MPM - 9/10

I have had the most trying and most fun day in a long time.

First off, I am pleased to say that I have met my goal of keeping up with my menu plans.  I want to plan several weeks ahead, but at the moment doing one week at a time is at least forward progress after going so many  months with out doing them.  I will be linking up with MPM once again.

So, I am posting this menu plan for this week:

Sun. - Slow cooker Pork roast, Green beans, homemade pasta with pesto sauce
Mon. - Stuffed peppers, rice, salad (this may change)
Tues. - Garlic Chicken Scampi, homemade pasta, green salad
Wed.  - Egg rolls, fried rice, wonton soup
Thurs. - Brisket, beans, potato salad 
Fri. - Slow cooker scalloped potatoes and ham, pea salad.
Sat. - Left Overs

The beauty of menu planning is that you can be as strict with it or just use it as a tentative guide.  Here, we use it as a tentative plan.  1. I am still getting back in to the groove of menu planning, so things come up that I forgot to plan for.  2. Our routine for the family this time of year is always last minute kind of changes going on.  That's why, for me it just a kind of road map to follow but still has room for sight seeing.  

For example, I had planned out my first menu plan for the week, making up meals that would use up the left overs.  In other words planned left overs.  Only one problem, that little 2 pound pork shoulder roast just didn't have enough meat left over for four more meals.  Also, I used a different recipe tonight, wanted a less spiced up recipe so any left over meat could be used for different recipes.  Didn't want the flavors competing so to speak.  Normally, my family doesn't much care for pork roast so there is lots of left over meat. Not this time, they really liked it.  I have to say, in all honesty, I liked it too.  I had almost given up on cooking pork roast because they just never seemed to come out right.  This recipe is out of my new Fix It and Forget It Big Cookbook that is for slow cookers.  I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK. The recipe was super simple and has changed my mind about pork roast.

It really was good. Guess I said that already. Don't you just love those slow cooker liners? I won't post the recipe as that would be against copyright laws.

Back to the point, as I said, I had already planned the week's menu, making use of all those left overs.  Realizing there just wasn't that much left over, I had to redo the menu.  The second attempt had like three days of chicken in a row.  That would just never go over in this house.  Also, I realized as I cleaned out the fridge that I had some items that needed to be used sooner rather than later, so menu plan number three was formed. That is what I posted above, that is what I am going with.  Unless I go to the spare fridge tomorrow and find that the peppers have gone bad.  Then I will figure out something else.  My family would love to have beef and potatoes every night of the week, however, I am just not creative enough to pull that off so I try to be sure and not have the same meat two days in a row, vegetables either.  Besides, I dearly love my chicken and potatoes are not diabetic friendly to my body.

Menu planning is a best friend for the budget.  1. You know ahead and can plan for it.  2. No impulse buying because you now have a plan. 3. You can take advantage of sales or great buys you happen on. I am hoping to use menu planning and once a month cooking or bulk cooking to cut my grocery bill.  My goal is to cut it by 1/4 for the next two months, then 1/2 after that.  That is going to be hard because of holiday cooking, but I think I can do it.  I am going to give it my best try at any rate.  I actually have a very well stocked pantry, fridge and freezer so it really should be easy to accomplish.  Of course, there seems to be always something I am finding I am out of that I thought I had.  Am sure there will be small trips to the store a few times.  Hopefully a minimum amount.  If you need some inspiration for your menu planning, head on over to Organizing Junkie where she host Menu Plan Monday, hundreds of creative minds post their menus each Monday to share with all.

This was tonight's dinner.

It was really good and since there was not much left over, I know the family liked it too.  

The beans have a really long name, Pennsylvania Dutch Green Bean Casserole, but when Mom shared the recipe to be published in a cookbook for the Airstream club she called it Marinated Green Beans.  When I see "marinated" I just automatically think of Italian seasonings, oil, like marinade for meat. This recipe is sweet and sour thing with the mix of sugar and vinegar.

Marinated Green Beans

2 cans french cut green beans
1 med. onion, cut in rings (I usually end up cutting in half rings, gives me a flat side to cut the onion easier)
8 strips of bacon (I find that four is fine)
1/2 c. slivered almonds
6 T. sugar
4 T. vinegar

Drain beans, put in casserole dish.  Place separated onion over beans.  Fry bacon strips, save drippings.  Cut bacon strips in halves, lay over onion rings. (I chop my bacon before I cook it, so it is more diced) Add sugar and vinegar to the bacon drippings.  Heat drippings and pour over casserole.  Marinate several hours or overnight. (overnight is the best, but is still flavorful after about 4-6 hours) Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Takes a little prep time, but well worth it.

My other triumph tonight was my home made pasta.

 OH AM I SO GLAD I BOUGHT THIS MACHINE. I admit, there is a huge learning curve with the dough, but I am looking forward to making more.  I was a little nervous about the whole thing after reading some of the reviews of the people that did not like the machine.  I wondered if it truly was the machine, or as one reviewer put it, just a problem with their dough.  I whole heartily believe it is the dough.  My research, and an earlier attempt at making noodles, convinced me that it is very important to use the recipe provided with your machine. The proportions are different for different machines.  At first my dough was a little dry, added some water, then it was a little too wet.  I kept working with it and was able to get it going fairly well.  If the dough is too wet, it won't extrude correctly.  If the dough is too dry, the pasta won't keep it's shape. All in all, I considered it a success.  In fact, I had way too much pasta.  I have some in the freezer and will bag it up, see how that works.  I have some of the dough left over as well which I bagged up and put in the fridge.  I have no idea how that will work, but I hope to do a little more research and see if I can find away to preserve it or store it so I could make a large batch and just pull off what I need for the meal.

I don't know if it is the cat I am babysitting (my youngest son's), allergies, a late summer cold, or a mix of all three but I am sneezing, blowing my nose while trying to catch it from running away and my head feels like it weighs a ton. I am off to soak in the tub with some eucalyptus salts and then doing a little reading before I hit the bed.  Morning routine starts early around here, and then I will get Mister M. too.  Also, I have managed to go through most of my boxes of craft stuff, just have the fabric to stack on shelves.  Hubby finally got my sewing table put together tonight as well.  The diva den, craft studio, is almost back in place and ready to start having some creating going on. Kind of bitter sweet though, found three projects that I was supposed to complete for my mom and didn't.  Now that she is gone, it kind of hurts to come across them knowing that I didn't finish them for her.

Thanks for stopping by, come again soon.

What a Work Out.

I have let this house go way too long.  Of course, in my defense, I was a little busy taking care of my mom while she was sick and now trying to get all of her things gone through (now that she has passed) and going through my stuff that was boxed up to store while mom had the room.  Honestly, I am not the best at house keeping to begin with, always a bit cluttered, but I am working on it.

First of all, after weeks of researching and reading reviews, this is what I have settled on.  The Vivante Pasta Extruder.  I first saw it at William Sonoma.  They had just gotten in the machines and they were running $349.00 plus tax.  Now the one they have is an updated model I guess because it is a little bit different, the extruder part is located more to the side instead of the middle and it has 14 dies.  I decided to see if there was some reputable place on the internet that might be a bit cheaper, wanted to check out the reviews as well.  OH MY GOSH.  I found it this model on sale at Chefs Catalog for $119 with free shipping and no sales tax. What a savings.  The only difference I can find is that the extruder part in located in the center and this comes with 10 dies.  After Googling the different shapes, the only one that I think I would miss is the one for a shell shaped macaroni.  For $220.00 savings I can buy a lot of shells, which we don't really use much of.  I can't wait for it to arrive.  I have been wanting one for some time, the reviews for this machine were much better than for the KitchenAid attachment and the sale price is much cheaper than the KitchenAid attachment.

Now, on to my cleaning saga.

Now my freezer is all defrosted, sanitized and organized.  I found that I had more in there than I had thought.  Like 10 packages of bacon, 10 packages of ground beef, 4 packages of broccoli, well you get the idea.

The top shelf is all beef. Well, the ground beef is actually in the door. However, I do have a roast, cubed steaks, sirloin steaks, a few other steaks, some round steak for making jerky.

The second shelf is all chicken.  Several packages of boneless skinless chicken breast, legs and thighs packages, some wings, a whole chicken, and some seasoned split breast.  Also, some hearts and gizzards, ground turkey and a turkey leg.

The third shelf is pork.  I found all those packages of bacon, a pork roast, a ham shank, a package of cooked ham pieces, a ham bone with quite a bit of meat still on it, even a ham steak.

The fourth shelf, which proudly you notice is half empty, is for ready made junk.  Taquitos,  mini corn dogs, and such.

The bottom basket is all vegetables.  I found three packages of mini corn on the cobs.  There are also some packages of seafood items in there.

At any rate, I am glad that job is done.  So then, on I moved to the pantry chaos.

This thing was stuffed to the gills.  I had no idea what I had or didn't have.  Soup was in three different  places, nothing was in any type of order any more.  I had decided that I would not buy any more groceries until I had cleaned out the pantry.  Oh and what a job that turned out to be.  I had a lot of things that had really expired, found a jar of pimentos that had popped the seal and molded up and several items that the moths had gotten to.  Not as much as I had anticipated, so happy about that because I get so mad at myself when I throw away good food because I waited too long to use it.

Now that is much better.  Like products are together with oldest at the front to be used first.

I found out I wouldn't have little man today so I moved on to the terrible spice cabinet and the mess in the storage cabinet that holds my baking sheets and then the foil, wax paper, plastic bags and such. I will have photos of that to add later. Now that I am in an organizing mood, need to keep it going. I was just taking a break while I ordered my pasta maker.  At least now that I have organized the freezer, pantry and such, it will be much easier to make menu plans based on what I already have on hand, then I will be able to save some of the September budget to stock up on sales.

Thanks for stopping and by and come back soon to see how I am doing at staying on track.

Pasta Lesson

So, I tried my hand at pasta making this evening.  I used the hand crank model roller and cutter that I have had tucked in to a closet or cupboard for literally years. Could kick myself for being able to remember where I stuck the owner's manual so I wouldn't loose it.

I put the noodles in to little mounds of nest, as was suggested in several web sights I searched.  Well, if you have had any experience in pasta making, they stuck together making heavy little nested clumps.  The flavor was pretty good, especially the noodles that were separated, but in the end was over all disappointed that I had put that much effort in to something that just didn't work.  I also have determined, due to my little exercise in pasta making, that if I am going to do much more of this, I will getting an electric style maker.

Proud of myself for figuring out the the roller and cutters.  I learned a lot of valuable lessons from doing this, that I am sure I will be making more batches in the future.  If nothing else, I will at least get some what proficient in the rolling of the dough and cutting the dough before this is all over.  My dough on the other hand was pretty awesome. I do need to change up my ratio of flour to egg, but I have the technique part of it down.

Will post more of my adventures as they come.  Thanks for stopping by.