Author Archives: Sheila

Recipe Challenge 14 and 15!

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I did it! I have finally caught up with the challenge. We are fifteen weeks into 2020 and I have tried 15 new recipes. The even better news is that I plan to try recipe number 16 for Easter morning breakfast. I did go back to get the official count and it is much better than I had thought. We had just two solid NO. Five recipes were a maybe with probably three of those really a no and 6 YES! This is definitely an area/goal for the year that I can say Covid-19 has helped me improve on and met. Both of these recipes are from my favorite food blog Lynn’s Kitchen Adventure

For dinner on Friday, we had Chicken Bacon Lo Mein. I need to first admit that I messed up. When reading the recipe I was sure that it would not feed the five of us even when adding egg rolls. I decided to double the recipe. The good news is that everyone LOVED this recipe, so even with the extra 4 meals it made, I am sure it will get eaten. I will add that this recipe required a lot more effort that I usually put into a dinner meal. I actually ended up recruiting both Kendall and Matt to help bring it all together. Everyone ate and enjoyed it so it will be a repeat just not doubling the recipe!

For breakfast this morning, I made a French Toast Casserole. Matt had made a loaf of homemade bread last Sunday because we were out of bread. About half of the bread was eaten before I went to the store on Wednesday and found several bread items on sale. The homemade bread was still sitting on the counter so I wanted to do something to use it up. We had a gallon and another one fourth of a gallon of milk and over three dozen eggs left so of course French toast was the answer. This was a quick easy recipe that I put together on Friday night and then Zach started the oven this morning. It was a hit, my family did say they preferred real French toast but for the amount of work vs the result this is definitely the way to go!

Official Results after these recipes: Yes 8, Maybe 5 and No 2

4/10/2020

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  1. This week at home has been more of a struggle for me. I am not sure if it was the fact, I was stressing about some work issues or just this is the fourth week of Covid-19 or my Humira shot. But most likely a combination of all of the above. The good news is that I survived and am hopeful the work stress is behind me as well.
  2. I decided to go out shopping on Wednesday this week in order to avoid the crowds over Easter weekend. Again good and bad news. The good news is that we did avoid the crowds and used pick up for both Lowes and Walmart. The bad news is that it was insane at Lowes. I can’t believe how many people were there. We have spent a total of $77.42 on groceries so far this month. I fully expect to keep this number low this month.
  3. Yesterday, Thursday, the windshield of the van was replaced. It developed a crack from a rock in January and finally reached the point it definitely needed to be replaced. I also will need to get the car inspected and tag renewed this month. I know this will exceed my gas budget even with only filling up once or twice. My plan will be to use some of the gas money from May to help cover the expense as well. I will be at home until at least May 15th so between the two months we should have all the repairs and tags covered.
  4. The weather this week has been beautiful and we have spent a good chunk of time outside preparing the garden. We are expected to have another frost this weekend so if all goes as plan we will be doing a lot of planting next weekend. This also works out with the recommendations by the Farmer’s Almanac.
  5. Speaking of next week it should be a real test of patience and parenting skills. All three kids are out of school for Spring Break. I am off on Monday but have to work the rest of the week. In addition, there is a strong possibility that Guam schools will resume which means I am going to be working both jobs from home. A test of patience is the best description I can give.

Monday Menu Planning

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My refrigerators are as empty as I can remember them being in a long long time. In fact, I could likely combine the two and just use one this week. The reason is that I have not stepped inside a grocery store in twelve days. This is definitely a record for me. We are nowhere near out of food. In fact except for maybe five items we could survive another 2 weeks just on what we have. I am planning to go to the grocery store on Wednesday or Thursday of this week. I know I need to pick up a green pepper for the steak fajitas on Thursday so I will probably grab a couple of needs at that time. I would be awesome if I could limit the trips to the store to less than 3 for the month but we shall see. This week I will be working from home the entire week but not sure if that includes Thursday and Friday as far as working goes. Matt will go to the office on Tuesday. After some thought and discussion, we plan to cook most meals this week and save our ordering in meals for the weekend. It may be simpler at some point just to eat at home but we have not arrived at that point quite yet.

Breakfast– Saturday bacon, eggs and toast. Sunday- pancakes and sausage balls. I did manage to freeze a batch of pancakes for later use as well.  Monday, Tuesday,  Wednesday, Thursday, Friday-choice of breakfast muffins, eggs, sausage, pancakes,  cereal or grits. – I definitely plan to do a baked oatmeal one day this week. I am thinking most likely Thursday. But we shall see.

Lunch-  Saturday- Classic pasta salad with ham, tomato and pepperoni added, Sunday- Left-over from Fridge. Last week the kids had hamburger, 2 uncrustable, chicken sandwich and egg roll. Each day they also get at least one vegetable so that adds in. I ended up purchasing lunch for us on Thursday. I have been eating a combination of left-overs and sandwiches for lunch. I am going to assume the trend will continue this week without the meal out.

Dinner-  Saturday- Chinese from our favorite local restaurant with enough for another full meal on Sunday. , Sunday- Left-overs Monday- Chicken Nuggets and carrots (This is my busiest day at work this week so I wanted to keep it simple) Tuesday-Big Breakfast Wednesday- Creamy Chicken spaghetti in the crockpot , Thursday-Steak fajitas Friday-Chicken Bacon Lo mein and egg rolls ( a new recipe).

Recipe Challenge #13

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I am so excited to post this recipe for a couple of reasons! First with this post I am only one week behind on the recipe challenge. Nothing like a stay at home order to let me catch up on some things. Second this was a simple easy to follow recipe that I was able to put together in 15minutes. Third, the muffins are half way gone less than an hour later. Applesauce muffins or applesauce bread as it was originally called are a huge hit that may even be repeated this week. For some reason my kids will eat muffins but it must require too much effort to slice the bread to eat it. Another winner from one of my favorite blogs!

5 Things Friday

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  • I think we are all starting to get use to everyone being in the house everyday. Matt and I both are currently working from home. Matt is going in to his office on Tuesday but I should be home through the middle of May! Zach and Kendall are working each morning on school work and Lily is continuing with her online classes. Lily is actually struggling a bit more than I expected because she is used to being home alone and not working around other people all day long.
  • We are actually eating out more than normal for us as we try to support local business. Matt went to lunch on his office day on Tuesday. I actually went into my office on Thursday and stop by our favorite Greek restaurant bring home a late lunch for everyone. Friday, we ordered from the local pizza shop and Matt and I splurged on ice cream to end our date night.
  • On our date night Matt and I ended up at Lowes. I purchased both mulch and paving stones to help work out in the yard tomorrow. My goal is to get most of the not plant work done this weekend and we will start planting in probably a week or so. I am planning to share pictures tomorrow after the work is done.
  • Family walks are a fun way for everyone to get out of the house and get some exercise. We actually walked 3 evenings this week.
  • The weather is still doing crazy swings from 80s to low 30s in just a matter of days. I am really fighting the urge to plant outside and have been bringing in our growing cucumbers and squash in on a daily basis.

Recipe Challenge #12

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This is another recipe from one of my favorite food blogs “Lynn’s Kitchen Adventure.” She always has some good ideas to share. Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chicken is a good recipe and everyone finished their plate but I am still open to decided if we repeat it or not. Amanda, Braxton and Weherley all ate with us on Tuesday so this does make a nice 9×13 dish. I made a pot of corn and fried apples to complete the meal.

First I should share that I increased and almost doubled the amount of chicken from 2 cups to 3 and 1/2 cups. My chicken was left-overs from Costco and was diced. When looking at the overall mixture it just did not appear to have enough meat in it to satisfy my family. The second change I made was we did not have any green chilles so I added a half of cup of salsa to make up the difference. I also added some additional cheese to top it off and used Cheddar Jack cheese instead of just plain cheddar.

The one issue that I can say may be a negative is that this recipe calls for 8 cups of crushed chips. That is over half of a Costco size bag. I really think that I used too many chips and if I make again will probably stick to 8 cups of chips before crushing.

So all things considered Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chicken is a good recipe and definitely not a bomb but I am still unsure if we will repeat again.

March in Review

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Lily made the statement that March was the longest three years of her life. I am going to agree with her. I am hopefully that things are going to settle down into a sort of quiet different way of life. I know that I will be working from home the entire month of April except for possibly one day this week. Matt will also be working from home for most of the month as well. I am going to guess that my salary from Guam will not occur this month as well. I also want to try and decrease our overall spending. Without leaving home on most days we should be able to hit at least 15 No spend days for the month of April.

Goal #1 Grocery Budget of $550- The actual number is $1025! This did include two rather large trips to Costco and some extra purchases in preparation of staying at home. In more positive news, I was able to find and save $250 for a large meat purchase in the near or not so near future. I will also be using a little as possible from this budget to purchase some additional plants for the garden.

Goal #2 – Record and keep up with gas/ auto purchase- We spent $219 As you can probably guess this is the budget item that I was able to save money for the meat purchase with. Unfortunately in the month of April I will not be able to accomplish this. The large crack in the windshield of the van has expanded and must be replaced. The repair is scheduled for April 9th. We will also need to renew the tags on the car which includes paying for an inspection and taxes. I am hopeful that we can keep all of these expenses under $500 for the month.

Goal #3-Use a cash envelope system for everything possible. Success! I am also going to include the number of no spend days under this goal. For the month of March that is 4. Yikes! But I will say that some of this spending was in anticipation of not spending in April.

Goal #4- Blogging- 15 post per month. This is post number 17 for the month! I am going to plan for the same in April! I will definitely say that the Recipe Challenge is going a long way in making this happen.

Goal # 5- Fitness- Goal is to walk 3 times a week. I can say that for the last week I met this goal. I actually think I have close to 7 days of exercise this month! This is a huge improvement from January and February but is also directly related to being at home and the weather.

Goal #6 – Bible study- Goal- 3x a week – A fail. Definitely need to up my game in this area. 

Goal #7-Attempt at least 52 new recipes this year.-  We actually have tried 7 new recipes this month. I will plan to post on the one tonight either tomorrow or Thursday! I am actually thinking that todays may be a repeat.

Earnings_ $145 in gift cards including a $50 that Matt was able to get outside of Swagbucks. I will be honest and say this will be very low in April. We can already tell a difference in Swagbucks in the last week. My goal for this month is to earn $50 in Lowes cards to purchase plants.

We actually did really well in March when you look solo on the numbers. I am hopefully to keep it going in April. We should not have a lot of extra activities so we should be able to focus on yard and garden work with some catching up on rest as well.

Monday Menu Plan

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We discovered last week that a menu plan is even more important than when we are out of the house. We were able to stick to the plan last week except for Wednesday when we ate left-overs. I am very proud to say that we have significantly reduced the amount of left-overs in the refrigerator to a normal amount! I also have been cleaning out some expired food and trying to make sure that we don’t waste. Matt and I both are working from home so lunches are left-overs or sandwiches for us. In an effort to try and develop and stay on a schedule sort of I spent several hours in the kitchen on Sunday. I was able to shred the chicken from Costco, make hamburger patties one set for dinner and froze the rest for quick lunches. Made roll ups for lunch. Hopefully we can stay home and stay on track.

Breakfast– Saturday bacon, eggs and toast. Sunday- Waffles (with an entire batch froze)  Monday, Tuesday,  Wednesday, Thursday, Friday-choice of bagels, breakfast bowls or burritos, breakfast muffins, eggs, sausage, pancakes,  cereal or grits. – Or what ever the school sends. IF I get ambitious this week I may do a baked oatmeal for one morning.

Lunch-  Saturday- Pasta salad with chicken, tomato and cucumber added, Sunday- Left-over from Fridge. Last week the kids had a pizza pocket, hamburger, uncrustable, chicken sandwich and egg roll. Each day they also get at least one vegetable so that adds in. I made pinwheels for myself one day and will eat left-overs or salad. Matt is on his own this week.

Dinner-  Saturday- Left-overs , Sunday- Sandwhich Monday- Hamburgers and tator tots Tuesday-Dorito Chicken ( this is a new recipe) and fried apples. Wednesday- Mandurian Orange chicken and egg rolls, Thursday- Steaks and twice baked potato. Friday-Pizza rolls.