Kimmie in Real Life (week 9)

Waste Not...Want Not!
Those were the words
I had going over and over in my mind this week!

Week nine of what you ask?
For those new to my Blog, we are on the "home-stretch" of paying off a large debt we have had since Ethan's birth eight years ago. Also we have been "honing" our Provident Living skills over the past few years, so we decided it might be fun to try living off food storage and not going shopping at the grocery store for three months and putting our money we would normally spend on major food expenses towards paying off this debt so it can be wiped out in three months instead of six months
That being said we are:
getting a weekly Bountiful Basket,
buying a gallon of milk every other week and
living off our food storage.
I am documenting all of our meals and frugal things we do each week for my journal. It has been a fun challenge to put the phrase "Provident Living" into real life living for our family and to show how really good and healthy you can eat doing these three things!
To read more about this challenge click Here

We got Brussel Sprouts
in our Bountiful Basket and so we steamed these up for dinner on Sunday.
Jade has been begging for me to make up some kind of Alfredo/Fettuccine and so this what I did to make the white sauce for our Pasta that was really quite good and is something that I will definitely make again. The fresh garlic really gives it some good flavor AND as usual, I always have sharp cheese in my freezer to pull out to grate on Pasta dishes that we make up.

Homemade Alfredo Sauce

2 tbsp. butter
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 tbsp. corn starch
1- 1/2 cups milk
Grated Parmesan or Sharp Cheese

Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and saute 3-5 minutes. Whisk together cornstarch and milk with wire whisk and then slowly add to garlic and butter. Bring to boil until thickened. Stir in grated cheese, pour over your choice of cooked pasta and enjoy!

My kids just stirred it into their Brussel Sprouts.
Tracy and I enjoyed it with a sprinkling of Crushed Red Pepper
I think this would be really good if you added in some steamed broccoli too.

Monday
was my last day of Physical Therapy and since our weekend was a little hectic and I didn't get as many things done as I wanted to, it meant I spent all afternoon watering everything in my yard and so I was SO happy to have had a few bags of Chili in our freezer to pull out for dinner.
(Chili Recipe)

I'm sad to admit it, but I have been known to have leftover baked potatoes in my fridge and cut them up and give them to my chickens to eat. (It doesn't feel like I'm wasting, if my chickens are eating it)

HOWEVER, this week
I pulled out the potatoes,
melted a pat of butter in the frying pan,
peeled and cut the potatoes up really small
and cooked them until they were a little crunchy.

That was the perfect accompaniment
to our Chili and I will definitely be doing that again!

It really goes to show that necessity is the mother of invention and had I not been in such a frugal mind set I would not have thought to do that...
and in Tracy's words
that is one of the best bowls of Chili he has had.

This was Ethan's favorite meal this week!
He has been begging for poached eggs, since he has never had them before and so I pulled out my poached egg cups and washed them off and made these for him.
A slice of Zucchini bread and juicy nectarines made these eggs perfect!

We made up a batch of cupcakes
to take as and "un-birthday" treat to a cute little girl in our neighborhood. I decided to jazz them up and put a fresh strawberry from our garden on top of them.
They were absolutely delicious!!

Yes, I did venture out and make homemade tortillas this week, since that was the only way I could make up my Veggie Enchiladas.

I tried so hard to make them round,
but by the time you pull them off the counter after you have rolled them out, they stretch and turn into all kinds of weird shapes. Needless to say, they were SO yummy in our Enchiladas (because it doesn't matter what shape they are when you put filling on them and roll them and put them in the pan).

These also tasted great the next day
when I made a Quesadilla to go with my salad.

I found this tortilla recipe
in one of our Food Storage cookbooks
and I will definitely be making these more often.
The flavor of them compared to store bought is not even comparable.
They are MUCH better!
(recipe for Tortillas and Enchiladas found
here)

Guess what was the favorite part of this meal for my kids?
The Veggies of course!
I lightly steamed up summer squash, white Asparagus and baby carrots. I felt bad when the kids asked if they could have more veggies and there wasn't any more cooked up to give them.

The meat was some two year old pork that I found in the freezer when I was taking inventory of what we have available.
I cooked it on low all day in the crock pot and then before serving gave a few shakes of BBQ sauce that I had in our fridge and heated it through.
Put that on top of a Multi-Grain roll and it was fabulous!!

This week
only worked out to making one smoothie.
These ingredients always blend together to make the perfect smoothie!
Very satisfying and refreshing!

This weeks home-made treats!!

The kiddos (and Tracy's Scouts) very much enjoyed the orange rolls! I forget how YUMMY they really are.

Tracy had hinted all week that it had been awhile since we had made up Multi-Grain rolls. I have to agree, they are SO delicious and something I need to make up more often.

WOW!
Such yummy things that we enjoyed this week!

White Cupcakes (click here)
Multi-Grain Rolls (click here)
Double Chocolate Cookies (click here)
Orange Rolls (click here)

HELPFUL TIP...
While we don't eat too many chips or snack foods,
I always buy 10 to 15 cans of Lays Stax in the winter-time when they are on sale for less than a dollar.

They usually have a shelf-life of over a year and so they won't go stale before we use them up. It is so nice to be able to go down and grab a can of these when we are headed on summer picnic to "jazz up" our Tuna Salad sandwiches a bit.
I really like the size of these as they just fit perfectly in our picnic bag and don't take up much space at all. They are the perfect travel snack.

We went to a family reunion on Saturday
and so I baked up French Bread for our sandwiches.

Boiled up some eggs and mixed them with Tuna, chopped pickles and Mayo and Mustard for our sandwich fixins (we also brought sliced tomatoes and lettuce for them as well)
We had apple slices, chips and I made up some homemade pudding cups.
It was tasty, quite nutritious and Frugal!

(July 11th to July 17th)

Sunday
Pork/veggies sandwiches
Homemade Alfredo sauce over pasta and Brussel Sprouts
Popcorn

Monday
Steel Cut Oats
(Tracy) Granola Cereal and milk, bowl of fresh blueberries, apple
(kids) bowl of fresh blueberries, bowl of green grapes, French Toast
Chili over fried potatoes (pulled chili from the freezer…peeled up the potatoes we had baked up last week) and chopped them up and fried them with a little pat of butter

Tuesday
Steel Cut Oats
Cantaloupe and grapes
Poached eggs, zucchini bread and nectarines
Vegetarian Enchiladas
Cup Cakes

Wednesday
Steel Cut Oats
Grapes, leftover enchiladas, Cup Cakes
Multi-Grain Rolls, BBQ pork, steamed carrots, asparagus and summer squash
Double Chocolate cookies

Thursday
Steel Cut Oats
(Tracy) BBQ on Multi-Grain Rolls, apple, banana and Double Chocolate cookies
(kids) Smoothie, banana, melted Cheese on Multi-Grain rolls
(kimmie) Salad for dinner, Quesadilla
(Tracy and the boys…Dutch Oven dinner at Scout camp-out)

Friday
Steel Cut Oats
(I had to work and so Tracy and the kids were back from their camp-out when I got off work).We brewed up Moroccan Mint tea and munched on Orange rolls and cookies from our neighbors all afternoon (I know it was a healthy day, wasn't it?) (wink)
Kids had Chicken Cordon Bleu (from our freezer) and cooked carrots
Tracy and I shared a Nacho Mucho at Plum Loco

Saturday
Toast and apple slices
Picnic…apples, tuna salad sandwiches with lettuce and tomatoes, chips, pudding cups
Pot-luck dinner at family reunion.

Each day when I feed my family
I feel SO very blessed that we have such nourishing, simple and yummy things to eat. I reflect quite often on how other people are living in other countries with sometimes only a bowl of rice to eat each day and I never feel tempted to grumble one bit.
It is quite the opposite...
I daily take time to "count my many blessings"!

Happiness is...
having a home full of love, having a spouse and kids that are happy and healthy and having daily nourishment for both body and mind!
SO grateful
that I have all three of these in much abundance in my life!!