Dinner Menu Planning….January

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Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
30-Creamy Tomato Tortellini Soup --Pinterest XX	January --Italian Chicken XX	1-Homemade Pizza XX	2-Chicken Fajitas XX	3-Meatloaf XX	4-Chicken Parmesan XX	5-Corn and Shrimp chowder—Pinterest  my post about it here XX
6-Hamburger Pinwheels—Hillbilly Housewife XX	7-Honey Apricot Sesame Chicken XX	8-Pork Lo Mein XX	9- Raviolis XX	10-Homemade chicken shake and bake XX	11- Homemade Chicken Taquitos XX	12-Cheeseburger Soup—Pinterest My post about it XX
13-deli sandwiches----Apple Fritter Bread--Pinterest for ladies luncheon—My post about it here XX	14-Spaghetti	15-Lemon Chicken	16-Toasty cheese Bake—a recipe from the 1970’s I grew up eating and found on Pinterest!!!  My post here XX	17-Pork Medallions	18-Meatballs and rice XX	19-Church Fellowship--Pizza Rolls/Walnut rasp. Torte XX
20-Chicken and rice Casserole	21--Cheesy Hamburger and broccoli—Pinterest XX	22--chicken Marsala	23--Tacos XX	24--meatballs and veggies	25--Fish Tacos XX	26-Creamy bacon ranch chicken pasta orig. found on Pinterest
27-Beef Stroganoff---Ended up eating Ravioli’s	28-Italian Crockpot chicken XX	29-Pork Tenderloin with honey---Ended up eating pizza from Aldi’s	30-Sloppy Joes	31-chicken pot pie		XX = Recipes that have been cooked for the month.

So the month of December for our family was pretty rough in terms of finances.  We had a paycheck the week before Thanksgiving and then no paycheck until the week of Christmas.  Not an easy way to live, but when you have the Lord in your life, all things are possible and He will provide for your needs.  We made it through with help from my parents, birthday money that I had received and was waiting to spend, help from my Sister and help from our Church!! 

Being Self-employed there is always the chance that there will not be paychecks.  So I sat down a week ago and made up a menu for the whole month of January to help me keep on track so that we did not spend any extra on eating out when that is just not an option. 

I also changed our food budget based on an idea I read about over at: Bacon In My Pocket she has a modest grocery budget for the size of her family and she manages to set aside money every two weeks to go towards buying her meats at either Costco or Sam’s club depending on where you live in the U.S.  I decided to put that plan into action.  We currently have 120.00 a week set aside for our family of 8 for groceries.  I changed it to be $100/week and set aside the extra $20 in a Sam’s Club envelope.  This money is not to be spent but saved up for a trip to Sam’s Club once every 3 months.  This is to then be the meat stock up.  Having an extra stand up freezer out in our garage allows us to be able to stock up.  We will be able to get large quantities of hamburger, chicken, etc.  I calculate we will have approximately $240 to stock up at that time and once we have done that, it will free up my regular grocery budget for buying more fresh vegetables as well as other items for making some really nice dishes…

So in the meantime, here is our menu for January and I will try to post the recipes with pictures.  

Thanksgiving and the weekend…

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Hi all, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  I pray all the wonderful food turned out just right and that everything tasted delightful.

We had Sweet Potatoes….growing up in CA, sweet potatoes were baked and then cut into cubes and a little brown sugar, maybe some chopped walnuts, and then a few mini marshmallow’s were put on top and then back under the broiler for a few minutes.  Moving out here to SC, I came across this delightful dish pictured above.  Out here, they call it Sweet potato soufflé or something else…but I first came across it at a restaurant. I searched out a recipe on the internet that came close and then I came across another recipe and adapted it to my needs….uhm tastes!  In any event the sweet potatoes were baked and then blended with a hand mixer, sugar was added, some milk, an egg, some salt, and then I added in my own nutmeg and cinnamon.  The whole thing is then covered with a flour, brown sugar and walnuts and baked for about 30 minutes…..this does not last long at our house!!The stuffing is a cornbread/sourdough mixture with celery and onions and then basil, thyme, and parsley are added in along with rosemary.  When I made it a few days ahead of time, I could have eaten at least half the tray by myself!!

The other attendees were the jellied cranberries and Ambrosia.  Not pictured but on the other side of the kitchen was the Gravy…the best gravy I ever made…and I’ll explain that down below, green peas, and rolls.

 So this was my Turkey the night before Thanksgiving….if it looks a little green do not adjust your screen that is what it was!!  I had watched the Food Network Bobby Flay Throwdown for Thanksgiving.  I saw that BF had used an herb butter all over his turkey…so I went and found the recipe and decide to try and do the same….Well his butter was yellow with speckles in it because he used fresh herbs…mine not so speckly…quite green…it was sage, thyme, rosemary and parsley…so quite green…anyhow I used a stick and a half for a 20 pound turkey…I slathered it on pretty thick….I had some trepidations once it was all done but there was no going back at this point.

 I follow Alton Brown’s technique for baking --30 minutes @ 500 degrees…so I put it in around 10 minutes to 9am and set the timer…we were planning for a lunch Turkey meal instead of a dinner…  I took it out and the above picture shows what it looked like…At this point I was really kind of nervous.  The herbs were stuck to the top of the turkey and I do not have a turkey baster…so I figured it was either going to be ruined or turn out half way decent.  I then took and placed it in my counter roaster with two boxes of low sodium chicken broth…if you don’t have one of these, it is worth the 25 dollars at Wal-Mart….

I don’t know how it works but it actually cooks the  turkey faster than in a regular oven. In an hour and a half at the most the outside thermometer read 160 degrees…just perfect…I was listening to Alton Brown on their Thanksgiving Live special and he said specifically not to pay attention to the thermometer that comes with the turkey that they are set to go off at 175 and that equals a well-done bird…to take the turkey out at 160 and let it rest for and HOUR….They also said to take and cut off the leg and thigh all in one piece and put those back in the oven to cook….

So that is what I did, I let the turkey rest for the full hour.  I have never let it rest that long, I always thought 20 minutes was resting…HA…anyhow, before I put the lid back on the roaster I took out 4 cups of liquid to make my gravy. At the 30 minute mark I put my side dishes in my regular oven to heat up. When the 30 minutes was up, I had the gravy done, the rolls done and the green peas and then we cut into the turkey breast…..It was the MOISTEST, JUICIEST turkey ever!!  The juice was just running out, the meat was so tender and flavorful!!  The herbs on the skin…yes, quite thick, but we don’t eat the skin so it didn’t matter.

So those herbs that were in the butter….well I used 5 T. of butter and then added 5 T. of flour to make my roué and then I added in my 4 cups of herbed butter/melted with chicken stock from the turkey…it was the BEST GRAVY I HAVE EVER MADE!!! It was sooooo flavorful.  Anyhow, I am going to try it again for Christmas and if it comes out the same, I know I have finally found the recipe for the perfect turkey!!

We enjoyed the turkey lunch and let everything digest and then around 6pm we all dived in for our Turkey sandwiches!!!  Dessert was a choice of pumpkin, pecan and apple pies!!

Friday we stayed home most of the day, my one purchase on Thursday was at Home Depot where their window blinds were 75% off.  I was able to find a real wood blind for my kitchen window which is about 6’ by 6’ for only 20.00 when normally they were 72.00.  Friday was one purchase at Lowe’s for storage bins to start packing up our household goods and de-cluttering to get the house ready to stage…they were a buy one get one free so we bought 6 and received 6 free.  First room up, the dining room.  I have two book cases with school supplies and reference material to get down to one small box for all three students currently in school.

Saturday we went to a park in the next town over and the children had a fun time playing on this huge playground.

     

These pictures were not the best, they were taken with my husbands phone but you get the idea…lol  Have a blessed day!!

Thanksgiving countdown preparations

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So what are things like at your house on Thanksgiving?

This year I am planning to have Thanksgiving lunch.  Usually I aim for a 3-4pm meal.  However, with so many dishes, it is just a little too much to eat all that, and then try and digest enough so that I can have the TURKEY SANDWICH before bed time!!

Yes, I admit it, I think I almost like the turkey sandwich on Thanksgiving more than the actual meal…lol… So this year, I am going to serve the meal earlier, this is good because the children won’t be starved and constantly asking me as to when they get to eat….and…my food will be digested in plenty of time to thoroughly enjoy the turkey sandwich around 8pm.

This year I also want to relax and enjoy the day more instead of being exhausted from all the food to be cooked that day.

Here is our list:

Turkey

Stuffing…or do you call it Dressing(?)

Sweet potatoes

Mashed potatoes

Green peas

Ambrosia

Rolls

Gravy

Cranberry jell…NOT the whole cranberries type

Pumpkin pie and Apple pie

 

Today was a busy day I made the sweet potatoes, the mashed potatoes, I made the cornbread for the stuffing and cut up the sourdough bread to make cubes for the stuffing as well…they are all drying in the oven….I took the turkey out of the freezer and will do the defrosting over the next several days.  I also happened to make up a batch of refried beans today…totally not related to Thanksgiving but another thing accomplished on my to-do list today for cooking.

I did my mash potatoes with a Ricer and added butter, milk and salt, ….sometimes the simple recipes are the best.  I have tried the fancy gourmet potato recipes that call for adding cream cheese and Accent..blah blah blah… why mess with a good thing!!  I put the whole batch into two 8” square cake pans and I will have the one pan later next month as a quick side I can pull out of the freezer.

I’m also all about the quick clean up, everything gets served in either a freezer pan like the one above or a Tupperware container.  If it was more than just us, I might do serving dishes but for family the easy clean up to be able to enjoy the day is much more important than the presentation of the bowls and then everyone laments that it takes too long to clean up.

Wednesday will be my day to get the pies made and the Ambrosia….the ambrosia always tastes best the next day.

I was watching the Food Network this afternoon and there were a few good tips….if you can still find pumpkins anywhere near you….cook your stuffing in the pumpkin!!!  it looked so pretty when they showed it and you don’t want to chance cooking the stuffing in the turkey and not having the turkey finish cooking.  The other thing they talked about was cutting off the turkey leg and thigh and putting them back in the roasting pan to cook for another hour….it always seems inevitable that that meat close to the bone is not done when the turkey breast is…so cut that portion of, put it in the oven for the hour and leave the turkey breast on the cutting board to rest for the entire time…do not cut it for one hour….

It will still be warm and all the juices will stay within the turkey breast and it will be nice and moist…..their point, waiting only 20 minutes to let the turkey rest is not long enough, wait the hour!!!

I hope all is going well with your preparations.