On the hard ice cream maker front, the ice cream hardened right up after placing it in the freezer. 2 hours later it was as hard as hard ice cream from the grocery store. Nothing at all like the soft ice cream that your typical ice cream makers produce. I tried a taste of it today and it was delicious and the texture was perfect. And the ingredients cost less than Haagan Daas, so we now can have a nice, safe, all-natural organic ice cream that won't make those of us in this house with food allergies sick.

Here's the meal planning for the week:

Monday--
Beef and vegetable stir-fry
Oranges
Milk

Tuesday--
Turkey and vegetable soup
Blueberry muffins
Milk

Wednesday--
Baked chicken legs
Baked potatoes
Stir-fried green beans
Milk

Thursday--
Baked potato soup (bacon is the protein)
Blueberry muffins
Broccoli
Milk

Friday--
Homemade pizza (homemade sausage, onion, and bell pepper)
Coleslaw
Milk

Saturday--
Wild caught salmon
Broccoli
Oranges
Milk

Sunday--
Beef pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Cole slaw
Drop biscuits with homemade jam

Just letting you know I am pulling together week 3 of the Food Stamps Challenge. I may not get it posted before Christmas though. Those posts require quite a bit of planning. I have been working on it though and also have my selections ready for one that will be $40 for 10 days in a situation where you have limited storage and cooking options, like just a microwave and a burner. I'm also comtemplating what one would do during a holiday or a birthday or an unexpected guest, so those might follow along eventually.

Today I am starting to feel a bit better. I've been on antibiotics for 72 hours now and while I'm still draggy, I felt good enough to do a few chores. When Mama goes down not a lot gets done or only gets done minimally. The sink is empty, the table is cleared, the canned goods from the big grocery shop last weekend are put away and the multiple reusable grocery bags are on the back door handle, ready to go out to the car the next time someone goes out. There is laundry going for the first time in a week. And I hope to finish knitting DS's scarf tonight. Then I will start on DD's scarf and after that DH's protective Nook cover.

I feel like I just might be capable of making meals this week or at least directing DH and the kids through the process. So I'm going to be optimistic and do a meal plan. You will likely note a lot of softer foods this week. My temporary crown came off on Friday and while I got it back on and it seems secure, I'm not tempting fate because it still hurts.

Except for the canned pineapple everything is in my 100 mile foodshed. I am still harvesting broccoli from the garden. This has been an extremely bizarre fall.

Monday--
Beef chuck pot roast (crockpotted for tenderness)
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Green beans
Pears (found a can in the cupboard, last one)

Tuesday--
Pancakes
Ham
Bananas
Salad

Wednesday--
Bacon cheeseburgers (well, no bacon on mine, too chewy) on homemade rolls
Homemade French fries
Broccoli
Pineapple (last can)

Thursday--
Spaghetti
Homemade meatballs made from pork and lamb (last package)
Homemade spaghetti sauce (made with home canned tomatoes)
Broccoli

Friday--
Homemade pizza (leftover spaghetti sauce, mozzarella, ham, bell peppers, onions)
Cole slaw
Oranges

Saturday--
Scrambled egg sandwiches
Homemade sausage
Home fries
Drop biscuits with homemade apricot jam

Sunday--Early Christmas Dinner
Turkey
Stuffing
Mashed potatoes and gravy
TJ's canned corn
Green beans
Homemade sugar cookies (the kids will make the day before)

I am trying not to be too overly ambitious, but these are all things that can be easily handled by the others if I overdo it. Even the homemade rolls.

Food Stamps Challenge on Paper—Week Two Menus

The first thing to do on your second week is to get up a little early and take one container of pulled pork out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge. Then take your beef chuck pot roast and put it into the crockpot. Season it with your seasoned salt and some pepper and add 2 cups of water to the bottom of the pot. Make sure some of the seasoning and salt is in the water to flavor it as well as on the roast. Cook on low all day for eight to 10 hours while you are at work. Then start breakfast which will be just a little more complicated today, but certainly doable even for the novice cook. Put 2 eggs on to hard boil.

Day 8—
Breakfast—
One hard-boiled egg
Breakfast Apple Crumble
4 ounces of milk

To make the crumble you will need 1 apple peeled, cored and chopped, 1 biscuit, crumbled, 1 tbsp of butter, 1 tbsp of water, 1 ½ tbsp. of sugar.

Combine apples, 1 tbsp of sugar and water in a microwave safe bowl. Cover with plastic wrap. Cook for 5 minutes. Meanwhile crumble your biscuit into very small pieces. Let apples sit for a couple of minutes and then remove plastic wrap very carefully to avoid steam burns. Melt your tbsp of butter. Stir the biscuit crumbs into the butter.
Pour out any liquid in the apples. Level the apples and then pour the biscuit crumbs on top in as even a layer as you can. Sprinkle the remaining ½ tbsp of sugar over the top.
Put the oven rack on its top rung and turn on the broiler. Be warned that in small homes the broiler can set off the smoke detector because of its intense heat. You probably won’t be using it long enough to set it off, but it could. Once the broiler is up to temp, bake the concoction for one minute. Turn the broiler off and allow to cool. Serves one.
Lunch—
2 slices leftover pizza
1 carrot
Water

Dinner—
4 ounces beef pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
1 cup of coleslaw
Water
Boil 6 potatoes. Divide beef pot roast into 8 servings in four containers. Freeze three. You will be eating one serving and refrigerating the other. When you drain the potatoes, save the potato water. Remove 4 potatoes worth of boiled potatoes from your pan and set aside. Mash the other two potatoes using 2 ounces of the potato water and 1 tbsp of butter. Take 2 tbsp of the beef drippings in the crockpot and 1 tbsp of flour. Stir together until there are no lumps and add two cups of potato water, whisking until well blended. Put in a frying pan and bring to a boil while stirring, then adjust heat to medium low. Add salt, pepper, or seasoned salt to taste to flavor the gravy further. Cook until gravy no longer tastes floury. You will eat half of your mashed potatoes and ½ cup of gravy on this night, leaving one serving of potatoes and 3 servings of gravy for later in the week. Refrigerate your 4 leftover boiled potatoes and your potato water. Refrigerate the beef juice from the crockpot for later use in the week.

Day 9—
Breakfast—
Breakfast Burrito
Hashbrowns
Water

Take one of your boiled potatoes and quickly grate it through a cheese grater and mix it with 2 tbsp of onion. Fry in a little oil on medium high for 3 minutes on one side and about 2 minutes on the other. Use some of your ketchup on top.

Beat one egg and mix with 2 ounces of pulled pork. Fry in a bit of oil until egg is cooked through. Scoop mixture onto a tortilla, lightly sprinkle with cheddar cheese, and roll up.

Lunch—
Chicken noodle soup
Orange
Water
Save your orange peels

Dinner—
Hot open-faced roast beef sandwich
Leftover mashed potatoes with 1/2 cup leftover gravy
1 cup of coleslaw
Water

Warm up mashed potatoes, gravy and 4 ounces of roast beef. Toast two slices of bread and spread with some of your garlic butter. Place roast beef on top of each slice, then mashed potatoes, then cover it with gravy.

Take out 1 container of chicken and one cup of chicken broth to thaw in the fridge and take out 2 pieces of bread to go stale overnight.

Day 10—
Breakfast—
Simple French Toast-
Apple
Water

2 slices of stale bread
2 ounces of milk
1 egg
1 tsp of sugar
½ tsp orange zest
We will be using orange zest instead of cinnamon in this French toast recipe. Rub some of the orange peel you saved from the day before, orange part only, against your cheese grater until you have ½ tsp of orange zest. Discard remaining orange peel. Beat egg, sugar, and milk together then add orange zest and beat until blended. Put into a shallow bowl or a plate with rounded edges. Dip bread into bowl to soak up mixture. Melt 1 tbsp of butter on medium heat in your skillet. Place bread into skillet. Fry for about two minutes. When bottom is browned flip it over and cook on second side, about two minutes. Remove to a plate. If you have any mixture left, scramble it quickly in your pan. No need to throw it away. Add 4 tbsp of syrup.

Lunch—
Chicken noodle soup
2 slices of honey bread
Water

Dinner—
Chicken stir-fry
Water

Take 2 carrots and 2 stalks of celery. Clean and trim the celery, putting the trimmings into your freezer baggy. Peel and trim the carrots, putting the peels into the freezer baggy. Peel 2 cloves of garlic and put the skins in your freezer baggy. Smash and mince garlic. Cut carrots into quarter inch slices on the diagonal. Cut celery into quarter inch slices on the diagonal. Trim and peel onion. You know where the scraps go. Cut onion into strips and set aside half in a covered container and place in the fridge. Take1/4 cup of oil and mix it with half a cup of chicken broth, 2 tbsp of honey and ¼ tsp of your chili powder. Take out your container of chicken, remove half and return to fridge.

Heat a little bit of oil in your frying pan over high heat and sauté your carrots for 2 minutes. Add your onion and garlic and sauté for three minutes. Add your celery and sauté for 2 more minutes. Remove vegetables to plate and put in 8 ounces of chicken. Saute about one minute or until chicken is warmed through. Add your liquid ingredients and stir, then return vegetables to pan for 1 minute or until everything is hot. Half of this is your dinner and the other half is your lunch the next day.

Take out one slice of meatloaf to thaw in the fridge.

Day 11—
Breakfast—
2 pancakes with powdered sugar
1 egg scrambled with 2 ounces of pulled pork, 1 tbsp of diced onions (cut a few from the strips in your fridge) and 1 tbsp of diced bell peppers
4 ounces of milk

Lunch—
Leftover chicken stir-fry
Apple

Dinner—
Chicken noodle soup
1 slice of meatloaf
1 cup of coleslaw

Take out 2 containers of roast beef to thaw in the fridge. Take out 1 whole chicken to thaw in the fridge.

Day 12—
Breakfast—
2 scrambled eggs
2 Biscuits and gravy (use ¼ cup of your leftover beef gravy)

Lunch—
Pulled pork sandwich
1 cup of coleslaw

Dinner—
Chicken quesadilla
Orange
1 Carrot

Sauté ½ of your remaining ½ of an onion and 2 ounces of bell pepper strips in a little oil. Warm up 4 ounces of chicken in the microwave. Place tortilla on a frying pan and lay out onion, bell pepper strips, and chicken on top. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and top with another tortilla.

Make some more orange zest with your orange peel.

Day 13—
Breakfast—
French toast with 4 tbsp of syrup
Apple

Lunch—
1 boiled egg
Chicken Sandwich
1 carrot

Dinner:
Roast beef hash
Cole slaw

2 cups cooked roast beef, cut into half inch cubes
½ cup leftover beef juice
1 onion, medium diced
2 leftover boiled potatoes, peeled and cut into half inch cubes
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp oil
Salt and pepper

Melt 1 tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of oil on medium heat in a large skillet. Add onions and sauté for four minutes or until onion is soft. Add cooked potatoes and brown. Add salt and pepper to your taste. Flip over potatoes and onions and brown. Remove to a plate. Turn meat up to medium high and melt 1 tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of oil in the pan. When hot and melted add cubed roast beef to the pan. Brown on all sides and return onions and potatoes to the pan. Cook for two more minutes. Pour in ¼ of beef juice. Cook for one more minute. Taste. Add additional salt and pepper if needed. Makes 8 servings. Divide into 4 containers containers. Freeze 3. Put 1 serving in the fridge and eat one for dinner. Freeze remaining beef juice.

Day 14—
Breakfast—
2 egg omelet with 1 tbsp diced ham and 1 tbsp cheddar cheese
1 biscuit with cheese

Begin a batch of bread dough and leave to rise in a warm place following the instructions in the post here: http://luckyrobin.savingadvice.com/2012/12/06/youve-done-the-shopping-now-what_99377/ Remove your pizza dough from the freezer and put into the fridge. After bread dough has doubled in size, punch down and knead for five minutes. Divide in half and put into two lightly oiled bread pans. Let rise until poking over the edge of the pans and then bake. Start lunch. Remove bread when done, remove from pans and allow to cool on a cooling rack.

Lunch—
Spaghetti and Meatballs
2 slices garlic toast (2 bread ends)

Prepare spaghetti sauce as you did in week one. Boil 8 ounces of spaghetti noodles and warm up 3 meatballs from the freezer. Serve yourself half of the spaghetti with 4 ounces of the sauce and refrigerate the rest, spaghetti and sauce in separate containers.

After lunch it is time to deal with some veg and fruit and the second chicken you bought on grocery day. Wash your hands. First cut the wrapped half of cabbage from your fridge (removing the wrap of course!) and cut it into slivers or shreds, cutting away any part of the core still left. Set this aside. Peel 2 apples and cut them into pieces to remove the cores. Thinly slice and set aside. Trim and peel an onion putting the skins and cut off parts into your veggie bag in the freezer. Cut the onion into slivers and set aside. Wash your cutting board in hot soapy water and dry. If you have a separate cutting board for meats and for veggies, get out your other board, otherwise use the one you just washed (always do meat after vegetables, never first).

Remove the wrap and check for a packet of giblets. If there is a neck, remove it from the package and then do whatever you normally do with the rest of the organs. Mine go to the neighbor cat. Rinse the chicken inside and out.

Next we are going to cut up the chicken. Although many people think this is a complicated business, it’s a lot simpler than you’ve been led to believe. The internet is a great resource for showing you how to do this. There are videos on youtube or written instructions on many websites. Make sure you have a sharp knife, preferably a butcher knife. Get out two bowls.

The way I do it is to put it breast side up (that’s the meatier side without the ridge for those of you who have never done this before) and first pull the leg and thigh away from the body. I cut through the skin so that I can see the meat and then cut through the joint where the thigh connects to the body. You can feel where this joint is with your fingers. Once you have cut the hindquarters off, feel for the joint between thigh and leg. You can break it and then cut through. Repeat on the other side. Then remove the wings in the same fashion by pulling them from the body, slitting the skin to see where it joins, find the joint with your hands and cut through it. Put all of these pieces of chicken into one bowl.

Now you are left with the body of the chicken. I like to use kitchen shears for this next part but it can be done with a good knife. Cut down each side, you can look in and see where the bones don’t quite meet up, separating the back from the breast. Take the back and turn it bony side up. You can see where the bigger part joins to the smaller part. Cut this in half at that spot and put in the bowl with the other pieces. Then take the breast and turn it meaty side up. Remove the skin (on the breast only) and set aside. Feel for the breast bone and if your knife is sharp enough, cut directly down this bone. If your knife isn’t quite sharp enough, cut to just one side of this bone. You want two roughly equal pieces.

At this point watch this video to show you how to take out the bone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Ut68Z3FUU I find it much easier to have someone show you than I do to try to describe how to remove the bone. Save the bones and the skin in a baggy in the freezer.

Set aside the chicken breast in your second bowl and wash your cutting board in hot soapy water and then put it into the dishwasher to be washed again. Wash your hands thoroughly with warm water and soap.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In an oven safe dish (I used my square glass brownie pan) layer 1/3 of the cabbage, ½ the onion, and ½ of the apples. Then layer 1/3 more of the cabbage, the other ½ of the onion, and the rest of the apples. Finish with the final 1/3 of the cabbage. Cover and leave on the counter.

Mix four ounces of apple juice with 1 tbsp Italian herbs, ½ tsp salt and ½ tsp pepper. Pour over the chicken and cover aluminum foil (you will be using the foil in cooking) and place into fridge.

Take your 2 legs, 2 back pieces, 1 neck if you have it, 2 wings, and 2 thighs and rub them on both sides with oil. Place them skin side down into a baking dish and sprinkle with your seasoned salt, salt and pepper. Put them in the oven and cook for 20 minutes. Turn over and cook for 40 minutes.

Remove from oven. Take out the legs and thighs and put onto a plate. Mix 2 tbsp of honey with 4 tbsp of ketchup. Brush over wings, backs and neck. Put back into oven for 5 minutes and then remove. While wings, backs, and necks are cooking, take the meat off the two thighs, and the two legs. Save the bones in a baggy in the freezer.

Check on your bread dough.

Remove your chicken breasts from the fridge and put them on top of your cabbage mixture. Pour the apple juice from the bowl into the oven-safe dish. Cover with aluminum foil and put into the oven. Cook for one hour.

While chicken and cabbage is cooking divide the barbecued chicken into two portions. Each bowl should have one each of a back and wing and the container with the smaller back piece should have the neck. Freeze. Remove the meat from the thighs and legs. You can eat the skin or add it to the freezer bag. Put the bones from the thighs and legs in the freezer baggy. Divide into two containers and freeze.

Prepare 4 potatoes, 4 carrots, and one onion. Put the carrot and onion peels into the freezer baggy. Cut vegetables into one inch cubes. Put into an oven safe dish and add 1 cup of water. . Remove chicken and cabbage from oven. Put vegetables into the oven to roast for an hour and a half. Divide the cabbage, onion, and apples into four portions and then divide the chicken breasts among them.

Dinner:
Chicken noodle soup
Chicken and cabbage

Remove vegetables from the oven and divide into four portions. Refrigerate. Wash everything. Go collapse in a chair. Slice each loaf of bread into fourteen pieces. Wrap in aluminum foil. Freeze one and put the other in the fridge. Congratulations. You made it through week 2.

I haven't been on in a couple of days. The pain from the cracked tooth has been pretty bad over the weekend, but I go to the dentist this morning to start getting it fixed. I'm not sure exactly what they are going to do. Probably a temporary crown while the final one is made.

I need to do a bills update from last Friday's payday. DS is sick so homeschooling is pretty minimal so far this week. We've worked on his persuasive essay, but that's it so far. Hopefully he will be a bit better today and we can get some more done. Although I'm not sure how I'm going to be after going to the dentist. DD is finally well. She went back to school on Friday, but it took her through the weekend to beat this thing.

DH comes home around midnight tonight and won't have to fly back to work until the 31st. We still don't know if he will be working an extra week in January or not. They are hiring for a Jan/Feb ramp up and he will likely need to train people. It's going to be a crazy busy time so hopefully he'll be able to squeeze some more income out of it. It would be nice to have a little extra in the bank.

With whatever the tax situation is going to be for 2013 still up in the air that would go part of the way towards covering any loss due to higher taxes. Although without the credit card payments we will soon no longer need to make, it won't hit us as hard as it would have if that tax thing isn't renewed. And also we could put some money in the HSA as the $2500 deductible starts over again in January.

Since we will be fully deducting the HSA this year and we did last year, I really want to start building it up again. I don't forsee any huge medical things next year, but I didn't this year either. If DH gets an extra week's pay, I can at the very least put the money for the deductible in the HSA and the rest into the emergency fund.

I'm still working on the second week of menues on my food stamp challenge and also a $40 menu that will provide 10 days worth of meals. I tried to make a $33 menu for just one week, and while I could do it, the variety just wasn't quite enough to make me happy. That extra seven dollars really opens things up, while still keeping to the idea of $4 a day average. It will also be food that you can make in a microwave and with an electric burner, in keeping with the idea that not everyone has a regular stove to work with.

I have some thoughts I'm trying to pull together on the foods stamps challenge. I also never posted my actual menues for this week, but so far it's sort of been chicken noodle soup and spaghetti.

I go to the doctor on Thursday. I want to get some bloodwork done, have my iron levels checked, have my thyroid checked, and my vitamin D levels and see if maybe I need to be put on a different high blood pressure medicine. Also I want to see whether or not I have diabetes. The onset in my extended family has been around age 45 on average. I've still got a few years to go, but I am exhuasted all the time lately and pretty much have been since August. I'm dizzy a lot. And I'm ridiculously thirsty. I want to see if there is an underlying cause, or if it is just a case of catching everything under the sun.

Some major prep is out of the way. Does that mean no cooking at all this week? Well, no, not completely, but your cooking time has been cut way down because you’ve done so much work on your day off. So what is going to happen during your first week? A bit of cooking, a bit of reheating, and a lot of variety and flavor in your meals. Obviously some things will be used quite a bit, like eggs, but I’ve tried to vary how they will taste based on ingredients.

Day One
Breakfast—
4 ounces of apple juice
2 Biscuits warmed up in microwave and spread with a little honey
2 eggs scrambled with 1 tbsp of your diced deli ham, salt and pepper
Water

Put out a plate. Scramble 2 eggs in a bowl with a couple shakes of salt and a couple shakes of pepper. Put a little oil in a small frying pan, being sure to lightly coat the bottom. You want to be able to tell the pan is coated, but not have your eggs swimming in it. Heat the pan to medium and drop in your frozen tbsp of deli ham. Using a coated spoon break apart the ham as it cooks and once the ham is warmed through, about 1 to 2 minutes, pour your eggs on top and lightly scramble until done. The eggs will no longer look wet or shiny. Dump onto plate. (I often use the cheat method and cook stuff on high stirring rapidly until done, which is faster, but for the beginner cook could lead to burning due to lack of constant attention and on this budget, you can’t afford to burn your food).

Lunch—
Chicken sandwich
Orange
Water in a reusable water bottle

Take 4 ounces (or half) of the one cup of chicken you set aside the night before. Spread two slices of bread with mayo or with the sweeter salad dressing you made the night before, place chicken on one piece of bread, sprinkle with a tbsp of cheddar cheese, and add one leaf of lettuce. Place other slice on top.

Dinner—
Open-faced Meatball Sandwiches
2 cups of leftover roasted vegetables warmed up in the microwave
Water

Take 3 meatballs out of the freezer and cook in the microwave. Depending on your microwave this could take 1 to 2 minutes. Take ¼ cup of tomato sauce from the open can in the fridge and pour into a bowl. Add a few shakes of Italian seasoning and warm briefly in the microwave until sauce is no longer cold. Turn your frying pan on to medium and take the two end pieces of your first loaf of bread and put them in the pan crust side down. It should be lightly warmed after about 30 seconds. Turn it over so the cut side is down and toast for about a minute. Put onto your plate and spread with the tomato sauce. You will probably not use the whole amount of sauce, so if you do not, cover what is left in the bowl and return to fridge. Cut hot meatballs in half and put three halves on each slice of bread.

Before you go to bed take one slice of meatloaf out of the freezer to thaw for the next day. Take out one of your four containers of pulled pork as well.

Day 2
Breakfast—
2 pancakes warmed in the microwave and scraped with a little butter and sprinkled with powdered sugar
2 eggs scrambled with 1 tbsp of finely diced onion (from the fridge) and 1 tbsp of diced bell peppers
4 ounces of milk
Water

Lunch—
Meatloaf sandwich
Apple
Water

I personally prefer my meatloaf sandwich without any sauce, I feel it is flavorful enough, but you could put a bit of ketchup on or some mayo. If you can warm the sandwich up at work, I think that makes the sandwich better.

Dinner—
2 pulled pork burritos
2 cups of leftover roasted vegetables
Small salad made with 2 lettuce leaves, your homemade salad dressing, and a bit of mozzarella cheese.
Water

Take 4 ounces (or half) of the pulled pork and place it on 2 tortillas. Add 1 tbsp of cheddar cheese to each. Roll them into burritos and place seam side down on a plate. Microwave until pork is hot and cheese has melted.

Before going to bed hard-boil 4 eggs. (Place in a pot with enough cold water to cover, heat on high, bring to a boil and let boil for 10 minutes. Cool eggs in cold water for 5 minutes and then peel. Put in covered container in the fridge. It is important to start your eggs in cold water. Cold eggs put into hot water are more likely to crack and spew egg white into the pan. Also take a small handful of pepperoni out of the freezer to thaw for the next day.

Day 3
Breakfast—
Orange
2 Biscuits and sausage gravy
1 hard-boiled egg

Warm up your biscuits in the microwave. Take 1 tbsp of sausage fat from your container in the fridge and put into frying pan. Melt the fat on medium high. Take 1 tbsp of flour and mix it into 4 ounces of milk. Stir until blended and then pour into hot fat. Stir and turn up the heat to high. Bring to a boil and then bring heat down to medium. Cook for about ten minutes or until gravy no longer tastes floury. You may need to add a bit of cold water if gravy is too thick.

Lunch—
Chicken salad
Honey bread
Water

Spread honey on two slices of bread and put together to prevent honey from sticking to the wrapping. For your chicken salad you will take the remaining half cup from your container of shredded chicken and put it over 2 shredded lettuce leaves. Cut up 1 hardboiled egg and put it on top. Sprinkle on a bit of salt and a very tiny amount of pepper. Add 1 tbsp of shredded parmesan cheese. There is enough flavor in this to not really need a dressing, but you can add it if you like.

Dinner—
Homemade pizza

Put your oven rack on the middle spot. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Take your pizza dough out. Lightly oil the dough and your hands to prevent sticking. Place dough on your pizza pan or your cookie sheet. Press the dough out until it is approximately 12 inches in diameter. Take your open can of tomato sauce from the fridge and spread ¼ cup on the pizza dough. If you have any sauce left from meatball sandwich night add it to the dough. Sprinkle the sauce with Italian herbs. Spread one cup of mozzarella cheese over the pizza. Cover with pepperoni. Add ¼ cup of diced onion and 1/3 of your bell pepper strips. When the oven is hot turn it down to 425 and place pizza inside.

A 12 inch pizza will need to be baked for about 20 minutes, but it all depends on your oven. The best way to check if the crust is done is to lift it with a flipper and thunk it in the center with a spoon. If it doesn’t thunk it is still too doughy and needs to be cooked for longer. Trust your nose. If it starts to smell like it is done before the 20 minutes, check it. Whatever you do, you can’t let it burn because it is going to provide four meals for you.

When pizza is done cut it up into 8 slices. 2 of these are for dinner. Once cooled freeze four slices for next week. Put other 2 slices in the fridge.

Day 4
Breakfast—
Sausage and onion omelet
2 pancakes warmed in the microwave and scraped with butter and powdered sugar
Water

I can see the panic already. She wants me to make an omelet? But—but—but… It’s really not as hard as they make it out to be on television. The most important step is to have all of your ingredients ready. You need one tbsp. of sausage from the freezer, 1 tbsp of finely diced onion from the fridge, Italian herbs, butter and 1 tbsp cheddar cheese. Whisk 2 eggs with salt and pepper and sprinkle in some Italian herbs. Melt a bit of butter into the pan on medium high then turn it down to medium. Throw in the sausage and onion. Cook for about 2 minutes.

Remove sausage and onion to a plate. You may need to add a bit more butter to the pan. You don’t want your omelet sticking or it will end up more like scrambled eggs again. Once the butter is melted pour your eggs in. Then watch it. It will take a few minutes to cook, about 3 or 4. Again it depends on your range.

Do not be tempted to turn up the heat, though you may place a lid on for the last 30 seconds or so. The goal is for the omelet not to look wet or shiny. When it gets to that point, dump your sausage, onion, and cheese onto one half of the omelet. Put your turner on the edge of the circle and fold it in half. Slide the omelet out of the pan and onto your plate. Even if it is slightly browned because you left it a little too long, it is still good eating. Yellow with a few brown spots is good. Totally brown, not so much. Now wasn’t that easy?

Lunch—
2 pulled pork burritos
Apple
Water

Dinner—
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Garlic Bread
Small salad
Water

Just a very simple salad tonight. 2 leaves torn up, sprinkle with a little mozzarella cheese, oil and salt. Do this at the start of dinner prep and keep in the fridge.

I did not specify in my shopping list what type of spaghetti I bought. It comes down to personal preference. I find that regular old spaghetti is much hardier a noddle than angel hair. I find it more filling. But angel hair has the benefit of being very quick to cook. I don’t like my pasta al dente, I like it limp but not mushy. So for me, angel hair takes 10 minutes to cook after the water comes to a boil and spaghetti takes about 25. Cook times for al dente pasta are shorter and should be listed on the package directions. So if time is one of your problems, then angel hair is the way to go. Either way, make sure you use plenty of water to boil it in. For this challenge I am going to assume we are using angel hair.

You are going to make 8 ounces of pasta or half of a one pound package. This should provide 2 meals for you. To begin, smash (Press down hard with the side of your knife. This helps the illness fighting stuff in garlic to do its job.) 4 cloves of garlic and mince it finely. Make sure you put your garlic skins in the bag in the freezer. Put your water on to boil using the directions on your package. Salt the water (1 tsp) and put in a dab of oil to help prevent sticking. Open a can of tomato sauce. Put some oil in your skillet and sauté your garlic on medium heat for a minute. Remove 2 cloves worth of garlic and pour the rest of your finely diced onions from the fridge in with the garlic remaining in your pan. Sauté onion for five minutes. Pour in tomato sauce and stir. Add several shakes of Italian herbs and salt and pepper to taste.

Put the garlic you took out into a microwave safe bowl (preferably one with a lid). Add half a stick of butter and partially melt in microwave. You want it to be soft, but not liquid. Maybe 15 to 30 seconds. Just check it and you should be able to push through it. Remove from microwave. Stir the spaghetti sauce. Stir garlic into softened butter. Stir tomato sauce again. Taste and adjust salt, pepper, or herbs to taste. Spaghetti should be done about now, so drain it when the timer goes off. Put two pieces of bread into toaster. Warm up three meatballs from the freezer in the microwave. Spread toasted bread with garlic butter. Cover garlic butter, preferably with a lid so it doesn’t permeate the fridge, and put it in the fridge.

You will only be eating one piece of bread with your spaghetti and meatballs. Leave the other one to cool on the counter until after dinner. Divide the noodles in half and place into bowls, one to eat from and one to cool. Spoon 1/3 of the tomato sauce onto your spaghetti. Eat.

After dinner, cut your second piece of garlic bread into cubes. Put your sauce and your spaghetti into the fridge (separately, they warm up better when the pasta hasn’t been soaked in sauce). Place in a baggy and put in the fridge. Remove one container of chicken, 1 tbsp of diced ham, and one slice of meatloaf from the freezer and place in the fridge to thaw.

Day 5
Breakfast—
2 hard-boiled eggs
2 biscuits sprinkled with Italian herbs and with cheddar cheese melted on top
4 oz of apple juice
Water

Lunch—
2 slices of leftover pizza
Orange
Water

Dinner—
Last 2 cups of roasted potatoes, onions, and carrots
4 ounces of chicken mixed with half or your remaining spaghetti sauce and warmed in the microwave
Small salad consisting of two lettuce leaves, a bit of oil, and the cubed garlic bread from the night before.
Water

Take beef pot roast out of the freezer and put into the fridge to thaw. This will be put in the crockpot on Day 8

Day 6 (I am assuming this is a day off. If it is not, make the lunchtime quesadilla before going to work. It only takes a few minutes.
Breakfast—
Easy fried eggs and toast
4 oz of apple juice
Water

Take two slices of bread and cut out a round circle in each one. You can use a tuna can or a biscuit cutter or even a glass to do this. Melt some butter in a skillet over medium heat and put your bread on it, including the two cut out pieces. Carefully crack an egg into each hole in the bread. Salt and pepper the egg. Cook for two minutes, or until the egg white has turned white, and then carefully flip over eggs and bread as well as the two cut out circles of bread. Cook for another minute. Remove to a plate. Break yolk of each egg and dip circles into yolk. This is a great method for cooking fried eggs for the first time. It makes it almost impossible to crack the yolk when flipping. If you have a wider flipper, I’d use that over a narrow one. Oh, and if you don’t like runny egg yolk, you can always break the yolk on purpose right after you crack it into the bread hole. Cooking time remains the same.

Lunch
Chicken quesadilla
Ham salad

For the quesadilla, there is the easy way, and the slightly harder way. Put down one tortilla on a plate and take the remaining 4 ounces of chicken from the fridge. Spread it over the tortilla evenly and then do the same with a little cheddar cheese and a little mozzarella cheese. Put second tortilla on top and cook in the microwave for one minute. Cut into triangles. This tastes good cold, but even better warm. The slightly harder way, heat a large frying pan on medium high heat and put in one tortilla. Spread the chicken and cheese on top and put on the other tortilla. Cook for two minutes. Turn it over and cook for one more minute. Remove from pan and cut into triangles.

For the salad tear up two lettuce leaves and sprinkle 1 tbsp of deli ham and 1 tbsp of cheddar cheese on top. Add a little mayo and some pepper.


Dinner—
Leftover spaghetti with sauce
One slice of meatloaf with ketchup
Apple
Water

Remove baggy of chicken bones and baggy of vegetable peels and celery leaves from the freezer and dump into the crockpot. Return these bags to the freezer as you will be filling them again. Clean and roughly chop 2 carrots. Take an onion, wash it, and cut off the ends. Throw them in the pot. Roughly chop the onion into eight pieces. Add them to the pot. Smash four cloves of garlic and add them to the pot. Add 1 tbsp of salt and 1 tsp of pepper. Fill the crockpot to the top with water. Turn it on to low and allow it to cook all night long. You will deal with it tomorrow after breakfast. Remove a container of chicken from the freezer.

Since this is a day off (hopefully) we are going to make something very simple. Syrup. The ingredients? One cup of regular white sugar and one cup of water. Combine them in a sauce pan. If you happen to have maple flavoring or extract, or vanilla flavoring or extract on hand, add 1 tsp. The sugar alone is sweet enough, but the other will make it taste slightly more like pancake syrup, but since that was not something bought on my grocery list for the food stamp challenge it is not a needed ingredient. Heat on high, stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved. Bring it to a boil and then immediately turn off the heat and allow it to cool. Pour it into a jar and refrigerate. It makes 1 ½ cups of syrup and will keep for a month. Remove frozen loaf of bread from freezer and place in fridge to thaw.

Day 7 (Assuming this is a day off as well, for making the soup it needs to be on a day off, so adjust accordingly)

Breakfast—
2 pancakes warmed up in the microwave with 4 tbsp of syrup
2 plain scrambled eggs
4 oz of milk
Water

After breakfast get out two carrots, two stalks of celery, and your large diced onion from earlier in the week. Peel and trim and put those into the freezer baggy. Cut the carrot into ¼ inch rounds and cut the larger end rounds in half. Slice the celery in half longwise, and then cut those two pieces in ¼ inch pieces. Place a colander into a large cooking pot and drain the crockpot contents into it. Once all the broth is in your big pot set it aside. Clean out your crockpot. Put half of your broth back into the crockpot. Put a lid on the other pot of broth and set it aside to cool for an hour. Put celery, onion, and carrots into the crockpot, set it on low and cook for 4 hours or until vegetables are soft. Break four ounces of spaghetti into thirds. Add to the crockpot. Also add 4 ounces of chicken from your container. Cook for another half an hour. You may have to add more salt and pepper to adjust for your tastes. I usually use garlic powder as well, but again, it wasn’t on the challenge shopping list. If you happen to have it, I’d add 1 tbsp. But you can definitely get a good flavor out of it by adjusting the pepper.

Once broth has cooled for an hour, pour into one cup containers and freeze. You can ladle off the fat before doing this if you choose. You will have 4 servings of chicken noodle soup. One is for lunch, the rest for the fridge.

Lunch—
Chicken noodle soup
Homemade garlic bread

Dinner—
Baked potato with cheese
Orange
Chicken sandwich made with remaining 4 ounces of chicken, 1 leaf of lettuce and garlic butter

By now you are likely out of salad dressing. We will need to make a larger batch this time. ½ cup of mayo, ½ cup of oil, and 2 tbsp of honey. Stir until mixed. Cut your first purple cabbage in half. Wrap one half tightly and put back in the fridge. Shred the other half. Clean and peel two carrots, putting the peels into your freezer baggy. Shred the carrots and mix with the cabbage. Set aside enough of your dressing for sandwiches for the week and mix the rest into your coleslaw. Refrigerate. Take out 2 slices of pizza to thaw for lunch on Day 8. Week one is over. Pat yourself on the back. You made it through.

Planning on Paper Only for the Food Stamp Challenge. Can one person make and eat a decent variety of fresh, nutritious food on the $133.26 monthly food stamp allotment?

I’m going to make a couple of assumptions here. I am going to assume that people have a microwave, a stove top/oven, a crock pot, and a fridge with a freezer. I am also going to assume you have a couple of frying pans and a big pot for boiling water and at least one cookie sheet. I am also assuming that people have baggies or containers. Mark every bag with its contents. Once stuff is frozen it can look remarkably similar. Oh, and wear your shoes, with a flat sole, while cooking and prepping. It will save your back.

I do have many methods for using alternative cooking sources, but that will most definitely be in another post, because it requires a completely different plan, but it can be done. I remember doing it when DH and I were a lot younger and poorer, and our stove went out and it was a few months before we could afford a new one.

Remember to wash your hands with soap before starting to cook. Wash your hands any time you are going from raw meat or eggs to something else. Wash them between dealing with different types of meat. Do not use the same spoons for raw meat or eggs as for cooked. You do not want to cross contaminate anything.

So, we are starting with the groceries listed in this post:

http://luckyrobin.savingadvice.com/2012/12/04/about-the-food...

The first thing I would do would be to put away all of the food in the fridge, freezer, or my canisters. If I were a single person, and part of the working poor, I’d have done my shopping on a day off, in the morning, so that this day off would also be the day I did a lot of my meal prep on. Otherwise shop at night on the day before your day off so you’ll have plenty of time for prep the next day. So first things first, I had to calculate my ingredients to know what I could make from it, because when you don’t have extra on hand, you must be exacting in your recipes.

20 cups 10 pound bag of flour
8 cups 1/2 gallon of milk
8 cups 1/2 gallon of milk
8 cups 1/2 gallon of apple juice
8 cups 1/2 gallon of apple juice
60 tsp 10 oz can of baking powder
32 oz 2 pounds of spaghetti
8 cups 4 cans of tomato sauce
48 eggs 4 dozen eggs
32 TBSP 1 pound butter

I seperated the two half gallons of milk and the two half gallons of apple juice since they are in separate containers. That is why each item is listed twice. I figured out that from my 20 cups of flour I could make one batch of pizza dough (two medium pizzas with 8 slices per pizza), 4 loaves of bread, 24 biscuits, and 24 pancakes. That takes 19 ½ cups of flour and leaves me with 1/2 cup, which is 8 TBSP of flour left. You will be using these TBSP for gravy later on.

Okay, so with those figures clearly in mind I would start my bread dough, because it takes the most time. Normally I use my bread machine to mix the dough and let it do its first rise and second knead in there. I have seen bread machines at Goodwill for $5. If you do not have a bread machine, you can use a food processor or a stand mixer. If you have neither of those, then you have the old-fashioned method of mixing it together with your hands.

You will be making two loaves of bread and freezing one. You will use the second bread recipe in this post: http://luckyrobin.savingadvice.com/2012/08/13/bread-recipes_... If doing it by hand, mix ingredients together to form a dough and knead for five minutes. Place towel over your bowl and put it in a warm place and let it rise. If your home is cold you can boil some water in the microwave and then take it out and put the dough in there to rise or you can put your oven on its lowest setting and let the bread rise in there. You will check on it in an hour and a half

Preheat your oven to 450 and get out a new bowl for making biscuits. Use this recipe http://breadbaking.about.com/od/biscuits/r/easydropbisc.htm except you will be using butter instead of shortening and adding an egg per batch. Double the recipe. Drop 12 spoonfuls of biscuit onto a cookie sheet. When oven is hot, put them in. If you have a second cookie sheet put the remaining 12 biscuits on it and start mixing your pancake batter. You will be doing a triple batch of pancake batter using this recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/good-old-fashioned-pancakes/

Now I happen to have an electric griddle that makes pancake making a lot easier. I can do six 1/4 cup pancakes at a time on it. But even if you only have a griddle pan or a large skillet, you should be able to do 3 pancakes at a time. On the griddle I’d cook it at 325. On the stove I’d do it on medium (recipe says medium high, but I have a gas stove and I’d be taking no chances with only limited ingredients). Pancakes should cook for about 2 minutes on the first side. There will be lots of bubbles on the surface and the edges will start looking solid and shiny. Flip them over and cook for one to two minutes. Place on cooling rack. Get second batch of pancakes going. Biscuits should be done about now. If you have a second cookie sheet, put them in. If you did not, allow biscuits to cool for a couple of minutes before removing them to a plate. Scrape any residue off the cookie sheet with your turner. Check your pancakes and flip if ready. Drop next 12 biscuits onto cookie sheet and put into oven. Finish off your batches of pancakes, removing and cooling biscuits when ready. Turn off the oven.

If you do not have a cooling rack you can place your pancakes on wax paper to cool. Or plates in a pinch. You are going to be freezing these, so you don’t want them to get sweaty like they would if you stacked them hot. After a half an hour they will be cool enough to stack and put in a baggy in the freezer. You will now have used 5 ¾ cups of milk and 5 eggs. When you measure your milk to start with, take one cup out of one half gallon and then close up the container and put it in the freezer, in the back where you cannot knock it over. Then take the remaining amount of needed milk for the recipes from the other container.

Clean out your mixing bowls. It should about be time to check on your bread dough. If dough has about doubled inside it is time to punch it down and then knead it for five minutes. I knead the bread right there in the bowl. If dough is sticky I would very lightly use a bit of cooking oil on my hands (there is no extra flour to waste). Lightly oil the bread pans (you can use a bit of butter if you want, I normally do, but with butter limited and oil more available I’d use the oil). Divide the dough in half and form into loaves. Place in your bread pans and cover with a towel. Place next to stove or on top of the stove to get the residual heat to help with the second rise.

Mix your pizza dough using this recipe: http://luckyrobin.savingadvice.com/2011/03/14/pizza-dough-re... Warm up the microwave again by boiling hot water and then slip the dough inside with a towel over it. This dough only needs one rise. It should more or less be done about the time the bread dough has risen just above the top in its pans.

Get out your crockpot and put in your 2 pound pork butt roast. Combine your can of tomatoes and green chiles with 1 TBSP of chili powder. If you have a blender, give them a whirl, otherwise just stir. Pour over pork. Cook on low for 8 hours. Go and take a break until your bread dough is done rising. Check on your bread after it has risen for an hour. Preheat your oven to 375 and follow the instructions in the recipe for baking the bread.

Be careful not to bump the pans hard or slam the oven door as this can make your bread fall. Also do not walk too heavily or jump up and down in the kitchen. While fallen loaves cook up just fine, they will be smaller in volume. Because there is no extra flour, you want the volume to be as large as possible.

Once the bread is in the oven it is time prep some carrots and potatoes. Wash, peel and/or trim 4 carrots, 2 onions, 1 stalk of celery, and 3 potatoes. Save the peels from the carrots and onions, any parts you cut off the celery, and the top and bottom of the onions, and put them in a ziptop baggy and freeze. Shred one carrot into a bowl. Finely dice the celery and add it to bowl of carrot shreds. Set aside in the fridge. Cut one onion into bite-sized chunks and set aside, covered, in the fridge. Do not leave off the cover unless you want your whole fridge to smell like onions.

Cut remaining carrots, onion, and potatoes into one inch chunks and put into the bottom of your roasting pan. If you do not have a roasting pan you can use a cake pan (you will just set the chicken directly on top of the veggies). Place the carrots and potatoes into the pan and pour on two cups of water. Lightly salt. Take out one of your chickens. Freeze the other. Take out the packet of organ meats with the neck, if there is one. I don’t eat organ meats, but I know some people do, so if you do, do whatever you do with them. I feed them to the neighbor cat. I take out the neck, wash it, and place it in the water with the vegetables. Then I put the roasting rack over it. I then wash the chicken inside and with warm water, and reach inside to make sure there are no organs that have been missed, like the kidneys. I lightly rub about 1 tbsp of cooking oil all over the chicken and then sprinkle it with salt, pepper, and Italian herbs.

The bread should be done about now, so when the timer goes off, remove it from the oven and take it out of the loaf pans and set on a cooling rack. Slip the chicken into the oven, turning the heat down to 350 and setting it for 2 hours. Your pizza dough should have risen, so lightly coat your hands with cooking oil, punch down and divide it in half. Freeze half and put the other half into the fridge for use later in the week in a tightly covered bowl or a ziptop baggy. Crumble and fry your sausage. Using a slotted spoon, spoon sausage into a bowl and then carefully pour the sausage fat into a jar. Cool the fat. Cover and refrigerate. Cool the sausage until cold. Your biscuits should be cold now so put them into two gallon size freezer bags and freeze.

While the sausage is cooling, get out one pound of hamburger. Smash 4 cloves of garlic. Mince. Put the garlic skins or any bits you cut off, like the stem end, into the baggy in the freezer with the onion and carrot peels. In a large bowl, mix half of your diced onion and your garlic together. Shred one ounce of parmesan and a quarter cup of cheddar into your bowl. (You will be shredding your cheese as you need it, because it is less likely to mold in block form then in shreds). Add 2 eggs and stir well. Add the hamburger and mix with your hands. Form into 15 meatballs. I normally nuke these in the microwave for 5 minutes in my Tupperware stack cooker, but they can also be cooked in a skillet over medium heat until done. Remove to a plate and cool. Your egg count is now at 7 used.

Now is the time to put your cooled sausage into a baggy and throw it in the freezer. Take your ¼ pound of deli ham and dice it. Take an ice cube tray and divide your ham into each section and freeze it. My ice cube tray makes 14 cubes. In about 2 hours you can take it out of the ice cube tray and put it in a baggy. Put with the sausage. Add the bag of pepperoni to sausage and ham.

When your meatballs are cooled through, place them on a plate and put in your freezer. Once they are frozen solid, put into a baggy and put in the freezer. 15 meatballs gives you 5 servings of 3 meatballs each.

When the chicken and vegetables are done take it out of the oven and cover for a half an hour to help the chicken maintain its juices. Tear up a couple of leaves of lettuce to make a small salad. Top with a tbsp. of cheddar cheese. Mix together ¼ cup of mayo, ¼ cup of cooking oil, and 1 tbsp of honey for a dressing. Use 2 tbsp of dressing and tightly cover what is left in your fridge. It will keep about 5 days. Serve yourself 2 cups of the vegetables for dinner along with a chicken thigh and leg. Pull the meat off the bones and start a baggy of chicken bones for the freezer.

Before taking care of the remaining chicken, wrap one loaf of bread in aluminum foil or plastic wrap and freeze. Slice the second loaf of your bread into 14 slices, making the two end pieces slightly larger (You will be using the ends in a specific recipe later in the week). Since the bread is now cool you should be able to easily get that amount. (You won’t if you try to slice it hot.) Wrap bread or put into reusable bread bag or bread box. You will have bread crumbs after slicing the bread. Wipe them or dump them into a large mixing bowl. Get out another pound of hamburger. Take your shredded carrot, finely diced celery, and the other half of your diced onion and put them in a bowl. Crack and whisk 5 eggs. Add ¼ cup of cheddar, ¼ cup of mozzarella, and 1 ounce of grated parmesan to the vegetables. Add ¼ cup of tomato sauce. Pour eggs over top and mix in. Add your hamburger and mix together. Take one of your bread pans, lightly oil it, and pour the meatloaf mixture into it. Bake at 375 for one hour.

While the meatloaf is cooking strip the remainder of your chicken off the bones. You can eat the skin if you want. Put the bones in the freezer baggy for bones. Shred the chicken up into bite sized pieces. You should have about 4 cups of chicken. Put one cup of the chicken in the fridge and freeze the remaining 3 cups. Put the leftover vegetables into the fridge. Wash everything.

Wash, peel, and cut up two more onions, one into a large dice and one into a small dice. Do the same for two carrots. Put your peels and ends into the freezer baggy for veggie peels. Cut up two pieces of celery into a large dice. Put the parts you cut off into the bag. Take the center stalks and leaves from the celery and rough cut them. Add the rough cut leaves and stalks to the freezer baggy. Return the remaining stalks to the fridge. Smash 4 cloves of garlic. Put all of these veggies into one container. Take your frozen bell pepper strips out of the freezer. Take ¼ of your strips and dice them fine. Put them into a baggy by the sausage, diced deli ham, and pepperoni. Put the remaining strips in their bag next to these.

Go and sit down until the meatloaf is done. When it is done, take it out of the oven and let it cool for about half an hour. Once cooled, cut your meatloaf into five portions. Freeze on a cookie sheet, and then transfer to a baggy and keep in the freezer. Go and find something else to do or relax until the pork roast is done. Once it is done, take two forks and shred it, mixing it well with the tomatoes and juices. Divide the pulled pork into 4 equal amounts and put into containers.

If you have any raw meat still in the fridge, put it into the freezer. Clean the meatloaf pan and the crockpot and go to bed. Or whatever. You are done for the day. I will tell you what you are going to do with everything in another post.

Mrs. Frugalista was talking about how the mayor of Newark, NJ was going to try to live on a food stamp grocery budget of $4 a day for a week. That got me wondering what I could buy for $133.26 a month. But then that got me to thinking, how do people receive their food stamp card?

Do they get the $133.26 put on there all at once for the whole month, or do they get it put on a week at a time? Because only having $33 a week to work with is a far cry from having $133.26 all at once to work with. If it's the full amount at once, I can do it with a decent amount of variety and healthiness. But if it's only a weekly benefit, than it would be much harder to do it with variety and healthiness in your diet. If that is so, I will have to rethink it all.

Anyway, I sat down with the grocery flyers last night. I chose the three that were within easy walking distance and that also happen to be on city bus routes, because I'm assuming that if someone was on food stamps, they might not be able to just drive to any grocery store in the city they wanted to go to. I also used the one store's online prices for their grocery store's internet shopping service. You can actually pick out what you want online and they would gather all those things together and have it waiting for you at whatever time you gave them. The price tool from that is very handy.

I also took a wander around one of the stores this morning after picking up some OJ, checking out the marked down for quick sale meats, in which they had two whole chickens. And checked the prices and sizes of the other meats. Then I looked at the bulk bins and the cheeses.

So from all of that I made up a list of what I could buy for the full monthly benefit of $133.26. The only thing I was assuming was on hand is salt and pepper.

$11.29 2 whole chickens
$5.04 1 2 pound pork butt roast
$8.29 1 2 pound beef chuck roast
$7.50 3 pounds of ground beef
$7.96 4 dozen eggs
$2.59 1 pound of butter
$6.40 2 10 pound bags of potatoes
$2.00 5 pound bag of carrots
$5.00 5 pound bag of oranges
$3.00 5 pound bag of apples
$3.00 5 pound bag of yellow onions
$4.00 10 pound bag of flour
$0.99 1 pound of sugar bulk bins
$3.38 2 heads of purple cabbage
$2.99 1 quart jar of mayo
$2.50 1 24 oz bottle of ketchup
$1.98 2 pounds of spaghetti
$2.36 4 16 ounce cans of tomato sauce
$0.69 1 16 ounce can of diced tomatoes with green chiles
$2.38 2 packages of tortillas
$5.99 2 pounds mozzarella cheese
$1.59 1 pound bag of slivered bell peppers
$2.00 1 bunch of celery
$4.88 2 half gallons of milk
$1.29 1 head of lettuce
$2.99 1 pound cheddar cheese
$4.00 8 ounces parmesan cheese
$2.99 1 8 oz shaker of seasoned salt (like Lawry's)
$3.98 2 1/2 gallons of apple juice
$2.25 1/4 pound of honey ham from deli
$4.00 1 jar of yeast
$2.00 1/4 pound of pepperoni
$0.99 1 4 oz chili powder packet
$2.99 1 quart of cooking oil
$0.25 1 head of garlic
$0.99 4 ounces of mixed Italian herbs from bulk bin
$1.50 Baking powder
$0.99 1 pound powdered sugar
$2.50 1 pound ground sausage
$4.00 12 ounces of bulk honey
-----------------------------------
$132.53 Total

So there is a decent amount of variety, I think. Not as much as there would have been on even $50 more. I couldn't even think about things like fresh fish, canned tuna, and peanut butter. As it was I had to put things back on the imaginary shelf to keep the cheeses, butter, the herbs and spices and the honey. Since all of those things are so important for flavor, I felt I needed them to keep things from being bland. And I couldn't get as many tortillas, tomato sauce, milk, or eggs as I wanted. If the butter hadn't been on sale, I wouldn't have had it on the list.

I am now in the process of making up menu plans to see what I'd actually be able to eat on a daily basis. Also, I have to take into account that the lettuce must be eaten within the first ten days and then I'd move to the cabbage which will last much longer. I'd also have to take a cup out of one of the containers of milk and then freeze the rest of it for weeks three and four. I had to figure out which meat to freeze and which to cook up and then portion out and freeze or prepare for meals.

I also know how long it takes me to go through a 10 pound bag of flour as I do that every month. I can make 2 extra large pizzas, 4 loaves of bread, a few batches of pancakes and a couple batches of biscuits. Since for just myself I would only need enough dough to make 1 extra large pizza (or 2 medium ones) I could make more bread, pancakes, or biscuits than usual.

Anyway, menues will be forthcoming as I figure them out. This is an imaginary exercise. I am not really doing it. Or rather, I am only doing it on paper.

I took DS back to the podiatrist today. After a week on antibiotics and soaking his toes in epsom salts, then pouring on hydrogen peroxide and then using Neosporin, the swelling and infection had gone down enough for the doctor to get in there and clip the jagged edges without having to resort to lidocaine and surgery. So that saved us a couple hundred dollars. I am so glad that he didn't need to go the full route. I know from personal experience how painful that is.

The doctor cleaned up the sites and packed them with cotton again, which will work it's way out over the next two weeks. We shouldn't have to go back unless things get worse again. He is to continue on the antibiotic now, but doesn't have to do that rest of the regimen anymore. Hopefully it'll be smooth sailing for DS for a while. He sure could use a break.

I bought a few things at the grocery store today. I can't find what I did with the sales slip. It might have blown out of the bag. It was pretty windy. But judging from the cash I have left, I spent about $40, which jives with what I bought. I picked up some organic frozen dinners to have on hand.

Meal planning is all well and good, but there are some days where I just don't feel like cooking. Even though I am more or less over the flu, I am still dragging, still sniffly, still running a low grade temp, and generally just feeling very blah-ish. I mean, I'm ten times better than I was, but I still just don't feel right. Hopefully it'll pass soon, and well before I come down with the next things.

I don't like to use frozen dinners, but they've brought in a new organic line of ethnic foods. Things like Indian, Thai, and Korean foods. Stuff that I haven't learned how to make yet. So I figure at least if we have frozen dinners it will be food that is different from what I'd be making. So far I'm sticking to the meal plan. It's really just back up.

Anyway, that's about all for today. Didn't really do anything else but homeschool.

As the days get colder I find I am in the mood for heartier fare. More of the stick to your ribs sort of meals than the lighter meals of summer or early fall. I am finding that the urge for root vegetables is strong, which is convenient, since they are now what is in season and buying in season produce is always much more frugal than not. With that in mind, and working with my freezer inventory, these are the meals I have planned for the week.

Monday--
Chicken stew (chicken, carrots, potatoes, turnips, peas, gravy)
Fresh bread
Green beans
Pears

Tuesday--
Chicken pot pies (leftover chicken stew as the filling and homemade crusts)
Broccoli
Oranges

Wednesday--
Crockpot pulled pork burritos
TJ's canned corn
Frozen blueberries
Green beans

Thursday--
Crock pot ground beef and (home canned) tomatoes
Baked potatoes
Broccoli
Frozen plums

Friday--
Baked potato soup
Fresh baked bread
Frozen raspberries and blackberries
Cole slaw

Saturday--
Ethiopian Sloppy Joes (has potatoes in it) served over homemade bread
Cole slaw
Oranges

Sunday--
Crockpot beef chuck roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Green beans
Drop biscuits with choice of homemade jams

I plan on doing a lot of stir-fry this week. Although it is a bit labor intensive, it is also pretty quick if I do up all the vegetables for the week tonight.

I am working on getting my freezer inventory down. I have a lot of vegetables on hand that need to get used as well. The garden is still producing broccoli. What a crazy weather year.

Monday--
Beef and Broccoli stir-fry (carrots, onions, cauliflower, green beans, celery)
Pears

Tuesday--
Baked chicken
Baked potatoes
Oranges
Coleslaw

Wednesday--
Black pepper chicken (celery, onion, bell peppers)
Pears

Thursday--
Tropical Chicken stir-fry (many veggies)
Canned pineapple

Friday--
Homemade pizza (ham, onions, bell peppers, pepperoni)
Stir-fried green beans

Saturday--
Spaghetti with pork and lamb meatballs
Cole slaw
Oranges

Sunday--
Beef Chuck pot roast
Stir-fried green beans
Drop biscuits with choice of homemade jams
Canned corn from TJ's

Today is airport day and I feel too yucky to cook so we will be getting takeaway from Boomers and adding our own sides and drinks at home. Normally DD would pitch in and cook, but she has a dentist appointment today so I'm going the easy route. We haven't eaten out for a while, so I'm good with that. I'm still getting lots of broccoli from the garden, so that will figure prominently and I am working our way through the pears and the case of oranges I bought.

Monday--
Fish and chips or burgers
Coleslaw
Oranges

Tuesday--
Beef and vegetable stir-fry (carrots, onions, celery, broccoli, bean sprouts)
Egg fried rice
Pears

Wednesday--
Steak
Fried potatoes
Green beans
Oranges

Thursday--
Cornish Game Hens
Roasted potatoes
Stuffing
Green beans
Oranges

Friday--
Baked potato soup
Coleslaw
Pears

Saturday--
Homemade pizza (pepperoni, onions, bell peppers, prosciutto)
Salad
Pears

Sunday--
Beef chuck pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Broccoli
Canned corn
Drop biscuits with choice of homemade jams

Now everyone wants to wait and have the turkey at Christmas. It came frozen and as yucky as I feel, I've decided it's fine with me. I am not up for cooking a fancy dinner right now. Heirloom heritage turkeys sure look different from the broad-breasted turkeys sold in grocery stores. They are longer and not rounded or compact. They have more dark meat and less breast, the way nature made them, which works great for my family since no one really cares for the white meat and it always ends up an ingredient in something else while we eat the dark meat straight.

I love the little packet that came along with it. It has thawing instructions, brining instructions, cooking instructions, a recipe for turkey stock, a recipe for turkey soup, and a recipe for stuffing.

It also has a page with a photo of the turkeys when they were about half grown and says this:

[i]You have purchased a healthy and happy turkey which was raised in sunshine and clean pastures during their growing season (never on fertilized pastures). Diet: A turkey will eat 25% of its diet on grass. Your turkey ate an organic mixture comprised of: Spelt, Emmer, Wheat, Peas, Camolina, Seaweed, and Sea Salt. We guarantee that we never buy grain or corn from China.[i]

So it makes my sustainability goal and it makes my 100 mile foodshed goal, since the ranch is about 50 miles away. Hopefully it will make my flavor goal as well when the time comes to cook it. It also came with a large, insulated bag for free. That will come in handy for our monthly trips there. They gave us another one last week (also for free) that is a little smaller.

Since I won't be making a big old Thanksgiving dinner after all, I've decided on roasting two Cornish game hens. That will give each person a half a bird (since DH will not be here). I will make a small pan of bread stuffing and we will have roasted potatoes and green beans. A mini-feast, I suppose.

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DH goes back to the slope tomorrow and he will be working for 3 weeks. Then he will be off for three weeks and return to the slope on New Year's Day. Then it's highly possible he will be doing a 3 and 1, before resuming his normal 2 and 2 schedule.

Christmas Bonuses usually come out around the middle of December. Last year it was on the 16th and anyone who wasn't there received those checks in the mail a couple of days later. I am trying not to anticipate it, but it's hard. I am a planner and I like to know what is going to happen. Last year it was 5% of DH's income. This year it is rumored to be 10%. I can't help hoping for the 10% because it would wipe out the rest of our credit card debt. But even 5% would do a huge amount of payoff and then our income tax return would finish it off. It will be quite high because we get to claim the full HSA deduction.

I've calculated what it will cost us if the payroll tax thing is not extended. It will be $170 a month for every four week pay cycle, or about $2040 a year. If they do reduce the child credit from $1000 back to $500 per child, it won't really affect us much. We couldn't claim one of our kids last year and only half of the other one because of income eligibility. And DD will be 17 next year, so we wouldn't be eligilbe to claim her in 2013's tax return anyway, as I understand it.

We can absorb it, we will be fine. I'm not so sure about many others though. I'd like to continue to have that money, but I don't resent it. I mean, my mother is on social security and Medicare, my SIL is on food stamps, and my BIL (my sister's husband) is on disability and before that was on unemployment for the full term allowed. I like to look at it as our taxes going to support the programs that support our family members. And we help directly as we can.

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We looked at a couple of houses. 1 beautiful 1756 square foot rambler, 3 beds, 2 baths, on one acre with an enormous shop and a smaller shop with attached office, for $239,200. It's just outside of town and mid-way between my Mom's house and my in-laws house. It's a funny piece of land, though, shaped like a pie wedge and the train track borders the property. Since trains go through at least six times a day, I think that would be too disruptive.

We looked at another really nice two story house about ten minutes out of town that has 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, a shop, a barn, and 3 acres for $299,000. It's set up so that the one floor could be used as a MIL apartment.

Then just for fun we looked at a $500,000 house with a lake view and a mountain view. It was spectacularly beautiful and had most of my dream house wants, like a baker's oven, a huge kitchen with lots of storage, a wrap around porch, gables, 1 acre grounds, hard wood floors, beach access. And it had a lot of DH's wants as well, with the shop and four car garage (makes me laugh as we are a one car family). If we could afford it, it would be big enough that we could house my mother, MIL and FIL and SIL and neice on top of our own family. But I do not want to mortgage our lives away. That is not in my plan for future happiness. It sure was pretty, though.

I think we're still a year away from househunting for real, to be honest. The repairs on the old house go slowly. I am hoping we will be able to put it on the market by spring, but I am not holding my breath. If it doesn't sell, we do have a solid tennant willing to rent it for $1000 a month. Average rents out there for that size home are $932, so it'd work out all right, we just wouldn't have money for a downpayment like we would if selling, so we'd have to save up for that, although I'd want to pay off the mortgage first. It'll be under $15K after the next payment. I don't want to have two mortgages on two houses, I'd rather own the possible rental outright.

Hopefully it will just sell though and we won't have to worry about it. There is an investor who is interested in it, but most investors try to lowball and I don't want to deal with a lowball investor, though I will if I have to. Mostly I just want to be done.

DH and I went to Costco last night. I had not figured out what I wanted to do with my allowance, but I figured it out when we got there. They had a digital crockpot, with a timer for up to 20 hours. The cheap crockpot I got for Christmas last year is already malfunctioning, so I wanted to get a good one at some point.

Some point converged with the present last night. They had the $40 stainless steel one on for an instant rebate of $10 off and then additional mail in rebate of $5 off, so when all is said and sifted, I got a good quality crockpot for $25 plus tax. This will make cooking easier again. I won't have to worry about the crockpot burning.

Still not sure what I will do with the rest of my allowance, probably just set it aside.

We didn't buy too much else there. A case of toilet paper, some prosciutto, and a case of oranges.

----------

Last night we defrosted and inventoried the mini chest freezer. There is quite a bit of food in there, mostly protein. I still have to inventory the other two fridge freezers, but I pretty much know what is in the main one and can more or less see at a glance what is in the secondary one.

In beef I have 4 packs of stew meat, 1 flank steak, 4 chuck steaks, 3 ribeyes, 2 pounds of hamburger, 4 premade hamburger patties with cheese and bacon mixed in, 1 filet mignon, 2 strip steaks, 1 New York steak, 2 mini-steaks, and 2 packages of prepared Korean beef ribs.

In chicken I have 1 pack of stir-fry chicken, 4 family size bags of thighs and legs, 6 packages of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, and 1 and 1/2 packages of chicken wings.

In pork I have 6 packs of Kirkland low sodium bacon, 1 pack of Trader Joe's uncured bacon, a package of Canadian bacon, and 2 porkchops.

In fish I have 3 12 ounce packages of wild caught salmon.

There are two bags of egg fried rice (one Chinese, one Japanese) from TJ's, a penne pasta meal in a bag from TJ's, a pound of organic broccoli/cauliflower, some cheese, 3 quarts of Italian prunes (home grown), 1 quart of raspberries (home grown), and 1 pint of strawberries. Most of the fruit is in a different freezer.

Starting with next week's meal plan I will be trying to get this meat used up. Pretty much none of it is organic and is left from earlier this year before we started our journey to sustainable, organic eating. I think we can get it finished off in the next couple of months.

Once we buy our new chest freezer, the mini one is going to be used strictly for chicken. It is big enough to hold thirty whole chickens. When we buy our beef it will go in the new freezer, possibly with a half a pig. We'll see how the money flows at that point.

Monday--
Roasted Chicken
Mashed Potatoes
Broccoli
Pears

Tuesday--
Beef Pot roast
Baked Potatoes
Broccoli/Cauliflower
Oranges

Wednesday--
Beef and Broccoli (carrots, celery, onion)
Egg fried rice

Thursday--
Homemade chicken noodle soup
Cole slaw
Oranges

Friday--
Pizza (pepperoni, onions, bell peppers, prosciutto
Cole slaw

Saturday--
Bacon cheese burgers
Homemade french fries
Pears

Sunday--
Spaghetti with lamb/pork meatballs
Salad

Lunches this week will be leftover chicken and low carb meatloaf. Breakfasts will be Bacon and eggs, oatmeal and eggs, or pancakes and eggs.

I'm still trying to use up what is in the freezers so that I can defrost. And we have a ton of broccoli coming from the garden this week that needs eating so meals will reflect that.

Monday--
Roast chicken
Baked potatoes
Broccoli
Oranges

Tuesday--
Chicken enchiladas
Mexican Fried Rice
Broccoli
Pears

Wednesday--
Beef stir-fry with broccoli, carrots, celery, bean sprouts, green beans, onion
Egg fried rice

Thursday--
Homemade pizza with homemade sausage, ham, onions, and bell peppers
Cole slaw

Friday--
Baked potato soup
Cole slaw
Pears

Saturday--
Korean BBQ ribs
Egg fried rice
Oranges
Broccoli

Sunday--
Beef pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Green beans
Corn

I will be making meatloaf and chicken noodle soup from scratch for lunches this week. Breakfast is the usual, pancakes and eggs for DS and sausage and eggs for DD and me. DH comes home mid-week and he usually has eggs and oatmeal or leftovers.

I got a full night's sleep and have some actual energy today, thank goodness. I think my fever broke, too, so that's always a bonus. First thing I did was go down to the grocery store and buy a couple bags of organic white flour, organic milk, a bell pepper, and orange juice. It cost me $35.82. I should not have to spend any money between now and Friday. I am still trying to use up the stuff in my freezers and I still have broccoli and kohlrabi and a few green beans left in the fridge, so menues will reflect that.

Monday--
Sausages (from the ranch)
Fried potatoes
Kohlrabi

Tuesday--
Chicken and Broccoli stir-fry (including celery, carrots, onion, green beans)
Pears

Wednesday--
Homemade pizza with ham, pepperoni, onion, bell pepper, and diced tomatoes

Thursday--
Braided chili loaf
Broccoli
Pears

Friday--
Spaghetti with homemade sauce
Meatballs
Homemade garlic bread
Kohlrabi

Saturday--
Meatball sandwiches
Canned pineapple
Kohlrabi

So the plan for tonight was pizza for dinner. Homemade, mind you. There was absolutely no reason for me to think that would be a problem, but when I went to make the dough all I had left was one cup of flour. Um...what? I always have flour. Always. And I'm the only one who gets into it. And since I haven't made bread in a couple of weeks I've had no need to keep an eye on the flour level. I always know how much I have on hand and when I need to buy more. Then I remembered DS's paper mache project with his dad last weekend. Made me sick to my stomach because I realized they had used the organic flour to do it, too.

So, no pizza for dinner. Don't think the idea of delivery didn't flit through my head because it did. Instead I threw together a meatloaf, the ingredients of which were easily at hand. I will buy some flour tomorrow. I just couldn't stand the thought of driving today, not even the six blocks to the store and with my cough it is too cold and rainy outside to walk. Not that I have the energy today anyway.

Seriously, today was a day when I really felt my disability. I just did not have enough spoons.

http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christ...

Did you ever have one of those days where everything you are looking for seems to not be in the places they belong? The keys, the checkbook, your jacket? I swear that every spoon in the house must be in hiding or in the dishwasher, because there aren't any in the drawer. Hence my title. Even though most of my symptoms are gone, my throat remains sore and raspy. Ice cream helps, but it is a weird experience eating it with a fork. Still, whatever works.

I cancelled my appointment today. It saved me $90 for the week. I am still just too worn down. I rescheduled for Tuesday.

I found a dime in the cupholder in the van so added that to the coin jar.

Yesterday I spent $40 on a prescription, $33.23 on OTC cold medicine, $4.44 on a pill splitter, and $12.93 on orange juice. The orange juice was not a planned purchase, but I was really craving it the way you do when you're deficient in something. So I bought 2 gallons.

I am very tempted to get takeaway for dinner, except I don't want pizza and they are the only place that delivers. I don't have the energy to make baked potato soup, which was on my menu plan for today. It's labor intensive. I think today will just be chili from a can with leftover baked potatoes and green beans from a can. It's warm and hearty and the capsicum clears my sinuses. It's also a quarter of the cost of takeaway, maybe less.

Three of the chickens are now laying eggs in the box on the back porch, Curious, Georgie, and Queen. Guess the fence repair just made them learn how to fly over taller fences. Still, farm fresh delivered to your back door can't be beat.

I've got a lot of broccoli and some pears to use up, so that will figure prominently in meals this week. I am planning all protein for what we have on hand in the freezer. I am going to try not to go to the grocery store at all this week. I think we can get through, though milk might be iffy. We have a gallon and a half, but the soup I am making takes 7 cups. I'll start baking bread again tomorrow. I have been buying it for the last several days. I know I'm exhausted when I am too tired to put the ingredients in the bread machine.

Monday--
Beef and broccoli stir-fry (will include carrots, celery, onion, and green beans)

Tuesday--
Pork chops
Broccoli and cauliflower
Pears

Wednesday--
Roasted chicken
Baked potatoes
Leftover broccoli and cauliflower

Thursday--
Baked potato soup
Homemade drop biscuits with choice of homemade jams

Friday--
Pizza (homemade sausage, bell pepper, onion)
Pears

Saturday--
Steak
Fried potatoes
Broccoli

Sunday--
Beef pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Green beans
Pears

Tonight's dinner was this:



Tuesday:
Pork burritos made in the crockpot
Salad
Rice

Wednesday:
Beef and Broccoli
Leftover rice



Thursday:
Baked potato soup
Cloverleaf rolls
Pears



Friday:
Bacon cheeseburgers
Homemade French fries
pineapple

Saturday:
Braided chili loaf
Pears

Sunday:
Beef pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Green beans
Frozen blueberries

The pot roast did not go in at the right time yesterday so we ended up just eating leftover homemade pizza and leftover homemade chicken noodle soup. That bumps the pot roast to tonight.

Monday--
Pot roast
Baked potatoes
Green beans
Prunes

Tuesday--
Picnic ham
Kohlrabi
Drop biscuits with homemade jam of choice

Wednesday--
Baked potato soup
Cole slaw
Frozen berry smoothie

Thursday--
Chicken Stir-fry with lots of veggies
Pears

Friday--
Homemade pizza with homemade sausage, ham, bell peppers, onions, and pepperoni
Cole slaw

Saturday--
Pork chops
Fried potatoes
Green beans
Pear sauce

Sunday--
Leftovers (and if no leftovers, pancakes and ham)

No ear pain today and only a slightly sore throat when I swallow. That's a huge step in the direction of feeling better. Now if my nose will clear up I think I will start feeling like a human being again.

I switched things around in my menu planning and made the chicken noodle soup today, mostly because I hadn't baked the potatoes for baked potato soup and the other was easier. It turned out incredibly well. I made a couple of changes to my usual recipe, adding in some garlic powder and ground celery seed and it made it much more savory. I've finally got it to where I think it tastes better than my favorite restaurant bowl of soup, which makes me happy because I've been futzing around trying to do that for years. I think we'll skip the baked potato soup tomorrow and just have more of this. It is so delicious.

The tomatoes on the table are all ripe now so I will start the process to make them into sauce tomorrow, but not until after I make the pear sauce, which I should have done today, but didn't. I'll start it going early so that I can have the tomatoes in by 2 p.m., so they will done by 2 p.m. Sunday and canned in the afternoon. I'm going to blanch and peel this batch and see if that makes a difference in consistancy. It'll be nice to have my table back.

I've checked the 10 day forecast and only one day is scheduled to dip below 50 degrees at night, and that's just 49 so I think I'll be okay on my tomatoes still on the vine for a while yet. Days all look to be upper 60's. I was hoping for some nice days at 70 or above, but it looks like a no go. I can definitely feel fall in the air. Hopefully that won't change to winter any time soon.

The next time I go the the farm I am going to ask them if they have any soup bones for sale. I want to make a nice, rich beef broth as the base for beef stew. It's the next thing I want to master. Years ago Stagg used to make this fantastic beef stew, but then they ruined it by adding pearl onions and peas, and then they discontinued it altogether, at least in our area.

I put up with Dinty Moore for a while after that because they don't have chemicals in their stew, but then they changed it so that it had less beef and more carrots and potatoes, then they changed it again so that the consitancy of the beef was more mush than meat, and then they started shorting the carrots and putting in more and more potatoes all while the price steadily rose. Do they really think we don't notice these things? It's like when they keep the pizza box the same size and shrink the contents. Not that I buy frozen pizza anymore, but you get my point.

The last change put me off it altogether because I like my carrots to equal my potatoes in stew, so ever since I've tried to backwards engineer the original Stagg stew from memory, but so far no go. I think it may be in the base so that is what I'm working for. I did see beef marrow bones at the store but I'd really prefer to stick to the organic, grass fed, pasture-raised beef.

The one trick they cannot pull on us is that they can't make 1 pound of beef or 1 pound of carrots or 1 pound of potatoes be less than they appear to be. The price per pound is the price per pound. They can't sell you 10 ounces of ground beef in a 1 pound package like they try to do with those 14.5 ounce canned goods that used to be 16 ounces, though the cans are the same size. It's only the processed foods that they pull these tricks on. All the better reason to stay away from it, to my way of thinking.

I had enough points today to cash out at Swagbucks for another $5 gift card for Amazon. I'm waiting for one to show up any day now and then this one will show up in a week. Right now I've got $25 in gift cards in the account and have received a total of $35 from them. I wish I hadn't let DS do the ordering when he ordered his book because he accidentally wiped out that first $10 of gift cards I was saving, but there's no use crying over spilled milk. It's building up again and it looks like I might be doing about $25 a month worth of gift cards from them. If anyone is interested in doing Swagbucks who is not signed up, there is a referal link in my sidebar. I spend maybe 10 minutes a day on them, so $25 a month feels like a decent return for it. This is all earmarked towards my daughter's MacBook fund.

I should be able to cash out at American Consumer Opinion Panel soon. It should have been today, but it's still sitting there pending. That will be a $14 check when it's finally available. I like them a lot compared to other companies, even if they don't have a referral system. They have good surveys, but it is hit or miss sometimes on whether or not I qualify. I tend to go through a month or two where I qualify for everything and then it'll be a dry spell where I qualify for nothing. Oh, well. Every little bit helps. It's earmarked for the freezer fund.

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Homeschool went great today. It's the smoothest day yet and we were able to get everything accomplished in four hours. I know not every day will go like this, but it goes a long way towards making me think we're going to be just fine.

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I feel a lot better today. My ear still hurts but it is now a dull ache instead of raw, open fire. And my throat only hurts when I swallow and not all the time. I am still coughing, but that's better, too. Now if I could get a full, good night of sleep I think I will be well and truly on my way to getting over this thing.

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We got 12 chicken eggs and 3 duck eggs today. That means every single female bird laid an egg today. I'm not sure that has ever happened before. Pretty cool. We gave my in-laws 3 dozen eggs yesterday and I will take a couple dozen in when I go to see the woman who works on my leg and the receptionist who works at the office there.

I think I'm going to have to make a quiche and a frittata and another meatloaf this week. These all make great lunches and breakfasts, something easy to warm up without stopping to cook while doing homeschool or for DD to take to school.

As soon as I feel good enough I am going to do some serious baking and use up some of the duck eggs. I'd like to make a batch of soft pretzels and a batch of cinnamon rolls for the freezer as well as saving out a few of each to eat now. I'll also make a batch of cloverleaf rolls to eat instead of bread, since it uses eggs and my bread doesn't.

I might even make some egg noodles. And a couple batches of peanut butter cookies, since I have two cups of natural fresh peanut butter in the fridge. But that's definitely next week. Maybe some of it on Sunday. We'll see. I just want a stockpile of baked goods in the freezer for when I get sick again. I've managed bread and pizza dough this week and that's it. Makes me feel like I'm slacking, but I'm not going to push myself when I feel so icky. Not worth it.

Well, I cancelled my dentist appointment for tomorrow. My ear still hurts too much and my throat as well, to sit through a cleaning and after having been on antibiotics for over a week with no progress, I'm sure this is a nasty virus. I didn't want to get them sick there, so I've saved or at least put off, the cost of a cleaning this month. I go three times a year due to some damage caused earlier in life and the third appointment is not covered. I've rescheduled to mid-October, which shifts the payment to a better month and hopefully that gives me enough time to get over this forsaken thing.

Oh, it is better than yesterday, though so hopefully that means I'm on the upswing. Yesterday was "oh my gosh, I think I'm going to die from this ear pain, will it never end," and today was "I think I'll live but I'm not going to enjoy it." LOL So a tiny bit of progress. At least I have my sense of humor back, right?

I have missed three weeks of seeing the woman who works on my leg due to her car accident, so that $90 a week has eased things a bit. She called me today and we've tentatively scheduled for Monday, but with the understanding that either one of us was likely to cancel depending on health or injury status. It was good to hear from her. She's become a dear friend over the last couple of years and we chat non-stop when we have a session.

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Homeschool has gone much, much better this week. We are getting through things better. Math and literature take more than the allotted time, but the other subjects go faster so it all evens out. Today we only put in a half an hour more than the required time and I can see that things are beginning to go more smoothly on DS's end as he gets into the swing of it. I am pretty sure neither one of us is going to go crazy now.

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The garden continues to chug along. Today I picked green beans, tomatoes, a kohlrabi, and some more prunes. The broccoli is getting bigger right on schedule and there are several tomatoes getting red and another kohlrabi that will be ready soon.

The pears on my table are now ripe so I will try to make and can the pear sauce tomorrow, though all I want to do is just bite into those lucsious things and eat them straight. Must resist. There will be more for that.

About half the tomatoes on the table are ripe, too. I hope the rest get there before I need to do something with the ones that already have because I don't want to make two small batches of sauce I want to make one big one.

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I am making chicken stock overnight in the crockpot. I've got 4 chicken carcasses and a bunch of vegetable peelings that I've been saving in the freezer as well as a fresh leek and some sad looking but still decent parsley and other herbs from the garden. In the morning there will be beautiful, delicious broth for mere pennies. I may end up doing chicken noodle soup tomorrow instead of pizza because of my throat. I have some diced, cooked chicken in the freezer I can throw in to make it pretty easy as well as some fresh veggies I can chop and let simmer all day tomorrow. If I have enough leftover stock I will can it, otherwise I will freeze it.

And I think that about covers it.

The garden seems like it really ought to be slowing down. The days are in the high 60's to low 70's and the nights have been in the high 50's. Still, things continue to grow and some things are just coming into their own. We are eating as much from the garden as possible right now. I am buying no produce this week. It is nice to keep the grocery budget lower by making use of the bounty, but not have to skimp on what I feed my family.

I will need to get on a ladder to get the prunes off the higher branches this week. I've pretty much picked the lower branches clean. So far my plan to can has been thwarted by the fact that everything is getting devoured fresh. Ah, well. Maybe once I get those tall ones down.

Here is today's harvest:



The kohlrabi will be eaten at breakfast and lunch tomorrow. I'm pretty sure the prunes are probably gone, consumed to the kids. The green onions will be used tomorrow in a lunchtime low-carb meatloaf and the green beans will be in tomorrow's dinner.

Over half of my table is taken up with produce ripening. I will be making pear sauce in a few days with these:



And I hope that these will be done ripening by the weekend so they can go into the crockpots for sauce and then to be canned.



I am hoping to harvest this broccoli by the end of the week:



And in the patch on the far side of the house I see that the Romanesco is finally heading up. It'll probably take more than a week for these to start to be ready, but at least they finally are producing.



I've never eaten this type of broccoli before. It's an heirloom variety I guess and supposed to be very tasty. Let's hope so because I have quite a few of them planted.

I still have quite a few tomatoes coming on. I pulled the blossoms off several of the plants so they could focus on sizing up and ripening the remaining green tomatoes between now and cold weather. Anything that is a blossom now would have no chance to become anything before first frost so it makes no sense for the plant to split its energy.

This lovely pink rose is growing up through the center of the blackberry brambles. It is a gorgeous spot of color.



There were only five chicken eggs today and 1 duck egg. The days are getting shorter, which means they may not lay as much, but they may be hiding their eggs again, too, since most of them can get out now.

Georgie has managed to get herself up on the roof of the house several times now. She flies to the top of the tall gate and then from there flies to the roof. It is so funny to see her walking along up there. Of course by the time anyone can get a camera she is back down. No one else seems to be following her example, not even Curious, the hen that is Georgie's twin and was always the adventure leader up until now. But then they are both mischief makers or they wouldn't be named after an adventurous monkey, now would they?

My ear was still killing me yesterday so I didn't get around to making up a menu plan. It is a teensy bit better today. I'm hoping that means I am on the upswing.

This week's menu is made up with everything I need already on hand, either in the pantry/fridge/freezer or from the garden (lots of green beans and prunes, as you can see). Grocery shopping is the last thing I want to do right now with this cold.

Anyway, this week's menu plan is as follows:

Monday--
Pot roast
Stir-fried green beans
Italian prunes

Tuesday--
Chicken stir-fry with broccoli, celery, carrots, green beans
Italian prunes

Wednesday--
Roast chicken
Baked potatoes
Stir-fried green beans
Pears

Thursday--
Homemade pizza with homemade sausage, orange bell pepper, and yellow onions
Garlic bread
Cole slaw

Friday--
Baked potato soup
Italian prunes
Cole slaw

Sauturday--
Chicken noodle soup
Drop biscuits with homemade jam

Sunday--
Teriyaki beef
Egg fried rice
Stir-fried green beans

Since I can't sleep, I figured I might as post the week's meal planning.

Monday--
Pizza (this was supposed to be Sunday, but we ended up having homemade bacon burgers with thick slices of onion instead, so good) with pepperoni, ham, red bell peppers, and yellow onions.
Cole slaw

Tuesday--
Roast chicken
Baked potatoes
Green beans
Watermelon

Wednesday--
Tacos
Italian prunes

Thursday--
Loaded baked potato soup
Fresh baked bread with butter and homemade jam
Green beans

Friday--
Bacon cheeseburgers
Homemade French fries
Salad
watermelon

Saturday--
Braided chili loaf
Galia Melon
Coleslaw

Sunday--
Pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Green beans
Whatever leftover fruit there is

I think I am through the worst of the caffeine withdrawal although I did have to take a nap today after DS and I finished with homeschooling to deal with the headache and tiredness.

I forgot to post my menu plan for the week yesterday, so here it is.

Monday--
Pot roast (got moved from Sunday due to too many leftovers needing to be eaten)
Corn on the cob
Green beans
Italian prunes

Tuesday--
Roast chicken
Baked potatoes
Green Beans
Melon

Wednesday--
Beef and vegetable stir-fry
Italian prunes

Thursday--
Spaghetti
Meatballs
Garlic bread
Salad

Friday--
Meatball sandwiches
Cole slaw
Melon

Saturday--
Bacon cheeseburgers
Homemade French fries
Cole slaw
Italian prunes

Sunday--
Homemade Pizza
Cole slaw
Melon

I ended up swapping tomorrow's dinner with today's since my nephews got invited out to my eldest neice's house for dinner. So I'll finish making the lasagne tomorrow. I did chop up all the onions and the garlic for it so that will be one less thing to do tomorrow. So tonight is pizza instead. Doesn't it look scrumptious?



It's been a while since I've costed out a meal so I thought I'd do that with the pizza. This is the same size as an XL specialty pizza from Round Table Pizza which costs $28.17.

$5.99 for nitrate free Canadian Bacon
$0.99 for 1/8 pound of pepperoni
$0.50 worth of leftover homemade spaghetti sauce
$0.00 for a quarter of a red bell pepper from the garden
$0.10 three slices of an onion, cut into strips
$2.00 worth of mozzarella cheese
--------
$9.58 total

Salad is free from the garden
Homemade garlic toast is 15 cents.
Milk is $1.50

The total of the meal is $11.23 or a savings of $16.94 for just the takeout pizza with no salad or drinks. And there will be half a pizza leftover for DS's lunches this week. Pretty good, methinks.