Hello again and it’s not an April Fools joke

hello everyone

it’s been a hard few months here with my husband’s physical pain issues.  

But he finally got a big treatment yesterday and we are both hopeful he has turned a page and we can get back to living a more normal life.  

I’ve started some seeds indoors and hope to plant them outside by the middle of April 

My husband had this little greenhouse stored away.  It was advertised to be used outdoors but it can’t hold up to Oklahoma wind. 

it works great in our breakfast room area.

Most of our tomato and pepper seeds are planted in recycled food containers.  

I planted zinnias in the egg shells.  They are a little tricky to crack off just the end- I held the egg over a bowl and tapped around the end with a sharp knife until the end came off.  

and the opening is so small,  it takes a little fiddling to get the potting soil in. 

But I think the shells look cute and are something that normally just gets thrown away.

For April,  I want to spend less than $200 for groceries.  It shouldn’t be too hard as I’m starting with a full pantry, a lot of freezer items and $50 in credit at Kroger.  

I plan on sharing here what a buy and what we eat.  

inside our pantry - kind of hard to photograph as it is a narrow pantry with a narrow door

We don’t have a big deep freezer but we have 2 refrigerators and both have more than decent freezer storage space.  

I wanted to cook up some meals today.  I cooked a whole chicken and some plain rice over the weekend and I wanted to use them both up. 

I also had a bag of stuffing mix.  

So I cooked a casserole with 1/2 a bag of the stuffing mix cooked by the bag directions,  I also added diced chicken to the dressing.  the “gravy” on top was a can of cream soup thinned with 1/2 cup milk.  I baked the casserole for about 25 minutes. 

this is the carrots and celery sauteeing for the dressing.  (You all may call this stuffing but where I live,  we call it dressing). 

with the rest of the chicken and the cold. leftover rice,  I cooked fried rice.  

first I cooked about a cup of onions and carrots in about 2 T oil until the carrots were tender.  

Then I added about 1/2 of the bag of shredded cabbage and cooked it until soft.  

Next I added about 2 cups total of thawed corn peas and carrots, about 2 cups of diced chicken and about 3 cups of cold leftover rice.  

Keep cooking and stirring until it’s all hot and add low sodium soy sauce and pepper to taste.  

I also made a small batch of mashed potatoes to have with the chicken casserole.  

and I baked a batch of blond brownies while the oven was on.  

Hello again 

and I hope to be back to blogging and back connecting with you all

Rhonda ❤️