Last night, Rob barbecued chicken. He used a rub of barbecue seasoning, brown sugar and garlic powder and then cooked it on the grill. That was an unplanned meal, but caused us no grief because it all came from the freezer and storage. I sauted frozen green beans with butter and garlic, thawed squash, and cooked white rice from a 50 pound bag Rob got 2 summers ago. We have put in quite a few hours the last 2 days packing, sorting, burning trash (lots and lots and lots of trash….), and the troops were all home working all day and were starving. So, they burned through most of 2 pizzas, almost all of this chicken and vegetables, bacon, sausage, eggs, a huge pan of home-made hash browns, and I’m not sure what else. Once I saw how the day was going, I cooked up a huge pan of rice, so there is rice left, plus a little chicken.
Sunday: Family dinner–my sister made ham and mashed potatoes and gravy. We did green beans and my aunt brought salad. I took cauliflower and a berry crisp. We had 13 today, so a small crowd. This evening, there is leftover chicken, salad, 4 pieces of pizza and peanut butter sandwiches to choose from.
Monday: I found some chicken thighs in the freezer. They had been in there too long, so I thawed them and trimmed off any suspicious areas and put them in a marinade to soak. I used ginger, soy sauce, brown sugar and water. They will be sauted in a pan and will be teriyaki chicken, served with rice and broccoli.
Tuesday: clam chowder
Wednesday: Turkey noodle casserole
Thursday: Lovana cooks. She wants to do Mexican food, involving corn tortillas–her choice when the day comes as long as we have the ingredients.
Friday: chili in the crockpot–4H day, so very busy and we are tired when they all go home
Saturday: Cashew chicken. I found some frozen pea pods from last fall’s garden, and some cashews when I was digging around in the freezer and want to use them. I can make brown rice with this, as I have lots of that as well and we actually prefer it.
Sunday: Hamburgers at my sister’s. She and one of the girls will be out of town visiting our niece who is in college. They will probably also visit Mickey Mouse:) We will bring all of the dinner between us and my aunt and feed my sweet brother-in-law and the kids who are still at home. He invited a couple of young adults also, and there are a couple friends of my kids who might show up, so we can just unthaw a bunch of burger from the 1/2 beef we bought last fall, and cook a bunch up, with hot dogs for Michaela and Jake. I should know how much to thaw for sure towards the end of the week. I will probably do potato or macaroni salad, a relish tray, and some kind of dessert. Patsy and I made zucchini chip bars today–I may re-make them if they taste good. Sometimes changing a regular recipe to gluten-free needs a few tries to make it work out.
We also made some brown banana bread with flax seed. They were a little less sweet than we wanted, but definitely edible with a little jam!
Sauteed green beans with garlic and butter sounds delicious! And those zucchini chip bars with the chocolate chips and roasted nuts looks heavenly! I’m drooling just reading about it!!!
Cute picture of Patsy too. She looks so happy to be in the kitchen baking with you.
The beans were great. The bars turned out really crumbly and dry. It’s a recipe I used to use before I became gluten free and this particular flour really wasn’t the best choice. I’m going to try it again with Bob’s Red Mill 1-1 flour. I also used to drain quite a bit of water out of the frozen zucchini when I made it. I won’t do that the next time. Thankfully, we didn’t use very many chocolate chips on top!
Every time I read your blog, I get hungry. Living out of your pantry certainly doesn’t look like a hardship, Becky! Cute little helper you have there.
Hugs
Jane
Thanks! There’s no hardship whatsoever going on around here. I’m sure glad I have a well-stocked pantry!
As for Patsy–she is cute. Rob and I joke that if children keep you young, we are going to be the youngest people we know! I can’t believe that she’s been with us for 2-1/2 years already. Time sure flies!
Hi! Your meals do look delicious! I love how you use what you have and don’t waste, and turn out delicious meals. Your family is beautiful! Your children will keep you and your husband young! We, too, are going to put our house up for sale later this spring. (My husband is retiring and we will be living off savings). We also are looking for paying cash for a house as we won’t be having a mortgage in retirement, and of course we have to orchestrate the sale of the house and all of that. We spent last summer giving away a lot of stuff and clearing out our house. Andrea
I am overwhelmed with the enormity of the task, but am trying to break it up into small chunks. Because we have only made the final decision to sell the house during the last month, we are starting from scratch! Boy, do we have a lot of junk. The more we clean out, the more we seem to have. But, I’m encouraged to finally see some areas that are starting to look extremely pared down and clean, ready to go. I’ll bet you are glad you started last summer! I think the happiest thought in all of this is the thought of no mortgage.
Yes it was helpful to be able to start early. I had the purple heart truck pickup come to my house around 5 times with loads of stuff. My 6 kids are out on their own now. (well 1 is in college still) but I had lots of photos and I finally divided them up and made each kid take a box to keep at their homes.
I just had to “let go” of stuff and kept in mind “Do I really want to move all of this”. I should’ve never accumulated what I did (mostly toys). Less is really best and more liberating….and so is no mortgage (which we don’t have now anyway, we’ve been here 36 years; we never “moved up”). So, God will lead and I pray your husband finds what he wants in a job. He really does sound like he is good at counseling, and that is very needed today for the youth. Andrea
Thanks,
I know that Rob will figure out what job God’s leading him to do. For right now, we need to sort, sell the house, pack and move. Whew! I guess that will keep us busy for a bit:)
That chicken looks delish. I haven’t had bbq chicken in so long. I really should get a small pit but I’m a little too impatient to be a good bbq-er. Your food storage has been a blessing. I am trying to start putting some food aside when I see a good deal. Don’t have a garden but I have more than enough room in my little side-by-side to put away food for one. You’re keeping on my toes by reminding me to think ahead and think frugal. Love it.
Rob is good at barbeque. I am terrible at making it but love to eat it?
And who is this beautiful helper making the banana bread? Is this your daughter? xo
The beautiful redhead is our newest daughter, Patsy. She has lived with us for 2-1/2 years, and we are working hard on the paperwork to get her adoption finalized. We finally got an attorney vendor agreement from the state to sign, and it will go off this week, and hopefully send this process to the next level!
Amazing. Congratulations on finalizing the process. Both you and Patsy are very lucky to have each other. What a beautiful family. Very blessed.
Thank you. I’m just never satisfied until the last paper is signed. Once we go before the judge and the judge signs it–it’s a done deal. Hopefully, that will be vert soon once they get this piece of paper back from us with our signatures. To Patsy, it feels like it is taking forever, since she’s been in foster care for 3 years now. That’s a long time for a kid! It’s a long time for everyone!