Days 3-8 Pantry Challenge

 I missed posting a few days.  It was a really busy weekend.  I built a new door on my rabbit hutch so it would be easier to feed the bucks, who are now all housed in the hutch.  The females were all moved to the barn, where a colony setup is in progress. One of my buns, Giselle, had to go in a timeout and be separated because she kept beating up on both Colette and Bunny.

Bunny and Clyde

Collette

Hubs has been working on cleaning out the barn and sorting.  I have some stuff I need to sort out and unpack.  We're still working on unpacking, but between both me and Monkey having surgery, plus the pandemic hitting (and the thousand-plus facemasks I've been working on since March) and farmer's market, I haven't had a lot of time to work on unpacking. 

We also started prepping the garden for next year.  It was the first year for this garden, so the GRASS grew really well.  I got potatoes, a handful of green beans, sweet corn, 3 tomatoes, and 1 zucchini out of it.  I have plans for next year, including covering the entire garden with cardboard, straw, and compost to smother out the weeds and fortify it for next year's crops

Hubs and I also foraged through the overgrowth in the back field to find all the squash that had grown.  There wasn't a lot, but at least we got some.  We have plans to control the weeds out there too.  I saw some pumpkins, but they aren't quite ripe yet.

I also did a LOT of cooking Thursday through yesterday.

Thursday was super busy.  Monkey had to go to Mayo late morning.  He had surgery about a month ago to have a g-tube (feeding tube) placed.  He had developed a mild complication with it.  As it's trying to heal, it pushed the skin up and outward, a condition called granulation.  It has definitely been bothering him, even bleeding at times.

Scraps, Monkey, and I went to the appointment.  The GI doctor was glad we had come in.  She treated Monkey's g-tube with some silver nitrate and gave us a prescription for a medicated cream to put on it twice a day starting Saturday.  We'll follow this treatment plan for the next 2 weeks and see how it does.  If it heals before then, we stop using it.  If not, we use it for 2 weeks, off a week, then start again.  He has a follow up appointment on Oct 9.  I happened to mention Scrappy's tube and compared how they looked.  She pointed out that Scrappy is due to get a larger tube, so we scheduled that also.

Dr appointments are always better when you're Batman!!

We had packed sliced pears, pb sandwiches, and granola bars for the road trip.  I wanted something easy after our long day, so we had pancakes for supper.  (I have a TON of flour... Hubs and I had bought 100 pounds when we went to the Amish store... and couldn't beat the price - only $30!!!)  I had some blueberries I needed to use, so I made a blueberry sauce for Hubs to put on his, and I fried some apples in butter, cinnamon, and sugar for mine. Hubs and the boys had sliced apples on the side.. We have a TON of apples.  Princess was at work.

Friday was kind of a rough day.  Hubs clipped Ruger when he ran in front of the van.  Hubs didn't mean it, didn't see him.  He had been running next to the van as he was going down the driveway, then darted in front of the van.  I had to take him in to the vet because I was worried his leg may have been broken.  They checked him out and said he's just bruised.  We got some pain meds and he's sleeping in the barn instead of on the porch for now.

 

I decided to try a new recipe I saw on Facebook... a taco casserole.  I used some taco meat and tortillas that I had in the freezer. Unfortunately I had made the meat a little spicy, but sour cream helped calm the heat!!  In the video, it was made in a bundt pan, but I didn't have one so I used my angel food cake pan.  Overall the premise of the casserole was good, but I'd make some changes along with the suggestions from my kids.  I'd make it in a casserole pan in basically the same layers - soft tortilla, cheese, meat, cheese, tortilla chips (I had taco shells in the cupboard and used those), then soft tortillas again, repeat, and repeat.  I would add beans and corn to the meat layer.  My family really likes that combination, and it stretches meat a lot further. I also think it was kinda dry...  Like I said, I liked the concept, but the execution wasn't there.

We did most of our yard work Saturday.  Princess had her boy over, so he helped with some of it too.  I had market in the morning, then made some "hot dog soup," as she used to call it because I had used brat-type sausages the first time I made it since I didn't have ground sausage.  This time I used some ground frozen Italian sausage I had, along with the rest of the purple cabbage I had in the fridge.  I had a loaf of rustic white bread left from market, which went well with the soup.

For supper I made a family favorite - Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and scalloped corn.  Ground beef, pork, and sweet corn from the freezer, and a 5 pound bag of potatoes that were barely still good.  It was the first time I had made the scalloped corn with frozen corn, and it was GOOD.  We had a second loaf of the rustic bread with that also.

 

On Sunday, since there were still chores to do and I had built up some leftovers, I just made breakfast.  Everyone got to fend for themselves for lunch and supper.  I decided to try a knockoff of Perkins breakfast smashers, scaled down a little.  I baked a couple partial bags of tater tots that were in the freezer, cooked up the rest of the sausage from the soup and made a sausage gravy, and scrambled some eggs.  Layered them - tots, eggs, gravy, and topped with cheese.  Another win with the family!!

I had to do some baking for farmer's market on Sunday too, since I wouldn't have time this morning.  I made another batch of rustic white bread (one of the three loaves swiped by the kids again), a batch of lemon zucchini bread, and some royal icing sugar cookies.  I'm not very good, but I do enjoy making them.

I made a few snacks for the house too.  I recently purchased a Pampered Chef snack bar maker, so I thought I'd try it out.  I made a batch of candy bars with various fillings (pb chips, pretzel pieces, marshmallows, chocolate covered espresso beans, dried cranberries) and a batch of granola bars with chocolate chips, pb chips, pretzel pieces, and marshmallows.  I also used the same granola bar recipe in one of my Pyrex pans.  I seemed to have found another winner... and they are a lot healthier than the crap from the store.  I used a no-bake recipe that has you microwaving the honey and toasting the oats on the stove.  I took a short cut with the toasting and used some toasted oat cereal with almonds in it that I had gotten a huge (20#+) box of.  It worked really good for that!!

Today for breakfast I was hungry for boiled cabbage - so I used up part of the green cabbage that was still in the fridge.  Served with milk and butter?? Oh yeahh...

Scraps and I grabbed some granola bars for lunch to eat on the way to work, with a chunk of bread.  Princess and Monkey made some pancakes with the leftover batter that was in the fridge. 

Supper was an old favorite - chicken, black bean, and corn burritos.  The tortillas and corn came out of the freezer, everything else out of the cupboard.  But I did use up a couple partial jars of salsa.

I'm working on my meal plan for the upcoming week.  Tomorrow I'm doing baked chicken thighs for me, mini meatloaf for the boys, and some stuffed peppers for Hubs, with some roasted veggies (ground beef and chicken from the freezer, carrots from the fridge, the squash I got today, and maybe a few other veggies I find in the freezer or fridge.)  Of course, like most other days, we have leftovers for lunch.

Now, let talk about how much money I have spent....

Friday I purchased a jar of baking powder for about $2.30, but this is mostly for work, so I don't need to include that in my budget necessarily.  I did purchase a bag of dried black beans at farmer's market on Saturday.  It was a couple pounds, and I paid $3 for that.  And Sunday I asked Princess to pick up 5 pounds of butter because we were OUT.  I'm NEVER completely OUT of butter, but I was Sunday unless there is some hiding in the bottom of one of my freezers!!  It turned out that butter was on sale 2/$5, so she picked up 6.  So last week: 3+15=$18 for the week. (We really didn't need THAT MUCH butter, but it was a decent price and I need to restock my supply!)

Today I spent $2 at farmer's market buying a butternut squash.

I think I'm doing pretty good so far!!