2/11/13-3/03/13 Menu

One Months Half a Month's Menu
So I've been reading a lot of blogs that list their menu for the week. I ways thought it was a bit silly when I first was doing that but now that I see other people's I guess I can try posting mine. Though we eat a lot of processed foods sadly. Either they are cheaper than fresh or just 10x easier.
(And yes I'm just filling the gap of time for the water to boil so I can finish dinner since the dishwasher and clothes washer are already going.)

Because I'm trying to reign in the budget I pretty much planned and bought for the month. I know it sounds weird but when I go to the grocery store if I only have a couple items in my cart it feels wrong and I'm more likely to impulse buy.

2/11 - (was suppose to be tacos but we had a flub up on Sunday) So Banquet Turkey & Gravy
          Mashed Potatoes
          Corn

2/12 - Cheesy Chicken

2/13 - Meatloaf
          Mashed Potatoes & Gravy
         Corn?  (I really don't like this idea but my husband is what decided Monday's meal and my head was hurting so bad I couldn't tell him any different because he was cooking and I was taking a lot of pain killers.)

2/14 - Parmesan Chicken (OnCor) -- Subject to change since the oldest child will be at a fundraiser event.
          Spaghetti

2/15 - Fried Ham
          Biscuits
          Hashbrowns
          Eggs

2/16 - Pizza

2/17 - Chicken (garlic/butter & various seasonings)
           Pasta
           Peas

2/18 - Hamburger Helper
           Green Beans

2/19 - BBQ Pulled Pork
          Chips

2/20 - Spaghetti with Meatballs

2/21 - Pot Roast (Hormel)
           Mashed Potatoes & Gravy
          Corn

2/22 - Chicken Nuggets
          French Fries

2/23 - Pizza

2/24 - Sloppy Joes
           Chips

2/25 - Breaded Pork
          Mashed Potatoes w/ Pan gravy
          Peas

2/26 Grilled Cheese
        Tomato Soup

2/27 - Hamburger Helper
           Green Beans

2/28 - Lasagna (Stoffers)

3/1 - Turkey Bake (Banquet)
         Mashed Potatoes
         Corn

3/2 - Pizza

3/3 - Chicken
         Rice
         Vegetable Stir fry

As you can see... I live up to my "The best food comes from a box" idea. I can't wait for summer though so we can throw grilling into our menu!

A few other things done this past week... and insight into next

So my blogging has actually been pretty sporadic compared to how I normally try to get things up and for the most part in order. Well a few things kind of fell through the cracks for with the family has been up to (Okay myself with the girls because I don't think you want to see my husband in his undergarments playing video games.... it's like living with a teenage boy).

Finished a Goal
I was able to finish one of my goals this year which was to read one book. Yes, I know I didn't set the bar very high but I wanted to see it done (though shhh don't tell anyone I was reading at work too, only reason it got done this fast).

Zen and the Art of Knitting by Bernadette Murphy. Think of this book like a short story book about knitters. It talks about people's opinions about knitting and any spiritual or meditation qualities that knitting seems to have for these people. It talks about their hardships and trials while really focusing in where knitting fell in with their lives. Even if you're not a knitter there are some good lessons to be learned and some things that really make you think. While I do not agree with all of this book and a few parts grated on my nerves because it seemed the author was too blown away to realize the story should move forward a bit; I still recommend this book.
My own knitting is kind of sad. I tried to do the purl stitch when I made my scarf and it turns out because I didn't know what I was looking for and I didn't twist the yarn correctly all I got was a plain knit stitched scarf. Don't get me wrong I'm still proud of myself but now I want to try and move past that. I decided that just complaining about knitting and doing nothing about it wasn't doing me any good. I went to Big Lots and got some bright pink (pictured) and some nice blue yarn and then some baby blue yarn. I wanted to make my soon-to-be new nephew (My sister-in-law is due very soon) a baby hat but I lost my circular needles and I haven't decided what to make out of this other yarn (pink and dark blue) I think I might be going with a scarf again but try out different stitches. In this thought process of I need to do something and not just complain I went down to Hobby Lobby and bought a book about knitting to help me understand different stitches.

Candles Day 2

 The day after candle day the other week I also let the girls make their own candles. Katherine was determined to use my mold that really is more suited for the trash can by this point but she still loves her candle. Brielle's turned out very festive for this season. My mother had asked me what that machine is that I have the girls pictured with. Well it's a candle maker. You unlock the top and put the wax, scent and color up there and then it has a valve that you can safely turn to start and stop the wax pouring into the mold. I prefer to use this with the kids because I can be a little less hands on. I still hover but I don't have to be as worried about them burning themselves or dropping/spilling anything. As many candles as we make it was worth the investment for us.

Valentine Cookies
So finally we get to this Sunday. Did I mention that this past weekend I was horribly lazy after a very nasty fall last week while I was fixing the plastic on the greenhouse because we had a 70 degree day! Well I was lazy but around 4 o'clock I decided that if I didn't make the cookies with the girls now then they weren't going to get made. So I made up some spritz cookies and added red food color so they turned out pink.

This Week
So now we are into this week. It's going to be a bit of a busy week. I go into work today. (I know working on a Monday! Ugh! Thankfully I don't have to do it often.) And because I'm working today it means I get to fit my grocery shopping in after the work day... not so fun seeing how my shopping list isn't quite complete yet. I don't need much because I bought the majority of stuff for the month but I need very odd things that I don't always buy. The reason I'm going into work is because Friday the kids don't have school so I need to be able to cover that day and it sounds like I might be babysitting as another friend of mine didn't even realize that this next weekend was a 4-day weekend. Which I'm completely fine with. It's great to be able to trade off watch each other's kiddos.
The middle of this week Brielle was suppose to have a Jr. Beta meeting getting ready for the big convention coming up at the end of the month but both girls have a dental appointment. I tried to reschedule it but they told me I couldn't get a new appointment until near the middle of summer! So the girls may not like it but they ARE getting home/getting picked up early.
I have several things going on this week at work and it sounds like a lot of meetings so I'm not looking forward to it. In fact, I'm dreading it. So I expect to be completely burnt out this week so dinners are going to be pretty simple and Crock pot Tuesday will be Cheesy Chicken again.
I guess I better finish up this coffee, kiss my husband out the door and go get ready for work myself.

Also, just a little photo update of my sprouts. Now if I could just figure out why the broccoli grew so high then fell over... weird.

Valentine's Day at the Garden

Today we went to the Botanical Garden and while it was a bit chilly to walk around outside, so we didn't, our main objective was the annual Bee Mine Valentine's Day craft event. This is a relatively new event the Western Kentucky Botanical Garden has started but the girls have really enjoyed it every year.

The girls made paper orchid hair clips.  

Then they made simple sucker holders with foam and stickers.

The girls made Bee pictures with stickers and their hands painted.

They each made a card too! Katherine made her card for Peter and myself. Brielle is still tight lipped about her card. Katherine wanted us to read her card right away though.

Katherine's card to us.

After the crafts the kids got hot cocoa and we went to go look at the plants inside. 

Everything was absolutely beautiful and I'm so glad to make sure to get the family out of the house.

We left there and went and met his parents for lunch dipping into our food budget (more than I want to think about so I didn't look at the bill) and then took the kids over to a gaming shop where Brielle picked out an anime book and Katherine got Pokemon cards because she wants to learn how to play. The kids got gifts because they were both on the A/B Honor Roll again and while we may not pay for every grade we do try to make sure to reward them for their hard work and dedication to school. 

We're home now and it looks like my husband has elected it to be nap time. The kids are bundled up because even though it's bright outside it is still cold. We kicked the kids outside though because it's good for them to get some fresh air and just be kids. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Make Ahead: Baked Penne Spaghetti

So I'm normally at class right now but during the day the teacher contacted us all and said she was very ill so class was canceled so gave me time to throw up another blog. (I think I'm becoming addicted to this blogging thing.)
So here you go, basically a very cheesy spaghetti you can make ahead of time and it takes about 45 min (Oven warm up time and bake time) once you get home and doesn't require you to hover over it so you can do things like help kids with homework.

1 box penne (or any thicker noodle if you prefer different)

1 can of sauce (whatever is your family's favorite will be fine)

2 cups mozzarella cheese

Cooked Meatballs

Cook noodles according to box directions. You don't want them super soft though. Al dente.

Drain and rinse with cold water. 

Mix pasta, pasta sauce, meatballs and 1 1/2 cups of cheese together in a large bowl. 

(You can do it in the dish itself but I find it's harder and I tend to spill things because it will fill a 13x9  to near over flowing. If you have a bit bigger baking dish it won't want to over flow but this makes a lot so it's easier just to dirty up another dish.)

Pour mixture into large baking dish (this one is the size up from the 13x9 I'm not sure the measurements) and taking the remain half of cup of cheese and sprinkle it over top. 

I also sprinkled a little bit of oregano and dried parmesan on top. Dried parmesan like you get out of the little craft containers won't melt so keep that in mind. 

You can add whatever cheeses your family likes my family just tends to be a bit picky. (Sadly)

Alternatives would be mixing in pepperoni's to give it more of a pizza like taste (make sure you cut them into quarters so they are bite sized and mix well, you can also cut up your meatballs for the same reason I was just in a hurry). 

Place foil over the top and store in the refrigerator.

To cook: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place foil topped dish into oven for 20 min. Remove foil and cook for 10 min. 

 

Garlic Rosemary Pork Loin

So it's Monday and I'm doing my crock pot dinner. I know strange right? Well there's no particular reason other than the sides I have planned will take too long to make Tuesday and this was suppose to be Sunday's dinner but I forgot to defrost the loin! So Sunday my husband went out and picked something up and I was getting ready to protest that and that I'd find something else to make but I decided it wasn't worth the effort. I'm horrible right?

So here we go.

Garlic Rosemary Pork Loin
1 1/2 - 2 lb Pork Loin
Garlic - Cloves are best but all I had in the house was minced. Amount will depend on how much you like garlic.
Rosemary about 4 tsp fresh or around 2 tsp dried
Salt & Pepper
Butter or Olive Oil

After rinsing off your pork loin (you do know you are suppose to rinse things like roasts before you use them right?) you may want to cut slits or holes into the loin, fat side. It is optional but I like my flavor to get more through the meat.

You then take your garlic and stuff it into the holes. This is where clove garlic works much better but you can do it with minced it just takes some patience.

Salt and pepper your roast. I don't personally use much salt as we eat so many canned or prepacked foods that my belief is we get enough salt already but we do use a generous amount of pepper instead.

If you are using fresh rosemary then you will want to mince it. I prefer fresh which is why I have a very wild rosemary bush trying to take over everything. Seriously it's scary! One of these days it's going to stop me and demand my lunch money!

You then want to spread the rosemary and put it into the crock pot. All of the ingredients should be rubbed over the whole roast.

Now I'm showing this fat side up and if you want to do fat side up then I suggest extra oil or butter at the bottom of the pan. This will create more drippings but will help so that the roast does not burn onto your crock pot.

I am actually cooking fat side down for 60 min* and then going to flip it to fat side up for the rest of the time.

Cook for 6 hours on low or whatever is required for the size of roast that you choose. I'm doing about a 2 lb roast and 6 hours will be fine. I also prefer to cook things on low because I think it allows more time for the flavor to sink in.*

*I would estimate only 30 min if your crock pot is on High.

*I had said 8 I'm used to 8 and walking away but then it comes out more like shredded pork. 6 hrs is probably plenty just temp it before you pull it out.

Making Candles

Stacked Heart Candles

So today is the day every year that I make candles for sure. I do it here and there throughout the year but the first day of Spring this is my little tradition. Making candles at home isn't very hard but it may seem a little daunting at first. It doesn't even have to be very expensive. It's all about what you want to do. 

You can go down to your local craft store and buy wax or you can even recycle old candles. If you have some old candles in jars put them in the freezer, over night at least (though I forget them in there and come back a month later). Carefully, patiently work the wax out of there. I've heard of glass shattering so you might want to do this gloved. I've never personally had it happen but most my containers are normally thicker glass.
Now I'd like to relay the story of today before I continue. I had gotten a bunch of wax donated to me by asking around on a free site if anyone had any old candles they wanted to get rid of (if you don't know of any free sites try looking for a freecycle in your area). A very nice lady had a whole trash bag of them for me. One of bits of wax was a babyfood jar filled completely! Well since it was filled completely the freezer method wouldn't work so I tried slowly heating it in water just below lid level. This would have all been well and good but I tried to hurry the process by carving it out a bit. Well after a while I put too much pressure and the bottom was melted and it came spraying out! Thank goodness my body reacted by closing my eyes before I could even comprehend what was happening and thank goodness I had the wax on low heat so the wax itself wasn't hot enough to burn me but I was completely covered in wax! My eyes were sealed shut, it got all in my hair too! The lesson of this is don't rush things and be smarter than I was! I've been making candles for several years now and this is the worst accident that I have ever had and it was a wake up call that anything done improperly can be dangerous. 

The wax donated minus the babyfood jar of wax.

Now cleaning candles is pretty easy. lightly wash off any dust, cobwebs, what have you and it doesn't need to be perfect and I'll tell you why. The particles are normally heavier than the wax itself so much of it will go to the bottom of your melting pan. Sometimes if you have a lot of gunk you'll have to use something to try and capture it. I normally use a wooden spoon or something.

Now you can have a big pitcher like you see to the side but you can also just use a can. Mine is a Hunt's Spaghetti Sauce can. The object here is to build a poor mans double boiler. You use a pot under with water and a pot inside to melt in. You'll notice the spoon I have under the can that's because of the rim on the can the water under it will evaporate, you'll get a nasty ring on your pan and things just don't go well just make sure when you remove the spoon that your hand is gloved! Otherwise you run the risk of getting burned. 

So it's simple you melt it and then if you want to use it for later you can pour it out into a dish. Once it's hardened a bit but not completely. It should still be warm to the touch. You can take a knife and just cut through it, let it dry the rest of the way and break it apart. There you go little manageable bits you can melt down as needed. 

There you have it! Cleaning and prepping wax. Now for pouring wax you use cans or the pot in the double boiler like set up like before. I suppose it would be easier to explain with pictures I may have a part 2 to this if the kids are good tomorrow since most of my day was spent cleaning wax. 

I did make some stacked candles during the process though and it was my first attempt. 

I cut out hearts from a tray of wax after the wax had start to harden but not completely with a cookie cutter sprayed with vegetable cooking oil (suggest only using metal cookie cutters I'm not sure how plastic ones would react). I stacked my hearts and used a skewer stick so that I could put a hole for my wick straight through and it all be in the same location. 

For my wick I took bulk wick, dipped it in wax, ran my fingers over it to get off the excess wax and repeated this process 3 times and then let it dry hanging and straightened it so I could feed it through. I took bulk ends and using needle nose pliers I attached the end to the wick. Now I've read a few suggestions on how to adhear the different levels together I couldn't quite get it to work right so mine are loose but I'm still very happy about it and don't plan to be picking them up a lot so it's fine with me. 

Now for the different colors I did two trays. One white and one red. For the red I used red old crayons. They work pretty well though if you see your colors not blending well you might need to look into a product called vybar which is good for making sure that color and scent evenly go through the wax and helps especially if you are doing molded candles. It is pretty expensive in my book so I don't use it often. Because I was using the O'Charley's crayons though I did end up using vybar. Crayola crayons seem to be the best but I just use what is on hand.

I would not doubt if I'm being a little confusing or skipping over some parts so just let me know and I'll be sure to answer any questions to the best of my ability or try and point you in the right direction.

My Own Pinstrosity

"pin·stros·i·ty \pin-ˈsträ-sə-tē\: a pin of great and often frightening size, force, or complexity." -http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/

http://www.duitang.com/people/mblog/15741337/detail/

So I had this idea months ago before even getting onto pinterest and then I see that it is completely doable! The pinterest site took me to a Chinese website but not to worry the instructions for this were wrote in English on eHow and it's all over the web! 

Sadly it's only been a few days and it's already an epic fail! To top it off I see it's been just enough time for my broccoli to sprout and some how I have to transplant everything because I don't have enough seeds to do it all again! 

 So here you see I just got as many plants as I could into my tray! Things like tomatoes have to be transplanted a couple times sometimes to get a nice thick stem before putting them outside, lots of peppers because they don't take much space and broccoli because it was my first time trying to grow it.
I probably went over board and the potting soil I got I had to dampen myself which probably means I got it too wet. I know it didn't look uniformed.

So here's the problem.... MOLD! Perhaps I should have left the green house cover off? EEP!

I get the feeling I'm going to be quite busy fixing this mess. Personally I would say just spend the money and buy the actual stuff and skip the toilet paper rolls. It was worth a try trying to save money but let's just hope it didn't just cost me extra.