Meals this week

Hello everyone 

Here is what we ate for our main meals this week 

This was a white chicken chili (that looks more green than white) It was based off of several recipes and contained white chicken, white beans,  green chili verde sauce, onions, green chilis, corn, chicken broth and taco seasoning 

Tuesday we had cheeseburger bowls- just everything that goes on a cheeseburger but no bun and served in a bowl.  

Wednesday was dill pickle chicken- I save pickle jars and juice when the pickles are gone.  Then chicken gets marinated in the refrigerator in that dill pickle juice for 8 or more hours.  
I put a light coating of seasoned flour on each piece of chicken and then fried them in just enough oil to keep them from sticking.  

we had some steamed vegetables and little oranges with the chicken strips.  

Thursday is the day we went to the commissary.  

That day we gate lunch at Cheddars that is just outside the Air Force base main gate.  

My husband had a cheeseburger,  I had blackened fish and we both had cole slaw.  

It was a really tasty meal.  

Friday night 2 grandchildren were here.  We had homemade pizza.  

The grownups like onions, peppers and jalapeños on theirs.  The grandchildren wanted just meat and cheese.  

Saturday morning breakfast was also eaten by the 2 grandchildren that slept over.  

We all had some french puff muffins.  Some of us had sausage, some had eggs.  

When their dad picked them shortly after we ate,  He ate a leftover muffin and the last of the sausage and he took the last muffin to our daughter.  

Then Saturday,  I cooked a new recipe with some of that stew meat in the meat bargain box.  I was sure we would like it so I made a double batch.  

It turned out really good!  

We’ve ate it Saturday and Sunday and I put 2 meal size portions in the freezer.  

https://southernbite.com/slow-cooker-beef-and-noodles/

What have y’all been cooking? 

❤️ Rhonda 

Thankful for some bargains

My husband’s back is making him miserable.  He just had an MRI and we aren’t medically trained but we can see from the MRI,  he has problems.  He has an appointment with a surgeon next week .  

He hurts when he sits still and he hurts when he moves around,  so to give him a distraction,  we drove about an hour to the Tinker Air Force Base to shop.  

Their commissary has always had good beef.  I’m sure you all know how expensive beef is right now,  I haven’t bought any for a while and beef was the main thing on my list.  

The Tinker meat department is huge- probably 100 feet or more long.  

They sometimes have these discount boxes made up.  I’ve bought them before and I remember one time,  they made 2 for me,  

Anyway,  they had 2 made up and I bought them both.  

I trust their quality and I’ll just cook whatever is in them.  

this box is all beef 
this one is pork and beef 
$74 seems expensive but it was heavy- so I bought it.  

Inside this one was 4 rolls of ground beef,  3 packs of boneless pork, a big pork tenderloin, 2 stew meat and a small beef roast.  

I added up the price stickers and these would have sold individually for $67.63—-instead of the $55 on the box price tag.  
This all beef box had a large ground beef, 4 assorted roasts and 3 more packs of stew meat.  

They added up to $128.51 —-a huge savings since I paid $77.  

If you’re wondering if this meat was past its best date- No, not at all.  I shopped on the 12th and this roast was packed on the 11th.  

When we got home,  I double- bagged some of these packages and put them straight away in the freezer.  

I put the ground beef and stew meat in the fridge and I may cook some it before freezing.  

I also have some chicken to repackage.  

If you have elgibility and access to a military commissary,  you might want to see what you can find.  

In general,  the current prices on most items are similar to civilian stores.  I mainly commissary shop for meat.  I think all the meat I browsed was lower than current store prices.  

I need to get busy.  That meat needs to be dealt with.  

But I won’t need to shop for meat again for months! 

❤️ Rhonda

Valentines fun

Our Christmas tree is still up in our living room.  I took off the Christmas ornaments and then put on winter themed ones.

In February,  I put away  the winter themed ones and put hearts on the tree.  

Who knows,  I may switch it to Easter things come March but I may pack it all away.  

For now,  it’s a fun decoration.  I especially enjoy the twinkle lights in the evening.  
there are a few Valentine decorations on our mantel.  The valentines pillows are just zippered covers that are very easy to change.  

Years ago,  we homeschooled for 2 years.  Our children enjoyed it and really benefited from it,  What they missed most about school was the themed parties.  

So we had our own Valentines party that first year of homeschool.  We all made a valentine box,  just like school,  and then we put little treats in everyone’s box.  

My children are all creative and so are their children.  

Before we opened our boxes at this year’s party,  we decorated gingerbread houses in Valentine themes.  

I bought the kits at Walmart- 90% off - and  I assembled them with a hot glue gun before the party.  

Below are our boxes.  
I wasn’t kidding when I said my children are creative.  My daughter bakes so she made her box like an oven.  

Her husband is a sports fan and his looks an Olympic curling arena.  
The green is a Minecraft creature,  a Minion and a very festive dragon.  

Decorating the houses was fun - sorry no faces but some of our family members have privacy concerns- 

There were 9 of at this party.  After the sweet fun,  we had a taco bar from Fuzzy’s.  

I sent some gel window stickers to our granddaughter in Indiana.  She really likes rearranging them on their dining room windows.  

Look at all their ⛄️ ❄️ ❄️! 

grandparent tip- window gels are fun and very easy to mail if you want to send a gift 

links to two different parties we had in the past

https://ifyoudostuff.blogspot.com/2020/02/valentines-gingerbread-house-party.html

https://ifyoudostuff.blogspot.com/2015/02/happy-valentines-day-2015.html

Valentines party are fun!  It’s not too late for you to plan one for your family.  ❤️

❤️ Rhonda ❤️

meals and valentines

as I started writing this post, it got very photo-heavy. So it will mostly be about meals and I’ll do a valentine post hopefully  tomorrow

We had a lot of snow toward the end of January.

I also got my final Kroger delivery as they will no longer be doing deliveries in my state.  I ordered a good bit on this final delivery and I’m not sure what I’m going to do about groceries. I really do not like shopping in the store anymore.

 Below are the meals we had this week- nothing remarkable but we enjoyed all of them.

On Sunday, we had some boneless pork chops cooked in sauerkraut with mashed potatoes and biscuits
Monday, we had the leftover pork, kraut and potatoes. I also baked a batch of banana muffins with two very overripe bananas, and a pan of blonde brownies.  Only my husband and I ate the meal, but my daughter and two grandchildren stopped over that afternoon and they were very happy to eat fresh muffins and brownies.  It was nice seeing them enjoy eating the baked goods.  
On Tuesday, I made a batch of coleslaw and some pickled red onions.

The onions were very simple.- thinly sliced red onion in a jar and then topped with 3/4 cup of Apple cider vinegar, a quarter cup of water, a tablespoon of sugar, salt and black pepper that had been boiled together 
I also peeled and cut up two large sweet potatoes and intended to cook salmon patties that night.  

But I had a few errands to run that day and by the time I got home, I didn’t want to even  cook simple salmon patties
So Wednesday we took a little ham steak from the freezer, baked a few biscuits, and served it with the coleslaw and onions.
Thursday,  I made a double batch of tasty lentil tacos in the slow cooker.  I have made these many times and the recipe is here on the blog

I kept out a dish and the rest went in the freezer for future meal
so we had lentil taco salads that night.  
Friday, I finally cooked the salmon patties.  I don’t like cooking them in the house just because the smell lingers so long.

This ninja cooker is a slow cooker, but it also has a braise cycle so it will work like a skillet.  The downside is it has a very short cord.

I took it to the patio and the only way I could use it at that plug without an extension cord was to set the cooker on a bucket.  

There were no children or pets roaming around. The cooker worked great and I think I will always cook salmon patties on the patio from now on
We had baked sweet potato fries with the salmon patties

My husband cooked a pork tenderloin outside. We ate it with salad.  

I’ve got a few valentine decorations up and we have had a very fun family valentine party.

I will blog about that very soon

talk with you all soon 

❤️ Rhonda 

To do list and home things from last week

hello everyone

Above is my to-do list for this week.

I may do more than is on the list but maybe not.

My energy levels are just not what they used to be so I hope to do everything on the list and maybe I will do a few more things too

I’ll let y’all know

I picked up three of the grandchildren after school and then they had a sleepover.

I planned ahead for the evening meal. I decided we’d have hamburgers and baked potatoes.

So that morning I fixed up some topping and relish plates, and I washed potatoes to bake

I baked extra potatoes because we like to make hashbrowns from them

Sometimes I peel the cold leftover potatoes and cook them right away for hashbrowns. Sometimes I grate them and put them in a bag and freeze them for future hashbrowns.
Another day last week I knew I needed to be gone part of the day, but we would want supper.

I had written down this very easy pizza dough recipe.

So I mixed it up real quick before I left, then I put it in a bag with a little bit of oil in the refrigerator.

I copied the recipe down from somebody else online, but I don’t remember who.

It’s not a dough that you have to knead she said.

I do recommend the dough. It was very easy, and very Thrifty.

It made a tasty supper for the two of us

About The mixer bowl covers, I’m sure there are many tutorials for them online.

I made this one for our KitchenAid mixer several months ago and then I made the neutral color one for my daughter’s big mixing bowl

I just cut out two circles of fabric. For the KitchenAid mixer bowl, I Drew around a pizza pan for the circle pattern

Then machine stitch the two circles together, right sides together, close to the edge, leaving an opening to turn

Turn them right side out and again stitch close to the edge, leaving the opening unstitched

Stitch about half an inch away from the first stitching, but go all the way around this time

Insert quarter inch wide elastic Into that casing you just sewed,  adjust the elastic for the right amount of tension for your bowl, and finish it off

I made this bowl out of two different fabrics so I can display the holly fabric at Christmas and the chicken fabric the rest of the time

These are a quick and easy sewing project and would make nice gifts I think.

I saw a purchased Bowl cover on a big salad That a friend brought to a gathering.

The outside was a pretty Fabric and the inside was that water resistant fabric that they use on cloth diaper covers, it has a name, but I don’t know what it is.  

I like to have succulent plants in planters on our patio in the spring and summer.

This fall, I brought some of them into the house and put them in one of the bedrooms

It’s not a particularly sunny room because even though there is a big window, that side of the house is in shade most of the time

But I am very pleased with how well the plants are doing, and it’s not because they’re getting a lot of loving extra care from me.

I try to remember to open the curtains every day, but sometimes I forget

And I just water them every 10 to 14 days

See all the babies in this aloe plant?
These succulent leaves are turning into new plants. They are so interesting how the ends produce a new sprout. You can’t see it, but there are little roots right underneath the new sprout going down into the dirt. I will put them in small pots when it gets warm

I think this plant might be called a silver dollar plant but it’s putting off a new baby down in the dirt too.

My mom has crocheted most of all of her life.

She pretty much only does small projects now, but she still crocheting everyday.  

She made these Snowman heads Several years ago, they were probably supposed to be Christmas tree ornaments I’m guessing,

Anyway, she decided she wanted them put on a wreath.  

She had an 8 inch wooden embroidery hoop, and she crocheted around it. Then she wanted me to hot glue the snowman heads onto the wreath.

I didn’t like the idea of putting hot glue on them. So I got a big needle and put some yarn in it and sewed each head to the wreath

Now it is hanging on her front door in her retirement home.  

my husband has  good day and bad days.

He recently got new hearing aids from the VA and they have done wonders helping his tinnitus.

This morning he cooked our breakfast and it was delicious!

I don’t believe it was in the weather forecast, but we woke up Saturday to a very light dusting of snow. It wasn’t enough to hinder traffic, it just looked pretty

hope you are all having a good start to your week

❤️ Rhonda