The Weekend Pantry Challenge Days 13-15

 As always, the weekend was busy and full of projects.  Saturday we went to town to pick up some lumber for the new rabbit pen that Hubs is building.  I also wanted to stop at the hardware store because they had canning lids last time I was there.  (If you didn't know, there's a canning lid shortage going on right now and no one knows how long it's going to last.  And since I sell canned goods at farmer's market, and can a ton for my family, I need to be sure I have enough!!)  There were still a lot.  I got 15 packages and a new funnel since my backup funnel cracked. As I was standing by the checkout, some old lady came up to me and asked if I was buying ALL the canning lids.  No, I told her, there are still plenty on the shelf.  Well, she said, where can I find them? I don't see them anywhere.  I told her to go look in the canning aisle, where the rest of the supplies are!!  The tone of her voice really irked me.  I was making small talk with the clerk and told him I can for a living and my family.  He said he's noticed a lot of newbies canning this year and noticed the shortage, and was happy he could help me.

We spent some time looking for a new percolator since my decided to die.  For spending less than $10 on it, it had lasted about 3 years.  I don't drink coffee every day, but I've noticed on days that I do, I get a LOT more done.  Maybe I should drink coffee every day.....  After checking Home Depot and the hardware store, I hadn't found one yet.  I even checked at Walgreens when I picked up pullups (and forgot to pick up prescriptions 🙈). One last hope, we went to Bomgaards.  I was in luck!!  They had 2 left in the camping section!!

On my hunt several people asked me, why a percolator?  I have a few different reasons: 1) I think the coffee tastes a lot better.  Maybe because there's no paper filter to run it through?? 2) I don't have to depend on electricity any time I want coffee.  I have a gas stove I can light with a lighter, or I could set it on the wood stove in the living room or over a campfire if I needed to. 3) Every time I buy a coffee maker, it breaks in no time at all. 4) My Opa always made his coffee in a percolator, so it's sentimental.

Since we were in town so long we stopped at Perkins for lunch.  It's my go-to eat out place if we have time.  I prefer to not eat fast food if at all possible.  Plus the kids will eat pretty good there!  Scraps got half a sandwich, soup, and a piece of pie, and Monkey had "cakecakes" (pancakes) and French fries.  Hubs and I got sandwiches and fries.  I ended up eating half my sandwich, the meat off the rest, and a few fries. 

Once we got home, hubs worked on the barn and I split some more wood.  Man that's a workout!! The boys helped haul wood from the back side of the barn to the front, then loaded our gorilla cart with everything I split and put it in the mini storage shed closer to the house.  It's a lot easier to walk a few feet to get the wood in the snow than across the yard!!

Since we were so busy, I didn't plan supper, so we ordered steaks and burgers from the legion.  Once a month our local legion has a steak fry, and we like to be able to support them.

Sunday was "house" day for me.  I worked on cleaning the kitchen, doing laundry, washing bedding, and baking.  No one ate breakfast until after 1030, so I didn't even bother with lunch.  I did put a chicken in the crock pot to cook down, which I'll use today for lunch.  Scraps took out some goat ribs to put on the smoker for supper (I'm still learning how to use it) and they came out pretty good considering I didn't do the best job butchering the goat.  I served that up with a Knorr cheddar broccoli rice, homemade bread, and some sweet corn I had frozen a month ago.

I baked a TON for farmer's market... 3 mini apple pies, a batch of garlic chive rustic bread, 2 batches of regular rustic white bread, 2 pans of apple pie cookies... and I took a recipe for dinner rolls a friend gave me and tried it out as mini loaves.  YUMMY!!  I'll have to make some for tomorrow's farmer's market since I won't even be able to take it today (my family already ate a whole loaf at supper!!)

Hubs DEFINITELY enjoyed the cookies. I gave him ONE to sample... the next thing I knew half the pan was gone!!!  I made a second batch with one extra for him - and still tried taking more off the pan.  I compromised and gave him a mini pie to take for lunch even though I had already packed some cookies.  I told him the cookies take a lot more work since I have to cook the filling plus make the lattice, where with the pies I can just add the uncooked apple filling and put a plain crust on the top.

Today I actually got up kind of early and started up on my Miracle Mornings and SAVERS again (If you haven't read The Miracle Morning, I HIGHLY recommend it!!  It works if you just DO IT!!)  I used to do it all in order because I just HAD to, but now I think I'll change it up again.  I started with my E and got the exercise done right off the bat.  IT FELT GOOD!! I did 36 minutes on the Wii Fit (don't want to overdo it right out of the gate!!)  Played a couple balance games, obstacle course, boxing, rhythm step.  My age based on the testing is 36 - works for me!

I followed up with my SAV - set my timer on my phone for 10 minutes and tried to clear my mine.  THAT was hard... had a million things running through my mind and just couldn't shut it down.  For A and V I decided to take the digital route. I found apps for both - a Daily Affirmation app and a Vision Board app.  I set them up and played with them a little.  I'm putting off my R a little.  I have an audiobook I'm listening to when I go to and from work.  But I might read a blog I recently found that I like so far... I'll report back on it.  And updating my blog here will work for my final S.

Lars wasn't impressed with being up!

For today's lunch, I'm planning on a white chicken chili with the chicken I put in the crock pot yesterday... Supper will be leftovers.  Working on the plan for the rest of the week (I foresee a lot of soup since it's supposed to be chilly!!)  And the Princess has a cold :(

Paper Clutter

Today was another rainy day.  Enough with the rain already!!  It's been raining for almost 2 weeks now, and I am craving Vitamin D in the worst way!!  My garden isn't sure if it's even growing season right now or if the seeds should still be hiding away underground where it's slightly warmer.  The poor tomato plants may be stunted.  I think the boys and I are feeling stunted.  WE need the sunlight and warmth.  WE need to get out and play in the sun.  Normally I wouldn't have a problem with the kids playing in the rain and the mud, but with the temps only being in the 40's, it's not quite warm enough for that.

Today we spent the day doing some cleaning around the house.  I focused on the paper clutter under the cleaning plan that I'm following.  As I may have posted yesterday, I'm not planning on following the 40 week plan over 40 actual weeks because I'd like the house to be clean before that.  I'm going to try to abridge the plan to make it through a little faster.  I don't know how fast, it depends on each step, but we'll see what happens.  Anyway.. here's the plan that I'm following.. https://organize365.com/organize-365-podcast/  I'm new with listening to podcasts, but I started with podcast #1 and am going from there. I came up with a total of 6 Sunday baskets!!

I know they're not all "baskets" but I just used whatever was handy.  I didn't get through all of them today because I was playing single parent while hubby was at the shop all day, but I did get through 3 of them!  I did a quick sort - his, mine, kids, and trash piles.  Then a more thorough where I went back through all my stuff and opened it and decided if it was keep, shred, or recycle.  If it was keep, I had to decide where it was going to go or what I was going to do with it and put it in the appropriate file/pile.  Turns out most of the stuff I went through was either shred or recycle.  I think that's what I'm going to find when I go through the rest of the stuff, which I'm hoping to do tomorrow. 

Breaking the cleaning down into these smaller manageable pieces is really helping me. Normally when I work on this stuff, my anxiety gets to me and drives me crazy because I get too overwhelmed and I need to walk away.  But so far this is working!! 

There is another podcast I found that is breaking down organization into little pieces, and I'm working that into my routine too.  It builds on itself.  It started with the first night - spend a couple minutes just picking up the bathroom before going to bed.  Put everything in the bathroom away where it goes, wipe down the sink/counters, pick up stuff on the floor.  That way in the morning the bathroom is clean when you go in there.  Now they added on Step 2 - pick up and put away 5 things before you go to bed.  Just 5 things you see sitting out that aren't where they belong, and put them away.

I talked to a friend of mine today who I had lost touch with for a while and has now moved back to the area. She is a personal trainer and I was asking for some advice because I'm getting desperate now that I've been diagnosed at pre-diabetic and have osteoarthritis in my knee.  I was doing my workout today - Hip Hop Abs - when the 2 oldest kids decided they had to start fighting and no one wanted to watch my Monkey, so I had to quit halfway through.  It's really grating on me when they have to fight like that ALL the time.  She only has 2 days of school left, so I'm sure they're going to be fighting  A LOT....

Domestication :)

I have to admit, I love being a housewife.  I love being domesticated.  I love spending an afternoon cooking up a storm to feed my family a good hearty meal.  It's even better when my husband decides he's going to do the dishes for me :)  (Yes it happens quite often too!!  He's the best!!)

I know it's early for nesting for this little one.  Actually what I'm doing is preparing.  The plan had been to make a bunch of freezer meals so they can go right from freezer to oven and we can still have yummy home cooked meals every night this winter without much work.  Well, considering my 7 cubic foot freezer is full (and I mean FULL) already, why not do some canning?!  (No, it wasn't originally my idea - it was Opa's).  I have 23 quarts of fresh tomatoes from my Opa's garden that we blanched and froze, plus 8 quarts of green and yellow beans.  Thursday we decided to do 'a few more' tomatoes since he wanted some canned to take on the road.  We ended up with a total of 18 quarts and 18 pints of tomatoes.  I know I could just say 27 quarts, but we did them in both sized jars so we each have 9. 

A lot easier than I thought!!  1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp salt, then add your tomatoes and squish the air out.  Opa told me to be sure there's about 1/2 inch of headroom too.  We kept the juice separate (since the tomatoes had plenty of their own) and he cooked that down for a few hours, skimmed off the water after letting it sit and cool over night, strained out the seeds, and froze it.  Perfect for homemade soup :)

I thought today would be a good day for doing some more canning - the weather was beautiful, in the 70's, and the kids could play outside while I was working in the house.  Hubby was gone, putting some hours at the shop, so it was perfect.  Kids and I went to Farmer's Market (one of my FAVORITE places in the summer and especially the fall!!  Yeah, some stuff is a little more expensive, but you can't beat the freshness!!)  I made the mistake of letting the kids pick out my onions and ended up with one bad one.  But we got 2 good sized bags of apples for $2, 2 pumpkins about the size of volleyballs for $4, a pimento pepper for $0.50, and a couple onions for $1.

Picked the ripe tomatoes and a couple yellow peppers from my garden, so I put tomato sauce on my list.  Found out my cousin absolutely LOVED the pumpkin butter I gave out for Christmas last year, so I promised I'd make her some more.  Beau was begging for homemade applesauce for lunch, and I didn't want to open a jar I'd already sealed, so why not make some more :)  Also decided better use up the ham hocks and ham pieces that were in the freezer so bean and ham soup was added to the list.  And while I'm at it, why not make chicken stock and can some chicken too??

Well, that's NOT what happened :( 

Yes, the applesauce was made, courtesy of my Pampered Chef goodies (since I only had a few apples to do, I didn't get out my apple peeler/corer/slicer, but I DID use my serrated peeler and my apple corer.)  Super easy - I can't say I really have a recipe, since I cook like everyone's grandma - a pinch of this and a pinch of that.  My method?  Once the apples are peeled and cored, I cut them into quarters (since they're small apples), add a little sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a little water, and cook covered about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  After that, I remove the lid and cook until desired tenderness, mash with my potato masher, and cook until desired thickness.  A little taste test here and there and maybe a little more sugar or cinnamon.  I don't have a preference for a type of apples (besides free - that always works good for me!!), but I have been getting Wealthy windfalls from FM.  They are a little bruised, but that doesn't matter.  If it's too bad I might cut it out, but so far it's been pretty good!!

While the applesauce was cooking, I started what was going to be tomato sauce but ended up turning into spaghetti sauce.  (I thought it tasted really good when done, just a little sweeter than the canned stuff.)  I started out with blanching and shocking my tomatoes so I could remove the skins.  The tomatoes were pretty firm, so they didn't give off a lot of juice when I did this.  I cut out the stems and threw all the tomatoes into my 4 quart soup pot (it was about 1/3 full), cut a yellow pepper into big chunks and added about 3/4 of that, 1/4 of an onion in big chunks, some Italian seasoning, and about 2 tsp of garlic.  I had to crush the tomatoes down a little at first to get some juice for it to simmer in, then used my immersion blender to chop things up a little more.  I let this all cook a couple hours, sampled (needed a sprinkle of salt to combat the sweetness), then removed this lid to cook down a little more.  I REALLY hate it when the tomato sauce splatters all over the stove, so I went to the Devil Store (WalMart for those who don't know DS) and had gotten a screen to prevent grease splatters for bacon - works great with the tomato sauce too!!!  Didn't can this one - just ended up in the fridge in a Tupperware container.

Got my bean and ham soup started too!!  Super easy - add 2 bags of dried beans (no, I don't pre-soak mine) and the package of ham hocks and just boil the crap out of it for a few hours until the beans are soft.  Scrape the meat off the bones, discard the rest, add the already-cooked-leftover ham, then can it!  Ended up with 4 quarts.  Unfortunately that was the last thing I made for the day.

I LOVE homemade chicken noodle soup.  My mom and I had canned some chicken and broth a couple years ago and it was really good and makes it easy to make soup whenever I want, and it tastes so much better than using bouillon.  Even though hubs doesn't like chicken noodle soup, I can still use the canned meat to make chicken gravy for biscuits or other things like that - or hot dishes.  Decided I wanted to do that today, but didn't have everything I needed.  Made my shopping list, plus I had to get a few things to make Snicker salad for the family reunion tomorrow. 

I was putting my shopping list into my purse, stepped on a toy that had been left out, and hit the hardwood floor.  Hard.  It hurt.  So, of course, I didn't go anywhere until hubby came home.  Called him, in tears, and told him what happened, plus I was having horrid pains in my side.  Felt a little better by the time he got home, so I convinced him to take me to the store, but went pretty slow.  But I got all my stuff I needed.  Hopefully I'll get my chicken started tomorrow - it takes 2 days to make.  Once I make it, I'll share the 'recipe' since I don't use a real one.  Same thing with the pumpkin butter.  But for now, I'm off to bed.  Hoping to get updated again in a few days, hopefully with some pictures too!!

Oh, and to update the TOPS weigh in and pregnancy weight loss/gain:  I was down 1/2 pound this week, bringing my total loss to 13 1/2 pounds.