Back to regular homekeeping

Hello everyone 

It’s Monday and I’m hoping to have a productive week.

I made a to do list 

I checked off a few things but my husband had a morning Dr appt with his back specialist and then we got a grocery pickup.

No photo of our purchases though as I was in a hurry to put things away and it was just normal kitchen items.  

Sadly they were out of 8 things on my list- lactose free milk, hens, strawberries, clementines, and I don’t remember the other things 

And then we had a visitor.

So…….. I didn’t get as many things done today as I hoped but tomorrow is a new day. 

I put out a few fall decorations 

This wreath  is not new, according to my blog it’s been on our front door since at least 2014 and I think it’s several years older than that.

We got some much needed rain today so I’ll sweep the leaves later.  It would of been pointless today,

The pumpkins were bought at a church fundraiser by our son in law’s mother.  She takes her grandchildren there every year and since those children currently live here,  the pumpkins are on our front porch.  

The baseball shoes belong to them too 🙂

I saw this instagram recipe and tried it today as we had all the ingredients on hand 

Below is a screenshot from IG 

They were very fast to mix up and they are quite tasty.  I’m sure the grands will like them.  


Hope you all have a productive week

❤️Rhonda 

Shopping at a military commissary and some replies

Hello everyone 

My husband needed to go the VA hospital to get his eyeglasses adjusted. 

So while we were near a military base,  we shopped at a commissary.  Commissaries are grocery stores for military.  

Commissaries used to have very low prices compared to civilian stores.   Compared to stores in my town now though,  the commissary is about the same on most prices.  

We go there because their meats are higher quality and a good bit cheaper than I can buy locally.  They also have some brands we can’t get locally and they do have some good sales and coupon matchups.  

I got the  biggest  surprise and laugh when I saw a supply chain problem there. 

The meat was not wrapped on a plastic or styrofoam meat tray but was wrapped on an assortment of disposable plates.  😂

I’m guessing was did not make the butchers and meat wrappers too happy as the plates are much floppier than meat trays.  

We like to buy these big boxes of meat for $43

The commissary labels them Economy Boxes and I think they are a good economy. 

Our box had 3 packs pork chops, 1 pack of 2 pork tenderloins, 

1 beef roast, 2 trays of beef cube steaks and 4 rolls of 85% ground beef. 

I added up all the price stickers on the wrapped meat and it came to just a few cents away from $43 

I don’t know how much the ground beef rolls sell for but it’s like they were free because all the wrapped meats are things we might of bought individually anyway and they cost the total of the box. 

Our very best bargain today was eggs.  Are eggs really high where you shop?  I think the last carton of 18 eggs from Walmart was $5.89.

  

I’ve never seen eggs in 24 count cartons and these were $3.39 a carton. 

We bought 3 as we eat lots of eggs with 7 of us living here 

https://news.va.gov/101540/eligible-veterans-can-shop-at-defense-commissaries/

Commissary shopping privileges are now available to veterans rated with any military disability and their dependents  and for reserves, in addition to retirees and active duty. 

I’m not sure how vets without ID cards get that established to shop there but I do think it is worth it, especially if your nearest commissary has a great meat department like Tinker Air Force commissary.  

A few replies 

The White Lily flour made especially nice pizza crust.  It was soft on top and crisp on the bottom. 

The chocolate chip cookies were really good too and had a nice crispness to them too. 

If I am in the Deep South and can purchase this flour, I may get a few more bags but I won’t pay crazy shipping prices to get it any other way.  

About the stuffed peaches,  I used canned peach halves.  

Drain them and turn them all cut side up.

For a 28 ounce of peach halves,  I mix about 4 ounces of softened cream cheese, a little vanilla, maybe 1/4 c finely chopped pecans and 2 or 3 T powdered sugar.  

Then fill each peach half and keep chilled until serving. 

http://ifyoudostuff.blogspot.com/2020/12/blogidays-december-7-cream-cheese.html

That link is when I blogged about them a few years ago and also contains a link to YouTube video of  a homemaker preparing a very similar recipe.  

Sorry about my infrequent posts.

I am doing a good bit of cooking and cleaning with 7 in our home, but frankly, I just don’t get as much done as I used to.

I keep all the necessary things done but I don’t have the energy right now to do lots of creative or extra stuff.  

Hope you are well and happy 

❤️ Rhonda 

Another morning in the kitchen

Hello everyone 

First to answer a few questions- 

Cheese has always kept just in the freezer for us.  Sometimes I freeze cheese that I shredded and sometimes I freeze the pre-shredded cheese.  I can’t tell any difference in fresh cheese and thawed out cheese.  

Daughter and family are still living here.  Work is happening almost everyday at their new home but construction just takes awhile.  

About nonstick cookware, many of them say “lifetime warranty”. But in my experience, they all start sticking after a year or so.  

It’s hard for me with the cast iron, as it is heavy and my mind thinks you need soap to clean stuff.  But I use a scrub brush, hot water and sometimes a little salt.  Then I dry the skillet and use a paper towel to rub it with just a few drops of coconut oil.  So far, my big skillet is staying clean and I like using it.  I have 2 smaller skillets that I cleaned and re-seasoned. But I haven’t got in the routine of using them.  

With 7 in this home, the really big skillet makes the most sense anyway.  

About the 2 girls that came for the supper the night we had apple crisp,  it was no drama, just 2 sweet girls from out of town that had the same classes as our son and all worked at the same restaurant.

Now there was another night with some drama around that same timeframe. A different son had a girlfriend name Stephanie but they “broke up”. Then he quickly started dating Luanne. We had a family gathering around that same time and the son came with Luanne and somehow Stephanie knew about the party and she also came.  Nothing crazy happened but we were certainly on pins and needles wondering what might happen.  

On to today,  I wanted to try White Lily flour after seeing it on Southern cooking shows. Daughter and husband made a quick trip to South Carolina for his work and brought me back two bags of White Lily  flour. (Stores in my Oklahoma town don’t carry this brand) 

 So I’ve been looking on the White Lily website and found a few recipes and started them today.

Today is Friday and we almost always have pizza so I made a double batch of pizza dough. The website says pizza will be thinner and crisper made with white lily. Tomorrow is Saturday and we usually have a big cup to breakfast so I mixed up some ingredients to make biscuits. I use the recipe on the back of the bag and it calls for shortening. I don’t use shortening very often but I had a small can in the pantry. It was still in date but it smelled rancid so I just used butter instead. I also mixed up a batch of refrigerator chocolate chip cookie dough that you shake it to rolls and then can just slice off before you bake them. And granddaughter Elizabeth has been asking for peach halves that are filled with cream cheese mixed with chopped pecans, powdered sugar and vanilla.  So I made a batch of those too.  

Everything waiting in the fridge for supper and breakfast. 

On the right is a big pack of thick sliced that we bought from a fundraiser from grandson Gavin’s FFA group.

I think the breakfast eaters will be especially happy tomorrow.

White Lily flour recipes used 

Pizza recipe

https://www.whitelily.com/recipes/easy-homemade-deluxe-pizzas-3878/

Chocolate chip cookie refrigerator cookies recipe 

https://www.whitelily.com/recipes/chocolate-chip-refrigerator-cookies-3528/

Biscuit recipe on the back of the bag 

This is not a sponsored post. I think you might have to say that whenever you are talking about a product these days.
And I haven’t actually cooked any of this yet. I’ll let y’all know in my next post how it all turns out.

❤️Rhonda 

Hello on the last day of summer

Hello everyone 

Sorry about my break- days are busy and not always very interesting so I haven’t really thought to share anything. 

Today was fairly routine but some of you might like seeing what I did.

First,  my to do list for this week was not pretty but I’m thankful so much of it is done,

 

Today was mostly a kitchen day.

I had some ripe bananas so I baked a batch of muffins- half went in the freezer and the other half are for whenever anyone feels like eating some. ‘

Granddaughter Elizabeth ate 2 when she got home from school 😋

My husband’s favorite quick breakfast is a sausage biscuit. 

I cooked these with one roll of sausage and 1 can of biscuits,  the leftovers freeze perfectly and reheat in the microwave

I’ve blogged about sausage biscuits many times.  The new thing in the photo is I’ve been using cast iron.  I’ve mostly used nonstick but I’m tired of replacing them when the nonstick starts sticking. 

My husband had a few pieces of cast iron that he got from a friend way back when our sons were in a church youth group and my husband cooked for the camp outs. 

He showed me the skillets and I did a little research.  One is a Waggoner brand and really old I think.  It was quite an effort but I cleaned them and re-seasoned them and this skillet in the photo cooks so nice,  

I made a batch of taco seasoning, which I have also blogged about many times.  We all still like it! 

I did a grocery pickup from Walmart - want to see what I bought?  

Inflation has me shopping very basically 

Block cheese, milk, In the bags are biscuits.

Onions, apples, oranges, lettuce, tomatoes, grapes

Lots of cheese, Turkey pepperoni, black pepper, bread, tortillas and hot dog buns.  

  —- I ordered Walmart brand bread and tortillas because of their lower price  but they subbed the name brand ones for the store brand price. 

Non food items were pill boxes and hairbrushes  for me,  vitamins for me and husband  and allergy med for one of the grands. 

I repacked the cheese to freeze in smaller portions 

I prefer to use reusable containers but didn’t have enough today.  

Last week I made big batches of lentil taco filling and pasta sauce.  

They are in the freezer  in the rest of my containers so I had to use a few zipper bags for this cheese when I ran out of empty containers.  

Dessert tonight was an apple crisp made with 3 apples that were starting to wrinkle.

It’s a Betty Crocker recipe and it was delicious. 

I had a very happy memory when I was making it.  About 20 years when one of our sons was in college, he came for supper and brought 2 sweet girls.  I don’t remember what I cooked for the meal but dessert that night was also Betty Crocker’ s apple crisp.  Those girls especially enjoyed that dessert.  

I used my cookbook for the recipe but I found the exact recipe here https://lovintheoven.com/betty-crockers-apple-crisp/

Except I used 1/2 cup of brown sugar instead of 3/4 cups and no nutmeg. Just cinnamon 

And here is the room I spent so much time in today.  My kitchen is open at both ends so I took a photo from both angles. 

Good night everyone 

❤️ Rhonda 

BEDA #16 all about Perler beads

Hello everyone 

My grandchildren really enjoy Perler bead crafting.  I think we first started doing them back when Elizabeth and Gavin were 1st and 2nd graders- they are now 7th and 8th graders and still like Perler beads as do all the 7 younger grandchildren. 

Perler beads are plastic and we’ve like the regular size as well as Biggie Perler beads.  

Perlers also come in a micro size, about like seed beads but we haven’t used that kind.  

When you buy new beads, they come in color sorted trays and in bulk mixed buckets.  Either work fine but we all prefer the sorted trays.  

You need a base plate to work the Perlers on.  Plates come in shapes as well as plain square ones.  

Tweezers are not necessary but I prefer to use them and I think all the grandchildren do too. 

After the pattern with beads is complete,  you just cover it with the Perler paper and iron with any regular iron. The iron melts the beads and they whole thing holds together.  

The ironed side will look smooth and the other side will look like the beads. M

After ironing,  we put a heavy book on top and let the designs cool as they sometimes get a little wavy if they cool uncovered.  

These are a few of the grands recent makes - patterns come with the bead sets or can be found online or you can just make up your own art work. 

Below is a 3 dimensional bookshelf complete with books made by Elizabeth.  There is also a Biggie beads project that I will use as a trivet. 

JJ made the pattern himself.  Afterward I told him it looked like a Trip Around The World quilt and he didn’t believe me until I showed him the quilts on Pinterest.  He thought he was first person to ever make this pattern.  

Adults like doing Perler projects.  

In our experience, 3 years up to 6 are best with the Biggie beads. 

Some 6’s can do regular Perlers and by 7, all the kids have mastered the regular ones. 

If your needing a project that multiple ages can all enjoy, or maybe you’re starting Christmas shopping- we all think Perlers are great! 

They are sold at craft stores and big places like Amazon and Walmart. 

You might even find some at a yard sale. 

Our very first Perlers were given to us by a family who’s daughters had stopped using them.  

❤️Rhonda