Recipe Wednesday

Today I am going to share a couple of the recipes that I have made this week. One is new and used up the last package of frozen leftover pork in my freezer. The other is an old stand by for using up leftover ham.

Pork Jambalaya

2 - 3 cups chopped leftover pork roast
32 oz chicken broth
1 cup water
2 cups sliced celery
14 oz diced tomatoes
1 tsp salt
dash hot sauce
1 1/4 cup rice
3/4 cup chopped onion
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp thyme
2 tsp garlic
1/2 tsp pepper
2 bay leaves

Combine all ingredients in a dutch oven. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to simmer. Simmer 45 minutes or until rice is cooked. Remove bay leaves before serving.

This made a lovely large batch. Harvey and I each had a serving and the remainder (shown here) was packaged and put in the freezer for another meal later on.

Scalloped Potatoes and Ham (sorry no picture, I forgot)

4 large potatoes
1/2 large onion sliced
2 cups diced leftover cooked ham
1/4 cup butter or margarine
4 heaping spoonfuls of flour
2 cups milk (perhaps a tiny bit more)
1/2 tsp pepper

Cook potatoes in microwave for 5 minutes. Cool, peel and slice. Place a layer of potatoes on bottom of casserole. Layer sliced onions on top. Place diced ham on top of onions and cover with a layer of potatoes.

Melt butter or margarine in microwave safe measuring cup. Add flour to make a thick paste. Mix in pepper and milk. Put measuring cup into microwave and heat for three and a half minutes stirring three times.

Pour this thickened mixture over the layers in the casserole. Cover. Place casserole in microwave and cook for 5 to 7 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

You can have this meal on the table in less than 30 minutes.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Tuesday Tidy Up

Once again it is bitterly cold with that darn wind chill. It is at times like this that I would love to move to a warmer climate. Then I remember that I probably would not get to see snow, and that would be a waste of something God gave us to enjoy!!! It's just that he could turn the thermostat up just a tad.

Today Harvey and I have spent cleaning the storage room in the basement, and I have cleaned the microwave cupboard and the shelving unit the television sits on in the living room.

Some items were tossed as they were no earthly good for anyone (makes me wonder why we were saving them) and others were put in boxes to be taken to the Salvation Army tomorrow.

Three small boxes full of items, and the bigger items are downstairs waiting to be brought up tomorrow. Once these are out of the house I will have donated or gotten rid of 50 items. That's right, 50 and I have only been decluttering for 3 days. Still loads to go through and some that we put aside today will be gone through later.

I even found a new blanket for our bed (the other was getting very thread bare). I knew I had another I just did not know where I had put it!!!

Later in the afternoon I pulled out this book.

Just for another look through. It has been awhile and I really only skimmed through it the first time.

Wow, I knew vinegar was great, but I did not realize it could be used for so many things. I do use it to damp mop all my floors between regular scrubbing, use it to clean my coffee pots and iron, to polish my taps, as well as for cooking. This book however lists many more uses.

In reading the section on vinegar I found out that putting some on a cotton ball and holding it against a bruise will help heal it faster (I am always bruising myself so I am definitely trying this one) and it can be used to clean the keys on the computer keyboard. Hmmm, I think that I got a brain wave at this point.

You really can't see it but this remote is really dirty. I poured some vinegar in a small bowl, got the Q-tips out and went to work.

It was dirty work, and it isn't as clean as I would like it, but I decided to do the Surround Sound remote as well.

Much cleaner and I think with one more going over tomorrow they will be perfect, and I will feel much better about using them.

There are a couple more uses for vinegar I am going to try and then if they work I will share them with you. Heck I may try all 173 uses. If even half of them work I will be saving money and leaving a much greener footprint.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Menu Monday

The first full week of the year and amazingly I have my menu all planned out.... Well, kinda, sorta.

Monday

Leftover Pork Roast. I will be hunting through some cookbooks looking for something new, or something I have only tried once.

Tuesday

Clean out the fridge night. We will be using up the Taco Bake I made. I also plan on making Kris a TV dinner out of it. There is lots!!

Wednesday

Leftover Ham. Once again I will be on the hunt for something new to try.

Thursday

Hamburgers, and french fries. Kind of a fast food night without all the grease and bad for you food.

Friday

I am going to use up the trout fillet in the freezer (or at least half as it is rather large). I will be making Maple Glazed Salmon and serving it with rice and peas or carrots.

Saturday

This is our anniversary (we will have been married 39 years) and providing the weather is not bad perhaps we will go out and dine. If not Sausage is on the menu.

Sunday

A roasted Ham sounds pretty darn good. Not sure what veggies I will make with this, but I am hoping that brussel sprouts is one of them.

Everybody have a wonderful day.

God bless.

Sunday Ramblings

This Sunday is the Feast of the Epiphany of The Lord. The day the wise men came bearing their gifts for our Savior.

We made it to Mass today even though it was and still is bitterly cold. I am so glad that we did. Father Brian stressed that Christ was first and foremost a Jew, that He came in fulfillment of the prophesy given to the Old Testament prophets. If we ever forget this we are twisting our faith into something that it is not.

Father Brian repeated something that every Pope has said for the past 50 years. The gist of it being that we as Catholics are Judaeo-Christian, our faith is forever grounded in the fact that Christ was a Jew, that Mary his mother, whom he gave us to be our mother is Jewish as well.

I can remember a talk we were having at Youth Group one night and I mentioned that Christ was a Jew and one of the youth said, "Really, I thought he was Catholic?" This lead to a further discussion and Father Brian coming in to speak to the youth. It was a lively discussion to say the least, but I am definitely sure that everyone went home with a better understanding of our faith.

Tonight I tried a new recipe....

I made this Taco Bake. I think it needs a bit more seasoning, but all in all it wasn't too bad. Lots of leftovers so we will be having another meal later this week. I may even have enough left to make a TV dinner for Kris.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Week In Review

This week has passed by very quickly. I am amazed at how quickly looking back.

Trying for zero waste this year and today was one of getting that started.

I had 4 over ripe bananas that neither Hubby or I would touch so I decided to make Banana Bread for the freezer.

Now there was a time that I would have said.... "Ewww," and just thrown them out. What a waste of good food. I don't know when we will consume this loaf, but I do know that well wrapped and in the freezer it will keep for a long time.

I also had one apple that had been in the crisper for a bit of time (probably a month). I checked it out and the apple was still firm. What to do...... I cut the apple in half, cored it and sliced thinly. Pulled out the trusty dehydrator and......

Voila, now that they are dry I have a nice small bag of apple chips to have as a snack some evening. Once again there was a time I would have thought to myself that it was only one apple and chucked it in the garbage bin.

I spent part of this week (the cloudy days) working on my new quilt. I now have 6 blocks done and almost a 7th. Hoping to get more done in the coming week. I will share pictures as they are completed.

Today for the first time in a bit I pulled out this.

I worked on it for about an hour as the sun was shining in the front south facing window. I will more then likely be working on this project anytime the sun shines, saving the quilt for those cloudy days.

I have also been busy knitting during our long winter evenings. I want to start a blog showing my handicrafts and perhaps listing them for sale.

These are the projects that I have mostly completed this week. They do need to be sewn, and the ends woven in.

I have the start of a pair of mittens on my needles right now. I so wish I could knit on double pointed needles, but I need loads of practice.

The good thing about knitting small items to sell is that it is using up all the odd leftover balls of yarn from previous projects. Keeping my no waste year going in all areas of my life.

I have also been busy with one of my monthly goals.

Busy copying recipes from one of the many binders of saved recipes..... Almost finished another binder. I am not sure I like these bright pink index cards, and the pen I have been using is blue so I do not for the life of me know why it is showing up red!! I would go blind trying to read them if that was so.

Cleaning and the usual chores have taken up the rest of my days. In cleaning I set up a donation box and today two items reside in it. Hopefully more will join as I am going to try and divest this house of at least 500 items this year. Perhaps more if I am very diligent.

I am also trying my best to get through the book "Eat, Pray, Love". It just is not catching my fancy right now. Thank heavens the chapters are short!!!

So that has been my week. How are you all doing?

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Friday Frugalities For The Week

Fridays are going to be my day to list all the frugal past times and things I have done over the week.

I am starting off with the use of my very own daily planner.

On this page I am listing all the extra cleaning chores and organizing I want to do this month. I am also listing my monthly goals.

These next pages will contain a list of the chores I want to get done that day.

I just love seeing all the chores marked off and all my fun things marked off as being done as well. Makes turning off my brain at night so much easier.

I checked out what the daily planner I usually buy cost now, and was very surprised. I know for a fact that the one I made did not cost me $15.00 to make. Boy are prices ever going up.

I have also started my frugal exercise program. I have been able to get out walking every morning this week, sometimes even twice. The fresh air does me loads of good and clears my head. I do have a feeling that tomorrow morning though I will be using the treadmill (we are in the midst of a good old fashioned snow storm).

Leftovers are packaged up daily and used for another meal. Tomorrows meal will be leftover rice made into fried rice, home made stir fry that was leftover, and some sweet and sour pork that was leftover as well. That will clean my fridge out nicely for the upcoming week.

I have been carefully following my menu plan (trading the clean out the fridge night though) and this is helping me to use up what I have in my freezer and cupboards. I am also doing more appliance cooking. Using a slow cooker, microwave, rice cooker and my ActiFry uses much less power than the oven. I even made a loaf of bread one morning in my bread machine. I mean totally in the machine. The loaf is strange, but tastes just as good.

I downloaded some free Kindle books onto my tablet and along with the free Kobo books and books that I have bought very inexpensively I should be set for this month's reading material. That is if I ever make it through Eat, Pray, Love (another very inexpensive book I picked up at the Salvation Army store a few weeks ago).

I am also using up items from my stash, both my yarn and fabric stashes. No need to buy anything as I have more than enough to work with. It may take some changing of colour schemes, but that is half the fun of creating.

I combined my trip in the car going to the bank and grocery shopping. I hope to do that much more this year. Keeps me from just running out to pick something up for the sake of getting out of the house. Gas is dropping in price and that is a very good thing. We should be well under budget for that if the drop continues and I continue to keep my driving to a minimum.

This will be a year of using up, making do, or doing without. Just hope I am up to the challenge.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

And A New Year Begins

Shhh, don't say anything, but Harvey and I did not stay up to see the new year in. In fact it has been many years since we have. I did get up 6 hours after the beginning of the year so I really did not miss that much.

I have kept busy today doing various large and small tasks. While the temperature is beautiful it is dark and cloudy so counted cross stitch was put aside for the day and I started to finish another project that has been on the to do list, cut out even for the last three years (I will more than likely be working on this when it is too dismal to cross stitch). This is in keeping with my goals for the year and even my monthly goals so I don't feel too bad about leaving one project to work on another.

I embroidered some butterflies a couple of years ago, and then gathered together and cut out squares of matching colours. This was going to be a new quilt for our bed which is needed. I then gathered everything together and put it away nicely in the sewing room. That is as far as the project got.

Until today. I pulled everything out and started pinning.

Here are the first two simple block patterns.

The quilt will use variations of these colours in each block but the basic block will stay the same. Nothing too overwhelming really I just needed a boot in the pants to get started. The best thing. Harvey loves the colours!!!

A new month means new monthly goals, and I did promise you yesterday I would share them with you all. There are 5 this month.

1.     Organize kitchen. I have to move things around to have room to store my new appliances.

2.     Work on unfinished projects (this seems to be a reoccurring theme).

3.     Copy and organize more recipes. Slowly but surely all those binders of recipes is disappearing and a nicely organized recipe shelf or two is evolving.

4.     Work on scanning all those loose pictures in containers and files.

5.     Work on at least one quilt. (notice the "at least one", gives you a hint that there could be a few more that need working on.... More of those unfinished projects).

This should keep me busy this month, but really the list is not that undoable.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.