Meal Plan

 

I had a calm and pleasant Mother's Day yesterday. I hope you all did as well.

I started the day making oatmeal cookies with cranberries and dates. I wanted to take some when we went to the nursing home later to visit my mother in law. 

For supper my daughter and a family friend barbecued pork chops and sausage and served that with corn on the cob, potato salad and beans. It was a wonderful supper and I appreciate all their hard work. We had plenty of leftovers so I will use them up during this week's meal plan.

Meal Plan for the week

Monday - ham and asparagus quiche- easy to put together with my canned ham, asparagus I got on sale and pre-made pie crust

Tuesday - left over barbecue - heat and eat

Wednesday - Soup (either beef stew or chicken noodle - havent decided yet)

Thursday - Chicken Tacos 

Friday - Baked Fish (dipped in green goddess dressing and coated with panko bread crumbs), coleslaw and beans

Saturday - Crockpot BBQ Pork sandwiches (made from slow cooked pork roast, shredded and bbq sauce added)

Have a blessed week!

Avoiding Food Waste

 

Today was clean the fridge day. Not one of my favorite jobs, but it sure helps to prevent waste and remind me of what I need to use soon. 

I had made baked fish a couple nights ago so today I crumbled the fish up and added about 1/4 cup cornmeal, 1 Tbs flour and an egg and made patties to fry. We had them for lunch along with some leftover baked beans and it was a really good lunch. 

I can't say that I always get everything used in our meals, but I at least will make sure the dogs get some leftovers so the food doesn't go to waste.

As far as other things to use up, I have some carrots I will probably put in a soup, some asparagus that I think would be good wrapped in crescent rolls with a little ham and cheese and some eggs I saved that broke but were still in the carton, that I am thinking of using the eggs in a quiche.

I have read that there may be an upcoming wheat shortage due to the Russia/Ukraine war so I have been thinking about ways to use less wheat. I found some old Depression era recipes where they too were using less wheat. There are a few recipes I copied that I am planning to try. I will let y'all know how they work out. 

Our Depression era ancestors knew how to not waste. They did not overload recipes with ingredients. If a recipe called for onion, they would use about a Tablespoon; if the recipe called for cheese they used it but not excessively. So much of the way we cook today can really be over the top with ingredients and it is really just a waste. 

Waste is never good, but in these days where there are food shortages, we need to think smarter about what we make and use and be flexible in our meal plans. 

Steak and Potato Casserole for Supper

 

We don't have a lot of steak these days but hubby found some round steak on sale and picked up a package so for supper last night we had what my Mom called Steak and Potato supper. It's a simple recipe and the great thing is you don't have to stand in the kitchen and watch over it constantly.  I heated up a couple cans of peas towards the end of the casserole cooking time and served some sourdough bread I had made with it and we had a meal.

Steak and Potato Supper

Round Steak

2 Tbs parsley

1/8 tsp pepper

4 potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

½ tsp salt

2 eight ounce cans tomato sauce

* I added a couple TBS Sriracha sauce to this recipe because we like food pretty spicy. 

Cut steak into serving pieces. Dredge in flour and brown on both sides in hot oil in skillet. Place meat and potatoes in a casserole dish. Pour fat out of skillet and add brown drippings to casserole. Add other ingredients and bake at 350*F 1 ½ hours.

Sunday and Beef Enchiladas

It's a rainy Sunday and I haven't done much all day. It's one of those days where you just want to nap and so that's what I have been doing. 

I feel so blessed because hubby took up the slack for me today and he has been working on supper. He made beans and enchiladas and I know they will be good. He and I make enchiladas a little different. He buys enchilada sauce for his and uses Velveeta cheese. I make my own sauce and most of the time, I use Velveeta, but growing up when we made my families' enchiladas we used longhorn cheese or what my Dad used to call "rat cheese". 

Here is my recipe:

ENCHILADAS

(my family recipe)

1 ½ pound ground beef

10-12 ounce velveeta cheese

one large onion, chopped (1 cup)

2 Tbs chili powder

1 tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

1 tsp garlic

1 tsp comino

2 cans tomato sauce

1 can tomato sauce can water

2 tsp cornstarch mixed with 1/8 cup cold water

15 corn tortillas

oil for tortillas about 1/2 cup

Grate cheese and set aside, chop onion and set aside. Dip corn tortillas in skillet of ¼ cup hot oil to soften and set aside (drain on paper towels). Brown ground beef, drain and set aside. In skillet mix chili powder, salt, pepper, garlic powder, comino, tomato sauce and water. Stir  and add cornstarch mixture and meat. Stir. To each tortilla place some cheese, onion and chili mixture. Roll, then put in pan seam side down. Sprinkle top with cheese. Heat through in 375*F oven.

____________

My shoulder problem was a lot worse last night after chopping up two hams for canning.  I'm going to have to see the doctor next week and hope it is not too soon for another shot for the pain. 

Mountain Men is on TV right now and it is a favorite show of mine. The oldest guy, the trapper, Tom Orr, is in his seventies and is a big inspiration as far as reminding us that age doesn't have to be a deterrent to things you want to. 

Canning, My Dad's Legacy

My Dad lived through the Great Depression and because of that he was determined to be ready if another one every occurred. 

Canning food and gardening was a big part of my childhood, so I guess it got passed on to me. 

I remember helping with some of the canning when I was a kid. I only helped when my parents were making jelly. My job was to pick fruit and stir the pot waiting for a rolling boil. My siblings helped too of course. 

I remember one particular time when we were making grape jelly and my hands got stained purple from working with the grapes. At school, a classmate noticed my purple hands and got so curious about our jelly making that she came over to help. I rememb
er that she wanted to know how many grapes it took to make a jar of jelly. I had no idea.

I have since made prickly pear and other jellies but the one thing I never did was pressure canning. I remember Mom telling stories that she'd heard of pressure cookers "blowing up". All these years I have been afraid to even try. 

Yesterday I tried pressure canning for the first time and even though I was pretty nervous about doing something wrong, everything was fine. I know it's not a big deal for most but it was for me. 

Learning to pressure can opens a whole new world, especially as far as canning meat. We all remember power outages during past winter storms. An outage of any length of time can ruin everything in the freezer. Have some canned meat helps to minimize this. 

There are tons of videos on You Tube about canning and they were a big help. I would also recommend the Ball canning book for instructions as well as of course your pressure cooker's manual.  

Groceries and Meal Plans

I've been doing more cooking from scratch these days due to rising grocery prices. Grocery shopping over the weekend, I was stunned to see the 60 count boxes of eggs anywhere from $14 to $20! I also saw that the big canister of Quaker Oats was $6. I buy the store brand which saves a couple bucks but it is still high. Everything is high. We all know that but I can't help but have a little sticker shock whenever I go to the store these days. One big find however was turkey for 49 cents a pound!  That was an awesome deal!

I have started making sourdough bread and honestly once you get into the groove of it, it is really not all that time consuming or hard. I have been baking bread once a week for I guess about two months now. 

Since turkey was the star of the week, I cooked one over the weekend. Getting several meals from them is worth the effort of de-boning. We had turkey breast sandwiches the first night, and tonight I'll make turkey and dumplings. 

I made tamale pie last night and instead of beef, I used ground pork and also a can of chili beans. It turned out great and every bit as good as when I made it with 100% beef.

Meal plans for the rest of the week include:

Tuesday - Turkey and Dumplings

Wednesday - Beef and Potato Croquettes

Thursday - Turkey Tacos, salad, refried beans

Friday - Split Pea and Ham soup

Saturday - Beef and Mushroom Stroganoff, Broccoli

Sunday - Chicken and Rice Casserole

 

Pet Birds and Wild Birds

Well I got up this morning and started my coffee and then was going to feed our two parakeets and finch next, only to realize that we were out of their birdseed. I thought "What about the wild bird food? I wonder if I can use that?" I looked it up on the internet and it said yes they can but it's not really nutritious enough for daily feeding. "Ok, well it will work until I get to the store today."

Before feeding Maya, our finch, I separated out the big seeds and just gave her the small seeds left. I fed Kiwi and Skye the regular mix. I am watching their reactions now and Maya has her big girl pants on and she is eating, but the parakeets are just chirping back and forth (complaining to each other, I'm sure) and refusing to touch the stuff. 

Maya, our finch, was brought home with us one day from the Pet Store when we saw that she was the only bird left in the store and it was because she had "splay leg". Fearing they would feed her to the snakes we brought her home and had her checked out by a Vet that specialized in birds. He just suggested that we wrap all her perches with coach wrap so that she can get a better grip on them. We asked if she needed another finch for company, and he said that no, with us and the other birds she would be fine on her own. Her cage is in the dining room and we talk to her when we are at the table and she can hear and see the other two birds.

Skye is a female parakeet, white mostly, with a little blue on her back. She belongs to my daughter and is very sweet and trusting. She likes to knock things down in her cage. It doesn't matter what toy I put in there, it will end up picked apart and on the floor!

Kiwi is my green and yellow male parakeet. It was a little harder to gain his trust, but he is very sweet natured now. His thing is trying to keep all the little bells going in his cage at once. There is one bell in particular, a red one, that I think he is in love with. He talks to it and kisses it all the time. 

I enjoy birds a lot. As a child I had a parakeet, and Gene and I had a Macaw for quite a few years. 

I also enjoy bird watching outdoors. We have a resident woodpecker in the trees out back, an owl, that I haven't yet seen, and a plethora of nuthatches, as well as some big ol' crows and Canadian Geese that visit regularly. I haven't seen any robins yet this year but am sure they will show up soon. I also see cardinals and red winged blackbirds from time to time here. 

Happy Monday yall!