Food and Stuff

I haven't been making my weekly menu for about 2 weeks now. I thought that I would be doing myself a favor by being able to be spontaneous each day and just make a meal based on the time I had available. WRONG. This has been awful. I hate not knowing what I am making in advance. So last night I planned out the rest of the week for dinners. Breakfasts will be oatmeal, cereal or toast and eggs. All served with fruit (if I can make it stretch for the rest of the week). LuLu and KiKi are eating lunches at school this week. Not ever my first choice but it helps me for the week and they think it is a 'treat'. Joe is only working part days and I am not going into the office at all (except for an hour here and there) so we are eating whatever we find in the fridge for lunch. Here are my dinner plans.
Tonight: Pot roast with carrots and onions. Served with rice and salad
Tomorrow: Beef enchiladas (made with leftover beef, cheese, onions), Spanish rice, salad
Friday: Pork Chops, pasta and green beans

That's it. Saturday is our moving day.
I pretty much stopped buying groceries about 3 weeks ago. I have been just picking up the absolute essentials (milk, cheese, veggies, fruit) since then. I had a pretty full pantry and freezer that we have really emptied out. The trailer obviously doesn't have the storage space that I have been used to so my food stock ups had to be depleted. But I'll tell you a secret. I do have two large totes almost full of food that I'm going to keep at Joe's parents house. I figure I can 'shop' there each week in addition to the regular grocery store.

It is almost pumping time again. I pumped at 6:10 this morning. I'm trying to pump every 3-4 hours. I have my fenugreek tea brewing right now. Today I'm going to try to keep track of my water consumption too and see if that helps. Thanks Cyn for the tip about the lanolin. I'll try and find some of that (but probably not until I get relocated).

I got my bookkeeper duties done for the day so the rest of my day will be spent working on the house. WhooHoo. I forgot just how much fun that moving is.

Menu week of 8/18

Monday
We got home so late on Sunday night that I didn't have a plan for breakfast or lunch. So everyone was on their own with cold cereal and sandwiches.
Dinner: Salmon patty sandwiches, celery and carrot sticks and bread budding for dessert.

Tuesday
Breakfast: Butterscotch Oatmeal and a banana
Lunch: Deli meat and cheese sandwiches (Joe and I will pass on the bread part in all sandwiches for this week. We are hoping to lose a few pounds), carrot sticks, grapes
Snack: Yogurt
Dinner: Swedish Meatballs, Homemade egg noodles, salad

Wednesday
Breakfast: French Toast
Lunch: Egg Salad sandwich, celery and carrot sticks, plum
Snack: Yogurt
Dinner: Cheese Omelets and cinnamon rolls (okay, so the diet part and cinnamon rolls. KiKi has been asking for these and Joe loves them too. He says that he can eat just one.)

Thursday
Breakfast:Yogurt Parfait
Lunch: Tuna salad sandwiches, celery and carrot sticks, peaches
Snack: Deli meat and cheese cubes
Dinner: Pinto Beans, rice, Swiss chard

Friday
Breakfast: Oatmeal Pancakes, peaches
Lunch: PB & J sandwiches (I'm not sure what I will make for Joe and me yet), carrot and celery sticks and whatever fruit that I have left.
Snack: Yogurt
Dinner: Tacos made with taco hamburger meat, refried beans (leftover from last night), rice, cheese, sour cream and cabbage all put in homemade flour tortillas.

Saturday
Brunch: Baked Oatmeal
Snack: yogurt
Dinner: Enchilada Casserole, green salad

Sunday
Brunch: Crepes
Snack: Yogurt
Dinner: Roasted Chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli


You will notice a lot of yogurt in my menu. Now that I have a good recipe for making it I plan to take advantage of it. Joe, LuLu and I have irritable stomachs. Yogurt helps, so adding a daily serving is something we are going to try for a few weeks.

I am also working on simplifying things a bit. I read on someones blog that they eat the same thing for breakfast each week. Every Monday they have eggs, every Tuesday pancakes, etc. I thought I would try that for a while and see how it goes. If anyone complains I can always switch it around. But chances are good no one will notice. We'll see. I think with school starting again in two weeks I will do the same for lunches. Sure would make it easier on me not having to come up with new stuff each week. And it would make the grocery shopping easier too. I'm liking the idea.

Menu and homemade yogurt

I only have a few days planned out for this week since we are leaving Thursday evening after work to go down for our surro's OB appointment. It will just be Joe and me since KiKi and LuLu are staying the weekend with their dad and Angel is staying here for work. Joe and I will leave here around 5:30 and get down to Northern CA about 3 AM. We will go to my sister's house and sleep for a few hours and then drive another 2 1/2 hours to meet up with J at the OB's office. It is a loooong drive but so worth it. We'll drive home on Sunday.

Monday: Well that was today.
For breakfast this morning everyone just had cold cereal except Joe who had nothing. He had a tummy ache.
Lunch: Leftovers from the weekend
Dinner: LuLu begged for pizza. So Joe and I gave in and that is what we had. One medium taco pizza and one medium olive and mushroom

Tuesday: Hopefully will be back on track.
Breakfast: Butterscotch oatmeal and banana's
Lunch: Deli sandwiches with carrot and celery sticks
Dinner: Egg Foo Yung with rice and salad

Wednesday
Breakfast: French toast and cantaloupe
Lunch: Deli sandwiches with carrot and celery sticks
Dinner: Pork tacos with rice, cabbage and cheese

Thursday:
Breakfast: Eggs and toast and cantaloupe
Lunch: Deli sandwiches with carrot and celery sticks
Dinner: We will be heading to CA! I'll pack a picnic dinner for Joe and I.


I made yogurt last night. I have tried to make yogurt before with okay results. Last night I tried a different recipe and technique and it turned out very good. I'll try it again tomorrow night. I was surprised how much it made. Just over 2 quarts. KiKi and LuLu love yogurt. Angel doesn't. Joe only eats it if I force him to.

Changing plans

I am a planner. I like to have an idea of what is going to happen with things so I plan. And I plan. And I plan. Sometimes I plan so much that I don't get to the actual task that needs to be accomplished. It is a bad thing. Most of my planning though helps me. Like my menu plans. They give me a good guideline of what to do. It is so much easier for me to have an idea in place than to try to figure out something at the last minute. This weekend though my menu plans didn't come to fruition. It is turning out okay though. Here is what our menu plan for the weekend was supposed to be:
Saturday
Brunch: Oatmeal pancakes with fruit
Dinner: Pork Roast, barley pilaf and zucchini
Sunday
Brunch: Baked french toast
Dinner: Egg foo young and veggie rice

What we actually did was:
Saturday Brunch: Out. We tried a new restaurant that just opened up about 5 miles from here. We live in the country so a new restaurant out here is a BIG deal. It was okay. Sad to say nothing special.
Dinner: LuLu has been wanting salmon so I bought some today at our big shopping trip. Joe doesn't like salmon (he says he ate too much of it growing up). So dinner was;
Salmon for the girls and me. Shrimp for Joe
Mashed potatoes
Edamame

Sunday Brunch: I made scones. I only make this one a month or so. We consider them a treat. I'll post the recipe below it is super easy.
Dinner: Will be the pork roast, barley pilaf and green salad.

Another plan that we have had in place has been working on our house. Originally, we were going to fix it up to live here forever. But the weather and my husband don't mix very well. So now we are finishing it up to sell. Today we are working in the bathroom. We had already done almost all of it (new tub surround, new sink, new light fixtures, paint, new floor) today we are putting the trim up. Right now Joe is measuring it and then I will paint it. I can already tell that this is not going to be a fun job. He has had to cut the same board 3 times now. Do I hear cut number 4 gearing up? Yikes.
If we get the bathroom done today then we will work on our bedroom. Our bedroom will also be the nursery while we live here. I'm very excited to set it up. I have a plan, of course, for how cute it will look.

Oatmeal Whatever Scones

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

1 1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup uncooked oatmeal
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix together above ingredients

1/4 cup softened margarine
Cut in margarine

1/2 cup whatever.
Here is where I put in whatever I have on hand. Craisins, raisins, grated cheddar cheese, frozen strawberries that I have cut in quarters, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, blueberries, blackberries cut up, etc. Almost anything will work. Mix in.

3/4 cup buttermilk (or regular milk with 2 tsp vinegar added to it).
Add the milk a little at a time and stir it in just until moistened. Divide the dough in half. Flour hands and pat dough into two circles on a greased cookie sheet about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into quarters. Bake for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat one egg. After the 10 minutes cooking time brush egg on the scones and then bake until golden brown about 3-4 minutes longer.

I sometimes make a glaze for these out of lemon or orange juice (or just milk) and powered sugar. Or just serve with honey, butter or jam.

I found this basic recipe in the Tightwad Gazette. It is so easy to make and we love the variations. Usually, I make a double batch and then divide that in half and add one whatever addition to part and something else to the other part. This morning I did half with craisins and put a lemon glaze on them when done baking. The other half was cheddar cheese with no glaze just plain. The were delicious and very most.

Menu for the week

With going out of town for Joe's BeeBeeGa I got a little bit off on my menus. Happily I already had this weeks menu plan in place. It is not very exciting (simple food is my motto- think Little House on the Prairie simple) but it will be good to eat at home again. All of our meals for two days were eaten in restaurants. I love eating in restaurants but my tummy and my weight suffer from it. So here is the menu for the rest of the week.

Tuesday
Dinner: Lentils and rice with green salad

Wednesday
Breakfast: rice cereal, eggs and fruit
Lunch: Egg salad sandwiches, carrots and fruit
Dinner: lentil patties, green salad and pickled cucumbers

Thursday
Breakfast: oatmeal, eggs and fruit
Lunch: PB sandwiches, carrots and fruit
Dinner: Lentil loaf (think meatloaf with no meat), mashed potatoes and glazed carrots

Friday
Breakfast: Eggs, toast and fruit
Lunch: Leftovers
Dinner: Homemade pizza and salad

Saturday
Brunch: Oatmeal pancakes with fruit
Dinner: Pork Roast, barley pilaf and zucchini

Sunday
Brunch: Baked french toast
Dinner: Egg foo young and veggie rice

Other additions to the meals will be some kind of bread, muffin or roll. I never quite know what until that day. It just depends on what I made the day before and what is leftover. And we always have fresh fruit and veggies available for snacking on.

Budgeting and menus

I am a planner. I like to plan anything and everything. Sometimes my plans work out and sometimes they don't.
One thing that we really needed to do to help us with our surrogacy journey was to get our finances in order. So I developed a plan for that. The first thing that we did was make a budget. I know that the word budget is a scary one and believe me I resisted having a budget for a VERY long time. But now that we do have a budget it has taken so much pressure off us. I love that I know what our money is doing. When we started budgeting we weren't sure how to go about it. I looked for info on the internet and found Dave Ramsey. His principals are what we loosely follow for our finances. We have a basic budget that we use each month and then tweak as needed. And one thing that I love doing is seeing how much under budget I can come in. My favorite budget category is food (okay so to be honest that is my favorite category for most things. I love food). We have a set amount of money each month for me to spend at the grocery store. I like to see if I can actually have money left over at the end of the month. Some months I do, some months I don't but it is a continuing challenge to myself.
I make menus to help me with my food budget and my time budget. I work 40 hours a week outside the home so I really need to have a plan in place for things like meals. We eat what I call simple foods and I make alot of 'rubber meals'. These aren't meals made out of rubber or tasting like rubber (not usually anyway) but meals where I start with one item and turn it into 2, 3 or even 4 more meals. Such as a Pot Roast. My Rubber Pot Roast might look like this:
Meal 1- Pot Roast cooked with potatoes, carrots, celery and onions.
Meal 2- Shredded beef and cheese enchiladas served with 'spanish' rice
Meal 3- Beef and veggie gravy (the leftover beef and veggies from meal 1 put in a homemade stroganoff like gravy) over egg noodles.

All of the meals would have a salad or a green veggie (or both) added to them and often times slices of fruit too and occasionally homemade bread or rolls.

I have been using rubber bean recipes alot lately too. This blog http://lentilsandrice.blogspot.com/ has been a huge source for me for her stretchy beans recipes. http://lentilsandrice.blogspot.com/search?q=stretchy+beans. This week we are using some of her garbanzo bean recipes. My family loves garbanzo beans (I grew up calling them chickpeas). Tonight we are having curried chickpeas with naan (fancy word for flatbread). I've made it once before and actually had to cut my husband off at his fourth serving! Tomorrow night is my version of falafels.

I post the weekly menu on the fridge. Hubby and the kids know what is for dinner and the younger girls even help me with cooking it. Tonight DD#3 will help me by rolling out the bread she does a great job at that task and it gives me some time alone with her.