Monday, March 10, 2014

Week 10, Day 6

Breakfast: cracked wheat cereal but we have no milk, some people used Jason's almond milk.

Lunch: Cress took leftover salad with grilled chicken, Phyllis has a burritos with leftover beans and Dai has leftover pasta.  Jason has burritos, of course.

Dinner:  Mixed bean soup - a completely new recipe.  It calls for 12 ounces of dried bean mix - I cooked a pound of mixed beans (black, pinto, desi garbanzo, white beans) - and used some of it for a pasta salad I am making and the rest for the soup - maybe more maybe less than what it called for.  It called for 8 cups of water and I used 8 cups of chicken broth instead.  It called for a teaspoon of thyme (yuck!) so I used a teaspoon of oregano instead.  I also added diced carrots, frozen corn and used a pound of ground hamburger rather than half a pound.  Looking at it, it would be thin, so I am glad I used a little more meat.  Since I used chicken broth, I also omitted the salt.  The link is below.

I realized that is meat 5 days in a row which is very unusual around here - the first two days had bacon (not much but still), then we had steak, then grilled chicken and today hamburger.

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/mixed-bean-soup

We also made corn bread using powdered milk and lemon juice for a buttermilk substitute.

For the dinner prayer, Cressida actually thanked Him that we could have something new.  I am so glad that new doesn't equal bad to my kids.  It actually was well received in general.

James Greathurst often comes over on Mondays for a playdate.  His mom said, "I have decided that I don't like coming to your house."  Why? "Because it makes me hungry."  Usually she comes while I am making inner because James has karate at 6.  But really, most of what I make she wouldn't eat anyway.  It might smell good, but it has olives, or is spicy, or has a vegetable she doesn't care for, etc. But it is nice to hear that it smells good.  Usually we visit while I prepare dinner - and it is actually very pleasant.

For dessert the girls had either Valentine's candy from their bags or a cookie from last night.

Prep ahead: I sliced up the celery and put it in water in the fridge.  I also peeled and cut up carrots in water for lunches.  I did some coins and some sticks because Dai prefers sticks and the little ones prefer coins.

This time I kept celery bits, carrots peels and carrot ends as well as some parsley or cilantro that had wilted in the fridge and am freezing them to eventually make a vegetable broth.

I also am preparing a pasta salad for the girls to take in their lunches this week.  The peanut butter is really low and I spent some of our grocery money on the iPad Mini - so I can use savings to grocery shop or we can try to work around until payday and hopefully have a good fresh start then - though we will be very low in supply, too.  Some things we are completely out of: black beans, milk, sour cream, cream, peanut butter (will be by the end of the week anyway), tator tots (not a true necessity) eggs (we will be by the end of the week.)

The link for the pastas salad is below but I used only half a teaspoon cumin and chile and used "some" of the beans I cooked.  I am unsure exactly how much.  Instead of tomatoes I used a can of rinsed tomatoes.  I used penne pasta because that is what I had and frozen corn in lieu of canned.  I steamed it first.  I didn't use chili flakes and found it didn't need salt and pepper really.  I debated adding finely diced celery, but passed.  I let the girls taste it tonight and they seemed to like it well enough.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/zesty-southern-pasta-and-bean-salad/

Jason is such a good sport.  He said he was willing to grocery shop as a family tonight or to work with the lean pantry.  Tonight he is also making pancakes for breakfasts during the week.  

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