December recap and 2022 post #1

Hello everyone 

First, I hope this new year will be wonderful for everyone

Our New Years Day traditions are to have this little guy on display 

And we eat black eye peas, rice and cabbage.  This year we had ham with pineapple sauce and corn fritters too.  

December was not the best month.  My husband and I both ended up with terrible colds and we stayed home for days and days.  

No cooking was done except we ate buttered toast for most every breakfast 

And chicken noodle supper for the other meals we were hungry,  

Looking at the candy cane Christmas tree while I was sick made me not like it at all,  so when we both were feeling better,  we redecorated the tree with ornaments.  

I like it much better and the kiddos have loved having candy canes to munch on.  So it all worked out just fine. 

We had a fun family Christmas with 15 of  us here.  

We had catering from Chipotle.  I was feeling better but not up to cooking much.  

We rented a bounce house for the backyard.  

We had mini gingerbread houses to decorate and the kiddos loved unwrapping a Saran Wrap prize ball and their Christmas gifts 

I’m hoping to blog more in 2022 and will see how it goes.  

I’m not making resolutions but I have written up a few goals and plans.  

I’ll share those tomorrow.  

Happy 2022 everyone 🎉

❤️ Rhonda 

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