Meals We Prepped #5

We did our quick trip to Winco Friday evening as we were in the area and our Saturday was looking a bit hectic with a schedule change and several activities on the docket.  I didn't do any meal prepping on Saturday either.  We came home Saturday pooped out and happy to know there was a buffet of leftovers in the fridge for supper.

Sunday morning I pulled out the piece of pot roast I'd set aside in the freezer the week before, two small packages of ground beef and a package of chicken breast I'd already cut into pieces.  I let them thaw and then I got to work.

First up was to prepare the stroganoff using the pot roast.  I sliced up an 8 ox package of baby portabella mushrooms and finely diced half a small onion.  

I sautéed that in olive oil and then added two heaping tablespoons of flour and about 3 cups of milk.  I seasoned it with salt, pepper and onion powder and let it come to a boil and thicken.  I shredded the roast and added it to the mushroom sauce.  

I let that simmer about ten minutes before removing it from the burner and stirring in a cup of sour cream.

Next I quickly put together the tater tot casserole by patting a pound and a half of ground beef into the bottom of a baking dish.  I topped that with a can of cream of mushroom soup, then peas & carrots and topped it with tater tots.  I covered the pan with foil and put it into the refrigerator.

The girls took over and made a pan of rice and cooked a bag of egg noodles.  They washed the green beans I had leftover from last week and we steamed those to go with the stroganoff instead of sautéing the squash.  We quickly cleaned up the kitchen and enjoyed an early Sunday supper.

Sunday - Beef stroganoff and green beans for our Sunday dinner with plenty of leftovers for another day.

Monday - I cooked up the cubed chicken with some teriyaki sauce I had bought at the dollar store, reheated the rice in the microwave for 5 minutes and made a quick green salad.  Dinner was ready in 15 minutes.

Tuesday - I reheated the leftover stroganoff and the green beans in the microwave.  Dinner was ready in 10 minutes.

Look how crispy those tater tots are!

Wednesday - I put the tater tot casserole in the convection oven for 50 minutes to bake while I went to pick up my daughter from cheer practice.  My oldest was home so I didn't need to worry about leaving an unattended oven.  I served it with leftover salad.

Thursday - The girls made breakfast burritos by scrambling some eggs and cooked pork sausage together.  We topped that with cheese and salsa.  I opened a can of peaches to go with it.  Dinner was ready in 10 minutes.

Friday - In the morning I boiled a package of bow tie pasta, rinsed it with some cold water and put it in the refrigerator.  When I got home I cut up some veggies and put together a quick salad with some Roasted Red Pepper salad dressing.  I sautéed some frozen shrimp I had in the freezer to serve alongside.  Dinner was ready in 15 minutes!

Saturday - I still had hotdog buns and wieners left from the week before.  We baked a small pan of leftover tater tots to go with and a little green salad of lettuce and tomato.  Super quick and the kids loved it.

Every week I find myself excited about the meals we get to eat and even the shopping and meal prepping too.  The girls help out which makes the process even easier and we are having fun too.  They enjoy going to the grocery store, helping to plan the menus, as well as the cooking.

We all continue to appreciate a cleaner kitchen and less dishes to wash during the week.  Have any of you tried to do a little meal prepping lately?

Making Undies

Lately I've been making ladies underwear.  One of the things I wanted to do for gifts for my girls was to dig out an old pattern I have and make them some pretty panties.  While I already had plenty of elastic, lace and pretty embellishments to make them I didn't have any fabric.  My girls wear cotton so I decide to look at the fabric stores for some fun knits.  Unfortunately the selection was poor and the price surprisingly high.  So I waited and I thought about it.  Then I got an idea!

Last spring I used a 20% OFF coupon at JoAnn Fabrics and picked up half a dozen XXL 100% cotton T-shirts that were on sale for $2.50 each.  I bought the biggest ones they had so I'd get the most fabric.  The coupon shaved an extra quarter off of the price so on six shirts I saved an extra $1.50!  Not a bad haul given the current price of ladies underwear.

The pattern I have is made by Stretch & Sew and is one I used waaaaay back in the eighties when I was broke.  I had borrowed it from my mom who at one time had worked for Stretch & Sew as an instructor.  Needless to say, she has a ton of patterns.  Several years ago I had mentioned that pattern to her and told her I was going to look on eBay to see if I could find one.  She ended up giving me the pattern back and told me I could keep it.  And it sat there.  Until recently.

A couple weeks ago I washed all of those T-shirts in warm water to remove the sizing and shrink them up if that is what they might do.  Then I dug out that pattern and used a piece of tissue wrap to trace the three pattern pieces.  I used one of my kids washable markers.  That worked well and no bleed through.  I cut out the pieces and then pinned them to the T -shirts and cut out six pair.  The instructions are really easy to follow and making them is far simpler than one might think.  And it is a lot of fun.

They are coming along quite nicely and I think they are every bit as nice as store bought.  Possibly even better quality.  Once these are done I might even make a couple pair for myself.  I need to find out where to buy tricot (nylon) online as JoAnn's doesn't carry it anymore.  I think I have a couple of leads but if anyone knows where to go please share that in the comments.

I know Stretch & Sew and I believe Kwik Sew made these multi size traceable patterns back in the day.  They also made patterns for men's and boy's underwear and I've made those before as well.  If you think you might be interested in making some for yourself or your family I'd encourage you to find a pattern on eBay or maybe even Etsy.  I think they are a great value.

Last Week's Thrifty Moves

On Sunday I spent half of the day sewing.  I am currently working on Christmas gifts for my girls and I'm super excited to share with you (tomorrow).  You'll be so surprised when I tell you what I'm making.  And how I'm doing it in Thrifty Mom fashion too.

Monday I had no afterschool activities planned so I got to go straight home from work and stay there.  It was heaven!  I even sewed some more and worked on my Christmas gifts.

Saved bacon drippings

Tuesday I realized I had forgotten to renew my driver's license which expired on my birthday!  Holy crap!.  I headed over to the DMV right after work and got that taken care of.  Amazingly they got me right in and right out.  Shocker!  On the way home I picked up the girls from their after school activities with plenty of time to spare.

Wednesday I picked up the youngest from cheer practice.  We stopped at the dollar store to pick up a few things on the way home which saved me an extra trip later.  Gas too.  I found real namebrand feta cheese there for $1!  Whoo hoo!

All that cheese was only 99¢ each!

Saturday morning I let the girls sleep in and I headed off to Fred Meyer to do the grocery shopping.  There were only five things on my list that I needed for the week ahead so I decided to shop for bargains while I was there and I found some good ones too.  Score!

I made some homemade creamy garlic salad dressing.  It is delicious.

Markdowns!

We gave the chickens lots of yummy kitchen scraps.

I composted the usual, onion skins, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells and banana peels.

I washed out a couple Ziploc bags and a shower hat to reuse.

The weather has cooled and most of the smoke has cleared so we removed the A/C units from upstairs and stored them away for winter.  Now we are just using our box fans instead and blowing in cool air from outside when we need to.

The hard drive started acting up on my daughter's laptop so I ordered a new one from Amazon.  I took it to work where one of the techs helped me install it and reimage the laptop for better performance.  It works better than ever now!

Our home internet security was due for renewal this week.  One of the security reps paid us a visit at work and gave us all vouchers for a one year subscription of free security for our home computers.  Perfect timing and it saved me $50!

I downloaded some digital coupons to my Fred Meyer and Albertson's reward cards.

After making pasta salad I poured off the remaining olive oil left from a jar of artichoke hearts we finished up.  I used some of it to cook shrimp.  The rest I will save to cook with.  I also think it would be wonderful in some salad dressing.

How was your thrifty week?

Purging Update - All Finished!

In the past month. as we approached the third year anniversary of us moving back into our home, I have systematically made my way through the entire house.  I went through closets, cupboard and drawers.  I purged items we don't need, use, want or find useful anymore.

Food storage wraps, bags, clips & covers

In the last week I finished up the lower drawers in the kitchen.  I basically ended up combining and organizing things like food storage bag, containers and lids.  I also put a few items away in their proper places that somehow managed to make their way in those drawers.  Pretty easy task really that took about five minutes per drawer.

The cabinet in the downstairs bathroom only needed a quick organizing.  I tossed out a couple things, but for the most part everything stayed.  Not much there to be concerned about.  And then I was finished.

Freezer containers, lids for canning jars, extra bags

By the time all was said and done we had completely filled up our blue recycle bin with cardboard and paper to set on the curb for collection.  I burned a small pile of shreddables in our fire pot on the back deck.  And then we probably filled up two plastic grocery bags with trash.  I didn't think that was bad at all.  Our donate pile filled up one laundry basket.  I put that in the trunk of my car and dropped those items off at the thrift store.

I try to stay on top of things throughout the year, but I'm really glad I decided to go through the house and give it a thorough once over.  I'm still just amazed at all the stuff we put in the recycle bin.  I had no idea there was that much stuff in the house.  Well, no more.  It's all gone now!

I also donated a grocery bag stuffed full of bags for the thrift store to reuse

Keeping clutter under control is definitely a process.  In fact, I just recently stuck another smile pile of junk mail out in the fire pot and it looks like the recycle bin is starting to get full again.  Moving forward I hope to continue to stay on top of things and keep our home free of junk.  Yep, it is definitely a process.

How are you coming along with your purging efforts?

Fabric Tissue Covers

If you want a quick and thrifty gift idea this is a good one!  Super quick and super easy.  I swear it takes me longer to pick out my fabrics then to make them.

I dug through my bag of fabric scraps leftover from previous projects and had plenty to chose from.  You could also use a fat quarter or repurpose an old blouse or something if you don't have any fabric scraps.

You will need two pieces cut at 4" X 4" and three pieces cut at 4" X 6".

Press all of your pieces flat.  Then fold two of the 4" X 6" pieces in half lengthwise and press.  Do the same with the two 4" X 4" pieces.

With the remaining sitting face up layer the folded pieces alternating each one, kind of like a lattice pie crust.  Make sure the fold face the center with the raw edges out.

Pin at each corner.

Stitch a quarter inch all the way around.

Clip the corners, turn right side out and press.

Stuff with a tissue pack.  I get mine at the dollar store.  If you get the ones that open on the ends just use a pair of scissors to slice up the middle.

I found a similar way of doing these on a fellow bloggers site, Threading My Way, but I always seem to have to tweak things and make it my own.  As if it wasn't simple enough I found a way to make it even simpler.

Give one of these a try, even if the gift is only for yourself!

Meal Prep - Week #4

Week 4 and it is working!  Whoo hooooo!  I am loving this!

Saturday morning I did my shopping for the week ahead, but because of the long holiday weekend I didn't meal prep until Sunday.  I did, however, take a big pot roast and a package of ground turkey out of the deep freezer to thaw.

Sunday morning I put coated both sides of the pot roast with a packet of Au Jus seasoning mix.  Then I placed it in my large slow cooker and set it to cook for 6 hours on high.  When the time was up I added four good sized red potatoes cut into quarters, about two thirds of a bag of baby carrots and a roughly chopped onion.  I let that cook an additional two hours.

  

On Labor Day I finished meal prepping, simply because I could.  If it had been a regular work day I'd have finished on Sunday instead.  I browned the turkey burger and seasoned it with taco seasoning.  Half of the leftover pot roast was divided.  I placed part of it in a casserole dish with the leftover vegetables or an additional supper.  The remaining roast went into the freezer to use next week in stroganoff.

 

Ready for crab cakes

Cheeses for mac & cheese

Easy béchamel sauce

I boiled up a box of mini penne pasta.  I made my easy béchamel recipe and added some sharp cheddar and a package of bacon cheddar cheese to make a creamy sauce.  After mixing the cooked and cooled pasta with the cheese sauce I put it all into a casserole dish and into the refrigerator to wait its turn.  Then I chopped up the veggies I needed for the crab cakes.

Sunday - After removing the pot roast from the slow cooker I poured those delicious juices into a saucepan, added a cup of water and thickened it with a little cornstarch.  I sautéed some green beans too.  We enjoyed a delicious Sunday supper.

Monday - Despite that it was Labor Day, which usually calls for barbeque, we stuck to the menu.  I reheated the taco meat and served it with cheddar, shredded lettuce, refried beans (from our freezer) sour cream, salsa and some street-size flour tortillas.

Tuesday - Leftover pot roast and vegetables took a spin in the microwave for about 8 minutes.  In the meantime I reheated the leftover gravy in a saucepan.  It was ready by the time the microwave shut off.  Dinner was on the table in 10 minutes.

Wednesday - I placed the macaroni & cheese in the microwave to heat thru about 5 minutes.  I splashed a touch of milk in it and gave it a good stir then back into the microwave for another 3 minutes.  Once the macaroni was done I put a dish of peas & carrots in for a few minutes.  When they were done I stirred them with a little butter and dinner was served.

Thursday - The oldest and I pulled out the crab and the chopped veggies in the refrigerator to make up the crab cakes.  I decided not to make the drop biscuits or the salad because we had a lot of leftovers.  Instead I served the crab cakes with the leftover macaroni & cheese and some steamed green beans.

Friday - Friday I heated up chili from the freezer that had been thawing in the refrigerator the night before.  While it heated in the microwave I cooked hot dogs in a skillet and put together a quick salad out of leftover veggies.  By the time the chili was hot everything else was ready.  Another dinner on the table in 10 minutes.

Saturday - We had so many leftovers in the refrigerator so we decided to have a mini buffet.  It doesn't get much easier than that!

I still can't get over how much less time I spend in the kitchen cooking and yet we seem to have more food and plenty of variety too.  Putting our lunches together has been a snap.  Keeping the kitchen tidy throughout the week is much easier too.

So dang cool!

Extreme Anxiety

Anxiety is a condition that effects countless individuals in a very profound way and I happen to be one of those.  I have suffered with extreme anxiety for as long as I can remember.  Even as a very small child I can remember being fearful of everything.  New experiences and changes terrified me.  My parents were very young when they married and had children and I'm sure I made life challenging, especially for my mother who was a stay at home mom.  But back in those days, this was the sixties, no one recognized or even knew what to do.  So I understand they did the best they could.

I remember my first day of kindergarten.  I was, without a doubt, petrified.  Everyone did their best to prepare me for the inevitable, but I didn't want to leave home or my mom.  I cried so hard I was shuddering and hiccupping, but I was very fortunate to have a kind and compassionate teacher.  She sat me nearby her desk and made sure I was okay.  I liked her immediately.  It was a hard day, but I made it through and I was fine.

The school bus was a whole other ordeal.  Big, loud, noisy and smelly.  All the things that would set me on edge.  The second day of school my poor mother could not get me on that bus to save her soul.  I flipped out in the driveway and the bus left me.  My poor mother was fit to be tied as she tossed me and my baby brother into the car and hurried off toward the school.

The next day Dad stayed home from work (huge deal for him to take time from his job) and he walked my butt to the end of that driveway.  There was no messing with Dad.  I sobbed and sobbed, but I didn't say a word and I got on that bus because I knew what would happen if I didn't.  After making it safely to school and back home again I realized that I was fine.  The next day I got on the bus without a fuss.  I'm sure my mother was greatly relieved.

Doctors, dentists, you name it and I was terrified.  I can remember sitting in the waiting room with my little brother staring at me like I was crazy.  I was already crying when we left the house so you can imagine what I was like by the time we got there.  My mother, I'm sure, was embarrassed and frustrated as she dragged me into the office and then had to sit there in front of everyone while I wailed.  Everything was such an ordeal.

And if my grandmother couldn't babysit, forget about it.  My parents were hard pressed to go anywhere.  Babysitters?  Are you kidding?  My mom's main outlet as a stay at home mom was to go bowling.  She was really good at it too and belonged to a women's league.  One day my grandma could babysit and mom decided to try the daycare at the bowling alley.  She pretty much knew it would be a disaster, and it was.  My brother was happy as a clam and his big sister was at the door going ballistic.  They finally called my mom to come down and get me.  I spent the entire time sitting in a hard plastic seat watching the ladies bowl.  I was happy because I could see my mom.  She, on the other hand was furious.  When we got home I was sent to my room for the day.  Not an uncommon punishment for my constant "carrying on".

Kids with extreme anxiety tend to eat weird things.  I was a fuzz eater.  I picked all the fuzz off of my teddy bear and ate it until she was bald.  Then I started to work on my brother's until he got wise and started hiding him.  I also managed to put large bald spots on the pretty pink blanket my mother put on my bed.  My best friend in grade school ate crayons.  We must have been drawn to each other for what we recognized in one another.  Kindred spirits I suppose.  She tried not to eat crayons (can you imagine the temptation lying about everywhere in a grade school?).  I remember one day on the playground I noticed she had green wax on her two front teeth.  When I asked her about it she told me it was medicine to help her stop eating crayons.  She was my best friend so I pretended to believe her.  I'm pretty sure I was still eating fuzz at the time.

As I grew older my anxiety seemed to get better.  Not that I outgrew it, but after more experiences and understanding that not everything that happens to us is bad I figured out ways to cope.  To the best of my ability anyway.  But having anxiety as your constant companion takes its toll on a person.  And of course I grew up in a family and a time when you didn't talk about this kind of stuff.  It wasn't until I was in my early forties that I finally mustered up the courage to get some professional help.

After a little more than a year of some pretty intensive therapy I was able to gain a whole new perspective and understanding of what anxiety is and how it affects me.  My condition is real, not just in my head, and I found out I could do something about it.  I'm not crazy, I don't have "issues", it isn't my fault, it is not a weakness or an illness, it just is.  Simply put, it is how I'm wired.  It has been a process learning how to handle my "complicated wiring" and I work on it every single day.  Every day I start again.

In addition to learning certain techniques and coping skills to better handle situations in my life I also learned how to handle other people.  The odd thing is, that the people closest to you, the ones who should be helping and protecting you are often times the ones that treat you the worst, at least that was the case for me.  It was a hard one to come to grips with, even harder was to remove that element from my life.  It wasn't easy, in fact it was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but since I did it, things have dramatically improved for me.

And while I feel badly that I'm not able to endure having those people in my life, especially since most of them are my family, I do not regret my decision.  The people in my life now are the people that belong here.  I still have some family members in my life - my aunts, my uncle and some cousins that love, care and encourage me.  Sadly my grandparents are gone now, they were always wonderful.  But I am also hugely blessed to have the best group of friends a girl could ever ask for.  Talk about protective and encouraging, holy cow!  They are my family as well.

My reason for sharing this with you is not to garner any type of sympathy.  Quite the contrary.  It is simply to share a little more about myself and to tell you that no matter what obstacles we face we can learn to adapt.  There are lots of things we can do.  Plenty we can learn.  And it is okay to ask for help when we need it.

Life can be really difficult sometimes, but at the end of the day it is still good.  In fact,  it is very good.  Take care my friends and enjoy this blessed day.