This was a week where I tried to encourage everyone to eat up things in the fridge so I can have more room for Thanksgiving food.

Patsy is holding an African taco–she put some of Harnet’s special lentils into a taco shell and ate it for dinner 2 nights in a row.  The second night, she put it into a flour tortilla instead:)  Almost  every time I see Harnet, she generously gives me some of these beri-beri flavored lentils.  They are spicy, but with a little different flavor than Mexican seasoning.  Patsy put a little grated cheese on there, and sour cream, and ……she loved it!!

We ate turkey-vegetable soup again this week.  The entire pot was consumed over a few days.  One day I ate it for both breakfast and lunch.  Rob opened a carton of tomato soup as well, and ate that a couple of times.  Lovana made a batch of muffins, which are all gone now.  She also made apple crisp.  Yum!

I thawed meatballs, spaghetti sauce and several other things from the freezers. I cooked a lot of noodles for Rob to eat for dinner and left for work.  When he got home, he didn’t see them, so cooked another huge batch.  We’ve eaten noodles, sauce and meatballs multiple times since then:)  The kids love noodles and eat them with Parmesan cheese.  Green beans were cooked.

One day, we ate cheese and crackers in the car when we were out and about.

Another thing I thawed was ground roast beef.  I mixed it with Miracle Whip and made sandwich spread.  I also ate it plain, with a spoon.  One night, after work, I put pickles and this spread on gf bread, and had it for my supper.

I followed a recipe from the internet to hard-boil eggs in my Instant Pot.  Easy!  1) Put eggs in a steamer and put in pot.  Put in 1 cup water.  Turn pot on “Manual” and set for 3 minutes.  After it is done, I waited 7 minutes and then released the pressure.  They were done perfectly.  They pointed out that you could be very flexible with when you released the pressure–they sometimes left it for 15 minutes.

So, the truth is…our meals were pretty repetitive.  Besides these main dishes, we did have odds and ends from the cupboards or fridge, plus scrambled eggs.    When I apologized to Rob for the monotony, he had some good thoughts about it.  His thought is that we are one of the few nations that feel like we need 3 different meals per day, and many, many different ones each week.  He pointed out that when we have visited Mexico, the people we were with mostly ate beans and tortillas every day, with a few differences now and then.  (On this last mission trip, we all paid a fee and the church women cooked food for us with that money, and there was plenty left over for them to have, too.)  When he went to Africa a few years ago, the choice for many was rice.  And they were fortunate to get it more than one time a day in the part of Uganda where he was.  Sometimes there was an egg or other things, but mostly there was rice, if they had any.

On that trip, he was fed well by the people, and his group quickly found out that the food wasn’t just for them…the servers would be eating after them from what was left.  After the first meal, where they weren’t understanding how it worked and ate a lot, they ate sparingly so the cooks/servers could eat.

So, he doesn’t mind the same meal several times in the week.  He feels it is actually more globally realistic, and he doesn’t think it hurts anyone at all.  Good thing:)

I made it up to him on Friday night.  We went out for Mexican food, and did a little Christmas shopping, and got these……..

Yum!

While we were out and about, I grabbed the 2-4 lb bags of sugar I was allowed for 99c each at Safeway.  They were out of Safeway sugar, so gave me C and H, instead.  I got some lemon-lime soda for Ja’Ana, as she has caught the same crud every family member has been passing around.

At Fred Meyers, we got a few Christmas gifts, which brought me easily up to the $50 required to get a 49c/lb turkey.  I already have one that I will cook…this one will be for later in the year.  I just can’t pass up that price!!!  All that turkey for just under $10!!!

Better yet, I have Michaela’s Christmas gift.  Who knew that they would make a ladies-sized Lion King sleeper with Hakuna Matata on the front, a hood like Simba and even a tail!  That movie is one of her all-time favorites–she can quote long passages of it!  Ja’Ana spotted it the other day, and I was so glad it was still there tonight when we went back.  Maybe the other ladies of Salem are not quite as obsessed with Lion King as Michaela is????

I’m not telling what else I got, and I have lots left to get, but at least we got started.

I’d better end this and go to bed–I’m tired after all the cleaning I did today, but feel very satisfied with what I got done.  I’ll leave you with a cute picture….

A few of us went and enjoyed her Thanksgiving program at her preschool.  They sang about trees and leaves, and quiet voices and loud voices, and their ABC’s.  They fed us refreshments of apple pastries and M & M’s.  So cute….

This week, it was all about potatoes! I decided to use up the purple potatoes we grew in our garden.  I don’t know if they are good “keepers” or not.  I do know the red ones sprout easily.  As of Wednesday, they were all cooked into something.  I also had a few red ones from my sister, and the bottom of a bag of russets from the store that I was targeting. They are now gone, too.   Last Saturday, I got 3-10 pound bags from the store.  They are in the garage, all covered up with a blanket, ready for the next couple of weeks and Thanksgiving dinner.   I made fried potatoes, with a mix of white and purple one morning.  I made cheesy potato soup for lunch one day, and the rest went down the hatch for dinner that night.  I made lots of faintly purple mashed potatoes  from a mix of purple, red and white.  I used around 7 lbs for last Sunday’s Family Sunday Dinner to make mashed potatoes.  I guess the extended family loves potatoes, as there was about 1/2 cup – 1 cup left.  Wow!  Just Wow!  Best 75c I’ve spent in a while:)

The soup theme continued as well, with the cheesy potato soup, and a pot of turkey-rice. I always make enough for more than one meal, when I make soup.  I can’t seem to help myself.  Ja’Ana made cornbread again this week, and my sister made some on Sunday.

On Sunday, along with all those potatoes, I did baked, breaded chicken, which was a hit as well.   I think we were all in the mood for heartier fare–fall is certainly here along with it’s rain, and wind, interspersed with a little sunshine now and then.

One day, I put round steak into the crock pot and made Swiss Steak.  I made some gravy to go with it, and those purple mashed potatoes.  There is still some of that left, so we will probably eat it again tomorrow.

Jake convinced me to make Rice Krispie treats (from gluten-free Malt-0-Meal Rice Krispies), and he took a big plate full home for his Mama.  He hung with us today, as there was no school. We did a slew of errands–everything from getting medicine, to getting the oil changed in the car.  We slipped in some duck-feeding, and had lots of library books in the car to make it fun.  We got him a Happy Meal–I had a coupon for buy one, get one free, so he and Patsy both had one.  She’s old enough to actually be able to eat more than that, but it satisfied her to get to have it and he was literally starving today–nice!

There were lots of salads this week–for lunches with chicken or for dinner along with the other food, cooked home-canned green beans, home-canned peaches and applesauce, hot dogs, sandwiches, corn chips with salsa, and pork and beans.  Patsy eats cold cereal almost every day, and Rob and I eat eggs almost every day for breakfast.  Lovana gets a crepe or sandwich for free from work on the days she works, and pretty much makes her own food the rest of the time. Sometimes, I eat at my sister’s house in the evening, as I don’t get done until 6,  and everyone at home just makes their own, or eats leftovers.  Sometimes, I go home and make a salad, or warm up leftovers on the days I work.  It has turned out that I only really need to cook 4-5 main recipes a week, and there is enough for the week to just warm up leftovers.

This coming week, it’s going to be all about cleaning out the fridge so we can fit the Thanksgiving food in there the following week.  I’m not sure what I’m making, yet, but I’ll work on some planning tomorrow, and hopefully, I won’t get carried away, as I have an entire day at home….at least that’s what my planner says.  So, if I decided to go somewhere, it will be purely for fun.  Should be a great day, either way.

This week was a wild and crazy, unusual week.  Between Halloween celebrations, a visit to Harnet, lots of school, exercise classes and more, there wasn’t much time to concentrate on food.  So, frankly, we ate a LOT of soup:)

The week was a blur, but I remember a big pot of turkey-vegetable soup, along with a batch of yellow split pea soup.

The split pea soup was very simple.  It was yellow split peas (green work, too), onion, potato, a carrot, celery, water and boullion cubes.  I always add a little thyme, salt and pepper to the mix.  After it cooked down, it was smooth with a few chunks.

The turkey vegetable was simple, too.  It was made from frozen chunks of turkey, broth, onion, carrots, celery, green beans, and a pint of crushed tomatoes.  There was water, salt and pepper, of course, and Italian seasoning.  That one turned out great as well.

We ate both of those soups many times for dinner and lunches.  Rob took some in his lunch, along with other items.

On Halloween, my sister made a taco bar, and I made some cookies with the kids.

There were a couple of times when the Portland Trail Blazers scored over 100 points in a game, and the McDonald’s app offered a Sausage McGriddle for free.  So, we got a couple of those.  I can’t eat them, but others can.

When Rosalie, my sister, Ja’Ana and I took little Danait to McDonald’s to play while her mom studied citizenship with her tutor, we used the buy one, get one free Happy Meal coupon off the app.  Rosalie and I got to enjoy Harnet’s yummy food back at the house, but Ja’Ana and Danait ate the Happy Meals.  Mostly, we were looking for a dry, fun place to let some of the wiggles out after the library storytime we went to, and I think she had fun.  I know we did!  It was really quite comical to see 3 of us chase 1 little dynamo!!

I did make the same marinated chicken I made last week.  It was good, simple, and quick!  And, I had all the ingredients on hand.  It used up the rest of the package of buns I had, and everyone enjoyed chicken sandwiches this week.

I made mini blueberry muffins, and we ate some and took the rest up to add to the lunch at Harnet’s.  We ate them with coffee.  I can’t forget the coffee…..that deserves a sentence of its own:)  I showed her the coffee-making post, and we found a small error in my description, so I will be fixing that soon.  She enjoyed seeing it, and I’m glad.  It’s a big deal to me to post someone else’s story and I wanted to make sure it was correct.

Ja’Ana made another batch of cornbread, and I cubed and toasted about 1/2 of the pan and froze it for Thanksgiving stuffing.

I want to have as much ready ahead of time for the big day, as I am super busy during the days before the holiday.

Whenever anyone said they were hungry, I just said, “go get some more canned fruit” and I think we all got fed just fine:)