Need a frugal meal?

I’ve blogged about this recipe before.  This link in blue should take you to the recipe  on allrecipes.com 

Tasty Lentil Tacos   

Tasty Lentil Tacos might sound like an oxymoron but they really are good!  Yes, the texture is different than meat but I think with the taco seasoning,  it tastes identical to meat tacos.  

The extra lean pure ground beef I prefer from Walmart is about $8 a pound now.  

Lentils are about $1.25 a pound, and if you cooked the whole pound, it would yield a lot more than 1 pound of meat.  

So, I cooked up a batch of lentil tacos and we enjoyed them for 2 days.  

The first night we had them in taco salad bowls.  The second meal, we had rice and taco bowls with which ever toppings we preferred.  

If you want to see the lentil taco filling up close…..

These are the taco bowls we have occasionally- they are in the refrigerated section.  

I like them really crunchy and bake longer than the packaging suggests 

Lentil tacos won’t fool very particular eaters but they are delicious, quick to cook and thrifty 

❤️ Rhonda

New week to do list

Hello everyone 

It was a relief to get a lot of last week’s list done and our seems much better to me.  

Here’s this week’s list 

I straightened and inventoried our frozen food 

This list will be on the side of the refrigerator and I can mark off things as I use them, 

I wish we had more ground beef but I’m not complaining- there is a lot of frozen food.  And with grocery store prices going up,  I’m very thankful to have all this.  

3 of the grands were here some this weekend.  

These 2 boys watched some tv - I think they were tired from their week 

They also played with LEGO’s and made get well cards for Grandpa.  

And we did a Christmas craft kit their mom left here a while back 

It was a Hobby Lobby kit,  the pieces were a thin craft foam and had sticker backs,  

It was a fun, mess free and frustration free craft kit.  

The stockings turned out really cute too! 

I used some for a little garland on my hutch 

Sweet little Cora was here one afternoon. 

I worked on my to do list while she watched Cocomelon and then she worked on her list ❤️

  

She recently got her first haircut which she was very proud of 

Just a trim and a few bangs.  

My husband has had an unpleasant week with that cold and mostly stayed in the bedroom,  

He says he’s feeling much better this morning  and he slept all night.  

So, I hope we ALL have a great new week! 

❤️ Rhonda 

Meals this week

Monday was black eyed peas, rice and blackberry cobbler 

Tuesday I made tuna rice casserole, green beans and banana nut muffins to take to someone. 

We ate baked pasta, fresh fruit and crescent rolls and were joined by our son and granddaughter 

The pasta bake was half pound of cooked veggie pasta, half pound of cooked ground beef, 4 cups of homemade tomato

sauce from the freezer with mozzarella and Parmesan cheese on top.

My husband was feeling bad Tuesday night and by morning, we knew he was sick with what we think is a bad cold. 

So - no photo- but we had canned chicken noodle soup, crackers, cheddar cheese and more fresh fruit for Wednesday supper and Thursday lunch.

Thursday supper- I made another baked pasta as there was 1/2 pound cooked pasta and 1/2 pound cooked ground beef in the fridge left from Tuesday’s cooking 

With high food prices,  I’ll continue to try to never waste groceries.  

With it, we had more fruit and brownies 

Friday night, we were joined by 2 grandsons.  

We had pancakes, fruit and sausage.  

I picked this menu because the grandsons love pancakes and because there is fresh milk in the fridge that was just about to come to date, and that usually means that it’s going to turn sour so I wanted to use it before it did go off.

Did you notice the grass green bananas?  I’m still a fan of  Walmart grocery pick up, but this week’s bananas were very green! 

The pecans in the two canisters were a gift from our friend with the pecan orchard. He didn’t have a very big crop at all this year but he shared 6 pounds with us. A few weeks ago my husband helped him fix the propane cannon that scares away the crows like to eat pecans before they can get picked up. This batch of pecans are especially sweet and especially tasty! 

Our meals were light on vegetables this week but I hope we ate enough fruit to compensate for it. When people in the house are sick, meals aren’t always as balanced as they might be on regular days.

Our daughter and family have purchased this lot and plan to build a house on it. 

isn’t the sunset pretty on it tonight? 

It looks like it’s in the country and it feels like it’s in the country but it’s in the city limits and has several big established things near it. 

But I think they will feel pretty secluded and I don’t think things will change too much around it. It is in a new housing  development but all of the lots are pretty good size

 and their lot is the biggest in the development,

❤️ Rhonda 

2021 Christmas tree -

My husband and I discussed which tree to put up and he preferred the big white one.  

So I put it up and did minimal fluffing to it. 

I looked at the 3 tubs of ornaments and assorted doodads.  I got out my 4 mugs, the nativity set I bought 41 years ago and the 2 Santa’s for the grandchildren to play with.  

As I said before,  I just don’t enjoy putting all the ornaments on a tree and this giant tree would need a LOT of ornaments. 

I thought “what would my grandchildren like?”  Well, they like candy so I decided to do a candy cane decorated tree.  

It’s a prelite  tree and the lights can be white or multicolor 

The topper is a Santa hat I’ve had for years.  

Most of the candy canes are traditional peppermint but I got a few specialty ones.

I’ll keep this picture in case any candy cane eaters are trying to choose which cane to eat and wondering what flavor it might be.  

I had fun doing this tree and I think my grands will all be impressed 

But I’m sure it won’t be featured in Pinterest highlights either 😂

❤️🎄 Rhonda 

Pantry clean up and problem, commenting problem and which tree should I do?

Hello everyone,  

I was home all afternoon yesterday and all day today and I made quite a bit of progress on my to do list.

The floors all got cleaned yesterday and did they ever need it! 

The first job I did today was clean  and reorganize our pantry.  

This is before ——

And after 

I made a new batch of taco seasoning - it’s a tried and true recipe and I’ve blogged about it multiple times.  

A triple batch fills a quart jar - I’ve put this in small jars for Christmas gifts and everyone liked it 

Just a caution about pantry filling - I had 2 unopened boxes of Aldi brand “Velveeta”

 They were out of date by a few months (but I don’t rely strictly on dates)

I opened one for a recipe I cooked yesterday and that shelf stable cheese was dry and brown.  

So I opened the second one and it was the same.  

I threw it away.  

when I bought more,  I only bought one and I spent extra for the name brand.  

I don’t know what happened with the Aldi product 

I’m thinking about how to decorate for Christmas.  I looked on my old blog posts to remember what we did other years .

I still haven’t decided. 

This white tree is very tall and I could decorate it like a snowman again or put an assortment of ornaments on it.

Or I could use the short green one.  It’s a nice tree and a small tree would be easier. 

I think my grands would love the tall one though 

   

How do you all vote?  

Also, Blog authors,  if your blog is in my sidebar,  I read your blog.  And I’ve been trying to comment recently but my comments seem to just disappear when I hit publish- with no message about my comment needing to be approved.  

I’m sure it’s a blogger bug and I’m hoping to figure it out.  

But please know I’m not ignoring you all 

❤️ Rhonda 

Let’s get my home back in shape

Good morning Homemakers 

First here is my to do list for the week 

It’s different than how I usually do it.  And I’ll explain.  Because every room in our home needs more than just some vacuuming and dusting,  I listed each room and my plan is tackle each room and then as I get it back right,  I’ll move to another room.  

This is what all the rooms looked like Sunday afternoon 

  

I took all these photos in about 3 minutes and Ducky followed me from room to room.  

The bathrooms and laundry room also need attention, but really, who wants to see a messy bathroom?  

I hope I can get lots done but last week, I was slowed way down with a cranky back.  It’s been feeling fine the last 2 days but I’ll be careful and if it flares up, I’ll have to stop.  

My plan is to do floors, dusting, wash bedding as needed and deal with clutter in every room.  

Anyone else starting  this week after Thanksgiving with a messy house?  😧😧😧

I’ll check back in soon…….

❤️Rhonda 

I think I’m back

Hello everyone, 

I’ve already blogged about things keeping us busy.  And you all know how the pandemic halted most travel plans. 

Well, my husband and I are vaccinated and boosted so we felt it was safe for us go on a Branson vacation we scheduled months ago.  

We celebrated our 40 and 41st anniversary during the “stay at home” days so we tried to make this long awaited vacation as memorable as we could.  

We spent a week in a condo and mostly saw lots of shows.  We ate a meal out everyday and then had light breakfasts and suppers in the condo.  

Outside the patio of our condo were pine tree with long skinny pine cones- they were about 6-8 inches long and I thought about bringing some home but they were full of pine sap and very sticky so all the pine cones stayed in Branson.  

The Duttons 

Steve, Larry and Rudy Gatlin 

Johnson Strings - their costumes light up and changed color 

Hughes Family Christmas 

Clay Cooper 

Jesus at the huge Sight and Sound theater 

We ate some very good meals but I only took a photo of this one 

Loose meat sandwiches at Heroes Tastes and Taps-  so good! 

We saw more shows but I didn’t  take photos at any of them.  

We shopped just a bit but I’m not much in a shopping mood these days.  

Branson is a great town.  It is very busy now as so many people are back vacationing.  

My advice - if you want to travel there- check online reviews for the attractions you’re thinking about, take lots of patience and take a big pile of money 

My husband and me- in the lobby of the Mansion theater where the Gatlins played just one show.  

I plan on blogging regularly now

See you all soon

❤️ Rhonda