Cooking and thrfiting and a little chitchat

hello everyone.  I'm still working on my kitchen but I don't have any photos to share.  I'll try to take them and do that tomorrow.  I did deliver 7 containers of stuff to a thrift store and I have a shopping bag full of my daughter's things to return to her. All of that freed up so much  lot of space.

I cooked a new recipe this week and it was so good!  It's also quick and on thrifty side and is reasonably healthy.   I looked at several similar recipes online for Korean Beef Rice bowls and changed it up to suit the ingredients I have and like----

Korean Beef Rice Bowls 

1 pound of lean ground beef

1/2 onion- diced

2 carrots grated 

3 T low sodium soy sauce

6 T sweet chili sauce 

Brown the beef and drain.  

Add the veggies and cook till softened. 

Add the 2 sauces and some black pepper and cook on low until heated.  

Serve on top of hot cooked rice 

That's it!  

I bought the sweet chili sauce in the Asian section at Walmart.  It is a little sweet, but not nearly as sweet as  sweet and sour sauce, and it is HOT.  So this dish made with this sauce is probably not for children or people who don't like spicy.  

The sweet chili sauce is supposedly what Panda Express uses for their sweet fire chicken.  

More veggies would be good in this like zucchini or celery or bell peppers or water chestnuts. 

My son and I visited a thrift store today and found a few treasures.  

4 Rubber stamps for me- not a necessity but aren't they cute?  I think total they were $7

2 yards of fabric - it's cute too!  but I bought it because of its sentimentality.

This fabric is from a children's clothing factory that used to be in our town.  They sold their extra fabric twice a year and I always went to the sale as things were priced so cheap and it was all very nice quality.  I made an apron from this fabric way back then and I wore it often. 

One of my children would also put on this apron, and tie a bandana on their head, whenever we were doing chores.  - what drama but a fun memory. 

My son was looking for plaid fabric to make a swag for an archway for his apartment for Christmas. 

He didn't find enough fabric but he did find a plaid dust ruffle for just $1.50 as the linens were 1/2 price.  He cut off the plaid part with my fabric scissors and will try it out in his space for size.  He ended up with many yards of nice plaid but it may be too narrow so I may need to do some simple sewing to adjust it. 

He also ordered some things from Pottery Barn and had it delivered to our house.  That is fine with me because we will now get their catalogs in the mail..
Pottery Barn says plaid is the in thing for Christmas decorating this year. 

I can't imagine I will order anything myself but the PB catalogs do have lots of good ideas and pretty photos.  I'll enjoy looking at them. 

My Texas brother recently came to Oklahoma and stayed with my parents. 
So, I took supper to them one night. 
Chicken and Stovetop stuffing casserole - it was baked in pyrex and transferred to plastic for traveling
Baked carrots
Loaf of bread made in ABM
sugar free orange jello with mandarin oranges
and a rustic but delicious blackberry pie made with some of my freezer pie crusts.  One of the crusts "broke" so I used it for the top crust and just went with it

I'll take kitchen cabinet photos tomorrow- I am really happy with how better my kitchen is working. 
Have a good sleep and a good Sunday everyone

Day 2 of kitchen ship-shape

I spent a lot of my free time yesterday and today working in the kitchen.  I think I've got rid of all th trash as well as 3 sacks and 2 boxes full of stuff to be donated .......

And these currently unused dishes were stored in hard to reach spots so I packed them up and they will go to my husband's backyard work building.  Instead of using tape to label the tubs (tape might fall off after a few years) I wrote the tub contents on sheets of paper and put them inside the  clear tubs.  Those should stay in place 👍

That's about the extent of my progress.  There is cleaning to still be done and a bit more organizing.  

Now, my cabinets are nothing like a game of Jenga.  Everything is easy to see and take out or put back.  

I heard on the radio that for the first time, more homes with 3 car garages are being built than 1 bedroom apartments.  They said it was because more multi-generational families are living together and that's why we have bigger homes. 

Nope, I don't think that's why.  I think people want bigger homes because they have so much stuff! 😂

What do you think?