Menu plan for the week of January 27

So, it turns out that the reason random things linger in my freezers is because they are things that no one around here wants to eat.  I mean, makes sense, right?  If you don't want to eat it, leave it in the freezer.  Forever, if necessary.  What doesn't make sense is how those things get there in the first place.  If no one wants to eat it, why is it in our house?

I don't know.  Probably because I'm an optimist.

So because I've been using up random items from the freezer, no one has been liking anything I cook lately.  It's been a sobering blow to my ego-- I've had a rough couple of weeks.  That's why I'm done.  No more freezer cooking for me.  Also, pretty much everything is gone now, so I was going to be done anyway.

There is one more cup of frozen enchilada sauce that I will use to make Hubby's tacos extra fancy the next time we have tacos, and I decided to use up one of my two bags of Friendship bread starter* this week, but everything else, all the random frozen stuff from my original list, has been used. 

(Yay!  This makes me happy, but not quite happy enough to counteract the sadness caused by no one wanting to eat anything I made in the past three weeks)

This week, it's all about convenience food.  Because I am done cooking.

For now, anyway.

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

Supper: 

• Take out
• Chicken tenders, raw veggies
• Pizza, salad
• Calzone
• Hamburgers, buns, mashed potatoes, grilled broccoli
• Spaghetti with meatballs, garlic bread, corn
• Appetizers, including nachos. little wieners, mozzarella sticks, hamburger (not an appetizer, but what Bubby says he's having.  Fine with me, as long as I don't have to cook it)

Other:

• Snickerdoodles
• Double chocolate friendship bread muffins*

* The friendship bread will also use up a pantry item--instant chocolate pudding, which we only use in friendship bread.  I'm not ready to really commit to using up the random pantry items just yet, but I did choose the flavor of FB based on the instant pudding flavors I had available.

Menu plan for the week of January 20

Hi friends.  We're on week 3 of freezer clean-out meals.  I feel like I've committed just about every random frozen item to a meal, but when I look at my freezer inventory, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot crossed off yet.  Strange.

One good thing that's come of this freezer cooking "challenge" is that we have discovered, once and for all, that we don't like chicken thighs.  And by "we" I mean me (Hubby didn't like them, either, but only after he realized they were thighs, so...not sure what that means).  Remind me next time I'm tempted to buy some because they're a good price.

Speaking of chicken thighs, they're gone tomorrow.  Yippee!  I'm a little late with this post, so no links this time, but y'all can google, yes?  You got this.

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

Supper:

• Zuppa Toscana (frozen cauliflower and kale), rolls (from the freezer)
• Chicken enchiladas (chicken thighs, tortillas, enchilada sauce, green onions from the freezer) with avocado (also from the freezer)
• French toast (French bread from the freezer), sausage patties, fresh fruit
• Italian beef sandwichesn(roast beef from the freezer; provolone from the fridge) on Hawaiian rolls (this was supposed to be sliders, but the kiddos didn't care for last week's sliders), raw veggies
• Pizza, salad
• Hamburgers, buns, chips, jello, raw veggie
• Grilled strip steak, grilled green veggie, mashed potatoes

Other:

• Banana muffins (didn't get to these last week)
• Cheeseburger pie 
• Avocado chicken salad

Menu plan for the week of January 13

Hey, y'all!

This week, I'm continuing to use random items from my freezer to plan meals.  It's fun.  You should try it.  Next week, I'll add refrigerator and pantry items to my list.

Supper:

• Slow cooker chicken bacon ranch sandwiches (chicken breasts and bacon from the freezer; cream cheese from the fridge), buns, salad, green beans
• Tacos, tortillas, taco type toppings
• Chicken thighs with creamy mushroom sauce (the chicken thighs, part one), steamed broccoli (from the freezer)
• Zuppa toscana (cauliflower, cabbage, and kale from the freezer, heavy whipping cream from the fridge, and turkey stock from two years ago), rolls
• Ham and cheese sliders (found some deli ham in the freezer), fresh veggies (cauliflower, broccoli)
• Chicken enchiladas (the chicken thighs, part two, along with enchilada sauce, and green onions from the freezer), salad
• Grilled pork chops and chicken breasts (I have 2 pork chops and 2 chicken breasts left in the freezer.  Time to use them up, and hope that they go on sale soon), salad, grilled broccoli, mashed potatoes

Other:

• Banana muffins.  I might try baking some in mason jars and sending them off to AKD to see if they stay fresh.
• Granola.  A triple batch.  Because if I'm going to make granola, I might as well make granola.  Yes, I know this is going to add more to the freezer instead of getting stuff out, but I have some diced strawberries in the freezer to use up, and the way I want to use them is by eating them with yogurt and granola.  So that's what I'm gonna do.

3/20 for 2020

Hello again, my friends.  I'm ready to reveal the first three of my twenty 2020 goals, along with a couple I won't be completing, and a few that I'm leaning strongly toward.

First up: these are the first three 2020 goals.  Yay, goals!

1. Make sauerkraut.  Truth?  I started the sauerkraut on New Year's Eve, three days before I published my list of possible goals.  I tried some sauerkraut, which I never, ever dreamed that I would like, at Thanksgiving, and I liked it.  So I had to make my own.  Had to.  Unfortunately, based on how that sauerkraut tasted, and how my sauerkraut tastes so far, it seems likely that that sauerkraut had added sugar.  Well, I had to try, and it only cost me a cabbage, a couple of carrots, a few cloves of garlic, and some salt.  Plus, my sauerkraut will make my gut so happy.

2. Grow an amaryllis.  This goal has been on my list of potential goals for all three of the years that I've participated in this project.  Amaryllis is so pretty, and so easy to grow, but it's been years since I've actually grown one.  Y'all.  I found one on clearance.  A week and a half after Christmas.  In fact, the store employees were taking the Christmas stuff off the shelves as I was shopping.  Gotta make room for Easter and garden stuff, doncha know.  So this goal is already in progress, which means it scores a place on the list.  Yeah.  I don't care that it'll be blooming in March instead of December.  Who says amaryllis is just for Christmas?

3. Drink tea.  This goal is incredibly vague.  Like, I could say that it's complete if I drink one sip of tea (I've consumed more than one sip so far this year. #winning).  It's on the list because I would like to like tea.  My whole life, I have wanted to like tea, first because my mom drinks tea, and I wanted to be like her, and now because tea has so many benefits.

Ha.  Didn't realize the fruit was so prominent in this photo; too lazy to go back and crop it now.  Enjoy this lovely cup of tea in front of fruit.

By the way, thank you to the friends who chimed in one which goals they thought I should pursue this year.  Stay tuned to see if your selections make the final list.



Next, I'll share a couple of goals I will not be completing this year.  Or, at least, I'm not certain enough that I will complete them that I want to put them on the 20 for 2020 list:

• Hand knit a blanket.  I think I just don't like the yarn that I bought.  But I don't like any of the other yarn available locally for this project, either.  So I'm tabling this project for now.  It might happen some day.  In any case, the yarn is going back to the store today.
• Make a willow whistle.  You knew I wasn't going to choose this one, so why not cross it off the list now?
• Make a peekaboo cake.  This just seems like too much work.  Yeah.  Don't look at some of the other items on the list, because if this is too much work, those are definitely too much.

And finally, some goals that I am leaning strongly toward pursuing:

1. Make and install towel hooks/shelf in the bathroom.  I have the hooks.  I think I probably have the wood (I need to go through the stack of pallet wood to see if I have a combination of sizes that will add up to the size I want).  It needs to happen.  Now it's just a question of how long it'll take for me to actually take action.
2. New floor.  It's time.  It's past time.
3. & 4. Plant something new and start seeds indoors.  I ordered some seeds!  And they've been shipped!  Imagine a fruit that looks like, and has the texture of, a granny smith apple, but tastes like honeydew.  That's what I'm growing!  And starting indoors.  I also grabbed a small watermelon and a beet variety.  So fun!
   

Here's the rest of the potential 2020 goals.  

I, um, may have ... added a few?  Yeah.  Maybe.

1. Crochet a cowl
2. Crochet a poncho
3. Make a reusable bag out of a chicken feed sack (this, and the other sewing-related potential goals, are complicated by the fact that my kiddo just declared my sewing machine officially not-worth-fixing.  I am definitely not up for handsewing this, or anything, in 2020).
4. Make reusable food wrap
5. Make cloth napkins for more seasons
6. Make a pretty apron (I would have to find a pattern I like first.  Also, a sewing machine)
7. Make lip balm
8. Make soap
9. Make a box to sit on our toilet tank OR make and install floating shelves above the toilet (this goal is made more complicated by the fact that I'm not sure which I would prefer.  I mean, I like the wreath that's above our toilet (which means no shelves), but it has definitely seen better days (which means shelves would give me an excuse to get rid of the wreath).
10. Make a console table/thing to keep the step stool from dinging our wall.
11. Make a frame for the B
12. String art
13. Install pallet wall
14. Install gallery wall (we had a gallery wall, but there was just something off about it.  I was never happy with it.  Too symmetrical, maybe.  Or the frames were too close together.  Or maybe too big or too small in scale for the wall.  So I'm afraid to try again, lest I not like it again.  I think a gallery would look better on the wall we're intending to palletisize (absolutely a word), but I don't know if I will want to cover up so much of that wall).
15. Light an outdoor tree (there is a sledding hill between our house and the tree I want to light, so I'm not sure it'll work.  Either there will be an extension cord that we will have to avoid while sledding, or the lights will have to be solar or battery powered, which, of course, would drive up the cost of this project).
16. Go to a movie by myself (not sure what's coming in 2020, but there's bound to be at least one movie that I want to see, but no one else in my family wants to see).
17. Hang the W (MC made a beautiful wooden W sign that needs hanging).
18. Repair moose pillows
19. Log 50 activities on Strava
20. Finish or decide to abandon that darn puzzle
21. Make maple syrup
22. Can apple pie filling
23. Remove a popcorn ceiling
24. Wash outside windows
25. Make a particular wooden sign for a friend
26. Grow and can pickles
27. Track something
28. Obtain a working sewing machine
29. Buy a statement necklace

Menu plan for the week of January 6

Well friends, I am mashed potatoed out.  I mean, I could eat mashed potatoes every day, but I'm a little tired of making them every day.  It was pretty fun for a week, though, and it made menu planning easy, to have mashed potatoes almost every day last week.

This week's menu plan is brought to you courtesy of my freezers.  Someone I follow on social media is hosting a freezer challenge this month, challenging her followers to use up as much from our freezers as possible in January.  This actually made for a very easy menu planning session, too.

Here's what I did.  I went through my freezers (the small side-by-side freezer attached to our fridge, and the small "starter" chest freezer), and wrote down everything that I wanted to use up, which included things like random meats that I bought because they were on sale, but I didn't have a specific plan in mind for (I'm lookin' at you, chicken thighs), leftovers, both from Boy Scout camp-outs and us, small quantities of convenience foods that aren't enough to make a meal on their own, and veggies and fruits that I froze because they were about to go bad, among other interesting things.  I was a little surprised about the variety of things I found in the upstairs freezer.  No wonder it felt so full for the past several weeks!

Once I had my list, I started writing down meals that would use up those ingredients.  If I couldn't think of something immediately (hello, 3 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs), I searched the ingredient on Pinterest (hint: on some recipe sites, like allrecipes.com, you can search by ingredient, both ingredients that you want included in the recipe and ingredients that you want excluded). 

As I wrote the meal ideas on the menu, I highlighted the ingredients that the meal would use, on my list.  That way, I'm not writing down 3 different meals that are going to use the same thing.  Because then I'd have to buy more of that thing.  The thing I'm trying to get rid of.  After the ingredient is actually used, I will cross it off the list.  Menu planning this way, I managed to get two weeks of meals planned, and I haven't even gone through the refrigerator or pantry goods yet.  Yay!

So, here's what's on the menu this week:

Supper:

• Turkey dinner leftovers
• Pasties (frozen rutabaga, leftover carrots, and maybe some shredded frozen cabbage) with gravy--this meal will actually add something to the freezer--the leftover pasties--but AKD is home, and assures me that he will eat them before he leaves.
• Beef barbacoa (leftover from a couple of months ago), guacamole (from the freezer), tortillas, corn (also from the freezer), black beans
• French toast (French bread leftover from a Boy Scout campout), sausage links, fresh fruit
• Hamburgers, buns, chips, carrots, caramel apple salad (from the freezer)
• Spaghetti and meatballs (zucchini noodles), garlic knots and garlic toast, green beans
• Grilled pork chops and chicken breasts, salad, grilled veggie, mashed potatoes (I think I'll be sufficiently recovered by then)

Other:

• Chocolate caramel layer bars--yep, I must make these because I've got frozen evaporated milk to use up.  I have no choice.
• Hamburger broccoli casserole (switching up my lunch a little bit, and also using four ounces of cream cheese that I found in the freezer)

How about you?  What do you have lurking in your freezer, fridge, or pantry that you need to use up?

P.S. There are three slices of apple pie in my freezer.  Sure hope I can find someone who's willing to eat those.

2020 goals?

Y'all, I crushed my winter break goals.  Crushed. Them.

Just to recap, my winter break goals were:

1. Wear PJs or comfy pants as much as possible.
2. Paint my toenails, and
3. Go sledding.

I did so well with my winter break goals, I decided to try again for annual goals.  Twenty of them, possibly, for 2020.

I've been writing down potential goals for about a month, but I'm having a teensy weensy bit of trouble deciding to which of them I should commit.  

Would you help a friend out?  Please?  Help me decide.

So here's the list, in no particular order, except that when I started the list I started listing in categories and then it all broke down into randomness, because entropy.  At least, that's what I'm telling myself.  Entropy is an always handy scapegoat. 

Anyway, here you go:

1. Hand knit a blanket (I already have yarn for this project, which should move it up the list in priority, but now that I have the yarn, I find myself strangely lacking in motivation.  The upshot?  The yarn can be returned)
2. Crochet a cowl
3. Crochet a poncho
4. Make a reusable bag out of a chicken feed sack (this, and the other sewing-related potential goals, are complicated by the fact that my kiddo just declared my sewing machine officially not-worth-fixing.  I am definitely not up for handsewing this, or anything, in 2020).
5. Make reusable food wrap
6. Make cloth napkins for more seasons
7. Make a pretty apron (I would have to find a pattern I like first.  Also, a sewing machine)
8. Make lip balm
9. Make soap
10. Make a box to sit on our toilet tank OR make and install floating shelves above the toilet (this goal is made more complicated by the fact that I'm not sure which I would prefer.  I mean, I like the wreath that's above our toilet (which means no shelves), but it has definitely seen better days (which means shelves would give me an excuse to get rid of the wreath).
11. Make a console table/thing to keep the step stool from dinging our wall.
12. Make a willow whistle (I typed it, because it's on my list, but what was I thinking?  I don't want to do this!)
13. Make and install towel hooks/shelf in the bathroom (this one has to happen, because the towel bar fell off the wall, and we need something from which to hang towels).
14. Make a frame for the B
15. String art
16. New floor (we need a new floor in our entry, kitchen, and dining area.  Not need, like we want one, but need like, our current floor has rugs strategically placed to cover up discolorations and actual holes in the flooring that  have sharp edges and have injured me.  So because we need a new floor, we had pretty much our whole first floor repainted, put in a new kitchen countertop, and a new backsplash in the kitchen, but no new floor as of yet.  Makes sense, yes?)
17. Install pallet wall
18. Install gallery wall (we had a gallery wall, but there was just something off about it.  I was never happy with it.  Too symmetrical, maybe.  Or the frames were too close together.  Or maybe too big or too small in scale for the wall.  So I'm afraid to try again, lest I not like it again.  I think a gallery would look better on the wall we're intending to palletisize (absolutely a word), but I don't know if I will want to cover up so much of that wall).
19. Light an outdoor tree (there is a sledding hill between our house and the tree I want to light, so I'm not sure it'll work.  Either there will be an extension cord that we will have to avoid while sledding, or the lights will have to be solar or battery powered, which, of course, would drive up the cost of this project).
20. Go to a movie by myself (not sure what's coming in 2020, but there's bound to be at least one movie that I want to see, but no one else in my family wants to see).
21. Hang the W (MC made a beautiful wooden W sign that needs hanging).
22. Repair moose pillows
23. Peek-a-boo cake
24. Make sauerkraut
25. Log 50 activities on Strava
26. Finish or decide to abandon that darn puzzle
27. Make maple syrup
28. Can apple pie filling
29. Grown an amaryllis
30. Remove a popcorn ceiling
31. Wash outside windows
32. Make a particular wooden sign for a friend
33. Grow and can pickles
34. Drink tea
35. Plant something new
36. Start seeds indoors

Whew!  If you made it to the end of the list, congratulations!  I admire your persistence.  So, which goals do you think should make the final list of 20?  Which would you cross off the list?  Are there any additional goals you think I should consider?

Top 19 posts of 2019 (and one that didn't make the list, but should have)

Hi friends, and happy January, happy 2020!  Today I thought I'd count down my 19 most read posts of 2019, because why not? And it's kind of fun looking back over the year.  So, without further ado, my top posts of 2019, plus one more.

Tied for 18th place: 

I finished my purple scarf, in which I talk about my church being on the brink of something new

9 for 2019 June Update: basically the last update of the year.

17 

Chicken Update

Tied for 14th place:

19 for 2019 Reveal, in which I do not reveal my actual 2019 goals

I made it out, in which I experienced a miracle

9 for 2019 July update: the un-update

13 

Garden Planning

12

 So Judge-y, in which I confess to judging people for being judgmental.  Oy!

11

 Garden Update, week 8

Tied for 9th place:

 This week's Cricut brag post

How I do cards, in which I explain how I do cards.

Tied for 7th place:

 My Nine (goals) for 2019, in which I do reveal my actual 2019 goals

Hazel: a tribute

6 

What should I do first?, in which I share my excitement. I have completed 6 of these 7 projects.

5 

18 for 2018 Wrap-up

4 

Perfect: "When did we decide that it's not ok to be proud of something unless it's perfect?"

3 

My Husband Gave Me Cheap Vodka for Valentine's Day: I might ask for more this Valentine's day, but not for the same reason.

2 

This week's Cricut brag post

1 

This week's Cricut brag post: no, I didn't list the same post twice.  Y'all just apparently love Cricut blog posts.  Guess I ought to do some more.

It seems, my friends, that you like menu plan posts (I left them out of this list, but some of them actually would have made it), posts about chickens and the garden, posts about my goals, and most of all, posts about Cricut projects.  It's possible that these are my most-read posts because that's pretty much all I write about...but...nah.

And finally, the blog post that I think should have made the top 19 but didn't:
An Open Table (God's Extravagant Love)
You should read it.