a huge meal and eating until we can't eat anymore.  Seems like it might be more effective to eat less and give away more.  Thanksgiving is, of course, AKD's favorite holiday, because of the food.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked my Facebook friends what their favorite vegetable Thanksgiving side-dish was.  In response, I got a redskin potato dish and a "spinach and cheese casserole" that looked suspiciously like quiche.  And stuffing, because there are veggies in that, right?

A couple of days ago, I asked the same people what their favorite Thanksgiving side dish was, and I got all kinds of answers, including corn casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberries, green bean casserole, rolls, wine, and German potato salad, served warm.  The overwhelming response, given by almost everyone who answered, was stuffing.  Stuffing is my favorite, too.  In fact, I would be perfectly happy, thankful, even, to just have stuffing for my Thanksgiving meal.  After all, there are veggies in that.

This week's menu was easy to plan, since I've been working on it for weeks.  As I've mentioned, we'll have guests this week. so I've tried to plan meals that are easy to get on the table, and I've done a lot of prep work ahead of time.

Here's what's on the menu this week:

Supper:

• Hot beef sandwiches, buns. raw carrots, peaches
• Easy chicken & biscuit casserole, mixed veggies, pears
• Pizza casserole, green beans, mandarin oranges
• Turkey & stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy, rolls & butter, green bean casserole, corn, vegetable medley, applesauce, pumpkin pie, brownie pecan pie
• Beef & potato stew, rolls
• Shepherd's pie, applesauce, bread & butter
• Leftovers

Breakfast:

• Cinnamon rolls
• Sausage & egg breakfast sliders
• Warm me up sausage quiche
• Pancakes & bacon

Lunch:

• Taco bean soup
• Creamy chicken and wild rice soup
• Chili & Mac-n-cheese

Menu plan for the week of November 13

This week, I'm continuing to prepare for guests.  Luckily, the children have an aversion to getting anything out of or putting anything into the freezer in the basement, so I can hide the things that I'm making ahead down there.  Like cinnamon rolls.  Mmmmm.  Also luckily, there's an almost-twenty-two pound turkey in the downstairs freezer, which means once I take it out to thaw, I'll have plenty of room for cinnamon rolls.  And, you know.  Other things.  But, cinnamon rolls.  Mmmmm.

Here's what's on the menu this week.

Supper:

• Beef stroganoff (AKD says, "!!!!"), green beans, applesauce
• Zuppa toscana, rolls
• Tacos, taco toppings, tortillas
• Meat sauce with angel hair, green beans, garlic toast
• Pizza (sauce, crust), salad
• Hamburgers, buns, chips, carrots
• Leftovers/fend for yourself
• Hot beef sandwiches, rolls, cooked and raw carrots, peaches

Other:

• Ground beef for shepherd's pie and chili
• Lots and lots of rolls
• Cinnamon rolls
• Taco bean soup

Six Month Chicken Update

You read that right, friends.  Today is the girls' half-birthday, and tomorrow they will have been with us for six months.  Wowza, y'all.  Some days I feel like they've always been with us, and others, it seems like the blink of an eye.

The girls are doing well with the cold so far, although I can tell you they really don't like snow all that much.  The waterer is not doing as well with the cold--the nipples freeze whenever temps drop below freezing.  This is disappointing, since when I was researching watering options, I read that horizontal nipples are less likely to freeze than vertical nipples.  Hopefully a water heater will solve the problem (as soon as we get electricity out to the coop), but in the meantime, I'm swapping out waterers each morning.

Toasty continues to lay about an egg a day.  I can't really remember when she last skipped a day.  Her eggs are getting bigger, too.  They're just a skosh smaller than the typical large eggs from the grocery store.  Toasty is the most verbal of the girls--she's always squawking about something.  Toasty Crunch is Bubby's favorite chicken to pick up.

 Rocky's egg production has slowed to about one every other day.  The other day we were out in the yard when all of a sudden Rocky took off toward the coop.  Looked like she was on a mission.  Turns out she was--when I got over there, she was ensconced in the nest box, awaiting the arrival of an egg.

 Still no eggs from Esther.  I have theories, but no conclusive, evidence-based reasons for the continued drought .  That's all right.  We will continue waiting, with varying degrees of patience.  Esther is the smallest of the girls and really likes to be up high--the other day, she flew up on to the outside roof of the nest box.  She also seems like the most nervous of the girls.  If the rest of us happen to wander away from her, when she notices, she flies and runs over to join us.

Speaking of wandering, I like to take the girls on walks around the perimeter of the yard.  Bubby says we need to get leashes (yes, there actually is such a thing) so we can walk them, but I've found leashes are not necessary.  They follow me.  I am amazed and amused by this behavior.  The girls dictate the schedule, but I'm definitely in charge of the route.

I never get tired of looking at those fluffy chicken butts.

Progress on goals: Homemade reusable cleaning wipes

Hi everyone.  You've grown so used to me reporting on my Trader Joe's goal that you probably forgot I had other goals for 2017.  Yup, I did/do.  My first 2017 goal was to make reusable cleaning wipes.  Well, I'm pleased to report that I succeeded, and I'm ready to share my recipe? method? how I did it.

They're not pretty, but they work!

My first order of business was to figure out what I wanted to use for the wipe itself.  I considered using cut up t-shirts or towels, and you may remember that I actually "bought" (they were free, but "bought" is still the best verb I can conjure right at this moment) some washcloths to use.

I did use the washcloths for the first couple of attempts, but they were too big and fluffy (I could barely fit the six of them in my container), and actually didn't work very well for what I wanted to do with them. 

So then I grabbed some microfiber washcloths from The Dollar Tree, and I've been very happy with both the number I can fit in my container and the way they clean.

The next order of business was to find a cleaning solution that I liked.  I tried 4 or 5 different recipes, but settled on this simple but effective combination:

Combine 1 cup water, 1/2 c. rubbing alcohol, and 1/2-1 T dawn dish washing liquid.

That's it.  Mix it up and throw your cloths in there.  You can scale up or down based on how many cloths you have (I have 8).

Now I will say that this mixture can get quite sudsy during use, so if I'm cleaning something shiny, I add the extra step of buffing/drying it off, but for the most part, I just let the things I clean dry on their own.  I will also warn you that rubbing alcohol can have a drying effect on skin. so you might want to wear gloves (which you might be doing anyway) when you use these, or just make sure to moisturize.

I mostly clean bathrooms with these wipes, but they work really well for general cleaning, too (pro tip: to avoid cross-contamination, use one color of cloths for the bathroom, another color for the kitchen, and a third for general cleaning (here's a set of 24 microfiber cloths: eight in each of three colors)).

How are you doing on your 2017 goals?

Menu plan for the week of November 6

Welcome back to standard time!  Yesterday, I managed to remain sleeping until 5 a.m., and didn't see any children until 6:11 a.m.  Well, actually, I didn't see him then; I heard him.  I remember the first time we made the switch back to standard time after AKD was born.  I got together with some women from my Baby and Me exercise class a few days later, and one of them asked if daylight savings had messed up our babies.  Nope, not really.  He woke up at the same time, it was just that we were calling it something different.

This week, I'm continuing to prepare for our guests, who will be arriving in a couple of weeks.  I'll be making a couple of varieties of muffins to stick in the freezer for quick and easy fend-for-yourself breakfasts, and I might get the sausage, that I planned to prep last week, cooked.  The warehouse store was completely out of stock when I was there last week.

Here's what's on the menu this week:

Supper:

• Hot beef sandwiches, green beans, applesauce
• Ham & cheese spirals (this recipe, substituting crescent roll dough for the puff pastry), mandarin oranges, corn
• Wildtree savory sweet onion chicken, salad
• Italian sausage & veggies sheet pan meal
• Hamburgers, buns, broccoli/cauliflower, carrots, chips, jello
• Chicken bundles (similar to this), green beans
• Zuppa toscana, rolls
• Beef stroganoff, green beans applesauce

Other:

• Canned pinto beans (I do it slightly differently now, but here's how I used to do it)
• Banana muffins and zucchini muffins
• Warm you up sausage quiche
• (hopefully) Breakfast sausage for turkey stuffing, warm you up sausage quiche and breakfast sliders

I washed the windows: a cleaning hack

I washed the windows last week.

I need to tell you this for a few reasons.

First, I need to tell you because I don't think you would notice if I didn't tell you.  You know, considering y'all aren't here in my house and all.

Second, I need to tell you because it's a rare occurrence.  It's a lot of work to wash windows.  And it's frustrating because they always end up streaky.  Urgh.  It's true that something is better than nothing, but as a perfectionist*, I'd rather not do it at all if it's not going to be perfect.  This is also why I don't like sweeping, by the way.  I can never do it perfectly.  There's also the matter of TPAD, which makes me think that cleaning the windows is going to take a really long time.

And finally, I need to tell you because my windows are so sparkly.  No streaking!  I just keep staring at them, mesmerized by their clarity.  And I need to tell you how that happened.

So for the outside of the windows, I use the Windex All-In-One Window Cleaning Tool.  I bought it years ago on clearance, and this summer I found the refill pads on clearance, too.  I bought four, which at my current rate of window cleaning is about a 15 year supply.  I'm happy with how it works, and I'm ecstatic that I don't have to make a difficult job even difficult-er by having to haul out the ladder and carry it around with me.

On the inside of the windows I used a recipe I found online.  Unfortunately, I did not write down quantities, nor do I remember where I stumbled upon this window cleaning recipe, so y'all are going to have to wing it, like I did.

I wrote down:

windows

• squirt of dish soap
• 1/2 c. vinegar
• water

wipe; buff dry

Yeah.  Good luck, friends!

OK, if you insist on more specific quantities and instructions, I'd say I used about one tablespoon of concentrated dish soap, about one cup white vinegar, and about two quarts of water in a bucket.  I soaped up the windows using a microfiber cloth, and then I dried the windows using a dry microfiber cloth.  Yes, it smelled like vinegar while I was washing, but the smell dissipated quickly.  I'll link to some microfiber cloths here, but I bought mine from The Dollar Tree.

I'm genuinely surprised by how well this worked.  Yippee for clean windows!  Let me know if you try it.

*******

* It's true.  I'm a perfectionist, and it can be paralyzing.  I bet you didn't know that about me.  I'm much more of a don't bother if you can't do it perfectly perfectionist, though, as opposed to a get all things perfect at all costs perfectionist, so that's probably why you didn't realize.  Now that I know this about myself, I'm learning to be OK with something, even if it's imperfect, being better than nothing.