Weekly Meal Plan

There's a green world outside my windows and it's a lovely warm world as well.  Bees are buzzing, birds are chirping and the brief glimpses we caught of neighbors' homes between the trees can no longer be seen.  It's Spring, well and truly.  Now is the time for warmer weather menus.  I've been going through cookbooks looking for new recipes to tempt us.  I attempted one this past week.  I look forward to experimenting further.  John's just made a meal request which happily falls in with my menu planning.  I have a small challenge ahead of me this week as we observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  I'll be creative with breakfasts and suppers this week, more so than with dinners.  What a privilege it is to observe God's word even within my kitchen.

Sunday:  I'm on my own
I have to run to the grocery store this morning to pick up a few things to observe Passover tomorrow evening.  I'll grab something for my dinner from either deli or freezer case.  It is my plans to go out extra early and return home to work on cleaning my kitchen really, really well.

My Frugal Week: April 5-11

Saturday:  Shabat at home this week.  I prepped dinner on Friday, needed only to cook today.  Quiet, easy day at home, getting much needed rest.

John walked down to get mail.  We got our latest dvd from Netflix.  Watched that and will send back tomorrow.

Washed a full load of dishes.

Turned on fan instead of turning AC down.

Rinsed out a soap bottle to make enough soapy water for hand-washing.

Filled the lid to the pie keeper with soapy water and washed the dishes in that instead of filling the sink.

Sunday:  Packed John's lunch, made his breakfast.

Coffee Chat - April Showers and Sunshine

Come in, come in.  So glad to see you stop by.  I'd thought we'd have our chat on the back porch today but alas, all this pollen only makes me itchy and sneezy and hoarse.  But before you rush in, do look at that heart shaped puddle... It's still there, showing up each time we have rain.

It amuses me that it's there.  No clue why it's there because the area where it forms is not heartshaped at all.  But isn't it fun?

An uneventful weekend just behind us, and for one, I am deeply glad.  I needed to rest up since we've run pretty hard lately on our weekends.  Saturday we mostly just relaxed, rested and ate.  I worked on Sunday, but intermittently.  It was a relaxing day overall.  I looked at genealogy stuff until I felt light headed and cross-eyed to boot.  Even with breaks to actually do some real work, I was at the history stuff entirely too long.  But it was worthwhile with more bits of information to add here and there.  I've found it to be true that if I look for something else, nine times out of ten I stumble upon information related to my own ancestors.  If I actively seek information, it's like walking about in the dark.  The moment I look for information related to someone else or the history of a town, boom!  There's a fairly big piece of information.

Weekly Meal and Work Plan

Another new week.  We greeted it with April showers.  In our case the flowers have already come along...the world outside my windows already transformed into tender green leaves, grass that must soon be mown and pollen. It hasn't been as tough as in some years but there is a film of yellow powder on everything.  Welcome to Spring.

I find, as we're getting more and more accustomed to the new work schedule that for the most part, I need to plan only about 4-5 meals per week.  I tend to eat leftovers or am going out to dinner with Mama on John's work days, so I've started planning 5 meals most weeks instead of 7.  It just makes more sense.

This week I am focused on using as many of the products we have in house with yeast, powdered yeast or yeast extract in them.  I've been especially careful not to stock up on those foods over the last few months.  I can buy 'kosher' foods that are yeast free but they are so pricey that it seems to me wiser to just buy limited quantities of foods that might have yeast in them.  I have started a list which I'm keeping on my desk of foods that I know I shall have to use or throw away.  It has helped tremendously with menu planning this week.

The Modern Home Economist - Cooking Lessons: Cheese Souffle and Baked Ham

As a new homemaker many, many years ago, I came to my new home with a hope chest of sorts.  In it were most the items I'd use to set up my first kitchen.  Plates, silverware, glasses, a crock pot ($12 and 3 purchase seals from Premium saltines), a set of pots and pans.  No linens for beds, nor towels for the bathroom closets.  Only items meant to prepare food and serve it.  That's a telling thing, I realize.  I even had a collection of recipes carefully saved from several magazines.

One of the saved recipes was from Seventeen magazine for Cheese Souffle. I'd read an account in a Peg Bracken article in one of the women's magazines of a dinner she had to prepare on the fly.  Her husband had a business meeting with a man whom he'd invited home for dinner.  He called her at noon to give her notice and she went into a dead panic.  Peg Bracken's whole line was that she 'hated housework' which she wrote a book about with tongue in cheek.  Imagine the declared clutz of housework having a dinner guest by the name of James Beard...Well she pulled together a meal at day's end.  On her menu was a baked ham and a Cheese Souffle.

Questions, Answers and Comments, Oh My!

Hello there!  Thought I'd answer questions, make replies to your comments from March.  I'm going to do this a wee bit differently.  I'll answer or reply to all comments  on regular posts together.  Meaning I'll answer all on Menu Plans and all on Frugal Friday in a lump.  I thought it might be a little less confusing and link heavy that way.

Menu/Job Plans
Mar 2-8  Lena, the recipe for Tuna Roly Poly is simple enough...but I never got it made...The can of tuna is still sitting in my pantry.  It's a biscuit dough base with tuna but you can substitute salmon or chicken either one.  The recipe I've linked to is online.  Mine is an old cookbook and similar.  I'd leave out green olives entirely if your kids dislike them.

My Frugal Week: Mar 29 - Apr 4

Saturday:  Lori brought food from home for the children.   I made waffles for the adults breakfast this morning.  I had sausages as well but knew that John, coming in from work, would be extra hungry so instead of making more sausages, I decided to scramble eggs to go with the meal.

The kids made peanut butter sandwiches for the children and gave them apples with a yogurt dip.  Then they went off to enjoy some alone time.  John and I had sandwiches when he woke up from his nap.

Funny what kids will enjoy.  The 'new' toys this time to the toy box was a cardboard box big enough to sit in, an old aluminum coffee pot that poured out blocks all weekend long.  Neither one of those items cost me a single thing but they were sure enjoyed.  In the music room there was the new drum with cymbal.  It cost a whole dollar and the kids enjoyed it, too.