Kimmie in Real Life! (week 4)

"Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things."

-  Elise Boulding  
 

I totally forgot to post photos of the produce I have bought for the past month. This is the only thing we have purchased at the store, since we are not getting Bountiful Baskets this year. We are still purchasing a gallon of milk every other week.

This past week didn’t have much going on in the way of food since we were gone half the week.

  Smoothies, Frozen Fruit Pops,  

German Chocolate Cake,  

Spaghetti and Chicken Salad were the highlights of the week!

Here is my week in photos, 

however, exciting or boring they may be and some of the things I did this week.  Wish there was more to share, but I was having a wonderful time with hubby, Jade and the youth in our area enjoying a road trip.

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Since Sunday was Father’s Day 

I decided to surprise Tracy with his favorite…

German Chocolate Cake and Meat Balls.  

It is SO quick and easy to whip up a chocolate cake from scratch!

I really like my recipe as I can cut it in half and just make a single layer if we aren’t in the mood for that much cake.  

I saved the leftover German Frosting in the fridge to put on top of chocolate cupcakes that I am making this next week.  

 We sat and munched on this all day Saturday, 

snitching bites each time we came in to get a drink while out working in the yard.

Such a yummy lunch!!  

I had a little bit of ground beef and some mushrooms 

leftover from Sunday and so I browned these up, added in a jar of RAGU and put it in the crockpot on low as we worked hard all afternoon getting ready to go on our trip and dealing with our yard and we enjoyed Spaghetti that evening. 

While this was not homemade from “Scratch” that was the quickest thing I could do for dinner without making too big of a mess and Ragu doesn’t have any bad ingredients in it.

Monday afternoon I made up cookies and Homemade Hoagies for our trip (and to give to my neighbor for helping us with our animals while we were gone).

Pulled cooked turkey that I had frozen this Spring from our freezer and added in onions, celery, grapes and sauce and made delicious Chicken Salad Sandwiches for our lunch on our trip.

We realized this week how much we LOVE our boring "Steel Cut Oats" with raisins for breakfast! It was good to be back home and enjoy some of our favorites.  

We never tire of this...especially my kids!   

Jade's first thing out of his mouth when we were back was 

"I can't wait until tomorrow morning to have Steel Cut Oats for Breakfast"!

While I wanted to wait to start adding Spinach and greens to our smoothies until we had this growing in our garden, Tracy, wanted to purchase some and so we have been adding Spinach to all of our smoothies this past week.   

SO good and yummy and we have made multiple smoothies each day!

Fruit/Nut cookies were one of the favorites!! 

SO yummy, Tracy and Jade commented over and over how good these were and how we should make them up and take them on every trip that we go on.  Kind of remind you of a Clif bar only SO much better.   
Definitely, going to be taking these on many road trips this summer.

I made up a Strawberry/Banana smoothie for the kids and we had a bunch leftover and so I

pulled out my Popsicle containers and 

filled them up and 

put them in the freezer and 

we enjoyed these on Saturday to cool off as we were out working hard in the yard.

The perfect way to cool off 

after working hard in the yard! 

June 19th - 23rd
Sunday
Omelette eggs and pancakes
Meatballs over cauliflower

Monday
Steel Cut Oats
Strawberry Banana Smoothie
Chocolate Cookies/Fruit and Nut Cookies 
Spaghetti
(froze strawberry banana smoothie.... made hoagies, chicken salad, fruit and nut and chocolate cookies)

Tuesday
Applesauce muffins/bananas
Lunch Homemade Hoagies with chicken salad, string cheese, apples, Fruit/Nut Cookies
(Tuesday dinner-Thursday Dinner was provided for our youth outing Manti Trip)

Friday
Steel Cut Oats...SO excited to be back to our everyday breakfast routine
Green Smoothie, Artisan Bread with cooked turkey/melted cheese
Spaghetti and toast for dinner
GERMAN chocolate cake

Saturday
Steel Cut Oats
Green Smoothie, Quesadillas
apple slices
Strawberry/Banana frozen pops that we froze on Monday from our smoothie we made
Snacked on GERMAN chocolate cake all afternoon in between working in the yard. Pretty much, when we came in to get drinks of water we would sneak a bite of cake
Worked hard in yard all day and so by the time we got to a stopping point, showered up, it was 7:30 before we were pulling out of the driveway.  Got to IF at 8:15 and grabbed a "Hot and Ready" pizza for dinner and took the kids to Baskins Robbins for ice cream as a treat for working SO hard helping in the yard.

Links to recipes used this week:

German Chocolate Cake 

Meatballs 

Hoagie Buns

Fruit and Nut Cookies

Chicken Salad

Buttermilk Pancakes

Another great week...

it's sunny and warm outside, grass is SO green, flowers are finally starting to bloom, garden is starting to sprout and we are starting to have LOTS of "porch time"!
Happy Week to all of you!