menu planning and grocery shopping

Last week as I was thinking about my big monthly grocery shopping trip for the beginning of the month, I made a list of meals I could make just from what was in the freezer and pantry. Wow is all I can say. Remember that we got a side of beef last winter and have been given some venison lately. I also have canned and frozen a lot from summer. And last week I got the first of our winter share from our CSA. My list...

Pot Roast with potatoes and carrots

Sausage and Peppers served with pasta

Beef Brisket with roasted potatoes, carrots and beets

Tangy Pork Chops over rice

Shepherd's Pie made Friday evening with ground venison

Chicken Divan

Potato Leek Soup

Beef Stew

Vegetable Soup

Chicken Pot Pies

Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs

Sri Lankan Curry

Walnut Chicken with Bulgur

Turkey dinner

Steak with roasted potates and green beans Saturday night's dinner with friends over

My grocery shopping reflected that. I buy just a little from the produce department (bananas!) and then stock up on some pantry items.

Now I don't necessarily have a concrete meal plan, but I can look at that list in the evening and figure out what we can have for dinner the next night based on what I know I have going on the next day and how tired I am.

And tomorrow I am finally making that turkey that has been in the freezer since last January. The kids will be so excited for a practice Thanksgiving dinner!

some canning pictures

It was a crazy summer here, not very hot at all. For certain crops, that wasn't good. The tomatoes were super late coming on here. Early tomatoes didn't come on until the end of August. I was nervous that we wouldn't have enough to can. We rely a lot on our home canned tomatoes throughout the winter and I was a little nervous.

But in the middle of September we had a hard freeze warning and Duane was able to pick lots of tomatoes. Here's a picture of red and yellow tomato sauce



It has been a GREAT year for peppers here in CO. I have soooo many frozen peppers of all colors: green, red, orange, yellow, ivory and even a few purple.

We made lots of salsa this year



And we pickled jalapenos, banana peppers and some anaheim peppers.



We included some carrots (orange and yellow) and some onion slices in the jalapenos, too. I think they are so pretty. And they taste YUMMY!!!

I love my farmers!

In the past couple of weeks, we have had many meals that I realize have been completely provided by our CSA...veggies and meat, soups, stews. It was a really overwhelming thought that all the food on our table had been raised on the same few acres. Not something we could say about a meal prepared from only grocery store foods.

I love my farmers. They feed me...literally!

the flu-and soup season

We have been so very sick the past week. My hubby and I both had the flu along with the 2 youngest. Two of the other kids have also had some variation of the flu and two have remained healthy. I find myself making lots of soup lately. It's easy, filling, inexpensive and a good way to use the massive amount of veggies that have accumulated this harvest season.

A favorite is Potato Leek

I start by sauteing 3 good sized leeks in about 1/4 cup of butter. They can absorb all that butter and start to burn so I sometimes need to add a little more butter. Then I add about 8-10 cups of diced potatoes. Yukon golds are the best, but the red ones or even fingerlings will work. I cover those with chicken stock or vegetable stock, bring to a boil and then simmer until the potatoes are soft and beginning to fall apart. The time this takes depends on the variety of potato, yukons are fast, fingerlings take longer. Then I use my immersion blender to puree out most of the lumps. Season to taste. Easy!

menu

While I'm at it. I'll post this here for you all to see too! (OK so that means mostly my mom will know what we are having for dinner every night! lol)

Friday
steaks, roasted potatoes, roasted broccoli. calabacitas, green beans

Saturday
Block party-taking zucchini brownies, homemade ice cream (kids will do hand crank!) and potato salad

Sunday
Crock pot ribs, mashed potatoes, steamed beets, wilted lettuce salad

Monday
Q-ball parmesan, meatballs, garlic bread salad

Tuesday
Chile relleno casserole, turnips, kohlrabi and greens

Wednesday
hodge podge of leftovers and whatever veggies need to be eaten up for the week

I've missed you!

I can't believe that I am sitting down to blog! It's been so long. Life got really busy in the spring. I was working 32 hours most weeks, and occasionally 40 hours. That was all at night while trying to maintain my life during the day as well. Blogging lost out to sleep. Reading blogs lost out to sleep. Basically if I had a second, I was resting. Then my husband and I used birthday money to get ourselves iPhones and I really had little use for a real computer. I could check my email and FaceBook at night while I wasn't sleeping.

But I have been blissfully unemployed since June 25. We will miss the paycheck, but everyone is happy to have a functional mama again. And I have 2 contracts lined up for August.

We are back to doing our farm thing. I love that. I forget what it is like to have so much fresh food around. It's WONDEREFUL. And I have been trying to sit down every Thursday when we get home and decide how and when I will use the produce we have. I don't want things to go to waste. I am also trying to plan when and what I will put up for later. Not much of that yet, but I did make a triple batch of zucchini bread last week. We ate some right away and froze some. We have already eaten some of the frozen too. Today I did a batch of muffins, peanut butter oat bars, and a double batch of brownies. Some to eat now, some to freeze for later, some for a block party tomorrow.

I have also accomplished what I never thought I would. I can make potato salad that is almost as good as Grandma Shorty's! She is my grandmother that was never a great cook, but she made the sweet pickles that I still make and her potato salad was my favorite. I would make potato salad sandwiches at her house! I finally made a potato salad last week that I thought was almost as good as hers. I'm making more for the block party tomorrow. I have a ton of new red potatoes. They are so so so good.

I look forward to trying to catch up with my blogging friends out there. Checking google reader on an iPhone is a challenge so I had given that up too. Maybe I'll get a chance to get back to it.

Happy cooking...happy eating!

survival mode

The last week was crazy busy. This week will be much calmer, but I am still just trying to maintain. *sigh*

We have managed to eat. I have cooked and all that. Thankfully, my family is quite forgiving. We have eaten some less than stellar meals, Eaten some foods I wouldn't normally serve (like the leftover boxed mac and cheese from the church supper on Wednesday...they sent home all the leftovers with us.) But we were just trying to get through the week.

I am still working on a plan for this week. Tomorrow's dinner will have something to do with leftover ham, I'm sure. And we have plenty of leftover muffins and fruit from this morning, so the morning is covered too.

I'll keep you posted!

what plan?

I'm not sure what happened this week, but I have been totally off of my menu plan. Well, not totally. We are having the planned meals, just not on the planned day. lol

Here are a couple of recipes. The spinach casserole we did last night was good. In fact, Trey did most of it with just a little help from me. You can see the recipe here.

We are trying to get different grains into our daily diet. It's so easy to overdo it on brown rice. I love this recipe. I love the hint of cinnamon and raisins and walnuts. And we have found that we really love bulgur.

Any new recipes for you all out there?