week 9, Day 3

Breakfast: oatmeal

Lunch:  soup or sandwiches for the kids, Jason and I did Jack in the Box (he worked from home due to the heavy rain and our pending dinner party)

Dinner: Beaker soup - I made two full batches between yesterday and today because we are expecting 15 people for dinner.  We are having the Tervalons and the Buchanans over.  We also made greens - including two heads of kale from this week and lasts's CSA, last week's beet greens and this weeks arugula.  Jason did his sesame oil and garlic and soy sauce - I just love it!  I also made a salad - I used three heads of lettuce (two of which were CSA) but then we had a lot leftover.  We used leftover cooked beets, the rest of the grape tomatoes, an English cucumber and, of course, toasted pine nuts - had way too many of those but people nibbled them up and we have a few for tomorrow.  Nicole added some to her soup.  Jason also made two batches of cream biscuits - that makes 16 total.  One fell on the floor, so he and I split that.

Nicole was so proud of her kids for eating salad and greens without being made to.  Kahlan is just a soup kinda girl and she liked the soup.  It turned out Christi Buchanan got stuck in SoCal so she wasn't here.  Chris ate the soup but his kids maybe had a bite and only then in some cases.  They also didn't eat the greens or salad.  I couldn't imagine such picky kids.  Some like the biscuit though - Ty compared it to KFC biscuits which is pretty high praise, I think.

I did some grocery shopping earlier in the day.

Foodmaxx
Penne (4 lbs)	$3.96
Cake	$2.49
Pickles	$2.78
Canned Green Beans (2)	$1.18
Microwave Popcorn	$5.19
Honeycomb Cereal	$1.89
Kala Chana (4 lbs)	$4.28
Dishwashewr detergent	$2.98
Diced Tomatoes (12 cans)	$9.36
Olives (2)	$1.98
Popcorn	$1.94
Carrots (5 lbs)	$1.99
Celery (2 stalks)	$1.78
Cuties	$4.99
Romaine )6 heads)	$3.38
Pineapple	$1.99
Coupon	-$10.00
	$42.16
Jack in the Box	$10.50
Heather Castro	$6.00
	$58.66

I was going to get garbanzo beans - they are up to 1.69 per one pound bag.  But in the Indian food section you could get a four pound bag for $5.48, or $1.37 per pound, so I did that.  Then I noticed kala chana nearby for $4.28 for four pounds, or $1.07 per pound.  It is a different variety of garbanzo bean and higher fiber, possibly coarser outside and darker color.  So we will give that a try.  That being said, my kids are done with beaker soup for awhile - though maybe not Phyllis.  She was practically weaned on the stuff and she is just always hungry.

Prep Ahead - Broccoli steamed from CSA

Week 9, Day 2

Breakfast: oatmeal

Lunch: Beaker soup or sandwiches, for various folks

Dinner: breakfast burritos with tator tots

Prep ahead - Beaker soup for tomorrow

Week 9, Day 1

Breakfast: the girls had toasted pancakes (whole wheat from before not last night's) and I had soup and Jason ate at work (cold cereal and it isn't good for him, but he likes to go early and so I have let it go - mostly)

Lunch: I had soup and a cream cheese tortilla.  The girls had PBJ's and Jason took a frozen bidoke

Dinner: Beaker soup.  As is often the case on gym days, Phyllis ate right before gym and again when she got home.  Cressida was thrilled because it was "her favorite" but she was disappointed that it was iced-tea not hot tea and further disappointed (even after I warmed it) that it was honey vanilla chamomile.  I had a chipotle sausage after the kids went to bed because I had soup for two meals and was doing my Mandarin homework during dinner.  It wasn't exactly together because of Phyllis's gym.

The one we started a week or so ago with the green onions.

Same potter - different angle

Prep ahead:  Chopped up the remaining two heads of celery and put them in a container in water. Then, I put the stumps in mugs of water.  These are the last two I will do - though I expect to buy more because the regrowths will not be ready before we want more celery.  I put the one I started last week in a pot with three green onions that I am also regrowing.  We shall see how it goes, huh?

Week 8, Day 7

Breakfast: burritos for C, Jason and I and oatmeal made by Jason for the later two

Lunches; peanut butter and jellies and I had sausage and veggies and Jason had leftover taco bean burritos

Dinner: yogurt pancakes - using up the Greek yogurt leftover from butter chicken last week with canned apricots and applesauce.  I made honey vanilla chamomile tea - per Dai's request.

Prep ahead:

I pressure cooked garbanzo beans with the intent of putting soup together in the morning - but then after waiting up for Jason to get home from IVL volleyball (he got six packed and his face actually shows a mark) I decided to just go ahead and prep the soup so that it could cook overnight.  I always do it in the pressure cooker and don't really pay attention to how long or high and low, but because of the timer, I had to guess and did low for 5 hours.

Day 6, Week 8

Man, I had to catch up a few days - but now I am current again - and back on a budget - the school break was havoc on the budget

Breakfast: breakfast burritos

Lunch: all the girls had PBJ's and I had half a bagel (I got it at church and had the other half for my lunch as an egg sandwich yesterday) with cream cheese, beets and capers then a big salad.  Jason took taco beans for burritos.

I am really trying to eat better - but at first it is not very "good" feeling.  I also need to drink more so we have had more iced-tea lately - it has been too warm for much hot tea

Dinner: Taco salad

Week 8, Day 5

Breakfast: burritos with tator tots

Lunch: egg sandwiches on bread from church and radishes

Dinner: tacos - Cress actually complained that it wasn't taco salads - really?  When I questioned her, she said that she just likes it in a bowl.

Jason made some cookies from the stuff i the fridge - we have made a batch most days.  It is not the best and today's was the last of it, but it was fine.  

Week 8. Day 4

Breakfast: breakfast burritos

Lunch: peanut butter sandwiches and radishes

Dinner: Taco Bell before our Blacklight 5K - Jason bought it and brought it home

Shopping: I got tomatoes, bananas, raisins and eggs at Costco - but I have been totally off budget and lazy about keeping receipts.  It was about $25.75.

Prep ahead: cooked beets, steamed broccoli and romanesco

Juiced some lemons my neighbors gave me (actually Dai did the juicing, I strained) - they were less juicy than some, but it will be fine.  I had got a large Ragu plastic container from Lisa Hansen that us my lemon juice freezer container now - it is a bit over half way full and I even strained it - because Jason likes it better that way.

Also made banana jam since Phyllis like peanut butter and banana sandwiches but bananas get eaten fast in our house.  The recipe called for 2 cups mashed bananas and 2 cups sugar and 2 T lemon juice.  But the actual finished product was only slightly more than 2 cups.  But we put a little in the fridge and canned one jar - I may make more if it is well received and I find bananas for cheap again at Costco - one time they were 99 cents for 3 pounds because they were so ripe.  

Week 8, Day 3

Breakfast: breakfast burritos

Lunch: peanut butter sandwiches

Dinner: Korean food at a restaurant

Week 8, Day 2

Breakfast - oatmeal but no raisins

Lunch: leftover black bean layers using riced cauliflower for rice for P and D and fried eggs and reheated riced cauliflower for C and I

Dinner: taco salad

Prep ahead: making bread

Made "best chocolate chip cookie recipe" dough - it must sit overnight at least overnight in fridge and since we want to see if it really is the best as it says, we have to follow the instructions

Phyllis made chocolate chip cookies (our usual recipe) but something went wrong and they are a little odd but still will probably get eaten.)

Staples

I recently realized that I didn't have another can of green chilies in the house and was quite concerned about it as it goes into a lot of the things we cook and I was surprised to find I didn't have anymore in the pantry.  It made me look at what are the must have items in our home and I was kind of amazed how different than what it was in my folks day.  That is not all because they didn't know how to eat but also because more food has become available and, at least in the Bay Area, there are just a lot more options.  Using the Internet for recipes is going to a much more broadening experience than the same old cookbook.

Canned olives - we use these on taco salads all the time - and occasionally we open one for snack
Canned green chilies - I used to get the 7 ounces cans with diced green chilies, but then I started getting the 27 ounce cans of whole because it is much cheaper and I can dice them myself and keep the remainder in a container in the fridge.  When I first started getting the big can, I would freeze it in little snack size Ziploc - however, this is not really necessary I have found
Cream - I use it in Roma, but it is useful for cream biscuits, soups and was nice to have on hand for the butter chicken last (it pops up often and if I didn't have it I would delay recipes or have to go buy it in small lots often)
Salsa - if we have the last one in the fridge, we buy more at Costco
Sour cream - I like this mixed with salsa for snacking on chips - but we use it for burritos and taco salad and stuff a lot, so we keep it on hand
Of course, we usually have some frozen corn on hand, too, and canned tomatoes black beans and pinto beans and wheat and oatmeal and peanut butter - but these are true staples.  What I found amusing was the things we always have that aren't truly staples but indicative of our tastes.

Week 8, Day 1

Breakfast: oatmeal, except for Dai who made herself eggs before volleyball - the rest of us ate later while she was at volleyball

Lunch: Indian buffet with Jason in Sunnyvale

Dinner: Butter chicken, sliced radishes and cucumbers, parathas and instead of rice we used "riced" cauliflower.  It worked well enough and Jason liked it but the two younger girls didn't like the butter chicken.  Dai liked it all.

Shopping:

Fresco
Cucumbers (8)	$2.00
Onions	$0.68
Radishes (4)	$1.00
Green chiles (3 cans)	$9.87
	$13.55

Week 7, Day 7

Breakfast - Dai and Phyllis fried their own eggs and toasted frozen hamburger buns to go with.  They had to go to volleyball this morning - but then it turned out only Dai was invited.  Jason made the rest of us breakfast burritos.

Lunch: the girls are out of school this week and went to school with me - they hung out outside my class and I bought Jack in the Box for lunch.  Value menu stuff usually, but today they got that and I got a burger combo and it was blech!  And $6 or something!

Dinner: Taco salad.  Again, I had started black beans this morning with the intention of maybe doing black bean layers for lunch and butter chicken for dinner - but the afternoon didn't quite go as planned so we did taco salads.  Cress complained that she doesn't like taco salad - but seemed much happier once I moved it to a bowl from the plate.

That salad got wolfed down along with most of the beans.  Sometimes I make a two head salad and we have leftovers, like yesterday, and sometime, I think probably one person at least would have had more salad if we had not run out.

Tonight, I reminded Jason that he used to say soups and salads didn't really make dinner.  He recalled.  I asked if this salad would have been okay back then or if he had adjusted.  He said this reminded him a bit of haystacks which was a lunch food (and not a favorite) and he probably would have groused about it not being  a proper dinner.  He thinks he has adjusted.  Now soups and salads are very common dinners in our house.  The girls looked at him like he was crazy when they heard me recall how he thought soups and salads weren't proper dinners.

Prep ahead: Started butter chicken in the crock pot.  I have a butter chicken recipe that I really like but it isn't a crock pot meal - so I am trying this new one.  I am so pleased that we have a timer for the outlet so the crock pot will turn off in the middle of the night.  I also got such joy when I was preparing fresh ginger.  I asked Jason if he thought that was a tablespoon's worth, knowing I would need to chop it finer and he said that he would do a little more.  It pleases me so much it is almost laughable that we eat real ginger in our house.  I am sure it was never in my house as a kid.  This is not to say my mother was a bad cook - she wasn't but the staples back then were different - and we were tighter in the food budget, I think.  Though I recall and awful lot of food when we did pour monthly shopping.

Shopping today:
Coconut milk - 0.99
Cauliflower - 3
Greek yogurt - 4
Frozen Parathas - $8

Jack in the Box - 11.81

But to be honest - I am planning to pull a bit out of saving - Dai needed shoes, we drove to Larry's. lunch with Jason and the kids tomorrow, etc.  Lunch with Jason during school breaks is almost a thing now - we have done dim sum a few times when he worked at NetApp but we are trying an Indian buffet near his new work this time.  Kids under 10 eat free!

Week 7, Day 6

Breakfast - eggs and cereal at Larry and Lisa's

Lunch: Del Taco on the way home (but in retrospect we should have just waited until we got home because it was a touch early and not that great) But the lure of Del taco is strong as there isn't one close to us.

Dinner:  I wanted to go to Vietnamese food but the line was long so we had taco salad.  Cressida complained a lot.  Phyllis helped a lot with the salad - washing the CSA lettuce (it is much dirtier than store bought and requires more effort) and slicing olives and grape tomatoes.  She was so excited to help with dinner.  I was grateful I had beans cooked in the pressure cooker - I think I started them as soon as we got home from Larry and Lisa's - before I took a nap.  

Headed Out - Week 7, Days 4 - 5

We are going to Lisa and Larry Hansen's for the long weekend - but here is the news so far

Breakfast: eggs for Daitarih and Cressida and burritos for Jason, Phyllis and I

Lunch: packed a lunch to take on the drive of black bean and cream cheese burritos, a head of celery, an English cucumber, the remaining three CSA radishes and four CSA carrots - all sliced.  I also let each girl take a Valentine's candy and we took dried pineapple and a juice box for each girl.  What a pleasure when all the produce gets wolfed down before we arrive!

Dinner was a BBQ party at Larry's - and they fed us Sunday and Monday morning, too.

Week 7, Day 3 - Valentine's Day

Breakfast: Pancakes.  A day or two ago, I said, "Pancakes would be nice."  But we were out of eggs and mornings are too tight and so on and so forth.  Last night, Jason picked up eggs at the store but left them in the car so that I wouldn't know, then he set the alarm for 5:30 so he could get up in time to make pancakes for everyone.  That was my Valentine's gift.  He has been very thoughtful and observant of late.

Lunch: sandwiches for Dai and Cress. Soup for Phyllis.

Dinner: date night - we grocery shopped for our Valentine's date.  But we did buy a couple splurgy items - dried pineapple and beer and then we ate at Carl's Jr. - I love a burger - but I really need to split it!  Heather Castro fed my kids a really green pinto bean, chicken, green salsa stuff that would rock in burritos.

We also got our CSA during our date.

Prep Ahead:

Cooked this week's and last week's kale.  Luckily kale holds up very well.  Dai helped me de-stem it then we washed and chopped it and put it in a pan.  Usually Jason does all the greens - but this time he only had to prep the chard and deal with the remaining steps.  He mixed the kale and chard and it was so tasty!

We also steamed the broccoli.  I did it in the microwave like usual, but didn't take off the plastic as soon as it came off, so it got smashed pretty flash and the plastic compressed as it cooled.

I cooked half a pound of black beans because they wouldn't quite fit in my container.  No idea what I will do with them - maybe burritos for our drive?

Jason made part of the toffee pudding cake for Larry's retirement party tomorrow - to which we will be late.  When he first agreed to make cakes, he didn't know he would be late.  Why he didn't back out when he knew he would be is beyond me - maybe he just wants to be able to do this for his dad - after all it is kind of his thing.

Nob Hill
A1	$7.29
Herbal Tea	$22.74
Tator tots	$4.98
White sugar	$5.98
Ketchup	$1.99
Buffalo ranch salad dressing	$3.99
Vitamin D	$5.43
	$52.40
Grocery Outlet
Beer	$14.78
Flour	$1.99
Onions (3 lbs)	$1.69
Black beans (5 lbs)	$4.95
Tomatoes with Jalapenos	$1.58
Olives	$4.74
Canned tomatoes	$8.90
	$38.63
Costco
Brown Rice	$12.99
Chicken breasts	$21.99
Eggs	$8.39
Tortilla Chips	$3.99
Cucumbers	$4.29
Sour cream	$3.99
Salsa	$4.99
Milk (2 gallons)	$6.49
Whip Cream	$5.49
Pine nuts (1.5 lbs)	$25.99
Romaine	$2.99
Flour tortillas	$5.98
	$107.57
Total	$198.60

I went over my "weekly" budget but am so glad to be truly done!  Nice to shop with no kids!

Week 7, Day 2

Breakfast: leftover cracked wheat

Lunch: Leftover soup for Cressida and Phyllis.  A sandwich for Dai - Jason used frozen bread and didn't toast it or anything and she said it was fine - so that slicing then freezing is a handy trick to know.

Cress found her original lunch bag which had her hot food container - yay!!

Dinner: taco salad using leftover taco beans - they are now all gone.  Jason also went out and got me ice-cream because I wanted it last night.  He got Butterfinger variety - which is yummy but not helping me lose weight.  But I did ask for it - and the second bowl.  

Week 7, Day 1

Breakfast: cracked wheat.  Dai loves it and the Phyllis is okay either way but traditionallyCress doesn't like it.  This time, she started to whine like usual.  I commented that it also had rice which stopped her a bit, then she asked "Red wheat?"  I said yes (becuase we couldn't get white wheat last time) and she was thrilled.  "Yay! I love red wheat," she said.  When her sisters came out, she even mentioned to them that it was "red wheat."  What kid knows the difference, huh?  These ones - that's who!

Lunch:  Phyllis and Cress had leftover stroganoff.  Dai had a sandwich using the frozen bread retoasted.

Dinner: Beaker soup.  

Week 6, Day 7

This is partly enjoyable and partly a chore - every single day....  I am debating if I will combine it with what my regular blog or publish separately.  Will it import them in date order or by blog title?

Breakfast: burritos - the last of our eggs

Lunch: Cress took leftover stroganoff - the last of it - but she didn't eat the meat.  I do not know exactly what Jason packed the girls because it was my day to drive and he will be home very late tonight. Phyllis had volleyball today right after school, so I packed her a chicken sandwich and i know Jason took her a granola bar from work.  (Yes, she had lunch at school and ate dinner when she got home.)

Dinner: Taco salad.  I started the beans last night.  I used to soak my beans and sometimes even sprout them.  Now I usually don't even soak them - I do love my electric pressure cooker but it has made me a bit lazy.  Jason didn't eat with us so I just did half a can of olives and one head of lettuce.  Even still ,we finished it all before Phyllis got home - so she had leftover mashed potatoes and when those were gone she had leftover rice and beans.

Preparation
I went to put rice in the pressure cooker so we could have it for breakfast, but we had only maybe half a cup left.  So, I ground wheat instead and we will have cracked wheat cereal.  It is yummy.  As an experiment, I also ground the little bit of brown rice, so some of that is mixed in.  To make this cereal, you have to soak it overnight.  I get a lot of pleasure out of grinding the wheat and then manually sifting it.  So much of my work is done with convenience machines - even though we generally eat whole foods so this manual task is kind of nice.  Have I recorded the recipe we use?  It seems I have to look it up each time I want to make it - it is listed on the blog Safely Gathered In.

http://safelygatheredin.blogspot.com/2011/12/food-storage-friday-cracked-wheat.html

I also am cooking garbanzo beans.  I have intended to every night since Saturday so that I can make beaker soup again.  This time I did a delay start to let the beans soak.  It only is 8.5 hours - I hope that is enough since I didn't add extra time like I usually do for unsoaked beans.

I have done a meal plan the last two weeks, but not this week.  I kind of miss it.  

Week 6, Day 6

Breakfast: rice cereal using leftover rice from black bean layers

Lunches: Dai and Jason took bidoke.  Phyllis and Cressida took leftover stroganoff.  The girls took CSA carrots, celery, CSA apples, or canned apricots.  Sick - so I let them do their own produce.  Jason took the leftover salad.

Dinner: Bidoke and salad

I am getting better but still not feeling great - so was so pleased to have bidoke on hand.  Turns out none of the girls loves it.  I think on it so fondly - though I confess this batch seemed breadier than ideal.  Jason said, "More for me."  What a good sport.  

Week 6, Day 5

Breakfast: burritos with scrambled eggs and tator tots.

Lunch: turkey sandwiches mostly using bread the girls brought home from church

Dinner: Beef stroganoff using leftover sirloin steak, salad - Jason made it and added CSA radishes and carrots to the norm and CSA beets.  I made new vinaigrette and my low cal caesar - except it isn't so low cal because I do not use fat free mayo - I made it a touch spicier than ideal

Prep ahead: Bidoke, using CSA cabbage.  I realized Phyllis might not be keen to try eating it again right away so we did bidoke.  Made 16 or so, I think.  We froze some and some are in the fridge.  The recipe book that has the recipe is one we got from Mickie when she was still alive, but it doesn't call it bidoke - that was what she called it.  And it only calls for 2 cups of shredded cabbage and we used a whole head and four grated carrots, too.  We used to make it quite often, but not recently.  It is almost comfort food for Jason, I think.  

Week 6, Day 4 - Shopping Day

Breakfast: breakfast burritos for all but me - I had rice cereal.

Lunch: leftovers - Jason handled it because I took a nap - this cold is kicking my butt.  I got up at 3 to eat some scrambled eggs and a corn tortilla.  I just asked for eggs - Jason added the tortilla and it was good.

Dinner: I prepared dinner even though I was sick (thank goodness for convenience appliances.)  We had black bean layers - one of Dai's favorite meals and one we used to have very often.  I made the beans in the pressure cooker and did rice in the steamer.  I steamed last week CSA savoy cabbage in the microwave. We had leftover salad.  Jason fried the eggs to order.

We were eating and suddenly Phyllis stood up and started pulling strands of cabbage out of her throat.  I asked if she could speak and she shook her head.  I got behind her and tried to grab her correctly, but knew I was too low.  I tried to help with the strands - Jason grabbed them better from the front.  I told her to try to cough and asked again if she could speak.  She coughed.  The she couldn't speak again.  Finally, we got it out

I ran from the room to cry in relief and pray in thanks.  But in the moment, I was not scared or panicked - just trying to fix it.  Phyllis was fine until I came back, I think.  I thought I was done crying but I wasn't quite as I sat and watched her, I understood all those comments about "unable to eat."  I love to eat and do it when stressed or bored, etc.  It was actual effort to eat.  I noticed Phyllis was very subdued.  When I commented on it, she started crying.  I think my reaction scared her more than anything.  Jason had gotten knives out for everyone and I cut her cabbage but she didn't want to eat it. I had left originally because I didn't want to upset her, but I guess I couldn't help it.  I watched her and just thought how beautiful she was and how grateful I was that she was okay.

Drowning and choking - my two greatest fears.  There's only a couple minutes - then it's too late - whereas children often recover from traumatic injuries - lack of oxygen, they do not.

Shopping:

Costco
Grape tomatoes	$5.99
Celery	$3.29
Lettuce	$3.79
Butter	$8.49
Olive Oil	$12.99
Mayonnaise	$5.49
String Cheese	$11.49
	$51.53
FoodMaxx
Egg noodles	$0.98
Mushrooms	$1.79
Lemons	$1.00
	$3.77
	$55.30

Day 3, Week 6

Breakfast: leftover rice cereal and one serving of leftover oatmeal.

Lunch: Dai and Cress had PBJ's with grape tomatoes, CSA carrots and pickles.  Jason worked from home because Phyllis was ill this morning.  He picked me up at school and Phyllis and I split a burrito bowl and he had a Freebird carnitas burrito.  We ate at Freebirds - a burrito place I had heard about.  It was very loud.

Dinner: BBQ's sirloin steak - I thought it was very tasty as Jason prepared it but he wasn't thrilled with it - and I got out two but we really only needed one - sometimes Phyllis eats so much meat but we have decided one pound is enough for our family when I make other stuff to go with it.  I sliced up the rest and might do stroganoff with it.  We had salad with apples and pine nuts.  We used CSA lettuce and also put CSA cilantro and CSA radishes in it.  We usually do lettuce, grape tomatoes sliced in half and cucumbers.  That is the default.  Today I also added sliced green onions which I have done a few times - the first time the kids really notice, but they haven't since.  Dai made most of the salad herself and the apples was her idea.  It was quite tasty.  We also had mashed potatoes from the church instant type.


Prepare ahead - CSA beets from last week finally got cooked.  Roasted celeriac, parsnips and baby carrots all from the CSA.  Steamed broccoli and romanesco.  We also used up the first of our first loaf of bread today.  We had sliced and frozen the other - so we will see how that worked out over the next week.  Requires a little forethought the night before.  Pressure cooked last week's CSA beets.

Shopping:
Lucky - off brand Sudafed     $3.25

Week 6, Day 2

Breakfast: Jason left early for work - like by 6:30 ish.  I reheated rice from last night for Cressida for breakfast - she had two bowls.  Phyllis had two bowls of oatmeal.  Dai and I also had oatmeal.  She and I had the rest of the mandarin oranges as smiles - so good!  Though one had a spot I had to cut out.

I had 1.5 cups cooked oatmeal with half a cup milk and half a cup raisins but no sugar.  Sugar would be cheaper from a caloric point of view.  Yikes!

Lunches: Cress and Phyllis have peanut butter on leftover hot dog buns - all used up now - yay!  Phyllis has leftover peppers, onions and sausage.  They also have celery and raw bell pepper in their lunches.

Dinner: Cheaty pasta with canned chicken and frozen peas.  Knowing cheaty pasta is the plan makes my kids very happy.  I am concerned though as that is a hard "diet" food. We also had a salad with toasted pine nuts again.

At dinner we played a game where one person names an animal and the next person names one that starts with the ending letter of the previous animal.  Jason is very good at it.  Dai was missing ebcuase she was at gym and ate after she got home.  Kind of sad not to have us all, but sometimes the schedules are difficult to accommodate.  

Week 6, Day 1

Breakfast: breakfast burritos for all except me.  I had scrambled eggs since I am now actually trying to control my eating.  Roma with cream.

Lunch: Cress took leftover beaker soup and the other two took leftover taco coup.  Cress wants taco soup tomorrow.

Dinner: Chipotle sausages with grilled onions and peppers on hot dogs buns - old ones from the freezer. Use what you have right?  Jason was going to make fresh buns but that didn't make more sense than using what we had - though it would surely have been tastier.  Jason was very helpful.  He sliced the sausages (even though I said I needed them sliced evenly for purposes of food tracking) and browned them for me.  I sauteed the onions and peppers in water - no oil - but of course when we added the sausage, while some grease stayed in the pan, not all of it did.

Technically I had mine over brown rice because I wanted to minimize refined carbs.  I didn't actually compare white hot dog buns to brown rice but assume the former would be higher.

We also had a salad with toasted pine nuts.  Phyllis loved her food.  Jason thought the buns were too small but he still had seconds.  Cress though the sausages were a bit spicy but she just had two glasses of lemonade to offset it.  Dai was using a knife and fork rather than eating hers like a hot dog and didn't really care for the soggy bread.  Dai and Jason don't like toasted pine nuts but they are like crack to the other three of us - we all want to finish them off when eating is done.

Cress dished herself salad, then Jason asked her to pass the salad.  When I started to hand it over, she complained because she only had a little salad.  It was probably a reasonable portion for most kids. Then she had a second helping even after I gave her more before passing it to Jason.  I sure love that they eat salad well.  And, they don't drown it in dressing either.  Phyllis actually passed because we don't have any vinaigrette made up right now.  I made a smoothie for Phyllis and Cress with berries, milk, a chard leaf and a spoon of sugar.  Clearly dessert but healthy-ish?

Shopping at FoodMaxx
4.74 bell peppers
0.80 yellow onions
total $5.54

I had to do a little shopping. I got three onions and six bell peppers.  I only ended up using two onions (but those are good to have on hand) and four and a half peppers - which means each girl can have a half a pepper in her lunch tomorrow.  They will be very glad.

I recall that Penny once told me how Dai ate a whole bell pepper for snack and how it just stunk up the whole cafeteria - her words.  No doubt they have a distinct smell but I wouldn't call it stinky.  She didn't know me well back then and thought it was a most bizarre food choice.  She wondered what kind of parent did that to a kid.  

Week 5, Day 7

Breakfast: breakfast burritos - Jason made mine and Cress's.  Phyllis made the eggs for her and Dai.  I guess yesterday Jason taught her how and she is so proud of her new skill.

Dinner: Taco soup - it was fine and Phyllis says she wants it in their lunch tomorrow but it is not as good as Heather's.  I had asked her for hers but she didn't get back to me in time.  Next time, I hope to use her recipe.  I used Paula Deen's recipe which used canned tomatoes, canned tomatoes with chiles, canned chiles, canned corn, canned beans.  I used frozen corn and cooked my own beans.  I also buy chiles in the 32 ounce can so I used those and tomatoes separately.

Week 5 , Day 6

Breakfast: burritos - Jason made them - isn't he great!

Lunch: all girls took produce and leftover lasagna.  Jason took leftover soup.

Dinner: We had the missionaries over for dinner. We had taco salds with taco beans rather than meat.  I used to small heads of CSA lettuce (washed more thoroughly) and a head of romaine from Costco but we wiped it out.  Cress ended up having leftover soup after.  For dessert/FHE snack we had berry smoothies.

Jason went to Costco.  He got tortillas and Mexican shredded cheese.  I need to repay him.  Costs was $18.68

Week 5, Day 5

Breakfast: oatmeal - I was sick so only Dai and Phyllis went to church and both fasted even though I did not - I was very proud of them.

Lunch: I slept through this - Jason had leftovers from last night

Dinner: Beaker soup - which my kids really loved.  We also cut the bread Phyllis got from church into thirds so each girl got some and I had iced-tea.  Our tea supply is getting thin so I tried some vanilla chamomile today.  Not a fan.  Jason started drinking the jasmine rooibos since it has green tea in it.  He says it is just ok - apparently it has jasmine flavoring not actual jasmine.  Cookies that I made or Steve Arnold, our neighbor for dessert - most had my cookies because even made with whole wheat flour they rock.  His do have peanut butter chips though, which is tasty.

Week 5, Day 4 - Shopping Day

Breakfast: Jason made breakfast burritos.  I am no longer having cheese on mine because it doesn't really add anything to me but it does add calories.

Lunch: I didn't get home until after 1 - after Chinese we went to the warehouse for food from the church and that took a little long and then we went to Costco.  Jason had coached and got home about 12:45 - he and Phyllis rode the motorcycle - Phyllis's idea.  When I came in he was giving Phyllis oatmeal.  There is no bread made and no beans for burritos.  He had no ideas.  I was a little annoyed because he though the oatmeal was just to tide her over until he could talk to me.  Anyway, all the girls and Jason had oatmeal and I started making lasagna for an early dinner.

Dinner: Lasagna.  I used canned tomatoes and canned tomato sauce that I seasoned and added to the ground meat.  The tomato sauce came from Tess's move.  She also gave me oven-ready lasagna noodles.  I basically used the noodle box recipe, but I didn't have 5 cheese Italian shredded cheese so I used something we had - a hard cheese - similar smelling to, but I am pretty sure it isn't, parmesan.  It was in a ziplock in my fridge with no label anymore.  We didn't have cottage cheese so I sent Dai to Nob Hill on her bike.  She did well and was pretty quick about it.  But they didn't have 24 ounce tubs so she got two 16 ounce tubs and we put almost all of it in.  I gave Jason a few bites of it with salt and pepper. Also, they didn't have you add garlic and onions to the hamburger but I did.  And they recommended pre-made sauce and I sort of made my own.  I am totally pleased with using ingredients  for which I didn't pay.

Mandarin orange smiles - these are juicy and hard to peel so the kids haven't been eating them as quickly.  They were so delicious though.  Just very messy.

Broccoli and romanesco from the CSA.  I steamed it up presumably to go in lunches, but it was there. And, Dai told me she likes broccoli but not the "fractal cauliflower."  Where did this pickiness come from? It has been popping up in all three all over the place!

Vanilla rooibos iced-tea.  We have had homemade lemonade lately so no iced-tea.  The girls seemed glad to have it back - I wish I had served them that from the time they were little.

Prep Ahead: Started beaker soup tonight.  We used to eat it all the time, when Phyllis was really little. It is the dinner plan for tomorrow.   I am hoping to convince Jason to make cream biscuits to go with it.

Also made more homesteader bread today.  We plan to wrap one for current use and slice the pother in the freezer.  Jason read where if you do that, you can just take what you need for the next day each night.  We shall see how that goes.  It didn't feel as firm or stretchy after kneading this time, but I didn't want to over knead it.  It looks okay.  It smells so good but Jason doesn't like to cut them when they are warm - and that is the butter melts best.  I made the dough and set it to rise just before dinner was served- Jason finished it.

We also boiled eggs as we have a lot right now - the remnants of lasts week's and then the new ones I bought and the ones Heather gave us,

We made cookies.  I made the dough and put it in the fridge and Jason is finishing them now.

Shopping Day:

Costco
Dog food	$31.53
Bleach	$9.78
Lettuce	$2.99
Grape Tomatoes	$5.99
Chipotle Sausage	$10.69
Cucumbers	$4.29
Eggs	$8.49
Milk	$6.49
	$80.24
Nob Hill
Cottage Cheese	$5.18
LDS Warehouse
Pinto Beans	$29.75
Red Wheat	$19.20
White Beans	$8.30
Flour	$11.95
Dried Onions	$6.90
Potato Flakes	$4.50
	$80.60
	$166.02
	-$40.00
	$126.02

See? Cute, huh? And it really works well for my needs.

I splurged a bit on the sausage - it was not on the list.  I haven't yet gotten a few things that were - onions, bell peppers and tea primarily, but perhaps a couple other things.  I hope to eventually get chicken breasts - but couldn't quite afford it this week.  Also, the LDS stuff is long term stuff, so I took half of it out of this week's and half out of next week's budget.  I use a little cash divider in my wallet (I actually paid money to to get the Cricut pattern on-line so Tess could cut it out for me.)  It was perfect because we used to get paid bi-weekly.  That was easier for grocery and gas budgeting but this new bi-monthly pay schedule is nicer for the overall budget.  That is why I still keep the first and second week mentality - even though it isn't exactly.  Remaining for this week is $13. Change just goes into the jar - we use it for kids allowances - so if it is off a bit, you know why.

Jason and I thought about going shopping this afternoon, but we didn't.  Heather owes me money for paper towels we split awhile ago and the flour.  She accidentally bought eggs thinking that she needed them but then she didn't, so she gave me those in exchange for part of what she owes me.  We can always use eggs.

Week 5, Day 1 - Day 3

This is being done quite a bit after the fact - I have been very busy and pretty sick.

Wednesday

Breakfast: oatmeal - I was fasting for my physical, so actually didn't care and can hardly remember. Thank goodness Jason made them food.

Lunches: normal stuff

Dinner: I made split pea soup.  It was meatless though I used chicken broth and it was good!  I would use less pepper though.  I used barefoot contessa's recipe.  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/parkers-split-pea-soup-recipe.html

Thursday

Breakfast: oatmeal.

Lunches were normal stuff and I had leftover soup.

Dinner: This was the first night I didn't feel good since it started after dinner the day before.  Originally I had scheduled cheaty pasta but we had lots of leftover taco beans so then I planned that instead.  In reality I was sick and JAson fed them leftovers - some from his company's event, even.

Friday

Breakfast: Cress had her 100 day necklace for breakfast.  The threaded 100 Fruit Lopps on yearn and so today she got to unthread them and have cold cereal.  Dai and Phyllis made fried eggs for themselves.  I ate a burrito before going to school (I really did not want to go.)

Lunch: normal stuff and I finished off the soup.

Dinner: Tacos.  Thank good ness for Jason.  I had a cold and a migraine and we found out that our HSA had over $10K stolen from it and I had been trying to get that resolved, so I was beat.

I cut up all the celery this morning.  Last week, I did that early in the week and it only lasted a week. This time I didn't do it until Friday and it as hardly touched.  I put it in the fridge in a container of water and it is fresh and easy to add to lunches or grab for a snack.