Week 23, Day 3 - Friday

breakfast: oatmeal

lunch: girls packed lunches for school but I can't remember what and I even did it!

dinner: slow cooker cheesy chicken and rice - was so boring.  I was trying it because I pinned it long ago on Pinterest - boring!  Didn't thrill us and didn't thrill the girls.  

Week 23, day 2

Breakfast: oatmeal for the girls.  Jason made me a scramble with the onions and zucchini diced up in the fridge.  Jason ate cold cereal at work, I suspect because he didn't eat here.

Lunch: Cress and Phyllis had leftover Cobre Valley casserole.  Cress had pickles, celery and carrots.  Phyllis has carrots and pickles.  Dai has cherry tomatoes, a Claussen pickle (she doesn't like the gherkins I got this time) and carrots with a ham and Swiss sandwich.  Dai and Phyllis got a marshmallow for dessert.

Dinner: Italian chicken, salad and spaghetti noodles.  I was looking for camping recipes today.  I need to make meatballs ahead of time and went to Pinterest to find the recipe.  I saw how many pins I had and started trying to identify those I have done.  I found the Italian chicken one that I hadn't yet done, but sounded really good.  It has tomatoes, artichoke hearts, basil, garlic over chicken breasts baked and then add mozzarella on top at the tail end.  Serve over your favorite pasta - hence the spaghetti noodles.  Not that it is a favorite but we had it on hand.   Jason doesn't care for artichoke hearts and other than that, it is nothing to write home about so likely will not do again, but it was nice to be trying something new.  The salad was awesome, if I do say so myself.  Jason liked it, too.  It was plain romaine lettuce but I added a cucumber thinly sliced into half moons, CSA radishes sliced the same way, raspberries from the CSA, halved grape tomatoes, toasted pine nuts and goat cheese crumbled on top.  With homemade vinaigrette it was very tasty.  I remembered to do peach iced tea today, too.

Prep ahead: CSA kale, pressure cooked the CSA beets, cooked up the sausage for camp pizzas, boiled eggs to make potato salad, boiled potatoes to make potato salad.  (I hear ideally you should work with cold ingredients so I have pre-boiled stuff the last couple times I have made it.) I diced potatoes up very fine for home fries while camping.  I am cooking those ahead of time, too, but hopefully I do not overcook them as I did the potato salad ones.  I have six chicken breasts cooking in the crock pot for taco burritos while camping.  Maybe I will also take some cooked pintos - though not refrieds, just cooked, seasoned beans.  I also made meatballs. We vacuum packed them and they are freezing right now because they are camping food also.  We are having spaghetti and meatballs one night.  

How we eat is definitely influencing our kids

Yesterday Dai asked if she could contribute to her class's end of year party.  I offered to make peanut butter popcorn.  She said she couldn't have nuts and it couldn't be homemade.  I said that was too bad since I can make some good stuff.

Today after school, I called her in while I was doing dishes.  She was having a rough day, I could tell and I just wanted to hear about it.   She was in a pretty sad mood.  She was upset because she had to play outside and it was too hot.  She was also upset because she had a really heavy backpack because she had to bring everything home today and she just wished her teacher had told her earlier so she could have brought home a little bit each day rather than all at once.  (Methinks she is getting the planning thing!)  I told her the shopping was mostly done and I still had some money so did she have an idea of what she would like to bring to her class?  She replied, sadly, "I don't know. Everything good is homemade!"  Ah, sweetie you just made my day.

As she was clearing the table to set it for dinner (yes, we are still eating in shifts but we are trying to eat in shifts at the table), she saw some Boboli.  She asked what it was for and I told her, "Pizza while camping."  (We have never done this before and we shall see how it goes.)  She asked, "Why doesn't Dad just make pizza dough?"

Later, I went to drop off Dai at gym and pick up Cress from gym.  On the way home, Cress was telling me that she would save her money until she was out of food and then she would buy Top Ramen.  I replied, "I don't think you should wait until you are totally out of food.  Do you see how I shop every week or so, but I still have food in the house?  Also, ramen isn't that healthy."  So she said, "And bananas.  Those are healthy."  I started to explain the need for a well rounded diet when she said, "And I will make bread.  But first I will have to buy some wheat and grind it.  And then if I have enough money left over, I will buy a CSA."

Our kids are definitely being influenced by our food decisions - home cooking, wheat grinding, bread making, CSA!!  Sometimes I wonder if they will only eat white bread when they get older just because they never got it as a kid, but maybe not, huh? Just made my day.

Week 23, Day 1

Breakfast: cracked wheat but there were complaints - even Dai said it seemed too bready

Lunch:  Cress had a pizza party at school today so no lunch.  Dai had ham and Swiss, carrots, celery and pickles. Phyllis had pickles, carrots and celery and Cobre Valley casserole leftovers.  Jason ate leftovers, I ate leftovers.

Dinner: Sirloin tri tip roast (2.25 pounds so we have lots of leftovers), Chinese chicken napa cabbage salad, fried potatoes.  The younger two girls love the salad - Dai doesn't like it at all but she couldn't say enough good things about the potatoes.

Root beer whirls for dessert again.  But yesterday I used a recipe - 3 cups vanilla ice-cream to 1 cup of root beer.  Today I used the rest of the ice-cream, maybe 4 cups and a full can of root beer (leftover from camping.)  Phyllis likes the extra root beer.

I brought Jason a beer after the kids went to bed last night.  Actually, I had put one in the freezer and two in the fridge since they were all warm.  I set a timer for the one in the freezer and took it to him when it was cold. Tonight he got out his own beer (one of the two I put in yesterday) and I asked, "Does beer make you feel good?  Fell relaxed?"  He said, "It makes me feel loved because my wife bought me beer."  I don't drink and wish he was LDS, too, which would mean he didn't drink, but I do buy him beer for parties and camping and such.  I guess because I usually do it without his asking and I get his preferred beer (New Castle), that makes him think I put his desires ahead of mine.  I am totally speculating - he didn't say that part.

I realized last night that I have come to really like the smell of New Castle.  It never smelled bad - decent for beer - but because it is his beer, I think I particularly like the smell.  I think of him when I smell it.  I think of evenings spent with him because I always get more than is strictly needed for whatever event so he has it for a few days afterwards - depends on how many he consumes each night.  

Week 22, Day 7

Breakfast: burritos all around and a scramble for me.  Phyllis had a banana.  Cress, Dai and I had mangoes.

Lunch: Dai had a boiled egg and graham crackers on the side.  Phyllis has a PBJ on the last of the bread.  Phyllis has  peanut butter on graham cracker sandwich.  Cress had mango, carrots and pickles. Dai has carrots and cherry tomatoes. Kind of a lot of each.  Phyllis has an apple, carrots and pickles. Phyllis also has  quesadilla for before volleyball practice since she goes straight from school.  They all got one marshmallow for dessert.  A little stale - the leftovers from Phyllis and Jason camping trip.  I had leftover salad.  Jason took burritos (from leftover taco beans) and carrot sticks.

Dinner: Cobre valley casserole and salad

Prep ahead: made bread, soaked cracked wheat for breakfast tomorrow.  After you grind fine flour for awhile, the stones get full of powder and less efficient.  This is when you put a new bowl in front and make a coarse grind for awhile.  Then sift out the finer stuff and grind and you continue on making flour on a fine grind.  

Week 22, Day 6

Breakfast: Jason made burritos for Cress and he.  He made me a scramble with the onions and zucchini I prepared Friday night.  Dai and Phyllis

Lunch:  Cressida had a PBJ - she loves the strawberry freezer jam my visiting teacher made us.  She had apples, carrots and celery.  Dai and Phyllis had a boiled egg.  Phyllis and Dai had carrots, a banana and an apple.

Dinner: I made the fennel frittata with the sauteed stuff I started earlier.  We also had a slew of leftovers. We had the missionaries.  We told them they got to eat leftovers with us.  They were gracious but I think not thrilled.   The girls had popsicles for dessert.  

Week 22, Day 5

FAST SUNDAY

Phyllis and Jason are still camping and she is not fasting.  She is having grits for breakfast and meat sandwiches for lunch.

Breakfast: Cressida had oatmeal and a mango

Lunch: Cress had goldfish at church so she decided to skip lunch.  She said, "It feels good fasting lunch."  I am glad she looks forward to when she fasts, but I had to explain fasting was different than skipping a meal because you just ate a lot of goldfish and aren't hungry.

Dinner: We BBQ'd at my Dad's.  He did chicken on the grill and Susan made a coleslaw and a broccoli salad and corn muffins.  My girls loved them but they just seemed sweet to me - I guess I have really fallen for Southern cornbread which has no sugar added.