Queen of the Pantry Insurance Update

 I have been at the machine since 7:00AM working on Karsyn's BD spa wraps. The assembly line method worked really well until it was time to do the Monogram appliques.

 First one down, nine more to go

 DD#1 dug around in my scraps to come up with the fabric and ribbon. I am sooo glad she did as I wouldn't have gone with this combo.

 Total spent last week on groceries was $13.63. We Queens are limited to dairy, eggs, and fruit purchases each week for the month.

I reloaded my grocery zippy wallet with the $100.00 I have budgeted for groceries each week. Last weeks savings of $86.37 is tucked into a mason jar. Not sure yet what I will do with the savings for the month, so many idea's are spinning in my head.

How is everyone doing with the Pantry Insurance Challenge? I am happy with my results last week. I kept the spending down, worked from the pantry and tried a few new "keeper" recipes (I think it was 3 in all). I was able to pull off desert and bread for a LARGE family in mourning as well as a goodie box sent to hubby with ZERO spending. Also dinner for our large family 3 times last week all from the pantry.

Super short post tonight as I want these spa wraps finish, done, complete before my head hits the pillow tonight, I DO NOT want to wake up another day with them sitting at the sewing machine. It's time to move on to another UFO.

Make sure ans share with the rest of us how your doing, I will draw from the comments first thing in the AM for this weeks blog candy

Sunday Stuff

 A hot afternoon of football. Dear Mother Nature, it's fall. Whats up with this 84 degrees?

 Mason is his big Brothers biggest fan

 Karsyn giving me the LOOK, she is over the whole football stuff

 Today's meal to go for the family was Mexican rice (rice a roni), Mexican beans (Bush beans), Chicken enchiladas (frozen pre cooked chicken) No desert, they still have plenty of cookies

My big job for the day...making Spa wraps for Karsyn's toddler GF's

 

With all this sewing backing up I gave myself a break on Sunday dinner!! Keep it simple stupid, kinda dinner. One of the many nice things about having a deep pantry and freezer is I can get a meal for a family of our size together with very little effort. After the game today DD just ran by to pick up their meal, no muss, no fuss. As for me, I am going to enjoy a quite evening alone with my dinner!! :)

 

I am getting sew far behind on sewing project here lately that I have to get back on the ball. I finally unpacked the machine and supplies from our mountain trip this morning. Oh sew much to do. We are expecting heavy rain all day tomorrow. If my plan comes together I will be spending the day at the machine knocking out Karsyn's spa wraps for her upcoming BD. I am going to mess a self imposed deadline for another sewing project but just maybe I can make some progress over the next two days. Dog gone it, I hate not making goals delines but I hate even more wasting time with contractors!!!

 

If your participating in the "Pantry Insurance Challenge" this month don't forget to pick up the Sunday paper so you can get your hot hands on this weeks coupons. Our paper had $245.00 worth of coupons today. I passed on buying one this week as I shouldn't be doing much grocery spending for the month. Don't have a Sunday paper? Check out some of the great online coupons, most of the time you can print two of each coupon.

 

Time to get back on the sewing machine, sew much to do!!

Football Snack

                                                            

 NOT MY PHOTO, I forgot to take a picture of our creation

Today was just too hot for traditional football snacks. Kara and I decided to give semi homemade Hummus a try.Our DD's favorite hummus from the grocery is olive flavor with a price tag of over $6.00 for a small container. I knew Kara and I could beat that price and do it without all the additives.

 Here is our made up very unscientific recipe

2 cans Garbanzos beans drained (save the liquid)
Some olive oil, maybe 1/4 cup
Some lemon juice adds brightness to the taste
Little Kosher salt
Ditto on garlic powder
Few shakes of ground Cumin - didn't have curry powder

Kara loves using the hand mixer but.....the beans started flying out of the bowl when she got started.
Not to be defeated I pulled out the hand potato masher. Who knew this tool would be a toddlers delight, she was mashing with gusto. Once we had those beans nice and mushy we went back to the hand mixer. Along the way I added a little of the liquid from the beans to loosen the dip up a bit.

Now for the olives. We used green and black olives. Did you know the hand chopper thingy is another toddler fav? Kara went to town with that chopper. In no time flat she had those olives chopped to perfection.

Dumped the olives in the bowl and back to the mixer one more time. Humm, looked good but what about the taste? OH YA baby, it was perfect. Kara of course needed to taste test as well, her eyes lite right up, "Nanny dis is lummy" Sure is missy prissy and you did it all by yourself!!

We packed that stuff up in three separate containers, one for here at home, one for DD's, the last was for some CRAZY friends who were having a garage sale today (I hate doing garage sales!) She was so excited when we went on our deliver run insisting "Me did it" as we gave out the containers.

We were back in time for a lunch of leftover baked chicken, green beans, of course hummus. Kara didn't even bother with the pita chips she ate the hummus with a spoon. I think I have a new healthy toddler side dish!!

The one thing I would change next time is to throw everything in a blender or food processor, it would be ready in a skinny minute!! But if like me you have toddlers around go ahead and mess up every gadget in the kitchen, its worth all that dish washing (with help of course) for a morning of kitchen memories.

Anybody else have some pint size kitchen help this weekend? From my experience with little ones around for the past 36 years kiddo's who help in the kitchen are more likely to be adventures in what they eat when they help "did it"

Back to the Saturday "To Do" list. Whats on the list for today? Watching all of the SEC games!! Roll Tide

Cookie Crazy

 Kara and I cranked out more cookies than I could count yesterday. I tried a new recipe for "Almond Joy" cookies someone posted on FB recently. The recipe made a TON of cookies, they are pictured in the back rack of this photo. I only made one change in the recipe!! Seeing as how I am in the
 "Queen " of the pantry category I wanted to "Make Do" with what I had on hand. I omitted the almonds then added an extra cup of coconut, they turned out great. The other cookies is a "Three Ingredient Lemon Cookie" This is a Great summer cookie but any time of the year nobody would turn them down.

 Nothing fancy or new on this round of baking, traditional chocolate chip cookies and of course I had to make hubby and the grands favorite M&M cookies.

 I made up a tray of the assorted cookies for tonight's desert for our friend. I keep my eye out for these disposable trays at the dollar store, party store, after Christmas sales. You can wash them by hand to use over and over, but to me they make great trays to send out of the house. No need for the recipient to have to worry about returning dishes, they have enough to deal with.

Two loaves of artisan bread were also delivered along with a stick of BUTTER!! Hey you never know as I learned from DD's house earlier this week!! Ha

A side note on the "Almond Joy" cookies. I checked the price on almonds today while at the grocery store with the little girls. 2 cups of sliced almonds would have cost $10.00. I don't know about you but that is too darn much money to put in a cookie!! If your looking for a good "Christmas Cookie Exchange" recipe this might be just the ticket as it makes 7 or 8 dozen at least. I really did lose count of how many trays I pulled out. it was a LONG day of baking.

I also put together a nice box of cookies and chocolate covered peanuts to mail off for hubby. A taste of home is always appreciated. As much as I fuss at times doing it ALL around the family and our home, hubby has is much harder living on the road, hotels, apartments with few trips home. He gives so much to our family not just in a pay check but also in making sure to call home, the big and little kiddo's as well as facebook time with the grands. He is truly the pick of the litter.

Off to bed as I have our ball of fire bright and early in the morning. We are going to work on a new to us recipe for a football snack, Kara loves helping in the kitchen.

Back Pantry

 This shelving unit should be packed and stacked with home canned food. After a summer of a total busted garden I will be having to buy things we usually grow. I am thankful for the little we still have from last year.

 All the cabinets in the laundry room (back pantry) have been unloaded, wiped down, then organized. Talk about a huge job!!!

 Back up snacks and drink mixes

Extra cake mixes, frosting's, condiments and some cereal

 One of our neighbours has a bay leaf tree (not sure if that's what it's called!) This branch is now dry enough to put up

 I have more bay leaves than I will be able to use!! I surprised the sweet lady who shared all these bay leaves with a plate of homemade cookies

Kara and I finished up yesterday with some chocolate chip muffins before falling into bed.

Note to self. DO NOT spend 9 hours cleaning out cabinets knowing one of the grands will be having a sleep over, UGHHHHH I had a bugger of a time getting what has turned into a "Cookie Factory" day after only 5 or 6 hours of sleep. Kara woke up a dozen times last night sitting up looking around our room trying to get her bearings. After assuring her she was still with nanny she would lay that sweet (sometimes) head down on my shoulder and tell me "Nanny I rike you" Awwww.

I "rike" Kara too but tonight I am gonna "rike" my bed even more!!!  I have lost count of how many dozens of cookies we have cranked out today. I have one more batch to finish tonight before I shut the cookie factory down.

To add insult to injury when Kara and I went up for her nite, nite bath I heard an odd noise in my room. What in the WORLD!!!! We had water pouring out of the hole that the heat pump installers had put in our bedroom ceiling. HOLY COW!! Being it was Wednesday night (church night) I wasn't able to hear back from the contractor until 9:30 PM. Turn the upstairs until off we will be there first thing in the morning. Sure enough they were here bright and early to make the repairs in a pipe or something and will be back on Monday to make sure everything is working as it should. We not only have a hole in the ceiling now but also a whole heck of a lot of water damage around that hole. Guess it's a good thing the sheet rock fella hasn't shown up to make the repairs yet. One step forward 2 steps backward

 I am going in with some other GF's to provide a meal tomorrow night for another friend who lost her Brother -in-Law yesterday. Such a sad, sad situation. He was doing yard work on the side to help earn extra money. When he didn't come home when his wife thought he should have she and their 8 month pregnant DD went looking for him. Sadly they found he had passed away at his truck door before working on the lawn job he had picked up. This same family lost one of their sons just a few month's ago. Our friend will be hosting most of the out of town family and friends until after the funeral. Since I am the only one at home full time I took on deserts and breads. Today was cookies, tomorrow will be breads, along with the little girls. It's going to be another full day.

On a brighter note we decided on a roof contractor today, thank goodness!!! In what I hope will be only 2 weeks I will be seeing the last of roofers. Of course we will be seeing just about the last of the money in our home improvement budget as well :(

Spice of Life

 Yesterday was clean out the spice cabinet day and errands, oh how I hate errands. I had a few spices I was getting low on so before I placed everything back I restocked what was needed. I like to buy our most used spices in these large size jars from BJ's (Costco, Sam's) You can purchase one of these huge bottles for just a dollar or two more than the small bottles from the grocery store.

 A few spices I grow in the garden then dehydrate. I will run out of most home grown things this year as the garden was a bust.

 Ta Da, all nice and tidy for now. It won't take a skinny minute for things to be upside down again but I now know what I have and everything has been restocked for the fall. I did find some duplicates of things that I wouldn't use up before they were so old I would end up throwing them out. Those I sent over to DD's home along with "California Blend" garlic salt which I just don't like.

 I store the large jars of spices and back ups for the spice cabinet on the top shelf of another cabinet. We are getting into the holiday seasons, most grocery stores will be running sales on spices, there are usually some nice coupons to boot this time of the year. Make your list of what you need and get a deal if you can.

 In order to keep myself on track this month I am going to keep our grocery money separate in this zippy wallet. At the end of the week I will take what's leftover and move to another container then reload the zippy. If I have money in my real wallet it seems to disappear right now!

Homemade artisan bread from last nights supper. This stuff is so good it should be illegal!

I am not moving along on my kitchen clean out very fast, seem to be getting distracted with something else every day :( At least the spice cabinet was completed and I did get the cookbooks sorted and stored away.

I went to DD#1's yesterday to prepare a new recipe for dinner with her. We didn't really get to cook together as she or I were running defence with the little ones most of the time but I think she saw how easy the recipe was and will be making it again. Here is the funny part to me. I took all of the ingredients over other than butter and salt. Remember I have deemed myself as a "Queen of the pantry" so I have to eat from whats on hand all month other than dairy, eggs, and fruit.

First step on the recipe was to saute the chicken strips in 2 TBS of butter. Humm, wheres the butter? What no stick butter? Na, just the fake tub stuff. OK, I will "Make Do". After opening the tub there wasn't even 2 TBS in the durn thing. Where is the extra butter? That was all we had :(. DD sent Ty boy to a neighbor to borrow a stick of butter, how could we eat homemade bread without butter? DD's neighbor had REAL butter!! Be still my heart.

Once I got the pot of water on to boil I looked through her spice cabinet for salt to throw in the pasta water. Do you have any Kosher salt? No. Where is you regular table salt? Out! There was a tiny bit in the salt shaker but not enough to "Make Do". Ty was sent off yet again to borrow salt from another neighbor. Too funny!!

I really didn't think about bringing salt or butter as that was something I figure everyone has plenty of, I was wrong. We have maybe 25-30 pounds of butter in the freezer that I pick up at rock bottom prices from sales and coupons. Salt, ya got lots of extra....table salt, kosher salt, canning salt. BTW you can pick up canning salt right now for next to nothing in the clearance section of most stores.

Now I'm not beating up DD#1 for not having the staples in the house. I too had 3 rug rats running around many years ago. It ain't easy being a Mommy, I just found it so funny after spending a few hours cleaning out the spice cabinet at home. Note to self. Take some salt and butter to DD's on my next visit.

Her neighbor who shared the stick of butter received a loaf of homemade artisan bread for being such a sweet sharer, sure hope she didn't give us her last stick of butter!!!!

Who knew you could write such a long post on the lack of salt and butter!! So here is the new recipe we had for supper last night, Creamy Cajun Chicken, I also made the Cajun seasoning it called for. Turned out GREAT!! It was spicy enough to enjoy but not so spicy you couldn't eat it, you could always kick it up a notch by adding a little more of the seasoning.

On for today. Another cabinet or two, clean out the refrigerator, the house needs a lick and a promise, and prepare myself for a sleepover at Nanny's tonight with Kara. It's DD#3 wedding anniversary.

Day One Pantry Insurance

 I did take my own advise and cleaned out the kitchen pantry over the weekend, then quit. The weather and football games were just too enticing to keep me stuck in the kitchen. I will work on the rest of the cabinets during the week.

 I forgot to take a before shot of the bakers rack but here is a during the process photo. Hubby's popcorn popper was moved out of the den a couple of weeks ago as little hands just wouldn't stop messing with it, it needed a new home. Ditto for other large appliances and cookbooks.

 Why is it the phone rings a dozen times when I am on the floor trying to clean?  Oh to have a room lined with shelves for all the excess kitchen gadgets and cookbooks.

These are the cookbooks that I weeded through to determine what could stay on the bakers rack close at hand in the kitchen. The rest will be sorted one more time. Some might go to goodwill the rest will be moved to the upstairs bookcase today.

Are Y'all ready to get this challenge started? I still have lots more cleaning out to do around the kitchen, all in good time.

This weeks bonus challenge is to make a recipe you haven't tried before. I am sure everyone has things you have cut out, written on the back of a napkin, or pinned on the PC. Be sure to share with the rest of us if you complete the challenge so you can get you name in the hat and additional time for this weeks blog candy! DD#1 and I will be working together on the bonus challenge tonight over at her house for dinner. Sure hope the recipe turns out good or we will have 3 kiddo's, her hubby, and a 100 pound Lab turning on us.

I pulled my weekly grocery money from the ATM yesterday and got the weekly meal plan together. I hope to tackle and additional cabinet/area in the kitchen today that needs some work and do my tiny bit of grocery shopping. Before I sign off here is our meal plan

Monday - Leftover Chicken noodle soup
Tuesday - Pasta with Cajun Chicken and Artisan bread
Wednesday - Baked pork chops, veggies and biscuits
Thursday - Leftovers
Friday - Breakfast for supper
Saturday - chili
Sunday - Beef roast, potato and carrots, desert??