Category Archives: Square Food Garden

Monday Menu Planning and #Everybitcounts

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The return-to-work countdown is on!  I have less than 2 weeks.  I am going to focus on getting as much stored up as possible in the next 2 weeks. I also want to try several different recipes so that I can see if they work. I am also going to be trying to get ahead with several easy breakfasts.  We are putting away a couple of pancakes at a time when we make them. I am also planning to make omelet bags on Tuesday morning while making breakfast!

Breakfast- Saturday- Pancakes   Sunday- Cheddar cheese sausage balls and eggs. Monday- Homemade bagels Tuesday- Omelets   Wednesday Thursday and Friday- find it oatmeal, cereal and milk, French toast sticks, bagels, breakfast burritos and pancakes.

Lunch- Saturday-BLTs Sunday-Don Juans Monday- Sumer lunch Tuesday- Summer lunch which included squash, zucchini, cantaloupe and strawberries.  Wednesday- Eat out as we will be back to school shopping.  Thursday- Leftovers or sandwiches, Friday-salad.

Dinner- Saturday-Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza. Sunday- Baked Potatoes, Monday- KFC bowls   Tuesday Philly Cheese Steaks   Wednesday- PF Changs for my birthday Thursday- Cube Steak and lots of sides Friday-Sloppy Joes.

Every Bit Counts Challenge- It made sense for me to include this with Menu planning as they are both food related.

Friday August 5th-Salsa
Saturday August 6th- Pancakes and Sausage Balls
Sunday August 7th- Forzen bananas
Monday August 8th- Tomato Sauce

Official food preparation count: 58
Breakfast count: 22
Spaghetti Sauce: 25
Salsa: 3 full batches (I would honestly like to make 2 more of these but we will need to wait until I get another batch of Wax Peppers in)
Tomato Sauce: 13 1/2 cup portions and 2 1 cup portions (I would like to have 12 cup portions before moving to diced tomatoes)

 

5 Things Friday

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  1.  Shout out to myself!  This is the 8th day in a row that I have posted! And the 5th post for the month of August on the 5th!
  2. I am finally feeling back to normal this week which means I am starting to catch up on all the things I planned to do this summer!  This really does help my mood and energy level to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
  3. We are continuing to harvest from the garden! This week, I planted some pumpkins and have hopes to start a fall garden including lettuce and spinach in the next couple of days!  We are also starting to plant some things in the chicken coop area which will make it both pretty and functional!
  4. I have been wanting to list things on Marketplace and Ebay all summer and today was the official day to complete. I have 5 active listing on Ebay and 7 on Facebook marketplace. I know we have at least 2 additional listing to make on Marketplace tonight.  The goal for this clean out is $250 to purchase a pop-up sunshade for beach use next year.
  5. The chickens are continuing to grow. We have turned off the heat light. The book we have been following said to start decreasing their constant temperature by 5 degree this week. The set point would be 75*. The air in our house is currently set at 74 for the day and 72 at night.   So we decided to go ahead and try without the lamp.  They did great last night so I am going to continue. We also are trying to get them outside at least a couple of hours a day right now. I hope to move to daytime outside next week with full time outside the next week.  Because it is summertime, this is a much quicker and easier process. Even when going outside full time the plan is to have them in a coop each night just to start that training process. A very sad update, this afternoon one of the chickens (Gummy) died.  We had been watching her closely today as she moved to the corner and was sleeping.  Not quite sure why it happened but we cleaned and cleaned the cage so hopefully this will be the only lost.

Every Bit Counts

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One of the YouTube channels I really enjoy “3 Rivers Homestead” has this challenge for the month of August.  It is specifically for preserving food for the winter. I know that when I return to work in two weeks that this might not be possible, so I started this challenge a week early. For more information read here Monday Musings

Tuesday July 26th- Sloppy Joes
Wednesday July 27th- Taco Meat
Thursday July 28th- Salisbury Steak
Friday July 29th- Made a second batch of Salsa
Saturday July 30th-Shredded Zucchini and Squash
Sunday July 31st- Made protein muffins with remaining ham and eggs.
Monday August 1st- Spaghetti Sauce
Tuesday August 2nd- Additional Chicken pot pie filling- will need to only add crust.
Wednesday August 3rd- 4 dozen ears of corn some frozen with husk on and some off and 2 packages off the cob.
Thursday August 4th- 2 bags of carrots from our garden.

I am very excited with moving forward.

Official food preparation count: 58
Breakfast count : 20
Spaghetti Sauce: 25…… I am going to work on doing a couple of batches of salsa but may also add another batch of spaghetti sauce in the future depending on how the tomatoes continue to produce!

I do have plans for sausage balls and banana muffins this week as well!

Friday Catch-Up

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Things got alot crazy around here this week.  I knew that we would be fairly busy with Zach having baseball camp 3 days and Vacation Bible School 5 nights with a pool party for a sixth night.  What I did not count on was adding in the 659 pounds of meat that needed some attention.

I received a text on Tuesday morning that our meat was ready. I was very thankful that Matt had cleaned out and started the old chest freezer on Saturday. After a couple of phone calls I was able to arrange some help and began working on making meals with the meat.

This week I have been able to make and freeze, 14 packs of Salisbury steaks which did not include our dinner today, 2 pounds of Taco meat and 10 packs of taco meat, 10 packs of sloppy joes and 2 additional batches of spaghetti sauce and 2 batches of Salsa.  Here is the official meal total:  I am at least halfway to my goal of 100 meals in the freezer.
Official food preparation count: 45
Breakfast count : 15
Spaghetti Sauce: 20

The other big event of the week was our purchase and bringing home of 6 chickens. The chickens are approximately 2 weeks old and currently hanging out in the living room under a heat lap for the next week. As you realize I have not been able to get the chicken story and how we have prepared for chickens up yet but hopefully I will be able to get this accomplished in the next couple of weeks.

I have 19 days until I return to work.  I will be only working one job so hopefully this will make things a tad less hectic in the fall.

I am continuing to recover from my outpatient surgery. I did overdo things on Sunday and spent most of Monday resting and recovering.  I hope to return to normal activities by next Monday but we shall see as I am currenting struggling.

I was able to spend a good couple of hours working in the garden beds this week.  I have pulled up and replanted one of the beds with pumpkins.  We are continuing to get lots of good tomatoes, several squash, a zucchni and a couple of small cucumbers.  I am hopeful to increase the cucumbers and we also have apples and pears starting to ripen on the trees in the back yard.

Looking forward to a less busy and more normal start to August!

 

Monday Musing

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  • No menu plan for the week. We are all volunteering at Vacation Bible School this week. We are provided a meal each day so that makes life a little easier.
  • One of the you tube channels that I real enjoy is Three Rivers homestead.  She has a challenge starting in August called “Every bit counts.” The idea is that you find time each day to preserve one thing and that way it does not become overwhelming.  I know that once I start working again in August even this will become difficult, so I am going to start this week and end on August 19th. My plan is to share weekly and how I am doing with this challenge. Last week, I made and frozen 15 helping of spaghetti sauce. Today, I put packs of mini applesauce muffins in the freezer. I also made a huge batch of gravy that we ate for lunch. I was able to put 2 smaller containers in the freezer to use for breakfast bowls in the future.
  • On Saturday, we were able to complete the chicken coop and started with the fencing to finish the area.  We will hopefully get our new pet chickens this week. I am going to plan to share all about the chickens in blog post this week.
  • We also have obtained a large 250 galloon water barrel for both the chickens and for watering things in the greenhouse.  We did attach a gutter system to the barrel We need to first fill and empty to remove all the remaining chemicals that are in it. Slow progress but this will hopefully eliminate the need to use county water next year for the garden or chickens.
  • As I mentioned above, we all are involved in VBS this week which runs from 6 to 8:30 Sunday to Thursday. Zach is attending the local baseball camp from 8:30 to 11 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Lily is working Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Yeap we are back to a busy schedule.
  • The garden is continuing to bounce back and we are getting a good supply of tomatoes and yellow squash currently.  I am hopefully to freeze enough spaghetti sauce for the year (24 containers) and make another batch of salsa before the tomatoes slow down to eating and saving as diced tomatoes.
  • I was able to locate enough frozen basil to use in the spaghetti sauce that I don’t think I am going to replant this year. I will likely plan to grow in the green stock planter next year and replenish our supply then.

5 Things Friday- Garden Edition!

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I am so excited that our garden actually is producing this year.  Because of the dirt failure of last year, I did have to purchase a large amount of soil.  With that in mind, I decided that I would try to use as many of the seeds as I could to grow to limit the cost.  I have spent around $100 in seeds but should have enough to grow next year as well without purchasing any more seeds.  I do plan to purchase some worms and will be heavily mulching the beds with paper at the end of the growing season.  But now for some exciting and fun news in a different format.

  1. Tomatoes- This is the first time ever that I have attempted to start all my tomato plants from seed.  I used just packets that were given to me.  We ended up planting out about 26 tomato plants after leaving in the greenhouse while we were on vacation.  I was able to make one pot of spaghetti sauce prior to our beach trip and was excited to return to find that the tomatoes began to ripen So far this week, I have made 3 double batches of spaghetti sauce (24 lbs. of tomatoes) a batch of salsa (10 cups of tomato approximately 4 lbs) and we have eaten and shared at least another 4 lbs.  Unfortunately, my basil is very limited this year after 2 failed attempts, but I was able to find some frozen basil from several years ago in the freezer as well as dried basil from last year.   I think that this is the most tomatoes we will get in a week but hopefully we can enjoy several pounds a week to eat.  I would also like to make at least one more batch of spaghetti sauce and Matt has requested another batch of salsa so we shall see.
  2. Peppers- The pepper plants have not looked as good as the tomatoes. I did end up purchasing about $10 worth of starts from the Farmer’s market. I used all of our Waxman peppers in the salsa and ended up pulling out of the freezer enough green peppers to use as well.  I did notice today that we finally have pepper blooms, so I am hoping to get some to eat and freeze during the month of August and September.
  3. Squash- I have actually planted two batches of squash and zucchini. We have been able to harvest and freeze approximately 8 bags for squash casserole and are eating squash at least every other day.  It is not an abundance, but we are enjoying, and we do have enough to use for at least one casserole a month!  So, this is definitely a success.
  4. Green Beans- frustrating!  The first set of seeds produced less than 5 beans total. I planted the second batch, and they are now beginning to give a couple of beans a day. I have also planted a third batch which hopefully will produce in the next month or so!
  5. Cucumbers- We have struggled with these as well. I have been able to harvest maybe 5 total cucumbers. I did start a second batch and they have flowers so these may turn into a nice harvest…time will tell!

For the record, this spring was extremely dry.  And that trend has continued this summer.  I am honestly glad that we did not lose everything during the week we were on vacation. At this point, we are watering every day unless it rains    We have needed to use water from the county for 3 days, but we also have decided to add an additional rain barrel in hopes that we cannot use county water again.   The goal is to get this tank up and running this weekend but we will need to flush at least once so I am hopefully for the additional water collection to start in August.

Holiday Plans

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This holiday (4th of July) weekend, we have been focusing on some project around the house.  First was installing a bike rake on the trailer.  We also ended up replacing some of the trailer wiring and working on a couple of the bikes. Next was finishing up the kitchen floor, we ended up removing the top layer that has been in place for 2 years. The ultimate goal is the replace this floor but first we need to have a bathroom floor replaced and we also need to decide what we want to replace the floor with.  The other big project will be to finish up the chicken coop area.

While most of this has not been frugal it is needed. We have been able to cook and eat at home for all meals except one and all have been under $5 each.

Saturday breakfast– pancakes
Saturday Lunch– Steak um sandwich- pack of steak-um was $4.97 from Aldi, used a green pepper and onion already here. Zach and I ate on hot dog buns that needed to be used, Matt and Lily used hamburger buns that needed to be used.
Saturday Dinner– I made scallop potatoes and ham. The ham is from the freezer so completely free.
Sunday Lunch- We has squash from the garden, I added onion and a pack of stew beef (purchased on clearance last year) that needed to be used this week.  We also cooked rice. We will sauté another squash on the Blackstone and have a second meal from these.
Sunday Dinner- BLT sandwiches, we have our fresh tomatoes from the garden again lettuce from another meal that needed to be used.
Monday Breakfast- Sausage patties (purchased for $2.34 on clearance) and eggs on bread. We also have an excess of bread this week.

The current plan is for Monday lunch and dinner to be from the refrigerator to use up left-overs. We could also have tomato sandwich or chicken salad or pimento cheese sandwiches as well.

Here to finishing up some projects!

5 Things Friday

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  1. Today is Kendall’s 14th birthday. She spent the night with friends last night and we are going to Red Robin for dinner.  She chose a pair of platform converse shoes for her gift!
  2. Kendall and Lily are scheduled to leave for Life (a national youth conference) in Orlando Florida, Sunday morning at 6:30am. We are working on getting everything pack for them. They will be joining us at Oak Island once they return.
  3. After much thought and debate, we removed the top layer of our kitchen and dining room floor. This top layer is 2 years old but a tripping hazard that was also very ugly!  We spent about 3 hours on Wednesday night just with the removal. This weekend the goal is to replace the quarter round and to order a couple of rugs.
  4. I finally (after almost 3 weeks) picked up my car from the dealership today. It needed an O2 sensor replaced as well as the radio. However, the radio is on back order to it will be at least middle of next week before it can be totally fixed. I will have to pay $100 due to the warranty on the car.
  5. My other big plan for the weekend is to plant more green beans, So far we have harvested only a handful. So hopeful the next round will produce better.

Weekend Wrap Up

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This weekend was supposed to be a slower than usual weekend however we still managed to get a lot accomplished.

  1.  Decided on our next house project.   We installed a new kitchen floor in March 2020.  The floor has begun to split and we have lots of pieces that no longer fit and it is becoming a hazard.  We have been talking for several months about replacing the floor.  We are not certain which direction that we want to go.  Matt and I talked and decided for the short run (less than a year) we will simply remove the new floor and return to the wood planks underneath. The current plan is to re-adjust the plank and attempt to nail in place. This is definitely not a permanent fix but solves the problem and will at least give us a presentable floor. We are going to undertake this project next weekend.
  2. Ordered the wood to finish the chicken coop and for the fence along the back edge of the yard.
  3. We have been watering the garden using county water for over a week now. It takes around 20 gallons a day to water so I am very hopeful that we will get some rain in the next 24 hours.
  4. Placed a down payment on our cow order. We should receive the cow some time the first couple weeks of August. Now we are focused on trying to decide what meat cuts we want.  I am also working on emptying one of our freezers. My goal is to get this accomplished by the end of July. However, it is fairly difficult when at the same time we are beginning to get in our summer produce.  Check and balance is all I can hope for.
  5. We ended up going to Costco on Friday night to use our reward check, I was very proud that we only ended up spending $26 out of pocket.  But that was short lived as we also went to Sam’s today.  We spend $260 of which over $200 was on food. I did stock up on Slim Jim’s (3 boxes) Hot Pockets (which the kids have been asking for) Biscuits and Pop tarts for breakfast in addition to some treats.
  6. We managed to only eat out one time this weekend. Matt has been practicing cooking on his new Blackstone.  He cooked two meals yesterday in addition to breakfast this morning!

Let’s get this week started on a good note!

Five Things Friday!

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  • The weather is awful!  It is hot and dry. We have not had any rain in almost a week. The last rain was really less than a quarter of an inch over two days. Our rain barrels are empty.  We are continuing to water the garden by hand.  I am hopeful that we will get some rain over the next couple of days.
  • We have been harvesting and drying parsley, dill and a tiny bit of basil. We have harvested squash and zucchini.  I did start a second round of both of these plants so that we can get much more for a longer period of time.  I have started basil in three locations with little to no success. Let’s hope that the third time is the charm. My plan is to remove the dill now that it has flowered and start some basil in it’s place.   I also have started a second round of cucumbers in hopes to extend the harvest for a couple of months.   We do have one watermelon growing and several cucumbers that are very close to being ready.  I have ordered more green bean seeds and plan to replant those as well. This hot weather has made things more difficult to grow but I am hoping that a couple of steady showers will help improve everything!
  • The first full week of Summer break has flown by!  Zach is at Baseball camp this week after Kendall enjoyed a week at church camp last week.  Yesterday we spent the day at the pool with Braxton!
  • We have ordered the rest of the supplies to finish the chicken coop area.  I will be posting lots of pictures in the next week or so when it is all finished.
  • Matt purchased a Blackstone grill to use both at home and in the camper for his Father’s Day gift.  He really enjoyed using the one at Haley’s wedding a couple of weeks ago so I hope this one gets lots of use.