Summer Plans

I'm so happy it is summer!!! This is the way I want to spend my days!!! :-)

I have begun my summer plans today, little bits at a time. No more rushing, no hurrying. (and yes Artie I do hurry some times) Okay, maybe I don't hurry; but I'm stressed just from the fact that I should be hurrying!! No more stress!! Says the mama with seven children!!! :-)

Looking ahead to the summer plans.

My favorite summer activity is SUMMER READING!!! The little children are having a reading contest. We will be using the AR reading list and everyone reading on their grade level. I know there are lots of wrong things about being rewarded to read, but there are a lot of good things about reading, so I will handle the fact that they are reading for a contest and believe when they grow up they will still love to read. Just as my older children have. In fact, my older children are wanting in on the contest too. Maybe one just for them?

Tomorrow we will go to the library and get the first round of books. I still need a good summer book for myself. Any ideas? I will probably begin a new Grace Livingston Hill soon. I'm finishing up a book called A Place Called Sweet Apple about a woman who fell in love with an old abandoned house and took it and restored it with love.

We will also be updating chores. The little boys will be taught by Troy to take over the trash duties. Troy is going to have a big house project each day - lots of scrubbing and washing and some outside yard work. Emily is going to have something to cook each day. I want to have a "foods available to cook" list for Emily. Then she can cook when she wants to instead of being tied to a meal - desserts, breads, muffins, breakfast to cook ahead for the frig, casseroles. We will also be moving over to our summer meals - lots of salads and tomatoes!! Then there are always lots of new recipes waiting to be tried and tested!! Brenda will be working - some with Basketcase and some babysitting, so she will probably keep her usual chore schedule.

The calendar is quickly filling up more than I realized with weekly church activities for the little children, Bible school, beach camp, boy scout day camp, Jerusalem Project, parties

Then to fill in the blank days there is camping, swimming, cookouts, sprinklers, bowling, ice cream, Popsicles, watermelon, lemonade, strawberry slushies from Sonic and birthdays.

There will still be a little school for extra practice - mostly handwriting and multiplication tables. Maybe a couple of unit studies just to keep boredom at bay. Troy is thinking of summer school. ??

I'm hoping to get some good yard sale-ing in!! Saturday mornings usually seems so busy, but now that I'm not hurrying.... :-)

This Week's Menu

I am working on my menu plan for this week (our grocery week runs Thursday through Wednesday). I found a great deal on eggs at Food Lion so I am trying to incorporate them ever other day or so.

Thursday - fried chicken, corn on the cob, french bread, roasted potatoes and strawberry shortcake for dessert

Friday - pan fried pork chops, mama's deviled eggs, chicken rice and biscuits

Saturday - scrambled eggs, bacon, grits

Sunday - roast with mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, biscuits

Monday - pancakes

Tuesday - spaghetti and french bread

Wednesday - fried egg or egg salad sandwiches, chips

Fall Days

I think since I've stopped homeschooling, it's been hard for me to blog regularly. It seems like I would have so much more time, but now I don't seem to have near as much interesting to post. I'm going to work on turning this more from homeschooling to homemaking and see how that goes.

I've just this week started up my new fall breakfast. ~ HOT CHOCOLATE ~ I love it. I went to Goodwill and bought a special new hot chocolate mug for my mornings (a great .50 splurge). :-)

Our microwave died last week, so it's added a new element of heating water on the stove (I think I would rather get a kettle than a new microwave right now, I'm enjoying my stove.) My favorite is plain ol' hot chocolate with marshmallow cream on top. When the hot chocolate is good and hot it will melt the marshmallow cream to a frothy topping. It's so yummy, I have to hide it from the children or it will all be gone in one day. I guess we will have some special afternoon snacks of hot chocolate for them. :-)

It's been a little cooler here lately - today I don't think it's suppose to get much above 50 degrees today. We had a good warm homemade vegetable soup with crackers last night. It was mostly potatoes, corn, carrots and tomatoes with a few beans scattered in. If there are too many beans, they kids will protest. I just try and stick them in where I can. :-) There was enough left over for Artie and I both to have some for lunch today.

I've lost one of my favorite recipes - Baked Ziti - over the past month or so. I've looked online and can't find the exact one we used. I know most of the basic ingredients, but not any of the measurements of the spices. I am going to try and get my recipes posted on line so somethings like this doesn't happen to me again. Tonight we are going to have French Dip - recipe to follow...

Summer Meals

Here are some of the summer meals we have had lately. With it being so hot, I haven't felt much like cooking our regular dinners.


Working backwards...





Sunday - Subs from Sub Station - $5 for a foot long










Saturday - Taco Pasta Salad


Friday - dinner at our friends - the Cockran's - grilled steaks, french fries, yeast rolls, corn on the cob and veggies - Sandy always outdoes herself!!


Thursday - Cold Plate - ham and Swiss roll ups, turkey and Velveeta roll ups, deviled eggs, crackers, veggies and dip,


Wednesday - Grilled hamburgers


Tuesday - Pepperoni and mozzarella pasta salad


Monday - Tomato and bacon sandwiches and chips

Friday's Blogging

I haven't blogged much lately. It has been a very busy week.

I thought I would just look back over the week and share what's been going on...

Monday - Bobby had gymnastics. He's doing so good. He got to be on the rings for the first time!! Troy worked and brought home some pizza and shared a piece with me! Emily made her Rachael Ray's Chicken Cordon Blue Roll up - they were wonderful. Probably one of the best chicken dinners I've ever had!!!

Tuesday - Stephen and Bobby had wrestling. Both boys are doing good wrestling. They're favorite move is Rodeo. Troy worked. Skillet Noodle Pizza for dinner.

Wednesday - the children all went to church and Artie and I went out to eat. The little children had a baked potato bar. Brenda and Emily got the lettuce and pansies planted in one 4x4 square. Terry went to speech - he's doing great and learning so much. I am thinking about getting Brenda's speech tested. I don't know enough to say what's wrong, but there is something with her s's?

Thursday - boys back to wrestling, they only have a couple weeks left until the state finals. Troy worked again. Pizza night!!

Friday - we were suppose to go to our stamping class tonight, but Artie got a side job for this evening. It will be a nice break to be home though. Maybe we will get another family movie for the littles to watch.

Emily's Rachael Ray - American All Star Burgers

Emily's cooking turned out great last week. Here she is with her Rachael Ray burgers.

Upcoming Menu

What's for Dinner
Originally uploaded by Kelly Ferry

Friday - Tacos

Saturday - Homemade veggie soup (should be great after a cold day at the parade - plus makes good use of the leftover turkey bones waiting in the frig)

Sunday - Fried Chicken, Mac & Cheese

Monday - Spaghetti

Tuesday - Gwyn's Chicken Casserole

Wednesday - Salmon Stew

Thursday - Meatball Subs

All subject to change due to time, temperament, and attitudes!!! :-)




Note: "Some people carve their turkeys and hams in the kitchen, and just lay out a platter of meat, and some do their carving at the table. Either way, make sure to save those ham bones and turkey carcasses. Put the turkey in your biggest stockpot, fill it up with water, and toss in a roughly chopped onion, a couple of chopped up carrots and some celery. Add some garlic, (fresh, dried, whatever) snap a lid on it, and bring to a boil. After it boils, skim the top, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Check it periodically and add water if you need to. Simmer this for as long as you can, 24 hours is what I do, and it makes the best stock, but 8 or 12 hours is fine if that's all you have. Let it cool once it's done, then pour the stock through a strainer in to a large container with a lid. Place in the refrigerator overnight, to allow fat to rise. In the morning, skim off the fat, then you can divide your beautiful turkey stock in to smaller containers for the freezer. This keeps wonderfully for a year, and is great for making Chicken or Turkey Noodle Soup, other soups, making gravy, or even adding to mashed potatoes or anything that needs a flavor boost. Also, chicken or turkey stock has incredible health benefits, and is wonderful to have on hand for cold and flu season." Taken from The Place of H blog...

Tuesday's Night at the Quinn Home

Tuesday's night dinner was prepared by Brenda and Emily. We knew we had a crazy evening, so early in the day Brenda cooked up a couple of huge slices of country ham. We are now having to hide anything cooked or thawing out - Princess, the cat formally known as Prince - will eat through any type of covering to get to meat!!! So we hid the cooked ham in the microwave until dinner was ready. Later in the afternoon, Brenda cooked up 2 dozen scrambled eggs to go with the ham. That was dinner - no grits, no biscuits - that's all we had time for!! (Emily did make some brownies for dessert though~~~~)

Artie got home just in time to take Bobby to gymnastics. I took Stephen to his first wrestling practice - it was a blast. We usually don't like to have so many nights during the week where we are out of the house - but this is the first time the twins have been involved in any outside activities and we didn't want to make them do the same thing when their personalities and interests are so different. So we all rushed home, met up and carved the pumpkin (nothing like waiting til the last minute). Artie wanted me to take a picture of our Quinn pumpkin (it looks like one of our kids) - and I reminded him of the camera situation. I told him he could just go ahead and forfeit the contest and buy the camera and he said he would wait!! He's so sure he's gonna win. So, in the midst of the craziness last night - we missed the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!!! Will my little kids ever recover? My older children never had such abuse!!!

Last Night's Dinner

Artie is getting on to me about my blog. We were talking last night about how far I've come with my cooking since we got married but still, if I lost my cookbook - it would be like starting from scratch for me. Everything is in there. I don't keep lots of cookbooks, if I cook it and we like it - it goes in my cookbook - that way I can always find the recipe I'm looking for.

Slowly I'm gonna try and transfer the whole thing to my blog. I am gonna try and just list my meals each night or the previous nights (many times my plans change by dinner time) and add in recipes when I have them.

Last night we had a picnic ham (Brenda baked) with pasta & broccoli and then also cheddar and garlic mashed potatoes (Emily cooked both of these). Both the starches were free from past triple sales at Harris Teeter - I don't just buy mixes like that - but if they are free.... :-) We also had some big and little biscuits to eat out ham in. The ham is wonderful. It is one of my best finds in the meat section. I always buy one when they go on sale for $.99/lb. All you have to do is trim it up and then bake in tinfoil for a couple of hours. Of course in our crazy house - all the sharp knives have disappeared and I had to run down to Dollar General and pick up a new knife so Artie could carve the ham!!!

(Artie and I are having a race to see who can lose 30 lbs first. If I win I get a new camera - so maybe I can get some pictures following the later posts on our dinners)

Brenda is working in the kitchen a lot this year in school. Right now on top of her cooking, she is learning how to clean out the frig. She is cleaning out a main shelf and a door shelf each day so it's not too overwhelming for her. Hopefully the top will still be clean by the time she gets to the bottom - but you never know here. She is doing so great with her cooking.

Brenda has also made an inventory of all the food in both freezers, the pantry, the hutch and the food cabinets. When she is done cleaning the frig - she will do one there too. Later we will work on learning how to make the menus using the food already in the house.

Our Favorite Summer Meals

Fresh Fruits & Vegetables 2
Originally uploaded by invisibleElement

I love the different seasons!! I love change and making things different. I love looking forward to things and making family memories.

We have different things we serve at different times of the year. We don't grill much during the winter and we don't have salads and things from the garden. Likewise - we don't serve spaghetti (sometimes at a birthday if it's requested) or chili or stews in the summer. My family looks forward to their favorites coming up each season. Keeps their love alive. They sit in the summer and say I can't wait for some of your chili mama or in the winter - I can't wait till we can grill out some hamburgers with garden fresh tomatoes on them. It keeps the food fresh and not boring.


Here are some of our summer foods -


Grilling:

hot dogs
hamburgers (my all time favorite summer meal)
hamburger steak
pork chops
ribs
steaks
chicken

Summer dinners:

A big salad (using things from the garden)

A big sandwich - a loaf of french bread - sliced lengthwise and loaded like a Dagwood then sliced for individual slices

Subs

Tomato and bacon sandwiches (tomatoes from the garden)

Corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, and sliced cantaloupe. (I don't get away with many meals without meat - but this one is okay cause it's so summer-y)

Chicken Taco Salad - great served cold

Pepperoni pasta salad

Tuna salad

Chicken salad

BBQ sandwiches



Sides:

Veggies and dip

baked beans

coleslaw

macaroni salad - want to find a good one

potato salad - not much

boiled eggs

deviled eggs



Drinks:

lemonade

sweet tea



Desserts:

I want to learn how to make homemade ice cream this summer!!

ice cream

ice cream cones

Popsicles

Italian icee

strawberries and whipped cream

strawberry shortcake

watermelon

jello

milkshakes



From the garden:

fresh made salsa




Meal Activities:

picnic at the park

picnic at the lake

when it gets really hot - sometimes we will put a video in, turn fans on everyone and watch a movie during dinner on a blanket

hobo lunch - I love this one - I fix the littles a lunch - Pb&J, carrots, a little Debbie, chips or something - tie it up with a bandanna and hang it on a stick. - little boys and sticks with a lunch on it - it doesn't get better than that!!


Please share your summer meal ideas....

Planning Our Meals

Four weeks ago
Originally uploaded by helenjane

So, my meal planning has changed a little over the years. I started with a calendar and a piece of paper. I would see what was going on that week - note it on the calendar and then plan what we wanted to eat around that (our four meals plus one new to try). :-) My grocery list was pretty similar each week.

As I grew in my cooking, I began to learn to get the store sale papers each week and see what was on sale. If it wasn't on sale - we didn't eat it!! :-) It help my learning experience to find new meat on sale(besides my favorite hamburger) and then find some way to cook it. My learning kinda hit a wall as far as planning was concerned. My meals were still growing, but I didn't change my method of preparation for years.

Months ago, I had a revelation. I had been sweeping my living room and there were a few pennies and a dime in the dirt pile. You have to understand my house - when I sweep (a multi - times a day event) - the dust pan is always overflowing!! We make a lot of dirt!! I never would get little pennies out of the dirt pile. As I was sweeping I was reminded of the story of the widow woman in the Bible who was rejoicing when she found her lost coin. Then I thought about the verses about keeping account of your herds and how God was a God of order. It wasn't honoring to Him or Artie (who works so hard for us) for me to sweep up money and throw it in the trash. Basically it was laziness. I could justify - it's just a penny - but wow, they add up. I decided I would be more faithful about the money God and Artie gave me to work with. I started collecting every penny I found. I began finding them everywhere. Some days I would have more than a dollar in my pocket at the end of the day.

It was that same time that my eyes were opened to couponing. I use to coupon - saving maybe $5-8 a trip - years ago. That's not what I'm talking about. I am COUPONING!!! In one weekend at a triple sale I saved over ....$550!!!! It has been amazing to me and everyone who has watched the process. I have found so much to buy with those little pennies I had been throwing away. Bread for $.29, spices for pennies, sugar for $.19, the list is endless. That's not even counting the many many things I've been able to get totally free.

Now, for the first time in our marriage, my freezer is full from stocking up when I can get things very cheap or better yet, free. My grocery bill has dropped from $300 a week (for everything - paper products, cat food, diapers, health and beauty supplies) to $200 a week for 8 people. I didn't get a bunch of money and go and stock up. I am adding to my stock each week as I'm watching my grocery bill go down!!! It's amazing to me to watch the growth and the money savings all at the same time. I think God smiles when he looks at my growing pantry. It feels very Proverb 31ish to me!! :-)

So, now my planning consists of getting my little piece of paper and my calendar - seeing what is going on that week - and then going to the freezer and writing down the meats I have in there. I plan meals based on what I already have and then just get the few items I need to round it out.

Meal Planning

meal planning
Originally uploaded by Jenblossom

I am working on some meal planning notes for a Yahoo group I am a part of, so I though I would do some of my thinking out loud here.

I have always planned my meals from the day I got married. I was so excited about the first meal I cooked for Artie. I can't remember everything I cooked, but I know there were several dishes including a pasta salad and some other side dishes. It looked so pretty and fresh. Artie sat down at the table and just looked around waiting for me to bring the rest of the food. He thought it was some kind of joke. I was broken hearted at his disappointment. He couldn't believe I would serve a meal with no meat!!!! What was wrong with me? Wow, what an eye opener - he expected meat at every meal. I hardly ever ate meat and had no idea how to cook it!!!

I had four meals I could cook and we rotated them each week (or really every four days)...

1. Hamburger Helper (which has many different varieties!!) :-)
2. Tacos
3. Cubed Steak
4. My mama's spaghetti

(Notice it's almost all hamburger meat!!! I had no idea how to cook any other meat!!)

That was it. That was all I could cook. We ate those four things and then one new thing. After we ate the new meal - we would vote if we ever wanted to have it again or throw away that recipe. They were a "keeper" or a "thrower". There was only one night that I remember that we actually had to throw the whole dinner out - it was a corn chowder - I've never made it since. So, slowly, the list of things I could cook grew. I got pregnant two months after we got married and was extremely sick. I couldn't even be in the same room where meat was cooking - there was a chicken commercial (we're having "chicken tonight, chicken tonight") and every time I ever heard that commercial I threw up. That lasted the full nine months of pregnancy. So it was a very long process with my learning!!!! But, I don't think my family has had to suffer too much. I have come a long way in my cooking. I'm not ready to be in any type of cooking contest, but if you sit seven hungry children down at my table - I can make them and their daddy happy!!! (most nights)

Tonight's Dinner

Tonight we are having Zatarain's Yellow Rice with Smoked Sausage fried up and added in (of course sweet tea will be served as always!!). Brenda is cooking dinner for us. /this is her first time cooking this dish - she likes making new things!! We used to eat the Jambalaya, but it was a little too hot for the younger children. I hope this will be a little better tonight.

The Zatarain's (we are using 3 boxes) is from my first triple sale at Lowe's Foods. It was free. The smoked sausage was on sale at Bi-Lo this week for $1 after a coupon was added to the sale price. So.,.. 8 of us are eating dinner for $1 tonight!!! Wow, Artie will love this meal!!!

My Current Favorite Lunch

panini_640x480
Originally uploaded by Emo Squid.

Lean Cuisine Panini

I eat each side of the sandwich by itself - makes it seem like more. It is very yummy and only 7 points.

I am doing Weight Watchers again and my day is pretty set right now. I have Special K and skim milk for Breakfast - 3.5 points and then my sandwich for lunch with a peppermint patty for a little chocolate snack. What kind of day would it be without a little chocolate? It's only 1 point. That leaves me with plenty of point to eat a normal dinner with the family at night and sometimes enough for some ice cream for a late snack.

...Guess what I'm doing around my lunch??? You guessed it - More LAUNDRY!!! :-)